subject: How Does Modifying the Amygdala Cure Your High Anxiety? [print this page] How Does Modifying the Amygdala Cure Your High Anxiety?
The amygdala carry out many important roles in the production and storage of experiences by those who have anxiety disorder such as generalized anxiety, panic attacks, phobias or obsessions (OCD). All these happens within the amygdala and is kept by it as an inappropriate reaction. This is the result found by many scientists through their researches and observations.
The Amygdala is a pair of tiny organ within the brain and it is a part of the limbic system. their main task is in the processing of emotional responses such as the anxiety reaction or 'flight or fight' response.
The amygdala responds to fear conditioning in the same way as Pavlov's dogs were conditioned to react on hearing a whistle; this kind of conditioning is called operant conditioning. This study was done in detail by a prominent psychologist by the name of Burrhus Frederic Skinner. Skinner found that through repetitive behaviors, the subconscious mind could be affected in such a way that it would alter the autonomic reactions stored in it.
Another popular psychologist with theories similar to Skinner's name John Broadus Watson, discovered that he could take a child and make him the kind of person he desired by manipulating their behaviors. This is the reason why when thousands of anxious people exposed the trigger for their condition, more often than not, a specific trigger can be recognized and these include bereavement, exposure to other sufferers,family situations and general social environment and many more.
The amygdala can be altered to respond differently through behavioral adjustments. During high anxiety, the amygdala can be adjusted to react with higher levels of anxiety. This can then sometimes become 'stuck' at that high level initiating an anxiety disorder such as panic disorder, OCD or phobias.
This also proves that those with high anxiety conditions can, through a systematic time- tested program, re-adjust the inappropriate responses of the amygdala in order bring it down it to a more acceptable level, thus treating the anxious symptoms connected with the disorder.
