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When it comes down to it, anxiety is not a virus. Anxiety is not a disease to be treated, anxiety is an emotion. And we still have to work on it like any other emotion that we want to regulate, we have to understand the emotion generation system .

Hi everybody. Welcome to the podcast. I wanna talk today a little bit about drugs and anxiety, or chemical manipulations that you can use for your anxiety. We've talked from the beginning of this podcast about how emotions are really organized by your appraisals of your life and your situation. Meaning the stories that your brain tells about your life situations and how they're gonna affect you. And that if you wanna change your emotions, you have to change these stories. So where do drugs fit into this, anxiety drugs? So that's what we're gonna talk about today. And my purpose, of course, in talking about this, is not to tell you to use or not use any particular substance. I just want you to understand a little bit better how it functions with your emotion generation system so that you can make more informed choices for yourself.
So all the different drugs that could fit into this broad category of chemical manipulation for your anxiety can include things like prescribed anxiety medications. A lot of people self-medicate for anxiety with alcohol, with cannabis. People with performance anxiety, especially musicians, often use beta blockers that help them on stage to reduce their heart rate and reduce maybe shaky hands, things like that. And of course there are new things being developed, and one of them that has been kind of spread around social media and been little, gotten some popular attention lately is what, something they're calling an anxiety vaccine, which is an injection for anxiety. We're gonna talk about all these different things and the pros and cons and how they interact with your emotion generation so that you can understand better what your choices are here.
But the first thing we need to talk about is how does chemical manipulation change your emotions? If it's true, what we've been saying from the beginning of this podcast, what emotion science has been showing from years and years of research on this, if it's true that really your emotions are organized by the stories your brain tells about your situation, by the glasses with which you see your situations, then where do drugs fit into the picture? How do drugs end up changing your emotions? Well, they fit in in the, in the following manner. So yes, your emotions are organized by your appraisals or the stories your brain tells about your situation. You can change your emotion by changing your appraisal or changing that story. You can work on that story though, in a variety of different ways. You can work on it directly by directly trying to change that story, but you can also work on it indirectly. For example, you can change the situation that your brain is telling a story about, and that will often indirectly change the story your brain is telling because now there's a different situation for your brain to tell a story about. It doesn't always work. Like we've talked about before, you can end up changing your situation and still be stuck in anxiety 'cause you still brought your brain stories with you. But if you change the situation sometimes it can make it easier for your brain to change the story.
So first of all, I'll just say that I'm not against one way or the other as far as how to change your appraisals. Of course, working on the story that you, your brain is telling directly is a really great way to change that story. But sometimes it's great to go about it indirectly. It's great to find ways to make it easier for your brain to change that story. Sometimes it's really great to work on your situation, making it easier for your brain to change the way that it sees your demands and resources. And drugs can fall into this category. They're something that can manipulate your brain chemistry and can change the situation that your brain is appraising because the chemistry inside your own body is changed. And so it can sometimes make it easier for your brain to change the way that it sees the world. There are ways to manipulate your brain chemistry that don't involve drugs that we've talked about before, like exercise, like breathing protocols, like even cold water therapy. These different things will manipulate different chemicals in your brain. They'll calm your nervous system. They can make it a whole lot easier for you to generate positive emotions, generate challenge appraisals rather than threat appraisals. So, of course I'm not against these things that can make it easier. I'm all for it. We need to use every, every method possible to change our brain's appraisals of the world, when they're not serving us. And we need to have lots of different tools in our toolbox because sometimes when you're trying to work on that story directly, sometimes you just don't make any headway. And sometimes you need to find ways to make it easier for your brain to change its story. But specifically when we're talking about chemical manipulations, drugs, you need to be thinking about is this something that's going to help me in the short term only to damage me in the long term, right, because some of these kinds of chemical manipulation are going to give you short-term relief, but they might cause some kind of long-term damage that makes you end up with worse anxiety in the long run. So when we're talking about any kind of drugs, any kind of chemicals that you're taking to treat your anxiety, that's why it's really important to do it in consultation with your healthcare provider. Because your doctor or healthcare provider can help you to weigh those risks and benefits and help you to decide if the ratio of benefits and risks is really good for you overall. So that's the first thing, is just be sure that you consult with your healthcare provider regarding any kind of chemical that you use to manipulate your anxiety so that you can know that you're not killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. You're not making it harder for yourself in the long run to have anxiety improvements That you're not damaging your health or your brain itself.
So let's talk first about anti, prescribed anti-anxiety medications. If you, in concert with your healthcare provider, decide that you should go on an anti-anxiety medication there's a couple of things to keep in mind about what this means and what this doesn't mean. So, like we said a minute ago, it's important to remember that your emotions are not gonna be organized by your situation. Your emotions are gonna be organized by the way your brain sees your situation, by the glasses that you wear or the story that you, that you tell. And so sometimes chemicals can make it easier for you to change the story, but in the end, you still need to change the story. The story is what needs to be changed. Sometimes the drugs can make it easier to change the story, but the bottom line is you still have to work on the way your brain sees the world because as we said a second ago, you can change a lot of stuff in your situation and still feel depressed, still feel anxious, because there's still that important foundational element of needing to change the way that your brain sees your life and sees your situations. So don't assume that anti-anxiety medication is the complete solution for anxiety. Don't forget about working on the story in your head. Make sure you are doing both. If you are taking anti-anxiety medication, make sure you're also working directly on the stories that your brain tells. So don't rely on anti-anxiety medication instead of therapy, or instead of coaching, or instead of listening to this podcast and working on the different strategies that we've talked about that can help you to change the way that your brain sees the world.
Now let's talk for a second about cannabis and alcohol, things that people really commonly use to self-medicate for anxiety. Let's talk about different pros and cons to be aware of there. Again, you might, in concert with your healthcare provider, you might end up with some medically prescribed cannabis, cannabis. I'm not gonna say that you shouldn't use medically prescribed cannabis. Just keep in mind, just like the other anti-anxiety medications that we've already talked about for a second, that this is an indirect method to influence your emotions and that you still, you can't forget about working on the way that your brain sees the world, that you really still have to focus on the stories your brain tells.
Now, what about self-medication with cannabis? It's really important to remember, and this is a little bit controversial, and so for this reason, I'm gonna link a couple of important scientific articles, peer reviewed articles in the show notes that back up what I'm saying, so that you know that I'm not just saying my opinion, I'm actually basing this on research, but you have to be really careful with chronic use of cannabis because if you're using cannabis chronically, regularly, then studies show, even though a lot of people may not believe this, studies are showing that this does become addictive. This does work like an addiction, and it's really important to remember that anything which is addictive will increase your anxiety if you get addicted to it. So studies show that chronic use of cannabis, it reduces your dopamine signaling in your brain, and we talked about your dopamine budget in a former episode, which I'll link in the show notes and how addiction ends up depleting your dopamine budget or in other words, one of the really important feel good reward chemicals in your brain and, and one of the consequences of having your dopamine levels down that low is that your anxiety will increase. So anything that you become addicted to will also increase your anxiety. So studies show, as I said a second ago, that chronic use of cannabis, it does affect your dopamine signaling reward pathways in your brain, just like other addictive substances. It also, the more you use it, the more you have to use it in order to feel the same thing. That's something we call tolerance. It also produces symptoms of withdrawal when you go off it, after having used it chronically. It um, triggers compulsive use patterns similar to other addictive substances. And when people go off of it, it creates withdrawal symptoms, which include irritability, insomnia, cravings, and increased anxiety. And with these withdrawal symptoms, studies show they can last weeks and some of the symptoms even months after stopping the use of cannabis. So the withdrawal symptoms like irritability, insomnia, cravings um, increased anxiety, these can last weeks, and on top of this, there are some long lasting cognitive deficits or long lasting brain dysfunction that can go on for months. And also motivational impairments. Your motivation , can end up being affected and dampened for months after stopping the use of chronic cannabis. So just be aware that although cannabis feels like it is decreasing anxiety in the short term, if you're using it chronically, in the long term, it will increase your anxiety because it can lead to addiction and it also will affect your cognitive resources. So just be aware of those risks, and for that reason, I think it's really important to consult a healthcare provider as to dosage and frequency and all of those different things so that you're not hurting yourself in the long run in order to give some kind of immediate relief.
Now, let's move on for a second to alcohol, something else that a lot of people use to self-medicate for anxiety. In low doses it does temporarily reduce anxiety. But the other half of the equation is that the next day you'll, your anxiety will actually be higher because it reduces your anxiety at first, but then it triggers cortisol spikes and withdrawal states the next day, which gives you what a lot of people call hangxiety. So alcohol gives that short term relief followed by a rebound of worsening anxiety. So just be aware that when you're choosing alcohol to regulate your anxiety, means that you're gonna feel a little bit better right now, but you're going to do that at the expense of feeling worse tomorrow. And then as far as long term, it's really important to be aware some recent studies from 2019, from 2022 that were really large studies, uh, done in Britain on a huge sectors of the population, they were examining people with even light and moderate alcohol consumption and the effect that it had on their brains. And the bad news is that they showed that even light and and moderate alcohol consumption is associated with thinning of your cerebral cortex, brain atrophy and neuronal loss. So you have some short term benefits when you take the alcohol, but rebound worsening the next day and then long term if you are regularly taking alcohol to treat your anxiety, it can affect the equipment that you have to regulate your anxiety. So in, in heavy with heavy use, it can become addictive. We already know that that's bad. But even with light and moderate use, it can result in diminished control over your own emotional regulation because it actually gives you brain atrophy and neuronal loss and thinning of the cerebral cortex, the part of your brain that is able to manage your behavior and your executive functions. So talk about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. This is a self-medication that in the long run has a lot of really serious side effects. I doubt that there's gonna be a doctor that's gonna tell you that you should use alcohol to manage your anxiety for this reason. But it, it's important because a lot of people use alcohol, of course, without consulting their doctor, it's important to realize the effects that it will have on your anxiety and also on your brain.
So I'll talk for a second now, about what people are calling the anxiety vaccine, which is something that's being studied right now in mice. It has not been tested on humans yet. It's kind of funny that it's called an anxiety vaccine because vaccines are for viruses and anxiety is not a virus. Anxiety is an emotion. Um, I guess they're calling it a vaccine because it's an injection. It is a chemical that they inject into you and it targets the brain stress system. It blocks a certain stress receptor in your brain, a a receptor that is key in regulating stress hormones, hormones in your brain. So it kind of quiets those pathways and helps reduce stress signals. And some researchers are pretty excited about it because when they have injected this chemical into mice, it has shown rapid effects in reducing anxiety behaviors in the mice. And this single injection seems to last for quite a while, like eight weeks in the mice. But do remember that there's a long ways between something that works on a mouse and something that works on a human. There's a lot that has to be tested yet there's a, we've got a long ways to go, a lot of trials to find out if this is going to be safe and effective for humans. So we've got a long ways to go before we know if this is even something that can be helpful for anxiety. But I just wanted to bring it up because it's been kind of popularized on social media. It's been talked about a lot. And it is something promising worth studying, and we'll see what happens from here on. But in any case, it still falls into the same category of all of these other things that we've talked about. You've gotta remember that When it comes down to it, anxiety is not a virus. Anxiety is not a disease to be treated, anxiety is an emotion .And we still have to work on it like any other emotion that we want to regulate, we have to understand the emotion generation system. You are still gonna need to work on the way that your brain sees your situation because your emotions are caused by your brain's appraisal. by the story your brain tells about your situations by the glasses that you use to see your life through. If you change the way that you see your experience, if you change the way that your brain answers the appraisal questions that we've talked about, your brain is always asking and answering, how good or bad is this? Whose fault is it, and how is it gonna develop? That's what you have to change, is the way that your brain answers those questions. Sometimes using chemicals can make it easier for your brain to change the way that it answers those questions, but it doesn't take away the fact that you still need to change those answers in order to change your emotion.
So remember those two things. Remember that it is indirect, right? That it can make it easier, but that it's indirect. You still, you can't forget about having to change the story in your head. You can't rely on chemicals as the only approach for your anxiety because you still have to change your glasses. And the second thing is, don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Make sure that you're not getting short-term benefit in order to get long-term harm. And so of course, that's why it's so important to involve your healthcare provider in all of your chemical manipulation choices so that they can help you to see what the risks and benefits are of different chemicals that are available to you to see which ones are actually net positive and which ones are actually net negative for you.
So those are just a couple of thoughts today to help you to understand how drugs and chemical manipulation interact with the emotion generation system. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you again next week.