Neurotherapy for Anxiety Disorders

Comprehensive Neurotherapy at BODY MIND & BRAIN in Gold Coast is the best “treatment” for Anxiety Disorders. But to be precise, Neurotherapy is an intervention that addresses the underlying cause and not just another passive treatment to temporarily suppress symptoms. Let me tell you why it’s the best option — in plain English.

(If you want to study the topic in more depth, have a look at the academic literature in the section SCIENTIFIC REFERENCES at the bottom of this page!)

Anxiety Treatment Gold Coast — What You Should Know

Before rushing into any treatment or therapy, it is crucial to collect some information first. The key questions we need answered are
• “What is the root cause of persistent Anxiety?” and
• “What is the most sensible Anxiety therapy?

What Is Fear For?

When our Brain detects an imminent threat — such as an attacking lion, a tsunami or our mother-in-law — the alarm centre in our Brain generates a strong sense of fear. This fear response is designed to focus all our attention and energy to escape the immediate danger and survive.

The Brain Alerts The Body First

For a dash to the nearest tree, the Brain activates the Body so we have • tense muscles, ready to run and climb • faster heartbeat to pump more blood • narrow arteries for higher blood pressure • increased sweat production for cooling • raised blood sugar levels and so on.

Fight or Flight — then Rest and Digest

Once the threat has passed, the Brain needs to calm down Body and Mind, so that the much needed recovery can begin. Chill time. However, if the Brain is incapable of shutting down the fear-response completely, we experience the constant unease of Anxiety.

Anxiety = Threatless Fear

An incomplete shutdown of the Brain’s fear response in the absence of a threat, leads to persistent feelings of Anxiety, as well as a bunch of stress-related symptoms, which can affect all aspects of life (e.g. sleep, mood, focus, memory, mental sharpness, libido, digestion …).

Making Fear and Anxiety Visible

What we experience as Anxiety, is the unwarranted activation of the “threat detection alarm” in our over-protective Brain. Modern scans can show us the Anxiety activity in the Brain that pesters the Body, irritates the Mind and sucks the joy out of our lives.

Anxiety in the Brain = Stress in the Body

As the fear-response is designed to raise the fight-or-flight alarm, Anxiety “stresses” every system in the Body, Mind and Brain. Over time, this often leads to a number of so-called “medical conditions” and formal “psychiatric diagnoses”, even referrals to an “anxiety clinic” [Image Lightbox].

The Anxiety “Epidemic”

Anxiety is the most common Functional Brain Disorder in Australia. Every year in Australia, approximately 14% of the population (1 in 7) experiences an Anxiety Disorder, creating a greater Burden of Disease than Dementia, Coronary Heart Disease or Type 2 Diabetes [Image Lightbox].

Treating the symptoms in the Body

Logically, there are three potential targets for Anxiety treatments: Body, Mind or Brain. Big Pharma likes labelling Anxiety as a “mental illness” and sells drugs for every single body symptom: Sleeping pills, pain killers, blood-presure meds … That’s good for business, not good for patients.

Treating the symptoms in the Mind

Long-term use of psychotropic drugs is not reasonable, because of risks, side effects, dependence and withdrawal problems. Therefore, it is often recommended to find a mental health clinic for some Counselling to help you cope with high levels of Anxiety. Is that good enough for you?

Targeting the root of the problem in the Brain

Unlike drugs, Neurotherapy targets the root cause of Anxiety Disorders by training the brain to fully shut off the fear-response in the absence of lions, tsunamis and mothers-in-law — thereby taking care of all secondary symptoms. It’s logical and has all the advantages of a reasonable solution.

Advantages of Neurotherapy

• … it’s easy, everybody can do it
• … is amazingly powerful and effective
• … corrects the root cause
• … is a very natural, drug-free solution
• … has no serious risks or side effects
• … is fully evidence-based (And the sessions are even fun! )

Would you like
to learn more about …

Or would you rather
skip to the page that tells you …

SELECTED SCIENTIFIC REFERENCES

ANXIETY

Steimer “The biology of fear- and anxiety-related behaviours” Dialogues Clin Neurosci 2002;4(3):231–249
Rosen et al “From normal fear to pathological anxiety” Psychol Rev 1998;105(2):325-50
McTeague et al “The anxiety spectrum and the reflex physiology of defense: from circumscribed fear to broad distress” Depress Anxiety 2012;29(4):264-81
Graham et al “The study of fear extinction: implications for anxiety disorders” Am J Psychiatry 2011;168(12):1255-65
Britton et al “Development of anxiety: the role of threat appraisal and fear learning” Depress Anxiety 2011;28(1):5-17
Charney et al “A functional neuroanatomy of anxiety and fear: implications for the pathophysiology and treatment of anxiety disorders” Crit Rev Neurobiol. 1996;10(3-4):419-46
Izard et al “The activation and regulation of fear and anxiety” Nebr Symp Motiv 1996;43:1-59
Magarian et al “Hyperventilation syndromes: infrequently recognized common expressions of anxiety and stress” Medicine (Baltimore) 1982;61(4):219-36
de Gelder et al “Fear fosters flight: a mechanism for fear contagion when perceiving emotion expressed by a whole body” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2004;101(47):16701-6
Lucchetti et al “Anxiety and fear-avoidance in musculoskeletal pain” Curr Pain Headache Rep 2012;16(5):399-406
Miller et al “Neural underpinnings of fear and its modulation: implications for anxiety disorders” J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 2005;17(1):1-6
Holzschneider et al “Neuroimaging in anxiety disorders” Dialogues Clin Neurosci 2011;13(4):453-61
Shioiri et al “Neuroimaging and pathology in anxiety disorders, especially stress-induced fear circuitry disorders” Nihon Shinkei Seishin Yakurigaku Zasshi 2010;30(3):135-9
Sehlmeyer et al “Human fear conditioning and extinction in neuroimaging: a systematic review” PLoS One 2009;4(6):e5865
Kim et al “The structural and functional connectivity of the amygdala: from normal emotion to pathological anxiety” Behav Brain Res 2011;223(2):403-10
Rasia-Filho et al “Functional activities of the amygdala: an overview” J Psychiatry Neurosci 2000;25(1):14-23
Shin et al “The neurocircuitry of fear, stress, and anxiety disorders” Neuropsychopharmacology 2010;35(1):169-91
Berkowitz et al “The human dimension: how the prefrontal cortex modulates the subcortical fear response” Rev Neurosci 2007;18(3-4):191-207
Milad et al “Neuroscience of fear extinction: Implications for assessment and treatment of fear-based and anxiety related disorders” Behav Res Ther 2014;pii: S0005-7967(14)00135-1
Mathers et al “The burden of disease and injury in Australia” Bull World Health Organ vol.79 n.11 Genebra 2001
Begg et al “The burden of disease and injury in Australia 2003” CatNo PHE 82; Australian Institute for Health and Welfare, Canberra 2007
Department of Health “Burden of disease: a snapshot in 2013” Department of Health, Queensland Government, Brisbane 2013
Brühl et al “Increased cortical thickness in a frontoparietal network in social anxiety disorder” Hum Brain Mapp 2014;35(7):2966-77
Andreescu et al “The ages of anxiety–differences across the lifespan in the default mode network functional connectivity in generalized anxiety disorder” Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 2014;29(7):704-12
Chen et al “Hippocampal network connectivity and activation differentiates post-traumatic stress disorder from generalized anxiety disorder” Neuropsychopharmacology 2013;38(10):1889-98
Tromp et al “Reduced structural connectivity of a major frontolimbic pathway in generalized anxiety disorder” Arch Gen Psychiatry 2012;69(9):925-34
Sylvester et al “Functional network dysfunction in anxiety and anxiety disorders” Trends Neurosci 2012;35(9):527–535
Blackmon “Structural evidence for involvement of a left amygdala-orbitofrontal network in subclinical anxiety” Psychiatry Res 2011;194(3):296-303
Liao “Selective aberrant functional connectivity of resting state networks in social anxiety disorder” Neuroimage 2010;52(4):1549-58
Zhao et al “Altered default mode network activity in patient with anxiety disorders: an fMRI study” Eur J Radiol 2007;63(3):373-8
Etkin et al “Disrupted amygdalar subregion functional connectivity and evidence of a compensatory network in generalized anxiety disorder” Arch Gen Psychiatry 2009;66(12):1361-72
Vanathy et al “The efficacy of alpha and theta neurofeedback training in treatment of generalized anxiety disorder” IndJClinPsych 1998;25(2):136-43
Moore NC “A review of EEG biofeedback treatment of anxiety disorders” Clin Electroencephalogr 2000;31(1):1-6 • Hammond DC “Neurofeedback with anxiety and affective disorders” Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am 2005;14(1):105-23
Kerson C et al “Alpha suppression and symmetry training for generalized anxiety symptoms” J of Neurother 2009;13(3):146 – 155
Wang et al “EEG biofeedback improves attentional bias in high trait anxiety individuals” BMC Neurosci 2013;14:115
Simkin et al “Quantitative EEG and Neurofeedback in Children and Adolescents: Anxiety Disorders, Depressive Disorders, Comorbid Addiction and Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and Brain Injury” Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am 2014;23(3):427-464

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