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For example, when you suppress anger, your body and its various systems remain aroused and biochemically stimulated. But if you refuse to become aware of your anger and don’t express it to the person who has offended you, you lose the opportunity to put something right that is wrong – and to settle the biochemical, muscular and autonomic responses that have already been triggered
activation of body systems, in social terms. What we do not usually become aware of when we name our feelings is the internal signalling that is occurring within the body outside of consciousness.
Whatever was going on in the individual’s mind – current thoughts and feelings – could potentially trigger reactions of the immune system via the biochemicals that are triggered by extreme states of mind such as those occurring during situations of stress or depression.
it is cortisol which seems to be the hormone that has the greatest impact on the immune system.
cortisol instructs the immune cells temporarily to slow down the immune response, allowing the body’s energy to be focused on the crisis in hand.
In this sense, the regulatory patterns that are established in early life may not only affect your psychological well-being and the development of the ‘brain’ of the brain’s emotional systems in the prefrontal cortex, but may also affect the ‘body’s brain’ – the immune system and stress response which are also shaped by emotional experience.
Without an actively responsive and sensitive mothering experience, the baby can’t identify with the parental attitude and apply it to him or herself.
isn’t possible to generate the attitude of self-care and awareness of one’s own feelings if someone else hasn’t first done it for you.
Even if you create a serotonin deficiency by manipulating someone’s diet, a normally balanced person will not experience this as a feeling of depression
it is more probable that these biochemicals are depleted as a side effect of an overactive stress response.
experiences of feeling rejected or abandoned by other people are the most common triggers for depression.
A lack of positive rewarding interaction with the mother can have other negative effects on the brain’s biochemicals. It can undermine the oxytocin system which is being built in the first year of life, leading to long-lasting effects
due to fewer dopamine receptors and opioid receptors in the baby’s brain, especially in the prefrontal cortex where they are usually very densely present.
The child with fewer dopamine cells will be less aware of the positive rewards on offer, less able to adapt and think,
in furnishing the baby’s brain with the ingredients for a pleasurable life through the fatty acids provided in breast milk.
the breastfeeding mother’s ability to provide tailor-made antibodies for her baby.
The essential fatty acids are also involved in producing neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin, especially in the prefrontal cortex
Low levels of omega-3 fatty acid in the brain also correlate with a lack of activity in the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate
such awareness is premature because a young baby has virtually no capacity to regulate his own distress or act in his own interests.
In this state of powerlessness and stress, high levels of cortisol are produced.
Cortisol is highest when the individual feels a loss of power or control over events, particularly if this cannot be predicted.
This may account for the tendency of some depressed people to stick with low-risk relationships or job situations, which are predictable and familiar.
It may be preferable to accept a low view of oneself than to risk social encounters which may raise one’s status but may end in humiliation.
High cortisol levels are also associated with a highly active right brain and an underactive left brain.
An active left brain is linked to positive feelings, cheerfulness and a willingness to approach others with a kind of extraverted outlook.
A recent study found that children aged 10 who have grown up with a continuously depressed mother have a significantly larger amygdala volume than other children
Babies make the most protest when their mother’s attention is switched off, as if this is even more unbearable than maltreatment.
this does provide powerful evidence that depression is linked with the poor development of the social brain in its most formative period of infancy and toddlerhood.
The more depressed you are, the less activity there is in the prefrontal cortex, and with less blood flow in the prefrontal cortex, fewer neurotransmitters such as serotonin or norepinephrine are released.
In particular, the orbitofrontal part of the prefrontal cortex is also less active, making it harder for depressed people to judge situations and control their reactions.
When the level of cortisol is high for too long, it starts to affect the functioning of the hippocampus.
When stress and conflict between people occur, as it inevitably will in every relationship, it is crucial to learn that the positive relationship can be restored.
It is a repair system that is set up in a child’s early life and is established by the age of 1 year.
Supportive parents are also parents who help their children to regulate their states of mind.
from a child’s perspective there is no way of knowing that their regulatory partner could act differently, so they tend to blame themselves and their own inadequacies for their misery.
children of depressed mothers have a 29 per cent chance of developing an emotional disorder
It has been found that the more often a person has a depressive episode, the more difficult it becomes to recover.
Many of the people who find it hard to recover from traumatic experience are those whose emotional systems are less robustly built in early childhood.
We need to feel safe within secure personal attachment relationships, but we also need to know that the social world we live in values other people.
The hippocampus may have a sensitive period when it is most affected by maltreatment or a lack of warm parental nurturing.
The key period of development is thought to be between the ages of 3 and 5 years
These left-brain activities would normally put experiences into a context and into a time sequence. But without their full participation, feelings never get into the past and can’t be put behind you. They keep leaping into the present as if they were happening all over again, right now.
This is the flashback state, which is a reliving of fragmented memories that have not been adequately processed by the hippocampus and other systems.
the left brain and the hippocampus do not become fully functional until the second or third year of life.
early stress in babyhood and in the preschool period is unlikely to be effectively processed in these areas of the brain.
Instead, he may get stuck in a constant appraisal of threat, with the amygdala in overdrive and a distorted stress response.
children, whose brains and body systems are still in the process of development, are much more vulnerable.
They have fewer resources and at the same time, they are much closer to the possibility of death.
They cannot survive alone and are highly dependent on adults to provide for their basic needs of food...
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In this sense, experiences that would not be a matter of life and death for an adult may well be ex...
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