Your Brain on Anxiety: Regaining Control
Think back to the last time you felt anxious. What was happening inside your body? Were your palms sweating? Was your heart racing? Did it feel difficult to breathe?
Now, what about inside your head? Did it seem as though your thoughts were running a million miles a minute?
How were you feeling? Panicky? Fearful? Worried?
Most of us reading this are shaking our heads yes in agreement with many of these questions. What we often don’t understand is why we have these physical, mental, and emotional reactions when we experience anxiety. And we have a hard time knowing how to reduce them.
Anxiety’s Journey Through the Brain
Our brains are broken into many sections, each housing a different function. Our limbic system houses most of our emotions and memories. It is also one of the oldest parts of the brain, meaning we develop the capacity to feel emotions and hold memories early on in our development. In relation to the limbic system, we have the amygdala; the part of our brain that detects fear and threat.
When we become anxious, our amygdala has flagged something as fearful or threatening. When this happens, the amygdala sends signals to the rest of the body to prepare. Ever heard of the phrase fight, flight, or flee? Well, that’s exactly what the amygdala sends out to the body. Something has threatened our sense of safety and well-being and we need to act accordingly—our body gets ready to fight back, stay still as to remain unseen, or get out of there as fast as possible.
This is where the cognitive or logical section of our brain comes in handy. This section of our brain, also called the frontal lobe, is one of the last sections of our brain to develop and is the most sophisticated. It helps us assess whether or not the threat our amygdala flagged is actually a threat.
Now, this becomes complicated because when we are highly anxious, we don’t always have access to our frontal lobe. Our brain, in an effort to protect us, shuts down our higher-order thinking in order to give priority to our more “primal brain” to keep us physically safe. This works out well when we need to flee from physical danger, but not so well when the threat our amygdala has flagged isn’t exactly threatening.
In order to assess properly whether our anxious thought is indeed being turned on by a threatening stimulus, we need our frontal lobe to be functional. But if we are answering yes to the questions above—if we are experiencing anxiety—chances are our frontal lobe is not functioning as it should. We are still being controlled in large part by our emotional center.
Establishing Bodily Control
4-7-8 Breathing
1. Inhale for a count of 4 seconds
2. Hold that breath for a count of 7 seconds
3. Exhale for a count of 8 seconds (make a “whoosing” sound as you exhale)
4. Repeat for about one minute
In order to calm down and think logically, the brain needs three things: a sense of control, more information, and a sense of safety. Today’s blog will focus on the first of these: control.
In order to reduce feelings of anxiety, our bodies need to feel safe. Many of the symptoms we experience—shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, restlessness—all lead our bodies to assume we are not in control over our own bodies. Calming our bodies down is the first step in re-establishing control.
To begin this process of controlling our bodies, there are some practices that help us “come back to ourselves.” These can include grounding techniques and deep breathing exercises like the one here called “4-7-8 Breathing.”
The main benefit of this type of breathing is the calming effect it has on both the mind and body. The controlled breathing naturally slows down your breathing and lowers your heart rate, helping you gain control over your body.
5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique
1. Identify 5 things you can see
2. Identify 4 things you can hear
3. Identify 3 things you can feel
4. Identify 2 things you can smell
5. Identify 1 thing you can taste
Another helpful technique for gaining control over your body is something called the “5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique.” In this exercise, you use your five senses to help ground yourself back into your environment. This re-establishes control back to your body, you remember where you are, and that you are in control of your environment.
Gaining a sense of control is the first step in reducing anxiety in order to begin to think in a more logical manner.
In my next article, we’ll explore how to manage anxiety through the next thing your brain needs in anxiety: more information.