Anxiety, Depression, Anger…

As we have seen, the fight or flight mode has evolved to help protect us in situations of high physical or emotional danger. It is designed to lock us down into an alert mode, ready for action. In this state of fight or flight we are in a defensive mindset, continually on alert looking for the potential threat in external situations. As such this is a little like having a filter placed over your eyes and ears, through which everything is processed. Accordingly you will initially interpret all information in it's negative connotation i.e. can this harm me, is this threatening or dangerous and so forth. It is very important to note that when you are in the stress response, this negative processing style is not a choice, it is the way your brain works when in defense mode.

If you were to look at a PET scan (positron emission tomography - provides images of brain activity) of someone who has been locked in the stress response for a long period of time you will often see limited activity in the neo-cortex and pre-frontal cortex area's of the brain. You will also frequently notice more activity in one hemisphere than in the other, and a higher level of beta wave activity than when in a mentally relaxed state. It is extremely import for you to understand what is happening here as this is the key to understanding not only your own, but also other peoples emotional reactions.

As covered, when we move into a stress state, we shift not only into our dominant brain hemisphere, but we also shift energy into a back area of that hemisphere, an area known as the locus coeruleus. This is a place that has intimately to do with fight or flight and survival. Here we have easy access to past history, knowledge and experience and animal/gut instinct. Naturally in a truly dangerous situation this is appropriate, as time is of the essence, and we need to be able to make quick, focused decisions based on the information we already know - past history knowledge, experience and gut instinct. It would not be appropriate to stay in our neo-cortex where we are more present time aware, compassionate and creative. In a time of high danger it is not appropriate to be looking at the bigger picture and trying to decide how best to respond for the greater good of all… what we need to do is respond quickly in a way that we already know will work.

If you are locked in this defensive stress response inappropriately, what happens is you can easily misinterpret information. For example a person may make a general comment and you will take it personally, or you may feel a sense of anxiety and threat when confronted by strangers, who may just innocently approach or pass by

you. As time goes on your responses may intensify and you can become over sensitive, jumpy, easily scared or upset, easily angered or pushed to violence and so forth.

I tend to see this emotional imbalance show up in one of two ways. On one side of the scale, people who are locked in the stress response become more competitive and or aggressive, and on the other end of the scale is what I term the 'poor me syndrome' and feelings of depression or hopelessness and unworthiness are more likely to show up.

Competitive/Aggressive............ Normality .......................Poor Me

 

The above diagram represents a person locked in the stress response. In this state they will have a range in which their behavior appears reasonably normal for them, this I have identified as 'normality.' When they get noticeably upset they will tend to move into either the poor me syndrome, or the competitive/ aggressive syndrome. (People tend to move into one direction only, always the poor me of always the C/A.) You probably know people who fall into these categories. When upset the 'poor me' group tend to see the glass as always half empty and state things such as 'it's so unfair' or 'why does it always happen to me' or 'you just don't understand/nobody understands…' From your point of view this persons stress may seem quite minor in the bigger scheme of things, but they just can't see it. In fact often their life on many levels will look excellent and you will feel amazed that they even have the audacity to complain about their 'lot.' But from the perspective of the person locked in the stress response, feeling locked down and trapped, exhausted… their reality is doom and gloom and life is just not fair… They are locked in a reactive mode, looking out at a the world through the eyes of a victim under attack; in flight. They are locked in the 'poor me syndrome.'

Now the C/A types are quite different. When their buttons are pushed, they do not go into a corner and whine, they strike back; they fight. At an extreme these people have to win - they will do what ever it takes to come out on top because in a stressful situation it is 'every man for himself.' "If I don't do it to you, you will do it to me…" When this type of person is locked in the stress response and reacts to something they perceive as challenging them, many onlookers will state that the person over reacted, went too far… But to the person under threat, they just instinctively do what they know will work, often without even thinking about the consequences until after the fact, if at all. It’s a gut reaction that they follow; survival instinct. A famous example of this that always comes to my mind is the Tyson fight. Mike Tyson is used to winning, and often it appears he does so effortlessly. He is not used to loosing; he is a trained fighter. In the Boxing match in 1997 against Evander Hollyfield, Tyson was loosing; he was under attack, and for what ever reason he 'bit' Hollyfield's ear! Naturally this was not allowed, Tyson was reprimanded and the fight continued. On a conscious level Tyson knew that if he repeated that action he would be disqualified and that this would have a severe impact on his career and image. However when we are locked in fight or flight, we do not consider the implications of our actions and how they may make others feel etc. We need to survive. We will do what ever we know will work to survive and that's all there is to it. The fight continued and when Tyson was being attacked by Hollyfield and felt he was losing control again, I am guessing that gut instinct just kicked in and took over - his survival mechanism repeated a distraction tactic that it knew had already worked; thus he bit Hollyfield's ear again, and the fight was over; Tyson was disqualified. It's unlikely that Tyson meant to do this or planed to do this again, as the cost of this action to his reputation, ego, sportsmanship and professionalism would be devastating. However under this type of intense stressor the instinctive reptilian brain takes over, disconnecting our higher human brain, and we do what ever is deemed necessary to survive.

Please note that people who are in the C/A category may be very competitive, or aggressive, or a mix of both. However aggressive does not automatically mean violent. Some people can act aggressively, or forcefully in a non-violent manner, whereas other people do have a tendency towards physical aggression and violence when they come under excessive stress.

It is very important to realize that when someone is locked in the stress response and thus interpreting information in this negative manner, it is very difficult to get through to them. Their brain is not functioning in an integrated manner, and thus the normal way of processing information is unavailable to them - in a way it's switched off. Thus even if they appear to be hearing and understanding what you are saying, in this locked down state, what you say and what they hear is often very different. What's even more alarming is that often when you are in this state you are unaware of it. Your new reality - defense mode - feels 'normal' to you, and it appears to you that everyone else has the problem - lights are too bright, people are too noisy, people don't understand, life is not fair… Other people may see the change in you, but it is very difficult to see this change in yourself. In order to give you an idea of how this can look I will share with you my personal experience of this 'altered reality.'

Some time ago I was involved in a car accident and I sustained mild concussion. Prior to this accident I was known for being very easy going, I never lost my temper, and it was really quite difficult to irritate me. In fact I have always been seen as one of those people who walk around seeing life through rose tinted glasses. Anyway after the accident I had a headache, which was of no surprise, and mild bruising. As a result of the concussion I had a number of physical challenges, speech and memory problems, which are par for the course, but what was truly amazing to me was the way in which I was affected emotionally, and that I was completely unaware of the emotional changes in my personality. I became very argumentative, short-tempered, and easily irritated. I had no patience. I felt the doctors and attorneys were all idiots, and just trying to invent that there was something wrong with me to justify their fees and the follow up appointments. It took many months for me to slowly return to my 'old self' and quite some time after that before I could look back at the situation and see just how out of whack I was. What I found most disturbing about this incident was that whilst in the stress response, I had no idea I was there. Despite the fact that I work in the field of stress management, know all about locking in the stress response, and have spent all of my life as a calm happy reasonable person, whilst 'locked down' I could not see that I had changed. Everyone was trying to tell me that I was still suffering from the effects of the concussion, but I felt fine. I felt 'just like my old self' even though I was quite different.

In essence when you are in the stress response you perceive life and situations in a very different way than you would see things if you were in balance. Anxiety, depression, short tempers, and a number of other challenges may be totally due to that fact that a person is locked in the stress response, and as such these symptoms may quickly disappear when they return to their natural state of brain balance and integration.

The main stream Press are beginning to pick up on and report on the fact that many illnesses are caused by stress, and they are seeing why. For example the U.S.News published an excellent cover story on depression on March 8th, 1999 entitled Melancholy Nation. In this article they bring reference to the fact that in the United States, depression afflicts 18 million people at any given time. They go on to state that "In addition to biochemical changes, brain structures themselves appear to behave differently in depression. In imaging studies the left pre-frontal cortex seems to be especially sluggish. And studies of depression suffers who have improved, both after medication and after therapy, show as increase in that regions activity." So the word is getting out. Stress causes a change in the way your brain operates, and this leads to symptoms. As we all know, one does not tend to be perfectly balanced and happy one day, and the next suddenly wake up with clinical depression. There will usually have been some type of stressor that triggered this downward spiral leading to clinical depression.

Now that you have a much better understanding of the way in which you can get locked into the stress response, and how this affects your brain, you may see why some people are locked into a depressive state, even when there is no current cause for them to be depressed or angry. Fortunately I have seen wonderful results with people releasing from this depressive state when the cause has been stress, and they have participated in Alphabiotics.