We don’t actually ‘panic’ because of stress or anxiety (in fact we may not even be aware of any obvious stress or anxiety)
We ‘panic’ because the very alarming SENSATIONS suddenly produced by the fight or flight response for no obvious reason FRIGHTEN us so much.
In ‘clinical’ terms –
we MISINTERPRET the symptoms
(mistakenly believe they mean something more serious)
and then we CATASTROPHISE (we ‘think the worst’)
.