What else are those of us with a hyperactive amygdala supposed to do to live in less fear? One technique neuropsychologist Rick Hansen talks about is distinguishing between real and paper tigers—ie stopping to assess whether you’re reacting to a real threat. I like the technique Alan Bean who I first wrote about in The Power of Patience used. Bean was an astronaut who had previously been a test pilot. Test pilots are trained to ask one question when something goes wrong in the air: “Is this thing still flying?” It’s a way of helping the pilot mentally evaluate how serious a problem so he or she can calmly come up with a solution rather than panicking.
Bean’s training came in mighty handy when he was in the Apollo 12 capsule. As the spaceship took off, it was struck by lightning. Suddenly every warning light on the instrument panel flashed. Help! said Bean’s amygdala, we’re going to die. Then he remembered the question. Looking out the little porthole above his head, he realized that not only was the spacecraft still flying, but it was still pointed upward. So rather than aborting the mission, he dealt with each warning light one by one until all functions were restored. And yes, he made it to the moon.
there,” writes Robin Marantz Henig in the New York Times piece.
more sense. I’ve been trying to cope with a broken motion detector!
feeling and reacting to life as simply part of how you were hardwired at birth?
Ever wonder why you jump at the slightest noise and your spouse, friend, or colleague barely registers it? Why you might worry or feel anxious a lot of the time while others seem so carefree, even when facing challenges? I’ve always attributed it to some real threat—I feel this way because there are potential dangers out there in the world that could strike at any moment.
But what if the threats not out there, but in our brains? Powerful longitudinal studies by Jerome Kagan at Harvard and others demonstrate that just as babies are born with unique physical characteristics such as hair and eye color, they also come in with natural ways of reacting to people, places and things. And that 15-20% of us has an inborn bias toward reactivity, meaning we’re distressed by novelty from day one and tend to grow up to be more anxious.
This may be sound silly, but until I read this research, I’ve never thought of myself as anxious. I might have said I was more fearful than others, perhaps. But according to psychologists, fear is about something specific—the test results you’re getting tomorrow, for instance, while anxiety is “a kind of fear gone wild, a generalized sense of dread about something out there that seems menacing, “writes Robin Marantz Henig in a great New York Times article. For folks not hardwired to reactivity, they may worry about the test results, but they go back to a generalized feeling of well-being once the tests come back negative. For those of us in the 15-20%, we may feel temporary relief, but we’ve soon found something else to worry about.
I’ll be synthesizing more of the Times article in my next posting, as well as reflecting on what it might mean if this is starting to resonant for you. If you’d like to read the article in its entirety, here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/magazine/04anxiety-t.html.
In case you wonder why you worry even  though you know it does no good for your  mental, emotional, or physical health, it’s  because your brain is hardwired that way.  And there’s a good reason why. Your  amygdala is trying to save your life. As we  were evolving, our hunter-gatherer ancestors  had to keep an eye out for danger at every turn —lions and tigers and bears, not to mention  poisonous plants and insects and snakes.  Those that could sense danger quickly  survived; those who sauntered about just  smelling the flowers did not.
Now that mechanism generally works against us. We perceive all kinds of things as snakes or tigers when they’re only pieces of rope or mother-in-laws. And we stay on high alert for any possible threat in a vain attempt to protect ourselves from it.
So what are we to do with this tendency of the brain that doesn’t serve us well? Becoming aware when we’re worried or anxious is the first step. Fortunately our brains can do much more than these negative habits and we can use its amazing other capacities to find the solutions we need. Unfortunately, for some of us it can be harder than for others. Next time I’ll take a look at why that’s true.
I’ve always called myself a worrier and have worked for years on worrying less. As far as how successful I’ve been, the operative word is “less.” I am less worried that I used to be. But I had a powerful experience recently that showed me the level of anxiety I carry all the time (anxiety being the underlying feeling related to worry—more on that next time). I was part of an experiment to test the results of training in mindfulness and compassion. As part of it, I had to rate myself twice a day for nine weeks on a scale of 1-7 on how anxious I was, how calm I was, and several other factors.
Just keeping up with the surveys made me anxious. They were like rabbits breeding in my inbox. The minute I got one out, the next arrived. But what was more telling was to realize that my anxiety number was between 4-5 every day (1 being not at all and 7 being very much). If I’d just meditated, it might drop to 3 but never lower. After all the work I’ve done on myself, it was pretty discouraging until I realized that if I had done such a survey when I was younger, my average would have been 6-7. My big takeaway was that I’ve made progress, but I’m still carrying a pretty heavy “perpetually-waiting-for-something-bad-to-happen” in my being. I’d like to continue to transform that.
What about you? If you had to rate yourself on a scale between 1 (not at all) and 7 (very much), how anxious are you? How calm are you? Does it fluctuate much? What would you like that number to be?
If this topic interests you, keep coming back. I plan to explore worry, fear, and anxiety through a variety of lenses over the next few weeks (and perhaps longer) and share what I’m learning.
I read this book and all I could do was smile as it was so relatable. Attitudes of Gratitude reminds us of all the little things we take for granted like waking up every morning, the sounds of birds chirping, running water, a roof over our heads. I could go on and on but you get the point. I’m sure by now you’ve heard or read about the devastation in Japan. If you haven’t click here (pictures are disturbing). The natural disaster of both a tsunami and an earthquake that has radically changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people this past Friday. It’s so easy for us to take things for granted and then you hear about this sort of catastrophy and of such magnitude. It may put things in perspective momentarily but I think if we make a concisous decision to be more alert to ourungrateful attitudes we can regularly practice having a grateful one. “Make the practice of gratitude come alive in your life.” I hate that we have to be involved or witness something so terrible before deciding we need to be grateful. One of our many flaws humans!
Say out loud what you are most grateful for and see what sort of emotions are triggered.
BTW, the rest of this short story really hits the nail on the head!!!!
Where do you go under stress? We each have a particular habit. One of my female clients becomes competitive, looking to show she’s the smartest person in the room, alienating her colleagues in the process. I become speeded up so I’m leaving the room and on to the next thing while you’re still talking to me. With my family, that speed can turn to anger if I sense they’re thwarting what I want. The feeling is I don’t have time to argue, just get on board or get out of my way!
Recognizing our stress habit can be liberating. At the least it’s the first step to transforming it. But for me there has been something very profound in the sheer acknowledgment. It helps me separate out who I am from what I do. Now when I find myself going warp speed and getting angry, at least I know I’m stressed out!
We all know the saying“The truth will set you free.” So why is it that telling the truth can feel so risky? Why can’t we just say, “Sorry, I can’t come to the meeting. I’m overcommitted.” Instead we invent a headache or resentfully go. Instead of saying, “I can’t listen to you right now,” we snap at our kids and spouse. Rather than an “I don’t know yet” to a business problem, we jump to decisions or blow a lot of smoke.
Telling the truth can risky. We risk disapproval, even anger. But when we stand on the ground of our truth, whatever that is, we create alignment with ourselves. We gain the power of integrity. And that is a mighty force that others can feel and respect even when they don’t like the message.