Читать книгу The Panicosaurus - Kay Al-Ghani - Страница 9

Introduction

Anxiety can occur when the demands placed on us by our environment are out of harmony with our ability to cope with them. An area in the brain called the amygdala is responsible for the sensations we experience at these times. When anxiety takes hold, we cannot control these sensations – they happen automatically, without conscious thought. When we experience an emotion like fear our body responds by making us breathe faster, which in turn sets the heart racing. We can react to this fear and anxiety in a number of ways, known as “The Five Fs”:

1. FLOCK: This is when we go to trusted people who help us to feel safe (for example, Mum, Dad or the police) or when we head for a crowd (safety in numbers).

2. Fluster: This is when we start to panic and make silly mistakes because we can’t seem to think straight (remember that driving test?).

3. Freeze: This is when we are caught like a rabbit in the headlights, unable to move or speak.

4. Flight: This is when our automatic reaction is to run away at the fastest possible.

5. Fight: This is when we become agitated, angry and aggressive.

The amygdala is also implicated in the storage of memories; indeed, I once heard it described as the “storehouse of the memory of fear.” When memories are negative, we may come to