Mental Health
Here’s How to Deal With Anxiety in Difficult Times.
Understand anxiety symptoms and root causes, distinguish anxiety from fear, and take practical measures to cope.
Anxiety on a Global Scale
We notice that the level of anxiety is growing globally due to current situations caused by public health concerns.
As it is on a massive scale, I want to provide a practical framework based on my studies and experience to deal with anxiety in these difficult times.
Anxiety is a natural human condition. We need to accept it.
From a physiological perspective, anxiety is created by the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system in our brain.
The limbic system is the emotional part of the brain. The amygdala, specifically, serves the purpose of survival. You can learn more about the physiological aspect of the amygdala from this link.
As a survival mechanism in human physiology, the amygdala has many functions. The primary purpose of the amygdala is to deal with anxiety and fear.
Fear and anxiety are two different conditions.
We must distinguish between fear and anxiety and understand their underlying biological, psychological, and psychological aspects of them. For example, fear is created for known dangerous situations.
However, anxiety can occur in the absence of real life-threatening conditions when no fear is associated with the conditions. In simple terms, anxiety can occur when there is no danger.
Since we are concerned about no real danger, this phenomenon poses paradoxical implications for human life. It causes us to suffer unnecessarily.
Amygdala is a unique system. We cannot directly and consciously control the amygdala. This fact tremendously impacts our decisions and the outcomes we create in our lives.
We cannot control the amygdala because it is not part of our cognitive system (thinking brain, a.k.a. neocortex).
Amygdala is a survival alert system.
This alert system cannot be directly controlled by our thoughts and intentions because it functions beyond our thinking brain.
However, we can improve our ability to deal with anxiety effectively by understanding the function of the amygdala, its biological mechanism, and the manifesting anxiety symptoms.
There is another factor that we need to consider from the brain functionality perspective. This critical factor constitutes the alerts from the neocortex that can also trigger the amygdala.
This factor can be learned, and practical measures can be applied to reduce anxiety-generating conditions.
The role of the amygdala in creating anxiety
The amygdala observes and senses risky situations and perceptual danger, which may affect our survival adversely.
I am not referring to the real threat here. I am referring to the risky perceptual possibilities.
These perceptual conditions are hard-coded in the anatomy of the amygdala. This point implies that each person’s amygdala code can differ based on their life experiences and environmental factors.
The amygdala is a hard-coded system in our limbic part of the brain with common life threats such as sudden noise, extreme physical conditions, or suffering.
The amygdala has reliable and fast neural connections to our nervous system, endocrine system, and body's vital organs. The amygdala acts much faster than the neocortex does.
We need to understand the functional difference between the amygdala and the neocortex.
The neocortex is a specific part of the cerebral cortex. It is the most recently evolved thinking part of the cortex.
This part of the brain is the main distinguishing factor between humans and animals. For the rest of the article, I use the term “cortex” to abbreviate the term “neocortex”.
We are only able to experience anxiety symptoms after the amygdala is activated for some biological or psychological conditions and other unknown reasons.
The cortex has no clue during the activation period. Biologically and physiologically, our cortex runs much slower than the amygdala. Therefore, we don’t have direct control over the amygdala.
On the other hand, our cortex, which is part of our cerebral (cognitive) system, is within our control. By using the capabilities of the cortex, we think, rationalize, plan, and execute actions.
Ironically, our valuable cortex has no idea about the working mechanism of the amygdala. There is no direct connection between the cortex and the amygdala.
The amygdala overwrites the rules and has no time to wait for the context to come up with some solution. Our thinking brain only knows the amygdala generates alerts when our anxiety symptoms start manifesting.
Therefore it is not always possible to control our anxiety when triggered. Without knowing this biological fact, anxiety can be seen as mysteries.
In reality and in most straightforward terms, anxiety is a feeling generated by the activation of the amygdala alerts.
The good news is that we can tame the overactive amygdala. This is within our control, and there are proven techniques in the industry. This is the premise of this article.
Practical ways to deal with anxiety
In this section, I want to give you a proven approach to taming our amygdala.
A well-known technique to tame the amygdala is gradual exposure to anxiety-creating conditions and situations.
For example, driving in heavy traffic can create anxiety for most of us. In this case, we need to continue driving for at least a short period by being aware of the symptoms.
Being aware of these feelings and using our thinking brain to rationalize the situations can start re-wiring the amygdala.
The repetitive exposure approach can help us continuously rewire the amygdala by creating new neural pathways over some time and result in reducing the over-activation in those conditions and situations.
Even though the cortex (our thinking brain part) cannot stop the amygdala from generating anxiety instantly, the repetitive exposure approach can be a powerful tool to tame the amygdala.
The good news is that amygdala has the capacity to learn and adapt.
How can we benefit the learning capacity of the amygdala by leveraging our thinking brain?
Answering this question is critical to coping with anxiety effectively.
One practical way to use our thinking brain is to observe our anxiety patterns, record them, and address the symptoms with a mindfulness plan.
Why is this procedure important?
The reason is this procedure can help re-wire the amygdala to a preventative anxiety state.
What is so special about the amygdala that we cannot control? There are two facts that we need to understand to answer this question.
The causes of anxiety can be illogical because our amygdala does not operate based on logic. The amygdala works on images, sounds, and biological reactions, which can pose a risk or danger to our survival.
For example, a sudden scary sound or an appearance of a hazardous object out of our conscious awareness can activate the amygdala instantly.
As soon as the amygdala senses a dangerous situation (real or perceived), it releases neurotransmitters and potent hormones to run, fight, or freeze.
These high volumes of hormones caused by the activation of the amygdala in our bloodstream are the root causes of our anxiety.
For example, excessive adrenaline, epinephrine, and cortisol in the bloodstream can be the leading causes of our anxiety. These hormones energize us to be alert and ready to run and fight.
When we are aware of the anxiety-producing hormones increasing in our bloodstream, we can use our thinking brain to take action. This procedure is part of the magical formula to cope with anxiety effectively.
We can leverage our hormones and neurotransmitters to our advantage to reduce anxiety consciously.
What can we do?
One practical solution is exercise. For example, physical exercise can burn excessive adrenaline and provide temporary relief. Therefore, physical activity, especially in aerobic form, can be an effective strategy for coping with anxiety.
Another practical use case is mindfulness to control our muscles. Mindful muscle relaxation, especially with visualization techniques, can help us reduce and balance these hormones and hence can be useful to deal with anxiety.
These two approaches and techniques can help us to move from the fight and flight mode to a stable state. Our bodies are designed for homeostasis, which means stable equilibrium among interdependent components in our biological systems.
The most useful technique, from my experience, is to tame the amygdala by using the capabilities of our thinking brain.
When I learned this technique during my cognitive science studies, I started introducing gradual exposure to anxiety and creating situations.
For example, I used to have a terrifying feeling about heights. Even though I knew it was a safe situation, I was unable to look at the windows from the 95th floor of a building where I used to work.
As I started gradual exposure to anxiety-creating situations with cognitive skills such as mindfulness, positive self-talk, questioning my perceptions, and living in the moment with full attention and focus, helped me to relieve my anxiety to a certain degree.
This pragmatic anxiety coping technique is commonly used by CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) practitioners successfully. Many studies proved that the use of CBT could be as effective as anxiety medications.
In my view, applying CBT can be more important as the techniques can address the root causes (e.g., amygdala activation), whereas medication only can treat the symptoms. When the effect of the medicine goes, the symptoms return. Some CBT experts recommend both approaches based on the conditions.
Conclusions and Takeaways
By taking personal responsibility and using these proven techniques, we can be our own therapists for coping with anxiety to some extent.
I do not undermine anxiety as a mental disease, biological, neurological, and psychological condition. Anxiety is a broad, serious, and complex phenomenon posing many unknowns. Therefore, chronic and overwhelming conditions certainly require assistance from mental health professionals.
However, by knowing the root causes of anxiety and taking personal responsibility to tame our amygdala with physical exercise, mindfulness, CBT, and exposure therapies, we can proactively and preventatively deal with mild day-to-day anxiety, especially in these critical times.
Reducing anxiety can alleviate stress and increase the quality of our lives. With reduced anxiety, we can taste sustainable joy and experience a meaningful life.
In these difficult times, we must be more mindful of anxiety-creating situations such as economic, political, environmental, public health, and many more emerging global threats.
The best measure is to prevent frequent activation of the amygdala and use smart techniques to calm down when it is activated. This awareness can make a noticeable difference for us to enjoy a higher quality of life.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
I enjoy documenting interesting life lessons from people in my professional and social circles to pass along my perspectives and experiences.
I’d like to highlight that anxiety might increase as we get older.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
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