This is a clear and simple episode of the The Anxious Truth podcast about what happens in the brain (at a very basic level) when we are learning new ways of managing our anxiety. The old neural pathway—associated with the messages or habits we’ve developed in response to anxiety—is not erased. Instead, as we teach ourselves new, healthier ways of responding, a new neural pathway begins to form. With practice and repetition, this new pathway becomes stronger and more dominant, while the old one weakens through disuse. This process is how we can retrain our brain to manage anxiety more effectively.
What I like about this episode is that idea of giving ourselves more options by learning new ways of dealing with our anxiety. This means there may be times when we revert to our old ways of dealing with anxiety but by developing a new way, we have more options when anxiety does surface. In practice, this might mean that as anxiety arises and we find ourselves coping in the same old ways, this does not mean progress has not been made. There is a new neural pathway that we can shift to - there are other options.
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