Understanding Why Your Brain Does What It Does When You Struggle with Anxiety and Depression

By Carissa Weber, MA, LPC, CSAC

The phrase, self-care, has been said pretty darn often lately. Every social media post seems to talk about “taking time for self-care.” Heck, even my posts talk about self-care (check out mindfulness: the art of becoming calm, cool, and collected) So I feel it is time to answer that question you have: what in the heck is self-care?

What is Self-Care Anyways?

Self-care is a broad, blanket term that is simply defined as “the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s own health” (Oxford, 2009). Many of us practice this without giving it much thought. For example, did you change your underwear today? That is a way we take care of our health. Did you eat at least one piece of food today? Again, you are preserving your health by doing an action that continues your life.

When we talk about the above definition, we have to understand the why. Self-care is, essentially, self-preservation. Self-care is what we do to keep our bodies healthy, feeling connected to the world around us, and developing comfort with our lives. Without self-care, we simply cannot exist.

What makes up Self-Care?

The basic building blocks of self-care are: physical, mental, and social. Think about it, these are all needed to maintain a certain level of health in order to keep surviving. Even if we think about our pets, what happens if they are missing one of these things?

With physical self-care (which I think is the easiest type of self-care), there are actions we do to ensure our body can keep living. These particular actions do something to our brains. When our brain (in particular, that darn amygdala), senses we are in stress, it raises the alarm to the rest of the body. If you recall from my post, Fight-Flight-Freeze: the Ultimate Coping Skill, that darn amygdala releases a whole slew of neurotransmitters into the brain that tells our body that we are stressed. When we engage in activities of physical self-care, our darn amygdala tells the adrenal gland that is safe to relax. Do you know what that means? That means our brain releases GABA to calm your body down, glutamate to decrease muscle tension, and dopamine to say “congratulations! You accomplished staying alive!”

There are plenty of things that constitute physical self-care. These things include (but are not limited to):

But What if I’m Doing This Stuff Already?

I bet some of these things you are saying “I do those already.” To that, I say “Thank you!” When we engage in these activities on a regular basis, we do a couple of things for our brains:

• First, we are establishing a routine our hippocampus can store into memory.
• Second, that memory then allows that darn amygdala to know what to expect next, which decreases symptoms of anxiety.
• Third, the prefrontal cortex can use these items of self-care to check the facts to prove to that darn amygdala that the world is not coming to the end.
• Fourth, the insula (remember, the part of our brain responsible for coordination), becomes more active. This means we are developing muscle memory and are less likely to forget how to do something. Finally, we increase the size of our hippocampus. Whoa, that is a lot of benefits!

The Benefits of Self-Care

Think those benefits are awesome? I haven’t even gotten to the part of mental self-care! Mental self-care is exactly that: things we do that take care of our emotional health. Just like we talked about above, when we are experiencing stress or burnout, the stress neurotransmitters and cortisol are having a hay day in our brain. When we engage in just 15 minutes of mental self-care on a daily basis, we are:

What is Mental Self-Care?

I told you that there were going to be more benefits! Now, what constitutes as mental self-care? I’m happy you asked! There is a whole list of them (again, this is not an all-inclusive list:

Social Self-Care

Social health is when we participate with the people (or pets) around us. When we engage with the people around us, we release the neurotransmitter, oxytocin. This amazing little neurotransmitter helps us feel connected and safe with the people around us. It also aids in creating an emotional bond and trust. The best part of oxytocin? It helps our darn amygdala remember that we are accepted and appreciated. I bet you can take a guess what that does for our self-esteem, confidence, and overall mental health. You got it! It boosts it all!

Oxytocin and Self-Care

When it comes to boosting oxytocin, there are activities we can engage in. Even engaging in these activities for a mere 20 minutes a day can reap all the above benefits. These activities include (but not limited to):

Looking at these lists, you may notice something. There is a bit of overlap. Why is that? Because many of these activities can release more than just one type of feel good neurotransmitter. For example, if you go horse riding with a club of friends, you are releasing dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin all the while releasing endorphins. Isn’t self-care awesome!

Self-Care is Not Optional!

Now, if you are super busy (like me), you may think self-care is one thing you can sacrifice to make the rest of the demands placed on you. Let me tell you now: YOU CANNOT DO THAT!! Remember that post I did on burnout? Yeah, that happens if you don’t take time for self-care.

But when the heck do I find the time to do self-care? Great question! As we have talked about in all of my other posts, we know it takes 66 days to make anything a habit that sticks. Many of these self-care things are things you are already doing. But what about the things I know I need to do but can’t find the time to do it?

Coping Skills Ahead

That is where those famous SMART goals come in to play. In case you missed them, SMART goals are goals that are:

• Specific in intention
• Measurable (meaning they have a time frame to complete them)
• Actually attainable
• Realistic in nature
• Trackable

These goals are super beneficial when you are trying to create a new habit because they start small and build off of the progress you area already making. By setting one small self-care SMART goal each week, you are preparing your brain to release dopamine (because you accomplished something), serotonin (because there was joy in that accomplishment), endorphins (since you got your body moving), and maybe even some oxytocin (if that goal connected you with people).

Let’s look at an example, shall we? Let’s set the SMART goal of brushing our teeth five times in one week. It is a simple goal, but if your depression is reigning supreme, it is a tough one. This goals is a SMART goal for the following reasons:

• S – it is specific (we will brush our teeth)
• M – We can measure if we meet this goal (by putting a number on it, we can count if it gets done or not)
• A – We know we can meet this goal (missing two days isn’t that bad, right?)
• R – This goal is realistic (especially since the dentist says we should be brushing twice a day and flossing to boot)
• T – We can track the progress towards this goal (we can mark it in a calendar when we did brush our teeth)

Using SMART goals can be helpful when we are trying to make self-care a regular kind of thing in your life. This, along with understanding the things that energize you (like food, friends, or quiet time), will help you make a change in your mental health journey for the better. Thank you so much for taking time with me to learn about why self-care is so important.

To recap this post:
– Self-care is the act of preserving ourselves
– Self-care supports our physical, mental, and social health
– You can use SMART goals to help make self-care a regular part of your life

Bonus Material

References

• Bell, T (2020). Brain Chemistry: The Importance of Self-Care. Retrieved from https://www.solutionpsychology.com.au/brain-chemistry-the-importance-of-self-care/
• Hassan El-Ghoroury, N (2015). Self-care for the scientist. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2015/09/matters
• Joshi, Meera (2017). How Does Mindfulness Affect the Brain? Retrieved from How does mindfulness affect the brain? (bupa.co.uk)
• Powell, Alvin (2018). When Science Meets Mindfulness. Retrieved from Harvard researchers study how mindfulness may change the brain in depressed patients – Harvard Gazette
• Simpson, J. A., Weiner, E. S. C., & Oxford University Press. (1989). The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved from https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

Image sources

• Carissa Weber at www.thatdarnamygdala.com
• Breanna Dlask at Breanna Dlask Photography
• Colton Nieman at The_Natural_Perspective
• www.pexels.com