What's up everybody? Last week, we talked about how your anxiety problem is not a body problem. So today, we're going to talk about why it is a cognitive problem. This is Recovery Monday, episode eight. Let's get to it. So let's see who is joining us. Folks are starting to file in when you get in. Let me know that you're here, say hello, let me know that you can hear me okay, everything seems to be working. Good to see you all again. I will put the chat overlay up on the screen so you guys could see each other as you're sending comments and things like that. I will remind everybody that we are doing Recovery Monday, every Monday surprise at two o'clock Eastern Time. Every week we will do another lesson out of this book, The Anxious Truth, my recovery guide, which we're just going to go lesson by lesson, which means we have the better part of the next seven or eight months to do. And we're in chapter two of the book right now. We are heading up toward the new year probably before we finish this one. And today, this is lesson two dot four from the book, it is called this is a cognitive problem. We will walk through that really quick. These are all short chapters, which is good. So they're quick to go through. Who is here? Patty's here. Bessie's here. Bethany's here. What is up, everybody? 25 people will wait for a few more folks to show up. Hopefully these are working for you guys. I'm hoping that they are helpful. I am really, really enjoying doing them. And just a quick reminder, this stays on my YouTube, my Facebook page in my Facebook group, and I will post them to Instagram when we are done. So you can go back and rewatch these anytime you want. They'll always be there. And yeah, so let's see here, Allison is here. Good to see you. Hello, everybody. Let's get into it. So last week on episode seven of recovery Monday, we talked about how this, even though you feel anxiety in your body, that anxiety disorder is not a body problem. Right. So we talked about that last week, you can go back and watch that one if you haven't seen it. And today, we're going to talk about why this is really a cognitive problem. So let me really super simplify it. Like you feel these things in your body, right? You feel anxiety as a threat response that is a physical response, your amygdala sounds the alarm and your body does what it's designed to do. You get all these scary anxiety sensations and scary thoughts that go along with them and the story that you build around them. And you hate them. I hated them too. Everybody hates them. It's okay to hate them. They are scary. We don't like it. And we learn to be afraid of them. So the crux of the matter here and I'm really very specifically addressing panic disorder and agoraphobia here, the things that go along with that. So this isn't directly applicable to OCD. OCD has its own nuances, of course, but also a cognitive problem, although in that, there are some research that says there may be brain differences that contribute for people with OCD, but the treatments are still the same. So you get to the situation where you start to experience these things and you learn to be afraid of them. That's what makes it a cognitive problem. It's not so much what you feel, but how you interpret that and how you learn to be afraid of that. Try and stop it from happening. You never want it to happen again. You wind up on guard and scanning trying to protect against the next occurrence of an anxiety wave or you don't want those thoughts to come back. You certainly don't want to have a panic attack. So you begin to avoid things to try and keep them from happening, right? So the problem here is cognitive because it is how you have interpreted your anxiety and how it feels and how you have interpreted as a danger or a threat in some way. So what winds up happening is it's a threat response triggered at the wrong time and then the threat response itself becomes the threat. Now one of the cool explanations that I've heard about for this are people who will say, and I kind of believe this, this makes sense to me. Like, well, when this starts to happen, we will look for a threat because these are these are threat alarms, right? Something is up. I'm in danger. Excuse me, I have to respond to something. I have to respond to some threat. And so we look for that threat and when we can't find it and we can't solve it, we can't see the threat, we can't fix the threat, it persists. We become the threat. The threat response itself becomes the threat. And that's why we say it in the end, these things are really, the problem is that you have learned to be afraid of being afraid.  And yes, so then you wind up, you know, learning to be afraid of being afraid. That is what makes this a cognitive problem. So no matter how many times you want to focus on the physical things, yes, but what if I have this symptom or what if I have bathroom problems or tummy problems or what if I'm dizzy or what if I feel like I can't breathe or what if it's my heart or what if I feel like I'm going to go crazy. In the end, it always comes back to what those things never actually happen. The only thing that happens is that you have the thoughts and the sensations and you are afraid of them and they make you really uncomfortable and they make you feel unsafe. And so you learn to interpret those as dangerous and then you learn to be afraid of them. So that is what makes this a cognitive problem, a problem of interpretation and learning. And in the end, what I like to say and it's a simplification, of course, don't get me wrong, there are nuances here, but I always like to say this is really a matter of your brain having learned some wrong lessons and then reinforcing those bad brain habits. So I think I've written about it in such a way like if you are put yourself back in class, right, put yourself back in high school or college and you're taking your class and you have to take an exam and you get some things wrong on the exam, but the professor or the teacher marks them right. You would think that you got them right and then you would live the rest of your life until somebody corrects that acting on that, like as if this was correct. So if somebody when you were six years old told you that four plus four equals 11 and you were told that that was right, you would believe that it would be 11 and you might act accordingly and then all kinds of weird wonky things would happen in your life because you have that wrong until you were taught otherwise or reality showed you otherwise. That is a gross ovular oversimplification. Don't get me wrong. I'm not minimizing the impact of anxiety and panic and fear at all. Excuse me, but really and truly that is what's going on here. Your brain learned some wrong lessons initially based on those first experiences. We'll talk about it in the comments in a minute. We'll get to that in just a few minutes. And then you have reinforced those bad those wrong lessons and just built some really bad brain habits.  They just make you uncomfortable and you've learned to be afraid of them. And when we are afraid of something, we almost guarantee that it will happen again. Right. So if you are afraid of somebody is threatening to cause you physical harm and they're stalking you around, you would naturally always be on guard and be on the lookout for that person because that preserve person presents a real actual danger to you and that nobody would wonder about that. Right. And you would be looking for that and you'd be a little bit nervous on edge waiting for him to jump out and do something bad. Well, the same thing happens here. Like when you learn to be afraid of your own body and feel that this should never happen and you can't handle these things, then you are always scanning and waiting for the boogie man to jump out the boogie man being anxiety or panic or the scary thoughts that you have. And you're worried that they're going to happen. And when you're worried that they're going to happen, you are almost guaranteeing that they're going to happen because we create them. We don't choose them. It's so important for me to say that that we do not choose them. This isn't a choice like you didn't bring this on yourself, but we make them. And so if we're trying to not make them, we wind up almost guaranteeing that we make those symptoms.   So that's why this is a cognitive problem. You've learned to to treat it as a danger and a threat.  Like you see a threat, you perceive it as such, you decide this is all dangerous, and then you become afraid of that threat and always on the lookout for it. So Danny's here from Australia. What up Australia? So yeah, that's that's what this is. That's why this is a cognitive problem.  I'm just not gonna I could read them, but I use a bunch of examples on here, how you were taught to fear, how you feel. We're also I talked about what agoraphobia is and how learning to be afraid of them leads to agoraphobia. I did a podcast episode on that. So if you are agoraphobic, that mechanism is directly a result of the cognitive nature of this.  You learn to be on guard for those situations that trigger that.  So you begin to avoid avoid avoid out of that fear that you have learned in those habits that you have built and slowly but surely you will get smaller and smaller and that's how panic disorder panic attack panic disorder avoid avoid avoid agoraphobia. So that that's how that works. So that's it that is a short explanation of what that mechanism is. I know you guys have probably all heard this before that's nothing new if you guys have been following me along. It's all new. It's nothing there is new if you are new welcome. I know these might be new concepts for you. If in fact they are new concepts for you. This is where you can get that I will put this up on the screen the book that we're talking about is here my pointing skills went to pot again. So we're nine minutes and 30 seconds into it. Let's look at some comments and we will answer some questions and let's see what we got. So we'll scroll up to the top. Good good out turnout here. The crowds are getting larger and larger every week and I appreciate that. Let's see here. What up Sam all you cool cats and kittens. Alison is here blah blah blah how goes it if anybody has any questions feel free to throw them out there and I'll try to answer them as best as I can. Okay let's see here. Very good. Let's put Sam's comment Sam is killing it by the way. Great job brother you're really doing a great job. I got diagnosed with some mundane disease. Okay that's I appreciate your humor on that but maybe it's not so Monday and your brain interpreted the information that I was dying from something that I wasn't that's exactly how that works. See the cognitive nature of that.  So let me take a second to I talk about magnification and distortion all the time part of the cognitive thing is that your brain will take that threat and only does it see a threat but it will magnify and twist it so that it really doesn't bear a whole lot of resemblance to reality anymore. And for people who are dealing with like I don't want to get into a big thing here but if you're dealing with COVID anxiety or vaccine anxiety that's a perfect example of the magnification and the distortion where you hear a possibility that you might get COVID-19 and yes people do and yes people do get sick and people die that's true and then you take that to almost certain death you know and that's not that's not reality. Same thing with the vaccine yes there could be side effects for some people nobody's arguing that but it's a very small percentage but your brain will will say it's certain for you if it's not zero percent it's intolerable. So the distortion and the magnification is a big part of that cognitive process and that's not a body process.  So there you go. Let's see here. Bessie says always like to see Bessie always good stuff. I got my cholesterol checked a while ago and was convinced that death was near. This is so common. It is so so common. So thank you for sharing that that's that magnification and distort distortion thing. Tony wants to know how do we stop the scanning. I'm sorry I got to keep clear in my throat at least I can mute the mic if I catch it in time. How do we stop the scan. Well so stopping the scanning is hard like so you have learned that you must scan to be safe right. So you see a threat and therefore you must scan for it. The only way to stop the scanning is you have to allow the threat to happen right. So I can scan against this but it's not really helping me it's making things worse. So I'm going to have to allow it. The scanning isn't stopping at the scan is actually creating it. So I'm just going to have to let whatever happens happens because the way out of this is also a cognitive process when the experience that you have teaches you that you are afraid and uncomfortable and thought you were going to die but never do and the bad thing never happens.  But the difficult thing about the stopping the scanning is you just have to do it which means you are dropping your defenses. That's really hard and it requires you to do brave things and really hard things. So we have to acknowledge that you have to be nice to yourself when you do that but Tony the question unfortunately is that that's how you do it. You have to stop trying to defend against it and allow it. Which is the exact opposite of what your lizard brain wants to do. Oh speaking of lizard brain I'm going to ask you guys a question and just throw it up there without thinking about it.  This just came up in a conversation before the live stream.  I don't think I assign it a gender a gender not agenda.  And I'm so curious to see how this is going to turn out. I think I know how it's going to turn out.  Michelle says this is super common again cognitive thing. I look for it. I don't if I don't have anxiety I look for it. That's not your body. Oh this is fascinating to me. Look at this female female we're going to go over this male male male. Mine is a caveman says Courtney. These are good. I can't wait to get to those. Let me answer a few more questions while you guys are doing that and then we'll go over it. Hopefully Hillary's in watching. Let's see here. How do you tackle changing a new symptoms after you start to get a handle? Okay. It's a good question. I'll put it up and I'll take it really quick. So the reason why we never address specific symptoms is that you are never trying to learn how to handle a symptom. Right.  That's true because the practice the symptom that you're allowing or willfully tolerating whatever you're like surrendering to whatever your terminology is whichever symptom you're working on at the time is that one. So practically yes you are working on that one. But what you really care about is the fact that you handled a scary thing. Not that scary thing a scary thing. So we're never trying to learn how to deal with or handle one specific symptom. We're learning the lesson of facing fear. Now that particular symptom at the moment that's scary for you is the trigger for that fear but it's the fear that matters. So I am handling discomfort. I am handling fear. I'm handling uncertainty. I'm feeling I'm handling the fear of being unsafe. So whether that comes in the form of a disturbing thought or rapid heartbeat or what or jelly legs. It doesn't matter. The principle is the same. So when you understand the principles of recovery did a podcast episode on that. Are you looking for solutions? Are you looking for recovery instructions? Or are you learning recovery principles that will matter when you when you work on the principles then it doesn't matter if a new symptom comes up. It's annoying and not pleasant. Don't get me wrong. But you don't have to learn how to handle a new symptom. It's all the same. All right. So that's the answer to that question. I'm going to keep going here. Make your world. Yes, Courtney, it can make your world very, very small, very quickly. It's it's nasty. Let's see here. This video is just time for some today. Lots of cognitive posts and confusion about what is yes, what is even wrong. Thank you, Danny. I'm going to put some on the screen. Danny is the queen of it's just a thought. I don't know anybody more more dedicated to the idea that a thought is just a thought than Miss Danny right here. And she's correct. So what she's talking about is many people will come into the community and they are desperate to try to figure out. I have to figure out what this thought means. I have to figure out what the symptom means. I have to figure out, figure out, solve, find out. Somebody said the other day I have to find a way I try everything I can to settle it down. That's that's actually not correct. Like that's giving it more power than it needs to be. So we never have to figure this out. We have to learn how to move through it, whatever form it happens to take. All right. Let's see here. Okay, Allison says I'll take a few of these and I want to get to see what what your answer is on the lizard brain. I saw them scrolling by. I've reached the gauraphobia stage. New for me is not wanting to be alone during the day. I have done a podcast episode on that it is called monophobia and it is a very common part of the anxiety panic agoraphobia complex. People that we get to the point where they develop agoraphobia very often become afraid to stay home alone. So while your home might be your safe place, it is not a safe place. If you are left there alone. That is because you think you need to be saved when you have anxiety or panic, you need to be saved. And if there's no one to save you, what will happen? That's all that is. It's not a special new thing. It's just another expression of the same fear. So if you go to my website, the anxious truth.com and search for monophobia, you will find that episode and it explains that. Let's see here. Will I believe believe that it's just anxiety? And will I recover? Yes, you absolutely will. Will I believe that it's all just anxiety? The day you recover? First of all, recovery doesn't happen on a day. You don't wake up and it's like, oh, I'm recovered. It's a slow process.  It's weird the way it works that way. It's not a revelation. So trust me on this, guys, if you're looking for a light bulb moment and you will have them along the way where there are moments where you gain a greater depth of understanding of the concepts and how to apply them. But there is no recovery light bulb moment where you suddenly discover I'm recovered. I wish it just doesn't happen that way. But one day you will discover that you are treating anxiety differently. You are not treating it as if it's dangerous anymore. And yes, that means that you learned that this is anxiety. And part of that recovery process is it restores our ability to differentiate between what is a real danger and what is a possible danger. So right now, if you're in the thick of it, every possible danger feels like a real danger. But when you get to the near the end of that road and you get back to a more normal place, you absolutely get to that point where it's Hey, you know, you, you will begin to differentiate and understand this is again, this is another panic attack like the other 10,000 that I've had versus Oh, no, something is really wrong. You'll know the difference you'll you'll regain the ability. Sorry, guys, you will regain the ability to know the difference. That's a big deal. Let's see. Just saying hi. Hey, Amanda, what's up? Sam asks a good question, then I'm going to scroll down to the lizard brain questions, and then we're going to wrap it up because I want to hold this one under 30 minutes. How do you navigate recovery when dealing depression with your symptoms?  So I'm really very sorry that you're dealing with that. Understand that being sad or unmotivated or feeling low or disheartened doesn't necessarily mean depression. So it's important to understand that depression as very specific, very specific definitions that we would go by before you would say that you were really depressed. So a lot of people get twisted into that thing where it's like, well, if I feel low or I feel disappointed or my mood is down, that's depression not necessarily. So think of that. But also the best advice I can give you with that is you have to keep moving forward. Like depression is all about challenging and activating. So when you get when you feel like your mood is down and low or you feel like you might be depressed over your symptoms and your anxiety, you have to keep moving forward. Always keep moving. Even if there are small things on any given day, it's all about maintaining the motion even when you don't want to. And that that's kind of the general that's I can't give you like specific depression advice here. But in general, that's what you're looking at. Okay. Hopefully that helps. Let's see here. This is also excellent. I'm going to put this up on the screen. You guys are killing it today. You're on fire. When I'm already anxious, certain thoughts latch you latch on to more easily and they become more believable to you. That is a huge concept when we are already anxious, or we are under periods of heavy load, whether it's emotional load, you're very welcome, Sam. So whether it is an emotional load, or there's financial problems, career problems, relationship problems, when we are under stress and all humans are are subject to that, our sense of resiliency drops a little bit, and it does become a little bit easier for us to get tricked again and start following thoughts and fall into all habits. That is very, very, very common. So don't feel bad about that everybody has that right everybody has that. When we are under stress, or we are already anxious, we are more likely to go down that rabbit hole. But that's okay, we can always remember what we've learned and we can we can pick back up and start to do the right things again and everything will pass. That's, that's everything will pass. That's the way it goes. So let's I can't see them all I'm going to try and scroll down to the bottom here. I love how you guys are sharing these these little things. I saw diverticulitis Lizzie saying she has high prolactin I was convinced to kill me. That's that crazy distortion of magnification sucks, doesn't it? Right? So let's see here. Okay, this is a good one. Let me put this up Amanda is bringing this up because this is also really common. Similar situation someone shares their anxiety story which is much more severe and you start to think what if that happens. So that's also really common. That is that thing where you will easily latch onto thoughts, especially in periods where your resilience is a little bit worn down by stress, we're already in a period of high anxiety. Maybe there's some depression going on you become more susceptible to that kind of thinking. The same thing would hold true for people with health anxiety. So you might worry that somebody is in a very anxious state and you'll worry that it's going to that'll happen to you again.  And boom, they will immediately latch on to I might have that. So that's also very common. But I'll be honest with you, that's just a human nature. So when we watch scary movies or sad movies, we put ourselves in those positions. That is what human beings do, like we enjoy sad movies and dramatic movies and scary movies, because we put ourselves in those positions. So think about that. If you like watching really tearjerker movies or serious dramas, and you can feel the pain, the struggle of those characters, you identify with them, you put yourself in those situations. That's what draws us to those stories or scary stories or almost every bit of fiction and storytelling is based on that premise. Well, that's that that thing that we do just gone awry. So consider that for a second, right? That that's a part of human nature is to put yourself in the position of others, we can sympathize and empathize. And sometimes it's a good thing for us. Sometimes it gets a little out of control. Good job, Patty on the skipped heart beats. Very good. Let me put this up for sale quick. And then I really want to see what everybody said about. Okay, the lizard brain stuff is coming up next. All right, this is pretty common. Also, I will address that. I will tell you that for many years, as I started doing this thing that I do, I have was a technology guy and I still own legacy technology businesses that are kind of phasing out. But I was required to remember a ton of stuff, passwords, commands, what the layout of very large networks that would span multiple countries and continents, like that's what I did. That's what my business is. In the midst of the worst anxiety, I could remember nothing, nothing. And it was so distressing to me because it made me feel like I had lost myself. I could not remember passwords. I could not remember commands. I could not manipulate wide area networks on the fly. I couldn't do that. I would have to write things down, which was so difficult for me because I never have to write anything down. And as it turns out, when I got better, all of that stuff was still in there and it was I was able to access it again. So Sarah, I understand that. And it's really common that oftentimes your memory does suffer, especially short term memory when when you're in the thick of anxiety. Some people will say that's a cognitive load thing. If you're entirely focused all the time on how you feel and staying safe and how do I feel now and am I anxious? Am I getting better? Oh my God, there's no room for the other stuff. There's literally no room. We have a limited capacity to process multiple things at one time. And anxiety eats up all of the cycles. But when you get better, that will come back, right? I promise it's not a permanent thing. And it does not indicate that you are somehow experiencing dementia or Alzheimer's or something like that. It doesn't. It's just a common part of being anxious is our short term memory begins to like get really nasty. And it's frustrating. So let's see here. We got male, male, female, female, female, Sam binary. Okay, you know, some people wouldn't assign a sex. I have to look. I have to look. I think I always just say your lizard brain. And I say it not because I'm trying to be, you know, correct or inclusive. I love to be inclusive. I'm welcome everybody. But I'm not trying to I just don't see I never use a gender pronoun with with lizard brain. Although my answer is I think my gut tells me it's male knew, right? So I'm really curious to see the difference here. Male female so mixed. I see women saying male and men saying female so interesting minds of cave man is great. Bessie named her lizard brain Vicky love it. Very good. Male, male, very good. I dig this. I thought it was going to be he's a man says Laura. And he's so annoying. Oh, come on. I got to put this on the screen really, really is a tough room. This is what you're going to bring us today, Laura. He's a man so annoying just like men. All right, I'll take that. I'll take that on behalf of all the men. That's fine. Tell Vicky female so interesting, right? How this all shakes out. Maybe the lizard is trans into couldn't you never know? It's very possible, right? What does Sam say about your lizard brain? So fascinating to see how we visualize these things, right? The lizard brain is a nine year old me. All right. Damn, dude, you're getting deep on us. That's pretty good. Male, male, I don't apply to my genders to the lizard brain. It's funny. I never write a gender or speak a gender, but I just think male. Bethany sees male too. I don't think of myself having a lizard in my brain. So I don't think it. Maybe you do. Maybe you do a lizard in your brain. How do we stop BFRBs? So Lizzie, I'm by no means an expert on BFRBs. BFRB stands for body focus, repetitive behavior. That's like Kimberly Quinlan. You know, you guys see me with Kim all the time. She's really, really well versed in BFRBs. How do we stop them when anxiety sensations are high? I know that there are different techniques that are used for BFRBs. And again, I'm just giving you literally the hundred thousand foot view. I am by no means well versed in this at all. But habit breaking, there are certain habit breaking therapies and exercises that are used, I think, for BFRBs. You have to really check out what Kim has got going on with BFRBs. But there are exercise designed literally to break habits and replace those habits with other things. If I'm remembering correctly, don't take that to the bank. But BFRBs are generally treated with that sort of thing. So you're replacing those have those habitual things with other behaviors. So there you go. Excessive saliva in your mouth. It is annoying, but it's not dangerous. And part of the problem is thinking that it's a special thing. And it's look, it's disruptive. It's annoying. It's it's all of those things I get that. But it's not a special thing. Right. So it's just yes, swallow. What are you going to do?  Some people have a more watery mouth when they get anxious. Odds are you are feeling that whether it's dryness or extra saliva more than it really exists because of that heightened sense of sensitivity. You just have to work through it.  Right. Carol just got my book. Thank you, Carol. I hope it's helpful for you. No, no, no, no. Let's see. Aaron says I'm going to wrap it up here because we're going to hit 30 minutes. Anyway, I can't get past it. These are all going to be this is I'm not even going to try and keep it short anymore. Countless books on panic disorder and anxiety. I know what I have to do. Okay, Aaron, I'll probably wrap it up here with this. Here's a question for you. I've read countless books on panic disorder and anxiety. Okay, psycho education is a wonderful thing. I know what I have to do but the fear of the fear is still there. The question is, are you doing it? Right. So the question is, are you doing it? I will always remind all of you that these videos, my podcast, the recovery room, my books, Josh's books and Kim's books and Dean's books, like all of the things that we talk about and that are in this little community that we have. Those are all great like learning the theory psycho education is super important, especially in the beginning. But in the end, this is about doing. So reading all the books and listening to all the podcasts and watching all the videos are great. You know what you have to do, but are you doing it on a consistent basis? That is usually the answer to that question is I know what I have to do. The fear is still there. So I don't really do it consistently. I do it hit and run. I do it reluctantly every once in a while. If I have to do a thing, I'll do it. And somehow or other, it's not working. And that's why we have to have constant action consistently incrementally systematically. And I know that's really hard. I know that's a big ask. But that's that's what that is. What am I to do? You are to act. And even when you don't want to because it is scary. All right. So so there you go. Thank you, Sam. By the way, you mentioned this in the group and I appreciate that. I absolutely appreciate that that you bought books for people. That's great. A non anxiety podcast. I so I'll put this up every once in a while. I do it. My friend Mia Voss and I think Mia is here. She's in her she's probably on her patio of peace right now.  So I do sometimes do non anxiety podcasts.  It's a lot of fun. Alright guys, I think we're good. I would love to take all of these but I'm never going to catch up. I'll be here for another 10 minutes if I do. But I appreciate you guys coming by. So just a quick reminder, I will put this up on the screen. I'm going to get rid of the chat overlay at this point. We will wrap it up with like all kinds of technical wizardry here. So I will remind you again, we do this every Monday at two o'clock Eastern time New York time. All of these things are a lesson right out of this book. So if you would like to follow along, you do not have the book ready. You can go get the book right here on my website. That's the URL. All the links are there. Stay tuned in the next couple of days. I am probably going to do a special on the Kindle version of the book. So if you want to hold off for a day or two, I will announce that we're going to drop the price of the Kindle version of the book. And I think I'm going to do an audio book special also for Black Friday or whatever you want to call it, where you get the book from another place not audible. If you don't have the audio book, you can get it from awesome.  But if you want to follow along with the book you need to have it, this is where you go get it. And I will see you guys next week at the same time. This will stay on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram all the places, comment, ask questions. I'll do my best to answer them. Appreciate you coming by and I guess I'll see you next week. I'll see you sometime this week we're going to do recovery room. Don't know when, but I'll see you back here again next Monday. If I don't see you have a great Thanksgiving you're from the US and I'll see you again.


This paper discusses the process of creating a computer ontology for a particular subject area, as taught to engineering students. It presents a set of concepts and relationships between those concepts, along with criteria for selecting appropriate software architectures and tools for developing the ontology. Additionally, it proposes an algorithm for designing the ontology, based on existing computer ontology systems. This article was authored by Ivan M. Sitalo, Hryhorie I. V. Tereshchuk, Suri V. Kozobroda, and others.