We’re all under stress right now. And the stress-reactive circuits in our brain guide us to respond ineffectively to stress and cause chronic stress and rising rates of emotional, behavioral, social, and physical health problems.

• The neural circuits in our emotional brain - the limbic system and subconscious memory systems - control our emotional responses in daily life.
• When a stimulus arrives in the brain, it activates either stress-resilient circuits, the internal calmers and healers, or stress-reactive circuits.
• The brain activates the strongest circuit, which controls our responses.
• If the strongest circuit is the reactive circuit, our strong emotions get the upper hand, and the stress interferes with the part of our brain responsible for higher-level thinking and planning.
• The longer the stress-reactive circuit is activated, the more likely they are to activate other stress-reactive wires, which can cause an emotional meltdown of anxiety, numbness, depression, and hostility.