In other words, your mind says to your body: "The danger is NOW. Guard me! Protect me!" This is one reason why you begin to feel all those physical symptoms "out of the clear blue": most all of the messages the mind sends the body before that moment are unconscious, "silent" ones.

In stage 2 -- the panic attack -- these messages are no longer silent, but their effects are the same. You notice those physical sensations that the body is producing, such as a rapid heartbeat. Then you become afraid of them and unconsciously instruct the body to protect you. The body begins to change its chemistry in order to guard against the emergency. Yet, since this is not a true physical crisis, you can't properly use the body's power effectively. You notice an increase in physical symptoms instead. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle during the panic attack.

Let's look a little more closely at this physiology that is often misunderstood during panic. The table below lists many of the physical changes that take place when we flip on that emergency switch. (Technically we are stimulating hormones that engage the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system.) All those changes assist the body in responding to an actual crisis. For instance, the eyes dilate to improve vision, the heart rate increases to circulate blood more quickly to vital organs, respiration increases to provide increased oxygen to the rapidly circulating blood, the muscles tense in the arms and legs in order to move quickly and precisely.

These are normal, healthy, lifesaving changes in the body's physiology. And when there is an actual emergency we hardly notice these changes; we pay attention to the crisis, instead. However, since this is the "pseudo-emergency" of panic and not a real one, two problems develop.

First, we become stuck focusing on our fearful thoughts and our physical sensations instead of taking action to solve the problem. Since we are not expressing our body's energy directly, our tension and anxiety continue to build.

The second problem has to do with our breathing. During an emergency, our breathing rate and pattern change. Instead of breathing slowly and gently from our lower lungs, we begin to breathe rapidly and shallowly from our upper lungs. This shift not only increases the amount of oxygen into our bloodstream but it quickly "blows off" an increasing amount of carbon dioxide. In a physical emergency we are producing excess carbon dioxide, so this breathing rate is essential. However, when we are not physically exerting ourselves, it produces the phenomenon called hyperventilation by discharging too much carbon dioxide.

During the anticipatory anxiety and the panic attack stages of the panic cycle, hyperventilation can produce most of the uncomfortable sensations that we notice, as listed in this next table. This is another important piece of information: simply by changing how we breathe during panic-provoking times we can significantly reduce our uncomfortable symptoms. However, our breathing is dictated in part by our current thoughts and the images we are currently focusing on, so we must also change our thinking and imagery.