The Easy Way to Handle Anxiety, Johnny Montoya [the chimp paradox TXT] 📗

like a silent, emotional explosion inside you and I know how horrible it is. This is a panic attack.

 

Your fight or flight sequence is working perfectly. The problem is that your amygdala is oversensitive, overzealous, and its judgment is way off. It's trying to help you but it's out of touch with reality. Worse still, it thinks it's doing the right thing. Or it would, if it could think.

Anxiety

When all this nonsense happens repeatedly, or if it happens once in a big way, understandably you become paranoid. You start to wonder, “If this can happen now, it can happen again at any time and I have no way of knowing. Who knows what will set it off next time?”

 

So you start to avoid actions, places, people, situations, anything that you believe might set it off. You might even try to avoid certain emotions in case they trigger it. You may even end up doing things in such a way as to avoid the risk, which can lead to obsessive compulsive behaviour. You can also become oversensitive to and threatened by the silliest of little things. In effect, you train your amygdala to see innocuous things as dangerous, in a desperate but misguided attempt to stay safe. This is anxiety. It totally makes sense in its own way, so don't feel too bad about it.

So where does your amygdala get the idea that something is dangerous?

You!

 

Whether or not you know it or mean to, it's your own behaviour that's indirectly causing the problem. When a thermostat thinks it's too cold, it raises the temperature. When it thinks it's too hot, it lowers it. But if you fill the room with ice or build a fire, it's going to respond accordingly, regardless of reality (aka the weather).

 

When you allow yourself to react to something with worry or fear, your amygdala takes that as a sign that the thing you're reacting to should trigger the fight or flight sequence next time. And so it does. Wouldn't you do the same if you were someone's amygdala?

 

If you deliberately jumped every time the phone rang, and you did it enough times, eventually your amygdala would take your reaction as proof that ringing phones are things to fight or run from. Try it over the next few days. No don't do it, I'm just kidding.

 

So it's up to you to give it the correct information, and you do that by paying attention to how you react to things, and making sure you react appropriately.

 

If you keep experiencing anxiety repeatedly (regardless of why, or whether or not there's a real threat), the panic "routine" becomes stronger. You reinforce the perceived need for the fight or flight response. Your amygdala thinks that you're plagued by threats, and so it keeps you on high alert. Not good.

Is anxiety itself dangerous?

Well, put it this way. Why would your system even have a panic "procedure" (fight or flight) built into it? It's there to protect you, not kill you. Its very existence is to ensure your survival.

 

Obviously, having an anxiety issue makes you prone to inordinate amounts of stress at times, but you were built to handle it. Just put any thoughts that you're in physical danger out of your mind. The worst that can happen is fear and confusion, and maybe some related physical responses like sweating or whatever.

 

Short answer: No, not really.

You can retrain your amygdala

Getting into the habit of worrying about a situation that you know very well presents no danger, is a bad move. It just gives your amygdala more reasons to take your worrying seriously, more reasons to say “See? Told you this was dangerous!” and then trigger fight or flight, which makes you worry even more.

 

It's a vicious cycle and you have to stop it. Quit going through the motions of acting like you're scared whenever some little thing happens, just because you're told to fight or run. Like I said earlier, your amygdala doesn't think like you do. It takes what it sees and what you tell it, and it reacts. The responsibility of fixing your habitual anxiety is yours.

 

Your amygdala learns from experience. With repetition you can update the old information that you've been feeding it, until it learns from your new behaviour and attitude that there's no threat. It takes a while to sink in, and there will be some resistance, but that's how it is.

 

Without meaning to be insensitive, I don't really care what the cause of your anxiety is, and you shouldn't dwell on it much. I only care about solutions. Life is too short to psychoanalyse yourself to death. You don't need to know every single detail about what caused it. If you can figure it out, that's fine, but if you can't, no worries. What's important is learning to fix it by bringing balance back to an oversensitive amygdala.

 

And don't worry, you won't lose the ability to detect real danger. Your amygdala will return to normal and it will be business as usual. Just like the good old days. But it's you that has to lead the way.

 

In this book I'm not going to focus on symptoms. You know what yours are, you don't need me to go on about them. We're only going to focus on solutions.

 

So let's get on with it.

Summary

* Your amygdala lies dormant in the background, waiting for signs of danger based on your surroundings, thoughts and emotions.

 

* It reacts very quickly to perceived threats (real, imagined or unspecified), and quickly puts you in fight or flight mode.

 

* It doesn't tell you how to respond, but it wants you to fight or run, even if there's no threat.

 

* If you do nothing (because you see no threat), it increases your fear and adrenaline to get you to act, causing undue anxiety or a panic attack.

 

* Anxiety and panic are unpleasant, but not dangerous.

 

* Your fight or flight sequence is working perfectly. The problem is that your amygdala is oversensitive.

 

* When you worry, your amygdala takes that as a sign of danger.

 

* Habitual anxiety is when you worry about setting off panic, so you avoid actions, places, people and situations.

 

* When you have clarity about the cause of anxiety, you can deal with it.

 

* There's no need to dwell on the specific root of your anxiety issue.

 

* You need to learn to react to things appropriately.

 

* Over time, you can teach your amygdala to be more moderate, and less highly strung and excitable.

 

* You won't lose the ability to detect real danger. Your amygdala will return to normal and it do its job properly.

Chapter 3: Home Alone

Now that we understand what's actually going on whenever anxiety happens, let's look at the most common situation that you'll find yourself in, which is, of course, being at home.

 

Having a panic attack when you're out and about can leave you wishing you could snap your fingers and be in a safe, familiar environment where you're in control. But despite your home being the one place where you should always feel safest, occasionally you might feel a bit weird even there.

 

So let's deal with that first. Let me show you some really easy things that you can start doing right now to reduce the likelihood of feeling anxious at home. If you do them, you'll turn your home into a place of calm and confidence.