Video Transcription

Intro

Our brain evolved to help us stay safe from danger. But our brain can’t always tell the difference between danger and stress.

When your brain is really stressed and thinks you’re in danger, it responds by trying to help you stay safe.

Fight, flight, freeze and fawn response

This is your fight, flight, freeze, and fawn response.

If a bear wanted to eat you, you might fight the bear, run away from the bear, freeze and hope it doesn’t see you, or fawn — which is kind of like trying to convince the bear not to eat you. Sometimes that looks like being extra pleasing or even acting cute, like a puppy with big eyes.

So what does this have to do with anxiety?

What does this have to do with anxiety?

Anxiety is complex, so we’re making it simple by talking about three parts of your brain that are involved in the stress response.

The first part is your brain stem, also known as your survival brain. Your survival brain is responsible for body functions like breathing, heart rate, movement, sleep, and lots of other things — basically the stuff that keeps you alive.

The second part is your limbic system, or your emotional brain. This part of your brain is responsible for your emotions.

The third part of your brain is your frontal lobe, sometimes called your smart brain. It’s responsible for higher-level thinking, like reading, writing, communicating, and solving problems.

What happens when your brain thinks you’re in danger

When you’re stressed and your brain thinks you’re in danger, it triggers the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response by sending extra energy to your survival brain and body. This helps you be fast, strong, or ready to escape danger.

Your brain also sends extra energy to your emotional brain, because emotions help you decide how to respond.

All that extra energy has to come from somewhere, so your smart brain temporarily goes offline. If a bear were about to eat you, you wouldn’t need to know algebra or speak French — your brain is prioritising survival.

The good news is that once you’re safe and calm down, everything in your brain returns to normal.

Stress in everyday life

We live in a world full of stress, so things like homework or arguments with friends can still trigger your fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response.

For example, if you have stressful homework to do, you might feel angry or irritable — that’s your fight response. You might feel panicked — that’s flight. You might procrastinate or avoid it — that’s freeze. Or you might try to talk your way out of doing it, either to someone else or in your own head — that’s fawn.

Brain hacks to calm down

The good news is there are some brain hacks that can help you calm down.

Brain hack number one: If you can calm your body, you can help calm your survival brain. You can do this by using your breath, going for a run, stretching, or having a shower.

Brain hack number two: If you can calm your thoughts, you can calm your emotional brain. You can do this with visualisations, meditation, or mindfulness.

Brain hack number three: Turn your smart brain back on. You can do this by doing things your frontal lobe is good at, like talking to a counsellor, reading a book, or writing your thoughts down.

Practice

Learning to calm yourself takes practice. To get really good at managing stress, you need to practise many times so your brain can grow new connections and create new pathways.

The more you practise, the stronger those pathways become — until calming yourself down starts to feel easier, or even automatic.