Imagine a steam boiler.

A steam boiler is a device designed to generate enormous amounts of heat and pressure in order to do something useful, like heat a building.

It can do its job incredibly well.

But drive it too hard, allow too much pressure to build, and eventually you have a problem.

That is why boilers are built with something called a pressure-release valve.

The people who design these systems understand something important: anything capable of generating a great deal of pressure also needs a mechanism for releasing that pressure before the system becomes overwhelmed.

Now imagine the human nervous system in a similar way.

When we become anxious, our body begins generating its own kind of pressure.

Our heart rate increases. Our breathing changes. Our muscles tense. Our attention narrows. Our brain becomes increasingly interested in identifying whatever threat might be nearby.

This system is not broken.

It exists for a reason.

The problem begins when the alarm system becomes activated even when there is no immediate danger—or when we become frightened by the alarm itself.

The Gas and Brakes of the Nervous System

One way to think about this is through the gas and brakes of the nervous system.

Two neurotransmitters often discussed in this process are glutamate and GABA.

Glutamate can be thought of as part of the gas pedal.

Glutamate is the brain's primary excitatory neurotransmitter. It plays an important role in increasing neural activity and communication throughout the nervous system.

GABA can be thought of as part of the brakes.

GABA, or gamma-aminobutyric acid, is the brain's primary inhibitory neurotransmitter. Rather than increasing neural activity, it helps inhibit it.

Of course, the brain is much more complicated than simply having one chemical for anxiety and another for calm. Panic attacks cannot be reduced to “too much glutamate” or “not enough GABA.”

But as a metaphor, gas and brakes can help us understand something important.

The nervous system is constantly trying to regulate itself.

It speeds us up when it believes action is necessary and slows us down when the threat has passed.

During a panic attack, however, it can feel as though somebody has slammed their foot onto the gas pedal and forgotten where the brakes are.

The heart races.

The chest tightens.

You may feel dizzy, disconnected, shaky, hot, nauseated, or unable to catch your breath.

Then another problem appears.

You become afraid of what your body is doing.

And that fear adds more gas.

So How Do We Find the Release Valve?

One of the most common pieces of advice someone experiencing panic receives is:

“Just breathe.”

This advice is usually well intentioned.

But if you have experienced panic attacks, you probably know how frustrating that advice can feel.

You try the breathing exercise.

Your heart is still racing.

You still feel terrified.

Then someone tells you:

“You're just not doing the breathing exercise correctly.”

Now not only are you panicking, but this can activate even more of the gas. The thing that was supposed to work—the perceived “brakes”—doesn't seem to be working.

So your brain may interpret that as even more evidence that something is wrong.

“If this breathing exercise is supposed to calm me down and it isn't working, then maybe this really is serious.”

And just like that, you can get pulled into an even deeper panic spiral.

That is not the release valve I am talking about.

Breathing exercises can absolutely be useful. But they become much less useful when we treat them as an emergency button that must make the panic disappear.

Because now something subtle happens.

Your brain begins learning:

This feeling is dangerous, and I need to do something immediately to get rid of it.

The breathing exercise itself isn't necessarily the problem.

The relationship you have with the panic is.

What If the Release Valve Is Tolerance?

Something more powerful than desperately trying to control panic is learning how to tolerate it.

This sounds counterintuitive.

When everything inside of you is screaming, “MAKE THIS STOP,” doing less can feel almost irresponsible.

But the nervous system already has mechanisms for regulating itself.

Heart rates come down.

Breathing settles.

Muscles relax.

The alarm system cannot stay at maximum intensity forever.

The problem is that our fear of the panic attack itself can keep supplying more fuel to the system.

Imagine the panic begins.

Your heart suddenly beats faster.

You think:

“Why is my heart doing that?”

Now you check your pulse.

It feels even faster.

You think:

“Something is wrong.”

You start taking giant breaths.

You sit down.

You Google heart attack symptoms.

You tell yourself:

“It's okay. It's okay. Nothing is wrong. Calm down.”

And your primitive brain looks around at everything you're doing and thinks:

“Hold on. Steve is checking his heart, breathing differently, Googling symptoms, and desperately trying to calm himself down. He seems extremely concerned.”

“Maybe there really is a danger.”

So it adds more gas.

Your Brain Watches What You Do

This is one of the strange things about anxiety.

Our brains do not only listen to what we say.

They also watch how we behave.

You can tell yourself a hundred times:

“I'm safe.”

But if your behavior communicates:

“This sensation is so dangerous that I need to immediately escape it,”

your nervous system receives a very different message.

That is why sometimes doing less communicates more.

You notice your heart racing.

You notice the dizziness.

You notice the fear.

And instead of immediately entering emergency mode, you allow some of it to be there.

Not because you like it.

Not because you're pretending nothing is happening.

But because you are beginning to teach your nervous system something:

I can experience this sensation without treating it like a catastrophe.

The Fear of Panic Becomes the Fuel for Panic

This is where panic attacks can become self-reinforcing.

Maybe the first panic attack seemingly came out of nowhere.

Your heart raced.

You felt dizzy.

You thought you were going to faint, lose control, have a heart attack, or die.

Eventually it passed.

But afterward, something changed.

Now you're watching for the next one.

You enter a restaurant and think:

“What if I panic here?”

You drive on the freeway and think:

“What if it happens while I'm driving?”

You notice your heart beating after walking up the stairs and think:

“Is it starting?”

You feel slightly lightheaded and immediately scan your body.

Now the original panic attack is no longer the only problem.

You have developed fear of the panic attack itself.

And unfortunately, that fear creates many of the same physiological sensations you are afraid of.

The fear of panic becomes fuel for panic.

The Way Out Is Not More Control

This is the strange paradox of panic attacks.

The more desperately we try to stop them, the more we may unintentionally tell the brain that something dangerous is happening.

Recovery is not about becoming perfect at calming yourself down.

It is about learning that you can experience the racing heart, the dizziness, the tight chest, and the fear without immediately treating them like an emergency.

You begin to recognize:

“I know this feeling. I don't like it, but I don't need to fix it right now.”

Every time you do that, your brain gets new information.

The sensations came.

They were uncomfortable.

And they passed.

This principle is also at the heart of interoceptive exposure, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy used in the treatment of panic. Rather than continually avoiding feared bodily sensations, people gradually learn that they can experience those sensations without the catastrophic outcome their brain predicts.

Coming back to the boiler, the goal is not to make sure it never gets hot.

The goal is to stop becoming terrified every time the temperature rises.

You allow the nervous system to do what it was built to do.

And over time, you learn something much more powerful than how to stop a panic attack:

You learn that you can handle one.

References

de Leon, A. S., & Tadi, P. (2023). Biochemistry, Gamma Aminobutyric Acid. StatPearls Publishing, National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Farris, S. G., Derby, L., & Kibbey, M. M. (2025). Getting comfortable with physical discomfort: A scoping review of interoceptive exposure in physical and mental health conditions. Psychological Bulletin, 151(2), 131–191. doi: 10.1037/bul0000464.

National Institute of Mental Health. Panic Disorder: What You Need to Know. National Institutes of Health.

Pompoli, A., Furukawa, T. A., Efthimiou, O., Imai, H., Tajika, A., & Salanti, G. (2018). Dismantling cognitive-behaviour therapy for panic disorder: A systematic review and component network meta-analysis. Psychological Medicine, 48(12), 1945–1953. doi: 10.1017/S0033291717003919.