27/04/2026
Anxiety and panic attacks are often talked about together, but they can feel quite different when you’re in them.
Anxiety tends to show up as a build-up — a tightening in the background. It can look like overthinking, scanning for what might go wrong, difficulty switching off, or carrying a sense of unease that sits with you through the day.
Panic attacks are more sudden and intense. They can feel like your body has hit a false alarm — racing heart, breathlessness, dizziness, shaking, or a sense that something is seriously wrong. Even when you know you’re safe, your body doesn’t feel safe.
Having experienced both personally and supported many clients through them, one of the most important things to understand is this: they are cycles.
A typical cycle can look like:
a sensation in the body → a thought (“something is wrong”) → fear → more physical symptoms → more fear.
Before long, the system is fully activated.
This is where Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) can be so helpful.
CBT supports you to gently interrupt the cycle by:
• noticing the thoughts that escalate anxiety
• understanding how interpretation shapes fear
• learning to respond to sensations differently
• reducing the “fear of fear” that fuels panic
• gradually retraining the nervous system over time
One of the most relieving shifts for many people is realising: this is a pattern my brain has learned — and it can learn something different.
https://www.anchoringyourlife.com/womens
