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And anxiety and your brain, imagine you're enjoying a nice walk through the woods when you encounter

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a slither thing on the ground like that's reflected off the object will enter your eyes and fall on

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your retinas, leading to signals that travel through the brain's delay station, the slums and into

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the primary visual areas located at the back of your brain.

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That information's then relayed to other parts of the brain, including memory areas that match the

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object with the concept snake.

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The fact that you're seeing a snake is then passed along to the other areas, including the amygdala

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down deep inside your brain, which is central to feeding and expressing fear and other emotions.

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How does your brain know to fear a snake next to your food on the ground, but not the one behind the

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glass at the zoo?

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The amygdala also gets inputs from the hippocampus, which is crucial for understanding context.

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Thanks to your hippocampus, you may even start to feel afraid the next time you walk through the woods,

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even if you don't run into us any signals from the amygdala, then activate a brain area called the

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hypothalamus, which will activate the fight or flight response of the sympathetic nervous system.

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Through the release of stress hormones like epinephrine adrenaline.

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The hypothalamus also triggers the Reglan to release hormones into your bloodstream that tybalt your

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adrenal glands, which sit on top of your kidneys, causing them to release additional stress hormones

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like cortisol.

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Your existence on this planet has dependent on this coordinated response.

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Allowing us to recognize and respond to threats like moving away from the snake just acts as it's important

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for our survival to learn to fear certain stimuli.

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It also adaptive to learn when danger is minimal, so we are not overly overly fearful.

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This new learning depends on providing our brains with new information which an anxiety driven avoidance

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can prevent.

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For example, if I always avoid dogs because a big dog knocked me down when I was a little kid, I will

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never learn that my early encounter won't be my typical experience with dogs.

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When we practice mindfulness and cognitive behavioral techniques for dealing with fear and anxiety,

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we are retraining these brain areas to change the response to things that scare us.