Mental health, and specifically, anxiety, has become a mammoth-sized issue in the United States.
1 in 5 U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2018, which equates to approximately 47.6 million people.
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States today. They affect 40 million adults (18 and older) in the United States every single year. Although anxiety disorders are highly treatable, the majority of people suffering from them do not seek help.
These disorders develop from a set of different risk factors, including personality, brain chemistry, genetics, and various life events.
From a personal standpoint, I can attest that childhood trauma can help increase anxiety as you grow older. That trauma can linger within your subconscious, causing you all sorts of irrational fears and worries.
COMMON DISORDERS
Panic Disorder (PD)
People who experience spontaneous panic attacks and are extremely preoccupied with the fear of a recurring attack.
The Numbers: Affects 6 million adults (2.7% of the U.S. population), with women being twice as likely to be affected as men.
Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)
An intense fear or anxiety of being judged, negatively evaluated, or rejected in a social or performance situation.
The Numbers: Affects 15 million adults (6.8% of the U.S. population), and is equally common among men and women.
Specific Phobias
Experiencing excessive and unreasonable fears in the presence of or in anticipation of a specific object, place, or situation.
The Numbers: Affects 19 million adults ( 8.7% of the U.S. population), with women being twice as likely to be affected than men.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Experiencing obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are intrusive and unwanted thoughts, images, or urges that cause distress or anxiety. Compulsions are behaviors that the person feels compelled to perform in order to ease their distress or anxiety or suppress the thoughts.
The Numbers: Affects 2.2 million adults (1.0% of the U.S. population), and is equally common among men and women.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
A serious and potentially debilitating condition that can occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a natural disaster, serious accident, terrorist incident, sudden death of a loved one, war, violent personal assault (such as rape), or other life-threatening events.
The Numbers: Affects 7.7 million adults (3.5% of the U.S. population), with women being more likely to be affected than men.
NEUROSCIENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY
Neuroscience and Psychology are two areas I have studied ever since I decided to get serious about my mental health. After years of struggling with anxiety, depression, and obsessive thoughts, I went back to therapy and began restructuring my life.
One of the knowledge gateways for me was reading book after book on both neuroscience and psychology. One of the books that caught my attention was ‘Rewire Your Anxious Brain’ by Catherine M. Pittman, Ph.D., and Elizabeth M. Karle, MLIS. This book gets into the differences between anxiety based in the amygdala and anxiety based in the cortex.
Up until reading this book, I wasn’t even aware of any differences between where the anxiety stems from in the brain or why it’s essential for selecting the right treatment.
THE AMYGDALA AND CEREBRAL CORTEX
Before I get into the differences, let’s go over what the amygdala and cerebral cortex are and why they’re critical to the stress response we experience when facing anxiety.
The amygdala is the region of the brain primarily associated with emotional processes.
The cerebral-cortex is the furrowed outer layer of gray matter in the cerebrum of the brain, associated with the higher brain functions, as voluntary movement, coordination of sensory information, learning and memory, and the expression of individuality.
THE AMYGDALA IS LIKE A PROTECTOR
The amygdala is trying to protect you from any potential danger that might be lingering. In many cases, the amygdala’s assumption that you need to be protected from some type of danger is incorrect. The human amygdala seems to be predisposed to respond to certain stimuli as if they are potentially dangerous: snakes, spiders, heights, and angry facial expressions are just a few. Yet children are rarely scared of bikes or basketballs. Over thousands of years of evolution, the human amygdala has been “programmed” to fear things such as insects and snakes because it served in survival at some point.
But the fear that is programmed into the amygdala can be changed.
You do not have to be a prisoner of your past emotional experiences that reside within the amygdala. Conversely, many objects and situations aren’t naturally feared by the amygdala, meaning, they weren’t programmed into the amygdala at birth. Instead, the amygdala learns to fear them as a direct result of life experience. For example, a child doesn’t naturally fear flames, but if a flame burns that child, he or she will naturally begin to fear anything associated with fire: candles, lighters, sparklers, bonfires, and so on. That is the amygdala at work. But since he amygdala can be “reprogrammed,” the child can, over time, learn not to fear certain stimuli.
The amygdala forms emotional memories, but not in the way that you may think of memories.
The amygdala will form an emotional memory of an experience and attach it to, for example, a smell or an object, yet have no awareness of it. Meaning, you might fear that object or smell without any conscious memory to back it up. Many people who have been in a serious car accident become fearful of sitting in the same seat in the car when the accident occurred. An example, if you were sitting in the backseat behind the passenger seat during a serious accident, you may develop a sense of dread anytime you sit in that exact seat in another car, without even fully understanding why. That is the emotional memory of the amygdala at work.
FIGHT FLIGHT OR FREEZE RESPONSE
The amygdala is responsible for activating what is known as the fight, flight, or freeze response. During this response, there’s an activation of motor systems, an increase in levels of neurotransmitters, and energization of the sympathetic nervous system, and a release of chemicals such as cortisol and adrenaline into the bloodstream. Your body will undergo immediate changes such as increased heart rate, tensing of muscles, and dilated pupils. You may start to tremble and feel sweaty palms, heart-pounding, and bowel issues. Activating the fight, flight, or freeze response is a primary role of the amygdala.
The amygdala’s “language” is based on association.
But what does this mean, exactly?
Think of a little child. That child walks into a room and sees a teddy bear that frightens him or her. Now, the teddy bear itself is not threatening, but every time that child sees any teddy bear, he or she becomes filled with fright. That is the amygdala associating that teddy bear with a fearful emotion and activating the fight, flight, or freeze response in that child.
Emotional triggers begin to develop around these associations. Whenever you come in contact with any stimuli associated with an emotional response in your amygdala, you will then become triggered. And after becoming triggered, you will want to avoid those specific stimuli to avoid feeling any negative emotions. Avoidance can cause problems because as you grow older, the number of stimuli will also grow, and if you haven’t managed them properly, you will be one overly-anxious person (trust me, I know!).
THE CORTEX AND OVERTHINKING
The cortex can initiate anxiety in a few different ways. The first way involves how the cortex processes sensory information. As the cortex processes this sensory information, it can interpret a perfectly safe sensation as threatening. For example, a person fighting with their significant other sees a call coming in on their phone from that person and thinks, “Oh no, they are going to break up with me.” The cortex sees that call as a threat even though the call could be harmless, or even good. That is the cortex creating unneeded anxiety.
The second way the cortex can produce anxiety is by overthinking. Parents leave their children with a babysitter and go out to a nice restaurant for dinner. The children are perfectly safe and fine, yet the cortex creates all sorts of awful worst-case scenarios in the parents’ heads, which then triggers the amygdala and causes worry.
Another example would be prepping for a job interview. You start worrying that you’re going to look bad or come off like a fool in front of the interviewers. There is no sensory input to suggest such things, yet your cortex can create all sorts of unsavory scenarios that initiate an anxious response in your amygdala.
THE DIFFERENCE AND TECHNIQUES FOR EACH
The difference between where your anxiety is originating is important; because there are different ways to manage each.
Think of the amygdala as the more “primal” state of anxiety; the physical sensations, increased heart rate, sweaty hands, trembling voice, and all the physical effects of anxiety pertain directly to anxiety originating in the amygdala.
Whereas anxiety originating in the cortex is based more on “overthinking.” The cortex can create all sorts of crazy future scenarios as well as drum up memories from the past, both of which can cause anxiety.
Since amygdala-induced anxiety is based more on the primal state of certain “programmed” fears and emotional associations, the most efficient way of handling anxiety is by creating a state of calmness within the body.
A FEW TIPS ON HOW TO REDUCE ANXIETY ORIGINATING IN THE AMYGDALA
- Regular exercise
- Adequate sleep
- Deep breathing
These are excellent ways to ease anxiety originating in the amygdala.
For example, exercise helps reduce activation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), aka the fight, flight, or freeze response. Regular exercise lessens the effects of the SNS, such as decreasing its impact on heart rate and blood pressure. Aerobic exercise, specifically, has been shown in studies to reduce anxiety. Exercise decreases muscle tension for up to an hour and a half and anxiety for up to four to six hours after a twenty-minute session. When you put into perspective that a mere 20 minutes of exercise can effectively reduce muscle tension and anxiety for hours afterward, the rewards become clear.
Of course, if you haven’t exercised in a long time, consult your doctor and make sure you’re physically okay.
Sleep is another big one. Poor sleep and lack of sleep have detrimental effects on the human brain. Studies have shown that people who don’t get enough sleep or sleep poorly (sleep apnea) have trouble with memories, difficulties concentrating, and poorer health in general. Getting to bed and waking up at the same time is crucial in developing a healthy sleeping pattern. Also, monitoring your REM sleep is essential, as it helps with memory and replenishing neurotransmitters. Researchers have found that more REM sleep is associated with lower reactivity in the amygdala. So practicing good sleeping habits is crucial.
Deep breathing is another way to calm down the amygdala. Deep breathing can be felt quickly, which makes it an effective way to calm amygdala-based anxiety. There are many different types of deep breathing that you can do but start with these three techniques. In this Harvard article, they recommend abdominal breathing. Try a few different methods out and see which works best for you.
TIPS ON HOW TO REDUCE ANXIETY ORIGINATING IN THE CORTEX
- Challenge your thoughts
- Use coping thoughts
- Replace worry with planning
CHALLENGING THOUGHTS
Challenging thoughts is one way you can manage cortex based anxiety. Cognitive fusion is when we attach a thought to an experience. We tend to get so caught up in the actual thoughts that we forget that they are merely thoughts, not actual events. Whenever you are overthinking a potential future worst-case scenario, you are practicing cognitive fusion. Getting caught up on these thoughts that haven’t happened, and might not ever happen, is what causes suffering and anxiety.
This is where it’s beneficial to challenge your negative thinking.
Ask yourself a few questions:
- What are the chances this will occur?
- If the worst-case does occur, what could I do to remedy the situation?
Most of the time, you will find that the majority of your worries about the future will never occur in the first place. And secondly, if they do happen, they probably won’t be as bad or horrific as your thoughts about them.
COPING THOUGHTS
Most of the time, when we are worrying, we are thinking negative and fear-based thoughts. These thoughts can range in severity, and they usually do not have substance backing their merits up. You might have a big presentation coming up at work, and your first thought is that you will fail and look bad in front of your entire company. Yet, every other presentation you’ve given previously has gone well. So by using a coping thought, or a more positive thought, such as, “I will do well on my presentation” is a more suitable replacement than the original fear-based thought. Coping thoughts are more optimistic.
REPLACE WORRY WITH PLANNING
One of the most detrimental aspects of worrying is that it keeps us from acting on something. For example, you might have an idea for a business you’d like to start, yet because of your worries about failure, you choose not to act on starting the business. Or maybe you want to ask that special someone out on a date, yet your thoughts keep telling you that you’re not good enough and that you’ll screw it up, so you never make that call. Worrying can derail us from living up to our full potential.
But replacing worry with a plan can be a solution. Once you have an idea about something you want to do, instead of getting caught up in the worries about it, make a plan of action. If you’re going to start a business, make a plan of how you would go about it. If you want to ask that special someone out on a date, plan a time to call them and ask. You can also make plans for what could happen, so if the business starts failing, or the person declines your date offer, think about how you would respond. Planning is an effective and productive replacement for worrying.
IN REVIEW
Understanding the difference between amygdala and cortex based anxiety is important and beneficial. If you can better pinpoint the source of your anxiety, you can apply the proper techniques to manage it. Amygdala based anxiety and cortex based anxiety require different types of coping strategies – if you are applying amygdala coping techniques to cortex based anxiety, it won’t be as effective. Once you see the subtle differences between the origins, you will be able to manage your anxiety and stress levels better.
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