My Amygdala Has Been Working Overtime

I have been under a tremendous (for me) amount of stress at work lately. While at New Seasons last week, I bought a copy of Whole Living. I was attracted to the colorful line-up of smoothies on the cover, but it turns out there was something much better than a smoothie in that magazine--a one-page article called "Your Brain on Fear." Here's an excerpt that spelled out exactly what has been happening to me for the last several weeks. I cannot wait to read the book on which the article was based (even thought the book has a cringingly self-helpy sounding title). I need to get a better understanding of what is happening on the cerebral level.

Here's the excerpt from the article that really resonated with me (italics are mine). Can anyone else relate?

"When we're anxious, shock waves from the amygdala* start blasting through the brain's frontal cortex, the area responsible for planning and assessing a decision in terms of risk and reward. When the prefrontal cortex is affected, we have a shorter attention span and we're more easily distracted. A lot of people think they have ADD, when in fact they don't: It's not a problem of attention but of the anxiety center. If the amygdala continues to fire, it may cut off impulses to the thinking part of the brain, making it difficult to focus on simple tasks. Fear captures attention and makes us look for potential threats. We tend to see things more negatively, because that's what the fearful brain was designed to do. Fear and stress turn the conscious brain off, and what we have left to help us figure out solutions is the unconscious brain, which works quickly but not always accurately. When we're under stress, we tell ourselves not to do things, and then we'll wind up doing exactly the things we told ourselves not to do." **

*a small mass of nerve cells in the "primitive" part of the brain that activates whenever danger looms; it is wired to process fear first at the expense of other cognitive processes

**from "Your Brain on Fear" by Srinivasan S. Pillay, M.D. in Whole Living, January/February 2011

Bait and Switch Hit

Terrific Sunset
Originally uploaded by Rozanne.

There was a terrific sunset this evening, even though to the best of my knowledge, the Sun didn't come out at all today. How does that work?

Gosh, there are a lot of powerlines near my house. Super ugly. R. Crumb would not approve.

Today was a weird day. Normally, on a Sunday in August B and I would have gone hiking, but as mentioned above, it was unsunny. In fact, it was downright bleak and chilly. Add to that the fact that I've just endured what seemed to be the most low-energy, ass-dragging week of my life, and I guess those are the factors that combined to land us at the Alpenrose Dairy this afternoon watching part of the Little League Softball World Series.

The World Series. And it was free, and it's held in Portland. And they aren't kidding about the "world" part. There were teams there from Germany and the Philippines. And Canada. And, oh yeah, the players were all girls age 12 and under.



I've never enjoyed playing any kind of team sport involving balls. I'm afraid of all types of balls. In fifth grade this creepy, psychopathic boy named Joe Knaack smashed a volleyball toward me on purpose. It hit me in the face and practically knocked my block off. After that, I kept myself as far away from all balls as possible. But I'm glad there are opportunities for girls who like sports to play them. Yay for Title 9! Anyway, it was fun even though my sorry ass started to get a bit bleachered out after a while.

I also learned that Alpenrose Dairy supplies the ice cream to Baskin Robbins ice cream shops all over the country. I haven't had Baskin Robbins ice cream in ages, because the last time I tried it, it was gross and ice crystally. But I'm going to guess that that was before they started using Alpenrose as a supplier. There's just no way ice cream that is a product of Oregon could be bad, is there? I'm not biased or anything. I must try some Baskin Robbins ice cream soon and evaluate it. Watch this space.

Anyway, this may rank as my most incoherent and sloppy blog entry ever. My ass is still dragging, and, frankly, I'm a little worried and stressed, too. B and I are heading out for a little mini vacation mid-week. It's supposed to involve hiking, and I just don't know if I'm up to anything very ambitious. Plus, the trip starts out with a bang (or more likely a whimper) with us driving up to Seattle--a city that always seems to cause us problems. It just so happens that there's major road construction, too, so that does not bode well. Mr. Hyde tendencies tend to surface in B when he's stuck in traffic. Not looking forward to that!

We'll be in Seattle less than a day and then we're heading down to an area sort of in between Mount St. Helens and Mt. Rainier, a region where there was a lots and lots of road washouts and trail damage at the end of last year. Much of the damage hasn't been assessed or repaired yet and will probably affect which trails we can get to and how long it will take to get to them.

I anticipate spending a lot of time in the car, trying to get to trailheads. I hate that. I've tried to figure out in advance which places to avoid, but you never can really tell until you get to a place.

Do we know how to plan a vacation or what? Recall last year's vacation fiasco.

Anyway, for reasons that I feel too exhausted to go into here, changing our plans is not feasible. So I'm sort of trying to talk myself into adopting a go-with-the-flow-attitude--not an attitude that comes naturally to me. Also, I've been putting in a ton of extra work time to get ahead of schedule so that I can take three days off, and I really, really hope that it's not going to be more stressful and unsatisfying than just staying home and working would have been, but right now that's kind of what it feels like.

One last complaint, because I'm really feeling crabby tonight. I hate that I always have to do a semi-major house-clean before we leave (at the same time I'm trying to scramble to finish up work assignments--always), basically, because of the cat. We have a friend come in and feed him, so the house can't be a sty. Bleh.

Bait and switch? How do you like the way this post started out all nice with talk of sunsets, softball, and ice cream and then veered off course into a petty rant? I believe that's known as bait and switch. I think I'm super good at it, too.