627 - How to Stop Reacting Emotionally

In this episode, we look at how to stop reacting emotionally to tough situations. 

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The Problem

You’ve probably heard before that humans are emotional creatures who make decisions based purely on feeling and then try to justify it afterwards with logic.

This isn’t a new idea, it’s one that I’ve shared on this podcast in the past and it’s one that many others have discussed as well.

This isn’t by accident. There are a few different ways that we process information but things tend to start with the amygdala (or the croc brain as some call it). This is the part of the brain that most if not all species have.

Digging Deeper

Before we can talk about fixing the issue we need to better understand what is going on. As I mentioned earlier, the Amygdala's job is to process information before it gets to the prefrontal cortex.

With that said, when something gets to the Amygdala we aren’t actually make a decision on the information. Afterall, the definition of a decision is

“A conclusion or resolution reached after consideration”

In order to make a decision we need to think about something. That’s not what the Amygdala does.

The Solution

The answer is simply to slow the situation down. We now know that changing the immediate emotional reaction is a tough task. This is because the Amygdala’s job is to create an autonomic response to the information it receives.

So don’t waste any time beating yourself up because you had an immediate negative response to something. Yes, logically you know that it’s not a real issue, but your brain never had a chance to process that. It’s okay.

So since we can’t change that autonomic response, our only choice is to slow down the external situation. This gives us time to push back against the autonomic response and create a better response.