stomach distress was triggering attacks. The Vagus nerve is a puppet master and it can fuck with your sense of well-being on a good day This rings tr

stomach distress was triggering attacks. The Vagus nerve is a puppet master and it can fuck with your sense of well-being on a good day This rings true. I had one actual panic attack in my life and it was absolutely wild and confusing. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what caused it. I certainly was not particularly mentally stressed out that day. I'm not even really anxious in general compared to others. I am middle aged and have had a lot of acutely stressful days without panic attacks, and also just... a lot of days in general... so I can't imagine why an unstressful day lead to one. It certainly didn't feel like it originated within my brain. It felt like my body was triggering it. It felt like an incident in the past when I was diagnosed with acute pericarditis and nearly died. However, when I went to the ER following the panic attack, they found nothing physically wrong on the EKG. Of course, we are not necessarily biologically or cognitively well-equipped to self-diagnose "why" our brains are feeling a particular thing. But nonetheless whether it was my vagus nerve or something else, it certainly felt like it originated outside of my mind.