How to manage Anxiety/Stress like a Neuroscientist?

Human evolution has progressed rapidly over the past few centuries. Just a few thousand years ago, we were grappling with basic needs like food and shelter, crafting tools from rocks, and wearing animal skins. The human population was in the millions. Fast forward to today, and there are 8 billion of us across the globe, capable of complex thoughts and communication.

Despite societal advancements, biological evolution hasn’t kept pace. Mentally, we remain wired like foragers, constantly on the lookout for threats and learning to survive. Now, our concerns have shifted from securing the next meal to meeting project deadlines and job security.

Even as we inhabit bustling cities, our psychological makeup is still rooted in a survival mindset. The shift from small, face-to-face communities to vast urban landscapes and digital interactions has significant implications for our mental well-being. The blog delves into the impact of this evolution on anxiety management, highlighting that blaming societal or personal factors is misguided; the root lies in our biology and evolutionary history. While we may not be naturally equipped for the modern world’s challenges, the blog explores strategies to navigate and alleviate anxiety in this new landscape.

This blog is not intended for those seeking medical help. It’s designed for individuals looking to gain insights into stress, anxiety, and potential solutions. If you are grappling with mental strain, it’s imperative to consult with a professional for personalized assistance. I’m not an expert, and the information presented here stems from my personal research and curiosity. For comprehensive support, please reach out to qualified professionals who can provide the tailored guidance you may need.

Why do we feel Stress?

In simple terms, it’s the reaction to a presumed threat—the fear of the unknown. Consider a scenario where a mad dog is chasing you on the street. What would be your immediate response? To run! Your mind would react automatically. Your heart rate would increase, muscles would tense, breathing rate would rise, and somehow you’d start processing everything at lightning speed. This is fear—the fear of the known. Your body does all this to escape from the threat, to run away from anything that could potentially harm you.

Now, imagine another scenario. You’re at your desk in the office, almost at the end of the day, and your boss assigns you a task that needs completion before the day ends. It’s complex, and the stakes are high. Many stakeholders are going to scrutinize it in a meeting in the next few minutes. Your mind switches into survival mode. If you succeed, you’ll gain your boss’s respect and a good bonus. If you mess it up, you’ll lose that bonus. The bonus is crucial because it’s how you plan to buy that new car or mobile. You need to secure this job to pay your EMIs.

Your brain freezes, heart rate rises, breathing rate increases, you feel fear, and you start to harbor resentment towards your boss. Do you want to smash that laptop and quit the job? No, you can’t. All of this gets triggered automatically. This is anxiety or stress, akin to fear, but here there’s no physical threat. Your boss won’t kill you if you fail the task, and you won’t die just because you can’t afford the EMI. But the significance remains—you stand to lose something! Anxiety is our response to an unknown threat, one that is perceived but not direct.

Anxiety is not just fear

Fear is ingrained in our brain for survival, present in every animal on the planet, compelling them to run from threats. Without fear, survival would be unlikely. Anxiety is another manifestation of fear, a bit more complex and predominantly found in humans. All of us experience anxiety in one way or another. However, it’s up to us to manage it. A little anxiety is beneficial for our health, but an excess of it can potentially take a toll on our lives. Understanding anxiety can immensely aid in managing it effectively.

Where does the anxiety/stress come from?

It is important to ask, where does this anxiety come from? Well, as we discussed, there’s evolution to blame. Understanding anxiety may help us respond to it in a better way.

This may feel like delving into the weeds of neuroscience and becoming too technical, but it is both fun and immensely helpful for us to comprehend anxiety. So, bear with me.

Neuroscience of Stress/anxiety

Neuroscientists have been attempting to pinpoint the exact reason and mechanism behind anxiety from the beginning. For a long time, it was considered (and still is, to a large extent) that anxiety and fear originate from the same source.

The amygdala, a part of our brain referred to as the ‘fear center,’ reacts to fear and the threats we’ve been discussing. Think of it as a hub that receives information from all sensory organs and some parts of our memory (which signals whether the sensory data indicates a threat or not). It then triggers other organs so that we can mitigate the threat. Spot a potentially aggressive-looking dog? Can you outrun it? Increase the heart rate, tighten your muscles, and run like there’s no tomorrow!

Fear and Anxiety have common origins (?)

For many researchers, this is also the center of anxiety. Numerous studies have indicated that managing this circuit can effectively control anxiety. This perspective is common among other animals as well. However, this theory is being challenged by another one, suggesting that the amygdala is not the sole reason for managing anxiety. It turns out that people with a defective amygdala can still experience fear and anxiety. Additionally, this theory fails to explain sex differences and reactions to anxiety. Various parameters such as cultural differences, language variations, age, gender, and diet affect responses to anxiety, and these cannot be entirely understood through this theory. Nevertheless, as the ‘fear center’ of our brain, the amygdala contributes significantly to our experience of anxiety.

BNST: the center of Anxiety

Delving even deeper into the realm of neuroscience, we can explore another part of our brain—the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis (BNST). Despite its intimidating name, it has a relatively simple functionality. It receives input from the amygdala, as expected, but also from the prefrontal cortex (PFC), responsible for decision-making, attention, problem-solving, and social and emotional regulation. Additionally, it takes input from the hippocampus, a part of the brain responsible for memory, including spatial memory that helps us determine in which direction to run when the dog is chasing us.

The BNST is considered the primary center for anxiety and stress-related activities. Connected with other parts like memory and the prefrontal cortex (PFC). It takes our entire ‘personality’ into consideration when we’re dealing with anxiety. Factors such as where we grew up, the kind of friends and family we’ve had, the emotions we’ve experienced, childhood memories, phobias, social culture, and emotional maturity—all stored and processed in various parts of the brain—come together to react to perceived threats. Hence, each of us react differently to the same threat. Most people are adept at reacting effectively, while others who are chronically anxious may need to learn how to respond effectively. Read the scientific explanation here.

Experiencing Anxiety is normal

What I want to convey is that when we feel anxious, we shouldn’t entirely blame ourselves. Scientifically, it’s evident that our reaction to threats depends a lot on our circumstances and experiences. Even though evolution hasn’t given us a perfect coping mechanism for anxiety, we can still train our brains to manage it effectively. Anxiety is manageable, and we can train our brains to behave in a certain way when we perceive a threat. This neuroscience class concludes here.

How to deal with anxiety/stress?

Now that we’ve explored what anxiety does in our brain, let’s delve into solutions to address it.

Firstly, it’s crucial to recognize that a certain level of fear or anxiety is necessary for our survival. As seen in the dog-chasing example, it’s important for us to run and keep ourselves safe. Similarly, keeping our brain alert when stakes are high, regardless of what our boss is saying, ensures our job security and good mental health later in life. So, while not everything, some level of fear is important. The key is to control it.

When we’re anxious, the BNST kicks in, entering survival mode and increasing our heart rate, breathing rate, and diverting attention from the prefrontal cortex (PFC). This domino effect impairs our cognitive abilities—making it difficult to make proper decisions, causing our motor neurons to panic, and leading to trembling and agitation.

How do breathing exercises help alleviate stress?

To alleviate this stress, one can employ Pranayama or any breathing exercise. Essentially, to decrease our heart rate, we need to exhale for a longer time than we inhale. Andrew Huberman explains this in his podcast, referring to it as the “Physiological Sigh.” It involves taking two short inhales and one long exhale. This helps lower the heart rate and redirects attention to the PFC, allowing for better decision-making and clearer thinking.

Handling stress which lasts for days

When we’re a bit more anxious, lasting for a few days or weeks—like when someone we care about is in the hospital or we’re dealing with a tight project deadline—it’s a medium level of anxiety. Dealing with this requires us to consciously think about the situation. To handle it, there are a few things to do. First, understand where the anxiety is coming from and admit it.

Taking care of our physical health is crucial; staying active keeps our brain busy, making it more resilient to anxiety. Watch what you eat, especially things affecting sleep and thinking, like coffee, alcohol, and drugs—they can impact anxiety a lot. Having a healthy diet and focusing on good sleep are proven to help, supported by both psychology and neuroscience.

Train your brain to handle Stress

As we explored in our neuroscientific explanation, most anxiety is closely linked to our cognitive abilities. Our heart rate, breathing, thinking, problem-solving, vision, and listening skills—all fall under the umbrella of cognition. The key here is to ensure that anxiety doesn’t overpower our cognition; instead, we want to set our cognitive abilities free from its grip. Achieving this involves gaining control over those organs that we can influence, enhancing our focus and attention. This is precisely where breathing exercises come into play—they help us achieve just that! By practicing controlled breathing, we empower ourselves to manage the impact of anxiety on our cognitive functions.

Chronic Anxiety/Stress

For those grappling with chronic anxiety, which may persist for months to years, this blog is not the most suitable resource. It’s advisable to seek expert advice. Nevertheless, based on my research, effectively managing chronic anxiety often involves addressing your surroundings. Social interactions, including romantic relationships, family ties, and connections with friends and colleagues, significantly influence our mental well-being. You can find more about clinical treatments for anxiety here.

Individuals experiencing persistent worry may find Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) beneficial. Long-term anxiety can have various causes, and researchers are continually working to enhance our understanding of it. Certain medications have been developed to calm specific parts of the brain that might otherwise keep us in a perpetual state of alertness. It’s crucial to take these medications only after consulting with experts, and I want to avoid providing any inaccurate information on this matter. So I will skip it.

One in eight has mental strain.

It never ceases to amaze me when confronted with the statistics – a staggering 1 in 8 individuals grapple with some form of mental strain, and anxiety emerges as the prevailing mental disorder among humans. I have written extensively on mental health in my “Self blame: How to Always See The Glass Half Full?” and “Your Laziness has its reason and you can fix it” blogs.

The ubiquity of anxiety is a shared reality; as I pen down these words, I, too, grapple with the common apprehensions—fear of being wrong, anxiety about potential negative reviews for this blog. This universality underscores the profound intricacies of the human mind.

It is possible to reduce stress

What captivates me the most about our brains is their remarkable plasticity—we have the inherent capacity to teach and rewire them. It’s ingrained in our very nature. Thus, if you find yourself entangled in the web of mental strain, it’s important to remember that you possess the ability to instruct and guide your mind on how to navigate through it. Embracing this empowering perspective is the first step toward not just coping with, but actively mastering the nuances of mental well-being.