Can you blame depression and anxiety on your amygdala? Mostly. The common trait depression and anxiety sufferers share is an overactive—hot—amygdala. It no longer calms down after an emotionally stressful event or series of events. Even low-grade, chronic stress will keep your amygdala in distress. It doesn’t want to let go of anything that has ever registered an emotional response. It doesn’t matter if it happened 20 years or five minutes ago. If it senses you are about to enter the same type of situation again, it can take over your brain before you realize it. There’s a name for this. It’s called an amygdala “hijack.” i It works like this... You respond emotionally to anything your amygdala perceives as fear. It then throws your I.Q. and rational brain (prefrontal cortex) right out the window. When you’re upset and you “can’t think straight,” it’s because you actually can’t think at that moment. Your amygdala is using the blood supply in your brain and it’s not letting your cortex get much. ii Making matters worse...you get a massive rush of adrenaline and cortisol during a disturbing event. The chemicals burn the emotional memory into your brain. Your brain then forms neuron pathways—grooves—so you’ll always remember the event. There’s the problem. If anything even slightly reminds your amygdala of that event, it lights up. It’s just trying to protect you. But each time it lights up, that negative neuron groove deepens. Even worse, you don’t always know when this is happening. The good news is that it’s possible to cool down your amygdala and control your stress response. The techniques we give you in our “Brain Boot Camp” protocol help you interrupt the amygdala signals before it can hijack your rational brain. Researcher and therapist Ashok Gupta of London’s Harley Stress Clinic told NHD that the “amygdala is like an angry child. You can’t shout at it, can’t tell it to stop what it’s doing. You have to soothe it. You have to calm it down. Much like a mother does to a child.” Gupta explained to us that depression is the “sum of anxieties.” The brain deals with prolonged anxiety by shutting down after a while. That’s why you often see the two conditions together. And that’s why this strategy helps both at the same time.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 11:31:48 +0000
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