Just like everyone else, people with panic disorder have real stress in their lives. They get laid off and they fight with their spouses. How such stresses affect their panic symptoms hasn’t been well understood, but a new study by researchers at Brown University presents the counterintuitive finding that certain kinds of stressful life events cause panic symptoms to increase gradually over succeeding months, rather than to spike immediately. “We definitely expected the symptoms to get worse over time, but we also thought the symptoms would get worse right away,” said Ethan Moitra, a postdoctoral researcher in the...

Panic attacks that seem to strike sufferers out-of-the-blue are not without warning after all, according to new research.  A study based on 24-hour monitoring of panic sufferers while they went about their daily activities captured panic attacks as they happened and discovered waves of significant physiological instability for at least 60 minutes before patients’ awareness of the panic attacks, said psychologist Alicia E. Meuret at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In a rare study in which patients were monitored around-the-clock, portable recorders captured changes in respiration, heart rate and other bodily functions, said...

Alcohol is a depressant. People with panic attack are more vulnerable to the effect of these chemicals. When a person drinks during an attack, he or she tends to worsen the condition. Read more about this here. Most people are not aware whether alcohol and panic attacks have any relationship. However, medical experts have always felt that alcohol consumption usually leads to this. In case, a person is already suffering from panic attack, taking alcohol would make it even worse.   Alcohol is a depressant. People with panic attack are more vulnerable to the effect of these chemicals. When a person drinks during an attack, he or she...