Worry, Anxiety, and Your Brain

Recently while lecturing in the United Kingdom, I was chatting with the producer of a TV program on which I was being interviewed. Both of us had heard someone say, “I was so anxious I was sure I was losing my mind!” Worry and anxiety seem to be global problems and we chatted briefly about their contribution to memory problems and even dementia. Flying back home I decided to do so blogs on the topic. First a reminder that I talk about four core emotions because they can be seen on the face of the fetus: joy, anger, fear, and sadness. Three of those (anger, fear, and sadness) are said to be ‘protective emotions’ because they help us manage a variety of types of events and situations. The protective emotions appear to be aligned with the right hemisphere of the brain, while the left hemisphere lights up on brain scans when the emotion of joy is being experienced. More tomorrow.