Many years ago a psychologist friend said to me that if people don’t deal with their emotional issues, the problem is sooner or later likely to present itself in some way in the body. Based on findings of a recent research study in Italy, panic attacks seem to be a common way this happens.
Panic disorder is characterized by sudden episodes of terror, often accompanied by chest pain, a rapid heartbeat, breathing difficulty, dizziness, faintness, weakness and sweating. Many people can’t tell whether they are having a heart attack or a panic attack and after experiencing one or a few, may begin to fear the episodes themselves. It’s not unusual for such individuals to begin to curtail their activities, with some people eventually becoming housebound.
A recent study offers insight into the roots of this disturbing condition, revealing that many people who get panic attacks have difficulty identifying, understanding and expressing their emotions. I had an interesting discussion about this with Mona Lisa Schulz, MD, PhD, medical intuitive, neuropsychiatrist and author of numerous books including her most recent The New Feminine Brain. She agreed wholeheartedly with the premise of the research, calling the finding quite exciting, if not surprising. “If there is a backlog of emotions that hasn’t been expressed, it will eventually go down into the body and erupt — that’s the panic attack,” she explained.
At the University of Naples in Italy, Silvana Galderisi, MD, PhD, and her colleagues looked into the role that alexithymia — the inability to identify, understand and express emotions — may play in panic disorder. Participants in the trial included 32 people with panic disorder who were not taking medication for their condition, and 32 healthy individuals who have never experienced a panic attack or any other psychiatric disorder. Scientists administered a series of tests to assess each individual’s general cognitive abilities, memory, attention, learning, distractibility and ability to recognize facial emotional expressions.
Dr. Galderisi found that those with panic disorder did, in fact, have more trouble identifying, understanding and expressing emotions… and also had greater difficulty tuning out distracting stimuli, which she believes may indicate a wiring problem in their brains. She theorizes that these difficulties may reflect a dysfunction in the fronto-temporo-limbic circuits, a part of the brain that helps modulate emotional experience. Such a dysfunction might lead to abnormal emotional processing and contribute to a greater susceptibility to panic attacks. Another hypothesis, suggests Dr. Schulz, is a problem in the linkage between the right brain, where emotions are experienced, and the left brain, where the skills involved in expressing them are housed. Whichever theory is correct… or even if there’s a third theory out there… the connection between emotional processing and panic attacks is clear.
While research continues, doctors can immediately look to help sufferers identify and work through the emotional issues that are being stuffed inside. Medication may reduce symptoms but for many it’s merely muting the pain of a challenge that desperately wants to be resolved. Better to deal with that and prevent panic attacks from occurring in the first place.
