Concerns: Why do we care?

    Concerns: Why do we care?

    A good percentage of the people who contact me
    has one problem in common: he would like to get rid of his own concerns excessive. Our concerns fluctuate from
    fear for the existence of nuclear power plants up to concern for the sting
    of a very small insect. Probably, Wayne is the one who knew
    summarize this feeling in one perfect sentence: “worry is endemic to our culture”.


    However, this does not mean that we live with the
    worries is healthy, on the contrary. Normally a state of worry
    chronic leads to vain attempts to control the surrounding environment by taking
    a stand hypervigilant, which ends in provoking at best
    serious problems with our ability to plan for our future (because it can
    also help to trigger various diseases such as diabetes, hypertension or
    cerebrovascular and cardiovascular accidents) chronic worry essere essere
    inherent in people (in the US, according to the National Institute of Health
    Mental, it is estimated that between 2 and 3% of the population suffer from it); only in
    1980 this problem began to be seriously addressed. At that time, Thomas
    Borkovec, a psychologist at the Pennsylvania State University, found that i
    intrusive thoughts would be the main cause of insomnia.Borkovec, one of the
    leading researchers in the field of human concern, suggested three big ones
    sources of concern: recurring thoughts, avoidance of results
    negatives and inhibition of emotions. Curiously, this psychologist found out
    that people who tend to suffer from chronic worries tend to worry about events that rarely occur.In 2005, Stefan
    Hoffmann, a psychologist at Boston University, used the EEG to measure activity
    of the prefrontal cortex, before and after 27 students gave a talk
    in public. In this way it was possible to prove that the activity of the cortex
    left front increases when people worry, and for this reason
    it is hypothesized that this area of ​​the brain plays an essential role in
    In fact, many concerns
    researchers have stated that as more we care about something as much
    the more this idea becomes real and uncontrollable. In 1987 Daniel M. Wegner had
    already found that many people, when they try to avoid thinking of one
    specific theme, this ends to return again and again to the
    their mind by producing theRebound effect.In this
    experiment people were asked not to think of a white bear. THE
    participants were left alone in a room with a microphone and a bell e
    they had to talk about any topic of their choice. At a certain moment he would come
    interrupted their speech and asked them not to think of a bear
    White. Whenever the person thought of a white bear he had to play the
    bell. On average, each participant rang the bell six times in the five
    minutes after receiving the order. According to Wegner, the
    main problem in the order of "not thinking" would be due to a mechanism
    aware of avoidance
    ; the idea continues in our mind and so do we
    we continue to mull over the same concerns. Another mechanism a
    unconscious level runs parallel to our conscious attempt to eliminate
    unwanted thoughts and occurs in the fact that we assume an attitude
    hypervigilant which sensitizes our brain to the issue that
    we wish to avoid. In this case the amygdala and the anterior insula would be
    the main culprits. In 2008 he came
    published a study in the journal Psychological
    Science, in which the brain activity of the participants was appreciated
    when they were given the prospect of losing a lot of money. It was revealed then,
    elevated activity of the anterior insula. The researchers concluded that this
    brain region would be activated in response to concerns.
    Curiously, in 2009, Jack Nitschke, a psychologist at the University of
    Winsconsin, appreciated an activation of the amygdala when people were in
    waiting to see images that disturbed them. So you know that
    even if worries trigger our emotional circuits (basically
    the amygdala and the insula), people suffering from chronic worry
    they keep their emotional responses in check, which is why they do
    postulates that the true underlying brain mechanism of chronic worry
    roots in the frontal lobe.This distinction
    it is very important as there are many specialists who suggest that the
    people with chronic worries would compromise physiological capacity
    of the body to react to traumatic events, so that they would be more likely to
    have cardiovascular problems. The
    specialists from the universities of Columbia and Leiden, who were able
    appreciate how the state of chronic worry increases the heart rhythm a
    rest but at the same time reduces the variability of the rhythm itself. In other
    words, it takes their heart a lot longer to return to a normal rhythm
    when an alteration of the rhythm itself occurs. As you can imagine,
    these prolonged periods of stress debilitate the functioning of the system
    immune and endocrine.
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