90% of the experience of anxiety is physical.When you exasperatedly claim “I FEEL so scared”, you’re not kidding. Sometimes, the feeling of anxiety is just about all there is to anxiety.The physical symptoms can be downright unbearable. As an HSP, you are even more likely to “feel the symptoms” because of greater sensory sensitivity.What is causing your body to experience such debilitating symptoms? Your thoughts? Sure. But if you know your thoughts are exaggeratedly irrational, then why are you still feeling afraid?
The answer lies in the Amygdala.
The amygdala is a tiny, almond shaped structure deep inside the emotional part of your brain (the limbic system). To understand why the amygdala does what it does, we need a little basic information about why the emotional brain does what it does.
WHY AM I SO EMOTIONAL?
The emotional brain is the oldest, most primitive part of our brain, which was only ever designed to ensure physical survival. Why? Because in early times, it was only about physical survival. You were a good ol’ fashioned caveman in a jungle and your only call to action was to watch out for snakes, bears, foxes and other cavemen fighting for your meat and fruit. You needed a kind of brain that is quick, hyper-vigilant and out of consciousness, because consciousness would have been capable of wiping you off the face of the earth.
“Ohhhh….I see…this is indeed a snake..hmmm…let me think…what should I do? It appears that I need a sophisticated plan to handle this…Oh, and by the way, I’m speaking from my grave.”
You needed a visceral and autonomous brain for physical survival. And nature gave it to you. This is your emotional brain. Can you see why our innate, basic emotions like fear are so automatic?
Over the course of evolution, the emotional brain wasn’t really replaced. Thank goodness! Even today, I really need it to be quick and automatic if I run into that snake again. Or an axe murderer. Or a falling tree branch. Or my mother-in-law.
Our emotional brain wasn’t replaced, but nature somehow figured that in this new, modern world, your needs are different. You no longer need to fight so much for physical survival, but more for social and psychological survival.
“My home keeps the snakes away, but god save me from my son of a bitch coworker trying to screw me over at work!!”
NOW you need a slower, more deliberate, purposeful and rational brain. One that can override your emotional brain’s instant impulse to punch the 2-year old screaming bloody murder on your train commute to work. You need an adult brain that tells you to move over to a different compartment.
So nature recently gave you another layer of a brain called the neocortex. Other terms commonly used for it are the “rational” brain or the “higher” brain. This is supposed to be the “wise” brain.
Being wise and strategic about modern world issues requires you to usually pause, reflect, weigh pros and cons and proceed. These are deliberate actions. They’re not automatic and visceral like our emotional impulses. They become second nature to us with time and practice, but at some initial point, the practice of accessing rationality by slowing down, pausing, reflecting and choosing appropriate action is new.
Slowing down and reflecting instead of acting on emotional impulses requires time and effort. Unlike automatic emotional reactions which are more or less handed over to you.
For example, the impulse to yell at that screaming child is automatic. But reflecting on that impulse and deciding not to is more deliberate. It takes longer. You deliberately access your reserves of wisdom, spend a few seconds there and make the wisest decision.
Thus the mechanics of its job, combined with its relatively new age in human evolution, make your rationality take much longer to kick in than your emotions.
Now geared with this understanding, let’s come back to the amygdala.
The next section is the Amygdala & How it works.
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