Think Happy!

I’m not sure I’ve ever met a shy monkey! Nevertheless, research recently carried out on young rhesus monkeys may hold the clue to a deeper understanding of anxiety, stress and shyness is human children.

The research, carried out by the HealthEmotions Research Institute and Department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, showed that those with the most anxious temperaments showed higher activity in the part of the brain that regulates emotion and triggers reactions to anxiety, e.g. the fight or flight response.

The brains of people suffering from anxiety and severe shyness in social situations consistently respond more strongly to stress, and show signs of being anxious even in situations that others find safe. In other words,

“The brain machinery underlying the stress response seems to be always on in these individuals, even in situations that others perceive as safe and secure.” (Dr. Ned Kalin, chairman of the SMPH Research Institute)

The current research suggests that the reason is it is hard for some one with an anxious temperament to “calm down” is because they are wired in a way that tends to keep them tense and anxious. Their ‘calm’ is already more wound-up that most people’s stress!

But does it have to be that way?   The research is indicating something about how someone’s brain responds to stress and why. Contrary to how some have reported it, it does not prove that certain people are ‘hard-wired’ to stress or shyness. (In fact, the ‘hard-wired’ metaphor is almost always an unhelpful one when applied to humans) What the research does not demonstrate is that mental patterns and default reactions to stress cannot be changed.

My brain may be more prone to stress for a number of reasons. It may just, somehow, be a default setting, or it could be a learned behaviour. But there is nothing to suggest that it can’t be unlearned – and everything to suggest that it can. Let’s take a snap-shot of a workaholic called Terry. Terry’s job as an advertising executive is one long experience of stress, from 8 in the morning until 7 at night. This, invariably, leads to tension at home with a resentful and increasingly distant spouse and children who barely know the person who walks through the door and so failt to recognise them as an authority.

Terry has begun drinking more than ever before – a coping mechanism that consistently provides less benefits that it promises. This adds to difficulties in the marriage, which in turn do nothing to encourage Terry to come home from work early.  After all, the stress at work can be invigorating. The stress at home is suffocating.

Let’s imagine that Terry pretty much lived like this for five years. If you took a look at his life at any point in that five year period, you would see the obvious signs of stress, as well as ‘the brain machinery underlying the stress response’ being permanently on. In fact, even during times of relative calm, such as vacations, Terry would ‘consistently respond more strongly to stress, and show signs of being anxious’. That’s not because he is ‘hard-wired’ or predistined to this reaction. It’s simply that, in his case, he has developed a predisposition to stress through a learned response. So, there is every reason to hope that he can unlearn it.

Even five years after this scenario, if Terry hasn’t learnt to think or respond differently to stress, his brain would look pretty much like the nervous monkey’s in the studies – and we would be forgiven for presuming he was always that way. Yet, he was actually a pretty out-going, care-free man in his younger days. And he can be once again!

How? Well, he could start by reading Think Happy! We’re going to spend some time over the Summer sharing incredibly easy steps to overcoming stress, anxiety and severe shyness. Don’t let the simplicity of these steps deceive you. After all, the most important is our favourite: Breathe!