Can you think your way out of overthinking?

Let's start with some context, conservative estimates report emotions have been hardwired into the DNA of our hominid ancestors for millions of years (some say as little as 5 million and some report the origin of emotions goes back closer to 10 million years). Whereas it's estimated we have had something resembling the 'cognitive' function we have today for approximately 200,000 years.

This raises our first question - can a newer, more recently developed, cognitive system effectively control our more primitive 'approach-avoid' emotional system?

Rinn (1984) and more recently LeDoux (1998) were some of the leaders in the explosion of brain research and cognitive understanding in the latter half of the 20th Century. Their research points to the idea of multiple, parallel, structurally related mechanisms with different functions. For example, the pyramidal and extrapyramidal tracts. One is responsible for voluntary, intentional emotional responses, enabling us to 'manage' our displays of emotions. The second is a faster, automatic, unconscious type of processing that initiates emotional expression *before* awareness takes place. As a result even when we try to consciously manage our emotions, there will be some 'emotional leakage' (Ekman 1992) because of the time delay between the two systems.

This raises our second question - when our emotional system rings the alarm bells through feelings of fear, is our cognitive function the most effective and efficient means of bringing us back to balance?

An important element to consider here is the concept of auto-appraisers (Ekman 2003). This is the unconscious emotional processing that takes place prior to our conscious awareness that is continually scanning our environment for any type of threat or danger. Steven Porges, the pioneer of Polyvagal Theory (2011) shares the concept of neuroception, the neural circuits that allow our bodies to register whether an environment is safe or dangerous. Unlike perception, which delivers cognitive insights in the form of thoughts and sensory data, neuroception occurs outside of conscious thought.

Both of these processes indicate a safety-scanning process that occurs outside of conscious awareness. In which threats to survival are monitored. When a threat to survival is identified, an involuntary emotional response is triggered to help cope with the threat.

It is likely that all human beings have some innate threats 'stored' within our brains. For example, research shows humans 'learn' to fear snakes faster than other items - even things such as guns. It doesn't mean everyone is scared of snakes, just that we learn the fear much faster - the result of thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation and survival.

The majority of 'threats' we experience in the 21st Century are learned. Mostly through childhood, but as our nervous system is continually open for learning, any significant event has the potential to add further threats to our 'danger database'.

When these threats are learned through experience, they get added to the database with all the other threats to life, things like falling from great heights or loud noises. As such, they become triggered in the same way...

When our unconscious auto-appraisers or neuroception take place, if a learned threat is registered, the involuntary emotional response is triggered.

This raises our third question - what type of experience would constitute an event that would be added to the 'threat database'?

Armed with our three key questions, we can now look to put the building blocks for our answer in place. We will answer them in reverse order.

3. What type of experience would constitute an event that would be added to the 'threat database'?

The key characteristic of an emotional event that would be added to the threat database is that it is a moment of emotional overwhelm. This is of course very subjective, as what is overwhelming for a 4-year old will be very different to what is overwhelming for a 40-year old. But regardless of age, the moment of overwhelm will be added to the threat database. This explains why those formative years are so important, because if a first time experience is overwhelming, then subsequent experiences in that same context will trigger and retrigger the threat response.

Imagine, for example, if an early experience related to learning (education) became overwhelming. You were asked to stand up and read something in front of the class, you mixed your words up, the children laughed and the teacher ridiculed you. As a 7-year old, it's too much to deal with and you immediately feel overwhelmed. Going forward, the context of 'learning', as well as sub-context of public speaking are now added to the danger database. Learning is threatening.

This subjective experience of overwhelm is added and stored to the database where your mind will diligently ring the alarm bells any time similar circumstances present themselves.

2. When our emotional system rings the alarm bells through feelings of fear, is our cognitive function the most effective and efficient means of bringing us back to balance?

The executive centre in the prefrontal cortex is one of the most important brain regions for complex decision making, strategic planning, inspired visions and emotional regulation.

Brain research shows us that there are connections between the executive centre and the amygdala - the primary brain region involved in the perception of threat. When blood, glucose and oxygen is directed toward the executive centre through high-level cognition, the executive centre is able to dampen or inhibit activity in the amygdala and assist with emotional regulation. In this sense, cognitive function can be applied very successfully to our emotional systems and aid effective regulation.

The challenge, is that the executive centre and accompanying emotional regulation only functions this effectively when you are acting, behaving and doing things in alignment with your highest values and when you're engaged in really meaningful activity. This is why some people can go into their 'work' context and apply rational, strategic thinking, but when it comes to their family life and personal relationships their emotions run wild. The executive centre is no longer running the show.

Even in these cases, if your nervous system perceives a genuine threat to your survival, the blood glucose and oxygen is shunted away from cognitive areas and sent predominantly to the primitive survival centres, rendering cognitive thinking ineffective.

It is highly debatable whether traditional talking therapy methods, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), are sufficient to maintain executive function and mitigate emotional responses from the amygdala. From my experience with clients across the years, cognitive approaches like CBT provide great help in gaining a deeper understanding of the self through discovering the interrelationships between thoughts, feelings, sensations and behaviour. But focus on providing coping strategies more than resolving the root cause of the issue. Particularly if that issue had its origins in childhood.

1. Can a newer, more recently developed, cognitive system effectively control our more primitive 'approach-avoid' emotional system?

The cognitive system can help reduce, lessen and mitigate the effects of emotional challenges. It can help us understand and reflect on issues, learn from them and apply this awareness in future scenarios. All this leads to the conclusion that cognitive approaches can be a key component of emotional wellbeing and regulation. But a purely cognitive approach, particularly relating to CBT and more traditional talking therapy, is highly unlikely to produce a resolution of symptoms for many.

Why is this? Because mother-nature has placed a faster, nonconscious, automatic and involuntary system within us that has be honed through hundreds of thousands of years of adaptive evolution that will continue to derail our cognitive system in the presence of perceived danger.

But there is one potential solution...

What if we could work on the database itself?

What if we could 'clear' the learned danger triggers so they are seen for what they are (verbal criticism for example) rather than a threat to life?

Once we work on the database, we remove the threat to survival which paves the way for our executive and cognitive function to steer us toward the fulfilment of our goals.

Coming full circle and back to the main reason you started this journey, can you think your way out of overthinking?

Yes. Yes you can.

But you'll have to keep doing it time and time again, battling the same spiralling thought loops and trying to rationalise those irrational thoughts - expending huge amounts of energy just to return to a more balanced, calm state of being.

On the other hand, however, when you clear the database of the original threat, only then will you find overthinking to be something of the past.