Why Dhar Mann Developed Anxiety and Panic Attacks

Anxiety doesn’t discriminate - anyone and everyone can develop issues with anxiety. Young, old, rich, or famous, it doesn't matter. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about how one of the top YouTube creators in the world, Dahr Mann, developed anxiety, and what he could have done to prevent it.  

Hey friend, Peter Wessels here with Fearless Anxiety. Before we get started, you should know that I suffered from debilitating anxiety for over a year of my life. During that period, each day I experienced endless waves of anxiety, severe panic attacks, and just about every symptom that anxiety can create. I felt like I was stuck in a body that was torturing itself, and I felt more terrified and alone than I ever thought possible. But I discovered the way out, and I fully recovered from my anxiety. I call it the “5-Step Cure to Anxiety and Panic Attacks” and I‘ve put it in the link below. It’s completely free and it’ll show you the steps that allow my clients to fully recover from their anxiety. 

Alright, for those of you who don’t know who Dahr Mann is, he’s a YouTube creator with over 20 million subscribers and each of his videos gets millions of views. But on a recent podcast on NPR’s How I Built This, Dahr Mann revealed that he has suffered with anxiety and panic attacks. As he explained, back on Christmas day in 2022, he was sitting at his kitchen table working on his computer and, out of nowhere, it felt hard for him to breathe and his heart began beating really fast. He quickly closed his laptop and began worrying that he was having some sort of medical emergency, like a heart attack. So, he called his doctor and explained the symptoms, his doctor told him that it was just a panic attack and he would be fine. But the panic attacks didn’t stop. No, these panic attacks kept happening for a month straight and he felt completely helpless.

In the podcast, Darr Mann acknowledged that he had a terrible work/life balance at this time in his life and that he was putting a huge amount of stress and pressure on himself to be successful with his business. He also acknowledged that he wasn’t taking care of himself - he wasn’t exercising and his diet wasn’t good.

Alright, so what Dahr Mann said was correct. The trigger to his first panic attack was likely these things. It was the stress, poor diet, and lack of exercise that caused him to have a panic attack. The combination of these things caused his body to believe that something was wrong and he was in danger, and so his body engaged its protective fight or flight response. 

OK, so what is the fight or flight response? This response is our body’s defense system. It engages when our body believes we are in danger, and it prepares our body to fight the threat or flee to safety. That’s because, historically, threats and dangers have been physical in nature. In other words, for our ancient ancestors, danger came in the form of things that could physically harm them. For example, it could be something like a wild animal, such as a lion or a tiger, or even an invading tribe. Those were the types of dangers that threatened their survival, which meant this fight or flight response was crucial. It prepares the body to physically respond to that threat by releasing adrenaline and other stress hormones into the body. 

But in today’s world, physical dangers are rare for the vast majority of us. We thankfully don’t have to worry about lions or tigers when we walk outside our homes. Instead, today the dangers are primarily psychological threats, like threats to our work, our family, or our finances. It’s the financial threat of a failing business or loss of a job. It’s the reputational threat of someone talking negatively about you. Or it’s the emotional threat of your child not succeeding in life. With all these things, there is no physical threat in front of you that you need to try to fight or flee. 

It was this for Dahr Mann. There was no physical threat in front of him. Instead, it might have been him feeling the financial threat of his business not living up to the meteoric level of success that he’d set for himself. And that overwhelming stress could have triggered his first panic attack. His body interpreted this stress as danger and engaged his fight or flight response. So, his body was ready to fight a threat or flee to safety, but there he was just in his kitchen on his computer. His body was prepared itself to move fast - but there was nowhere to move to.

What Dahr Mann didn’t know - and what most people don’t know - is these intense sensations were not dangerous. In fact, it was the exact opposite. His body had engaged its defense system, which actually put him in an ultra-protective and safe state. His body was ready to physically defend itself. But because there was no actual physical threat, he instead started looking inward at the sensations themselves. He saw shortness of breath and the racing heart were itself the danger. That made him panic even more because he thought he might be having a heart attack or something serious.  

From there, Dahr Mann continued to have panic attacks for the next month because he became fearful of the panic itself. He was worried about when, where, and how the next panic attack might strike. He was in a fearful state and that fear was the fuel for his panic attacks - it was signaling to his body to release even more adrenaline and stress hormones, and that was making his panic even worse. 

But here’s the reality: that next month of panic attacks could have been completely avoided. First, Dahr Mann needed to understand that the panic attacks weren’t harmful. Instead, it was a sign that his body was in a heightened, protective state.  Once he understood that the panic attacks were not harmful, he could have implemented an incredible psychological mind hack that stops panic attacks in their tracks. I call it “Encouraging Anxiety” and it's Step #4 of the Fearless Approach. So, instead of becoming tensing up and fearful when the panic attacks started, he could have encouraged them to get worse. Yes, I know how counterintuitive that sounds, but by trying to make the panic worse, what happens is we send a signal to our prefrontal cortex that there is no real threat and that we’re not in any danger. This would immediately slow down the release of stress hormones in his body and stop Dahr Mann’s panic attacks either immediately or within a week or so. In other words, if he had implemented this technique, he wouldn’t have spent the next month suffering from panic attack after panic attack.

On top of that, Dahr needed to create a better work-life balance, which he did, and also clean up his diet and begin exercising, which he also did. It’s worth noting that those things alone don’t often cure anxiety, but recovery from anxiety is often aided and propelled forward by things like the nutrients from a healthy and incorporating movement into our daily lives.