 I got a great question today asking me, what's the difference between an anxiety ridden brain and a brain that's just experiencing normal stress? Well, that's exactly what we're going to be talking about in this video. So make sure that you stay tuned. What is up everybody? It's Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And it is May 2nd. So that means it's day two of mental health awareness month. So in this video, I'm going to be talking about the difference between normal and abnormal responses to stress. So in an effort to increase awareness during this beautiful mental health awareness month, please make sure that you share this video. Not only will this video help people who are struggling with anxiety to kind of understand what's going on in their own brain, but it'll also let people know that people with anxiety can't just calm down. First, let's talk about what anxiety is. So anxiety is a response to stress. It's a response to your environment. This comes from a survival part of the brain. And it's something that we needed based on our evolution and our ancestors. We needed this thing in our brain to trigger to say, yo, you're in some trouble and you need to do something so you could survive. So it's completely normal to experience symptoms of anxiety. It's 100% normal. So you might start sweating. You might get an increased heart rate. You might get a rush of adrenaline. Your brain might start racing and things like that. And it's so we can make split second decisions and escape danger when we need to. During a moment of anxiety, you can't access a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. This is our thinking brain. This is the logical brain. This is the brain that makes step by step little instructions, right? Well, during the state of, you know, potential danger, we don't need to access that part of the brain. And we need to make these split second decisions like a very normal situation is if you're driving and someone cuts you off or someone slams on their brakes in front of you, you need to be able to immediately slam on your brakes. You don't have the time or the luxury to think through every step of the process. So in a normal brain, once the threat is gone, once you acknowledge that the threat is eliminated, right? Then the thinking brain, the prefrontal cortex comes back online. So you returned to normal. Now you have access to higher level thinking and this helps you return to a normal state. So for example, in other everyday stresses, right? You might think like, oh, okay, that wasn't that big of a deal, or you might be able to tell yourself, oh, everything's going to be fine, you know, in BD. Now someone with a mental illness like any type of anxiety disorder or any other mental disorder that has anxiety as one of the symptoms, their brain functions much differently. So for somebody with an anxiety disorder, that part of the brain that triggers anxiety, it's in full force, okay? And remember, we just talked about when anxiety is happening, you can't access that part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, that's responsible for higher levels of thinking. This is why it is ridiculous to just tell somebody who has an anxiety disorder to simply calm down. You might as well tell a rhino who is charging at you to just kind of chill out a little bit. The other issue with anxiety disorders is that the brain doesn't return back to normal as easily, so that means the prefrontal cortex isn't kicking in, it's not coming back online. So what that means is that you're not going to have the same rational thought like, okay, the threat is gone, okay, there's nothing to worry about. All right, this is no big deal. So why does this happen? There are some genetic components to anxiety. Some people have an overactive amygdala. This thing goes off, it triggers anxiety, and it can happen at random. So I've never had an fMRI scan, but I was diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder. This means in some instances, my anxiety doesn't even need to be triggered by a potential threat, my brain just starts going haywire for absolutely no reason. For most people though, anxiety is a symptom of trauma responses. What this means is that your brain has specific triggers based on some kind of traumatic event that happened in your past. The worst part is that sometimes these triggers, or a lot of times these triggers depending on who you are, these triggers can be very unconscious. So let's give some examples of some trauma responses. You might be somebody who was bullied or picked on in school by a lot of different kids. This might give you a trauma response when you are out in public and you're having that kind of social anxiety. It might make you fearful of doing a presentation at work or in school. If you had parents who were constantly fighting and yelling or there was even any type of domestic violence, you might have a trauma response to when people are yelling or getting loud around you because the brain is getting triggered by that experience. Another example is female sexual assault survivors. Based on their trauma response, they might get really anxious when they're around men. Due to the events of your past, your brain has paired specific situations with oh crap, I need to get into survival mode. I need to make this person fearful. So what's the solution? There are quite a few various solutions, right? So one of them is see a doctor, see a psychologist. I've mentioned in past videos, I was on Lexapro for a very long time. This is something that helps calm down my anxiety and it also doubles as an anti-depressant. Another great option which I talk to you all about a lot is meditation. The science proves that meditation gives you more control over your responses to various situations. In some studies, it's actually been shown to shrink in the size of the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that makes us feel anxious in the first place. And remember, respect the evidence. Meditation works for anxiety. There are a lot of books out there too. A lot of books. That's why I do so many book reviews. Not only can you learn more about anxiety and what the brain's actually doing, but there are a lot of different books out there that give you a laundry list of coping skills that you can use when your anxiety is being triggered. Lastly, therapy is a great option especially, especially if you find yourself having trauma responses. If you are being triggered by certain events and you can't understand why. In a lot of cases, in so many cases, it's crazy how the human brain works. By simply sitting down in a safe environment and opening up to somebody about what you've been through, that in itself can begin to decrease your anxiety greatly. But on the other side of it too is working one-on-one with somebody, they're able to kind of help you get down to the source. Because as I mentioned, some of your trauma responses are very unconscious. You don't even realize that there is a specific trigger associated with something that happened in your past. And a therapist can help you do that. So if you're somebody who is struggling with anxiety, like make sure you check out the description below. I'll put a ton of different resources out there for some of the solutions that I mentioned. And again, please, please, please share this video. Share this video to help teach people about the difference between a normal brain and a brain that has an anxiety disorder. This will help increase awareness and maybe a little bit of empathy. By sharing this video too, it might reach somebody who needs some solutions to start working on their own anxiety. But that's all I got for you today. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. And if you are new here, I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental and emotional well-being. Make sure you click that little round subscribe button. And if you want to check out some other videos, you can click or tap right there on one of those thumbnails. All right. Thanks again for watching. Manage your anxiety today, and I'll see you next time.