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machado: what happens to your brain when you don't feel safe?

whether you are worried about your health, trying to keep your relationships afloat, or concerned about the stability of your job, it all feels gross. plus, it's not good for you.

machado: it's bad for your brain when you don't feel safe
insecurity and uncertainty is hard on the brain, melanie greenberg, a clinical psychologist and the author of the stress-proof brain told medium's elemental. getty
this week i texted both of my teenagers who were at school to ask if they were ok.
just seconds before, a news alert had popped up on my phone that said four unnamed schools in toronto were on lockdown because a man with a gun was in the area. it turned out the schools were outside of the city, and thankfully, no one was hurt.
but it took awhile to shake the sense of panic. of course, much of my worry in the moment was a result of the recent news out of texas about an 18-year-old who killed 21 people,19 of them kids.
terrifying. also worrying is the fact that the shooter reportedly had been a loner, a high school dropout with no friends, bullied for what he wore and his family’s financial situation. and though police have reported that he had communicated to others that he had bought guns, none of this was enough to flag to anyone that this was a kid in trouble.

the world feels really unsafe

the shooting has reignited conversations about u.s. gun laws, the ability of police to keep children safe in schools, and youth mental health, but it’s also one more thing to add to our list of really big worries, along with war, climate change and a virus that refuses to disappear. it makes the world feel less safe — and i don’t just mean in terms of our physical wellbeing. the kind of safety i’m referring to is a sense of comfort, security and the confidence that yes, everything is going to be alright — all of which seem harder to reach most days. whether you are worried about your health, trying to keep your relationships afloat, or concerned about the stability of your job, it all feels gross. and feeling like you can’t find a safe haven is not good for you.

insecurity and uncertainty is hard on the brain, melanie greenberg, a clinical psychologist and the author of the stress-proof brain told  medium’s elemental . “it’s always trying to predict what happens next so it can take action to help you survive. and if it just doesn’t know, that’s tough for the brain.”

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what’s a little concerning is that contrary to current theories around stress which state that humans experience stress when there is a stressor, some experts believe that there actually isn’t a trigger that flips the switch on our body’s stress response. in fact, bart verkuil, a psychologist at the leiden university in the netherlands told elemental that our stress response is always “on.” what keeps it quiet, however, is feeling safe.
“our default state is one in which we err on the side of caution,” he says. “that means we only inhibit our stress response when we clearly perceive safety.”
so basically, if you never feel safe, then you’re always experiencing stress.

it’s a theory that even has a name: the  generalized unsafety theory of stress (guts) and it doesn’t necessarily bode well for our stress levels given the way the last three years have played out. but you probably know that already.

“you might be experiencing more stress without consciously knowing exactly why,” says verkuil.
but there are ways to “replenish your resources of safety,” he advises, like staying connected to loved ones. he also recommends practicing mindfulness as way “to realize that you are currently not in need of a stress response. you are currently in a predictable state, you are in control — two important ingredients of safety.”

accept what you can control

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recognizing what you can control — you can’t stop covid, but you can wash your hands — and doing things to contribute to a safer future, such as volunteering for a cause you care about, are also on verkuil’s list of sense-of-safety-promoting activities.
“taking action can increase our sense that the future might be different and that your sense of safety will eventually increase,” he says.
for sure, today’s world leaves much to be desired in terms of comfort, security and safety. and as more details come out of the texas shooting, and no doubt, other negative news continues, we will continue to be challenged by feelings of uncertainty, fear and insecurity. the trick will be figuring out what it takes for each one of us to feel safe — the hardest, yet most important, task of all.
 
lisa machado is the executive producer of healthing.
this story originally appeared in the healthing weekender. subscribe here.
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lisa machado
lisa machado

lisa machado began her journalism career as a financial reporter with investor's digest and then rogers media. after a few years editing and writing for a financial magazine, she tried her hand at custom publishing and then left to launch a canadian women's magazine with a colleague. after being diagnosed with a rare blood cancer, lisa founded the canadian cml network and shifted her focus to healthcare advocacy and education.

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