Nowadays, more and more people are diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). It seemed like the anxiety is a part of our daily life. I want to discuss some myths about anxiety.
- Not all anxiety is bad!
There are healthy anxiety (eustress) and unhealthy anxiety.
- The eustress helps you to focus more in the specific tasks/ projects/ goals. It also motives, encourages for accomplishing as well as preventing you from impulsive actions. Moreover, anxiety helps you to remember not repeating the same mistakes again in the future.
- However, the unhealthy stress causes panic attacks – usually occur in phobia, unhealthy behaviors, and constant worrying. All of these behaviors are come from the disrupt in pre-frontal cortex (PFC), which is responsible for executive functioning and reasoning. This plays a huge role in emotion regulation.
A person with abnormally high levels of stress and anxiety has a high chance of having disrupted PFC region, result in easily making poor decisions.
- Anxiety can influence the neuroplasticity
Since anxiety is related to memory formation, the stronger of memory forming makes the person experience more anxiety. This then leads to the unhealthy anxiety.
In the molecular aspect, when H3S10p-K14ac histone is phosphorylated by mSK (mitogen- and stress-activated protein kinase), the histone is decondensed to allow the transcription in c-fos and Egr-1, which are gene induction for memory forming. Before that, mSK is activated by ERK from MAPK pathway and the high level of NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartat) and glucocorticoid hormone.
- GAD is different from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
People with PTSD mostly experience highly stress when they recall, reflect, and think about the past memories; whereas, people with GAD mostly experience anxiety when they think about the event in the future
- Most childhood trauma’s memory is impaired
This is completely different from anxiety affecting on memories, because highly anxiety makes stronger and vivid memories. However, in childhood trauma’s memories are repressed and stored, but they can’t be recovered easily in order to protect the person from the emotional pain.
- Non-pharmacological approaches can rewire the neuroplasticity and circuits relating to anxiety!
Cognitive behavior therapy looks at the cognitive component of anxiety and ignores the body manifestation of the disease. During CBT, participants are encouraged to think about their most catastrophic situation, the thing that is causing anxiety and encourage to face with it.
Meditation also has a similar method. During meditation, the participants are sitting comfortably, focusing on your breathing, and then bringing your mind’s attention to the present without drifting into concerns about the past or future. It helps the participants deeply engage in their mind to connect to the inner focus. This practice strengthens the mind’s attention, reducing the thoughts about the future or the past; therefore, the stimulation of these event will be less and may change the neuroplasticity of the brain.
