Anxiety and Your Brain
Anxiety and Your Brain
P.S. You're not Crazy
Tight chest? Rapid breathing? Headaches? Upset stomach? Dizziness? Nausea? Fidgetiness? Keep feeling like something bad is going to happen or just plain feeling fear for seemingly no reason at all? Convinced you’re either dying or going crazy? Well, you’re not. Most likely you’re just experiencing anxiety.*
Did you know...
According to ADAA (Anxiety and Depression Association of America):
- Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S.
- 1 in 4 children between the ages of 13-18 are affected by anxiety disorders in the U.S.
- People with an anxiety disorder are three to five times more likely to go to the doctor than those who do not suffer from anxiety disorders.
- Anxiety disorders develop from a complex set of risk factors, including genetics, brain chemistry, personality, and life events.
- Anxiety disorders are highly treatable, yet only 36.9% of those suffering receive treatment.
Hopefully after reading this post, you’ll come to realize reasons why you might be experiencing anxiety and find comfort in knowing that you are not crazy. You aren’t dying. Your body is just doing its job really, really well. To do that, we need to understand two parts of the brain that are associated with anxiety.
The Cerebral Cortex
Have you ever heard the term “executive functioning”? Well, it’s here in the cerebral cortex that it takes place. The cerebral cortex is responsible for our thoughts and perceptions. It’s where information from our five senses enters our brain through the thalamas and gets “processed”. In other words, it’s here that all of the stuff that your body experiences from the external world gets labeled so that you can make sense of it.
For example, when you see an old woman and hear her voice who then puts out her arms for a hug, that visual information gets sorted and processed in the cerebral cortex so that you label / recognize her for who she is – your grandma and you open your arms and give her a loving squeeze. Your cerebral cortex is what you’re using right now to read and make sense of this blog post (at least I hope it’s making sense).
Because of your cortex you can be a logical, reasonable, imaginative being capable of using language and planning out how you’ll respond in various situations.
The cerebral cortex is amazing at what it does. It’s capable of even evaluating the usefulness of different responses to perceived dangers. Um, do I run and hide from loud fireworks exploding overhead or just cover my ears?
What does this have to do with anxiety?
Well, in your cerebral cortex there are these things called frontal lobes. That’s where the executive function of your brain processing occurs.
Kind of like an executive of a company that decides what to do with all of the information the company takes in, the frontal lobes help us to anticipate results, plan actions, initiate responses and use feedback to stop or change our behaviors. It’s often a source of anxiety because it’s really good at its job of anticipating and interpreting. Sometimes it just does it way that produces anxiety: worry.
We humans are an imaginative bunch. Not only do we have the ability to predict future events, but we can also imagine in vivid pictures their consequences. Because of this we can worry.
Some people are masterful at worrying, taking any situation and imagining dozens of negative outcomes. (That’s one of the reasons so many creative people often struggle with anxiety – they have really great imaginations.) The more negative outcomes you imagine, the more worry. The more worry, the more anxiety.
The cerebral pathway explains the thoughts and perceptions part of anxiety, but what about all of those FEELINGS? Well, there’s another part of the brain that is also highly efficient and even FASTER than the cerebral cortex.
The Amygdala
The amygdala (which is actually two amygdalas, one for each brain hemisphere, but everyone calls it THE amygdala so we will too) is what is responsible for the physical reactions that occur in response to certain stimuli. It’s the source of many of our emotional reactions (positive and negative).
It forms AND recalls emotional memories (which is important to remember). It triggers hormones to be released whose symptoms we feel like heart beating faster, increased breathing, shaking, etc. Why does it do this? Because its job is to help us survive. And its REALLY good at doing its job.
To better understand, let’s take a look at two parts of the amygdala in particular.
The Lateral Nucleus
Part of the amygdala acts as a built-in alarm system. It’s job is to identify any threat you see, hear, smell, taste, or feel and alert you to danger. Red alert! Red alert! Danger Will Robinson.
The amygdala with its lateral nucleus has a more direct route to our senses, so it receives their information even before the cortex (which is also important to keep in mind). In other words, it can receive and respond before the cortex can even process what the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks is going on.
Have you ever been to a haunted house or other attraction created simply to scare you? Here in Southern California there is an amusement park that shuts down as evening approaches of each of its horror nights to transform from a playground of wonder for children and families to a den of nightmares which is SO fun, but I digress. Anyway, the job of the workers is to come out of nowhere and scare you, right? Well, last year I was standing in line with my husband, patiently waiting to enter the little theater to see a magician perform. Suddenly, out of the corner of my left eye I saw a scary creature lunging toward me. I screamed and jumped back. My reaction set off a train reaction in several others near us who did the same.
People were looking around trying to determine the source of the danger and boy did I feel silly. When I saw the source, I burst out laughing. A woman had a stuffed character on her hip that she’d won at the carnival games. When the line started moving and she shifted the harmless toy to her other hip which was closer to me, it moved. Though it was a dastardly shade of blue with spikes on its head meant to be hair, it was just an animated character stuffed with fluff.
Why did I scream and jump? Because my amydala did its job as an evolution-based safety measure, wired to react before the detail-oriented cerebral cortex even can. Unlike the amygdala, the cortex which sits at the front of the head, takes the time to receive and process the visuals relayed from the occipital lobe at the back of the head. The amygdala doesn’t process. It just reacts.
The Central Nucleus
Because of its strategic location in the central area of the brain, the amygdala has immediate access to information from the senses. That information doesn’t have to travel to other parts of the brain for it to act. It can influence and change bodily functions in a split-second by the central nucleus part of the amygdala which triggers hormones to increase respiration, activate muscles, etc. all in a fraction of a second. Here. Count one-one thousand. Well, that was too long.
Ever heard of adrenaline which gives you that energized feeling which makes your spidey-sense tingle, increases your heart rate and breathing and can even dampen your pain signals? Or cortisol which increases blood sugar levels to give you the energy to use your muscles? Well, they get triggered by the central nucleus in the amygdala pathway.
The amygdala is WAY faster than the cerebral cortex which can be why you feel panic even when it doesn’t make logical sense to.
When you’re experiencing fight, flight or freeze, the amygdala is in the driver’s seat and you’re just a passenger. We don’t feel in control in these moments or in control of our anxiety because the amygdala isn’t just faster, it can actually override other brain processes. It’s literally true that you can’t think when your amygdala takes over, but that can be a good thing.
Imagine crossing the road and a car flying towards you out of nowhere. You dive for the sidewalk and make it just in time. Would it have been better to wait for your cerebral cortex to analyze the type of car or the look on the driver’s face before you dove for safety? Clearly the amygdala’s superfast reaction time can literally save your life.
Before you go running around shouting from the rooftops: “I’m made this way so I don’t have a choice” though, please know that you’d only be partly right. Remember that although your brain is made this way, your brain is also made so that you can have a choice. Choose wisely Daniel-son.
Two parts = Two Strategies
Thoughts and perceptions based in the cerebral cortex can be a source of anxiety as we allow our imaginations to run away with worrisome or negative thoughts. Our amygdalas then think we’re in danger and react accordingly.
Physical emotions based in the amygdala can also be a source of anxiety when we feel things produced by our amygdala working, which triggers us to label what those must mean using our cerebral cortex and our imagination gets activated and goes into hyper-drive.
Just because the amygdala is faster, has the ability to take over and the brain is hard-wired to allow the amygdala to sit in the driver’s seat rather than let reason-based thought processes from the cerebral cortex influence our behavior doesn’t mean there isn’t anything you can do.
What this does mean, is that just trying to reason your anxiety away isn’t going to be always possible. While treatments and strategies such as those found in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (which I highly recommend for those suffering with anxiety) can be tremendously helpful, learning to cope with just our thoughts and perceptions simply isn’t enough. Anxiety is produced in both the cortex and amygdala pathways, so both need to be addressed.
Knowledge is power. Understanding where some of your symptoms like pounding heart, stomach in distress, trembling and hyperventilation might be coming from will hopefully help you feel better. It’s your brain’s attempt to help prepare your body to respond to what it perceives as danger. You aren’t crazy. You’re not. Your reactions make sense. It’s your body doing its job really, really well.
*PLEASE NOTE: It’s a normal part of life to experience occasional anxiety. But if you experience an excessive, irrational dread of everyday situations or anxiety that is persistent, seemingly uncontrollable, and overwhelming that interferes with daily activities, you may have an anxiety disorder. Please contact someone to get the help you may need. For more information you can go here: https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety-doctors
