Your Amazing Brain

When it comes to understanding the way you think, feel and behave, it is useful to have an awareness of how your brain works. This is because your brain is central to the way you

• sense your internal and external world;

• interpret this information; and

• respond to the situations you find yourself in.

Your brain is a highly complex and networked organ, and we don’t yet fully understand how it works. However, it can help to focus on two distinct but interconnected areas within the brain when trying to understand yourself: the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. These two areas have very different styles of processing information and very different job descriptions. Both are vital to your emotional and physical wellbeing.

Your amygdala

Let’s turn our attention to your amygdala first. This almond-shaped area, located deep within your brain, is often referred to as the fear or alarm centre.

It has an instinctive drive to meet the physical and emotional needs that are essential to your survival, such as:

• keeping your body comfortable – fed and watered, warm and sheltered;

• protecting yourself from harm;

• seeking a sense of emotional security;

• making sure you belong to the group (there is safety in numbers).

When these needs are not met, it will raise an alarm, generating a response designed to move you away from danger and towards safety. This happens largely below conscious awareness via your autonomic (or automatic) nervous system.

Whilst your amygdala may be small in size, it is mighty in strength. It selectively scans for threat so that you can react quickly to danger. This may be danger that you sense around you – for example, when approached by someone you do not trust. Or it may be danger that you sense internally, in the form of bodily sensations of pain or discomfort.

Your amygdala reacts to situations in a pre-programmed way. When it perceives danger, it will trigger a threat response, releasing stress hormones into your body and putting you into fight or flight mode – or, in more extreme situations, freeze mode. In its attempt to keep you safe, your amygdala will steer you towards paranoid or catastrophic thinking, making you fear the worst. You are likely to jump to opinions and act impulsively.

Unfortunately, your amygdala cannot differentiate between your memories of past experiences and the things that you are sensing now. This means you can perceive threat where there is none – when the threat, in fact, belongs to the past. So, whilst your amygdala can be your best friend, keeping you safe, it can also be your worst enemy, making you more reactive than you need to be.

Your amygdala likes to have clear rules to follow – again, usually below conscious awareness. These ‘unspoken’ rules lead you to polarised thinking – seeing things in terms of right and wrong, good and bad – with little room to navigate the ambiguities that are an inherent part of the life. They drive the ‘language’ of your amygdala: 

I must …

I should …

I ought to …

I’ve got to …

He/ she/ they must …

He/ she/ should

Etc.

When your unspoken rules are broken and situations don’t turn out the way you feel they ‘ought to’, your amygdala will generate a stress response. Amygdala thinking can keep you stuck in a position of shame or blame. This, in turn, will have an impact on your body physiology, and can make your unspoken rules a source of self-induced stress.

Some people find it helpful to imagine the amygdala to be like an outdoor security light, helping to light the way and to alert you to an intruder. If set too sensitively, this light will be triggered by the smallest of animal passing by. Similarly, if your amygdala becomes programmed too sensitively, you can find yourself overreacting to what you are sensing in and around your body.

The pre-programmed protective thinking that is generated by your amygdala will depend on:

• learned behaviours from your past experiences

• your ‘unspoken rules’

• your general level of sensitivity

Your prefrontal cortex

Your prefrontal cortex, sitting at the front of your brain, has a very different quality of thinking. It has a calming influence on your amygdala, enabling you to take a step back from situations so that you can:

• challenge the unspoken rules you may hold; and

• gain a more balanced perspective.

Your prefrontal cortex is able to first gather the evidence in any given situation, and then draw conclusions from what it discovers. Compare this with your amygdala, which will go into a situation with pre-determined conclusions about the way the world works and seek evidence to fit this conclusion, deleting or ignoring the evidence that doesn’t.

This makes the thinking from your prefrontal cortex more reasoned and logical. It enables to you to:

• plan and problem-solve:

• take the long-term view;

• learn from situations; and

• take responsibility for your actions.

The language of your prefrontal cortex is:

I choose to …

These are words that most people find more expansive and empowering than the words of the amygdala.

Awareness is key

So, as you can see, these two different parts of your brain play very different roles – both equally important. Whilst your amygdala is essential to your survival, your prefrontal cortex enables curiosity and understanding. When they work together as a team you can combine the protection of your amygdala with the measured perspective of your prefrontal cortex. But this requires awareness of the kind of thinking you are doing in any given moment – awareness that can be gained by asking yourself:

What kind of thinking am I doing in this moment?

Is this my amygdala or my prefrontal cortex speaking?

What follows is an activity taken from Coming to Calm that adds some fun and creativity to bringing awareness to these two different parts of your brain.

Activity: Choose a Metaphor

Take a moment to reflect on the different quality of thinking that arises from your prefrontal cortex and from your amygdala.

Now choose a character to represent each. This could be anything from an animal to a person or a cartoon character.

Examples that others have chosen to represent their amygdala:

• Tasmanian Devil

• Cornered Mouse

And their prefrontal cortex:

• Dumbledore (from Harry Potter)

• Wise Owl

  
  

Having your own metaphors for these very different kinds of thinking can bring a light-hearted awareness to your experience, which can be particularly helpful in moments of difficulty. In these moments you can invite a conversation between your two characters*:

1.    First, give voice to your amygdala’s fears, sadness or anger. Acknowledge what it has to say.

After all, it is only trying to keep you safe.

2.    Then, bring the wisdom of your prefrontal cortex to the table.

Here’s an example from an inner conversation from someone who had been struggling at work. He let his amygdala have its say and let off steam and then his prefrontal cortex was then able to share its wise perspective:

OK Cornered Mouse. I hear you!

I know you think I’m going to lose my job.

I know you’re just trying to protect me.

But it’s OK.

Wise Owl will tell you that mistakes get made. After all, I’m only human.

This was a mistake I can learn from.

And I know that I’m valued and respected here.

Not only did this help to settle his amygdala, but it brought a little humour to a very challenging situation.

How about you?

What would your characters be?

Once you’ve discovered them, you might want have fun finding or creating images for them. These images can serve as a reminder to bring awareness to the kind of thinking that you might be doing in any given moment.

You can learn more about the Coming to Calm by:

• purchasing the Coming to Calm video course

• joining a group live online Coming to Calm course

You can learn about other mindful tools for everyday life that The Listening Space has to offer by:

• buying my book

• joining a group live Listening Space course 

  
  

  Illustrations by Lucy Monkman https://www.facebook.com/lucymonkmanillustration/

  
  

  * Informed by Internal Family Systems and Voice Dialogue approaches