Taming the Fear Response

Our Amygdala is the cornerstone of our fight-or-flight and fear response.  It keeps us safe in emergencies, action-oriented in crisis, and powerful when we have little reserves.  It also happens to dominate with use and become our filter for the world over time.  The more we exercise fear, the more we view the world through the lens of fear.  But science has now proven that with meditation we can shrink and prune the neural activity around the amygdala, lessoning its grip on our everyday life and returning it to it’s prime state of becoming active only when we need it.  Meditation can be as simple as some deep breaths into the lower belly, left-nostril breathing, or as involved as  regular daily practice of visualizations and physical exercise.  The amazing thing is that you get to chose the level of mindfulness you want to incorporate into your life, and all of it will help this process.  Will you choose fear or breath today?  Fight or flow? Rigidity or something new?  What one new practice will you adopt so that you gain mastery over your own fear?