Much of our social anxiety is caused by an area in the brain called the amygdala. In this post I describe how the amygdala works to increase our anxiety and some treatments we can pursue to restructure and rewire our amygdalas.
A lot of our social anxiety is affected by an area in the brain called the amygdala. Research shows that the amygdala plays a big role in our emotional reactivity, especially our “fight-or-flight” response when the brain senses danger. Studies have found that an overactive amygdala often correlates with higher social anxiety and social phobia. In theory, a more active amygdala triggers increased feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness, or dread.
Sometimes our amygdala can be conditioned to have such a strong emotional response to a stimulus that it overrides our logical thinking or reason. We may rationally understand that a fear has no basis in reality, but the amygdala’s reaction is so strong that we feel this fear anyway.
Neuroscientist Daniel Goleman coined this phenomenon amygdala hijack. Other researchers on emotion, like Joseph E. Ledoux, have further elaborated on this concept, describing it as when “emotional reactions and emotional responses can be formed without any conscious, cognitive participation…because the shortcut from thalamus to amygdyla completely bypasses the neocortex.”
The neocortex is usually associated with the conscious “thinking parts” of our brain, so when our fear response bypasses this region, then we often feel as though our emotions are emerging from a deeper part of our brains that lies outside of our conscious awareness.
This is why Sean Cooper, author of “The Shyness and Social Anxiety System,” says that logical thinking is not enough to overcome social anxiety.
Many people may try overcoming their social anxiety solely by reasoning inside their heads and trying to adopt healthy beliefs (and these can certainly help!), but they are rarely enough to fully rewire our brains in order to experience less anxiety.
Thankfully, there are other methods we can use to help change the structure and reactivity of our amygdala. Here are some of those options:
- Medication. There are several effective drugs currently on the market that have shown to have positive results in changing the structure of the amygdala. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRIs), like Citalopram (Celexa), Escitalopram (Lexapro, Cipralex), Fluoxetine (Prozac), Paroxetine (Paxil), and Sertraline (Zoloft), have all shown to be effective in the treatment of social phobia. See a psychiatrist and they will help you determine if medication is right for you.
- Meditation. Daniel Goleman has theorized that meditation helps rewire connections between our amygdala and pre-frontal cortex. Our pre-frontal cortex is the part of the brain that causes us to stop and think about a situation; on the other hand, the amygdala is often seen as the opposite of this: it is more impulsive and it’s activity is more subconscious. However, by rewiring the connections between these two brain structures it is possible for us to exercise more conscious control over our emotional reactions. By engaging in weekly meditation, an individual can often develop stronger feelings of relaxation and equanimity, these are great combatants toward social anxiety.
- Exposure Therapy. Exposure therapy is an important part of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that encourages individuals to gradually expose themselves more to social situations and thereby become more habituated to these kinds of environments. Often by engaging in more social situations we find that our previous fears and worries were actually unfounded. And when we give our amygdala new experiences to learn from (and rewire in response to), then our anxieties can often diminish overtime.
This is one of the core teachings in Sean Cooper’s The Shyness and Social Anxiety System. Throughout his guide he walks you through a very comprehensive step-by-step way to increase your exposure to social settings and gradually overcome your anxiety.
- Minimize substance abuse. Abusing drugs and alcohol can often damage our amygdala to the point where we depend on these substances in order to lessen our anxiety and inhibitions. While alcohol can sometimes be a valuable social lubricant, we have to be careful not to train our brains to rely on these substances in order to function properly. Moderation is key here.
- Cognitive Restructuring. Cognitive structuring (or “reframing”) is another important part of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy that can help diminish social anxieties and phobias. While it doesn’t affect the amygdala directly, it does affect other structures connected to the amygdala including the prefrontal cortex (a part of our brain responsible for conscious thinking and decision-making) and the hippocampus (which is responsible for memory formation). The goal of cognitive restructuring is to change our perspective and beliefs which can often reduce “contextual fear” – fear caused by certain attitudes and beliefs about ourselves and the world we live in.
This is another central teaching in The Shyness and Social Anxiety System. Cooper goes over a very comprehensive list of tips and techniques for improving our beliefs and self-perception using methods like positive self-talk and discovering our true values in life.
As you can probably tell by now, your social anxiety can be managed with a wide array of different treatments and techniques. I and many others have found through personal experience that sometimes the very best treatment is to mix-and-match several of the above techniques. Often one technique can help, but it isn’t enough to fully overcome our excessive anxiety all by itself. Instead, you should give multiple techniques a fair chance, and by doing that you will definitely increase your probably of improving your social anxiety in the long-term.
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Krista and Tatiana Hogan are a remarkable set of twins. From a quick glance, they look like your average 4 year olds – they like to watch cartoons, run around the house, and drink apple juice. But Krista and Tatiana share something special that few twins have: they are conjoined at the head. And not only are they conjoined at the head, but they share a neural bridge, a part of the brain called the thalamus, which allows them to do some really incredible things, almost as if they share the same mind.
For example, when the twins were first born, doctors noticed that when they did a medical procedure to one of the twins, the other one reacted to it (just as if it was happening to her). Their parents have also noticed other times when the twins seem to directly share the same experiences; they even suspect that each twin can choose to look through the others eyes. In another situation, Krista reached for her cup and announced to the group, “I am drinking really, really, really fast.” As she attempted her drinking feat, gulp after gulp, Tatiana’s eyes-widened, she grabbed her sternum, and exclaimed “Whoa!” She shared Krista’s super-fast drinking experience.
When neuroscientists hooked up the twins to an EEG, they flashed a light in one of their eyes while the other was blindfolded, and noticed that the occipital lobe (which is responsible for vision) acted in sync in both brain hemispheres. This suggests that both twins can indeed directly experience what the other is sensing.
Todd Feinberg, a clinical psychiatrist and neurologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, responded to this crazy phenomenon saying:
“This is beyond empathy — it’s like a metasensory experience. It’s like she has one consciousness and can witness another’s.”
What’s even more interesting to Feinberg, who is the author to the book Altered Egos: How The Brain Creates A Self, is how the twins can share the same head, and many of the same experiences, yet still retain their individuality. In the video below their mom, Felicia, describes how Tatiana is more laid-back and passive, while Krista is more proactive and aggressive.
The situation Tatiana and Krista find themselves in is certainly a remarkable one. It will be very interesting to see how their brain continues to develop throughout their life, and what new abilities they may discover. I’m sure they will remain a fascinating case study for many neuroscientists and psychologists, as there is a lot we can potentially learn from these two girls. To their family, however, they remain just ordinary kids who happen to live under extraordinary circumstances.
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Most of us are familiar with how bats and dolphins use echolocation in order to navigate and identify objects in their environment. Echolocation is when an animal makes a clicking sound and then listens back to the echo; based on that echo an animal can figure out where an object is located (and, in some cases, what that object is).
What surprises me about this unique way of sensing the world is that some humans are capable of doing it too. There are several case studies that show how individuals who were essentially born blind (and have no visual memory) can use echolocation to navigate their environment. Take a look at Daniel here, seen riding a bike through a park using echolocation:
Additionally, a recent study published in the scientific journal PLoS ONE has shown that when blind people use echolocation it activates regions of their brain previously designed for visual processing. This is a very clear demonstration of neuroplasticity, the idea that our experiences can change the structure of our brains.
For example, when we lose a sense such as vision, our brain rewires itself so that unused “brain power” can be applied to a different sense. This is often referred to as “sensory substitution.” In other words, if our brain detects that neural connections aren’t being used, then it will often adjust itself to compensate for that loss by re-utilizing those resources through a different sense.
However, it’s not completely clear that if someone loses vision that they will become more auditory. In some cases, blind individuals gain a heightened sense of touch, which is another way humans can navigate throughout their environment. Imagine yourself getting up late at night to go to the bathroom. It’s dark, so you put your hands in front of yourself to help guide your way (and so you don’t bump into anything). Individuals who are blind experience that permanent sense of darkness, and over time they begin to get better and better at using these other senses to navigate through their surroundings. It may be tactile, it may be auditory – it may be a bit of both. It will probably depend on how the individual chooses to adapt to their surroundings which determines where the unused brain power will be allocated.
What fascinates me about all of this is just how powerful and adaptive our brains can be. And we don’t have to lose a sense to experience neuroplasticity; in fact, neuroplasticity is something that happens throughout our day-to-day experiences. Whenever we learn something new, our brain is making new connections. And with the right attention and practice, there is no doubt that individuals with sight can also develop a skill like echolocation (if they really wanted to). Whenever we apply focus (or “mindfulness”) to what we do, we can actively change the way our brains connect and learn. For more on this, you can check out my article about how mindfulness allows us to self-direct neuroplasticity. Of course, these changes aren’t always as drastic as someone learning how to sense the world in a whole new way, but the fact that these changes can occur can be very encouraging.
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Psychologists have yet to fully tackle the question “How many emotions do we have?”
Part of the difficulty is because our experiences are so complex and involve so many different factors, so distinguishing one emotion from another is a lot like drawing lines of sand in the desert. It can be hard to determine where one emotions ends or another begins. Even when we analyze a commonsense emotion like “happiness” or “anger,” we know from everyday experience that these emotions come in many different degrees, qualities, and intensities. In addition, our experiences are often comprised of multiple emotions at once, which adds another dimension of complexity to our emotional experience.
Despite how difficult these distinctions may be, plenty of psychologists have attempted to classify our emotions into different categories. Early philosophy of mind posited that all emotions could be categorized as either “pleasure” or “pain,” but since then more in depth theories have been put forth. In this post I want to go over some of the main theories that have been researched over the past half century.
Ekman’s List of Basic Emotions (1972)
Ekman devised his list of basic emotions after doing research on many different cultures. He would describe a situation and ask individuals to choose a facial expression that best fit. He would also show photographs of different facial expressions and ask individuals to identify the emotion. Across all cultures studied, Ekman found 6 basic emotions:
- Anger
- Disgust
- Fear
- Happiness
- Sadness
- Surprise
Ekman added to this list in the 1990s, but stated that not all of these can be encoded via facial expressions:
- Amusement
- Contempt
- Contentment
- Embarrassment
- Excitement
- Guilt
- Pride in achievement
- Relief
- Satisfaction
- Sensory pleasure
- Shame
Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions (1980)
Robert Plutchik created a new conception of emotions in 1980. He called it the “wheel of emotions” because it demonstrated how different emotions can blend into one another and create new emotions. Plutchik first suggested 8 primary bipolar emotions: joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus disgust; and surprise versus anticipation. From there Plutchik identified more advanced emotions based on their differences in intensities. If you look at the diagram below you can see how each emotion relates to the other:
Parrots’ Classification of Emotions (2001)
The most nuanced classification of emotions so far is probably Parrots’ 2001 theory. Parrot identified over 100+ emotions and conceptualized them as a tree structured list:
Research of Emotions In The Future
As you can tell, there is a lot of disparity on how researchers choose to group different emotions. It’s amazing to me how despite all the technology and scientific advancements we’ve made, we still don’t have a clear-cut answer on how many emotions the human mind is capable of experiencing. I assume that future research is going to build on the above theories and start identifying the neural correlates between each emotion (measured through fMRI brain scans). Neuroscience is probably the only way to determine an “objective” measure of what emotions we have and how they related to one another. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of research to be done, so we are probably going to have to sit and wait until we can learn more about the emotional aspects of the human mind.
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Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist at Stanford University, recently wrote about a study that suggests we can reduce physical pain by hugging ourselves.
The study included 20 participants who willingly received small pulses of pain by an infrared laser. The researchers found that during trials when participants had their arms crossed in front of them they reported less pain. Each participant was also hooked up to an EEG, in which brain scans showed smaller spikes of brain activity during those same trials.
Neuroscientist Giandomenico Iannetti from University College London suspects that when we cross our arms in front of ourselves this confuses the brain when processing tactile stimuli. In a way, it redirects our attention from the source of pain to this other tactile overload, which can often help reduce pain. It’s similar to when you pinch yourself in order to distract yourself from another long-lasting and irritating sensation somewhere else in the body. Of course, the lift is usually very temporary, but it does work.
Kelly McGonigal mentions in her article how she prefers the crossed arms position because it mimics the act of giving yourself a hug and expressing self-compassion. That makes me wonder if the intention of giving oneself a hug would lead to even greater reductions in pain. I’d also like to see future research testing to see how this generalizes to psychological pain as well.
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