Hijacked by Your Brain: How to Free Yourself When Stress Takes Over

211 Pages·2013·1.09 MB·English

by  Jon Wortmann

Copyright © 2013 by Dr. Julian Ford and Jon Wortmann
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VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Judy and Jen
Contents
Authors’ Note
Introduction
Part I: Stress and the Brain
Chapter 1: The Survival Brain
Chapter 2: The Learning Brain
Chapter 3: The Goal: Cultivate an Optimal Brain
Part II: The Missing Step in Stress Management: Focusing
Chapter 4: A Brief Introduction to SOS
Chapter 5: Step Back: Replacing Reactivity with Self-Regulation
Chapter 6: Orient: Regaining Your Inner Compass
Chapter 7: Self-Check: Reading Your Body’s Dashboard
Chapter 8: When You Can’t SOS: Recognize Triggers
Part III: Three Ways to Orient before Stress Takes Over
Chapter 9: Empower Your Emotions
Chapter 10: Exercise Your Core Values
Chapter 11: Determine Your Optimal Goals
Part IV: An Optimal Life
Chapter 12: Optimize Your Choices
Chapter 13: Make a Contribution
Chapter 14: Anticipating the Pitfalls on the Way to an Optimal Life
Appendix A: Further Reading
Appendix B: A Summary of SOS
Appendix C: A Summary of the FREEDOM Skills
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Authors’ Note
Throughout the book, the stories we tell are true. We’ve 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 we’ve 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.
Introduction
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 don’t 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 can’t 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
don’t notice until your life is in crisis, a relationship you deeply care about falls
apart, or you wake up and realize you’ve lost track of how to be the person you
know you can be.
But why does this happen? And what’s 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 won’t go away.
And the emerging results from research on traumatic stress can help you too,
even if you haven’t experienced trauma. What happens to the brain as a result of
exposure to a traumatic stressor sheds new light on what’s happening in the brain
in every kind of stress meltdown.
It doesn’t take a traumatic event to flood the body with stress hormones. It
can happen when the phone just won’t 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
don’t 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 can’t remember any of your stress
management skills. You try to use a coping technique, but the stress reaction is
so strong you can’t 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 you’re too stressed to cope, and nothing you try seems
to work?
The Missing Step: Listen to the Alarm in Your Brain
The answer is to listen to the alarm in your brain. Stress—or to be more precise,
stress reactions—are 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? Hasn’t stress been
shown in scientific studies to cause countless illnesses and social problems?
Doesn’t stress make life miserable?
Yes and no. It’s true that research has shown repeatedly that the more stressed
a person feels—or the more a person’s family, social, and work or school
environments create the conditions that cause stress—the 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 there’s 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 taught—despite more than a decade of groundbreaking scientific research
—is that unmanaged stress reactions occur because there is an alarm in every
person’s brain. When triggered, this alarm can keep us safe from extreme danger
and keep us focused in our day-to-day lives. When the brain’s alarm becomes