Before we start. I've received replies the letter is long and time consuming.

I highly recommend reading bit sized content of The Improvement Letter daily. It could be 5-10 minutes a day and coming back to read on the next day.

The length of the letter will stay the same as usual.

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You all know I had OCD.

But what you didn't know is my brain used to scream I'll die or someone I love will —if I don't follow my lizard brain

I know what it's like to live with fear and anxiety.

I had it for years 24/7. Couldn't sleep, hands constantly shaking and my mind going out of control.

It lies constantly to keep you safe and average.

That's the lizard brain talking.

Your brains primitive mindset and negativity bias in one place.

It hijacks your life, making you live in fear or rage over things that aren't real and doesn't matter.

You start to think if somethings wrong with you.

Maybe it's just your personality or genes.

But all of it is an excuse, numbing the real reason.

Most people let their primitive mind (the lizard brain) take over even though it's the modern world.

I suffered a lot because of it.

I acted out of fear and anger.

I said things that didn't mean well.

I hated the way I acted. I didn't like how I let fear take over. I felt sh*t every time I would follow obsessively act in impulse.

But now I'm peaceful and confident not because I was born with it.

I fixed my mind.

I can talk to anyone.

Approach anyone.

Do cringe things in public and not care about it.

Perform a speech in front of a crowd.

And sleep peacefully after years of trial and error.

And it's all thanks to destroying my lizard brain.

If you want to learn how I went from an anxious kid to a confident man —read the rest of this letter.

I'll tell you exactly what is the lizard brain, how it operates, the basic attitudes that come with it and how to fix it.

How the Lizard Brain Operates

1) Negativity Bias

I always mention this topic but it's so relevant not including it in this letter makes the whole letter lacking.

We've already discuss about how negativity bias is a form of protection from your ancestors brain and you inherited it due to how dangerous life was in the primitive era.

However in this letter I'd like to give it another perspective.

What I haven't talked about is how the negativity bias gets worse every time.

• First it's fear.

• Second it's anxiety.

• Third it's depression.

Negativity bias is rooted in our evolutionary past as a survival mechanism which makes us act and focus on threats and negative experiences to avoid danger.

While this was the META in the primitive era, in modern life - it can spiral into a self-reinforcing cycle that escalates from fear to anxiety to depression.

Here’s how it works:

Stage 1: Fear as the Starting Point

Negativity bias makes the perceived fear higher than it should be in response to perceived threats —real or imagined.

This means a simple confrontation will be translated from your mind as a life and death situation.

Think of you being blamed by someone you love but your mind interprets it as if you're about to be hit with a serious injury or get killed.

Yes that's how emotions spiral out.

A single negative event, like a harsh critique or a failure, sticks in the mind more than positive ones due to the brain’s tendency to remember and prioritize survival-related information (Which is negativity bias).

This fear stays and replays in your mind, as the amygdala (the brain’s fear center) flags negative stimuli for rapid processing, making us hypervigilant to potential risks.

Over time, this constant exposure to fear distorts your reality, making the world seem more threatening than it should be.

Like being socially anxious feeling like everyone's out there to get you.

Stage 2: Anxiety as the Escalation:

When fear becomes chronic, it evolves into anxiety.

The brain’s hyper focuses on negatives experience fueled by negativity bias which creates a feedback loop where we anticipate worst-case scenarios every time and everyday. Even if nothing wrong is going on.

The prefrontal cortex (the rational brain) responsible for rational thinking, struggles to balance the amygdala’s overactivity, leading to endless worry.

For example, a minor social mistake might spiral into obsessive thoughts about rejection.

This state of anxiousness isn't normal and takes a heavy toil on the nervous system, with higher cortisol levels keeping us in a near-constant fight-or-flight mode, which weakens mental strength.

At this point you struggle to control your mind and start to wonder if it's even you. Or you're now hallucinating mentally from too much fear.

Stage 3: Depression as the final stage

Anxiety driven by negativity bias, can make the brain’s resources give up, giving way for depression.

The focus on negatives experiences depletes the brains happy hormones which makes negativity bias dominates.

Now in this state any positive events are dismissed or rejected by your brain automatically while negative ones are expressed more critically creating a distorted reality where life feels hopeless.

Like if someone compliments you —you dismiss it as them being nice however when you make a small mistake. You remember it for hours and think everyone now hates you.

Learned helplessness sets in, feeling powerless to escape this cycle making depression worse.

In other words. No one got depressed in one go.

It's a progressive state of the mind losing control in other parts of the brain.

It's similar to what I talked about how you have different selves inside you in the letter "Why You Hate Yourself (And How to Change That)" how there are different stages and separate topics of self merging together.

So how is this connected to the lizard brain?

Because they're the same.

If this was a bit hard to understand that's normal.

It's full of scientific terms however this is the best way to explain it.

2) Influence on attitude and automatic behaviors

Your brain craves comfort and security.

But if unaware it leads to self-sabotage.

Look around you.

People voluntarily eat and consume things that makes their life worse.

For the simple reason their mind has taken control and commanded that they stay safe and taking any risk is not an option.

This is the foundation of the lizard brain.

It seeks basic survival like maintaining body function like breathing, normal temperature and heart rate.

However it leads to being too cautious or afraid.

It leads to excessive response of flight, fight or freeze.

Which leads to emotional responses like:

• Overthinking what you're going to say next

• Obsessively micro managing everything out of your control.

• Not going out of your home because you think everyone will judge you.

It's a miserable life.

Your emotions like fear, anxiety, sadness is heightened while basic emotions like joy, peace, happiness feels out of reach.

The worse part is when your automatic behaviors especially those driven by instinct and emotions gets over influenced by the lizard brain.

Now both the conscious and unconscious has been taken over.

At this stage you become too depressed to enjoy anything and even become suic*dal if left untreated.

But not all hope is lost.

If you've read this far then that means you haven't reached that stage yet even if you think you have.

Because you wouldn't be reading this letter.

3) Fearful Attitude: Effect cause of the lizard brain

The fearful attitude is being too cautious and wanting to manage every possibilities even though it's not possible.

What I mean by this is simple.

Every time you do something —your mind will give you a thought of the worst case scenario.

• Did I speak right?

• What if they hate me for this?

• Was he/she hurt by what I said?

I talked about this above —but I'd like to emphasize it once more.

If you have a fearful attitude.

You will suffer.

Your life will be miserable.

Your mind will constantly replay scenarios of you winning if you just did what you said you were going to do.

You will develop anger in the world not because you've been hurt but because you were to scared to act and take charge of your life.

I see this all the time in young men.

They blame the world. Their families next. And their selves.

I don't want you to go through this stage.

Skip it.

You don't need this part.

This is what happens if you let the lizard brain take over.

Let's now discuss how we can destroy and take control of the lizard brain.

How to Destroy The Lizard Brain.

1) Confrontation : Fighting the Lizard Brain

This one is kind of funny.

Because the first time I did this —I genuinely believe I was going to die or someone I love will.

If you don't know what it's like to have anxiety.

It goes like this:

1. A negative thought pops up.

2. Different scenarios in your mind fight over. How you can win and take over and how the worse case scenario can win.

3. Your mind convinces you that the worse case scenario is likely to happen.

4. Your hand shakes, your breathing becomes short, your heart rate sky rockets and you feel like being crushed by an invisible pressure in the air.

5. Your negative emotions become heightened.

6. Most positive emotions are immediately dismissed. Giving way for negative ones to thrive.

7. Slowly but surely if you don't calm yourself you either burst out of anger or become paralyzed by fear unable to move or do anything.

8. This continues to happen unless you break the cycle.

The key here is to stop no.4 from happening.

When your mind has convinced you all hope is lost and what you have to do is just despair because of how cruel life is — that's the sign you've lost control.

But even if that happens you can still break the cycle as long as you allow yourself to try again.

The reason why many people fail to fix their anxiety or make progress at anything is because they give up.

They stop trying.

They failed once so they quit.

Even though there's no rule saying they can't go for the 2nd time, 3rd or 10th time.

A method of self-sabotage many people are unaware they have.

Losing on the first try is the point.

So in the 2nd try you know what worked and what didn't.

The key is to confront the fear and let it sink.

Yes, don't avoid it or reject the fear of emotion.

You have to let it flow like electricity so it goes from one place to another.

Because if you stop it —sooner or later the pent up emotions will build and burst out.

You don't want that.

What you need is a steady flow. Be it emotions or money.

That's the rule.

2) Dissecting Anxiety: Know Your Fears

I'm a writer.

And when it comes to advice I tell people to write down whatever it is.

The same principle applies to your fears.

If you want to fix your anxiety you have to know what it is and why it needs to be fixed.

My anxiety was death.

Anything that involved someone dying I would avoid it - I'd be afraid if a character would die or some kind of movie included deaths.

I would avoid anything that included mortality.

Looking back the reason why I was so afraid of dying was because I haven't done anything worthy to be called "I lived a good life".

I was afraid I wouldn't be able to give my family the life they deserve.

My breaking point came when one of my cats got run over.

Yea, poor fella. His head was ——- I shouldn't say.

But that gave me a reality check that one day I would die and people I love would too.

Whenever I had thoughts of death it would spiral out of negativity.

I wouldn't be able to control it.

The only time I got in control was when I wrote it down.

I'm glad I did.

Do the same.

Your fears could be public speaking, talking to people or dying.

Whatever it is write it down.

Dissect why you are afraid and understand why.

Don't run away when it becomes overwhelming.

Like an electricity make it flow like I said above.

Then answer two things.

• Why am I so afraid of this (Your fear)?

• What can I do to conquer this fear?

The longer you deny what you are afraid of - the more damage you will take subconsciously.

Your fears will internalize and hold you back if you don't fix it.

3) Mental Health

By far the most important component of your life is mental health.

The worse your mental health —the worse your life quality and the better your mental health —the better your life quality.

Bad mental health is basically another term for the lizard brain.

When your mind is poisoned and unhealthy —your thoughts become clouded by false judgement and distorted reality.

There are plenty of ways to make your mental health better.

But I'll only focus on 3

A) Meditation

The purpose of meditation is simple.

It allows you to see your thoughts without judgement.

Your may think it's cringe or useless but that thought is useless and cringe.

People who have their mind under control are the ones who create ground breaking technologies and make great achievements.

Living a good life starts from ruling your mind.

That means you must be able to observe what you think and think without judgement.

Like a river.

Your thoughts need to flow.

You should not stop, deny, or reject any.

That'll make your life worse.

The goal is to understand that not everything you think and thought of is real.

If your brain generates thought that you're a loser —meditation will help you see if that is true or not.

Making your mind better starts from controlling your thoughts.

B) Journaling

I dislike how people think writing down your emotions or thoughts are girly.

These people will never understand what it's like to convey your emotions into paper and make sense out of it.

Meditation is the medium that makes thoughts flow.

Journaling is the outlet that gets rid of unnecessary thoughts.

When your mind is full you need to journal.

When your mind is misaligned and unkempt you need to meditate.

Whenever you feel a strong negative emotion bring out a pen and paper and write down exactly what it is you feel.

Don't sugar coat and try to make it sound nice.

If it's a brutal voice write it down.

Denying this voice will make it worse. It hurts when it talks —but your best bet is to write it down.

You don't need to believe it. But you've got to write it down.

That way it doesn't get stuck in your mind.

Like food, it rots and stinks when you don't eat or preserve it.

The same goes to your mind.

If you keep holding on to thoughts that don't serve you —sooner or later it will rot your mindset and attitude.

C) Walking

There are a lot of science when it comes to walking but the best one is you get to touch grass.

Humans are not supposed to be isolated.

People tend to over analyze and become too self-conscious or become crazy when left alone for long periods of time.

Historically and evolutionarily, we are not meant to stay alone.

Otherwise we lose touch of reality and become too obsessive about things that aren't real like hallucinating monsters or everyone is evil.

We are social beings.

The more you stay alone —the crazier your viewpoint and perceptions will become.

Self-destructive mannerisms and habits starts from lacking social interaction.

Knowing how other people act and behave normally is how we thrive and survive as humans.

When you go out on a walk —your mind takes notice.

It starts to see what you where thinking in your mind was likely delusion or distorted realities like insecurities trying to take over.

And it washes away when it confirms all of it was hearsay.

If you spend all your time indoors and in your phone 24/7 I wouldn't be surprised if you become crazy.

Social media curates information that makes your emotions go wild.

Touching grass will save you from becoming too insecure and delusional.

Walking in nature is the best healing.

We haven't evolved to be surrounded with shiny boxes and technology.

It's only been 2 centuries since the industrial age happened.

The modern world is too much for the average human.

That's why taking walks and taking time off technology has massive benefits.

4) Stress management

This sounds common advice but you'll be surprised how many people fail to properly manage their stress.

Countless marriage, friendships, career opportunities have been lost because someone failed to manage their stress.

If you've always been tired, somehow fatigue when you wake up from a fresh sleep and always on low energy.

You have stress overload.

It could be from work, relationships, your thoughts or life catching up to you.

Everyone has limits and you are not exempted.

To regulate your stress well you need to understand where it's coming from.

• Is it from a toxic co-worker?

• Is it from family problems?

• Is it from my friends?

• Is it from my actions?

• Is it from work?

To manage your stress you need to cut off unnecessary stressors.

And only put up with stress that's worth it.

Useless stressors are:

• Workplace drama

• Toxic relationships

• People treating you as emotional garbage dump

You'll have to do some serious observation on what's causing you unnecessary stress and find a way to delete or lessen it's effects.

Every time you are about to explode you must have a place to retreat and give yourself time to calm down.

This will help you avoid a lot of problems.

And if you are a man —the best way to lessen your stress is through physical action.

Meditation helps you calm down but using emotions as a fuel

That's why working out, doing martial arts or doing any physical labor helps.

Your emotions do not go away unless you acknowledge it's presence and use it.

That's why when someone bursts out in anger —after a bit of time they'll calm down.

That's because the emotion of anger has been used up and no longer there,

Well not in a good way.

But you can avoid this by using healthier alternatives.

I highly recommend the following:

• RE; Journaling

• Working out

• Taking daily walks

• Art creation (drawing, painting, poetry, writing, wood making, sculpting etc.…)

Avoid using addiction and vices as stress relievers.

Watching movies/anime/cartoons , playing games, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, vices do not count as stress reliever.

They only numb your stress while continually dealing damage .With enough time - your addictions will be the one to deteriorate your health faster than your stressors.

A healthy life starts from healthy actions, decisions and judgements.

Make sure to continually make healthy decisions.

I hope this letter was helpful.

Good luck to you.

See you next week.

PS: What have you learned from this weeks letter? Let me know

P.P.S: Share this to some friends if you'd like.

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