The last several weeks have been eventful from a Canada-U.S. relations standpoint, and while people want to stay informed it can be easy to get overwhelmed.
Halifax-based clinical psychologist Dr. Dayna Lee-Baggley says people get overwhelmed because there is a part of the brain she refers to as the survival brain, which includes things like the limbic system, which creates emotions.
“This part of our brain doesn’t work on probabilities or logic, it works on worst case scenarios, and so when that system gets activated, when it perceives a threat, there’s a kind of cascade or neurobiology, neurotransmitters that happens, that is an excellent response if there is a bear attack, for example, that’s what it’s designed to do,” she explained to CTV Atlantic’s Crystal Garrett.
Lee-Baggley says people don’t even have to be consciously aware of stress for it to have an effect on them.
“Many of us actually are aware of the stress, we might be able to say, logically I understand this or that, but that stress system, that threat system from our survival brain, will still activate and that’s what gives us the feeling of feeling overwhelmed, of feeling stressed,” she says.
Physiological changes can also happen when people are stressed, due to the activation of the fight, flight or freeze response.
“That actually changes the digestive system, because you don’t want to be digesting when you’re running away from a bear, and so we get digestive problems, we get tension and stress in parts of our bodies,” says Lee-Baggley.
“If you actually have a panic attack that’s kind of an extreme example of a fight or flight or freeze response, and so your heart races, things like that, which are excellent for dealing with a bear, but less useful when we’re dealing with tariffs.”
Lee-Baggley says the survival brain doesn’t understand that when you hear the same news about tariffs 100 times that it’s actually just the same information 100 times.
“It actually could perceive it as 100 different threats, and so one thing we can do is kind of monitor our intake of media. You can do it at certain times of day, you can still stay informed, but if you’re constantly scrolling on it, it is again going to make us feel overwhelmed because our brains are going to interpret that as an even bigger threat because it’s constantly around us.”
Lee-Baggley recommends people adapt healthy habits to maintain their frontal lobe battery, which is the part of the brain that can control the survival brain.
“Those include just some basic things, like getting sleep, physical activity, eating healthy foods, all of that helps our brain function better so we can kind of manage those responses,” she says.
One thing that can calm down the survival brain is the activation of peoples’ “social engagement system.”
“This is when we feel connected to safe, trusting, other people. It can actually relax that threat system and so that’s not the same thing as like, ‘hey, don’t worry about it,’ or tying to logic our way out of that distress, it actually is a physiological part of our brain that can relax our survival brain and that’s about staying connected to people,” says Lee-Baggley.
However, Lee-Baggley says that connection shouldn’t be made though social media.
“Having regular connection with other people, get out of the house, go see other people, even what we call loose connections, which is saying hi to someone in the elevator or somebody who gives you your coffee, having a little chit chat, having those social connections, and then with people that you have good trusting relationships with, that can also help us feel less alone and actually calm down that survival brain,” she says.
Talking on the phone with people also counts toward social engagement.
“We know that in-person is better than virtual or technology, but virtual is way better than nothing at all, so if that’s your option definitely go for virtual – the studies say that we haven’t actually returned to 2019 rates of leaving the house – and so that limits our ability to socialize with other people,” Lee-Baggley says.
“So kind of forcing yourself out to spend some time with other people can be a really helpful thing to again calm down that survival brain and have the in-person contact, if that’s not possible then definitely use technology to stay connected.”
