Erasing Fears & Traumas Based on the Modern Neuroscience of Fear | Episode 49
Main Takeaways
Fear is an emotion that is built from stress and anxiety, and we cannot have fear without having most or all the elements of a stress response.
Trauma is defined as a fear response that took place and is embedded in the nervous system, which shows up when it's maladaptive and does not serve us.
Panic attacks are the experience of extreme fear without a fear-inducing stimulus, and phobia is an extreme fear of something specific.
The autonomic nervous system controls things like digestion, urination, sleep, and wake, and has two branches: the sympathetic nervous system, which is the alertness nervous system, and the parasympathetic nervous system, which is involved in calming.
The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is the nexus of the hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal systems that uses the brain to wake up the body and prepare it for action in short and long term.
Neural circuits and biology of fear involve the amygdala, which is part of the "threat reflex" in the brain responsible for the threat response.
Fear is generalizable, and we can become afraid of anything as long as we have an external experience.
Understanding and overcoming fear involves giving a new narrative to the stimulus, but you cannot just extinguish a fear – you have to extinguish fear and replace it with a positive response.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapeutic method that reduces the activation of the amygdala and associated anxiety and reduces the amplitude of the threat reflex.
Transgenerational passage of trauma is possible, and we have the capacity to inherit a predisposition to trauma and fear. Drug therapeutics like Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can help overcome fear and trauma.
