Page 3 - Anxiety.pdf
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to people who are more chilled out. disorder. And that's an important
"Normal" people looked at the social distinction to make.
threats and processed them in the bits of
their brain used for facial recognition, as Most experts now agree that anxiety in
they sorted out precisely what the general is a good thing, and helped us
expressions might mean. Anxious people, evolve as a species by keeping us on our
however, also processed them in parts of toes when threats popped up. Being
the brain focused on action. In other completely laid-back is not a good outlook
words, they weren't interested in parsing when you're in a threatening world as a
the threats; they were ready to spring into nomadic people. It's fine, even productive;
action, get out of the way, defend this study shows that a tendency towards
themselves, or run for the hills at a anxiety may have served us pretty well in
second's notice. our history. But anxiety disorders are a
different barrel of (sweaty, panicking)
It wasn't all threats, the scientists found: monkeys entirely.
the anxious people "selectively encoded
threat signals that were relevant to them When it comes to anxiety disorders on a
in motor specific systems," which basically clinical level, the brain's functions are
means they picked up on social threats actually impaired. One study showed that
that they're particularly sensitive to, and clinically anxious people can't control their
sent those straight to the "action" bit of the emotions in a normal way; and one of the
brain. So naturally anxious people took most recent reviews of brain science and
the stuff that they were personally afraid serious anxiety, from January 2016, has
of (an angry face, for example) and turned the pretty devastating conclusion that
their brain into full AUGH RUN AWAY "pathological anxiety and chronic stress
mode. lead to structural degeneration and
impaired functioning of the hippocampus
And Why There Are Limits and the prefrontal cortex". So a little
anxiety seems like it helps, but too much
To Anxiety's Helpfulness is definitely a serious, structural drawback
Here's an important caveat: The study in the brain.
only focused on people who weren’t
clinically anxious; in other words, they The scientists behind the INSERM study
were a bit anxious, but didn't suffer from have said they'd be interested to see what
anxiety attacks or have an anxiety happened if the same sort of study was
conducted on people with serious, clinical
anxiety. But the evidence suggests that
while being a little bit anxious may be
good for you, feeling anxious all the time
definitely isn't.
P.G. Better Living
