Dr. Wendy Suzuki

What was it giving me?

I didn't even realize it.

And had that horrible thing not happened, it would have been a very different book.

There are a wide range of brain structures involved in

feeling the emotion of anxiety.

One famous brain structure called the amygdala is involved, but it's not the only structure.

We think that many cortical areas are involved in feeling this emotion of anxiety.

And then what happens is that feeling of anxiety will stimulate

the hypothalamus to stimulate the fight or flight response, which is, I think we all know that too well, that feeling of your heart rate goes up, your breathing gets shallow, you get ready, your body's getting ready to either fight the lion or run away.

I love to, at this moment in time,

Remind everybody that on the flip side of the fight or flight system is the rest and digest system that every single one of us also has.

This is the automatic system that comes online when you have a free weekend and you have nothing to do that glorious weekend where everything is just you have a free 48 hours and your heart rate goes down.

What is literally happening is your blood is being shunted from your muscles because you don't have to run away or fight.

And it's being shunted into your digestion and reproductive systems for those fun weekend activities that you use your digestive and reproductive systems for.

So that is something that everybody should be well aware of.

And the other secret is like, OK, how do you everybody should be asking, how do I stimulate that one?

Yes.

So here is the best way to stimulate the rest and digest system, also referred to as the parasympathetic nervous system.

And it is, wait for it, deep breathing.

Is it really that simple?