The Neuroscience of Worry During Quarantine

When fear overwhelms a client, it can knock the thinking brain offline . . .

. . . and with the current pandemic there’s a lot of news that can trigger a fear response.

So how can we help clients manage their fear even when the headlines are scary?

Jud Brewer, PhD, has several ideas – including some questions clients can ask themselves to stay calm and regulated when they’re starting to get overwhelmed by fear.

I also think you’ll find his approach to worry quite helpful. Have a listen.

Click here for full transcript

For mental health providers, this probably extends to providers more generally, people have kids or they’re taking care of their elderly parents. I think it’s really helpful to start by just understanding how our minds work and there are some basic things that can really help us illuminate how our minds work so that we can work with them. Just as an example, fear is a normal adaptive response. There’s something really dangerous out there right now, so we normally have these fear responses but that more primitive part of the brain, that fear response, and survival part of the brain actually can make our thinking parts of our brain go offline when we don’t understand how they work. The piece there that’s missing right now is information. Our thinking and planning brains need information and they need accurate information to plan, if they don’t have that accurate information they’re gonna start spinning out in what-if loops, like what if this, what if that. We can think of fear survival plus uncertainty leads to anxiety. That’s a take home for people, just to understand that there’s uncertainty here, can I learn to be with that uncertainty and can that help me kind of keep myself regulated. Even taking a few deep breaths, noticing, “I don’t know what I need to know right now but getting worked up about it’s only gonna make things worse.” That can help me kind of settle and then ask, “Okay, what do I actually know right now and dial it back.” Instead of planning out a month or two weeks, dialing it back to, “Okay, do I know enough to plan for next week?” If I don’t, dialing it back. “Do I know enough to plan for today?” If I don’t, dialing it back too. “What do I know right now? Can I plan for this next hour?” We can always find if you dial it back. We know, “Am I hungry? Am I thirsty?” There’s information that we can act on, and then we can start expanding it from there. One thing I would suggest is that we have this opportunity whenever our world is turned upside down, we have an opportunity to do three things. One is we can shift a little bit and we fall back into our old habits that aren’t helpful for us, or we could actually shift and transform. and let’s take that second category. I see a lot of people getting addicted to the news, and something from a neuroscience perspective that’s really helpful is to see our brains actually treat the news like a slot machine. If you play the slot machine, you don’t know when you’re gonna win. If you start watching the news, you don’t know when a big headline is going to hit, but when that big headline hits your brain says, “I just won the jackpot because I got some information.” So then we start checking the news all the time, and then we’re get strung out on the news. News becomes the the jackpot for us, or the casino. A simple thing that we can do here is just understand that, “Okay, this is my brain thinking that the news is a casino.” We can we can dial it back and say, “I’m gonna check the news twice a day because if we check it twice a day, we’re guaranteed that there’s gonna be some new information.” It’s not going to treat it as maybe there’s gonna be some big news when I check. There’s always going to be something useful. Then as the news cycle starts to calm down a bit, we dial it back from there maybe checking it once a day. That helps us not get stuck in that new habit of becoming a news junky. Information is helpful, getting addicted to checking our news feeds all the time is not so helpful. The second piece I would say here is is really having people understand something that I learned from my own research that was really was mind-blowing. With these habit loops that get formed to help us survive, these trigger behavior reward very very basic learning habit loops, we see food, we eat the food, and this stomach sends this dopamine signal to our brain that says remember what you ate and where you found it. It’s a very very basic learning process, same for avoiding danger. We see the danger, we run away, and we live to to avoid danger in the future. What our brains can do is actually use negative emotions and the mental behavior that can arise. Sometimes we think of physical behaviors as this reward based learning, but in fact mental behaviors can do the same thing. Worry is one of the key or one of the prime mental behaviors that I’m seeing right now, where this negative emotion, whether it’s fear or anxiety, arises that triggers the mental behavior of worry and that’s the reward. We think, “Well, what’s rewarding about worry?” Not much, but our brains actually treat this as doing something right. It makes us feel like we’re in control because we’re at least thinking. The problem with worry is it doesn’t actually help us figure things out, in fact it makes our thinking brain go offline, so it’s harder to actually think and plan. What I would say here is it’s really helpful just to recognize these worry habit loops can actually be self-perpetuating. We can get into a a habit of worry, that’s not that helpful for us when we can see that clearly, we can learn to start to step out of those habit loops themselves.

We don’t often think about negative emotions as rewarding. But according to Jud, this can be part of what makes worry so sticky for the brain. It’s difficult to step out of once you begin.

How might you use these ideas in your work this week? Do you have a client who might benefit from one of Jud’s ideas? Please let us know by leaving a comment below.

If you found this helpful, here are a few more resources you might be interested in:

Grief During the COVID-19 Pandemic

What Can Help COVID-19 Frontliners Who Are Exhausted and Overwhelmed?

When the COVID-19 Pandemic Leaves Us Feeling Helpless

18 Comments

heather jones, Psychology, GB says

thank you. I really like the slot machine analogy for checking.

Liz Williams, Teacher, GB says

That was really helpful, thanks
As is the rocking chair analogy below ……. 🙂

L M, Other, AU says

Thank you for normalising and explaining the brain. Some great examples to shed light on how we are all behaving at this unprecedented time. This explains the toilet paper hoarding! I hope people who are struggling get some relief when they hear about the fear response and how to dial back. It’s been helpful to me.. cheers!

Annette LADOWIITZ, Social Work, Saratoga, CA, USA says

Good simple explanation of the role of fear. We just had baby duckings hatch in our backyard two nights ago. Same night a raccoon came to attack them. Mother duckling scooted them off to our pool where they survived. Had she not been afraid she could not have acted….and yes it woke me up at 2am. My fear prompted a quick yelling, searching the internet and using a water hose, bright lights, pole to keep probing bushes and a long night of worry (and sitting out back to repeat water hosing action) They survived the night. Momma duck had some great planning skills. She moved them to a new nest at 6 am. Can she be a speaker? Not sure of her credentials. Do you think she’s just a quack?
Thanks
Annette Ladowitz, retired LCSW Looking for ducks to counsel with.

- Jude McCormick, Other, Tampa, FL, USA says
  
  Best response ever, Annette! Made me laugh out loud – thank you for that!
  
- Ali Peacock, Counseling, NZ says
  
  Lovely thoughts Annette and as a duck lover great work to stay up all night to keep the ducklings safe. I hope they are doing well.
  
Margaret Patterson, Social Work, Lakepeekskill, NY, USA says

That was excellent. I have to be reminded. If I don’t keep mindfulness that’s when I get off track. These are time where it’s easy to start to worry and our worries can distort things. I know with my ADHD. I tend to make everything a casrtophe,

Heidi Charalam, Coach, FL, USA says

WORRY IS AN INTERESTING TOPIC PARTICULARLY DURING THIS EPIDEMIC. I BELIEVE WORRY IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR NATURAL RESPONSE SYSTEM. IT MAKES YOU ALERT, HELPS YOU TO PLAN AHEAD, WHILST OTHERS SIT BY. WORRY TAKES YOU INTO A RESPONSE OF ACTION, AND IN FACT IS IMPORTANT FOR CREATING THE ENERGY TO MOVE TO FIND SOLUTIONS TO FIX YOUR WORRIES. OF COURSE THERE ARE EXTREME WORRIERS. IT IS IMPORTANT NOT TO WORRY TOO MUCH. THANK YOU FOR BRINGING UP THIS SUBJECT. INTERESTING TO READ AND HEAR. OUR WORRIES ARE HEIGHTENED AND WORSENED BY BRAIN WASHING, YES. THIS IS WHERE I TURN TO TRUST. TRUST IN SELF. TRUST IN LIFE. TRUST IN GOD OR THE UNIVERSE OR WHATEVER MY CLIENT RESPECTFULLY BELIEVES IN. WE ALL WORRY, UNDERSTANDING FOR OUR CLIENTS THEY ARE NOT ALONE. IT’S ALSO ABOUT OFFERING THE OPPORTUNITY TO LOOK AT DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES OR POSSIBILITIES TO THE SITUATION. LIFE IS HOW WE SEE IT! WE ARE OUR OWN DIRECTORS. IT’S OUR OWN MOVIE AND WE PLAY ALL THE PARTS. 🙂

E, Other, Clarkdale, AZ, USA says

Common sense…we all know that worry is a stress producing mental and emotional process. It is fear based and employs the imagination in negative ways. I explain to my clients that worry is a waste of time, a waste of mind space and waste of psychic energy, I teach them how to employ those resources in the most positive ways, using their Mind Mastery links in the chain of command and self hypnosis. Of course I also guide them to eliminate worry when doing the hereto hypnosis. Learning how to be in control for yourself, your mind body and emotions enables you to deal with life and experience in the most positive ways.Of course I tell them not to watch the news often, to focus on the good in life and use logic to plan and prepare for whatever challenges they may face.

Pauline Faulkner, Psychology, CA says

Worry is like a rocking chair; keeps you busy but you don’t get anywhere ?

- Wendy Evers, Counseling, USA says
  
  I love this analogy, Pauline!! Thank you
  
- Christine Heiny, Coach, Sierra Vista, AZ, USA says
  
  Yes!
  
Mary Ann Ryan, Another Field, VA, USA says

Wonderful insight. Thank you.

Antonio Pancadas, Psychotherapy, GB says

I am so thankful for these small free gems and reminders. It’s so easy to get caught up in the therapy and forget these so fundamental and important aspects. I am presently on a 10 day holiday break and this is already helping me, with a smile, and the recognition of how I am also Impacted 🙂
Thank you NICABM

Gerrit van Brussel, Psychotherapy, NL says

Yes we need info, we are in an information society/world. But it is not only the brain! The body is a system of different systems. Even the cell is a system with input, processing and output (Bruce Lipton: 95% is memory/habits/automatic reacting and that’s what we believe; 5 % is open for new things, other ideas, other paradigms. And we consist of waves of energy and that will keep living, never dyes. So we need not worrying. Take care of nocebo!, look for placebo!)

Carrie Harrison, Counseling, NZ says

I found it helpful thinking of worry as giving the brain/ me something to do. I’d not thought about it quite like that…and that has been my go to place when things in my life are off. I like the ‘dialing’ worry back to something manageable too. So if I think that worry has been my brain trying to solve something, I can now listen to it and dial needing to do or fix something back to the present need and do something like reading, walking etc until calm enough to think or find perspective.
Thank you

Amy Van Buren, Psychology, Fairfield, CT, USA says

Thank you for posting this, such useful information! Appreciate that NICABM has responded to the current COVID crisis by providing clips like this. Enormously helpful.

Suzette M, Psychotherapy, AU says

The clients/patients I see are “worriers”. Most grew up with one or both attachment figures, often parents, who were seriously mentally ill and commonly were not diagnosed. My clinical practice is therefore based on my research on an unacknowledged trauma (and grief). For those interested in the research link and the link to my articles on trauma and grief, they just need to google my name: Suzette Misrachi. This video was really good in giving a perspective of worry and the example of being a ‘news junky’ is a good one given that we are amid the COVID-19 epidemic and uncertainty is a common theme. Thanks. I will use some of Jud’s thoughts on this in my practice. In some ways, ‘the worry loop’ is a bit of a Catch22.

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