What’s REALLY Happening In My Brain When I’m Freaking Out

You feel your heart beating harder and faster in your chest. A lump forms in your throat. The sound of the person talking to you fades into the background as your own thoughts and concerns become all-consuming. Maybe you feel a turning in your stomach or no longer feel content to stand still. You feel like you are losing your mind!

Well, there’s a little bit of truth to that. Dan Siegal, an author and professor of psychiatry, uses a fun analogy to break down the brain and how it works in situations like these. At the risk of oversimplifying, we’ll name two main characters in our brain: the guard dog (aka our brain’s limbic regions) and the wise owl (aka our brain’s cerebrum). The main role of the guard dog is to protect us from danger, and to do it fast! The main role of the wise owl is to help us think through things, using logic and reason.

In these moments when we feel like we are losing our mind, our guard dog has sensed danger and communicated that danger, quickly and loudly, to the rest of our brain and body. His sense of urgency has scared our wise owl away. In physical terms, our body’s energy and even our blood flow, has been directed into our sympathetic nervous system, the part of us which is built to survive. In situations of danger, our body prioritizes the need for immediate fight, flight, or freeze. In that prioritizing, the logical complex thinking part of our brain gets left out. The wise owl is not who the guard dog wants on his team in a crisis of danger.

As the wise owl flies away at the guard dog’s aggressive alarm, our brain loses its inability to differentiate between a real threat and a perceived threat. The same overwhelming fight, flight, or freeze response is triggered by the reminder of an upcoming exam, a delayed text response from a loved one, and a run-in with a bear. If we dive into our analogy, the guard dog has the same “freak-out” response toward the unassuming mailman and the armed intruder. In terms of an actual, life-threatening experience, efficiency is key. There’s no time to waste consulting the wise owl about the level of threat actually posed. When it comes to non-physical or non-life-threatening stressors, however, our mind and body’s intense flight, flight, or freeze response is much less helpful.

So, how do we stop freaking out?

We are often tempted to do one of two things when we are overwhelmed by our stress response:

• Listen to the guard dog and give in by running away from and avoiding the stressor by numbing out with Netflix, food, or other addictions. 
• Get mad and yell at the guard dog: “STOP FREAKING OUT.” “CHILL!” “You are so dumb!” “You always over-react!”

While these responses may be effective in the short term, both responses ultimately make our guard dog louder in the long-run. With the first response, our protective guard dog is affirmed in his identification of a threat, making him more confident and aggressive the next time. In the second response, our body’s stress response (the guard dog) experiences self-criticism as an additional threat. It makes our very important, very proactive guard dog confused, uncertain, and often, even more hypervigilant next time.

Let’s explore two different approaches:

1) When we approach the guard dog with gratitude, calm, and confidence, it responds very differently. Imagine getting down on your protector’s level, arm around his neck, “Hey guard dog! I see the mailman. You are the best dog, thank you for working so hard to protect me. I know people coming to the door can be so scary. That mailman, see him, he’s the same one that comes here every day. And remember, he’s never hurt us. We’ll be okay.”

What would it feel like to speak this way to our anxiety? “Hmmm, I sense my body getting warm. I feel my heartbeat picking up speed. My legs are starting to get fidgety. I see you, anxiety. I see the threat you’re worried about. Thank you for working to prepare me. Hard tests (or conflict with this person I love or uncertainty about my future) are scary. I hear you, you’re worried about failing and feeling embarrassed. You know what? I think we’ll get through it. We’ve conquered this fear before. Even if we fail, we will be okay.”

2)  Another helpful approach is called grounding. It’s calling in that wise owl that was scared away. “Hey wise owl! What day is it? What time is it? Where am I? What is my name again?” “Am I physically safe?” As we begin to answer these questions that only the cerebral part of our brain can answer, the blood flow and energy return to those areas and our body naturally begins to calm.

The first and most important step in taking care of our mind and our mental health, is to acknowledge the beauty, value and purpose of all the parts of our brain, even the parts that make us feel crazy. When we see their well-meaning intentions and the ways they do serve us, we can take steps to gently reign them in and guide them in how to live in partnership with each other. So today, let’s take a moment to see that amazing guard dog inside of us. Let’s acknowledge his hard work, his very valid fears, and his efforts, even if they sometimes make us feel like we are crazy. When he’s calmed, confident, and given compassion, that’s when he and the wise owl work together in a way that makes us feel better about ourselves and the world around us.

• *Adapted from Dan Siegal’s book, The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind
• **Photo by Tanja Brandt