When Panic Takes Over – And How to Break Free

He was composed and professional on camera, but behind the scenes, that was a different story. Matt was privately dealing with panic attacks. Then, during a breaking news assignment, Matt's panic led to an on air mistake that jeopardized his livelihood. The more he thought about it, the more he started to believe that there was something fundamentally wrong with him.

In this excerpt, I explore how Matt came to see his panic attacks in a new light and how we can all learn to tame our mental spirals and turn down the volume on our inner critic. I really hope you enjoyed this excerpt from the Other Side of Change, and if you've already read the book or planned to, I would so appreciate if you could take a quick minute and leave a review on Goodreads. Leaving a review is one of the best ways for the book to

find new readers who might benefit from it. We've included a link in the show notes. Thanks so much. One foggy Sunday morning, Matt Gutman was making pancakes for his kids when he received a call from his boss at ABC News. It was January twenty twenty, and Matt had just returned home to la after a month of reporting on the road as the network's chief national correspondent. When he picked up the phone, his boss told him that the basketball player Kobe Bryant had been in a fatal

helicopter crash about fifteen miles from Matt's home. ABC needed Matt to cover the developing story. He grabbed supplies while checking news alerts and texting the local sheriff, then jumped in his car and drove off. As he got closer to the scene, he was overcome by the responsibility of delivering this tragic news to millions of viewers. His heart began to pound against his rib cage faster and faster. His hands trembled, his chest tightened, his vision narrowed, sweat

seeped through his clothes. He tried to breathe, but he felt as though he could not remember how he was having a panic attack. The sensation wasn't new. In his twenty years as a journalist, Matt had experienced panic attacks more than one hundred times. To rain in his panic before he went live on air, hell up coping mechanisms like meditating, doing push ups, smoking a cigarette, and sometimes even wearing his lucky underwear. Somehow, he'd always found a

way to work through it. Once the camera started rolling. He'd recover his composure enough to deliver the full story live on TV, even if it came out in stammers or between labored breaths, and was usually reassured to find that viewers hadn't noticed anything was off. Matt's panic attacks never happened when he was in physical danger. They were rooted in a different kind of threat, the risk of

social judgment. He had reported without issue from war zones, from cartel controlled territories, and within the wreckage of hurricanes and tornadoes. He knew that in these extenuating circumstances, his colleagues and viewers did not expect a perfect performance and would forgive any fumbles. Instead, his panic emerged in situations in which he knew that people had higher expectations of him. On the morning of the helicopter crash, Matt could feel

the pressure of the public's expectations mounting within him. He had to get the story just right. As he prepared to go live, he counseled himself deep breath in, deep breath out, But as the broadcast started, his panic only intensified. Matt's colleague opened the segment by telling viewers that he'd received confirmation that the NBA legend Kobe Bryant had died

in a helicopter crash in southern California. He then passed it over to Matt to share any other known details about the crash, which had taken the lives of all those on board. We know that it happened an hour ago, Matt began. His mind was scrambled and on hyperdrive, his heart still racing, His words came tumbling out. The fact that four of his children are believed to be on that helicopter with him, all daughters, one of them a newborn,

he continued, is simply devastating. But the claim that Bryan's four daughters were were with him was incorrect. Nine people had been on board, and only one of them was Brian's child, his thirteen year old Gianna. Matt did not even realize he'd made the error. The whole broadcast was one big blur in his mind until a colleague frantically texted him after the segment cut away. As soon as he could, Matt jumped back on the air to issue a correction and apologize for any pain his mistake might

have caused. But the damage was done. In what was already a devastating tragedy, Matt's error had only compounded the public's confusion and distress. Two days later, network executives called him and imposed a one month suspension for his misreporting. Matt readily accepted the punishment. In the weeks that followed, he was filled with self recrimination. He spent his empty days at home alone with his thoughts. As he saw it,

his suspension had been inevitable, even long overdue. For years, he'd been walking a tight rope, and now at last he'd fallen off. With his wife at work and his kids at school, he paced around the house, walked the dogs, and occasionally worked out, but he also set up a Google alert that notified him every time a new article about his mistake came out. He scoured the web and read the comments from angry viewers. The public was skewering him,

questioning not just his competence but also his morality. Some commenters said that ABC should fire him, Others said that he should be permanently banished from journalism. At night, unable to sleep, Matt spiraled what was wrong with him. He had delivered plenty of imperfect broadcasts over the years as a result of his panic, and although he'd felt a shame hangover each time, he'd always found a way through it. This time was different. Though he had made a serious

journalistic error. He'd thought his panic was something he could manage, but now it was clear that he'd been wrong. A new thought took hold of Matt. Maybe his brain was fundamentally broken. Maybe his panic meant that he was broken. The idea seized him completely, holding his mind hostage hour after hour, day after day. The public criticism only legitimized

and strengthened his conviction. It was this perverse vindication, he recalls, thinking that I was irredeemable most of us know what it's like to get caught in a negative mental spiral. Any number of things can trigger these unrelenting, suffocating loops, but the catalyst is typically a change in our lives. Our new anxieties, regrets, and uncertainties can take on a life of their own and become a bigger challenge to

deal with than the change itself. These thoughts become like mine worms, nestling into our psyches, hijacking our attention and stoking our biggest spheres. What's wrong with me? How could I not have seen that coming? How could they do that to me? What's going to happen? This is known as rumination, and it can involve obsessively rehashing something in the past, grappling with perceived problems in the present, or

catastrophizing and imagine future. When we're in its grip, it can be hard to focus on anything else or to conceive of ever moving past our problem. Rumination is a common symptom of conditions like depression and anxiety, but anyone can fall into its trap from time to time. Part of the allure of fixating on a particular problem is that analysis and self reflection often do bear fruit But when we ruminate, we're not actually making progress toward a solution.

We're simply cycling through the same negative thoughts over and over again each time we engage with our problem. Though, we can fall prey to the illusion that we're on the verge of a breakthrough, that we're just about to gain some great insight, find closure, or attain some guarantee of security. If I analyze my mistake enough, I'll avoid repeating the mistake in the future. If I dwell on this failure, I'll feel like I have paid my penance

and can move on. If I catalog all the harms that may affect my family, I'll be able to keep them safe. Similar to when we're in denial or think that our possible selves have been predetermined, rumination puts blinders on us. We are trapped within a narrow understanding of our situation and are unable to see that there are other ways to approach it. As Matt did when he scoured the web for negative comments about himself, we might

search only for further evidence that confirms our worries. This can lead us to double down on our convictions, however unfounded they might be. So what does it take to break free from these maddening mental spirals. If you've ever experience rumination, you likely know that the brute force approach of telling yourself to just stop already usually makes things worse. What does work, it turns out, is a technique called

psychological distancing. As researched by psychologists like Ethan Cross and oslem Iduk, psychological distancing involves creating space between yourself and the thoughts that have taken hold. In other words, since rumination arises from zooming in too closely on a situation, one of the best ways to break free from it

is to actively zoom out. This distance allows you to see your situation from new angles, which can release you from ruminations hamster wheel Zooming out involves proactively seeking other points of view or greater contexts so that you can approach your problems more constructively. Just as there are different ways you can fall into ruminative loots, there are also

many ways you can spring out from them. When's his suspension was over, he returned to work that as he tried to steal himself through each broadcast, he couldn't shed his belief that he was broken. A new question also bubbled up in his mind. Why did broken people like him even exist? This panic thing had derailed me, Matt said, and so I suddenly became consumed with trying to understand why it has persisted in our genetic code and why

we haven't evolved out of it. In the year following his mistake, Matt decided to interview as many experts as he could who might have an answer to his question. One afternoon, while on a reporting trip, he returned to his hotel room and hopped on a zoom call with Randolph NeSSI, a professor at Arizona State University who is

a leader in the field of evolutionary psychiatry. Matt confessed to NeSSI his belief that he was a faulty human and that his panic attacks were the product of a glitch in the genetic code and attentively, and then he offered a counter argument. The ability to panic, he told Matt, was not a glitch but an asset. In fact, it was one of the reasons humans have been able to

survive for so long. NeSSI explained that the stress hormones we release in response to panic, which lead to things like a racing heart and increased respiration, are essential for reacting appropriately to danger. These physiological changes send more oxygen into the bloodstream, enabling us to move more quickly out of harm's way. Rapid spikes and cortisol and adrenaline meanwhile

increase our alertness. As NeSSI spoke, Matt nodded along. He could understand that logic, but he was panicking even when it didn't make sense to surely this still made him broken. Right again, NeSSI had a reassuring reply. Because there can be uncertainty about whether a situation is actually dangerous? What was that rustle from behind that bush? It can be better in the long run to overreact than to underreact.

From an evolutionary perspective, NeSSI said, it is more adaptive for our brains to respond to a thousand false alarms than to miss a single real one. In times past, someone who is more inclined to overreact than the average person might have saved their tribe from danger. But Matt did not panic in response to potential physical threats. He panicked over his fears of social judgment. How could NeSSI

justify that here too, NeSSI had an answer. Our ancestors didn't survive just by worrying about threats from wild animals or natural disasters. They also needed to worry about being cast out of their group. For most of human history, humans were able to survive only by banding together, and so our brains became primed to detect social threats as well. This explain why Matt was hyper attuned to other people's perceptions of him, and why he panicked when he felt

as though his social standing might be in jeopardy. Matt had sought out NeSSI to understand why he was broken, but NeSSI helped Matt zoom out by encouraging him to question this assumption altogether and to contextualize his panic within the larger story of human evolution. When we're stuck in rumination, a powerful first step is to stop and interrogate our assumptions. It's easy to forget that our ways of thinking are limited by the boundaries of our personal experience, knowledge, and beliefs.

By sharing our concerns with other people and encouraging them to poke holes in our narratives, we can encounter new perspectives that help us forge new mental pathways. Might there be a different conclusion to draw a different story from the one we've been telling ourselves. As Matt left the call with NeSSI, his body relaxed. His tendency to panic didn't mean he was after all, It meant he wasn't broken. It was clear, though, that his system needed a serious recalibration.

Being this prone to panic had negatively affected his mental well being and had threatened his livelihood. But he could at least let go of his self loathing. I could stop hating my mind, he said. Matt's process of reworking his relationship with his panic is an example of cognitive reappraisal, in which deliberately changing how we interpret a situation can alter its emotional impact. As a result of his reappraisal, Matt was able to take a more constructive approach toward

managing his panic attacks. This included cognitive behavioral therapy and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors SSRIs, which are first line treatments when a person's rumination is serious enough to compromise their mental health, as well as breath work and guided psychedelic trips. Over time, Matt's panic episodes had been become less frequent and intense, and his I'm broken script no longer has

such a hold over him. For decades, I had a drill sergeant in my head who was always hollering at me and insulting me, he said, I still have an inner drill sergeant, but this one never screams at me, and he never tells me I'm unworthy. Today, Matt is thriving in his role as ABC's chief national correspondent and reports live from around the globe. He now sees an upside to his anxiety. The fact that he is hyper aware of what other people may be thinking has enabled

him to be a more compassionate, perceptive listener. I'm often meeting people on the worst day of their lives, and I'm able to speak to them in a common language, he said. It's one of the reasons they can trust me with their stories. Hey, thanks so much for listening to that excerpt of the Other Side of Change. You can finish Matt's story and meet other people with extraordinary stories of change by getting a copy wherever you buy books.

It's available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. I hope you're all taking some time to relax and recharge this summer. We on the slight Change of Plans team will be doing the same. Our break starts next week, and we'll be back with new episodes in July. If you miss this in the meantime, I highly recommend checking out our back catalog, where you'll find six years of inspiring stories of change and scientific insights to help you live a happier,

healthier life. We'll leave a link to the catalog and a playlist of some of my favorite Slight Change episodes in the show notes, and of course we'll be back in a few weeks with a new episode of a Slight Change of Plans. I'll see you then,