Tuesday, 11 February 2014 at 11:45 AM *[14 Noble Ave, Yonkers, NY, United States](https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=14+Noble+Ave,+Yonkers,+NY,+United+States&map_action=map&basemap=satellite)* # The Mechanism of Anxiety Getting accustomed to this medication has given me the opportunity to take stock of the stressors in my life and identify which are actually disconcerting, and which were just the product of false association with feelings of anxiety. It's so strange to think that the emotional and rational parts of my brain would be so disconnected, but it's given me some insight into *how* my anxiety functions. Normal (or healthy) brain chemistry helps us survive by releasing different chemicals in response to different stimuli. "Normal" anxiety is an evolutionary survival mechanism. Our monkey-brain sees something dangerous, like a saber-toothed tiger or a sheer cliff face and releases chemicals to accelerate our heart rate, sharpen our senses and quicken our reflexes. This is good, as it enables the famous "fight or flight" response that has been keeping our species alive for millennia. As long as there is reasonable cause to be nervous or scared, anxiety is a perfectly valid response. My brain is different. I get false alarms, meaning that sometimes I feel anxious when there is no obvious present danger. But this possibility (that I could sense danger where there is none) is unacceptable to my rational monkey-brain, so I subconsciously seek to associate this feeling of nervousness with some stimulus I can observe. This process happens so seamlessly that I don't notice it, I just feel nervous about an idea I'm having, or the state of my pantry, or whether I have to work tomorrow or not. Objectively harmless stimuli get associated with anxiety, and the problem becomes self-perpetuating. The next time I encounter the same non-offending stimulus, it will actually *provoke* feelings of anxiety, because of the association I have inadvertently created. The matter is further complicated because sometimes my anxiety-response is completely justified, e.g. when I'm driving in rush hour traffic and crazy New Yorkers keep merging suddenly without signaling. Think about walking through the jungle and coming upon a poisonous snake. My mind needs to be focused, my muscles need that surge of adrenalin, because keen observation and hair-trigger reflexes may well mean the difference between life and death. If not for these genuine anxiety-producing events, I could train myself to disregard feelings of anxiety entirely. Actually, now that I think of it, I've been attempting to self-mitigate feelings of panic ever since I was a teenager. I would get a surge of adrenalin and immediately try to calm myself down through breathing techniques, physical sensory input and cognitive reassurances. But this isn't productive behavior either, because it would leave me dismissing a *real* cause for alarm as a false alarm and I would end up in a dangerous situation without realizing it. One effect of the SNRI that I am taking is that it dampens my anxiety-responses, so only the ones that are really persistent with objectively obvious causes set off my defense mechanisms. No longer will I suddenly feel anxious while sitting in a cafe and immediately associate it with the person next to me or the song that's on the house stereo. Now I can take in my environment with a clearer perception of what it actually contains, instead of forcing it to coincide with my emotional state. My hope is that I can learn to tell the difference between real and perceived danger. There's an awful lot of damage I have to undo from a life of anxiety, there are a lot of non-offending elements that I still associate with risk and perceived harm, but hopefully I am now better equipped to reevaluate those things and make more sensible decisions about them. Maybe then, sometime in the future, I will be able to distinguish between a false alarm and a real one without any medication at all. --- Tuesday, February 11, 2014 in [Day One](dayone://open?date=2014-02-11) #dailynote ```query file:20140211 ```