Ford - Hijacked by Your Brain

Copyright 2013 by Dr. Julian Ford and Jon Wortmann
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For Judy and Jen

Throughout the book, the stories we tell are true. Weve had the privilege of seeing, and in some cases helping, thousands of people learn to regulate the stress alarm in their brains and take back control of their lives. In every case that we describe, the details of the story have been changed to ensure the privacy of each individual. Any resemblance in our writing to the people weve known or worked with is unintentional and should not be misinterpreted as a description of any specific individual. And, as you read our stories, we hope that you will see yourself in these people as they faced the ultimate challenge of modern life: transforming stress from a source of anxiety and despair into an opportunity to make the world a better place in which to live.

How do we stop stress from hijacking our lives?

No matter how well we handle stress, sooner or later it gets the best of us. No exceptions: even people who are incredibly calm and collected under intense pressure have stress meltdowns.

We work hard at managing stress, and still

• we find ourselves saying things we dont really mean during an argument
• we forget a promise we made to someone and have to deal with their disappointment and our guilt
• we back down instead of being assertive when confronted by a bully or abuser
• we get so revved up by competition that we cant think straight, or so nervous that we choke
• we act on impulse and do things that we know are wrong
• we find ourselves blaming someone else when we need to take responsibility
• we dwell on the past when we need to move on
• we feel unable to forgive ourselves or someone else
• we procrastinate or give up in the face of a crucial deadline
• we break down over the smallest thing

When stress takes over, and our better judgment and attempts to cope fail us, terrible things can happen, sometimes immediately, but often gradually. You dont notice until your life is in crisis, a relationship you deeply care about falls apart, or you wake up and realize youve lost track of how to be the person you know you can be.

But why does this happen? And whats the solution?

Scientists have begun a new line of research looking at how stress affects not just the body, but in particular the brain. Rather than focusing on our ordinary, day-to-day stressors, the research is conducted in a very specialized area known as traumatic stress or psychological trauma.

Traumatic stressors are the events that shock and terrify you, in which your life passes before your eyes. When they are over, you feel grateful to be alive. But the experience leaves a deep impact on the brain.

Research has not shown trauma to damage the brain; rather, trauma changes how the brain works. It also causes massive changes to how the body responds to stressful situations, and these changes can make the effort to cope with even the normal pressures of daily life feel overwhelming.

For many people, traumatic stressors result in something called post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. PTSD can persist for months or years, but the research being done with patients has unlocked a way to help those whose stress reactions wont go away.

And the emerging results from research on traumatic stress can help you too, even if you havent experienced trauma. What happens to the brain as a result of exposure to a traumatic stressor sheds new light on whats happening in the brain in every kind of stress meltdown.

It doesnt take a traumatic event to flood the body with stress hormones. It can happen when the phone just wont stop ringing. When a spouse or child does something annoying. When a driver cuts you off in traffic. When a coworker leaves you with a mess to clean up. It often happens for random reasons that dont seem to make sense.

Most of the time, you can handle the situation and effectively manage your own stress reactions. You take a deep breath, count to ten, remember not to sweat the small stuff, and move on. But then there are those times when stress reactions get out of control and spread like wildfire.

You see red: your blood pressure spikes, your heart pounds, and your mind races. You feel so stressed that you cant remember any of your stress management skills. You try to use a coping technique, but the stress reaction is so strong you cant calm down and your inability to relax makes you feel even worse.

An extreme stress reaction to an ordinary experience like bad traffic is not technically the same as the biological reaction to a life-threatening event, but the way the brain gets out of sync in both scenarios is remarkably similar.

What do you do when youre too stressed to cope, and nothing you try seems to work?

The answer is to listen to the alarm in your brain. Stressor to be more precise, stress reactionsare not the problem. They are a vital source of personal safety and health that need to be understood and valued. That may sound completely crazy: how can a stress reaction possibly make life healthier? Hasnt stress been shown in scientific studies to cause countless illnesses and social problems? Doesnt stress make life miserable?

Yes and no. Its true that research has shown repeatedly that the more stressed a person feelsor the more a persons family, social, and work or school environments create the conditions that cause stressthe more likely they are to become ill or emotionally distressed. These studies, however, do not prove that stress reactions are harmful.

Stressful events trigger stress reactions, but theres a key missing link in this equation: stressful events trigger a change in the brain, which in turn triggers the body to have a stress reaction. That middle step is crucial. When we recognize the changes in our brains as they happen, instead of cascading into a meltdown, stress reactions become invaluable information that helps us create a happier, healthier life. The catch is you have to know your brain well to accurately translate the messages it sends.

To truly reduce stress, you have to understand the biology of your brain and how to use it to manage stress on your terms. What too many people have never been taughtdespite more than a decade of groundbreaking scientific researchis that unmanaged stress reactions occur because there is