Anxiety And The Affect It Has On The Brain

Even though anxiety is one of the most common mental health concerns, that does not mean everyone understands it fully. At a base level, most people understand that anxiety is a mood disorder because of something in our brains. However, that is only half of the truth of what anxiety actually is.

The relationship between anxiety and our brain is a complicated one. Not only is anxiety caused by a reaction in our brains but our brains are also affected by anxiety, as well. To help make more sense of this complicated relationship, let’s go over the effect that anxiety has on our brains.

Stress Hormones

When we become stressed, our body releases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. It’s our bodies’ natural (if not annoying) way of signaling to us that something is wrong. Useful when something is actually wrong. However, anxiety is a bit different. Because whether we are legitimately anxious over something real or something, our brain is causing us to worry about it unnecessarily – those hormones get released.

When our body releases these stress hormones, it starts a vicious “danger” cycle that we can’t escape. This is because our nervous system and brain remain in a constant “high alert” stage.

Constantly having our systems flooded with this stress hormone causes our brain to hold on to anxiety and can cause physical symptoms to manifest.

Memory

The brain has an area called the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the portion of the brain that is mainly responsible for memory. It is responsible for processing our long-term memories and matching them up with the context for that memory.

Anxiety can affect memory. Anxiety is scientifically proven to shrink down the hippocampus and can alter what these memories look like. Instead of fully storing the happy memories, it will actually cause you to hold on to the negative and stressful memories more. Relatively speaking, anxiety then lives rent-free in your mind.

A constant state of hypervigilance

Being hypervigilant is the high-alert state of mind we referenced earlier. During this stage, the amygdala, which is part of the brain that signals to you that there is danger, does not get shut off.

When the amygdala is activated, it increases in size. This ultimately sends a signal to the pre-frontal cortex part of your brain, which is responsible for rational thinking. So the amygdala expands while the pre-frontal cortex shrinks down in functioning.

This results in your brain staying in a constant state of anxiety and fearful thinking. And, worsening this is that your brain ends up having less rational cognitive functioning. Resulting in not being able to control your anxiety or the thoughts around it.

Anxiety lies to you and your brain

We say that anxiety is a negative cycle for a reason. It will pick up on the smallest of things and tell you the lie that things are much worse than they actually are.

Lies such as:

“You aren’t able to do this.”

“You shouldn’t even try this because you will fail.”

“No one can be trusted.”

“This situation is going to be too dangerous and here’s why.”

Should you trust your “gut instinct?” Absolutely! But remember that sometimes this gut instinct is just anxiety telling you the lie it wants you to believe.

Anxiety is a disorder that can negatively affect or even take over your life. Through no fault of their own, anxiety is just something that becomes difficult to overcome when it does begin to impact someone’s life.

As licensed therapists, acupuncturists, and mindfulness coaches, we are here to help you regain control and live a life free from anxiety. Contact us to learn more about how anxiety therapy can help you and your brain.