What Happens in the Brain When You Don’t Feel Safe
It’s not your fault you can’t calm down these days
I’m not alone in feeling frightened these days. After months of lockdown, America’s opening up again, and the thought of kids returning to school, a vaccine being rushed to market, full airplane rides, and packed happy hours all fill me with a rinse of cold fear. The wave of protests signals both a hard turn from our quarantine mentality and a call for the upheaval of our justice system, and wild hiccups and terrifying backlash feel inevitable. I, a white woman, feel grateful for this national reckoning but nervous about how things might get worse before they get better. And of course, for many people of color, fear is — and always has been — a daily baseline.
For decades, scientists have talked about the stress response as sort of the brain’s panic button: A perceived threat activates the alarm system, ratcheting up cortisol, speeding your heart rate, and shunting blood from your internal organs to your limbs so you can fight or flee. But newer theories question that common thinking: As a brain pattern, the stress response isn’t activated, but rather always on. Your prefrontal cortex — the brain region associated with higher-level functions like problem-solving and decision-making — works like brakes, keeping the stress response quiet but ready to…
