Do you ever wonder what is happening inside your brain when you feel anxious, panicked, and worried? In Rewire Your Anxious Brain, psychologist Catherine Pittman and author Elizabeth Karle offer a unique, evidence-based solution to overcoming anxiety based in cutting-edge neuroscience and research.
In the book, you will learn how the amygdala and cortex (both important parts of the brain) are essential players in the neuropsychology of anxiety. The amygdala acts as a primal response, and oftentimes, when this part of the brain processes fear, you may not even understand why you are afraid. By comparison, the cortex is the center of “worry.” That is, obsessing, ruminating, and dwelling on things that may or may not happen. In the book, Pittman and Karle make it simple by offering specific examples of how to manage fear by tapping into both of these pathways in the brain.
As you read, you’ll gain a greater understanding how anxiety is created in the brain, and as a result, you will feel empowered and motivated to overcome it. The brain is a powerful tool, and the more you work to change the way you respond to fear, the more resilient you will become. Using the practical self-assessments and proven-effective techniques in this book, you will learn to literally “rewire” the brain processes that lie at the root of your fears.
The first half explains these principles, while the second half covers practical techniques and exercises to apply this knowledge in trigger situations and learn to re-wire, re-remember, augment and overcome traumatic experiences that linger in the body and psyche. Memory is felt all over the body.
I recommend this book to everybody I talk with about anxiety. The audio book can be listened to in about 6 hours. Money very well spent!
Also teaches you how to change it !!
Great book !!
Understand where anxiety starts from and giving me tools to incorporate when I’m anxious. Thank you for writing this book!
Everybody can learn something from this book with the afterthought that the "conclusion" generates.
It may not be a replacement for other forms of treatment, but it helped me when medications couldn’t. I do recommend talking with your doctor or a psychologist, but certainly give this book a go. I think you’ll be impressed.
UPDATE:
6 years after reading this book, my anxiety remains greatly reduced, in part, due to the techniques found in this book. While I am not a fan of the tiny section on visualizing meditation, it was otherwise a great resource.
The book also provides helpful evidence-based guidance on techniques to prevent or reduce the intensity of anxiety and related conditions. The key techniques are:
- Get good sleep, aerobically exercise daily, and eat a healthy diet.
- Breathe from the diaphragm/belly, which apparently activates the parasympathetic nervous system and thus counters activation of the sympathetic nervous system resulting from fear.
- Remind yourself that thoughts and images are not reality and may be mistaken.
- Disrupt problematic thoughts and images via distractions, play, music, and positive thoughts and images.
- Mindfully 'defuse' from problematic thoughts, images, and sensations, and instead just 'be' in the present moment, calmly observing all that is happening without any need to interpret or respond in any way.
- Meditate, including mindful meditation.
- Deliberately and repeatedly expose yourself to the situations which generate unwarranted fear, in order to rewire the amygdala to no longer subconsciously associate those situations with fear. This can be an uncomfortable experience, but accept the discomfort and know that it will pass, and absolutely do not flee from the situations, because doing so will strengthen the fear.
I highly recommend this book to anyone dealing with excessive worry, fear, anxiety, and related conditions.
I am really rewiring my brain!!!!!!!!!!!