Your Brain on Anxiety: How Anxiety Effects the Body

In a world where rates of anxiety are increasing and trending younger, providing youth with the skills to understand and manage these emotions is a necessity. Giving children strategies to build a positive relationship with their emotional world and cope with big feelings will improve their self-concept and ripple out to other parts of their lives and interpersonal relationships.

One of the first steps to helping children manage their anxiety is to educate them about what is going on in their bodies when they feel anxious. By understanding what is happening internally, they will be able to know how to handle their anxiety better.

How Anxiety Effects the Body

Anxiety is a physiological response to a perceived threat in the environment. That response prepares the body to protect itself from danger quickly. The brain notices a trigger and determines whether it is a threat. When the amygdala (the part of the brain responsible for processing emotions) reacts to the threat, it activates the sympathetic nervous system by releasing hormones that include adrenaline and noradrenaline.

Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn Response

There are four ways the body responds to that release of hormones and the amygdala’s call for protection:

• Fight: face the danger and fight the threat aggressively.
• Flight: run away from the threat to try and save yourself.
• Freeze: do not move or hide in hopes of being ignored until the threat passes.
• Fawn: submit to or bargain with the threat in hopes of avoiding conflict.

The Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn response can happen in the face of imminent physical danger or psychological threats, real threats, or imaginary ones. There are also times when, if a threat continues for an extended period, we may experience more than one response.

The amygdala functions unconsciously and almost instantaneously, but that does not mean that it is always accurate. For people under acute stress or with high levels of anxiety, the sympathetic nervous system is always on guard. Therefore, the amygdala is hypersensitive and reacts to things others would not recognize as threatening.

However, if we can interrupt the process before the amygdala takes over, we can think through the situation and evaluate whether it truly is a threat or not. If we recognize when our bodies are starting to react to feelings of anxiety, we can interrupt the Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn response by using appropriate coping skills to reduce the anxiety we feel.

To help children understand the Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn response, give them a scenario where someone might feel anxious. For example, walking through a park, and an unfamiliar dog runs in their direction.  Next, ask them to brainstorm how they would act for each response. Here are some possible answers:

• Fight: I might be able to defend myself if the dog chases after me.
• Flight: I think I could outrun the dog, get to one of the big trees, and climb out of the dog’s reach.
• Freeze: I could stop here and see if the dog chooses to go in another direction if I don’t look interesting.
• Fawn: I could give the dog the rest of my snack to distract it from chasing me.

By equipping children to understand their body’s response to danger (or perceived danger), they will be able to break the Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn response and find better ways to handle their worries.