What Happens in My Brain When I Am Anxious?

Simplified Neuroscience that Works for All Ages



Dr Heidi likes to use a metaphor when sharing what is happening when anxiety grips our brains and bodies. Anxiety is processed through the amygdala. This is buried deep inside the center of the brain. It regulates strong emotions such as fear and feelings that are tied to survival. When our brain is processing fearful or concerning emotions, the amygdala kicks into fight-or-flight mode. Dr Heidi likes to add freeze-or-fall asleep as modes that can happen after the amygdala is triggered too. All of this can be hard to remember though so the metaphor is one of a cave person. The amygdala is primitive. In the earliest periods of evolution, this part of the brain kept humans safe. 

So let’s instead imagine, the amygdala is a cave and inside lives a cave person. Kids love when I have them talk through how a cave person would talk…think, Me hungry! Bear! Run! When a fear presents, real or imagined, the cave person gets really loud with messages of fight, flight, freeze, or fall asleep. So what does that mean? Fight means it is time to start attacking the fear. Flight tells us run and get to safety. Freeze is paralyzing; telling us to stay still and maybe the “bear” won’t notice! Fall asleep is a response that sometimes; the cave person but the cave person is scared and wants to avoid so tries to get to sleep. The cave person, within the “amygdala cave” does NOT speak the same language as the frontal lobe where our brain’s super computer is located. The super computer is the area behind our foreheads. It allows us to think about thinking, make plans, organize ourselves, or make plans, etc. Imagine the cave person speaks one language and super computer speaks another. Very frustrating for people with anxiety or panic and frustrating also for those trying to support someone with anxiety or panic. When others talk to people with anxiety, the biggest mistake is saying something like, “Well, there is nothing to be scared of. Stop worrying about it!” This is upsetting to those feeling anxious because the cave person likely already hijacked the amygdala. What can help is saying: I know you are scared. You are safe and will get thought this and be ok.

For anxious minds, it is so helpful to focus on APRs…no not those things from the financial world. APRs for anxious brains refer to AFFIRM, PIVOT, and REASSURE. First AFFIRM the fear, with a phrase such as, “Of course, I am anxious about this topic. This is something that others think about too. The next step is to make a turn in your brain or PIVOT. When you turn in your brain, you are moving in a new direction to REASSURE. REASSURE is a focus on messages that enable confidence and a sense that we have it in us to get through challenges.

The longer term goal for anyone who is dealing with anxiety is to help generate a stronger sense of one’s ability to get through a challenging situation or fear; to grow overall confidence.