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Brian Byrne, a tour manager in Los Angeles, was sipping an iced coffee a few years ago when he started feeling clammy. Soon, his symptoms worsened: shallow breathing, a hollow feeling in his chest and a rapid, thumping heartbeat. He went outside to get air.

“At that point, I was having racing thoughts, feeling like I was having a heart attack,” he said. This wasn’t the first time Byrne experienced a caffeine-fuelled panic attack, but it was the most intense. “Drinking that coffee felt like I poured gasoline on a fire that was already smouldering,” he said.



For a year after, he didn’t touch the stuff and didn’t have another serious episode. Some people experience the effects of caffeine more than others. Credit: Getty Images Many people can relate to Byrne’s caffeine-related anxiety.

While researchers can’t definitively say that caffeine makes you anxious, it’s linked to increased risk of anxiety among people with and without psychiatric diagnoses. Why caffeine might make you anxious Caffeine is a stimulant that affects the sympathetic nervous system – the part of the body responsible for your fight-or-flight response. When it’s activated, your heart rate rises and blood pressure goes up, your muscles tense, and you may start sweating.

Loading But caffeine isn’t the only thing that arouses the nervous system. Any adrenaline-pumping activity – like exercising or riding a roller coaster – can stimulate a response. When you’re working out or on a r.

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