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mycomattie



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 1,323
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Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation
#18827744 - 09/11/13 01:12 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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I feel like the fight or flight explanation commonly used for anxiety is wrong.
I’ve made comments in the past, expressing how I feel anxiety is organic in nature – similar to a disease or psychiatric disorder. There were many who vehemently opposed – “No, it’s just your fight or flight response”, “it’s all in your head, fight it.”
While I believe it’s “all in our head”, to simply offer the advice “toughen up and will it away” is an understatement of the century! Everyone would throw around the “fight or flight” explanation, yet never could actually back up the science, logic behind their explanation – at least in a satisfactory way (in my opinion).
I’m not a psychiatrist – nor would I want to be, but here is was I was just thinking about.
The fight or flight response is embedded in our DNA from primitive times where we (Neanderthals?) faced life or death situations/encounters on nearly a daily basis; fight the threat if we had a chance of being the victor; or flee, if instinctively we knew we faced imminent injury or death.
When situations trigger the fight or flight response in our brains – adrenaline and endorphins are released; we seem to temporarily have an increase of running speed, endurance, etc. Almost like going from a coach potato to professional athlete in seconds; normal reason and logic seem to drain out of our ears and you’re driven by primal instinct?
Does anyone disagree thus far?
Whenever I’ve experienced the “fight or flight” response in my life; it’s been quite exhilarating! The surge of adrenalin and other neurotransmitters pumping through your body, heart pumping, over acuteness of the senses; and on the “come down” you feel almost like you’re having a caffeine crash.
But my experiences with this response and anxiety are……………different.
Sweating, light headedness, depersonalization and shortness of breath – just to name a few; seem nothing like a “fight or flight” response. While I know they are an organic, neurotransmitter based brain response to stressful situations; while they both could very well be related, anxiety and panic feel like a “malfunctioning” response of the brain.
For instance, if you were really in a life or death, fight or flight situation; freezing up with chest pains, shortness of breath and dizziness would get you nowhere fast – only dead.
Anxiety and panic can’t be just a normal – though heightened, fight or flight response - IMO. There has to be more to it; changes (malfunctions) in brain chemistry/neurotransmitter firing or blocking, alcohol or substance abuse maybe altering or changing normal brain chemistry and coupled with stress? A genetic predisposition, just like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc…
I just feel like it’s much deeper and complex than many think?
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Rahz
Alive Again



Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,230
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: mycomattie]
#18828033 - 09/11/13 02:29 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Anxiety could be pre-fight or flight behavior. Anxiety is tension resulting from confusion. Fight or flight? I'm not sure!
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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LunarEclipse
Enlil's Official Story


Registered: 10/31/04
Posts: 21,407
Loc: Building 7
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: mycomattie]
#18830022 - 09/11/13 09:19 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Anxiety is what you make it.
-------------------- Anxiety is what you make it.
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cez

Registered: 08/04/09
Posts: 5,854
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: LunarEclipse]
#18831018 - 09/12/13 02:13 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Anxiety has evolved as humans have. I doubt ancient humans had anxiety like we do today.
We've grown to be intellectual cowards that overthink ourselves into an anxious state of being.
Back in primitive times this flight or fight thing you label as anxiety was instinctual. Nowadays its intellectual.
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FishOilTheKid
Ascended


Registered: 11/14/10
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: cez]
#18831448 - 09/12/13 07:50 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
The notion that moderate anxiety can be beneficial goes back at least to 1908, when Harvard psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson posited that arousal (as they called it) enhances performance—but only to a point. When anxiety gets too high, performance suffers instead.
The Yerkes-Dodson curve—an upside-down U shape—is still taught in psychology courses, and modern neuroscience has helped confirm it. Studies have shown, for example, that the brain learns best when stress hormones are mildly elevated.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303836404577474451463041994.html
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circastes
Big Questions Small Head


Registered: 01/14/10
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Loc: straya
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: FishOilTheKid]
#18834033 - 09/12/13 07:57 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Anxiety for me has been from an inability to reason out what is actually going on around me, because of mental illness. As that has improved the fear has linearly decreased. So anxiety is a result of poor reasoning, sometimes the poor reasoning is organic; the brain is just physically impaired in some way.
-------------------- My solitude... My shield... My armour... TESTED WITH FULL FORCE
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cez

Registered: 08/04/09
Posts: 5,854
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: circastes]
#18834412 - 09/12/13 09:13 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Using that feeling of anxiety as a reaction fan be quite rewarding though. It brings us immediately to the moment.
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Dildo Baggins
Stranger

Registered: 09/14/13
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation *DELETED* [Re: cez]
#18839805 - 09/14/13 01:52 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Post deleted by Dildo BagginsReason for deletion: done with this site.
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nathanielshannon
Stranger

Registered: 09/12/13
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: Dildo Baggins]
#18840038 - 09/14/13 04:01 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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this might help im almost 30 now and from my adolescent years to age 18 had never had anxiety. Had a terrible abusive childhood and was blessed with a very strong mind was able to take anything that came my way instride. I was a very wirery and up beat person at age twenty i got involved with organized crime due to my uncle who noticed my agressiveness and potential to reach an anger level that was past a murderous rage. i became his left hand man following any order he gave i had come to love the thrill of being scarred not knowing what might happen attracted to danger. like a moth to a flame i have been goin to doctors for a long time and they finally discoverd whats going on turns out that i have over active adreanal glands. this problem was heraditary and and so bad that it was causing sever chest pain which i had been mistaking for anxiety . it had gotten so bad because not only was my body making to much adrenalin naturally i was putting myself in danger everyday just to feel that high and now was addicted so to speak. having changed my life and now trying to function as normal person. i had a serious problem my body was producing all this adreanlin and i was not needing nor wanting it and so i decide to nut up and learn to control it. except you cant these so called anxiety attacks were happening 5-8 times a day witch really were just my adreanals glands working overtime and causes many diffrent health problems. one being insomnia the worst you have no idea the next problem is that adrenalin at high levels kills a chemical in your blood called hepron, heapron is produced in your body to keep plauqe from building up in your arteries. so not only is this painfull its extremely hard on your heart and leads to a seveare case of heart disease overtime and you will suffer a slow agonizing death heart attacks,blood pressure problems not to mention the physcolocical effects as my marine corp grandfather and father who was in force recon had expirenced and had sufferd from. very easy for someone to say you can control it or suck it up you cant fact is if you fight your biology you will loose every time anyway maybe this will give you some insight on how to determine whats goin on and what you can do to help yourself good luck
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nathanielshannon
Stranger

Registered: 09/12/13
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: nathanielshannon]
#18840064 - 09/14/13 04:19 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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one other thing touching on this subject is that there has been many intresting studys done at harvard and stanford that show how your brain responds to situations the first response is always emotional to better yourself you must suppress this reaction if you can catch yourself before you react emotionally and think for a min its proven that the second response is logical coming from the pre frontal cortex of the brain witch controls your ability to reason and look at the overall picture and then decide how to respond it has helped me alot check out this documentary science of evil youll see what i mean
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,534
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: mycomattie]
#18840351 - 09/14/13 08:36 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
mycomattie said: ... When situations trigger the fight or flight response in our brains – adrenaline and endorphins are released; we seem to temporarily have an increase of running speed, endurance, etc. Almost like going from a coach potato to professional athlete in seconds; normal reason and logic seem to drain out of our ears and you’re driven by primal instinct? ...
yes a boost in the sympathethic nervous system with an shift in mental state akin to sympatho-mimetic drugs (aka stimulants (the phens)) ranging from light to intense - whcih may include delerious or psychotic or delusional mental states (mental state shift is measurable by HOW MUCH LONGER THAN 1/15th of a second each signal resonates - signals persisting longer than 2 seconds create 'mania or hallucinatory effects') - most notably the sense of timing is distorted or disrupted as the persisting moments overlap and collide or skip over other moments.
Quote:
mycomattie said:... Sweating, light headedness, depersonalization and shortness of breath – just to name a few; seem nothing like a “fight or flight” response. While I know they are an organic, neurotransmitter based brain response to stressful situations; while they both could very well be related, anxiety and panic feel like a “malfunctioning” response of the brain. ...
the anxiety and panic are more complex than the simple stimulation, they relate to conflict between perception and personality rhythms (time based habits and sequences in thought and behavior) being affected by the mental state shift (in which the sense of timing is disrupted.
Quote:
mycomattie said:... Anxiety and panic can’t be just a normal – though heightened, fight or flight response - IMO. There has to be more to it; changes (malfunctions) in brain chemistry/neurotransmitter firing or blocking, alcohol or substance abuse maybe altering or changing normal brain chemistry and coupled with stress? A genetic predisposition, just like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc…
I just feel like it’s much deeper and complex than many think?
just a wee bit deeper, i.e. just add what you know about personality, coordination, and timing to the urgency of stimulants
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pandameat
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Registered: 09/14/13
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: mycomattie]
#18840398 - 09/14/13 08:57 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Well, maybe it's your fight or flight response being activated in a situation that it can't comprehend. You get it in a crowd or a group, right? So your flight or flight is going "We need to get out of here" but the logical part of your brain is going "Dude WTF, if we start running out of here these people will thing we're weird as fuck", and maybe that attack is your body fighting the adrenaline, I don't know, I'm never comfortable in social situations but I've never stopped breathing and collapsed to the floor because of it.
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pandameat
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: nathanielshannon]
#18840407 - 09/14/13 09:00 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
nathanielshannon said: i became his left hand man
Write a book about your life. I would read the shit out of it.
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nathanielshannon
Stranger

Registered: 09/12/13
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: pandameat]
#18841162 - 09/14/13 01:44 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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yup good old lefty guns baby
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nathanielshannon
Stranger

Registered: 09/12/13
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Re: Anxiety - I'm questioning the Fight or Flight explanation [Re: nathanielshannon]
#18841183 - 09/14/13 01:55 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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trust me you do not want me to write a book. you would become sick and horrified its no way to live your life. most young people think its cool trust me its not. stay as far away as you can from anyone involved in such things. but check out the documentary science of evil and pay attention will help you alot
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