Rewiring Your Anxious Brain
Anxiety disorders are rampant in today's society and only becoming more so. At its core, anxiety comes down to neurological mis-wiring that leads to obsessive thoughts and feelings that may appear out of your control. The good news is that your brain has the ability to change, which means that with some neurological reorganization you can work your way out of anxiety and reclaim peace of mind regardless of the chaos outside.
Are you feeling more anxious these days? If you’re like most people the answer would be yes. In fact, it’s estimated that beyond anxious feelings here and there, 18% of the population struggles with an anxiety disorder. That’s about 40 million people[*].
To feel anxious now and then is normal, especially when the future feels uncertain and you may not have access to your usual outlets. But for those who struggle with chronic anxiety, the feelings of ungroundedness can become overwhelming and greatly disturb your quality of life.
In this article, we’ll discuss the different types of anxiety disorders, symptoms of anxiety, and get to the root cause of these imbalances. Once you understand the biological basis for anxiety, we’ll walk you through the steps necessary to begin rewiring your anxious brain and reclaim your peace of mind.
Rewiring Your Anxious Brain
Psychologically, anxiety disorders are characterized by intrusive, recurring thoughts, concerns, or fears that interfere with daily life. But how do these fears get there? And why won’t they go away? This comes down to your neurological wiring and some very basic survival instincts.
Anxiety on its own isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s an ancient survival mechanism that the human brain developed as a way to keep the species alive. Anxiety, when used appropriately, triggers your mind and body that something isn’t right. For example, your ancestors that were living out in the wild, before the comfort of homes and electricity, would have benefited greatly from the part of the brain responsible for triggering anxiety.
The sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for feelings of stress and anxiety is cued up when something in your environment says “there is danger here.” For your ancestors, this could be a real threat like a predator.
Physiologically, when the sympathetic nervous system is triggered your “fight or flight, freeze or fold” response is activated, and systems in your body start to shift rapidly.
For instance, as you move into “fight or flight” the blood that would typically be flowing to your internal organs for digestion, detox, and maintenance rushes to your arms and legs -- allowing you to run or fight. Your heart rate and breathing increase, allowing more blood and oxygen to flow. Energy is liberated from your cells, giving you the fuel to get moving. Meanwhile, your mind becomes laser focused on whatever it is that’s triggering your fear response[*].
For your ancestors, this response would come on quickly, and once the threat is neutralized it would diminish and they would settle back into parasympathetic mode -- a state of calm and relaxation.
“Freeze or Fold” activation is triggered when the perceived threat moves from "dangerous" to potentially life-threatening. This ancient defense system creates a shift in your ANS that largely influences organs below your diaphragm. It drops your metabolic rate, immobilizes your body, and shifts you into a state of numbness, shutdown, and collapse.
Today, the nature of our “threats” is a little different. Instead of acute threats like a predator, you’re dealing with chronic threats in your daily life. These triggers may be something as small as a stressful conversation with a coworker, or as serious as concerns around catching or spreading viruses to the health of a loved one. Big or small, the result of any threat in your life comes down to how your brain processes it.
Research shows that due to the sheer level of uncertainties that many people face today (pre and post pandemic), our fight or flight, freeze or fold response gets chronically activated so that we are cued up for sympathetic activation.
Here’s where the problem with anxiety lies, when you are in sympathetic mode your brain becomes wired to assess threats. Instead of waking up with hopeful expectations for the day, someone with an anxious brain wakes up with a level of vigilance -- looking out for how the day might go wrong. This shows up in every area of life.
As a result, someone with anxiety gets stuck in mental loops of vigilance and fear. They are constantly cued up as if they were under a continuous threat from a predator -- but there is no predator in sight. Overtime, this creates neural pathways in the brain that are easily triggered and sound an alarm of danger[*][*].
How anxiety shows up for different people will vary. Nutritionist and author of Food and Mood, Trudy Scott has recently taught me about amino acids and its effect on the sympathetic activation and anxiety. Adjusting your food intake to support the nervous system is her cellular approach to treating anxiety which many find of great benefit. Managing your anxiety with a nervous system re-set like ours WITH her cellular approach is ideal to treating the root causes of anxiety. To help spread the word of her cellular approach to anxiety, click here for info on her most recent summit.
In the next section, we’ll discuss some of the most common anxiety disorders.
Types Of Anxiety Disorders
There are several different types of anxiety disorders, some of the most common include[*]:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Generalized anxiety disorder is one of the most common anxiety disorders, and is characterized by excessive and persistent worry to the point that it interferes with daily life. This ongoing tension is typically accompanied by physical symptoms such as fatigue, restlessness, brain fog, and problems with sleep.
Panic Disorder
Panic disorder is marked by recurrent panic attacks, which come on with an overwhelming combination of physical and psychological distress. Common symptoms of a panic attack include heart palpitations, sweating, shaking, feeling dizzy or faint, numbness, chest pain, chills, nausea, and fears or losing control.
Phobias
A phobia is excessive and persistent fear of a specific object, situation or activity that is generally not harmful. People with phobias typically know that their fear is excessive, yet they cannot overcome it. In many cases these fears cause so much distress that people will go out of their way to avoid the trigger. Common phobias are fear of public speaking, spiders, and heights.
Social Anxiety Disorder
A person with social anxiety disorder has significant anxiety and discomfort about being embarrassed, humiliated, rejected or looked down on in social interactions. People with social anxiety disorder tend to avoid social events as much as possible, and may cut themselves off from social interactions.
Separation Anxiety Disorder
Separation anxiety disorders are characterized by the fear of being separated from those with whom you are closely attached. The feeling of fear is beyond what’s appropriate for the person's age and lasts at least four weeks in children, and six months in adults. For someone with separation anxiety disorder, feelings of separation are typically accompanied by fears of losing that person in their life. They may have a hard time sleeping somewhere else without the person, or have recurring nightmares of losing that person.
Symptoms Of Anxiety Disorders
Symptoms of anxiety disorders will vary depending on what type of disorder you have, and how your body responds to anxiety. Common symptoms of anxiety include[*]:
Feeling restless or tense
Having a sense of impending danger or doom
Avoiding certain people, places, or experiences for fear of a trigger
Feeling on edge
Fatigue
Fast heart rate
Rapid breathing
Excessive sweating
Trouble concentrating or getting your mind off the trigger
Gastrointestinal issues like diarrhea or nausea
Trouble sleeping
How Brain Harmony Can Help
At Brain Harmony, we’ve worked with thousands of clients to help treat all kinds of neurological dysfunction. At its core, anxiety really comes down to disorganization in your brain. By rewiring your anxious brain so that events in your external world don’t trigger your fight or flight, freeze or fold, you won’t have to deal with the accompanying symptoms of anxiety.
How is this accomplished? We use scientifically validated tools to help bring your mind and body back into a state of calm and relaxation, and train your brain to create new wiring. In other words, we provide a blueprint for neurological organization that allows you to unwire old programs that make you feel out of control and anxious.
Brain Harmony has a unique 5-step process that we’ve developed through our work with thousands of clients. By walking you through the right steps at the right time, our program creates lasting changes in the brain that yield both short-term and long-term results.
For anxiety disorders, we focus on the first three phases where the most impact can be made.
In the first phase, we use tools that help to calm your nervous system and prime your body for parasympathetic mode (pulling you out of sympathetic mode). Your vagus nerve plays a crucial role in your ability to stay calm and grounded, and is one of the primary control centers for parasympathetic activation. However, chronic stress can create dysregulation and make it more challenging to activate the parasympathetic mode.
One of our favorite tools to reset the anxiety response is the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP). The SSP is a listening system that tones your vagus nerve, and strengthens your neurological pull toward parasympathetic activation. This leaves you feeling more relaxed and calm, giving your brain a rest. Our occupational therapists will walk you through this program, guiding you so that you can get optimal results.
Our friends and clients love to use tools such as the Alpha Stim and Apollo Neuro, to further nudge the nervous system out of that anxiety response.
This is always the first step in treating anxiety because without parasympathetic activation and calming you wouldn’t be able to rewire the pathways that get tripped and lead you to thoughts and feelings of anxiety. In this way, we set the stage for phase two, which is neurological organization.
As mentioned, an anxious brain is a disorganized brain. Due to faulty wiring, you are unable to process experiences and emotions properly and end up seeing threats in your life that don’t really exist. With neurological reorganization we help you unwire and rewire your brain so that experiences can be processed through your system from a more grounded perspective.
To accomplish phase two, we use multiple sensory inputs, choosing the tools that are right for you and your goals. This information trains your brain for optimal wiring. We rely heavily on Integrated Listening Systems (iLS) Focus Unit, which uses sound frequencies and bone conduction to rewire the responses of the brain and nervous system.
If anxiety is marked by constant loops of fears and worries, then neurological organization creates an off-ramp from those loops so that you can start thinking and feeling in a different, more grounded way.
Brain Harmony Success Stories
Grant’s Success Story
Grant struggled with ADD, focus, nervousness, and anxiety for most of his life - preventing him from enjoying life to the fullest and performing at his peak potential at school. After working with Brain Harmony, Grant has achieved AB Honor Roll, has become more affectionate, and has tapped into his new found love for creative writing.
"Anxiety wise - before, I'd just get panic attacks just.. thinking about the future and how it's going to affect me. But now I've just been thinking about now." - Grant. Watch Grant here
Nancy’s Brain Harmony Success Story
Nancy is a nurse in an intensive care unit and was suffering from anxiety, brain fog, and depression. She was having trouble with processing, getting her thoughts down on paper, word retrieval, and memory. She had tried pharmaceuticals and lifestyle changes to address these issues, but they just weren’t working, so she went on the hunt for another solution. After a short time using Brain Harmony’s therapies, like the Safe and Sound Protocol and the Alpha Stim, Nancy’s anxiety dissipated, she started enjoying life, sleeping better, her brain fog went away, and her cognitive function improved tremendously. She feels like Brain Harmony was the missing key in her health journey.
“It’s easy to use, you’re expertly guided, you can do it on your own at your own pace, and it can have a profound impact on your life. I really feel that this was the missing piece to help my overall quality of life” - Nancy Click here to watch Nancy’s interview
Can Brain Harmony Help You?
Whether you’re struggling with a full blown anxiety disorder or simply feel overwhelmed by the pressures of everyday life, rewiring your anxious brain and finding a way to shift out of the fight or flight, freeze or fold response and into parasympathetic mode can make a significant difference in your quality of life.
Anxiety doesn’t just make us feel uncomfortable, but the downstream effects impact our work life, social life, and family life. We become disconnected from the people and things we love, and it can feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders.
If you struggle with anxiety in any of its forms, reach out today for a Free Consultation to see if Brain Harmony is right for you.