Nerve: Poise Under Pressure, Serenity Under Stress, and the Brave New Science of Fear and Cool
by Taylor Clark. Little, Brown, 2011
What is the most common mental health issue in America? You might be tempted to say depression. But you would be wrong.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, anxiety disorders now take the top spot, with 18 percent of Americans suffering from one. In his new book Nerve, journalist Taylor Clark begins by highlighting our extreme levels of anxiety, writing that the average high school student today has the same anxiety level as a psychiatric patient did in the 1950s and that Americans are five times as likely to suffer from anxiety as Nigerians, who arguably have more to fear.
Clark does not spend much time speculating on how we became a society awash in worry. He does something perhaps more significant—he clarifies what anxiety is and how we can treat it. There is, Clark says, a “nervous trinity” that can wreak havoc on our minds: anxiety, fear and stress. Fear primarily involves the amygdala, the emotional memory center of the brain. The amygdala evaluates the significance of a potential threat and triggers emotional responses such as freezing or fleeing. Anxiety is more of a cognitive problem, with a locus in the prefrontal cortex—a region of the brain that helps us plan ahead. Anxious people tend to focus on possible future threats, such as “Will I lose my job?” or “Will I get run over by a car?” Stress is harder to pin down but generally signifies the body’s response to feeling overwhelmed and may show up as a range of physical and emotional symptoms, including worry, moodiness, depression or overeating.
Experiencing these feelings can make life miserable, but the good news is it is possible to overcome them. Clark relays the stories of people who have worked to beat their anxious tendencies and discusses techniques readers can use to do the same. For instance, he writes that simply accepting that bad things will happen and facing problems head-on can alleviate anxiety. To this end, Clark quotes philosopher Søren Kierkegaard as saying, “We cannot mature and be fully creative by burying or displacing anxiety, but only by moving through it.”
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6 Comments
Add CommentIt is no surprise that many people suffer from anxiety. And I am not convinced that the ideas will help very many: too many people and FAMILIES face job loss, home loss, homelessness for the realization that bad things happen to be of much use. Our nation .eeds JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a line in this article which tips us off that Clark has gone astray. It goes like this, "Clark does not spend much time speculating on how we became a society awash in worry." It is imperative to know what is the origin of anxiety to effectively treat anxiety.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnxiety is a subjective cortical response to terror which is mediated in the amygdala. If this is true where did it come from? The answer is that it came from real experience and is unconscious. It doesn't go away by any act of will. That is it is disconnected from consciousness. Where did such terror come from? If it is real experience than we have to ask what kind of experience leads to terror? Seems to me it must have to do with basic survival.
For those many people who suffer from anxiety they may have no conscious recollection of living through a life and death experience. For the fetus, neonate, infant and child when needs are not met it is a matter of basic survival. The earlier the experience with deprivation the higher the valance of threat and the more disintegrating it can be to sustaining life. So terror/deprivation is not integrated into consciousness. It is blocked from consciousness. Anxiety keeps the adult system activated and letting the adult know that there is "unfinished business."
The frontal cortex and the infinite thoughts that can be generated is no match for the ever ascending impulses, which although are out of context, in the adult, are never the less seeking expression. That is the basis of anxiety. And is the reason the frontal cortex can be overwhelmed with thoughts that are beginning to disintegrate, followed by decompensation.
The prescription for alleviating anxiety is to allow the feelings of terror and deprivation into consciousness in a titrated manner. When this occurs we are no longer at the mercy of anxiety and concomitant stress.
For a more detailed explanation see the work of Dr. Arthur Janov.
It seems to me that part of the cause for anxiety in America is the pace of life. Challenges, from traffic jams to work competition, seem to be constant, keeping the modern person jumping, thinking, reacting, moving. Anxiety can be a way of keeping yourself pumped up and ready for the next challenge..till it gets to be too much. I wonder how much caffeine contributes to the US's level of anxiety. Is there a correlation between per capita caffeine consumption and national anxiety levels?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBernard Schuster
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We are living in anxiety era.Today`s anxiety is arise from rat race,fast life,too much competition, killing instinct.We are responsible for this anxiety. We want to make life easy, every thing we want instant.Even one second delay create anxiety in our mind.Today even small child also suffer from this kind of anxiety. Pressure of parent so strong on child you must be first in class, must be get first grad we impose our unfulfilled ambition on child impose competition in his mind.Same way we are also behaving.Whole society is sick.We don't understand easy life boring life. bore increase anxiety. Why not we create life difficult so we can work hard and enjoy life
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInterestingly, my comment has to do with the ability to feel anxiety in your mind and in your stomach. I have battled Chronic Fatigue all my life. It was almost impossible for me to get nervous. I went on a stimulant to help with energy. I went off it for 3 years, then back on it. During those three years, both my body and brain have changed drastically, and for the worse! It started with using Klonopin, to combat insomonia and nerves from the side effects of the stimulant. I went off both for 6 months and my brain state never changed, it was always awake, non thinking, and my body couldn't stand still. I couldn't sleep. The degree of this mental, w/o thought and body (jumpiness but no energy) state declined slightly but never went away. It is now 8 years later and I am still batteling the same problem, which has changed brain wise, to the total opposite! I have trouble sleeping where I could fall asleep at anytime of the day all my life. I wake up wide awake, yet all my life I woke up groggy, with only 1/3 of my brain working and it being cloudy, and eventually waited for energy spurts mental and physical and my brain to clear up. This would be followed by exhaustion, but I was still able to think, mainly to myself, always. I have lost that ability, any "Mood" or response to anything despite not thinking initially about anything, like jogging and working out. There is no energy or changes anymore. Food. Basically Anhedonia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI speak of anxiety becuase during the course of time I went off both the stimulant and the klonopin (3mg), I was stuck mentally and physically for 6 months straight in some sort of anxiety type state, including a blank mind. All physiological/chemical.
Furthermore, once I went on both, b/c I needed energy, and some relief from the odd state, what I found was little energy was provided, but instead nerves, that seemed to come from my stomach as a constant shock, seemed to be afffecting my brain. Although, it could have als been that my brain was sort of in a blank alert state.
Either way, there can be phsyiological processes, obviously, that can solely be attributed to a type of anxiety, affecting both the nerves, body (especially stomach) and that are tied to the brain. All without any subconscious thought, just a breakdown and change from an already weak H-P-A axis perhaps....
I can attest that living a lifetime in a high state of anxiety can be attributed, in my case, to severe childhood abuse. I feel as though I have been programmed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA lifetime of therapy has not changed my mind/body reaction to daily stresses. At this point I just accept it as my lot in life, but keep open to new ideas.
Thanks to Kenames I will look into the work of Dr. Arthur Janov. I never stop trying!