Anxiety Toolbox: The Complete Fear-Free Plan. Gloria Thomas

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       3 The Anatomy of Anxiety

      So where does anxiety come from and why is it so inherent in everyone to varying degrees? It is clear that we all have a biological disposition to feel anxious, nervous or stressed in response to perceived or actual threats. I have already touched on this subject but by examining it in greater detail, this chapter will help you gain a better understanding of why and how you become anxious.

      Your Biology

      The Central Nervous System

      Each of us is a human processing system made up of neural networks that reach every part of our body. These networks are all part of the central nervous system, which consists of the brain and the spinal cord. The brain contains 1,000,000,000,000 individual neurones and can be likened to a computer that controls the workings of the body. The spinal cord, which is made up of nerve tissue and runs from the base of the brain down the spinal column, is like a tunnel running down the backbone. It is not separate from the brain but acts as a highway on which messages travel between the brain and body.

      The Limbic System – Your Emotional Generator

      The fear response originates in the limbic system, which is towards the back of the brain. This centre, amongst other functions, generates basic emotional responses. These responses are unconscious – in other words they operate out of your awareness. The limbic system is the part of the brain that initially decides whether we should be fearful, angry or loving. It passes this information to the frontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that consciously registers emotion and floods it into our consciousness.

      The limbic brain is responsible for the feeling of fear and out of fear comes anxiety. Other primary emotions are love, anger and disgust, sadness, joy, shame, grief and surprise. These emotions are, at their most basic, survival mechanisms that have evolved to help us to run from danger, stand and fight, or move towards more pleasurable states. Although there are a number of primary emotional states, a number of others has developed – for example, frustration, resentment, excitement and so on.

      Our emotional states can change from moment to moment depending on what we are thinking at the time. This means we are constantly creating some kind of emotion, whether it is a negative or a positive one. Emotions just seem to happen and it appears impossible to stop them or catch them in the act. Try to control them at a conscious level and you are likely to find it difficult. Emotions are powerful things and at times your emotions can override reason.

      The limbic system is made up of a number of structures that work in conjunction to make sense of, and respond to, the incoming information from the world around you: the thalamus organizes the data and information that comes in from the senses; the amygdala, brain’s main alarm system, signals and generates emotion; the hippocampus is responsible for storing your memories; the neo cortex is the conscious, thinking part of the mind, whose job it is to make sense of information; and the hypothalamus is the master gland that regulates and controls involuntary functions.

      Your Sensory Receiver

      Your thalamus is primarily responsible for receiving sensory information and then relaying it to other areas of the limbic system. At any one moment we are bombarded with vast amounts of information. We filter that information through deletion. Can you imagine what would happen if we didn’t have a filtering system to erase information? We would suffer sensory overload and very likely go nuts. The information is filtered according to our experience to date. My recent experience of buying of car illustrates how this works. I had never really paid attention to the cars on the road. However, in the car showroom, I was shown a brand new Volkswagen Beetle and instantly fell in love with it. I was amazed that I hadn’t seen this car before. I gave myself some time to think about whether or not I should buy it and what happened? I started seeing different coloured beetles everywhere. My new awareness of the Beetle changed the way I was filtering information.

      Information That Has Emotional Impact

      Information that comes through the thalamus СКАЧАТЬ