Our thoughts affect our brains. More specifically, “… what you pay attention to, what you think and feel and want, and how you work with your reactions to things sculpt your brain in multiple ways,” according to neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, Ph.D, in his newest book Just One Thing: Developing A Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time. In other words, how you use your mind can change your brain.

According to Canadian scientist Donald Hebb, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” If your thoughts focus on worrying and self-criticism, you’ll develop neural structures of anxiety and a negative sense of self, says Hanson.

For instance, individuals who are constantly stressed (such as acute or traumatic stress) release cortisol, which in another article Hanson says eats away at the memory-focused hippocampus. People with a history of stress have lost up to 25 percent of the volume of their hippocampus and have more difficulty forming new memories.

The opposite also is true. Engaging in relaxing activities regularly can wire your brain for calm. Research has shown that people who routinely relax have “improved expression of genes that calm down stress reactions, making them more resilient,” Hanson writes.

Anxiety is one of the world’s primary mental health problems, according to the World Health Organization. …

This guest article from YourTango was written by Julia Flood. 

Do you believe that worry is preparation? If yes, then welcome to the club! Worriers get a lot of unsolicited advice from non-worriers: just relax, it’s going to be fine, or my favorite: don’t worry.

Some advice is more clever than other. Dean Hawkes of Columbia University once famously said, “Half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision.” Or, as Charlie Brown put it more amusingly, “I’ve developed a new philosophy … I only dread one day at a time.”

But apart from cognitive tricks and internal pep talks, is there anything concrete you can try to diminish worry?

Do you typically get nervous when facing an audience or a final? For some people, the jitteriness, sweaty palms, trouble concentrating, racing thoughts and general overwhelm occur any time they’re about to perform.

Performance or test anxiety produces a variety of symptoms whenever you’re put on the spot, whether it’s giving a presentation, being on stage or taking a test. According to psychologist Lucy Jo Palladino, Ph.D, author of Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload, these signs might include: procrastinating; being easily distracted or irritable; engaging in nervous habits like nail-biting; trouble sleeping, worrying about doing badly; and feeling paralyzed.

Here are six ideas on overcoming performance or test anxiety.

Consider these alarming statistics:

* By 2020, behavioral health disorders will surpass all physical diseases as a major cause of disability worldwide.

* Of the more than 6 million people served by state mental health authorities across the nation, only 21 percent are employed.

* More than half of adolescents in the United States who fail to complete high school have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder.

* Between 2009 and 2011 states cumulatively cut more than $1.8 billion from their budgets for services for children and adults living with mental illness.

* In 2009, there were an estimated 45.1 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States with any mental illness in the past year. This represents 19.9 percent of all adults in the U.S.

*Serious mental illnesses cost society $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year.

* The annual total estimated societal cost of substance abuse in the U.S. is $510 billion.

* In 2008, an estimated 9.8 million adults aged 18 and older in the U.S. has a serious mental illness.

With our economy still in the toilet, states and federal government threaten to cut even more dollars in mental health funding, which would result in less or no access to mental health treatment and services for countless Americans. Ultimately the cuts steal the one thing that keeps those of us struggling with chronic mood disorders alive: hope.

In her new book, The Solution: Conquer Your Fear, Control Your Future, bestselling author and motivational speaker Lucinda Bassett lists 13 types of worriers. I found the categories rather interesting because — I’m not sure whether or not you’ve picked up on this — but I’m a huge worrier.

And this list actually made me feel better because, while I checked off the majority of them, I realized I still have plenty of things to worry about that I hadn’t even thought of! Score!

As the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders continues to develop, there has been more and more reaction from professional groups with concerns. The most recent of these is an open letter that was sponsored by group of American Psychological Association divisions, and you can read it here: Open Letter to the DSM-5.

The biggest complaint here is that the DSM-5 development committee appears to have departed from the “atheoretical” approach that the past two version of have taken, in favor of a clear biomedical approach. The DSM-5 also seems to be changing the very definition of mental disorder by adding the criterion: ‘[A behavioral or psychological syndrome] that reflects an underlying psychobiological dysfunction.’

Weather used to make me anxious.

Extremely anxious.

Growing up on the East Coast, I have undergone more blizzards, ice storms, death-defying drives to school, broken tree limbs over roofs, and week-long power outages than I ever really signed up for, and over time, those experiences turned me into a complainer. A loud one.

Every year, as soon as winter touched down, I would begin to pout. And then moan. And then compulsively check the Weather Channel, hoping against hope that maybe the predictions had changed overnight, and those 13 inches of snow would just miss us. I would routinely get sad 24 hours before a big storm, and downright miserable if said storm occurred in the early spring months. I hated everything about winter, but lacking any real reasons to move south, I would just sit it out and let my mood darken for months on end.

Let me state up front that I have no doubt BPA — a chemical used in the manufacture of many modern goods, including in the past many water bottles and sippy cups — is something we should get rid of in any connection to food. But at the same time, I have to speak out when a scientific study’s findings are misused to forward political agendas.

The findings here come, once again, from the journal Pediatrics. It seems like a month doesn’t go by when this journal is publishing more crappy science, and then draping it in a public relations campaign that gets everyone’s attention. (Actually, to be fair, the science is sometimes fine; it’s the over-reaching conclusions drawn by the researchers and the PR media machine that is truly vomit-inducing.)

In this case, the researchers set out to followup on a previous study that found higher gestational (in the womb) BPA levels increased hyperactivity and aggression scores in 2-year-old girls. They wanted to determine if these findings continue as the children age, whether executive functions were impacted by higher BPA levels, and whether it was gestational BPA as opposed to childhood BPA levels that were more important.

If you’re anything like me, you’re easily overwhelmed by spring cleaning, deciding on a new layout for your living room, and organizing your bedroom closet. (Welcome to the wonderful world of anxiety disorders.)

So, when it comes time to up the ante and move to a new house or apartment, the word “overwhelmed,” then, is reduced to a gigantic understatement. Your heart palpitates at the thought of cardboard boxes. You get lightheaded just thinking about all the nooks and crannies that are crammed with your stuff. Your skin gets clammy as you weakly try to formulate a plan of attack.

Instead of trying to do everything at once, break down the process into digestible steps.

If all you did was watch TV, you might think social anxiety disorder was as prevalent as depression — or as big a problem. Also called social phobia, social anxiety disorder is often treated first with medications, such as an SSRI antidepressant (you know, regulars like Paxil or Prozac). Psychotherapy is also an option — it’s just not as popular as medication.

In a randomized controlled research study published recently, two psychological interventions were put head to head to see which one would come out on top.

Cognitive therapy (CT) focuses on the modification of biased information processing and dysfunctional beliefs of social anxiety disorder. Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) aims to change problematic interpersonal behavior patterns that may have an important role in the maintenance of the problem.

According to the researchers, no previous direct comparison of these two treatment options exists.

Meta-analysis is a scientific term that refers to a structured review of a particular topic in the research literature. Meta-analyses look at a bunch of research studies that have been previously published, combine all their data (or look at all of their data in a systematic fashion), and come to some broad, general conclusions from the analysis.

Meta-analyses are helpful to researchers, clinicians and laypeople alike, because they help distill the entire research literature on a specific topic into an easily digested summary.

In this research update, we look at cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for childhood posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), effective treatments for depression in a mother surrounding the birth of her child, and a look at anxiety symptom prevention with cognitive-behavioral interventions.