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Areas › Worry and anxiety › Panic and the body
The ending tracks a shared chemical backbone, so the shortcut is not a coincidence. Keep a rough rule alongside it: this class suits sharp fear better than it suits ongoing worry. It can take the top off a surge that arrives in minutes, and it does much less for the person whose anxiety hums along all week.
Moses, do not be afraid (Quran 27:10). The fear is met in the moment it arrives and answered without a word of rebuke, and that sudden kind of fear is what this class is for.
النمل
وَأَلۡقِ عَصَاكَۚ فَلَمَّا رَءَاهَا تَهۡتَزُّ كَأَنَّهَا جَآنࣱّ وَلَّىٰ مُدۡبِرࣰ ا وَلَمۡ يُعَقِّبۡۚ يَٰمُوسَىٰ لَا تَخَفۡ إِنِّي لَا يَخَافُ لَدَيَّ ٱلۡمُرۡسَلُونَ
Throw down your staff,’ but when he saw it moving like a snake, he turned and fled. ‘Moses, do not be afraid! The messengers need have no fear in My presence
Qur’an 27:10read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A review of the perseverative cognition idea argues that worry keeps physiological stress activation running both before and after events, which is a different shape of problem from a sudden surge. That difference is the reason a fast, short-lived agent fits one better than the other. The review is about worry and the body rather than a comparison of drugs, so the pairing is inference and not something measured.
Brosschot JF, Gerin W, Thayer JF. (2006). The perseverative cognition hypothesis: a review of worry, prolonged stress-related physiological activation, and health.. Journal of psychosomatic research doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A drug that acts within the hour matches a problem that arrives in minutes, not one that runs for months.
The speed is why these work and also what they cost. Relief that lands within the half hour is the most teachable kind there is, and what it teaches is to reach for it sooner next time.
Within this class the choice is mostly about how long the drug lasts rather than how well it works. They all pull on the same receptor, so the real question is what pattern of cover the person in front of you needs.
Benzodiazepines turn the volume down. They do not change the setting the volume keeps returning to, and it is worth saying that plainly before someone starts one.