Datasets:
monomer
/
program_peace

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
1
line
stringlengths
1
117
The Brain Circuits Responsible for Fear
Neuroscientists have identified seven primary emotions common to all mammals care
nurturance play social joy seeking expectation lust sexual excitement rage anger fear
anxiety and grief sadness These emotions correspond to specific subcortical brain circuits
Each is embodied in a mechanistic device made of brain cells that sits below the level of the
conscious cerebral cortex Both the emotions and the brain areas responsible for them are
highly conserved in all mammals and even extend to certain species of birds and reptiles In
their book The Archaeology of Mind pioneering researchers Jaak Panksepp and Lucy Biven
explain how these genetically hardwired emotional systems often referred to collectively as
the limbic system reflect ancestral memories with adaptive functions
Each emotion is an information processing tool builtin to animals rather than having to be
learned by them They each steer the progression of thought in a different direction to ensure
the animal is responding to its environment with the right behaviors The fear and grief circuits
respond to hardship and despite being intrinsic to survival are one of the primary drivers of
psychological pain in mammals At this point you shouldnt be surprised to learn that they are
the emotions most closely tied to status conflict As such they elicit muscle tension and
distressed breathing This chapter will focus on how you can interrupt this elicitation by taking
control of your thought process
In newborn mammals the fear system is only activated by a few things These are
instinctually fearprovoking stimuli and include pain sudden movement falling suffocation
and loud noise Mammals are afraid of these things by nature because they are predictive of
death After experiencing such stimuli fear is generalized to the things that the animal has
found can be associated with them For instance newborn rats are not afraid of their natural
predators such as cats ferrets and foxes However due to their strong instinctual fear of these
PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
predators odors they learn to become afraid after being exposed to them In fear learning
experiments rats can easily be trained to become frightened of a variety of neutral contextual
stimuli like Kleenex or sand that were coincidentally present during their exposure to
instinctual fear stimuli For example the smell of a ferret can make a rat deathly afraid of a
toilet paper roll
We too overgeneralize our fears Horror movies are an apt example They are horrible for
our minds because they activate and strengthen our fear circuits They cause us to associate
instinctual fears with all kinds of neutral concepts far beyond the stereotypical hockey players
dolls dark alleys clowns and old houses Do scary movies further sensitize everyones fear
circuit or can some people watch them without repercussions While know its possible to
have such good posture composure and breathing that watching a horror flick desensitizes
you to fear Im certainly not there yet
When scientists surgically place electrodes directly into the brains fear system lateral and
central amygdala anterior medial hypothalamus and periaqueductal gray and stimulate it
electrically this incites an ominous objectless fear making the animal afraid of everything it
encounters Animals freeze at low levels of current and take precipitous flight at higher levels
When the same areas are stimulated in humans they make comments such as Im scared to
death Somebody is now chasing me am trying to escape from him and feel an abrupt
feeling of uncertainty just like entering a long dark tunnel
Repeated stimulation of the fear center whether through experiences or electrodes cause
rats to become constitutionally inhibited skittish and timid These rats engage less in play
feeding sex and grooming Repetitive activation of the fear circuit is a surefire pathway to
social defeat When the fear system is activated every nuance of your body language tells a
potential predator that you are unstable and will make an easy lunch The same body language
tells potential competitors that they have the advantage over you Clearly the fear system can
be insidious and you dont want its neural connections to strengthen or spread
The Brain Circuits Responsible for Grief
The grief system is separate from the fear system Just as the predation and aggression systems
are dissociable as discussed in Chapter grief and fear involve distinct neural pathways They
even use different chemicals and respond differently to drugs Electrical stimulation of brain
regions containing grief circuitry shifts people into a state of desolation and despair that lifts
rapidly when the current is turned off The general anatomy of the human grief system
anterior cingulate dorsomedial thalamus and periaqueductal gray overlaps extensively with
the system responsible for separation calls in other animals
Baby mammals and birds emit distress vocalizations when separated from their mothers
These are reflexive cries generated by the activation of their grief system made to help their
mother locate them in space We usually subdue the impulse to cry out but much of our
psychological pain involves the arousal of these same areas Can you find the lost baby animal
inside of you now Can you feel the stress of the last week and how it puts pressure on your
voice box as if you wanted to cry out and be rescued Baby animals stop crying out and their
grief system shuts down as soon as their mother finds them Our grief system can remain
operative for years at a time Of course this leads to repetitive strain of the vocal tract which
Chapter will show you how to overcome
Chapter Think Peacefully
When baby monkeys are separated from their mothers for even just a few hours they
experience grief that can affect them for the rest of their lives Some primatologists force these
separations in adverse rearing experiments so that they can study the factors involved in risk
and resilience to mental illnesses such as anxiety Monkeys that have been separated from their
mothers repeatedly develop chronic despair As adults they tend to have fewer social alliances
less social support fewer grooming partners impaired social skills and reduced social
competence They are poor at finding sexual partners make deficient parents and are less
affiliative and more aggressive toward their peers They are also consistently more subordinate
and inhabit rungs lower in the social hierarchy These things are also often true of monkeys
that have been neglected abused or orphaned Allowing ourselves to wallow in a state of grief
loneliness or discontentedness results in the same outcomes
The emotions of fear and grief intend to keep us safe and from finding ourselves isolated
In most people however their signals are too intense and have stayed on for too long
Unchecked fear and grief maintain a negative state of mind that cripples us socially and
mutilates our reality We need to convince the baby mammal in the center of our brains that
we are not desperately trying to find our mother that we are not lost that we are not missing
anything or anyone and that we are exactly where we are supposed to be
SORE
Illustration A Guinea pig brain crosssection B Human brain crosssection Both illustrations show the fear
system amygdala AM hypothalamus H and periaqueductal gray PAG and grief system anterior cingulate
AC dorsomedial thalamus DMT and periaqueductal gray PAG Note that even though these two brains are
not shown to scale the relative size of the emotional areas is smaller in humans and this reflects our capacity for
deliberate emotional regulation
Common to both the brains fear and grief systems is a panic center called the amygdala
This structure is tied to the sympathetic nervous system and acts to elevate muscle tension
blood pressure stress hormones and heart and respiration rates The amygdala ensures that
threatened animals respond to negative situations with energy Its messages about fear
override ongoing processing elsewhere in the brain and cause us to refocus our attention on
threat Many of our most negative behaviors occur when this subcortical nucleus assumes
control over the brains higher cognitive centers in what is commonly referred to as an
amygdala highjack