1. The Neuroscience of Stress and Regulation

How chronic stress alters brain function | survival responses | trauma responses | emotional regulation.

Your abundant overuse of amygdala action (your subcortical alarm system) was rather useful on the plains of Africa when detecting danger, and / or threat to life.

It is somewhat less helpful when triggered by prolonged or protracted stressors, such as budget airline travel, IKEA on Sundays, or prison.

The result of overstimulating the subcortical brain, with your cerebral matter dedicated to continuously seek out potential dangers, is that the rest of your governing matter (prefrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes) stop worrying about what you might have for dinner that night, or be compelled to respond to a text from your mum. If someone held you at gun point, you are unlikely to be thinking about when to pick up your dry cleaning in that single moment. Your brain becomes narrowly and singularly focussed on only thing - survival.

When you exist constantly in fire-fighting mode, due to stress, your brain reacts in the exact same way - it puts you in a state of indeterminate hyper-vigilance. Your ability to concentrate on anything other than threat is decimated.

When our survival is at stake, the two brain systems operate independently. When the limbic system decides something is a question of life or death, the pathways between the prefrontal cortex and limbic system become tenuous.

Prolonged exposure to stressors doesn’t just rewire the neural pathways, it presents physical symptoms too - often total dissociation between brain and body.

Effectively managing stress depends on achieving a balance between these two areas of the brain. When the alarm bell of the emotional brain signals danger, no amount of talking or insight will silence it.