Subtle Effects of Anxiety on the Brain You Should Know

In today’s fast-paced world, anxiety has become an all too familiar companion for many individuals. But have you ever wondered about the hidden effects it might be having on your brain or health? In this article, we will dive into the lesser-known ways in which anxiety shapes your brain. Research has shown that prolonged anxiety can lead to structural changes in the brain, impacting areas responsible for decision-making, memory, and emotions.

Have you ever experienced an increased heart rate, sweaty face, underarms, and a feeling that your mind is blank? These are common symptoms of anxiety that you might have encountered at some point, whether when anticipating the results of a test or making a speech in front of a crowd.

However, beyond these crippling and often discomforting symptoms, anxiety can affect your brain in ways you might not have thought of before. First, you should know that there is a difference between feeling anxious due to a situation or circumstances and suffering from a general anxiety disorder, where you are worried all the time.

What Are the Root Causes of Anxiety?

Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something or a situation that you usually can’t control. Here are some root causes of anxiety:

• Unforeseen threats: money problems or environmental factors like traffic, noise, and uncontrollably inflated prices of goods, among others. These can make you easily triggered, irritable, and overwhelmed with stress and worry. You can also experience physical symptoms like stomach aches and headaches. These threats might seem minor but can build up over time and cause anxiety coupled with depression.
• Avoidance and adopting coping strategies: When you find ways to avoid thinking about things you’re worried about, it can trigger anxiety. This avoidance or coping technique includes spending hours on social media, binge-watching TV series, etc. This solution, however, is short-lived.
• Negative thinking: Although it can be a challenge to see the positive side in every situation, negative thinking will not help either. This is because the perception of things going wrong all the time subconsciously triggers a stress response. Consequently, this can induce feelings of anxiety that accumulate gradually.
• Catastrophizing: This is similar to negative thinking. It involves always expecting the worst to happen, not getting your hopes up, and anticipating every possible worse outcome. For instance, imagine everything going smoothly in your day, but you have a persistent thought that since good things are happening, it means something negative will happen soon. 
• Unresolved emotional issues: Do you suppress your emotions so as not to seem weak? These emotional issues could be past childhood trauma, incidents, or criticism that triggered your weakness. This could be inwardly building up your anxiety levels. While you don’t have to be emotional in every situation, it is essential to address and deal with the emotional issue at your convenience instead of suppressing it.

Effect of Anxiety on the Brain?

The brain is the control house that processes anxiety. The vital parts of the brain that play a role in processing anxiety are the amygdala and hippocampus. The amygdala monitors what you see and hear and functions as the warehouse of your emotions. The hippocampus plays an essential role in memory and retention. When you’re afraid of something, the feeling coming from the amygdala communicates this to the hippocampus, which responds by confirming if you’re truly in danger or not.

However, when you’re in a constant state of chronic anxiety, there is increased activity in the amygdala. This causes it to be easily triggered by the stress hormone, whether there is an actual threat or not. It causes the brain to have long-term memories of being in danger even when there is little or no threat. With time, the brain can become confused and misinterpret situations as stressful and threatening even when they are not. This also affects other cognitive functions of the brain.

How to Manage Anxiety and Improve Your Brain Function

Your brain’s fight or flight response is designed to respond to dangerous situations instead of everyday stressors. Thus, a constant state of chronic anxiety can negatively affect thought processes and, to the extreme, cognitive abilities. Here are some tips to manage anxiety and improve brain function:

• Take a timeout to process your emotions: Paying attention to your emotions instead of sweeping them under the rug can give you the power to face them head-on and resolve them. This also reduces the buildup of anxious feelings.
• Practicing cognitive defusion: Cognitive defusion means stepping back from your thoughts and seeing your thoughts as just thoughts. For instance, imagine preparing for an exam, and then a random thought about failure runs through your mind. Acknowledging it as just a passing thought from an observatory point of view instead of wondering why such thoughts entered your head is cognitive defusion.
• Use of brain health-boosting supplement: Use MEMOCAP which contains fish oil, B vitamins, and other constituents that boost your brain function and mood. It will also help ease anxiety and cognitive decline.

Anxiety is an emotion that we all experience from time to time. However, when it becomes excessive, it can affect both your mental and physical health. Therefore, include NATURE’SFIELD MEMOCAP, and don’t let anxiety control your life.