Anxiety

Key Claims

• The brain is the organ most responsive to behavior.
• Anxiety is caused by consistently avoiding a trigger.
• Avoidance trains your amygdala to label things as threats.
• The amygdala detects threat labels.
• The amygdala sounds the alarm upon detection .
• The amygdala watches your response .
• Approach retrains the amygdala to be less triggerable: habituation.
• Further avoidance trains your amygdala to be more triggerable: sensitization.
• Anxiety disorders all involve having a phobia of anxiety or a component of the threat response.
• Adrenaline is the ideal stimulant for the brain.
• Adrenaline increases IQ, fluency of speech, connections to others, executive function.
• Adrenaline is essential for flow.
• Adrenaline can be experienced in high performance states, low performance states, and paralysis/freeze reaction.
• The appraisal you make of your adrenaline determines its function, for high performance or fight-or-flight response.
• Beliefs about adrenaline are self-fulfilling prophecies.
• Reframing flips you from low to high performance.
• How long habituation takes in a given exposure is a function of reframing and mindfulness.