I agree that this sounds like the wider underlying system of anxiety--the set-up for the escalation into a full-scale panic attack. The point of my post yesterday is that the trigger can be kind of random, actually--and sometimes something physical.
Yes.
What you're going to discover is a nasty Bermuda Triangle of reasons for panic. Underlying stress (my marriage is falling apart, and has been for years), coupled with immediate environmental stresses (I should have gotten enough sleep last night; I shouldn't be relaxing, too much to do), coupled with triggers (I took the escalator instead of the stairs).... and bam! off the deep end!
Triggers often seem to be very, very random. Innocuous little things that should not engender fear, but do. That's what a panic attack is, after all: an unreasonably strong fight-or-flight response to something that is not a threat, but which our bodies and minds is convinced is threatening anyway.
I wrote above that triggers only
seem to be random, because they're not actually random at all. We usually have one or more triggers that cause panic again and again and again. And they are most often ridiculous. Logically, I know that inclined walking surfaces are not predatory. I know this. And yet...
And yes, our bodily functions can very easily be triggers. One common element with many of my triggers is that they make me light-headed. Getting up from a seating position too quickly, low blood sugar, turning around quickly - anything that disorients me is a possible trigger. I haven't responded to all of these with panic, though, and so not everything that causes light headedness has become a trigger. But once I do, I'm more likely to in the future.
Here's where CBT is most helpful, in my experience: it not only teaches you how to manage a full-fledged panic attack. It also teaches you how to stop anxiety from escalating into panic. So if a particular physical condition is consistent in most of your triggers, and if that physical condition (like my light headedness) becomes present in a new situation, and if I start to feel anxiety, I have a series of tools at my disposal to stop the anxiety before it escalates. Because of this I am less likely to develop new triggers.
Other therapy can be helpful in reducing the underlying stress that makes you more prone to panic in the first place. But those stresses are not triggers. They make you prone to triggers.
