How to Lose ANXIETY
The Default System is Larger in Women
Growing up my mother suffered severely from Migraines.
Being the one taking care of her I know where in her brain it hurt. When I was writing about the biological differences in men and women in the brain I finally got my Aha moment in life! My mother had pain above her eyes so I had to massage her brain through the eye cavity.
Now I will explain why this is an important discovery.
Lesson 1: Female Personality
Girls going through puberty will get an increase in anxiety that seems to come out of nowhere.
If you are a mother or father of a girl you know this. But girls also become more agreeable during puberty. It is a biological thing that shapes a young woman into becoming a great mother.
A mother needs to make sure her children survive and in that function, she cannot disagree with a crying child and she needs to be alert to hidden dangers so that her children survive.
Being high in Agreeableness and Anxiety facilitates the survival of her children and other children by taking care of them without complaining and worrying about them.
Lesson 2: Anxiety
There is also evidence in the human brain that supports women having more anxiety than men.
The reason is that the brain area where you find anxiety has more brain cells or neurons than men have. The research from women’s brain scans show heightened ability that deals with:
- Direction of gaze
- Facial expressions,
- Body language
- Location of sound such as utterance
As well as having heightened ability of:
- Agency
- Self-awareness
- Personal memories
- Thinking about the world in self-referential ways
- Theory of mind like mentally and emotionally putting oneself in another’s shoes
Women’s brains are different from men for good reason.
Lesson 3: The Sense Journey in Your Brain
You have different senses such as:
- Sight
- Hearing
- Taste
- Smell
- Touch
All these senses send information through your nervous system up your spine to the Hippocampus. From there the signal goes to the orbital frontal cortex further into the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC) and then to both the Thalamus and Amygdala. The Thalamus regulates and motivates you to do things like:
- Eat
- Defecate
- Have a cold shower if to hot
- Put more clothes on if you are cold
- Go and have sex if you are horny (Values your Insula will stop most people)
- Drink when thirsty
The Amygdala is part of regulating Fight or Flight.
More precisely the receptors are found in the VentroMedial Hypothalamus and it is Estrogen receptors and not Testosterone that triggers physical aggression in humans. Flight or avoidance is the default emotion and is located just next to both aggression and the feeling of freeze where the body freezes in place.
So you can see the journey the signals go from your spine up under your head and then forward to just above your eyes and then back again to the bottom of your head where the spine comes up.
Why is this important to know?
Lesson 4: Anxiety in The Brain
Well, it turns out as I mentioned in my previous article about Sex Differences in the Brain and Mind of Humans that women have more brain cells, neurons, in the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex (VMPC) which is situated just above your eyes. That is also the location of ANXIETY.
The VMPC is part of the human default system which also turns off when you do things. If you get up and:
- Do dishes
- Clean the apartment or house
- Fold clothes
- Go for a walk
- clean the car
- Wash the car
- Pay the bills
The activity in the VMPC is gone.
Why is this important information?
Because by doing physical things you easily get rid of anxiety.
Lesson 5: Low in Conscientiousness Personalities are Anxious
This suggests being lazy promotes anxiety.
Inactivity, for example laying in bed in the morning or sitting and ruminating and not taking action and doing something will increase your anxiety. Getting up and doing something physical will exterminate your anxiety but in the case of a woman it will also make you sexually aroused.
It should also be stated that psychopaths (ASPD-P) which is a subcategory of Anti Social Personality Disorder (ASPD) are divided into Primary and Secondary Psychopathy. Secondary are often termed as Office Psychopaths and they are high in Aggression and, you guessed it, Anxiety.
There is a good reason why you should take care of your anxiety and take it seriously.
Because it is a great feedback loop to tell you that you need to do something about something to relax and let your brain turn off your worrying.
Why Did My Mother Have Migraines?
My mother worked at the time in a private facility dealing with mentally ill patients with a mentally ill owner.
As well as being altruistic and caring she also had to deal with family life. Her anxiety was through the roof and that turned up as psychosomatic symptoms in the shape of Migraine above her eyes. Telling her this over the phone today in 2024 it became clear to her as well.
But it was all due to her anxiety not dealing with the fact that her work environment was devastating for her and her coworkers.
In the end, her coworker took his own life and my mother lives on.
P.S. (I’m so grateful for your support!)
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