Imagine if you will, living in a state of constant worry. Sometimes it is just a sense of uneasiness; at other times, it is a chronic state of fear; and at still other times, it is a paralysis of will. There are people who spend their life bracing for what could happen. Some individuals are in constant dread of some event that may or may not happen. Others have episodic dread and even panic. Technically speaking, this exaggerated fear response is a result of an overexcited limbic system. That is a part of the brain that responds to emotions.
Anxiety and panic attacks are often referred to as the disorder of “what if.” What if this happens, what if that happens, what if I get sick, what if they die, what if the sky falls, Henny Penny? Most of us are not paralyzed by the future. Sure, things can happen and we could suffer the insults of life, but we will deal with it when it happens. For others, however, their entire lives are predicated on what could happen; the thoughts and images they conjure are not very pleasant. They are living almost exclusively in the future, which means that they have abdicated the now. There is very little danger in the now. If people stopped to look realistically at the now, they would find that they are in no immediate danger of death, starvation, mutilation, or any of the other awful fears they have. The now is usually very safe, but patients with anxiety and panic don’t live in the now because they are too busy fighting with the future. Neurofeedback calms the overexcited limbic system and helps them focus on living in the now.
Children frequently have anxieties about the broad new world they are facing; fortunately for most children, these are just stages that they grow through. For some children, however, anxiety becomes a way of life and many of their anxieties are carried into adulthood. Anxieties also tend to generalize from one worry to another, to another. We frequently hear childhood stories of anxieties that persist even into the late stages of adult life. If children can be helped before these “worries” become entrenched, they can avoid a lot of pain in later years.
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Source:
Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain 1st Edition
by Sebern F. Fisher