I was in my early thirties when I was invited to appear on the local noon news to discuss stress and the holidays. I was sitting in the television studio waiting to go on air when, without warning, my heart began racing. Suddenly, I had an overwhelming urge to escape.

My mind immediately started looking for a way out. I remember thinking, I have to get out of here. Then I rationalized that perhaps the reporter could simply fill the segment without me. Surely they could find something else to talk about for a few minutes.

In retrospect, it was the classic panic response. My body was preparing to flee from a threat that didn’t exist.

Then I caught myself.

“Okay, Carolyn,” I thought. “You teach this stuff.”

I decided it was time to practice what I preached.

First, I quickly tensed and relaxed the muscles in my upper body. Then I took three slow diaphragmatic breaths. As my body began to settle, I could hear my wiser voice again.

I asked myself a question that I have since asked countless clients:

“What is the worst thing that could happen?”

The answer came quickly.

“The worst thing that could happen is that viewers would see a nervous-looking psychologist.”

That hardly qualified as a catastrophe.

Then humor came to my rescue.

“Besides,” I thought, “I don’t even know anyone who watches the local noon news!”

The moment I stopped treating my anxiety as an emergency, the panic lost much of its power. My body settled down, I went on the air, and the interview went just fine.

That experience taught me a lesson I have never forgotten: panic attacks are fueled not only by physical symptoms but also by the frightening meaning we attach to them.

When the body’s alarm system activates, the sympathetic nervous system floods us with adrenaline. Our hearts race, our breathing changes, our muscles tense, and our minds become hypervigilant.

If we were hiking and heard a rattlesnake nearby, this response would be lifesaving. Our bodies would prepare us to fight or flee while our minds searched for danger.

But panic attacks occur when that same alarm system sounds in the absence of real danger. The body reacts as though there is an emergency, and because we can’t find a threat in the outside world, we begin looking for one inside ourselves.

“Am I having a heart attack?”

“Am I losing control?”

“Am I going crazy?”

The more frightened we become by the symptoms, the more intense they feel. What sends panic into full throttle is often the fear of fear itself.

The good news is that panic attacks are highly treatable. When we learn to recognize the symptoms as uncomfortable but not dangerous, calm the body, challenge catastrophic thinking, and even bring a little humor to the experience, we interrupt the cycle.

My panic attack lasted only a short time, but it gave me tremendous empathy for the people I work with. It also reinforced a lesson I continue to teach today:

Panic is a false alarm.

It feels dangerous, but it isn’t.

And when we stop running from it, we discover that we are much stronger than our fear.

A few days later, I watched a recording of the interview. I expected to see a nervous, shaky psychologist barely holding it together.

Instead, I looked completely calm.

No one watching would have guessed that just minutes before going on air, I had been fighting the urge to run out of the studio.

That experience taught me another important lesson.

Anxiety is a poor narrator.

It tells us that everyone can see our fear, that we are falling apart, and that disaster is imminent. Yet reality is often very different.

Many of my clients are convinced that others notice every sign of their anxiety. They assume people can see their trembling hands, hear the nervousness in their voices, or detect the panic they feel inside.

But just as I discovered when I watched that interview, what we experience internally is often far more dramatic than what others observe.

The gap between how anxious we feel and how anxious we appear can be enormous.

That realization became one more piece of evidence that panic attacks are false alarms.

They feel overwhelming, but feelings are not facts.

The story anxiety tells us is often much scarier than reality itself.

Women’s Stress and Anxiety Coaching Group

If panic attacks or persistent anxiety have begun to interfere with your life, know that effective help is available—and you don’t have to face it alone.

Beginning September 17 through October 15, 2026, I’ll be offering a 5-week Women’s Stress and Anxiety Coaching Group conducted live on Zoom.

Together we’ll learn practical, evidence-based strategies to better understand anxiety, interrupt patterns of excessive worry, calm the body’s stress response, and develop healthier ways of coping with life’s challenges. Recordings of each session will also be available for participants who are unable to attend live.

Program Details

  • Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. ET, September 17 – October 15, 2026
  • Five weekly Zoom sessions
  • Recordings available
  • Cost: $495

If you’re interested in learning more or would like to reserve a space, please contact me at:

Carolyn@carolyndaitchphd.com
(248) 626-8151 or (248) 421-7899

I look forward to hearing from you.

Warmly,

Carolyn Daitch, Ph.D.