Anxiety is one of the most common psychological disorders. Almost one in every three people experiences intense anxiety at some point in their life. To understand anxiety, we first need to know where it comes from. Although our technological advances have come a long way throughout history, our bodies use the same system as our ancestors a hundred thousand years ago. The systems they developed against terrible natural conditions and predators are still in place. This system is so basic and old that we share it with almost all other animals.
For example, think about the African documentaries you've watched. While the zebra is grazing on the plain, the lion sneaks up on him. As soon as the zebra hears a small crackle from behind the bushes, his attention is drawn to that direction, because this sound may be a meaningless noise or it may be a predator coming to eat him. When she looks up at the bush and sees the lion, that ancient system she shares with humans comes into play. The amygdala, located in the zebra's brain and one of the cornerstones of the emotional system in the brain, identifies the lion as a threat and ensures the secretion of the adrenaline hormone throughout the body.
This hormone prepares the creature in the face of threat for a fight or flight situation. The zebra's heart begins to beat very fast and breathing becomes frequent. In order to get the oxygen needed by the muscles to fight or escape, the passages in the lungs enlarge and the veins expand. Muscles tense for a sudden movement. In order to see the danger better, the Zebra's pupils dilate and allow more light to enter. His eyes focus only on the lion, turning away from other meaningless objects in the environment. Other systems shut down to provide the body with sufficient energy. Digestion pauses, blood drains from the stomach and skin, and the nerves that provide sexual arousal shut down. Because in case of danger, reproduction or digesting food in the stomach becomes unimportant. The hunt and hunter game takes only seconds. And for these vital seconds the body has evolved perfectly. However, when it comes to humans, things are not as simple as in zebras. After the hunting game is over, a zebra calms down and maintains its body balance by restoring its body.
So why can this system be disrupted in us? What distinguishes us from all other animals is One of our core values is our concept of the future. While a zebra is thinking about what it will eat that day, we have to struggle with many monsters that are not here right now, such as mortgage loans, unemployment, and the future situations of our loved ones. The emotions that arise when we are in traffic jams where we don't know when it will open, when we are thinking about our presentation next week, or when we are imagining all the potential dangers outside our home, are fear, discomfort, and anxiety. Our body uses the same system as a zebra when it sees a lion in order to combat all these emotions. But there is a problem. How will our body be able to escape forever from an imaginary lion that has spread over a period of 30 years and has endless different types?
In fact, anxiety, like many other emotions, is useful for us. A certain amount of anxiety acts as a mechanism that motivates us to do the work we need to do. It can motivate you to study for the exam, or it can help you detect even the slightest mistake by reading your application text very carefully. Similarly, when you first start driving, the system that makes you check all the mirrors over and over again, hold the steering wheel tightly and make sudden decisions is also anxiety. If things go as planned, anxiety will decrease and disappear over time. Just like when you get in the car again and again, over time the event turns from exciting and scary to a routine behavior. Anxiety disorder occurs when this normal course of behavior is disrupted. If you are in fear, terror and panic every time you get in the car, as on the first day, and this situation never leaves you, it means that there is a deterioration in functionality. Studies have found that the amygdala of highly anxious people is highly sensitive. Even in routine situations in daily life, they perceive threats and secrete adrenaline, which puts the body in a fight-or-flight state.
For example, researchers conducted a study in which they showed a group of people a series of facial expressions. Some of the faces are angry, some are happy, and some are neutral. People with social anxiety disorder also perceived neutral facial expressions as angry. When we are in a state of anxiety, our chance of solving the situation logically decreases because our reasoning center is The prefrontal cortex, which works and is located in the front of the brain, is not as old and ancient as the amygdala. Therefore, once the amygdala is activated, it suppresses the reasoning system and creates anxiety in events and situations that may be meaningless. For example, let's think of a woman who is extremely embarrassed about a small line on her face and is afraid that people will make fun of her. You can even claim that the scar is almost invisible when you look at his face, but when he imagines people making fun of and humiliating him in the imaginary scenario he created in his mind, anxiety begins to suppress the logical part of the brain. These dreams go so far that they end up sharing her poses as the ugliest woman in the world in newspapers all over the country. And if anxiety builds up enough, it sometimes takes the form of a panic attack, literally turning the person into a zebra running away from invisible lions while sitting in the living room.
There are many different types of anxiety.
For example, when a scary dream occurs. You fear and worry about impending disaster, or being separated from loved ones, or spiders, snakes, and elevators.
You may think that people are constantly watching and judging you, and you may be afraid of being evaluated by them. You may have the fear of losing control, which forms the basis of a panic attack. Taking this one step further, you may develop agoraphobia and be afraid of stepping outside your home. You may be afraid of uncertainty and worried about the countless potential dangers that will happen to you.
At this point, you may be asking the following question. Why am I afraid of elevators when a zebra's escape from a lion is necessary for its survival? Why does the idea of being in a crowded environment paralyze me? Why do I feel anxious about events that don't make sense to other people, even though I know they don't make sense?
Here, we need to examine where our fears come from. Our brain is a machine that constantly tries to make connections between events. In this way, we encode the information that is useful to us together. For example, if you hear rustling behind the bushes and see a lion, your brain now connects the rustling of the bushes with the lion. In the next situation, even if you don't see the lion, rustle the bushes. Feeling the heat is enough to send you into fight or flight. You even begin to avoid environments containing bushes.
Now think about a traumatic situation that was done to you by an authority figure in your childhood. Imagine your professor publicly embarrassing you for a question you got wrong or that you live in a very critical apartment. The emotions these situations create in you may lead to not answering questions again or not even leaving the house for fear of gossip from the people in the neighborhood. This situation may come to a point where you may start to fear everyone you accept as an authority figure. Because our fears are generalized.
Let's consider the Little Albert experiment. To understand how fear is conditioned in humans, researchers gave a small, white-furred mouse to a little boy named Albert. When Albert saw the mouse, he was neither afraid nor cried. However, when the researchers handed the mouse to Albert for the second time, they hit the iron pipe behind it very hard, creating a terrible noise. Frightened by the noise, Albert began to cry. When the researchers repeated this event several more times, Albert's brain had already established the association between the mouse and the loud sound. He saw the mouse as the source of fear and sound. And now, even when he just saw the mouse, he started crying and tried to escape from the environment, even though there was no loud sound. Even more interesting, Albert's fears were generalized. He became afraid not only of white furry mice, but also of rabbits, white fur, and even the Santa Claus mask with its white beard. A similar generalization may occur in people with anxiety. Even situations that do not involve danger are associated with fear and cause anxiety.
Let's say you watched the movie Killer Piranhas as a child. Even though you knew it was a movie, it scared you so much that you associated going into water with being eaten by piranhas. When you went on holiday to Antalya with your family that summer, you felt terrified as you got closer to the sea. People try to convince you by saying that there are no piranhas in Antalya, but it is in vain. No other image comes to your mind other than being eaten by piranhas. This is a generalization It can be reflected in every area of the horse. When you grow up in a family where everyone judges each other and talks behind others' backs, you may think that all people in the world are like this. You believe that everyone is watching what you do and judging you at all times. At the end of this, you may get tired of trying to please everyone, and you may even lock yourself at home, saying why bother?
So, isn't there a way to deal with anxiety?
Of course there is. First of all, we need to define anxiety. Why are we afraid? Where are we afraid? What events or people trigger our anxiety?
In order to find a solution, we first need to diagnose the problem. Next, we must examine our beliefs regarding this problem. Most people think they know themselves, but this is not a realistic assumption. In our daily lives, we do not examine our thoughts, behaviors and emotions in detail. Especially in situations involving emotion, we do not use our logic much and we become slaves of our emotions. Let's say you have a decent paying job and a good career. It seems like there is no chance of your company going bankrupt anytime soon, and even if your company goes bankrupt, your chances of finding a job with this resume seem quite high. But you constantly dream of being fired from your job, ending up on the streets, and starving to death under a bridge. This dream is so realistic and scary that it will be very difficult for you to say wait, why am I thinking this way while you are in the middle of the dream? And your only focus will be the feeling of helplessness you are in at that moment.
So what should we do in this situation? As Carl Jung said, “What we need most is where we are most afraid to look.”
Instead of waiting for worrying thoughts and situations to come to us, we need to divide them into small parts that we can deal with, and move on to the result by solving these parts. Because when we plan and deliberately put ourselves in situations that create fear, we can fight against the amygdala taking control. If we experience that we voluntarily enter into situations that we think we cannot bear and still survive, we can increase our resistance to anxiety. The important point here is this. We try to get rid of anxiety or fear
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