Your Emotion Brain – "Fight or Flight" Revisited
Here’s a new look at an old idea—The fight or flight response…
Let’s Fight…The Adult Tantrum
If you freak out, you become part of the problem you’re trying to fix. Have you ever listened to someone screaming at a gate agent at the airport and thought, “I wish I were as suave as that guy! He’s the Cary Grant of getting pissed off!”
And how often does the man screaming at the gate agent get what he wants? Rarely, right? What an awful trade off, absolute frenzy for zero benefit.
It’s actually less than zero benefit because the louder we shout, the less people listen. Even though we act like we rule the universe, it pretty much ignores us! When you let someone have it with both barrels, do you get more or less of what you want? Does it make your problem vanish? No it doesn’t. And partly because we alienate and humiliate people who might otherwise be willing to work with us on a solution.
Also, during an adult tantrum, our head fills with buzzing mental static and so it becomes tough to make any sense of what we’re looking at. (Let alone see it from different points of view.) Mental static also clouds our judgment and short circuits our working memory (we can’t even draw on past experience to help deal effectively with your circumstances). Also, if we rant and rave, we foolishly squander our energy and don’t have any left to actually manage the situation effectively.
For some people all it takes is being narrowly beaten to a coveted parking space at the mall to send them careening towards impotent rage and revenge fantasies. And while the situation might not degenerate into fisticuffs, every perceived injustice has the potential to rapidly snowball into bruised outrage and a yelling match with a total stranger.
The breakneck speed with which many people get upset when posting on internet bulletin boards (especially if able to post anonymously) reveals an undercurrent of constant seething frustration.
And, regarding violence, a study conducted in 2006 showed that about four percent of the United States population had lashed out violently in an unwarranted manner at least three times in the year preceding the study. (That’s 36 million acts of violence we can all do without.)
I’ve heard the excuse: “But Steve, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.” Sure, but being a squeaky wheel is very different from throwing your entire bicycle at someone! And if you’re screaming at someone that you’ve got to see again, ouch!
And if it’s your spouse…good luck!
Bottom line: The path to stress, irritation, conflict and regret is paved with adult tantrums.
Let’s Flee…Anger Suppression
Phew…I guess I’m off the hook. I’m part of the emotion-equalized 96%. I definitely haven’t driven my fist into the dry wall, pitched any household items at my kids or even kicked the dog in the last 12 months.
Not so fast! When facing a perceived threat, it’s actually far more common for people to wimp out (flight) than freak out (fight). Most of the time, especially in public, we don’t get overly angry and act out with behaviors likely to get us punched or stuck in jail. Instead we display avoidance behavior and mentally ‘flee the scene’. And while you’re unlikely to be led away in handcuffs if you suppress your annoyance, that doesn’t mean you escaped without an emotional scar.
You risk an explosive release of your pent-up irritation next time you face a situation you find (even mildly) annoying. This pattern is often seen between parents and their naughty offspring. Parents suppress their legitimate feelings of annoyance with “boys will be boys” type platitudes and then exploding with purple faced fury over some minor infraction when they “just can’t take it any more!” When a parent reflects on his or her outburst, a sense of embarrassment or shame can lead to further anger suppression and so the cycle repeats itself ad nauseam.
Suppressing anger can also lead to passive-aggressive behavior (seeking sly revenge rather than confronting people face-to-face.) And a hostile, whiny, bickering existence. In short, you’re not much fun to be around!
It’s clear that neither over- nor under reacting are effective solutions. Both the furious four percent and the rationalizing masses need to learn how to constructively manage and express their emotions.
Emotionally mature people, with the ability to recognize and manage their own emotional state, are able to keep their feelings in check and stick with the plan when, inevitably, setbacks arise. In addition to being cool in a crisis, they're also more able to recognize and accommodate the feelings of other people and, as a result, build strong relationships. All wonderful qualities in those aspiring to leadership.
The key is to keep your emotional responses proportionate to circumstance, neither too muted nor too extreme. And for that we need the involvement of our Think Brain…
The Think Brain (Finally) Gets A Clue…
Once the input from your senses reaches your Thinking Brain—via neural snail mail—it assesses the social context and modulates the Emotional Brain’s response accordingly.
All too often, if your Emotion Brain has freaked you out, nothing’s left for your Think Brain to do but pick up the pieces. Retrospectively backing up your outburst with belated logic: “I lost my cool, why was that? Oh yes, now I think about it…[insert excuse here]”
Similarly, your Think Brain also mentally explains away your vigorous under reactions. This is a skill at which your Think Brain excels—Rationalizations to justify your actions, blame someone else and/or not take responsibility.
As neurologist Antonio Damasio has pointed out, in the aftermath of an emotional explosion (or implosion) when you ask yourself: “What was I thinking?” The answer is, you weren’t, you were feeling…thinking came later.
Because of the super-fast Emotion Brain response followed by the much slower Think Brain response, Dr. Damasio holds the view that we're all primarily "feeling machines who think"
Good Intentions
When you reevaluate your emotions in the light of the Emotion Brain / Think Brain neural circuitry, one fact becomes very clear...If you try to overcome your Emotion Brain (a deeply-ingrained, ultra-rapid-response survival mechanism that developed, quite literally, to save your life) by relying on willpower, good intentions and counting to ten you won’t win.
Unfortunately many of the commonly held views about emotional intelligence and the approaches people use to manage their toxic emotions (such as fear, anger and guilt) are just plain wrong. At best, woefully misguided half truths, myths and “sounds good” pseudo-advice. And, at worst, downright harmful.
If you want to be able to manage your emotions, think straight and act decisively (regardless of who or what is pummeling your hot buttons) then try the Perspective PowerTM approach…
The Perspective PowerTM approach
To stage an intervention in your Emotion Brain—Think Brain system, you have three points of influence. You can…
- Downgrade the overall twitchiness of your Emotion Brain.
- Train your Think Brain to rapidly curtail the duration of an overly-emotional response.
- Ride the surge of adrenaline to productively manage the situation at hand.
Warning: In this section, more than anywhere else, when I say something that sounds really odd, that’s your cue to sit up and pay specific attention. It’s likely that on those occasions what you’re about to learn will move you towards a whole new level of emotional mastery.
When you flex your Perspective PowerTM and target these points of influence you can supercharge your emotional intelligence and respond to a hot button situation with a clear head and measured behavior. When unexpected roadblocks suddenly appear (rather than freaking out or wimping out) you can dilute the frustration that clouds your judgment, chews up your happiness and cripples your success.
However, so you can attain emotional mastery, we need to discuss (at the risk of sounding egotistical) me, myself and I...
