Comfort Zone

When we’re in our comfort zone, brain super highways are at work. These pathways are formed through repeated behaviors and thought patterns, creating a sort of neural ‘autopilot.’ Key areas involved include:

1. The Basal Ganglia: This deep brain structure is crucial for habit formation. It plays a significant role in the development of routines and repetitive behaviors that define our comfort zones.
2. The Amygdala: Our anxiety! Known for its role in processing emotions, the amygdala also contributes to maintaining comfort zones by associating certain behaviors and situations with emotional responses, like safety or fear.
3. The Prefrontal Cortex: While often associated with decision-making and planning, the prefrontal cortex can also reinforce comfort zones by rationalizing the need to stay within familiar boundaries.

Stepping out of a comfort zone involves different areas of the brain, particularly those associated with learning, decision-making, and processing new experiences. These include:

1. 1. The Hippocampus: Central to learning and memory, the hippocampus helps form new memories and learnings, essential for breaking old habits and forming new ones.
   2. The Anterior Cingulate Cortex: This area is involved in cognitive flexibility, allowing us to adapt to new situations and make decisions that go against our habitual patterns.
   3. The Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex: This part of the prefrontal cortex is key in managing high-level executive functions like planning, problem-solving, and overriding habitual responses.

While certain parts of the brain like the basal ganglia and amygdala help maintain our comfort zones through established neural pathways, areas like the hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex are crucial for stepping out of these zones.

​Understanding these brain functions can provide insights into why changing habitual patterns can be challenging and how we can effectively work towards embracing new experiences.

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Different types of Comfort

You have a mental map that guides how you interpret and respond to the world. It’s a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitute a way of viewing reality.

Often, we’re not consciously aware of our maps; they’re like the air we breath – everywhere all the time- that they’re invisible to us.

​1. Emotional Comfort Zone
An emotional comfort zone is where our feelings and emotional responses are predictable and familiar, even if they’re not always positive.

For instance, think about your anxiety. Do you stress over daily tasks, potential future problems, and even hypothetical scenarios? This state of worry, despite being uncomfortable, is becoming your emotional comfort zone.

It’s a space where you feel in control because it’s familiar. IT'S REAL. You will know it's real when you start to worry that you're not worried!

Ways to investigate this comfort zone: 

• Daily Feelings Logging: Each day, jot down key emotions you experience. Use an emotional scale ranging from negative to positive emotions to rate how you feel.
• Trigger Identification: Note what events or interactions trigger these emotions. Are certain situations consistently leading to specific feelings?
• Thoughts: At the end of the week, review your log to identify patterns. Are there predominant emotions that you experience more frequently?
• Reflection on Emotional Responses: Consider why these emotions are recurring. Are they a response to external factors, or are they more internally driven?

Ways to break out: 

• Daily Practice: Begin each day with 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation. Focus on your breath and observe your emotions without judgment.
• Identify: After encountering a stressful situation, write down your feelings and thoughts. This helps in acknowledging and processing emotions.
• Plan: Gradually expose yourself to situations that trigger mild discomfort. For example, if public speaking is a fear, start by speaking in front of a small, friendly group.
• Strategies: Practice deep breathing or visualization techniques when feeling overwhelmed. This helps in managing emotional responses.

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​​2. Conceptual Comfort Zone
A conceptual comfort zone involves clinging to familiar beliefs or values, often without questioning them. Concept is an idea, or the way you look at things.

Maybe you grew up in a family with strong political views. Do you find comfort in these views?  Are they a significant part of your identity and social circle? Sticking to familiar ideas and perspectives, regardless of new information, is a conceptual comfort zone. It’s comfortable because it’s known and doesn't challenge you, but it may limit your understanding of the broader spectrum of ideas and beliefs.

Ways to investigate this comfort zone: 

• Character traits and Personal identity: Write down your core beliefs and ideologies. Include beliefs about yourself, your capabilities, and the world around you.
• Challenge Your Beliefs: For each belief, ask yourself, “Why do I hold this belief? Is it based on facts or assumptions?”
• Adventures: Actively seek out information that challenges your existing beliefs. This could be through books, documentaries, or conversations with people of differing viewpoints.
• Reflect on Cognitive Dissonance: Notice any discomfort when encountering conflicting ideas. This discomfort often indicates areas where your conceptual comfort zone is being challenged.
• Mind Mapping: Create a visual map of your beliefs and how they connect to your thoughts and behaviors. This can reveal how deeply ingrained certain ideas are.

Ways to break out: 

• Learn something new: Each week, dedicate time to read or watch content that challenges your existing beliefs. This could be a book, article, or documentary.
• Engage: Participate in friendly debates on topics outside your usual interest. This exposes you to different perspectives.
• Reflective Writing: After exposing yourself to new ideas, write a reflective piece on what you learned and how it contrasts with your previous beliefs.
• Attend Workshops or Seminars: Enroll in events that focus on topics unfamiliar to you. This broadens your conceptual understanding.
• Revisit Mind Mapping: Create mind maps that connect new ideas to your existing knowledge, helping integrate them into your worldview.

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3. Practical Comfort Zone
Practical comfort zones are about sticking to routines or physical environments that feel safe and predictable. Have you lived in the same house your entire life? Do you take the same route to school, eat the same food, and have the same friends? This routine provides a sense of security and predictability.

However, it also means that you rarely experience anything new, which can limit personal growth and opportunities for new experiences. When you get anxious about change in your physical environment or daily habits, this is a classic example of a practical comfort zone.

Ways to investigate this comfort zone: 

• Routine Tracking: For a week, document your daily routines and habits. Pay special attention to those you do without much thought.
• Physical space notes: Note how you interact with your physical environment. Do you prefer familiar places? How do you react to new environments?
• Comfort tracking: Identify which routines or environments you are reluctant to change. What is the underlying reason for this reluctance?
• Experiment with Change: Introduce small changes in your routine or environment. This could be as simple as rearranging your workspace or trying a new route to work.
• Evaluate Reactions to Change: Reflect on how these changes make you feel. Are you anxious, excited, or indifferent? This reaction is a key indicator of your practical comfort zone.​

Ways to break out: 

• Routine changes: Change one small routine daily. This could be taking a different route to school or trying a new food.
• Try new stuff: Commit to learning a new skill. This could be a language, a craft, or a sport.
• Change your space: Modify your environment regularly. Rearrange or redecorate your room or another space (with permission!).
• Branch out: Make an effort to meet new people or attend different social events. This can broaden your social comfort zone.
• Challenge Week: Designate a week where you commit to trying something new each day. This could range from new foods to new hobbies.

More Research about Leaving your Comfort Zone

• The Relationship between the Physical Activity Environment, Nature Relatedness, Anxiety, and the Psychological Well-being Benefits of Regular Exercisers
• The effect of “green exercise” on state anxiety and the role of exercise duration, intensity, and greenness: A quasi-experimental study
• Lifestyle psychiatry for depression and anxiety: Beyond diet and exercise
• Outdoor play and nature connectedness as potential correlates of internalized mental health symptoms among Canadian adolescents
• Perceived neighbourhood collective efficacy and adolescent health determinants: Investigating outdoor play as a mediator
• ​Adolescent Self-Assessment of an Outdoor Behavioral Health Program: Longitudinal Outcomes and Trajectories of Change
• Exercise for the treatment of anxiety in children and adolescents​
• The effect of physical activity on anxiety in children and young people: a systematic review and meta-analysis