Tame your threat brain

Rising interest rates and spiralling household bills, fears of a looming recession, fires, floods, the tragedy of the war in Ukraine ... a new day brings a new round of bad news and anxiety-inducing headlines.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that more and more of us are operating in ‘threat brain’ mode.

Feeling besieged by situations that we believe are threatening our way of life, and over which we feel we have little control, our brain constantly operates on high alert. We are primed to be ready to respond to danger, and fight or flight becomes our default.

“Our threat brain is important – it’s part of our survival mechanism and kicks in when we face danger and need to be ready to react,” says Dr Jodie Lowinger, author of . “But if we tip into threat brain and the fight-or-flight response when we don’t