Alyssa wants to go out with friends and has anxiety: Neuroscience facilitates our understanding of going out with friends

The purpose of this chapter is to understand how Alyssa, a 20-year-old woman with anxiety and sensory sensitivity, can foster friendships. Alyssa has anxiety and sensory sensitivity. Anxiety is a condition that involves worry about the future; the brain structures and networks involved in neuro-modulation, with the focus on sensory processing and emotional modulation challenges can be expressed as anxiety. People with anxiety can have full lives with their daily routines, relationships, work and leisure. The neuroscientific elements will be embedded in examples from daily life experiences. Extreme sensory processing patterns and anxiety are known to be related and result from an un-modulated hyper-aroused nervous system. In people with anxiety, this hyper aroused nervous system may significantly affect various aspects of daily life. This chapter will discuss how Alyssa’s hyper aroused nervous system challenges her daily life, with an emphasis on her social participation and relationships. This chapter will help us understand the interrelations between anxiety and sensory processing via the neuroscience lens and how these features affect her friendships.