I do believe that these symptoms are temporary – that they are due to systemic functional changes in the body, rather than permanent organic damage. Stopping the amygdala and insula’s hyper-reactions allows the body to trigger the parasympathetic system, meaning the body’s own healing mechanisms can bring it back to balance and homeostasis.
Emotional Lability, Anxiety and Depression
The stress hormones and neurotransmitters are known to increase emotional lability and feelings of vulnerability. This causes a wide variety of added psychiatric complaints and further learned fears, especially depression and sometimes agoraphobia. Your amygdala is deliberately trying to make you feel anxious, as it is trying to warn you of danger.
Susceptibility to Stress
The long term arousal of the amygdala means that stress hormone release can become poorly controlled. Therefore, external events which have little to do with bodily symptoms make you feel far more stressed than normal. You may perceive the world as more dangerous than it actually is, and this is made worse by the fear of increased symptoms because of stress.
Panic Attacks
Many patients become prone to panic attacks, which are known to be mediated by the amygdala. Prolonged worry may mean that the amygdala becomes trigger happy, triggering at the slightest negative signal from the body.
It may detect certain bodily changes such as blood pressure increasing as a result of an external event, it prepares for a panic attack, and hence this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: The amygdala and the conscious mind fear a panic attack coming on, and this in itself initiates it.
In general, if you experience increased external stress, this makes the symptoms even worse. This is because the stressful events impact on an already fatigued and sensitized mind and body.
Inability to Feel Enjoyment
In some patients, changes may occur in the brain’s opioid system. This system becomes hyperactive. This gives the feeling of numbness, and other psychological symptoms including “anhedonia” (the inability to feel pleasure), and a sense of being cut off from life.
For more information, please see https://guptaprogram.com/causes/
Ashok
Ashok Gupta is the Director of the Gupta Program. He has dedicated his life to helping people get their life back from Chronic Illness, improving people’s well-being, and helping them achieve their potential. He has been teaching meditation around the world for over 15 years. He runs a global e-clinic specializing in treating ME, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia & Multiple Chemical Sensitivities – guptaprogram.com
Ashok has spent many years researching the brain neurology of emotion and linking well-being tools with science. He has published medical papers on the basis of stress-related illnesses. He has appeared in many media as an expert on stress on the BBC, CNN, Guardian Newspaper, ITV, The Independent, and many others.
He wrote and presented the Meaning of Life Experiment which is a Free, Award-winning Meditation and Self-Development App www.themeaningoflife.tv
He also works with companies around the world, teaching courses in Leadership, Time Management, and Personal Development. www.ashokgupta.tv
Am so glad to have stumbled across the Gupta program. It totally makes sense!