Hey Bob? Do you remember what Marlin Perkins said about this?

A little more about the fight or flight response physiologically.  If you're running from a lion, your body wants to take every little smidgen of energy and use it to get the heck out of dodge.  

In that moment, NON-ESSENTIAL SYSTEMS IN YOUR BODY SHUT DOWN.  So at the moment your cardiovascular and respiratory system kick into high gear, your body stops using energy for things like digestion, immune response, visual acuity, storing short-term memory . . . and logical thought.  Ever wonder why in the moment you can never come up with just the right thing to say, or you can't remember to use the coping skills you've spent so much time storing in your prefrontal cortex?  If you're running from a lion, you do not need to remember the details about the episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom you saw as a kid where the lions brought down a wilderbeast.  You don't need logic, or details, or self-soothing, or a snappy comeback.  You just need to run. 

 Except in our world, fight or flight doesn't really make sense because we don't really face very many situations in which either choice is really warranted (thank goodness!).  If your boss corners you in the office and reads you the riot act about something or other, you're stuck.  A physical fight response will get you fired (though many people go there anyway) and it would look kind of silly to scream and run away as fast as you can.  So we freeze.  Tongue tied and tense, we're riveted to the spot.  Afterward, when blood flow returns to normal, we think of all the great things we could have said in that moment, or all the ways we could have handled it differently.  Cause those things live in our prefrontal cortex. 


Marlin Perkins

So how do we get there in the moment????  How do we convince our amygdalas to calm the heck down and let our thinking brain handle things?  It's the same way you get to Carnegie Hall.  Practice, practice, practice.  When we have a stressful experience, we tend to run the instant replay OVER and OVER and OVER in our heads, right?  Except we replay it EXACTLY as it happened.  Boss cornered us, we froze.  We rehearse being all amygdala-y in the moment, which actually increases the chances it will go just like that the next time.  If we rehearse the way we WANTED to handle things, we increase the chances it will go just like that the next time.  So catch yourself rehearsing what you DON'T want to have happen, and rewrite it in your head to handle it the way your thinking brain knows works best. 

Over time, your brain will develop the attitude that it CAN handle any situation rather than it CAN'T, and sensory input doesn't trigger an amygdala response nearly as often.  Ta DAH!!!!  What???  Handle STRESS without ANXIETY????   No way.       

Yes, Way. 

REVOLUTIONARY NEW ANXIETY MANAGEMENT THERAPY: THE STEEL EEL

Photo by Hagerman

I’m always talking about rehearsing anxiety management strategies in your head because there is no way to artificially create the unexpected in real life on purpose.  Well, I found one.  My daughter is 9 years old.  On a recent trip to Sea World, we stopped in at the “check your height” booth to see which rides she was eligible for.  Much to my utter and complete dismay, she towered over the height limit for (insert Beethoven’s 5th here) “THE STEEL EEL.” 

Aside:  I despise roller coasters.  Not since Space Mountain in high school have I had a positive experience.  Space Mountain was positive, I believe, because it was dark and I couldn’t see what was coming.  At the tender age of 16, snuggled in beside my equally adolescent boyfriend, I thought it was a blast.  I rode it about 20 times.  Since then, I have spent a great deal of time trying NOT to have that sick sinking feeling in my stomach.  In fact some might say I’ve made a career out of it. 

And yet, on this day at Sea World, I was faced with an impossible choice.  Ride (B’s 5th) “THE STEEL EEL” or deny my youngster this rite of passage.  I felt sick.  I was frozen to the spot, imagining that horrible feeling as the bottom drops out of the world and you are hurled into . . . oh hold on a minute.  That’s what I’m supposed to NOT do.  Anxiety is the negative anticipation of future events.  I know better.  Don’t I?  Sigh. Yeah, I do.  And so, I picked up my toolbox and kicked all my preaching into practice.  So, for your enjoyment, here are the strategies I used.

Use of powerful, rather than powerLESS language:  I don’t HAVE to ride “THE STEEL EEL.”  No one is forcing me.  It’s a choice.  I can do it, or I can choose not to.  I am choosing to do it, because no 9 year old should have to suffer because their mom is afraid of roller coasters.  Who knows how much therapy it might take to undo that.  So, I set limits.  I told her that I loved her.  Enough to go on THE STEEL EEL.  I made clear, however, that no amount of love could drag me onto the (insert psychotic scream here) GREAT WHITE.  It goes upside down.  That’s just not going to happen ever again.  (Even the adolescent boyfriend couldn’t get me on that one twice at 6 Flags.) 

Anticipate the entire experience, including (and usually especially) the end (when it is OVER):  What I know about roller coasters is that you wait in line for 45 minutes for a ride that lasts a couple minutes.  I could handle a couple minutes, right?  No matter how horrible it was, it would be over in a couple minutes.  I could do that.  And I would have the memory of that first roller coaster ride with my daughter for way more than a couple of minutes.   

Know your weak spots and Make a plan:  I anticipated that first drop.  (In writing this post, I estimated this sucker to be about 10 stories high.  Wanting to be accurate, I looked it up on the internet and discovered the actual height to be 15 STORIES.  Gulp.)  No way around it, that was going to suck.  I knew with every fiber of my being that my amygdale would not miss the opportunity to interpret danger in the sensation of a free-fall from 15 stories.  After that, just a sense of being thrashed around and up and down, one more big drop and then we were done.  (See: “it’s a couple minutes.  I can do that.”)  I planned to use distraction, perhaps counting the seconds, and taking a lot of deep breaths. 

My toolbox and I got in line.  My 9 year old was so excited, and I have a deeply held parenting philosophy that goes something like this . . . “DO NOT BE A WET BLANKET ON YOUR KID’S SENSE OF EXCITEMENT AND ADVENTURE ANY MORE THAN ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.  LIFE IS TOUGH ENOUGH ON THEM.”  So I was trying to be excited.  The wait was not 45 minutes, but 5.  A good thing, I told myself.  Less time to anticipate and second-guess myself.  Bite the bullet and just DO it (Strategy Alert:  don’t spend more time anticipating how unpleasant something is going to be than it would take to DO that unpleasant thing.  Otherwise you just magnify your misery.)

The gates opened and we got in.  I reminded myself that the owners of Sea World do not want to be sued, so they have gone to great lengths to be sure that people will not fall out of their roller coaster.  I am highly unlikely to die in this experience.  (Strategy:  what’s the realistic probablility of the worst case scenario??)  I buckled my seatbelt.  Tightly.  I stopped myself from  noticing that the bar did not come down on my lap nearly as firmly as I wanted it to.  I visualized myself gritting my teeth and hanging on to that bar on that first drop.  I pictured terror.  Then I caught myself and DECIDED to ON PURPOSE picture myself getting OUT of the car after a couple minutes, to the sound of the cheering parent support group in my head, having delayed once more the moment when my daughter realizes her mom is a total nerd. 

We begin our ascent.  I take a moment to be conscious of the realization that it doesn’t seem as high as I thought it would, looked around a little, and took some deep breaths.  Then I guess some yahoo had his cell phone out and was trying to take a picture, and the whole train STOPPED on the 60 degree slope, and did I mention this was 15 STORIES ABOVE THE GROUND??  The person in the car behind me said “We’re going to slide back down!!” and I felt myself coming a little unglued.  Had a momentary flash of demanding to be let off, though I wasn’t sure how that would happen, and I decided that would take more therapy to undo than if I hadn’t gone in the first place.  So I decided to engage in some positive self-talk.  “I can do this,” I said to myself (though I believe I said it out loud).  “I’ve ridden 100 miles on horseback.  I’ve given birth twice.  Once without any drugs and that was the EASIER one.  I can totally do this.”  Went over the “this is safe – sea world doesn’t want to be sued” speech again in my head.  And the coaster began to move again.  Much to my chagrin, the phrase “this was a bad idea” slipped out between my teeth just as we went over the top.  But, as anticipated, that drop was over in a flash!  Looking back, I am amazed how much time it seemed like I had to go through the safety/liability talk with myself again, and to notice that my butt was held in the car only by a seatbelt and that there was noticeable air between MY seat and THE seat.  I consciously focused on holding on for dear life (a grounding exercise).  The ensuing twists and turns were fast and furious, but nothing over my threshold.  (I do enjoy the kiddie roller coaster . .. ).  At some point I opened my eyes and considered enjoying the experience, but noticed my daughter had slid down in the seat.  My amygdala was instantly positive she would go flying out at any moment, so I grabbed her wrist in a death grip and went through the safety speech again.  I tried to count, but discovered I had forgotten how.  I closed my eyes again, and reminded myself it was going to be over soon…. and then, a break.  The coaster slowed.  DEEEEP breath.  The second ascent to 15 STORIES was somewhat less idyllic than the first, but without the stupidity stop at the top, we were hurtling toward earth again in no time.  I decided this time to use the strategy of distraction, and searched for some memory piece to draw my brain function into my cerebral cortex and out of my limbic system.  “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want . . . . “ and couldn’t remember another word.  Damn adrenaline.  Ok, something more familiar.  Went for the Lord’s Prayer this time.  Not that I am prone to reciting either one of these as a general rule, but it’s what my brain gave me, so I went with it.  Next time (HAHAHAHA!!) decide in advance what to recite in your head, Karen.  I practiced mindfulness, and took a moment to notice that I was reciting the Lords Prayer REALLY FAST.  I have no idea if I said it out loud or not, but then before I knew it, my daughter was prying my fingers off her wrist and saying “MOM!  It’s OVER!  I’m FINE!!!”  (Bonus points!  She thought I was holding on to comfort HER!!!)  So we sat there, as the coaster pulled back into the dock, and reveled in the emotional intimacy of our shared experience.  I smiled at her, scrunched down in her seat.  She looked at me, smiled back, and said “I don’t think I’ll do that again.”  I replied warmly, my heart swelling, “sweetheart, I’ve never loved you more.”   

And so there you have it.  There IS a way to practice all these strategies on purpose, and in an accelerated time frame.  If I were going to set my sights on enjoying roller coasters, I am confident that with enough practice, I could, and that the strategies I used in that pursuit would translate into the rest of my life dealing with cranky clients, bank tellers, traffic, angry kids, relationships … the list goes on.  Not that I’m getting on the STEEL EEL again anytime soon.  I’ll stick with the real world for now.    

What do you mean I have to REWARD him???

Let’s talk about anger for a minute.  All together now, what’s it called?  The FIGHT or FLIGHT response.  Option C is FREEZE.  Instinct says in that moment, the three most appropriate choices are (in this order):  hunker down under a bush and hope no one notices you, run like hell, or ATTACK.  Let’s say you have just been to the gas station where your card has been rejected even though you know there's money in there.  Instinct says freeze.  Picture yourself standing there like a deer in headlights, nozzle in hand . . . that doesn’t really make sense.  Option B:  instinct says flee.  Picture running screaming away from the pump.  Tempting . . . comical . . . but not too practical.  The only option left over in your limbic system is to fight.  Adrenaline is coursing through you.  You’ve seen people do it – kick a trash can (or the gas pump), pound a fist on the roof of the car, or somehow display anger in response to something unexpected.  Freeze doesn’t feel powerful.  That’s what we do when the consequences for fight are big.  Probably you’re not going to slug your jerk boss, though some people certainly do.  Freeze is gritting your teeth and holding it in.  Flee doesn’t make sense most of the time, though we retreat, throw up our hands and say “I’m done with this” or hang up on someone.  Fight is the endgame.  We don’t like to feel powerless, that’s for sure.  A good angry outburst is awesome for a rush of power. 

I had the opportunity to reflect on this a great deal lately.  My darling Max has not gotten enough exercise in recent years, and the first time I took him out this spring, he bucked like crazy down the trail.  Thank you very much, I made my 8 seconds and then some.  Scared the heck out of the people riding with me, though, one of whom was my daughter who got a stern advisement on the way home that she was NEVER to repeat ANY of those words Mommy said.  She thought that was hilarious.  Ok, so I’m out for Mom of the year and it’s only April.  This past weekend, I was reminded of a clinic I attended with Centered Riding clinican Becky Hart in which she suggested that the appropriate response to your horse who spooks at something is to pet him and reassure him.  Funny how I never thought about this.  From Max’s perspective, he’s trotting down the trail, sees the evil and clearly dangerous WalMart bag, from which he prepares to flee, and then is suddenly subjected to harsh scolding in a foreign language from up above – the position a predator would take.  Holy Jimmy Buffett!  Fins to the left!  Fins to the right!  And Max is sure he’s the only bait in town!  I can tell you with certainty that it is not the first thing on most rider’s minds after a sudden jolt to praise and soothe their horse.  From the rider's perspective, we just had a near miss and want to holler at them!!!  Let them know that they are IDIOTS for the shy at the same lousy tree stump that has been at that spot on the trail all 47,356 times we’ve ridden by it.  That’ll teach em . . . that every time they see that tree stump, they’re about to be startled by loud unpleasantries from above.  You bet they spook the next time.  Darnit.  In the words of Dr. Phil, “How’s that workin’ out for ya, Karen?”

 
So on my 18 mile training ride this past Sunday, I concentrated on managing my fight or flight response.  Every time he shied (windy day – lots of bags) I took a deep breath, re-balanced in the saddle, and petted him.  Instead of jerking back on the reins to stop the shy, I grabbed my saddle for support and urged him forward.  By the end of our ride, he was relaxed, responsive, and comfortable.  I did take full advantage of his lack of fluency in English, and expressed my frustration by, in the sweetest, most soothing voice I could muster, saying “Sweet darling Max, keep it up and our next stop is Purina.”   Who am I kidding?  Even if he could understand me he’d know I was bluffing.  Felt a little more powerful though . . . I guess I still have some work to do.  Anyone know a good therapist?    

Hey Goldilocks – there is no bear.

No, I wasn’t hijacked by a blue dot. Surprisingly, life gets in the way of blogging! Back to the subject at hand.



Balanced

 First, a little horsemanship lesson. Riding, you will not be surprised to learn, is dependent on balance. When I am coaching my kids on their riding, I often redirect them to focus on a point ahead of them and ride to it. “You will end up where you’re looking” I say, “if you’re looking at the ground under your horse’s feet, that’s not a good thing.”

Picture this: You’re trotting down a beautiful trail on your faithful steed – let’s call him Max. It’s a gorgeous Colorado day. The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing . . . you’re singing, perhaps. Ok maybe that’s just me. Anyway. Suddenly, your horse’s head flies up, and he begins to shy away from the horse-eating whatever it is off the side of the trail. The HARDEST thing to learn to do as a rider is NOT LOOK. Seems reasonable, right? Horse spooks into the next county, you want to look and see what in the world he’s afraid of! Here’s what happens. When you’re turning your head and looking around for the rabbit/squirrel/leprechaun/rock/mailbox/WHATEVER, your center of gravity shifts and you are no longer balanced in the saddle. So in that moment, you become more likely than ever to perform my own personal favorite – the spontaneous left-shoulder dismount. In this precise maneuver, the rider is pitched forward in the saddle (as their momentum is still going and the horse has stopped), lose their balance, and wind up clinging ever so elegantly to the neck, sliding gracefully out of the saddle, and finishing with an up close and personal visit with the flora and fauna beside the trail. Which in Colorado is often cactus. Or poison ivy. Yeah. Better to stay on the top side of the horse.



Less Balanced.
(photo by Thowra_uk)

  It took me YEARS to learn not to look for the source of the spook. These days, (thankfully) I don’t come off that often. My balance and strength is better. Having said that, my next blog post will undoubtedly be from the hospital in traction. Malcom Gladwell proposes in his book Outliers that it takes 10,000 hours of practice at any given thing to become really really good at it, and I know I’ve gotta have at least twice that many hours in the saddle. So I’m a slow learner. Point is, I’ve stopped looking for the bear. What I know in my highly developed pre-frontal cortex that sets me apart from my horse is that 1) most of the places I ride, the most dangerous wildlife is a coyote. Coyotes are big ol’ chickens and want nothing to do with me or my horse. 2) The OTHER places I ride, where there might actually be bears and mountain lions, I am really really unlikely to run into them because I’m crashing down the trail making a heck of a lot of noise (and singing John Denver songs) and they are long gone before I get there. Thus, the assumption can be reasonably made then that whatever Max is freaking out about is of absolutely no danger whatsoever. Looking around trying to figure out the source of his angst only makes me more likely to fall off, and if, by some rare coincidence there actually IS a bear around, I will probably get the message loud and clear and being ON my horse gives me a better chance at staying on top of the food chain.

Case in point: on one cool July morning on a ride in Wyoming years ago, I trotted over what I thought from a distance was a stick across the trail. When I was on top of it, I realized (WHEN IT MOVED) that it was a rattlesnake. Did Max spook at that? NOOOOOOOOO. Didn’t give it a second look. My friend Carolyn, who was riding behind me, likes to add to the story that she never saw the stick that turned out to be a rattlesnake, but she clearly saw the subsequent 500 rattlesnakes that turned out to be sticks as her amygdala ran away with her the rest of the day. On another ride that season, after spooking at every single mailbox we passed (25 miles on a country road is a lot of mailboxes) Max flatly and fearfully refused to cross the chalk finish line. In his defense, he was only 4 at the time. Horses don’t get smart until 7. Ish. Still. The ride manager was waiting for me with a frosty beverage (did I mention the multitude of reasons I LOVE this sport?), and my silly youngster who had, 2 months earlier, trotted over a rattlesnake was now flipping out over a white line. One of us was motivated to cross it.

So here’s the take-home message: Stop looking for the bear. We are extremely unlikely, in the course of day to day events, to come across any sort of life threatening danger. Your amygdala is a light switch, not a dimmer. It’s on or off. We MISINTERPRET stressful circumstances in our lives as immediate, life-threatening dangers. Our bodies respond AS IF there were a bear. Remember my hero Dan Goleman? The sudden, intense emotional response is out of proportion to the situation. We don’t NEED adrenaline to survive getting a speeding ticket. Once we begin to recognize that those physical reactions in our bodies are unnecessary in MOST situations – did you hear that? That physiological anxiety response is NOT A FOREGONE CONCLUSION - we can start to anticipate that we could handle stressful situations without the adrenaline response. Imagine approaching a stressful situation with confidence. Imagine going in and asking for a raise, or speaking in public, or facing a jam-packed, non-stop busy day or cranky kids WITHOUT that feeling in your stomach. WITHOUT that tightness in your chest. WITHOUT tension in your shoulders. We are so conditioned to the expectation that the stress response is just part of the package, we don’t even consider that there might be something we could do about it. The first step is to recognize, in that moment, that even though we might have been hijacked, we aren’t a hostage.

Practice this today: any time you feel that anxiety, just have an awareness that you don’t NEED that level of physiological response. Think about the fact that you’re having all this physical stuff going on in your body, and there is no bear. Talk amongst yourselves.

HELP! I'VE BEEN HIJACKED BY A BLUE DOT!!

When I write my series on perfectionism, remind me to tell you how it's taken me this long to post this blog because I couldn't find the cartoon clip I wanted.  Ugh.  Read on.

Amygdala Hijack.  I have to tell you I love this term.  Thank you, Daniel Goleman, for coining a phrase that’s so dramatic and descriptive!  (any client is reading this and thinking “oh no . . . here she goes again).

I am a SERIOUS visual/kinesthetic learner (remind me to come back to this – knowing what kind of learner you are has a huge impact on the effectiveness of your ability to use your brain most efficiently).  What this means for me is that words create pictures in my head and have no meaning without image.  For this reason, I detest phone sessions.  I have a terrible difficulty absorbing what someone is telling me without associated visual cues.  So the term “Amygdala Hijack” conjures up the image of the tiny blue dot on the foam brain puzzle in my office leading the screaming charge away from perceived danger and taking with it all of the other brain parts.  Kind of looks like this in my head:  (insert copyright protected cartoon of man in a white shirt with eyes bugging out, screaming and running)  Except he’s wearing blue.  (Settling for Monty Python here instead.  But it's not really what I wanted.)

Your amygdala is responsible for emotional memory, and is located in the neighborhood in your brain where there is no thinking, only reacting.  No words, just feelings.  Anything you see, hear, feel, smell, taste or touch goes through here first, and your amygdala compares it to al the fear memories you have and asks "IS THIS GOING TO EAT ME OR NOT?"  And by the way, your brain generalizes.  So memories that were uncomfortable or embarassing or otherwise unpleasant get lumped in with genuine life threats, just in case.  Your brain figures it's a better idea to over-react to a rustle in the bushes that turns out to be a bunny than to under-react to a rustle in the bushes that turns out to be a wolf.

Think back to the Mountain Lion vs. WalMart bag post. 

You and I can clearly recognize that the bag flapping on a bush poses no legitimate danger to my horse.  In fact, even my beloved horse Max has been known to walk around with WalMart bags in his mouth (when he was a youngster, I’d always find him out behind the shed in his pasture, hanging with the wrong crowd, and ALWAYS with something dangerous in his mouth.  WalMart bag = death if he actually ate it.) or on his head.  (We call this de-spooking).  Anyway, here’s the point:  Max is trotting happily down the trail until something UNEXPECTED happens.  His amygdala says “DUDE!!!  Unexpected might be BAD!!!  React first and think later!!”  And Max is in the next county before his heart rate returns to normal because his fight or flight response kicks in and he bolts off the trail.  

A perfect example of the amygdala hijack. In Max’s brain, UNEXPECTED = BAD.  The bag itself isn’t dangerous, and he’d agree with us on that most days.  But instinct tells Max that he should flee at the first sign of something unexpected, just in case it’s a mountain lion . . . or a rattlesnake . . . or any number of things that are actually dangerous.  See, it would take more TIME for Max to figure out whether or not the unexpected thing was dangerous.  Reacting to anything unexpected saves a couple seconds, and those couple seconds could be a life or death thing if that WalMart bag were really a threat. 

How do you know that you’re the victim of an amygdala hijack?  Simple.  AFTER then whole thing is over, you realize you’ve had a sudden, intense emotional response, which (later) seems out of proportion to the situation.  Hijack, I tell you.  Your amygdala ran away with you.  The bottom line?  Your limbic brain is interpreting a life-threatening danger where your thinking brain would say there is none.  In that fight, your Amygdala has the advantage of time.  The fight or flight response happens TEN TIMES faster than a thoughtful consideration of anything you come across.  So by the time you REALIZE you’re not in danger, the adrenaline is already coursing through your veins.

Think about it.  When does your Amygdala Hijack you?

Instruction Manual 2: Is this going to eat me or not?

The instinct that drives anxiety is the Fight or Flight response.  I would differ with Walter Cannon here and call it the Fight or Flight REACTION, but he is unavailable for comment at the moment, as he named this phenomenon in the 1920’s.  Since then, it has in fact been suggested that the name is not quite descriptive enough, and most recently it has been called “Freeze, Flight, Fight, Fright, Faint” by Bracha and his gang.  To-maaa-to, To-mah-to. 

The major players in the fight or flight instinct are shown here.  There are actually two (ok probably more, but I’m a therapist not a neurologist) process happening simultaneously.  One of these is totally and completely unconscious.  We want it that way.  We don’t want to have to THINK about whether or not it’s a good idea to move our hand if we accidently touch a hot stove.  (“Hmmm . . . what’s that smell?  And it kinda hurts . . . sizzling sound . . . probably should move my hand. . . ready set go!”) The reactive part of our brain takes over there, and we have a reflex reaction to jerk our hand back.  This is a good thing.  Information comes in through our 5 senses, and runs through the command center for survival, our mighty amygdala.  Though tiny, this structure has a lot of power and primarily answers the question is “IS THIS GOING TO EAT ME OR NOT???”  If the answer is no, the information flows smoothly through to be processed by our highly developed cerebral cortex.  We think about it . . . we decide what to do with the information.  If your amygdala decides that whatever it is evaluating poses some sort of a threat, it hits the big red panic button and triggers a complex chemical chain reaction throughout your body with the activation of the HPA (Hypothalmic, Pituitary, Adrenal) axis.  Rapid fire, your body responds to the threat.  We all know this feeling.  Your heart races, your muscles tense, you breathe faster.  Every single thing that happens in your body is oriented toward responding to that threat.  We need to either get the heck out of there or be ready to defend ourselves.   At the same time, the incoming information is also being analyzed by other brain structures.  The hippocampus is in charge of more rational responses, and can settle the amygdala down a bit.  Here’s the interesting part.  The amygdala response happens TEN TIMES faster than processing through the hippocampus.

The super in my office building gives me frequent opportunity to demonstrate this principle.  I swear he wears crepe-soled shoes to sneak down the hallway for the sole purpose of watching me jump out of my skin when he says “BOO” or something similar.  That’s the amygdala response.  There is no recognition of WHO spoke, or that this is the same guy who regularly lets me in to my office when I forget my keys, simply a chemical reaction to an unexpected event.  It doesn’t take long, of course for my hippocampus to put Charlie in context and realize that my life is not in immediate danger.  As my heart rate returns to normal, we laugh about how easily startled I am, and get on about the business of living ... which is at that moment usually about me NOT resisting the urge to get a Diet Coke out of the vending machine.  Oh that stuff is so bad for me. 

What makes this problematic in today’s world is that the amygdala is a light switch.  It’s off, or it’s on.  There’s no in-between.  From a survival perspective, it makes a heck of a lot more sense to overreact to a rustle in the bushes that turns out to be a bunny than to underreact to a rustle in the bushes that turns out to be a wolf.  In our amygdala, there is only YES this is an immediate, life-threatening danger to which I must react or NO, it’s not.  There is no maybe.  Maybe is a yes, which explains why we experience the physiological fight or flight reaction in the face of things we clearly know are NOT life-threatening.  We have a shortage of true, life-threatening dangers in today's world.  When's the last time you ran into a lion in the elevator at work?  Gee … it’s kind of like our Amygdala just takes over … and our brain is temporarily HIJACKED …..

Instruction Manual 1: Design Features





First of all, let’s look at how your brain is designed.  I am of the opinion that we are a well-designed, efficient, functional unit – even though we don’t come with a manual or schematics.  I think that our bodies WORK.  Perfectly.  Until we get in our own way. 

Years ago, I attended a lecture in which the presenter … who had my full attention because I was about 5 minutes out of graduate school and eating ramen and he was presiding over a catered drug-company sponsored luncheon.  Read:  FREE REALLY GOOD FOOD.  I would have gone to a lecture on watching paint dry… Ahem – so this presenter talked about a study out of Auburn University (and if anyone has a reference to this study I would LOVE to have it.  I’ve lost the paper) in which it was discovered that a decrease in serotonin levels was associated with the human immune response.  So much so, in fact that some physicians had begun getting an antidepressant on board PRIOR to major surgical procedures (like open heart surgery) to combat the post-surgical depression that created problems.  I thought that was SO COOL!!!  So let me get this straight . . . when we are trying fight off illness, our bodies respond chemically with depression.  “Depression” tells us to get under the covers and stay there.  That’s just good thinking when we’re trying to heal.  Pull back, lay low.  We don’t do it, of course.  We just keep going . . . and going . . . and going . . . 

Check this out.  What are the things we just simply can’t do without?  Heart rate, respiration, blinking, sweating, digestion – things we never consciously think about, but without which we would not last long.  Where are these things located in your brain?  In the very absolute center.  Far away from the outside where it can be bonked and damaged by a blow to the head.  Now that’s good design!  This red part of the diagram is called our reptilian brain.  We share these basic functions with just about every other living creature.  It is the most primitive and least developed part of the brain.  If this part of your brain is damaged, you’re pretty much toast. 

The next layer of the onion is the limbic system.  Here lies the heart of our fight or flight response.  Notice, still VERY WELL PROTECTED, which tells me that the engineers thought these functions were worth protecting.  Here lies reaction, not response.  On the outside is where higher order thinking happens.  We can live for a long time without speech, the ability to distinguish colors, or without logic and reasoning . . . not so much without breathing.  So if we’re going to get whacked in the noggin, this is the part that takes a licking and we keep on ticking.  (Someday perhaps I’ll write about the humiliation of the fact that only time I’ve been knocked out in a horse accident I was riding a PONY.  Insert helmet safety lecture here.  Without protective headgear, I wouldn’t be writing this blog).   

If our bodies are designed so perfectly, and are working correctly, how come I have a job?  How come people are flocking to their doctors and psychiatrists and therapists struggling with the debilitating impact of anxiety and depression?  For my money, it’s because we don’t know how to work the equipment.  We haven’t read the manual.  Ever tried to put together “ready to assemble” furniture without the directions?  Good luck!  Once we understand how our brains work, we can stop feeling like we are at the mercy of our emotions and reactions, and start making progress. 

Next up:  Is this going to eat me or not?

Have You Checked the Instruction Manual?

I looked it up.  There are close to one million “How To” titles on Amazon.com.  There’s an instruction manual for everything. When you buy a new electronic device or ready-to-assemble furniture, it’s right there in the box, printed in at least 2 languages with diagrams.  Ever marvel at the fact that there are instructions on just about everything?  Step A:  remove contents from package.  Really?  I needed THAT much direction? 

Wouldn’t it be GREAT to have an detailed instruction manual to ourselves?  By and large, people know very little about the functioning of these amazing bodies and even less about the care and feeding of a brain.  There’s a lot of focus on nutrition and physical health these days, but that’s about WHAT to do, rather than WHY to do it, and you get 47 different opinions.  Eat carbs, don’t eat carbs, eggs are poison, eggs are fine . . . who can keep up?  Exercise, eat right, get enough rest – but don’t forget to work a 60 hour week, take the kids to soccerdanceandgirlscouts, and for goodness sake join a book club so your brain doesn’t turn to mush.  Do all these things and no doubt you'll be happy and successful just like the model on the billboard. 

The first step in our instruction manual might be to realize that our brains were designed an awfully long time ago.  Think about civilization, say 1000 years ago.  Life was simple.  Bob, the Medieval stereotype, got up when the sun came up.  When the sun went down, he rested.  He worked hard all day long because if he didn’t, he starved or otherwise succumbed.  No one had to tell Bob to pull his own weight because everyone knew that they had to work together or they would find themselves in the unenviable predicament of doing without.  And I'm not talking about doing without TASTY food and COMFORTABLE shelter, I'm talking about doing without FOOD and SHELTER.  Period.  Simple:  Work hard all summer to stock up enough for the winter, or punch some extra holes in your belt and hope you make it to spring.  There was real danger:  fire, flood, famine, plague, predators . . . a medieval wonderland.  Lions and tigers and bears were what came in and ate the livestock and occasionally a small family member.  Bob had 14 kids because only half of them were expected to make it to adulthood to have little Bobs of their own, who would then take care of Bob if by some miracle he lived past 40.  Bob accepted things because he had no choice.  I don’t recall seeing a “Black Plague” scene as I cruised through “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland.  There was family, and community, and life, and death.  It wasn’t pretty.  It wasn’t safe.  It wasn’t a greeting card, but it was simple. 

Think about how much civilization has changed in the last 1000 years.  We’ve doubled our life expectancy, had miraculous advances in science and technology, pretty much insulated ourselves against imminent disaster, and then there’s the miracle of Facebook.  Things are different.  Way different.  There’s 24 hour everything, a zillion channels on TV and more to do in a day than can possibly be done.  There's traffic and bosses and "protocol."  Politics have risen (or rather sunk) to a new level.  Cell Phones and I-Pads and Kindle and ... and ... and ...  

Here’s the punch line:  How much have our brains changed in 1000 years?  That’s right, sports fans – not very darn much.  Certainly not at the rate that civilization has.  So essentially, our poor brains are trying to interpret this 4G world according to rules that were set in a time where perhaps the only G’s you had were goats to pull a cart, and 4G’s would have gotten you pretty far then, too.  Our brains are amazing in their ability to process and adapt.  But there’s a part of the brain that is still working off of instinct – and those instincts haven’t caught up with the times.  Working off our instincts (read: REACTION) in today’s complex world is like taking that 4G goat cart on the interstate.    

Much of my work with clients focuses on knowing HOW to work your brain.  If we understand the mechanism of the action, we can stop reacting to our reactions, and start responding to things.  You can learn to respond from your highly developed, logical and reasonable frontal cortex, and things that formerly were the source of anxiety, angst and consternation are now mild annoyances that barely register on the radar.   

Really.  You can.  J 

Mountain Lion vs. WalMart Bag

In my previous post, I mentioned that I participate in a sport no one has ever heard of.  Endurance Riding is like cross-country marathons for horses.  What that means is that my idea of a fun weekend is traveling to the middle of nowhere and riding (generally at a trot) my horse 25 or 50 miles a day for 1, 2, 3 (sometimes more) days on challenging trails in remote wilderness areas (one time I did a 100 mile race, but I would have to have a really good reason to do that again).  Yes, many people think endurance riders are crazy.  We are the butt of jokes about wearing brightly colored spandex instead of “refined” show clothing, our horses have the reputation of being wild and dangerous and too much to handle.  If this were a blog on a sport that is about the HORSE and not the RIDER, I could go on for pages about the wonderment of endurance.  Since it’s a blog on mental health issues, I’ll skip to the relevant part.  To be a serious competitor, a horse must be physically fit, which translates into lots and lots (and lots) of hours training on the trail, to the tune of 10-15 miles a day and 25 or so on the weekends.  (That was me BC – Before Children.  Lucky to get 10 miles in on a weekend these days . . . hence had to drop out of the ranks of “serious competitor.”  My horse doesn’t seem to mind.)  
  

Take a look at the attached picture.  In this moment I would CLEARLY identify the life threatening danger to be stepping off the trail and tumbling tail over teakettle into the vast nothingness below – not that I ever actually entertain those thoughts . . . of course not.  My horse Max, the poster child for the “fight or flight” instinct, has different thoughts.  Trail riders often joke about the fact that a horse will jump off a cliff to avoid having to walk by a Wal-Mart bag flapping on a bush … or a rabbit … or a stick … or nothing I can see … it’s a little bit of an exaggeration fortunately and the actual jumping off a cliff is rare, but you get the point.  My horse is a herd animal and a prey animal.  His survival for centuries has depended on his ability to flee from danger – but these days, most horses live in nice safe barns.  His instincts haven’t caught on to the shortage of actual physical danger however, and he is just SURE that that vicious hungry squirrel WILL, WITHOUT A DOUBT eat him.  Since I can’t stop being a therapist entirely when I ride, the parallels of this annoyance to how we deal with anxiety were not lost on me.  We so frequently go to extreme, and sometimes damaging lengths to avoid relatively harmless stressors.  In context, the fight or flight response is important, and vital to our survival. If I am hiking in the mountains and come upon a mountain lion, I definitely want my adrenaline pumping.  I want increased blood flow to my heart and lungs so I have the strength to either fight or run really fast.  However, in dealing with an angry spouse or cranky bank teller, that same fight or flight response isn’t very helpful!  (Although I do get a kick out of the image of running screaming out of the Holiday melee in ToysRUs when I go do my shopping.  Usually that's how I pass the time waiting in line.)  In that moment, I want to be working out of my cognitive, logical, mind and making decisions about how to handle that situation.
 

Clients often come into therapy with the goal to “be less stressed.”  I believe it is important to emphasize the difference between stress and anxiety.  Stress is inevitable.  It is a powerful, and often positive force.  Stress pushes us to do something different.  Learning to deal with stress without anxiety is the key.  Anxiety is driven by the meaning we make of a stressful situation, which is often based more on past experience and lack of coping skills than on the current event.  We experience an “Amygdala Hijack,” according to Daniel Goleman, and react with fear to a situation which poses no true physical danger.  Selye’s Appraisal Theory suggests that level of distress is determined by the interaction between our assessment of how bad a situation might be and our assessment of how equipped we are to handle it.  (More to come on these subjects – stay tuned!)    

It is important to recognize that the physical process of anxiety is a normal and healthy part of being human, not something to fear or be ashamed of (if I put something in parenthesis here will you not notice that I ended a sentence with a preposition?).  There are truly not very many situations in today’s world where we legitimately need our fight or flight response.  However, there is an expectation that there is a straight line between stress and anxiety:  “Oh, I couldn’t handle it if that happened . . . “  “that would be horrible . . .”  Learning to identify that while we may not want to face a situation, and that facing it may be uncomfortable, in fact we HAVE faced difficulty, we CAN face difficulty, and we WILL get through it.  This decreases the chance of a fear-based REACTION and allows a considered, conscious RESPONSE.  Ta-DA!!!!  Isn't that what we're looking for? 

What sets me apart from my horse is that I have the cognitive skills to evaluate a situation and apply this knowledge, leading to a different, less anxious outcome.  Next time I am on the trail, however, I am certain I will have occasion to say to my horse “OH FOR PETE’S SAKE, MAX, IT’S A WAL-MART BAG!!!”

The Interesting Stuff

I am a therapist.  I carry a license … ok, so I don’t really carry it, but I do have one, and I’ll show it to you if you ask.  It’s in my office with a bunch of books, and a frightening amount of paperwork that just never seems to be “caught up.”  Such is the life of this therapist. 

Evidently, I am hilarious, and a hilarious therapist is a surprise to many.  The way of the world seems to be that hilarious people need an outlet for their hilarity, and thus began idea of THE BLOG.  A completely narcissistic endeavor, if you had asked me a few years ago.  A one-sided conversation with complete and total strangers – the epitome of “LOOK AT ME!!!!”  Well, then I read some blogs.  And I found them helpful, and comforting, and a refreshing break from the usual.  In some ways it was like a novel that never ended, but was delivered in small, manageable chunks. 

Clients often kind of look at me sideways and say things like “you’re not like other therapists …”  One client used the word “unorthodox.”  (One calls me "Yoda"  :-) )  While my “unorthodox” approach to therapy isn’t a good fit for everyone, it seems to work for most.  I like to LAUGH in session.  In fact sometimes my office mates knock on the door to ask us to keep it down a bit.  It’s not all fun and games in there, of course, but holy cow it’s not deadly serious either!  It’s life, folks.  Life is like “it’s a small world” at Disneyland.  Everyone goes through it once, it’s not very exciting most of the time, but there’s a lot to see and the scenery changes around every bend.  There are parts of it that you find interesting, and parts that you’d rather forget about.  The music might drive you a little crazy, but if you sit back and not fight it, you have a common experience to share with the rest of us.  (Do they still have that ride?  I haven’t been there since 1988).  We have ups, we have downs.  The hard times follow the joyous ones, and vice versa.  I figure you can pick whether you want to laugh or cry about it, but you just have to do it . . . like “it’s a small world.”  (Seriously – everyone gripes about it, but have you ever met anyone who has been there and didn’t go on it?)

But I digress – and I do that a lot.  Also, I am the queen of parenthetical commentary (my college roommate the professional writer may have suggestions for me there). 

So yes, I am a therapist.  But I’m also a person, and a mom, and a participant in a variety of relationships.  I am a lover of music, and red wine, and some kinds of art.  I ride horses, and participate in a sport called endurance riding that no one has ever heard of and when they do they think I’m crazy.  I am a proponent of religion as the practice of being a decent human being, not religion the exclusive cult.  I sing in my church choir and I listen to the sermon every week (which also surprises people because I’m not one of those people who just oozes religion out every pore.  It helps that the pastor of my church used to be a therapist, but beyond that, he is one of the smartest, most learned people I know.  Pretty sure that’s why I can stand him.  I’m sure I will have more on that at some point.  It’s a soapbox).  I go to work, and go home, and pay bills, and try to maintain a healthy lifestyle just like a lot of other people out there.  I overreact, have bad days, get distracted and forget things, lose my temper and holler at my kids from time to time (not that I’m proud of those things – just sayin’).  The point is, I’m just like my clients in most ways.  The one difference is that I have paid attention to the way minds, relationships, and emotions work for 15 years.  When you do that every day for a long time, you start to notice that you’ve been flying by the seat of your pants with little emotional plan, and that there are little (note the writer’s use of understatement) discrepancies between what you tell people to do and what you actually do.  Well, me anyway.  I know a number of therapists who behave completely differently than they advise others to and don’t seem to notice.  But that’s another soapbox.  So I’ve spent 15 years thinking about how to take this pie-in-the-sky therapy stuff where everyone hugs and holds hands at the end of the session and turn it into something useful in a really complicated (and frequently kind of crappy) world.  Unorthodox?  Perhaps.

Read On.