The Science behind Reaction vs Response: Are you even using your brain?

The Science behind Reaction vs Response: Are you even using your brain?

One of the most repetitive and profound pieces of advice most of us have gotten right from childhood is to think before we say or do anything. And the simple reason cited for it is that we will save ourselves from making a mistake this way. How true is that? Does it carry any value? Can it be that when we are engaging in such reactive behaviour, we are not using our brains? New scientific research suggests to us that we are indeed not utilising our brains. 

One thing we all agree is that we have committed many mistakes in our lifetime. Even in simple situations, we may not have applied our brains. And we understand this and may have regrets too. However, when faced with a challenging situation yet again, our normal behaviour is once more of being reactive. Do you agree?

       Think about scenarios such as –

1.      Issues and fights you had with your boss or office colleagues
2.      Small issues with your spouse
3.      Sarcastic remarks from your friends
4.      Issues with your family
5.      Issues with a stranger

What is the first behaviour we display in any of the above situations? For most, it’s reactive in nature, and usually without thinking we may end up saying, or doing something which will create further issues.  Once we do this, and then may come either guilt, or a corrective action. But it may be too late, and the damage may have been done, or the relationship might end, or the pain may be inflected, or the opportunity may be lost. 

You will surely agree that apart from whatever situation may have caused the above issues, it got further aggravated or went out of proportion because someone reacted without even thinking properly. Reaction was the reason behind the behaviour, which was not acceptable. And it’s not only with individuals but also with large corporations, governments too.

If you remember the words of Viktor Frankl,  Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor, he put it very beautifully “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” What Viktor Frankl was trying to say is that before we react, we must think, analyse, be aware and then choose our actions of responding and not of reacting.

So let’s see the science behind this and what happens in our brain when we choose to react and respond. Here I would like to cite two concrete areas of research, which have come in the field of neuroscience, giving us a very clear understanding of the topic. 

1.      Fight - Flight response

The most recent research tells us that in a single second, our brain processes more than 400 billion bits of information and we are only aware of around 2000 bits of them. These are mostly with respect to our body, time and environment. The Fight-Flight response is a mechanism of our brain which gets activated when we face a challenging situation. For example – if one is crossing a road in jungle and sees a tiger coming out, what will be one’s reaction? Either the person will try to fight it or simply run from there. During this event, our sympathetic nervous system gets activated. This helps the body to prepare for fight or flight by releasing adrenalin, increasing heart and breathing rates, increasing blood supply to muscles, and enhancing reflexes, amongst many more activities. All this happens even without our conscious awareness. Now this is a very useful process that our body has, but the real issue comes when after getting activated, it stays like this for days and weeks. This is now a cause for alarm. The human body is not meant to stay like this. It’s meant to be in peace and harmony which is the other process known as activation of Para-Sympathetic nervous system. This is when body heals itself.

Today so many of us perceive every situation as a fight or flight, resulting in our losing our calm even for small issues like someone cutting us off in traffic or a co-worker making a critical remark. We get angered by some words which we don’t want to hear, and in extreme cases, we are even ready to kill someone just on a small provocation. This is what happens when we are reacting. We are just in a rush to counter the other person and this happens because the brain is functioning differently.  This is when our emotional brain is active which is also known as the Limbic System. 

2.      Short and Long Route

Out of our three major brains, the Limbic Brain is known to be the emotional brain. One of the major structures of the Limbic Brain is a part called as Amygdala which is for decoding emotions and in particular, stimuli that are threatening to organisms. Many of our brain alarm circuits are grouped together in Amygdala.  

 

The Amygdala is involved in several functions of the body including:

1.      Arousal

2.      Autonomic Responses Associated with Fear

3.      Emotional Responses

4.      Hormonal Secretions

5.      Memory

Now let’s look at an example of when somebody plays pranks on us. What happens? We instantly react and later discover that it was a prank. We end up feeling like fool. But why does this happen?

The Amygdala is able to process sensory information and initiate behaviour responses before the information reaches the brain which is involved in awareness and thinking, namely the Prefrontal Cortex. The Neocortex is the most advanced brain we have which is on the front top of your head. Prefrontal cortex is a part of the Neocortex.   

The Amygdala, which controls our behaviour, gets sensory information from two sources, namely the short and long route.  Like all sensory information, the message first comes to the Thalamus. The Thalamus is involved in sensory functions and regulation of motor functions.

In the short route, the information from the Thalamus is directly sent to the Amygdala by-passing the Cortex. This produces a fast reaction to the situation, but it may not be the correct one.

In the long route, the information travels from the Thalamus through the Cortex (visual, auditory, prefrontal cortex) and then to the Amygdala. The Cortexes are responsible for evaluating a situation, assigning a meaning to it. If the meaning is threatening, then the Amygdala is informed to make an appropriate response. This long route is what gives us the ability to understand and respond, instead of reacting. If you notice the above, we give meaning to the situation and based on that meaning, the reaction or response comes. Giving meaning is under our control in the first place even before the Amygdala gets into action.

The freedom Viktor Frankl refers to in his quote, is following the long route which uses the brain responsibly for thinking and choosing.            

The Amygdala also gets input from the medial prefrontal cortex, which is involved in the planning phase of the response, after the initial reactions has been done and one has to choose the best way out of the danger. The Amygdala is fully developed at the time of birth but the prefrontal cortex gets fully developed only till early adulthood. Because of this, children and adolescents do not always make rational choices. This is true in many adults too. 

So now we understand that whenever we are reacting instantly to any situation, we are not using our thinking brain, the brain which is responsible for us to make choices with awareness. If you observe closely, you will find that so many of us live this way and end up creating chaos, fight, violence and pain. Whereas, if we choose to take time to respond, so many of our issues will be resolved, and may in fact not even arise.

Given below are a few suggestions we can use to make sure that we are always in control and responding with awareness –

1.     Practice meditation even if it’s as simple as reflecting back on the day’s events or past events from    a non-judgmental attitude. 
2. Meditation can also be of mindfulness, which is just being in the moment and being fully aware of our thoughts, emotions, and what is happening in our body. 
3. Always count 15-to-1, when you find yourself in a situation where you are going to react.
4.Ask yourself before you have an urge to react, “Is this the best response I can give?”
5. Drink a glass of water, before you react in anger or are in a tense situation.
6.The moment you find yourself feeling some negative emotions, simple become aware of your breath, and exhale the negative emotions out.
7. Practice the affirmation, “I am in full control of my response and I accept myself fully”.
8.Tap 5-8 times the place in the body where you feel the negative emotions and affirm, “I release and drop as I only carry happiness”.
9.Before you react, tell yourself, “I am not using my brain, I am being foolish”. 
10.Ask in these situations before you react, “What’s really important?”

Gautama Buddha said, “To conquer oneself is a greater task than conquering others”. This is so true. We are always out to change everyone around, finding fault in and blaming others, without even realising that the change should start with us. We should be the example of the change that we are looking for in others. 

How are you planning to respond to life situations instead of reacting? Do leave your comments below, with any unique strategies you have for challenging situations.

 References:

[1] http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_04/i_04_cr/i_04_cr_peu/i_04_cr_peu.html

[2] http://knowingneurons.com/2013/02/27/the-amygdala-a-full-brain-integrator-in-the-face-of-fear/

[3] http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/educational-resources/neuroscience-and-psychiatry/neuroscience-and-psychiatry-module-2-fear-safety-anxiety-and-anxiety-disorders.shtml

[4] http://biology.about.com/od/anatomy/p/Amygdala.htm




Warm Regards

Avinash Anand Singh
Chief Mentor & Advisor ( DV )

09890474536

http://www.directovoyage.com/advisory.php