Anxiety Disorder(AD) is more common than you think in today’s society. According to Anxiety & Depression Association of America(ADAA), anxiety is the most common mental illness & affects nearly 20% of adults in America (40 million). In my opinion, the way parenting is today and what is lost at the molecular level do to unlearned behaviors is detrimental to a normal healthy life. ADAA also supports my opinion with them stating that life events can cause AD to develop. Although many would argue that multiple issues can lead to signs of anxiety, I think life experiences and the brain chemistry that is built from that is what can help produce LTP or plasticity in the brain, but with the right balance of activity.
Now there are many types of anxiety, but to keep it simple and in a broader sense, anxiety disorder (AD) is how I will refer to it. For those of you that don’t know, there are multiple ways of treatment. Medication is one and there are a couple others, but I believe direct therapy like exposure therapy or cognitive-behavioral therapy is the best way to lessen or diminish AD. These therapies really work on the individual and puts them in charge. They get to learn skills that are important to life, and they practice them over and over again until they have nearly perfected them. More specifically, exposure therapy throws objects of fear into play and as this gradually happens, the sense of fear and anxiety a patient once had, diminishes, thus, altered brain chemistry or plasticity is created.
So we know some therapies to treating AD, but lets get back to how parenting can lead to an unhealthy life. Children need everything today. They want, want, want, and many times, they get! Children also get assistance easier whether that’s a quick phone call to their parents or just the fact that parents are more consumed now-a-days with their children and they are only a room away. Essentially, what I mean by this is children, as well as teenagers and even adults who have parental supervision, are over protected, and I have personal experiences to support it.
I grew up in a neighborhood full of children and teenagers, with my brother and I being some of the oldest on the block. We noticed which houses had parents that were more relaxed when it came to letting their children come and play baseball or ride bikes until it was dark. But we also noticed the kids that had to be home for dinner, and then stay in, or be home by 9pm with no exceptions. Sometimes some parents would even just say no to outside play time somedays (like why?). Now, of course, this wasn’t the case for my brother and I. We stayed out late, we got in trouble, we did some crazy things; we even attempted to start a mini fire in what looked like a fire pit, but it was in our local park (fire is awesome when you are a kid) near the playground and was simply just someone who dug up a small hole and put sticks and debris in it.
That day at the park, we got escorted back home by our local police (now we were maybe 10 and 12 years old) and with my parents, we all had a nice long talk. What did my brother and I learn? Well, next time we should have ran when we had the chance…KIDDING! No, we had our first in counter of doing something illegal at our city park as well as that fire isn’t something to mess around with! Now this is just one life experience, but it changed the way we both thought and lead to future ways of coping with certain decisions. It created dendritic growth (neuron growth) thus more plasticity/proper LTP in our brains—learned behavior. Experiences like these are needed in everyone today, and I think parenting is leading the wrong way just because they want to make sure their offspring aren’t hurt and are safe, but we all need to live a little (thanks mom and dad). Having life experiences outside your room and beyond your parents can help avoid Anxiety and its subtypes, and can lead to a healthy life that everyone wants to experience.
How Creating a Fire Creates Brain Plasticity
