Genetic Factors

• "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Controlling Anxiety" states that many of the psychological conditions that can make a person more likely to suffer from anxiety attacks run in families. These conditions include generalized anxiety disorders (GADs), panic disorders, agoraphobias and social phobias. Women suffer from anxiety attacks twice as much as men. This could be because women's brains are considered more likely to fire off the neurotransmitters that triggers physical symptoms such as migraines, shallow breathing or panic response in the body.
  
  

Stressful Events

• When a person with the genetic makeup for anxiety attacks (also called panic attacks) is confronted with a very stressful event, this can spark cognitive distortion (see next section). People vary in what events they consider overly stressful. Very powerful stressful events, such as surviving a natural disaster or witnessing a murder, do not need to be present in order to trigger the physical manifestations of a panic attack--just the memory of the event or the fear that the event will reoccur can spark cognitive distortion, even when there is nothing threatening around.
  
  

Cognitive Distortion

• Cognitive distortion is when a person cannot accurately perceive what is going on around him. A stressed person genetically predisposed to panic attacks will have vastly different interpretations of events than what is actually happening. For example, if such a person hears two strangers laughing, him may inaccurately conclude that the strangers are laughing at him. These thoughts set off the body's fight or flight response. Feeling the physical symptoms of panic, such as trembling and a crushing feeling in the chest, only reinforce the cognitive distortion. The person believes there is something legitimate to fear, even though there isn't. The thoughts and the physical sensations feed off of each other until the person is in a complete panic.