Dr. Jen Gunter's TED Talk Analysis Essay Example

In today’s society, people do not prioritize mental health and don’t take it seriously. There is a lot of prejudice around mental health, and individuals have various perspectives on how it impacts others. In actuality, mental illness is real and serious, and it affects those who have been diagnosed, on a daily basis. In the TED talk I chose, Dr. Jen Gunter explains how anxiety in the brain works. I selected this particular TED talk because I believe the brain to be an intriguing element of the human body, and it corresponds to what we just learned in class. Anxiety is controlled by neurotransmitters and feedback in the brain. Diagnosed anxiety, on the other hand, can be overpowering for some individuals, impacting with their everyday lives. Anxiety becomes an issue when these brain regions malfunction, resulting in a spiral of unreasonable or inappropriate behaviors. It affects the connections between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, two major areas of the brain. The prefrontal cortex kicks in when the amygdala delivers a signal to the brain that something is wrong, and it helps you come up with a coherent, reasonable answer. When you're nervous, your body goes into alert mode, triggering your brain to prepare for flight or fight mode. Your brain stimulates your central nervous system with adrenaline and cortisol in an effort to assist you resist whatever has made you nervous. Adrenaline raises your heart rate, which raises your blood pressure and enhances your energy levels. GABA causes the heart to beat quicker, allowing more oxygen to enter the body. Cortisol, on the other hand, raises blood glucose levels, increasing the availability of molecules that support tissue repair. Because of the flight or fight reaction, the extra glucose energy is sent to the limbs, allowing the muscles to move quicker and stronger. A close friend of mina has an an anxiety disorder and takes medication to help treat it. I’ve witnessed her her anxiety attacks firsthand and saw the many symptoms of what happens when you have one. Symptoms included a racing heart, shortness of breathing, shaking, and muscle tension in the body. This TED talk help me understand how the brain works, particularly the nervous system. It gave me a better understanding on how anxiety functions in the human brain by allowing parts of the brain to interact with one another by sending and receiving messages via electrical and chemicals signals, that the body responds to.