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The #1 culprit for anxiety and depression: a CBT perspective.

Writer's picture: Sam StoneSam Stone

The symptoms of depression and anxiety would suggest that the area of the brain responsible for the fight/flight/freeze/fawn response is turned on. We call that area the amygdala. This part is located underneath the larger areas and really close to the spinal cord, so this suggests that it was one of the first areas of the brain to have developed during evolution.


In fact, this part of the brain is the thing we have in common with all animals – we all have one of these. The thing that sets us apart from the rest of the animal king/queendom is our prefrontal cortex. This is the big bit at the front of our brains, that has just gotten even bigger over time, over the course of our evolution, its our thinking centre.


What thinking enables us to do too, is time travel. We spend a lot of our time thinking. We think about the past and we think about the future. But if you looked at a baby or your pets at home, you might be able to see that they are not thinking and analyzing in the way that we can as older humans. They stay in the present moment for much of their waking time.


As humans, we spend up to 47% of our waking time, daydreaming. I want to emphasize this point. We spend pretty much half of our waking time, drifting off into the past or into the future!


This is not a bad thing, but its not a great thing either. The benefits of this tendency that we have is that we have been able to advance so much in a short space of time. We learn quickly because we reflect and think and set goals and imagine this for our future. But the downside is, that if we are depressed or anxious, our amygdala is activated, then this ability tends to get bias towards negativity. Instead of reflecting on a fond memory, we agonize over some embarrassing moment. Instead of planning ahead towards the future, we predict disaster, or catastrophize.


It’s a little bit like this. Imagine your amygdala is a security guard in a watch tower. They are always alert and scanning for threat and danger. This is its job and this is healthy. Imagine a person in a watchtower with 360 views and they have their binoculars. Realize that this security guard is ancient. Like your grandparents, or great grandparents who cannot work their smartphones. Because this is what is happening with the prefrontal cortex. Only, the security guard cannot tell what is real and what is imagined, it will react in the same way - just in case. That’s why when you are doing something benign, like the grocery shopping or watching a movie, no obvious threat around, but you’re thinking about an old shameful event or worrying about something bad happening in the future, you feel anxious, sad, scared etc. Your body, your security guard is just doing its job, your amygdala is responding.


Its like your security guard can see everything around you at all times. But it also exposed to all the thoughts, stories and images that is played out in your mind. Your mind can play a constant reel of shame inducing images and snippets of memories or predictions of the future. And it makes your security guard work overtime. To the point where they are constantly hypervigilant and almost look for the threats even more intently.


Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is a so-called top-down approach which works to identify and change the way you think, and change your focus of attention, in order to settle down the security guard. Once they are settled down, then your state of mind and body can operate in the way you want it to more easily, because you will feel more able to do so.


Please get in touch to find out how therapy can be helpful for you.

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I respectfully acknowledge that I am a settler on the unceded and ancestral territory of the syilx people, and I accept my responsibility to humbly educate myself and act for the advancement of decolonization on these lands. 

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