First Fear: The Amygdala’s Automatic Alarm
The whoosh of fear triggered by your amygdala is sometimes called first fear, a term introduced by Claire Weekes (1969) in the 1950s. She described first fear as automatic. We might now say that triggering the alarm—first fear—is the default setting on your amygdala. We know that first fear is a response of your brain that is not under your conscious control. It is unstoppable.
But remember that the amygdala sends out many, many false alarms. Most first fears are actually false alarms. Only a very small percentage of them are indications of true danger. Your alarm system responds whenever it detects even the slightest hint of danger. A stuck thought—just like a “Boo!”—triggers this alarm because it was conditioned to do so.
Figure 2 shows a diagram of what goes on in your brain when someone yells, “Boo!” The Trigger is “Boo!” and the sound goes from your ear to a switchboard in your brain that is called the thalamus, which then very rapidly scoots it over to the amygdala. Your amygdala fires, and you have first fear. All of this occurs in the imperceptible time of about one-fifth of a second—the blink of an eye.
Figure 2: The thalamus sends the trigger signal to the amygdala, which fires and creates first fear.
So what makes first fear unstoppable and automatic? It actually has to do with how our brain is wired. Let’s look more closely.
Two Paths to the Amygdala
In the 1990s, neuroscientists, including Joseph LeDoux (1998), made remarkable discoveries about how fear works in the brain. They discovered that brains are wired so that the amygdala receives signals from two distinct and separate pathways. Whenever your senses notice a possible danger—suppose it’s a loud noise—your amygdala gets two signals about that possible danger. The “switchboard” (called the thalamus) in your brain sends out the signal in two directions at exactly the same time. One route is direct and extremely rapid, the route in figure 2. The other path makes its way through the cortex, or thinking part of your brain, and only then does it get to your amygdala. This longer path through the cortex takes about half of a second longer than the direct path. So it reaches the amygdala about half of a second after the first signal.
If we were to diagram the route from the brain’s “switchboard” (thalamus) to the amygdala, it would look something like figure 3.
Figure 3: There are two separate paths to the amygdala.
Figure 3 shows the two paths. There is a fast route to the amygdala that bypasses the cortex, or thinking part, of your brain. The second, slower path goes through the cortex, which allows you to think about, or process, the meaning of the signal. The fast route is fast and fuzzy; the longer route is more precise. But you pay for that precision with some time. The longer route reaches the amygdala about half of a second after the fast route. So the messenger with a notice that something might be amiss gets there first, while the facts arrive afterward.
Let’s return to the experience in which you are startled by your friend jumping out and yelling “Boo!” You jump, experience a whoosh of fright, and then calm down.
The sudden sound of “Boo!” was transmitted to your amygdala via the fast route that was first shown in figure 2. That set off your alarm response. As we mentioned, this fast route bypassed your thinking brain and got there very quickly. In fact, the arousal of the alarm response is the most rapid response in the human body! So when your friend yelled “Boo!” your reaction was immediate. This is an example of first fear.
Figure 3 shows first fear, but it also gives you an idea of what is happening with the second part of the signal—the part that is going to your thinking brain, your cortex. Figure 4 shows a diagram of this reaction that is occurring approximately one-fifth of a second after hearing the “Boo!
Figure 4: The whoosh of fear occurs before thinking can happen.
Notice that the signal has already made its way to the amygdala via the fast route and first fear has been triggered. Notice also that the other signal—traveling along the slower route and going first to the thinking part of your brain—has not yet reached the amygdala. Your amygdala is triggered before it gets the message from your cortex. In practical terms, the “Boo!” gives you a whoosh of fear before you are able to think about it. You get frightened before you know why. Your reaction is rapid, automatic, and unstoppable.
About a half second later, your amygdala gets the message from your thinking brain, or cortex. It tells you that the sound is just someone yelling “Boo!” and there is no danger involved. (After all, it might have been a gunshot.) It gives the message to your amygdala that it need not keep sounding the alarm, and you start to calm down. Within a few minutes, it is like it never happened.
Figure 5 illustrates the reduction of fear that occurs once the amygdala has received a signal from the cortex which says, in effect, “All clear. There is no need for alarm. This is just a harmless Boo! and you can stop clanging the alarm bell now.”
Figure 5:The cortex determines that there is no threat, and the amygdala stops sounding the alarm. First fear fades.
Notice in figure 5 that the whoosh of fear is quickly stopping, and first fear is fading away as the amygdala receives the message from the cortex that the trigger was not a threat.
We want to emphasize two points here. Number one is that first fear is unstoppable because it comes about before your conscious will has a chance to intervene. Willpower has nothing to with it because it is triggered before willpower has a chance to intervene. The second point is that first fear goes away quickly when you realize you are in no danger.
The Amygdala and Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts
But sometimes first fear doesn’t go away quickly. In fact, sometimes first fear is just the fuse that sets off a whole series of fearful reactions. When that happens, this second fear sets the stage for unwanted intrusive thoughts to occur.
Let’s imagine a situation very different from being startled by a friend. Let’s suppose that your thinking brain (your cortex), instead of telling your amygdala that all is clear, tells your amygdala that there is, in fact, something to be frightened about. In that case, your amygdala would trigger the alarm again and would continue to sound the alarm for as long as your cortex warned of danger.
Specifically, let’s say that you react with a whoosh of first fear to the intrusive thought, I could jump off this balcony. Then you may think, What if I actually do it? or How can I be certain that I won’t? or Does this mean I am suicidal without realizing it? or even Whatever is wrong with me must be serious. These are the inner voices that keep the fear going. Your amygdala, stirred up by the voices, continues to sound the alarm, and you continue to be frightened.
How Inner Voices Create Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts
Our inner dialogue between Worried Voice and False Comfort creates a fear-increasing cycle by adding second fear to intrusive thoughts. A fear-decreasing cycle happens when this dialogue gives way to the voice of Wise Mind.
Fear-Increasing Cycle
Let’s look more closely at how your inner voices work in the brain. First, remember that all three voices (Worried Voice, False Comfort, and Wise Mind) reside in the thinking part of your brain—the cortex. None of your voices have any role in the creation of the first whoosh of fear—what we call first fear.
However, all three characters feel the whoosh of first fear. True to form, Worried Voice is always duped. It believes immediately that where there is whoosh, there is danger. It does not cross Worried Voice’s mind that most alarms are false alarms and that there are comparatively few real emergencies in life. Worried Voice automatically takes every alarm seriously whether it sounded in response to a creak in the attic, a skip of the heartbeat, or an intrusive thought.
Every time Worried Voice thinks of something else that could be amiss, the amygdala sends out another alarm. And, as long as Worried Voice asks the “What if (fill in something awful) is happening?” question, your amygdala continues to produce whooshes of fear.
As s
oon as this happens, False Comfort steps forward to try to silence Worried Voice. False Comfort tries by minimizing, pretending, explaining away, calming, and making a plan “just in case.” But this only confirms for Worried Voice that the alarm was legitimate and needs to be dealt with. As we pointed out earlier, when False Comfort engages Worried Voice, then Worried Voice raises what-ifs once again. There is no getting away from it. False Comfort is not helping. You have now become stuck in an ongoing state of fright.
This is second fear—and as you try to fight the thought, you set the stage for an unwanted intrusive thought to take root.
Figure 6 represents the fear-increasing cycle that is going on with Worried Voice and False Comfort in your cortex.
Figure 6: Worried Voice and False Comfort together create the fear-increasing cycle.
Fear-Diminishing Cycle
The best way to avoid second fear is to end the fear-increasing cycle by allowing Wise Mind to take over. It is only Wise Mind who realizes that the amygdala is just doing its job, that the thought is actually only a thought, and that the alarm is likely a false positive, needing only time to pass until it stops.
In your brain, Wise Mind is the voice from your cortex saying that your original thought, What if I jump off this balcony? is not a threat, despite the whoosh of fear it produced. Wise Mind remembers that first fear is automatic and second fear is something you can change. Wise Mind knows that feeling anxious is not the same as being in danger. When this happens, calming occurs on its own, naturally, and the intrusive thought passes into the stream of thoughts.
Figure 7 represents the fear-diminishing cycle that goes on in the cortex of your brain when you discover your Wise Mind and allow it to interact with Worried Voice.
Figure 7: Wise Mind helps by not reacting to Worried Voice. This starts the fear-diminishing cycle.
Helpful Fact: Your Wise Mind knows that feeling anxious is not the same as being in danger.
Anxious Thinking
Your amygdala sets off the alarm response. You are ready to cope with threats. If the threat is real (a wild animal running toward you, an out-of-control car heading in your direction), the alarm response works exactly as it should, arousing the muscles, heart, and breath, enabling extra physical prowess needed to protect yourself (have you ever heard the stories of terrified mothers managing almost super-human strength to save their babies?). Your body and your brain are on emergency power.
However, emergency mode can also be turned on by anything that triggers a whoosh of fear. Things like social rejection, worries about health or finances, or the mere hint of disapproval from a boss can become conditioned triggers that set off the alarm response.
In cases like these—where the trigger is not a real danger, but rather an unsettling reminder of past unwanted thoughts, an ambiguous expression on someone’s face that could possibly indicate rejection, or the thought of hurting a baby you love—this emergency mode is the opposite of helpful. In fact, it makes you wonder whether your mind is working properly. This state of mind is called anxious thinking. Anxious thinking comes directly from the hyper-alert state of the brain. It is part of the biology of arousal.
The world seems different when your amygdala has triggered the alarm response. When these changes occur and you are in the anxious thinking state, you are extremely vulnerable to unwanted intrusive thoughts. This alteration of awareness is part and parcel of the continuing alarm response. Here are some of the most important differences you will notice during anxious thinking.
Thought-Action Fusion
Ordinarily, the differences between thoughts and actions are clear. Anxious thinking creates an altered state of consciousness where scary thoughts can feel as frightening as scary behaviors. It is as if thoughts and actions feel fused together. Even though thoughts are triggering fears, people feel as if they are living through—not just thinking about—a dangerous experience. Thought-action fusion makes it seem that there is little difference between thinking about something and it actually happening. Thoughts no longer feel like a safe way to rehearse actions without consequences. What-ifs are not experienced as guesses or imaginings, they feel like visions of the actual future. Thoughts actually feel predictive. In addition, thought-action fusion makes it seem that thinking something is somehow morally equivalent to doing it—and therefore means something important about the thinker, so bad thoughts reveal a bad person.
All Risks Seem Unreasonable
When your amygdala is not triggering the alarm response, you understand that nothing in life is risk-free. Your actions in life are filled with what feels like reasonable risks. In contrast, your anxious thinking cannot accept any risks because thinking about something gives it a high probability of happening. What-if catastrophic thoughts seem likely to occur. Any thought that triggers the alarm makes ordinary risks feel unreasonable. Anxious thinking requires an absolute guarantee that a disastrous experience you might think about won’t occur. You feel driven to ask for reassurances of safety, and you try to avoid the situations that trigger the feeling. And, of course, anxious thinking can’t get that guarantee.
Thoughts Feel Sticky
Anxious thinking makes your scary thoughts hard to avoid. They seem stuck in your mind. No matter how much you tell yourself to think of something else, catastrophic thoughts come right back to intrude into your consciousness. Distractions are only partially helpful in getting your mind onto another subject, and they sometimes are no help at all. This is the neurological basis for the ironic process of the mind, which was first introduced in chapter 1. Effort used to not think of a thought actually makes it more intrusive.
Intolerance of Uncertainty
Life has plenty of uncertainties, and no one can predict the future. Most of the time, you are able to accept that nothing in life is risk-free and go on with your activities with little worry. But anxious thinking makes any uncertainty feel threatening. In addition, anxious thinking makes thoughts feel threatening. Certain thoughts are experienced as dangerous. It is very hard to hold onto the truism that thoughts and feelings are not facts.
Helpful Fact: Neither thoughts nor feelings are facts.
These are just a few of the ways that anxious thinking makes you vulnerable to unwanted intrusions. Your brain makes you sensitized and reactive to certain thoughts by altering the way your thoughts feel, and this begins the process. Now that you know how unwanted intrusive thoughts are created, the next chapter explains why you feel so frustrated. We are going to explain why nothing you have tried (up to now) seems to work.
Chapter 6
Why Nothing Has Worked
You have probably spent a lot of effort trying to get rid of your intrusive thoughts, usually without much success. It is likely that some time has passed since your first unwanted intrusive thought, and you have been struggling hard in frustrating attempts at controlling them, avoiding them, crowding them out, and otherwise trying to banish them from your mind. Perhaps you have tried other self-help techniques, sought advice from friends, or have even tried counseling or therapy. You may have told your therapist about your thoughts, or perhaps you have been too scared of what they might mean or what the therapist might do if he or she knew.
Three Factors That Get in the Way
There are three factors that explain why your efforts have not worked: sticky mind, paradoxical effort, and entanglement. We address each in this chapter. We review the effect of sticky mind, a biologically based tendency you were probably born with and need to understand. Next, we talk about paradoxical effort, a central concept introduced in previous sections. And finally, we introduce the idea of entanglement, which is essentially getting involved with the thought as if it were important. We will then give you real-life examples so you can identify where and how these three elements work to make your best efforts unsuccessful.
Sticky Mind
You may recall having different unwanted intrusive thoughts at different times in your life. They occur when your mind
has become particularly “sticky,” and you start paying way too much attention to your thoughts. “Sticky” mind is a term we use to describe the experience of having thoughts that should normally fly just once through your mind, but instead keep coming back, or repeat. Each time they return, they draw undue and undeserved attention, and feel stuck.
Whether you like it or not, you have a sticky mind, and you need to learn the factors that affect it. Sticky mind has a biological basis. It comes from a sticky brain. There are two factors that lead to it. One is genetic—this tendency runs in families and is associated with various inheritable traits and conditions relating to brain circuits and biochemistry. Most people with a sticky mind can identify other members of their families who have it as well, whether they own up to it or not. The second factor is stress. Minds tend to get stickier when they are fatigued, overwhelmed by good or bad events, and dealing with illness, stressful situations, or conflicting emotions. Minds are stickier if you are hungover, and for many, even a small amount of drinking can increase stickiness. A mind is stickier as soon as you start worrying about stickiness or checking on it to see if it is sticky. Stickiness can feel uncomfortable, but it is not dangerous or meaningful. And the really great news is that no matter what the causes (genetic or stress) are, you can learn to change your brain to become less sticky.
Overcoming Unwated Intrusive Thoughts Page 9
