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Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

nature.com

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Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#91

Post by moffkalast »

impulser_ wrote: post #13

So from my understanding. Anxious people are so anxious that they overload the part of the brain that typical deals with anxiety so the brain routes it to another part of the brain to deal with it and that part of the brain isn't what you want dealing with it so it cause problems. So the key is too limit overloading the part of the brain that deals with anxiety, which probably means doing things you are fearing to do…

> anxiety so the brain routes it to another part of the brain to deal with it

In a sense, anxiety is like a malignant cancer? That explains a lot.

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#92

Post by moffkalast »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #45

If you suffer from serious anxiety, I highly recommend you work on any health issues you have. Low blood sugar in particular is known to promote anxiety by increasing the amount of adrenaline in your system. I used to suffer a lot of anxiety. Getting physically healthier helped mitigate that enormously. Proviso: n=1, "anecdata" and the usual dismissals that random internet strangers desperately try to apply as if I s…

Ah yes the age old solution to anxiety, eating a shit ton of sugar.

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#93

Post by ajani »

ajani wrote: post #10

This is just tedious. The electro-chemical map of the brain that is built and used to study it, is so primitive. Almost certainly, "the brain" tunes itself to its environment and inner states from a preformed inner structure through evolution. A lot of what is in the brain, is not actually to be found in the brain, or by studying it materially. The "formwork" that formed it, is lost in evolutionary time. Unfortunatel…

When a vortex forms in a pool of water, it is formed by the complex interplay of water, the pond made up of earth, rock, plants, its undulations perturbing the water, the wind etc.

The vortex appears and vanishes as conditions change. But is the vortex, the water? Is the water no longer water once the vortex dissipates?

Is the vortex the same as any physical object? Or it’s a form taken up by water?

What if the brain is just the form. And what if the water is itself just a river fed by ocean currents millions of miles away?

Standing by the river, you only experience the form, not the formwork, the substrate, or even the shaping force in time.

I may have made this a worse explanation… hard to tell.

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#94

Post by barrenko »

impulser_ wrote: post #13

So from my understanding. Anxious people are so anxious that they overload the part of the brain that typical deals with anxiety so the brain routes it to another part of the brain to deal with it and that part of the brain isn't what you want dealing with it so it cause problems. So the key is too limit overloading the part of the brain that deals with anxiety, which probably means doing things you are fearing to do…

So in a way anxiety prevents learning a.k.a moving past "undesired" behaviours.

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#95

Post by afarviral »

mindwok wrote: post #25
NayamAmarshe wrote: post #5

It's always fear, isn't it? We're afraid to approach people, afraid to ask for help, afraid that someone might react in the worst possible way or something really bad might happen. But obviously, it never happens the way we imagine. Reality is 100% of the time, different from our imagination and yet, many of us still fail to remember that. Every good opportunity that I ever got, was from me coming out of my comfort z…

As an anxious person with people-pleasing tendencies, something I've been trying to focus on is reframing the situation and removing fear entirely. For me, fundamentally the fear of social interactions comes from the fear I'm going to do something wrong, that person will react badly, and I'll feel bad about myself. I've realised this entire calculus is broken, because you feel good or bad based on people's reactions…

I've been doing this too, but saying to myself "you are off the hook altogether" with the reasoning that the harm from not attempting something is just so much worse than any typical consequence from saying or doing something dumb in the moment, to the point it needn't even be a consideration. But I like this approach of focussing on intention, to rationalize it.

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#96

Post by Aeglaecia »

psychphysic wrote: post #84
riazrizvi wrote: post #76

So, heightened anxiety triggers alternate emotional regulation, with traits like pro-avoidance behavior. To me this is not necessarily dysfunctional. It may also go hand-in-hand with motivating heightened deliberation. I can see how one can fall into regressive patterns like distracting ourselves away from critical path actions, especially if a particular person only uses one of two strategies, 1) try going on as bef…

The paper suggests rTMS to disrupt the disruptive activities. The emotional challenge in this study was that you had a joystick and sometimes you pulled that joystick towards you when you saw an unhappy face. That's what was paralysing emotional challenge was for highly anxious people. Meaning it's unlikely their PFl could have any control in real life scenarios. It's important to note that in both anxious and non-an…

[flagged]

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#97

Post by anon373839 »

otikik wrote: post #64
impulser_ wrote: post #13

So from my understanding. Anxious people are so anxious that they overload the part of the brain that typical deals with anxiety so the brain routes it to another part of the brain to deal with it and that part of the brain isn't what you want dealing with it so it cause problems. So the key is too limit overloading the part of the brain that deals with anxiety, which probably means doing things you are fearing to do…

> doing things you are fearing to do so that you no longer fear doing it. Careful with that assumption. I can see it completely backfiring. Doing the thing repeatedly can end up increasing the anxiety. If this route is taken, then "the thing" must be introduced very gradually and from a place of security. As an example, for an arachnophobe, it would starting with something like "draw a dot. Draw a line coming out of…

This isn’t quite accurate.

Graded exposure can be a more manageable way to get to the end result (fear extinction), but reminding yourself that the threat isn’t real is a fear-neutralizing behavior that will limit the effectiveness of the treatment. The point of exposure therapy is to feel the fear and to do nothing about it other than let the feeling (eventually) climax and dissipate. (In fact, “lean in harder” can be even better than “do nothing”.)

[Edit: I want to emphasize this point for others who may find this post: if you are doing exposure work or you’re supporting someone who is, please don’t reassure yourself/them that the exposure isn’t dangerous. At best it undermines the treatment; at worst it reinforces the fear. When you violate your anxiety by facing a feared situation or idea, it will and should feel like you are doing something bad and dangerous.]

Second, graded exposure isn’t always necessary - flooding (direct exposure to the high level fear situation) works too, and can work a lot faster.

But I think most people with anxiety disorders have a number of fears not just a single isolated phobia - and they’re connected in a network of sorts. It’s often helpful for the person to experience success in extinguishing a low-moderate grade fear first, to grok the process and build confidence to approach their worst fears successfully.

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#98

Post by Cthulhu_ »

mindwok wrote: post #25
NayamAmarshe wrote: post #5

It's always fear, isn't it? We're afraid to approach people, afraid to ask for help, afraid that someone might react in the worst possible way or something really bad might happen. But obviously, it never happens the way we imagine. Reality is 100% of the time, different from our imagination and yet, many of us still fail to remember that. Every good opportunity that I ever got, was from me coming out of my comfort z…

As an anxious person with people-pleasing tendencies, something I've been trying to focus on is reframing the situation and removing fear entirely. For me, fundamentally the fear of social interactions comes from the fear I'm going to do something wrong, that person will react badly, and I'll feel bad about myself. I've realised this entire calculus is broken, because you feel good or bad based on people's reactions…

But your actions may have good intentions but still end up getting a bad reaction. Think codependency; you may have good intentions dealing with the other person's bad behaviour, but you're still encouraging the bad behaviour that way, and you may still resent your own actions despite your good intentions.

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#99

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #22
voisin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” - Mark Twain

I've weirdly noticed a type of analagous mechanism in relation to anxiety where I castastrophize or engage in worst-outcome thinking and when things inevitably turn out ok, the relief from the incongruity has a somewhat "euphoric" and calming effect. I feel like it might be somewhat maladaptive and "addictive"

Definitely sounds like not a good thing, even though it ties in with pithy sayings like "expect the worst but hope for the best" or "Don't get your hopes up and you'll never be disappointed".

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#100

Post by psychphysic »

Aeglaecia wrote: post #96
psychphysic wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paper suggests rTMS to disrupt the disruptive activities. The emotional challenge in this study was that you had a joystick and sometimes you pulled that joystick towards you when you saw an unhappy face. That's what was paralysing emotional challenge was for highly anxious people. Meaning it's unlikely their PFl could have any control in real life scenarios. It's important to note that in both anxious and non-an…

[flagged]

Eh? I don't understand what you're saying.
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