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Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

nature.com

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Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#111

Post by xtiansimon »

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…

> “Like driving a car as a learner your whole life, I remember the first driving lesson I had, I couldn't even focus with the radio on.”

This reminded me of starting to ride a motorcycle (again) in 2021. Lots of anxiety and stress.

Two years later I’m not as stressed. But, each near-accident I’ve had was following not paying attention.

Thinking about this on a ride over the weekend, I mused about solo-jet fighter pilots and Olympians. I recalled breathing exercises are supposed to help.

Reading the abstract, I’m reminded of awkward social situations and inexperience in primary school. I’m thinking the biggest lesson was trying, and realizing failure is not life threatening. But it didn’t stop me from developing some bad habits for cheating on tests, and waiting until the last 48 hours to write my papers.

I think getting a job at 16 helped a lot. It was at a comic book shop. I held that job for seven years.

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#113

Post by yard2010 »

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]

CBT is the gold standard solution for this kind of problems[0].

[0] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5797481/

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#115

Post by BoxFour »

Aurornis wrote: post #107
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…

> To me this is not necessarily dysfunctional. If it wasn’t dysfunctional, it wouldn’t be a diagnosed with mental health condition to begin with. I think this is a concept that is getting lost in mainstream mental health discourse: There is a big difference between anxiety the emotion and anxiety the mental health disorder . Similar story for depression and concentration struggles. It’s normal to feel anxious at time…

> The assumption that strong medications are the default response. Every medical professional I know prefers lifestyle interventions and therapy modalities to prescribing medications

Moreover, these two aspects nearly always coincide: Every credible institution will require you to engage in therapy in tandem with commencing medication. Often, once your condition improves, the discourse shifts towards the possibility of gradually decreasing your medication (though this is obviously a conversation, not a mandate).

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#116

Post by yard2010 »

ddmf wrote: post #59
amelius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 that you no longer fear doing it. I gave this advice in the past, but I know people with social anxiety disorder for whom this approach does not work.

I have social anxiety and pushing myself to get out there leads to massive fatigue which makes me not want to go out and do that again, it can lead to a vicious cycle.

Exposure Therapy is a great method to deal with this in my humble experience, it has to be set up with sensible realistic boundaries though, and maybe start small, like doing an imagination ET, or taking medication to overcome the initial anxiety.

Reframing this as a challenge with concrete goals rather than a problem helps too.

I'm no expert though, and I advise you to talk to a professional that can help with this.

Don't forget that this is not a problem but just another part of you, and love yourself :)

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#117

Post by jyrkesh »

Aurornis wrote: post #107
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…

> To me this is not necessarily dysfunctional. If it wasn’t dysfunctional, it wouldn’t be a diagnosed with mental health condition to begin with. I think this is a concept that is getting lost in mainstream mental health discourse: There is a big difference between anxiety the emotion and anxiety the mental health disorder . Similar story for depression and concentration struggles. It’s normal to feel anxious at time…

I've shared my experience in being diagnosed as ADHD as an adult already[1][2], but in this context, the net is that I fought even the concept of going on any kind of medication for a long time. I wanted to go hard on lifestyle interventions and all kinds of different "tricks" for working around my constant reshifting to different priorities.

Ironically, while I love my therapist still, my psych has been an absolute pill pusher. I've routinely told her that I'm not interested in _also_ being prescribed Xanax because I'm having some anxiety after a long, shitty breakup. That discomfort is part of the human experience. But she is SO eager to throw more Rx at me...it's been kind of eye opening how easy it could be to abuse prescription meds.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33806988

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33807050

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#118

Post by lr4444lr »

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…

You're assuming the region in question will undergo desensitization rather than reinforcement learning. That may or may not be the case.

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#119

Post by d4nt »

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]

One of the first things that some reading on psychology gives you is the realisation that the “real self” is an illusion. You’re a bundle of competing drives and narratives. Even you don’t know why you do stuff most of the time, and you make up justifications after the fact. So if one way of looking at things makes you stay home and cry, while another leads to going out and making the world a better place, maybe training yourself to pick the latter interpretation is a good thing.

Re: Anxious brains redirect emotion regulation

#120

Post by lazide »

antman wrote: post #72
amelius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 that you no longer fear doing it. I gave this advice in the past, but I know people with social anxiety disorder for whom this approach does not work.

Has two parts: Meeting with people, interacting with people. One step at a time, a couple of people, for a specific timeframe.

The issue comes when/if the people trigger real issues - like fear of being manipulated , or safety concerns.

Right now mental health is a huge problem overall in society, and therapists and Psychiatrists are no except to the rule unfortunately.

It’s gotten very predatory out there.

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