April 07, 2023

The Threat Response (Episode 004)

36 minutes

This week on Disordered Drew and Josh walk you through the biological threat response and how it drives states of disordered anxiety. The guys cover the following important concepts that all anxiety sufferers should understand as part of the recovery process:

Anxiety is normal and needed in life. All humans experience anxiety.

The threat response system in your brain was designed to keep you alive at all costs. It served - and still serves - an important purpose.

Disordered anxiety states are generally driven by an over-sensitive threat response that fires and sounds alarms when it doesn’t have to - there is no danger.

Recovery is essentially about re-modulating that overactive threat response to bring it back into a healthy, normal state.

You can’t talk to the part of your brain in charge of the threat response. It doesn’t understand words. Only behavior and experience.

You have to SHOW your brain that you are safe, even when it is convinced that you are not.

It is a common mistake to interpret the sensations and experiences of the threat response as a sign that something is broken or wrong. You are not broken and nothing is wrong that needs to be fixed.

Josh and Drew both shared some of their own experiences with respect to how they interacted with the threat response to turn it down over time while they were both working on recovery from anxiety disorders. They did not heal their threat responses … they were teaching them.

As always, the guys answer questions from the community and share a few wins and success stories from listeners. Always inspiring!

Bonus content: Strudel and Copper both chime in today. Clearly, even dogs have opinions about the threat response and anxiety.

For more information about Josh, Drew and the Disordered podcast, visit us on the web at https://disordered.fm

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Disclaimer: Disordered is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to Disordered does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the hosts of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

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By Josh Fletcher and Drew Linsalata

4.9

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