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A phone call pulled the rug
Rick Rubin grew up an only child with parents who loved him and always supported him, and the music he started making as a hobby turned into a business with great success. At 33, the person he had a business relationship with, one of the top people in the music industry and a mentor, was politically forced out. The replacement called to say he had read the agreement and didn't like it, and suggested they talk when Rubin was back in California.
That was the whole conversation. Rubin had never faced instability, and he felt the rug pulled out from under him. He began having panic attacks, couldn't sleep, and got really sick. Anyone else might have said they'd deal with it later and moved on, but he hadn't built the muscle for it.
It went on for years, even after the problem was solved and he had started a relationship with a new company. He felt like a balloon that had burst, and he is still not the same person. The experience gave him a better understanding of the artists he works with, many of whom deal with personal struggles. Before it he might have felt like Superman, and now he feels tired.
Why can a sudden shock trigger panic attacks?
The brain's amygdala reacts to perceived threats by setting off the fight-or-flight response, releasing adrenaline that speeds the heart and breathing. A sudden loss of stability can be read as a threat even when nothing physical is happening. The sensations are real, and they can feel alarming enough to set off a fear of the next attack. The American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual defines a panic attack as an abrupt surge of intense fear that peaks within minutes.
How does lost sleep make anxiety worse?
A 2007 study in Current Biology led by Seung-Schik Yoo and Matthew Walker at UC Berkeley scanned the brains of people who had been kept awake for a night. Their amygdala responded about 60 percent more strongly to upsetting images than that of rested people. The link between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, which helps regulate emotion, was weaker. The researchers concluded that missing sleep leaves the brain more reactive to negative events.
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