The fight or flight response moves one directly into “attack” or “flee” mode.  Here, thinking isn’t as necessary as action.  When stuck in this state of alert, one perceives almost everything in their world as a possible threat to survival.  Unnamed, internal shadows set off a complicated set of emotional and physical reactions.  Everyone and everything is a possible enemy, a possible threat.  One overreacts, their fear exaggerated and their thinking distorted.  Even though the perceived danger is not an actual threat to physical survival, damaging stress hormones still flow through the body. 

Because one normally doesn’t actually fight or flee, when having a panic attack, there is no physical activity to adequately metabolize these stress hormones.  The evidence is overwhelming that there is a cumulative danger from the over-activation of the flight or flight response due to a buildup of stress hormones.  If not properly metabolized over time, excessive stress can lead to disorders of our autonomic nervous system (causing headache, irritable bowel syndrome, high blood pressure and the like) and disorders of our hormonal and immune systems (creating susceptibility to infection, chronic fatigue, depression, and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and allergies). 

© Salahub 2003