Brain's Fear Center is Equipped With a Built-in Suffocation Sensor

..."It has been proposed that panic and anxiety disorders involve a suffocation alarm gone haywire," Welsh said. "Now, this work may shed some light on this well-known phenomenon and suggests strategies for further exploration."

The findings raise the possibility that some people may be more prone to anxiety disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, due to genetic variants they carry in components of this ASIC pathway. They also suggest that new therapeutic strategies for panic and anxiety might target changes in brain pH or the acid-sensing channels.  Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Racing Thoughts by Paul David

Racing thoughts is the one symptom with anxiety that can bother people the most; they do not understand how they can have such thoughts that seem so scary and come with such impact. I have heard people say they fear the beginning of O.C.D or that they have awful thoughts about those closest to them, feel that they are ‘going mad’ and that they cannot control these disturbing thoughts, they seem to come without them even thinking them. Well these do have an explanation and these worrying, disturbing thoughts really are just an off-shoot of anxiety Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Via:  HealthandGoodness.com

Anxiety Disorders-Generalized

Anxiety disorder is a blanket term covering several different forms of abnormal and pathological fears and anxieties which only came under the aegis of psychiatry at the very end of the 19th century. Current psychiatric diagnostic criteria recognize a wide variety of anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders are often debilitating chronic conditions, which can be present from an early age or begin suddenly after a triggering event. They are prone to flare up at times of high stress and are frequently accompanied by physiological symptoms such as headache, sweating, muscle spasms...Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

via: Wikipedia

The Biology Of Fear And Anxiety: Evidence Points To Chemical Trigger-1982

By HAROLD M. SCHMECK JR.

Published: September 7, 1982

Illustrations: Drawing of the human brain Drawing of brain's receptor system

INJECTIONS of a synthetic substance made for studies of the chemistry of human emotion have produced severe anxiety in monkeys within seconds. The animals became agitated, their hair rose, they squirmed and they displayed other outward signs of extreme alarm. These effects could be quickly halted by other chemicals.

Scientists have known for years that drugs such as the benzodiazepines Librium and Valium can lessen anxiety. But the ability to create such a pure state almost instantly with a drug alone is new and unexpected, according to scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md...Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

via The New York Times

Anxiety Makes it Harder To Avoid Distractions

People who are anxious find it harder to avoid distractions, and take more time in shifting their attention between tasks than those who are less anxious. These are the findings of new research that examined the effects of anxiety on our ability to perform tasks such as avoiding distractions on a computer screen, when reading a story, or solving a series of simple mathematics problems. Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading.

Via Psyche Central: Learn Share Grow

Perceptions and Time Dialation When Involved in a Stressful Event

After a car accident or other scary experience many people report feeling like the event happened in slow motion. One neuroscientist set out to test whether our brains really see things slowed down in response to fear. This ScienCentral News story shows why he had to scare people in order to do the experiment...Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading.

Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event.

When that trauma leads to posttraumatic stress disorder, damage may involve physical changes inside the brain and to brain chemistry, which damage the person's ability to adequately cope with stress.
A traumatic event involves a single experience, or an enduring or repeating event or events, that completely overwhelm the individual's ability to cope or integrate the ideas and emotions involved with that experience. The sense of being overwhelmed can be delayed by weeks, years, even decades, as the person struggles to cope with the immediate circumstances. Trauma can be caused by a wide variety of events, but there are a few common aspects. There is frequently a violation of the person's familiar ideas about the world and of their human rights, putting the person in a state of extreme confusion and insecurity. This is also seen when people or institutions depended on for survival violate or betray or disillusion the person in some unforeseen way. Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Via Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr Temple Grandin~The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow~

Dr. Grandin has a amazing ability to relate with the animal mind. She attributes her skill is to her autistic brain.

Temple believes she experiences life like animals do. Her emotions are much simpler than most people's and she feels constantly anxious. It's this struggle with overwhelming anxiety that led her to discover just how much she has in common with animals and, in particular, cows.

BBC - Horizon - 2006 - The Woman Who Thinks like a Cow.

Understanding Social Anxiety Disorder- Very Enlightening

What is Social Anxiety Disorder? Is it simply a severe form of shyness? Join Dr. Granet as he talks with leading expert, Dr. Murray Stein, about this disorder that affects approximately 5% of the general population. Find out the symptoms and latest treatments that are available.

Personal Experience with Agoraphobia, Anxiety, Panic & Diet Suggestions

Make your own video about your personal experiences and suggest ways to help others help themselves =)