Rewire Your Anxious Brain Quotes

“Anxiety is a complex emotional response that’s similar to fear. Both arise from similar brain processes and cause similar physiological and behavioral reactions; both originate in portions of the brain designed to help all animals deal with danger. Fear and anxiety differ, however, in that fear is typically associated with a clear, present, and identifiable threat, whereas anxiety occurs in the absence of immediate peril.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“the brain is hardwired to allow the amygdala to seize control in times of danger. And because of this wiring, it’s difficult to directly use reason-based thought processes arising in the higher levels of the cortex to control amygdala-based anxiety. You may have already recognized that your anxiety often doesn’t make sense to your cortex, and that your cortex can’t just reason it away.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“Consider it this way: We are the descendants of frightened people. Early humans whose amygdala reacted to potential dangers and produced a strong fear response were most likely to behave in cautious ways and be protective of their children, which meant they were more likely to survive and pass their genes (and frightened amygdala) on to future generations.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“People don’t come preassembled, but are glued together by life.” The circuitry in your brain is shaped by the specific experiences you’ve had, and it can be changed as a result of your continuing experiences.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“Thanks to the influence of your cortex, you can decide not to physically fight your boss if you feel you’re in danger of being fired, or choose not to run away when you hear exploding fireworks.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“In the past two decades, research has revealed that the brain has a surprising level of neuroplasticity, meaning an ability to change its structures and reorganize its patterns of reacting.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“The existence of different memory systems explains why you can experience anxiety in a situation without any conscious memory (or understanding) of why the situation produces anxiety. Just because your amygdala has an emotional memory of an event doesn’t mean that your cortex remembers the same event.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“Cortisol increases blood sugar levels, giving you the energy you need to use your muscles. Adrenaline (also called epinephrine) gives you an energetic feeling that heightens your senses, increases your heart rate and breathing, and can even keep you from experiencing pain.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“The close connection of the central nucleus to elements of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) provides the amygdala with a great deal of influence over the body.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“The amygdala can accomplish its quick response because of the special properties of another nucleus within it: the central nucleus.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“The lateral nucleus is the part of the amygdala that receives incoming messages from the senses.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“The frontal lobes are said to have executive functions, meaning that they are where the supervision of many brain processes occurs.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“When information comes in through your sense organs, it’s directed to the thalamus, which is like the Grand Central Station of the brain”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“The role of the amygdala is to attach emotional significance to situations or objects and to form emotional memories.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“Approaches to treating anxiety that target the cortex pathway are numerous and typically focus on cognitions, the psychological term for the mental processes that most people refer to as “thinking.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“the members of my own support system”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“If you focus your attention on the anxiety reactions that frequently or severely interfere with your ability to live your life in the way you desire, you’ll be on the right track.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“The quick reaction that results from the amygdala pathway is typically called the fight-or-flight response.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“The role of the SNS is to create the fight-or-flight response, an effect that is balanced by the influences of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which allows us to “rest and digest.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

“The frontal lobes are one of the most important parts of the cortex to understand.”
― Catherine M. Pittman, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry