No Time to Panic: How I Curbed My Anxiety and Conquered a Lifetime of Panic Attacks

Matt Gutman can tell you the precise moment when his life was upended. Reporting live on a huge story in January 2020, he found himself in the throes of an on-air panic attack—and not for the first time. The truth is that Gutman had been enduring panic attacks in secret for twenty years: soul-bruising episodes that left his vision constricted, his body damp, his nerves shot. Despite the challenges, he had carved out a formidable career, reporting from war zones and natural disasters before millions of viewers on Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and 20/20. His nerves typically “punched through” to TV audiences, making his appearances kinetic and often unforgettable.But his January 2020 broadcast was unusual for all the wrong reasons. Mid-panic, Gutman misstated the facts of a story, a blunder that led to a monthlong suspension, not to mention public shame and personal regret.It was a reckoning. Gutman’s panic attacks had become too much for him to bear in secret. He needed help