Lesson 5 of 6 · What feeds it, and what to stop adding
Three. The ordinary physical things
Caffeine produces heart rate changes and jitteriness that are close enough to the alarm to be read as the alarm. Four coffees in and your body is already halfway there before anything happens.
Sleep loss lowers the threshold on the whole system. So does alcohol, which quiets it at night and hands it back to you with interest at four in the morning.
None of this is the cause and none of it is the cure. It is the part you can change tonight without needing an insight.
What the research says
When people with panic disorder were given caffeine in a controlled study, they became much more anxious than people without it, and several had an attack. If you get panic, the amount in a few strong coffees is worth knowing about.
Given caffeine under controlled conditions, people with panic disorder became far more anxious than people without it, and a number had an attack. The dose was in the range of several strong coffees.
Charney DS, Heninger GR, Jatlow PI (1985). Increased anxiogenic effects of caffeine in panic disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 42(3), 233 to 243 doi
A short night raises how strongly you react to unpleasant things and weakens the control that normally settles it. Sleep is not a side issue here; it moves the threshold everything else sits on.
Reviews what a short night does to the handling of emotion. Losing sleep raises reactivity to unpleasant things and weakens the control that normally settles it, which is the threshold this step describes.
Goldstein AN, Walker MP (2014). The role of sleep in emotional brain function. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 10, 679 to 708 doi