How to Reprogram Your Brain to Overcome Anxiety, Fear, and Depression

The desire to change and move forward in life- to overcome anxiety, depression, and the like- exists within all of us. Sometimes however, it feels out of reach, because we tell ourselves: "I know myself. There’s no real chance that something will change and help me move forward. I’ve tried and failed again and again!"

Our brain is the central engine of our abilities. It’s an incredible tool that can help us achieve amazing results in any area we set our minds to. In fact, the brain that determines whether people succeed or fail at overcoming anxiety, depression, and achieving breakthroughs in life.

We simply need to understand how the brain works, and how to activate it. If someone gave you the most advanced airplane in the world but didn’t teach you how to operate it, you wouldn’t even be able to use it as a drone.

Researchers have found that our brain “records” every significant experience and encodes the feelings attached to it. This is the reason why a memory can sometimes evoke such vivid feelings, as if we’re reliving it. The brain doesn’t clearly distinguish between imagination, memory, or real experience. It pulls up the entire “file” connected to the experience- emotions and all.

If we repeat the same experience, the brain encodes the new feelings as well, so the next time, it retrieves the new sensations. This opens up a tremendous door to transformation.

We can actually “reprogram” our brains.
If we manage to repeatedly go through situations in a way that gets encoded as positive, that rewiring will help us live differently on a daily basis.

How do we do this?
It only requires a bit of courage and a willingness to act. If someone has social anxiety, and they feel tense and avoid situations involving groups or people of authority- but then they say to themselves:
"I am choosing to enter this scary situation- not to overwhelm myself, but to willingly face the fear."

When you enter a fearful situation from a place of conscious strength- not from weakness or avoidance- you automatically neutralize part of the fear. If you face fear by trying to avoid the feelings it brings, it makes things worse. But if you face the situation saying, “I’m choosing to experience this, and I can handle it,” the brain encodes that event as less scary.

If you do this repeatedly, the new “encoding” becomes clearer and more dominant, and gradually, your fear of that situation will fade. You can then move on to slightly more challenging situations, from a place of inner strength.

This is the way we chip away at our fears and reprogram our brains with new, empowering responses. This applies not only to anxiety, but to any personal goal in life. Those who tap into it learn how to get their brain to work for them.

What I’ve described here is essentially a summary of what’s known in CBT and ACT therapy as “exposure and response prevention”. There are slight differences between these approaches, but the core principle is the same. Thousands of people around the world are transforming their lives through this method, and you can too.

Hagai Zadok is a psychotherapist and marriage counselor.