Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

To take charge of your life, identify triggers for anxiety in situations where anxiety or compulsions are blocking your goals, as discussed in chapter 7. Then target those triggers with exposure, as outlined in chapter 8, to reduce the limiting effects of anxiety.

The nucleus accumbens is a pleasure center in the brain that’s involved in hope, optimism, and the anticipation of rewards. It’s where the neurotransmitter dopamine is released, and studies have shown that when brain levels of dopamine are higher, negative expectations are reduced and optimism increases (Sharot et al. 2012).

Try it now: On a separate piece of paper, list several situations in which you feel anxiety. Then, for each, see if you can identify the interpretations that lead you to react in an anxious manner.

Using distraction to change the channel can immediately reduce anxiety in a given situation.

Next, spend some time brainstorming alternative interpretations for each anxiety-igniting interpretation you identified. If you play with this a bit, you can probably see how different interpretations could lead to a wide range of emotional responses.

When you listen to music you enjoy, you directly engage your right hemisphere in positive emotional responding.

Seek out activities that engage the left hemisphere, such as watching amusing programs, reading thought-provoking articles, playing games, and exercise.

Another approach is to deliberately engage the right hemisphere in an activity that’s incompatible with negative mood states. Listening

In essence, mindfulness means understanding that all you ever really have is the present moment, and practicing a new way to inhabit and observe that moment: with a focus on allowing, accepting, and being fully aware of whatever you’re experiencing. This may sound simple, but it takes practice.