Wellness Wednesday – “Three Keys To Managing An Amygdala Hijack”
In our previous Wellness Wednesday, we delved into the importance of stress management in our lives. Today, I’m excited to share three practical strategies that can help you effectively manage an ‘amygdala hijack,’ the most common stress trigger. These tips are not just theoretical concepts, but actionable things that you can incorporate into your daily routine to better manage stress in your life.
What is an Amygdala Hijack, you might be asking yourself? In the center of our brains is something called the amygdala. It is kind of like the car alarm in your brain that warns you of danger. Car alarms are designed to protect your car. However, they can be annoying if it is so sensitive that it goes off every time a leaf lands on your car. The same is true with our amygdala.
The amygdala is responsible for our “fight or flight” response, which warns us of danger. This is a good and godly part of God’s design in our life to keep us safe. However, when our amygdala is continually triggered (a.k.a; an “amygdala hijack”) as we experience prolonged chronic stress, it releases the neurotransmitter “cortisol, also known as the “stress hormone.” Heightened levels of cortisol not only shut off the functioning of our prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for higher critical thinking, but over time, it can actually begin to shrink that part of our brain. In fact, many teens who experience chronic stress during the COVID-19 pandemic have what appears to be similar to the prefrontal cortex of older adults. When we experience an Amygdala Hijack, we tend to respond emotionally rather than with a higher critical response and are unable to show up as the best version of ourselves as a result. We tend to react rather than be proactive in our responses.
So, how can we begin to effectively manage chronic stress in our life triggered by a hyperactive amygdala, causing chronic stress in our life? There are three rather simple things you can do to engage your “rest & digest” system (scientifically known as the parasympathetic system) to counteract a heightened fight or flight response:
- Aerobic Activity (35-45 minutes) – One of the best ways I know to deal with stress is to engage in some physical activity like running, cycling, swimming, or taking a brisk walk that gets your heart pumping and causes you to take in greater amounts of oxygen. This begins to lower the levels of cortisol in your brain. When I was younger and stressing my grandmother out, she would tell me, “Go for a run.” After I did, I felt less stressed and had a radically different attitude.
- Focused Breathing (5- 20 minutes) – Focused breathing, often associated with Eastern religious practices, has a solid scientific foundation. Studies in neuroscience have shown that focused breathing practices activate our rest and digest system, reducing the level of the stress hormone cortisol in our system. Try this – take five deep breaths. Breathe in through your nose over a count of five and out with your mouth over a count of five. How do you feel? If you do it right, you should feel less stressed than before.
- Focused Prayer & Christian Meditative Practices – Again, while meditation seems like an Eastern religious practice, there is a rich Christian tradition of prayer and meditative practices focused on God’s Word like Lectio Divina, Visio Divina in which one meditates on the moments of Jesus’ life, or meditating on sacred music or art. This practice of focused prayer and Christian meditation has again been scientifically shown to lower our stress response and engage our rest and digest system.
Perhaps you are looking for ways to incorporate focused breathing, prayer, and Christian meditation into your daily devotional life. Try The Mindfulness BEETS Devotion Plan.
