I started to get quite bad panic attacks when I was in my late

The words of Chloe Madeley—“I started to get quite bad panic attacks when I was in my late teens, and I began running because I wanted to do everything I could before going down the medical route.”—speak not merely of anxiety, but of the eternal struggle between the spirit and the storm within. In these words lies the quiet defiance of one who refuses to surrender to fear without first seeking her own way of healing. They remind us that even when the mind trembles, the will may rise. Madeley’s choice to run—to move her body as though fleeing from the invisible claws of panic—was more than exercise; it was an ancient act of reclamation, the human soul’s decision to fight despair with motion, breath, and discipline.

The meaning of her words touches on a universal truth: that healing often begins before medicine, in the choices we make to face ourselves. The ancients knew this well. Before pills and prescriptions, they prescribed movement, sunlight, meditation, and song. They saw the body and mind as twins, each affecting the other in cycles of health or sickness. When fear seized the heart, they walked the mountains. When grief clouded the spirit, they fasted and prayed. Madeley’s instinct, born centuries later, follows this same sacred pattern: to seek equilibrium not through surrender, but through effort and self-knowledge. In choosing to run, she ran not away from fear, but toward freedom.

The origin of her struggle, as she herself describes, began in youth—when the emotions are raw and the world’s expectations begin to close around the heart. Panic attacks, though unseen, are as real as wounds of flesh. They are storms that strike the inner sea, tossing thoughts like fragile ships. Many who have felt their grip know the terror of the racing heart, the tightening chest, the sense of drowning in invisible waters. And yet, Madeley’s story reveals a path through that darkness—a reminder that sometimes the cure begins not in the physician’s office, but in the courage to take the first step, one breath, one stride at a time.

History, too, remembers others who fought the unseen with the strength of the body. Winston Churchill, though burdened by what he called his “black dog” of depression, found solace in painting and bricklaying. The act of creation steadied the storm within him. In Japan, samurai warriors practiced “shin-shin-toitsu,” the unity of mind and body, believing that to discipline one’s movement was to discipline one’s spirit. And in ancient Greece, philosophers like Epictetus taught that though we cannot control the events that strike us, we can control how we respond. So too did Madeley, through her running, practice an ancient wisdom without naming it—she chose agency over helplessness, discipline over despair.

Her journey reveals another layer of truth: that medicine and self-mastery are not enemies, but allies. In seeking to do everything she could before turning to medical aid, Madeley was not rejecting help—she was honoring her own strength. There is dignity in trying to heal oneself through patience and action, just as there is wisdom in seeking doctors when needed. Both paths lead to the same destination: wholeness. The true danger lies not in illness, but in apathy—the surrender of will before the battle even begins. For every human being holds within them a hidden reservoir of resilience, waiting to be awakened by motion, hope, or purpose.

In the depths of panic and anxiety, the mind often whispers that one is powerless. But Madeley’s story answers that whisper with defiance. To rise from the bed of fear and run into the open air is an act of quiet heroism. The heart that beats in terror can learn to beat in rhythm with the stride. The breath that once gasped in panic can become the breath of endurance. Each step taken is a prayer, each mile a declaration that life’s storms may shake us but not sink us. And in that movement lies the healing that no medicine alone can give—the remembrance that we are still alive, still capable, still strong.

From Chloe Madeley’s words, let us take this lesson: that while doctors and medicines are gifts of wisdom, the first healer is within us. The mind can be trained through the body; the heart can find calm through discipline; and the soul, once stirred to motion, can rise above the shadows that once ruled it. When anxiety tightens its grip, let us remember to move, to breathe, to act. For the ancients taught—and modern science now agrees—that the road to healing begins not only with treatment, but with the decision to keep moving forward. To run is to declare to life itself: I am still here, and I will not yield.