Brain scans show these 6 sentences reduce anxiety activity in seconds:
- I’m feeling _______
- Naming the emotion physically calms your brain Lieberman’s UCLA FMRI study (2007) showed labeling feelings reduces the amygdala activity and lights up the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for regulation.
- Name the feeling and the study showed a 50% reduction of the intensity of the emotion within 90 seconds
- “[Your name], you’re going to be ok.”
- Talking to yourself in the third person creates emotional distance
- Ethan Kross’s brain imaging research at eh University of Michigan (2017) found this drops neural markers of emotional reactivity, without using extra mental effort
- It gives your brain instant access to the calmer part of itself.
- “This is uncomfortable, not dangerous.”
- Reframing sensation as safe is called cognitive reappraisalOchsner and Gross’s fMRI research at Columbia shows it directly lowers amygdala activity and strengthens
- control
- This is the exact mechanism behind Cognitive Behavior Therapy, the most researched anxiety treatment in the world
- “This will pass.”
- Reminding yourself the intensity is temporary is called temporal distancing
- Bruehlman-Senecal & Ayduk’s 2015 study (Journal of Personality and social Psychology) found this along significantly reduces emotional distress in the moment.
- Your brain calms faster when it remembers the wave is ending
- “I’ve felt this before. My body came down.”
- Recalling past evidence of safety updates your brain‘s threat prediction
- This is the same process used in exposure therapy to help brains unlearn fear responses.
- Every time you remember surviving it, the alarm gets a little quieter
From @health_anxiety on Instagram by Taylor Barone, MS,RDN