Ashok Gupta describes how the amygdala becomes hypersensitive to bodily symptoms after trauma, triggering a cycle where symptoms spark threat detection, negative thoughts confirm danger, and stress chemicals produce more symptoms. About 50% of people with CFS experience panic attacks, and brain scans show an overactive limbic system.
So immune responses can also be a part of the conditioning in the amygdala. Please have a look at the medical paper and the references in that medical paper if you are interested in learning more about that part of this explanation. Now, putting all of this together, this then causes the CFS vicious circle, which is a figure of eight on this diagram. Let's start at position one. There are symptoms in the body such as tiredness caused say by too much stimulation of the nervous system. The amygdala is now sensitised to symptoms and let's say a symptom is sensed by the amygdala. At position two, the amygdala has been trained to treat symptoms as dangerous and so it triggers negatively fuelled thoughts up to the conscious mind. At position three, the small slider control that you can see in the amygdala shows that the amygdala is now on permanently high alert. The conscious mind is gets carried away with the feelings and creates negative thoughts about symptoms, sending a message back to the amygdala at position four, telling the amygdala that yes, you're right, there is something wrong. This then tells the amygdala to keep releasing the stress response. At position five. The overactive stress response then creates many symptoms in the body. At position six, through the release of adrenaline and and other chemicals which doubles back and produces the same symptoms that the amygdala is sensitive to. So now can you see that once this process starts, the body gets stuck and the symptoms continue relentlessly. The body gets stuck in a temporary cycle where it keeps reacting to its own reactions. Furthermore, any other external stresses like a job or family now become exaggerated because the amygdala is on high alert to all dangers. And once again you may notice that since having cfs, maybe you get more worked up about things than you used to. Maybe you're more sensitive to things than you used to be. Now something else also happens. The amygdala now also becomes sensitive to any events, situations or people which make the symptoms worse. On the diagram, this is highlighted in the red box. So the amygdala fears situations which may use up energy at a mental, physical or emotional level. And so it starts reacting fearfully to those events and situations which might make the symptoms worse. This is why I'm sure that you have experienced that you may have lots of negative thoughts about whether you can handle certain situations. You may feel overwhelmed, maybe a worry about whether a task will make you more tired or not. You might spend a lot of time and Energy, anticipating upcoming events and tasks. But this, unfortunately, in itself contributes to symptoms via the figure 8 process. Now, the final question you may ask, why does this all continue even though no stresses are present anymore? As an example, you may not be working anymore or you may be spending a lot of time resting. So why doesn't the amygdala just stop firing? Well, the clue is in the fact that whilst a person may have physically stopped mentally and emotionally, I notice that patients have very busy minds and they find it difficult to relax and let go. And that's because the amygdala is constantly on the go, stimulating the whole brain, which then tires the mind and body very quickly. I remember reading somewhere that one hour of worry is equivalent to 10 hours of hard physical labor. And I'm sure that you may have experienced this as well. As an example, if you feel tired after a day's work sitting at a desk, it probably wasn't the physical work itself that tired you out, but it's worrying about getting the work done, which causes the tiredness as well as the stress associated with it. So, so far, in summary, we have looked at how the amygdala gets sensitised to symptoms because of the trauma it goes through of feeling overwhelmed by everything, and that it keeps reacting to symptoms and other negativities by overstimulating the nervous system, stimulating it very powerfully. And this creates more symptoms. And the only time you have conscious awareness of this process is when you are sent a concerned thought or anxiety from the amygdala. You then naturally buy into that thought, believing there is something wrong with the body. And this is enough of a confirmation message back to the amygdala. It then responds by stimulating the nervous system, causing more symptoms. Now, let me simplify the process. A very simple way of looking at this is as follows, that when your mind worries about the symptoms at the top of this diagram, it triggers more adrenaline and other stress chemicals into the body on the right hand side, which then causes more symptoms at the bottom of the diagram. This then in turn causes more worry about the symptoms and so on, as in this diagram, creating a vicious circle. Now, there are so many clues to indicate that inappropriate training of the amygdala is responsible for cfs. Firstly, panic attacks are common amongst people with cfs, and researchers believe that panic attacks are caused by an overactive amygdala. Around 50% of people with CFS also experience panic attacks at some point in their lives. Secondly, brain scans of people with CFS show that the limbic system of the brain is. Is highly alert and stimulated. And this is where the amygdala and the thalamus are. There is so much more supporting information in the medical paper which I wrote. Furthermore, let me talk about a few other anecdotal clues. One thing which I have noticed is that when I had cfs, my mind was incredibly busy, like a constant rush of thoughts going on all the time. It's like I just couldn't stop worrying about everything. I have noticed this characteristic in a lot of my patients. They find that although they are physically tired and not able to do a lot, it's like mentally, they are still racing. People say that they find it difficult to switch off, as though they are constantly revving the engine of a car, but not going anywhere. Now, this is nothing to worry about. This is simply the amygdala once again, which is blowing situations out of all proportion and keeping the brain circuits busy. This can make the brain feel very tired. Something else which patients report is that sometimes they just can't get their mind off the symptoms. It's like they are constantly being bombarded with negative thoughts, either about the symptoms or about tasks which are coming up. It's like the body is constantly shouting, I can't cope. I can't cope. Emergency. Now, this does vary from patient to patient. Some people find that this negativity happens occasionally, whereas some people find it happening almost constantly, especially when the symptoms are bad. This, once again, is simply the amygdala overreacting and getting you carried away with all its messages.
