Understanding Anxiety: What Your Brain Is Really Telling You

You know that tight feeling you get when you're about to speak in public or confront someone you’ve been avoiding? That’s your brain responding to what it sees as a threat. But here's the thing; fear and anxiety aren’t just single reactions from a single place. They're a whole-brain response.

To understand what’s going on when you feel anxiety or fear, think about how your brain is wired. The brain has two hemispheres: the left hemisphere, which handles logic and rationality, and the right hemisphere, which deals with emotions and creativity. Whenever something alarming happens; whether it’s your boss suddenly calling for an urgent meeting or you spotting a weird shadow while walking down a dark alley; both sides of your brain are instantly processing that input.

Your senses sight, sound, smell, touch, taste are all simultaneously feeding data to both hemispheres. The left brain is trying to analyze the situation rationally: “Okay, it's just a shadow. Probably just a trash bin.” Meanwhile, your right brain is reacting emotionally and much faster: “Shadow! Could be a mugger! Danger!” This interplay between the two sides can explain a lot about how fear and anxiety take hold.

The Brain's Speed of Response: Why Emotions Come First

One important thing to know is that the right, emotional hemisphere processes information faster than the logical left hemisphere. Why? Because it uses cognitive shortcuts biases, assumptions, past experiences. It’s like a high-speed internet connection compared to a slower, more deliberate dial-up connection on the left side. This speed gives the right brain an advantage when it comes to processing emotionally charged information.

For instance, imagine you hear a loud bang while sitting at home. The right brain might immediately jump to, “That’s a gunshot!” or “Something’s wrong!” Meanwhile, your left brain might still be back there, saying, “Could be fireworks, maybe the neighbor’s car backfiring.” By the time your logical brain has formed a response, your right brain has already flooded your body with stress hormones, causing your heart to race and your palms to sweat.

This is why, when we feel anxious or afraid, we often find ourselves reacting before we even know why we’re reacting. It’s the right brain’s way of ensuring we respond to potential danger as quickly as possible.

How to Manage Fear and Anxiety: Let the Brain Catch Up

So, if your emotional brain is always first to cross the finish line in this race, how can you manage it? It’s about giving your logical brain time to catch up. This means delaying your response just by a few seconds. The next time you feel a surge of anxiety say you’re worried you’ll get reprimanded at work try to pause for a moment before you jump to conclusions. Let your rational brain have a say.

One trick is to use deep breathing. It sounds cliché, but the reason it works is that it forces your brain to focus on something other than the anxiety trigger, giving your logical side a chance to process the information. It’s like being a traffic cop; you're slowing down the emotional traffic to let the logical cars through.

Exposure Therapy and Building Risk Tolerance

There’s a lot of talk about exposure therapy and stress inoculation; both of which are essentially ways of training your brain to handle anxiety-inducing situations better. If you have a fear of public speaking, for example, start by speaking in front of one or two people, then gradually increase the audience size. By doing this, you’re teaching your brain that these situations aren’t as threatening as it initially perceives.

This incremental exposure works because your logical brain eventually catches up and overrides the emotional brain’s default response. It’s like giving your left brain more opportunities to say, “Hey, we’ve been here before. We didn’t die last time. We’re okay.”

Avoid Relying on Distractions: The Meditation Trap

Now, there’s a lot of emphasis these days on meditation and mindfulness. While these practices can definitely help you feel better in the moment, they don’t necessarily help you get better at handling anxiety. Meditation often works by distracting your mind by focusing on your breath or a peaceful scene, your brain is taken away from what’s bothering you. It’s like using a crutch to alleviate pain rather than treating the root cause.

So, while meditation might lower your immediate stress levels, it won’t teach you how to deal with anxiety in the long run. Instead, try journaling. Write down your fears, and then counter those fears with logical, rational thoughts. This way, you’re engaging both your emotional and logical brains, training them to work together rather than one overpowering the other.

Building Your Personal Anti-Anxiety Plan

Start small. If you get anxious about social situations, set a goal to initiate one conversation with a stranger a day. If you’re afraid of failure at work, try taking on a small project outside your comfort zone. Then, write down what happened. Did you survive it? What was your emotional reaction versus the reality?

You’ll quickly see that most of the things you fear are not as catastrophic as your emotional brain makes them out to be. The more you expose yourself to these situations, the more you build your tolerance and the stronger your logical brain becomes.

A New Approach to Handling High-Stress Moments

In high-stress moments; like when your boss asks to see you out of nowhere don’t feel compelled to react immediately. Remind yourself that most decisions don’t need to be made in seconds. Breathe. Give yourself a few minutes. Let the logical brain catch up.

Remember, the brain isn’t perfect. It’s like an old computer; it’ll always prioritize what’s emotional and urgent first. But with practice, you can learn to give the logical side more room to speak, reducing your overall anxiety and making you better equipped to face life’s unexpected challenges.

So, the next time fear and anxiety knock on your door, take a breath. Let your logical brain join the conversation. It has a lot more to say than you might think.