"Always do what you are afraid to do.
" -Ralph Waldo Emerson Imagine almost any scene from the movie Jurassic Park.
If you were around at the time of the dinosaurs, it would have been a great help to your life for your bodies' nervous system to be constantly scanning for signs of danger.
There were many real threats that needed immediate attention and action for our very survival.
That was many millions of years ago and our brain and nervous systems developed out of those survival needs.
Now though, it does our bodies and minds much more harm than good to be like an airport security checkpoint constantly scanning for possible threats and danger.
When something triggers a negative emotion in your body, such as fear for instance, your brain starts to trigger the release and increase stress hormones like cortisol and adrenalin in your body.
These get the body ready to fight or flee as more blood moves to your arms, face, and legs resulting in a reduction of blood flow and oxygen to your brain.
You literally stop being able to think as clearly because the portion of your brain that deals with decision-making is temporarily blocked.
Let's talk a bit about fear One night my sons were watching the National Geographic Channel's TV show Brain Games and I sat down with them to watch this particular episode about why and how our brains respond to fear.
Fear is one of the more impactful emotions that trigger our stress response and many other distressing emotions like panic, worry, and anxiety arise out of fear.
The TV show uses puzzles, riddles, illusions, and activities with the help of psychologists, scientists, and illusionists to get explore how our brain works and how it tries to interpret our world.
In the episode I viewed, we were shown multiple images, one right after the other in super high-speed, so that we couldn't consciously see them in any great detail.
The first set of images that flashed on the screen contained neutral items like shoes and keys interspersed with some happier images of people playing.
The second round of images to flash also had many kind/happy pictures flash on the screen, but this time they were interspersed with snakes and large spiders.
When the snakes and spiders appeared, it seemed that the images slowed down.
In reality, all the images from both the first and second sets were shown at exactly the same rate.
However, our brains built-in fear response that was developed over millions of years, heightened our sensitivity to the negative stimuli's potential threats which made them stand out more for us.
We obviously don't have dinosaurs roaming our streets now thank goodness.
But think you see a snake on your path while walking and the fear response will usually kicks in.
It is a natural safety mechanism that is wired directly into our brains.
The challenge for us is that many times we really don't need such strong reactions that cause our stress response to be turned on.
So what can we do to prevent fear and anxiety from taking over? Think you see a snake in the woods when it is really a stick and you still get a fear response in your body and unpleasant thoughts (unless you are a snake charmer or maker of snake skin boots).
The alarm or stress response kicks into high gear when faced with a perceived threat, real or imagined.
This stress response happens so quickly, milliseconds, and is millions of years old in our human evolution, which is why trying to think differently when you have a stress or fear response can be so difficult.
So seeing a snake or spider and thinking, I am not afraid of snakes or spiders will not help you feel it any less.
One of the most helpful things we can do when we start to feel a twinge of negative emotion is to take a breath into the feeling and allow ourselves to feel the emotion fully.
Once we become more fully aware of that feeling in our bodies and breathe into it, we can then start to lessen the impact of that emotion.
This will help keep the executive decision-making part of the brain, our prefrontal cortex, be more responsive.
We may still feel some of the stress, but at least we will not lose complete control over the emotion.
Our breath will bring in a feeling of space from which we can gain a calmer and more aware perspective on what is going on around us and feeling the feelings will allow those to move through much more quickly.
As mindfulness educator Dr.
Amy Saltzman says, it is very okay to have your feelings, just don't let your feelings have you.
This means to be aware of your feelings without trying to change, discount, smother, or hide them.
You don't pretend everything is fine when you feel it's not.
You honor and feel your feelings from the most happy to the most sad or distressing and everything in between.
In this way the brain helps your body relax.
What if you were able to lessen the impact that negative stress filled emotions such as anger, anxiety, frustration, or depression had on our bodies and minds? Psychologist David Creswell from Carnegie Mellon University conducted a research study on the impact mindfulness (The practice of paying attention to the present moment) had on our emotions, especially those that are distressing.
He found that simply by more paying attention and labeling our emotions as to whatever it was we felt such as anger, sadness, or worry, we could reduce the stressful impact that those emotions have on our bodies and mind.
In essence, putting a label on our emotion allows us to change our perspective, take a step back, and create some space to look at our emotions like one might curiously look at an interesting painting.
Mindful awareness allows us to stay more in our pre-frontal cortex rather than in the emotional centers of the brain that trigger the fight/flight/freeze responses.
Creswell's study reinforces the importance of being more aware of what is happening in our physical and emotion bodies so we can increase our overall well-being.
So the next time you get angry, frustrated, or scared by a snake, don't try to ignore those feelings.
Don't just think you aren't afraid when in fact you are feeling scared.
Really feel those feelings, notice where in the body you feel those feelings, and then put a label on it (I feel scared, I feel angry, I feel anxious, etc.
).
This will allow those feelings to flow out naturally rather than build up to the exhaustion stage.
My friend Marilyn likes to say don't let your issues (mental/emotional upsets) get deeply into your tissues (body).
A great way to do this is to really feel your feelings instead of trying to think them away.
" -Ralph Waldo Emerson Imagine almost any scene from the movie Jurassic Park.
If you were around at the time of the dinosaurs, it would have been a great help to your life for your bodies' nervous system to be constantly scanning for signs of danger.
There were many real threats that needed immediate attention and action for our very survival.
That was many millions of years ago and our brain and nervous systems developed out of those survival needs.
Now though, it does our bodies and minds much more harm than good to be like an airport security checkpoint constantly scanning for possible threats and danger.
When something triggers a negative emotion in your body, such as fear for instance, your brain starts to trigger the release and increase stress hormones like cortisol and adrenalin in your body.
These get the body ready to fight or flee as more blood moves to your arms, face, and legs resulting in a reduction of blood flow and oxygen to your brain.
You literally stop being able to think as clearly because the portion of your brain that deals with decision-making is temporarily blocked.
Let's talk a bit about fear One night my sons were watching the National Geographic Channel's TV show Brain Games and I sat down with them to watch this particular episode about why and how our brains respond to fear.
Fear is one of the more impactful emotions that trigger our stress response and many other distressing emotions like panic, worry, and anxiety arise out of fear.
The TV show uses puzzles, riddles, illusions, and activities with the help of psychologists, scientists, and illusionists to get explore how our brain works and how it tries to interpret our world.
In the episode I viewed, we were shown multiple images, one right after the other in super high-speed, so that we couldn't consciously see them in any great detail.
The first set of images that flashed on the screen contained neutral items like shoes and keys interspersed with some happier images of people playing.
The second round of images to flash also had many kind/happy pictures flash on the screen, but this time they were interspersed with snakes and large spiders.
When the snakes and spiders appeared, it seemed that the images slowed down.
In reality, all the images from both the first and second sets were shown at exactly the same rate.
However, our brains built-in fear response that was developed over millions of years, heightened our sensitivity to the negative stimuli's potential threats which made them stand out more for us.
We obviously don't have dinosaurs roaming our streets now thank goodness.
But think you see a snake on your path while walking and the fear response will usually kicks in.
It is a natural safety mechanism that is wired directly into our brains.
The challenge for us is that many times we really don't need such strong reactions that cause our stress response to be turned on.
So what can we do to prevent fear and anxiety from taking over? Think you see a snake in the woods when it is really a stick and you still get a fear response in your body and unpleasant thoughts (unless you are a snake charmer or maker of snake skin boots).
The alarm or stress response kicks into high gear when faced with a perceived threat, real or imagined.
This stress response happens so quickly, milliseconds, and is millions of years old in our human evolution, which is why trying to think differently when you have a stress or fear response can be so difficult.
So seeing a snake or spider and thinking, I am not afraid of snakes or spiders will not help you feel it any less.
One of the most helpful things we can do when we start to feel a twinge of negative emotion is to take a breath into the feeling and allow ourselves to feel the emotion fully.
Once we become more fully aware of that feeling in our bodies and breathe into it, we can then start to lessen the impact of that emotion.
This will help keep the executive decision-making part of the brain, our prefrontal cortex, be more responsive.
We may still feel some of the stress, but at least we will not lose complete control over the emotion.
Our breath will bring in a feeling of space from which we can gain a calmer and more aware perspective on what is going on around us and feeling the feelings will allow those to move through much more quickly.
As mindfulness educator Dr.
Amy Saltzman says, it is very okay to have your feelings, just don't let your feelings have you.
This means to be aware of your feelings without trying to change, discount, smother, or hide them.
You don't pretend everything is fine when you feel it's not.
You honor and feel your feelings from the most happy to the most sad or distressing and everything in between.
In this way the brain helps your body relax.
What if you were able to lessen the impact that negative stress filled emotions such as anger, anxiety, frustration, or depression had on our bodies and minds? Psychologist David Creswell from Carnegie Mellon University conducted a research study on the impact mindfulness (The practice of paying attention to the present moment) had on our emotions, especially those that are distressing.
He found that simply by more paying attention and labeling our emotions as to whatever it was we felt such as anger, sadness, or worry, we could reduce the stressful impact that those emotions have on our bodies and mind.
In essence, putting a label on our emotion allows us to change our perspective, take a step back, and create some space to look at our emotions like one might curiously look at an interesting painting.
Mindful awareness allows us to stay more in our pre-frontal cortex rather than in the emotional centers of the brain that trigger the fight/flight/freeze responses.
Creswell's study reinforces the importance of being more aware of what is happening in our physical and emotion bodies so we can increase our overall well-being.
So the next time you get angry, frustrated, or scared by a snake, don't try to ignore those feelings.
Don't just think you aren't afraid when in fact you are feeling scared.
Really feel those feelings, notice where in the body you feel those feelings, and then put a label on it (I feel scared, I feel angry, I feel anxious, etc.
).
This will allow those feelings to flow out naturally rather than build up to the exhaustion stage.
My friend Marilyn likes to say don't let your issues (mental/emotional upsets) get deeply into your tissues (body).
A great way to do this is to really feel your feelings instead of trying to think them away.
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