Last week we talked about the limbic brain. Everyone has one, but a lot of people don’t realize they do. They have no idea that the amygdala, a part of our brain not much bigger than an almond, governs our fight or flight response. It secretes hormones that can compel us to action before our rational brain (the pre-frontal cortex) is even aware of what’s going on.
The amygdala can get your body moving in microseconds, jerking your hand away from the hot stove or telling you to jump out of the way of the insane Uber driver. The amygdala don’t need no stinking decision time. It just acts.
When you’re dodging hot stoves and bad Uber drivers, instant reaction is great. But when your big boss walks into your team meeting unannounced and you freeze mid-sentence, that’s your amygdala doing you a disservice. Your amygdala can’t distinguish between physical danger, career limiting distress and useless irrational fear. It treats everything the same way.
You can’t remove your amygdala from your brain. Your amygdala may always give you a frisson of anxiety when the big boss walks into the room. Some researchers say these physical reactions occur in .003 seconds, which doesn’t give you any time to keep them from happening. But you can learn to recognize your amygdala in action and tell it to stand down. How? Two things.
First, you develop awareness. You observe yourself. Beginners write a few notes in a journal every night to review the day. “Wow, I really got freaked out at Ted this morning. I wonder why that happened. Let me think about that a bit.” As you build your self-observation skill, the gap between action and awareness decreases. “Wow, I really got freaked out by Ted in the meeting we were in just now. I wonder why that happened. I have another call with him this afternoon, I’ll think on that so I’m more grounded when we speak again.” Finally, the people with the best self-observation skills (this is rare) have the capacity to observe themselves in real time. “Wow, Ted is really freaking me out right now. I can feel my heart racing. I’d better take a few breaths to ground myself so I don’t over-react when I answer him.”
Awareness is half the battle. The other half is governing your behavior. You learn to take a pause. Your heart may be racing, you may want to throttle Ted and scream, but you pause, breathe, and calm yourself down before you open your mouth. Building the capacity to take a pause is a herculean development challenge. Meditation really helps here. It’s the best brain training there is.
Building awareness and the capacity to take a pause are skills you develop in tiny, almost indiscernible increments over months and years. There’s no shortcut. But the rewards of not being pushed around by a tiny almond-sized tyrant in your brain are amazing.
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