The Art of Taking It Easy: How to Cope with Bears, Traffic, and the Rest of Life's Stressors

by Brian King

most of our stress is from percieved threats, not clear and present threats.

The first thing we should do when we start to feel agitated or stressed is stop and ask ourselves, “Is this situation actually threatening?”

If you are facing a threatening situation and there is something you can do about it, then you should do that. But if there is nothing you can do about it, what is the point of allowing yourself to get stressed?

If we are facing an actual threat and we can do something about it, our stress response is there to help us out. When we are stressed, our brain and body initiate a series of physiological changes to help us take action against the threat we are facing. When the system works, stress helps increase our chances of survival or catching that flight or meeting that book deadline. Whatever the threat, our experience of stress is there to help us face the challenge.

stress is not our reaction to threat, it is our reaction to the perception of threat.

When stressed we should ask ourselves, is this an actual threat? If it is an actual threat, then can I do anything about it?

Regardless of how real the stress may or may not be, when our brain perceives a situation as being threatening, the process it engages is the same.

the first thing our brain has to do is determine if that stimulus is going to kill us. It is a very high-priority decision that the brain has to make before we take any other action.

the first thing the brain has to do when we encounter a stimulus is determine if it represents a danger. This processing is called threat appraisal, and is carried out by an area of the brain called the amygdala.

the activity of the amygdala, and most of the brain, happens outside of our conscious awareness.

via the sense organs, and is transmitted to the amygdala to be evaluated for potential danger. Contextual details, memories of past experiences, and some instincts factor in to make a quick decision as to whether or not this stimulus is bad news.

in the absence of experience, the amygdala errs on the side of caution,

the amygdala is that it is able to process the relevant information extremely fast,

Conscious decision-making is slow, very slow.

When the amygdala determines that the stimulus represents a potential threat, it sends a signal to an area called the hypothalamus, another part of the limbic system. The hypothalamus in turn activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for a whole host of physiological changes.

This entire system works so fast that our body will experience these changes before our conscious mind has caught up.

we will encounter a stimulus, unconsciously decide that it is threatening, and start reacting to it before we are aware of what we’ve encountered.

This is a great thing when we are actually being threatened.

However, if the situation does not warrant a stress response, it can cause us to act before we get a chance to think.

Before you become aware of it, you are already agitated and that agitation is probably going ...

The nucleus accumbens does not produce our behavior, but it is important for motivating it.

the accumbens assesses the relative value of our options. The value of any given option can be positive, as in it is going to improve our life by adding something, commonly pleasurable, to it (we call this “positive reinforcement” or “reward”), or negative, as in it is going to improve our life by removing something uncomfortable or painful (called “negative reinforcement” or “relief”).

conscious thought in this context would slow us down, so the options are simple well-learned behaviors. You may recognize these three options as fight, flight, or freeze, respectively. Each of these options has a value associated with it based on past experiences, and the option with the greatest relative value is the one your nucleus accumbens is going to pick.

The prefrontal cortex has the ability to override the reactive behaviors I discussed earlier.

Your prefrontal cortex can alter or completely reverse decisions made by other areas of the brain and all you need are your own thoughts. In fact, if you have the right kind of activity in your prefrontal cortex as you enter the traffic, it will prevent your amygdala from identifying it as a threat in the first place.

We begin responding to stress before we have a chance to think about it. However, we have the ability to overcome our initial response.

Learning how to increase the right kind of prefrontal activity, or thoughts, and being able to consciously redirect choices made by other areas of the brain, is the key to living a less stressful existence. As I often say: if you don’t like the way you feel, change your mind . . . er, thoughts.

an interesting phenomenon we all engage in where the brain creates its own stress. I would even argue that the vast majority of the stress we experience is self-induced. That is, we feel stress when there is no real external threat to us, only some challenged belief, value, or expectation of ours. In other words, a thought. Yep, most of our stress is imaginary.

Worry is a thought process that falls into this category and it is just the worst. Worrying is nothing more than internally generated stress—stress we impose on ourselves thanks to some particularly troublesome thoughts. Worrying is a behavior, although a mental one, and we often worry about life stressors, but worry itself can sometimes be the cause of additional stress.

in anticipation of something that hasn’t even happened and may not happen. You have generated stress unnecessarily thanks to your own thoughts.

it is a really bad habit and one that we may not recognize as such. As a form of mental behavior, worrying too much, over a lifetime, can be a major contributor to developing an emotional disorder like anxiety or even depression.

When we start to worry to the point that we start to experience stress, we need to take a moment and ask ourselves, “Can I do anything about this?” If the answer is yes, then do it or make a plan to do it. In fact, if we can do something about a situation and we choose not to for whatever reason, then we are to blame for our own stress.

“If there is nothing I can do about it, then why am I worrying about it?” It is a rhetorical question really, but by thinking that to ourselves, we reduce the likelihood that we will continue thinking about whatever it is that is causing us stress.

If we can’t do anything to change a situation, what is the point of worrying about it?

Realistic concern and worry are not the same thing.

does not appear to be a behavior initiated by the conscious mind, or the prefrontal cortex. Therefore, it is probably selected unconsciously by the nucleus accumbens in its basic decision-making.

As you now know, decisions made by the accumbens are the result of comparing the relative benefit of whatever options are currently being presented. Because we know the brain chose to worry—it is an observed behavior—that must mean that the action of worrying was associated with a greater potential value than any of its competitors. That also means that worrying apparently has value to the brain. Now, what are the benefits of worrying? You may recall that the benefit of an action is that it either provides some sort of reward or it provides relief. So the benefits of worry have to fall into one of those two options. We can probably rule out reward, or positive reinforcement. I am sure that nobody derives pleasure from worrying.

if worry isn’t providing the brain with some reward, then it must provide relief. But relief from what?

worry provides relief to the brain for a very uncomfortable condition it sometimes experiences called “inactivity.”

Worry is one way that the brain can generate its own activity. Yes, worry relieves boredom.

You worry to relieve boredom, which should be no surprise, as boredom already motivates a lot of behavior that people would prefer to change.

you worry to give your brain something to do.

if you are a worrier and your brain is in need of some activity, you will find something to worry about.

Because worrying relieves inactivity by giving the brain something to do, if you want to worry less you should

When you feel the onset of worrisome thoughts, understand that your brain needs some of that sweet, sweet activity and give it some. Read a book. Take a walk. Do the dishes. Clean the living room. Watch a good TV show. Start a conversation with someone (just don’t talk about the thing you are worried about). Anything, literally anything! To overcome worry you have to redirect your train of thoughts. Change the channel in your brain. In most cases, a simple distraction can be exactly what we need. Distraction is even a common practice in therapy.

Redirecting your brain may sound easy to do, and relatively speaking it is, but it requires awareness. The problem many of us have is that once we start worrying, those thoughts consume us and we just keep fueling the fire with more. But, if we have enough awareness to realize that we are heading down that path, we can consciously interrupt the flow by introducing an alternate route.

Learning to keep our brain active can help us avoid excessive worrying.

the amygdala, after identifying something as threatening, sends signals via the hypothalamus to activate the sympathetic nervous system.

This is a network of nerves that connect the spinal cord to many bodily organs and when activated, it is responsible for most of the physiological changes that occur. Our eyes dilate, our heart rate increases. Stress can cause us to perspire or cease digestion, and can inhibit erections in males.

The sympathetic nervous system also triggers the adrenal glands to start producing adrenaline,