Why do strong emotions override rational thinking?
... what you need to know about your amygdala and how to manage its overdrives
Taken from: https://www.viktorfrankl.org/quote_stimulus.html
In previous posts and videos, we’ve seen how what we are paying attention to shapes our emotional state. We’ve also learned about the brain’s attention networks: the Default Mode Network (DMN), the Task Positive Network (TPN), the Ventral Attention Network (VAN), the Salience Network (SN) and the Executive Control Network (ECN). Put simply, each network manages a different type of attention - mind-wandering attention, focused attention, reflexive attention, prioritising attention and problem-solving attention respectively.
Brain design and evolution
These networks are mainly associated with the most highly evolved parts of the human brain (the ‘neocortex’). The prefrontal cortex is the seat of conscious thoughts and actions, holding your memories and allowing you to imagine, plan, think and learn.
The brain also has more evolutionarily primitive structures, including the brainstem and the cerebellum (the ‘reptilian’ brain) and the limbic system (the ‘paleomammalian’ brain). The ‘reptilian’ brain controls basic survival functions, such as heart rate, respiration, eating, procreating and alertness.
The limbic system ‘paleomammalian’ brain consists of the amygdala, hippocampus and hypothalamus. It records memories of behaviours that produced agreeable and disagreeable experiences, and is responsible for generating immediate reactions to stimuli, through the production of primitive emotions, such as fear, disgust, anger, sadness and pleasure.
These emotions are generated by the amygdala in response to incoming sensory stimuli, but we do not experience them with choice or control - the limbic system is not conscious, so these emotions have the quality of ‘just arising’. Nor does the limbic system have any cognitive, ‘thinking’ capabilities - it simply generates primitive emotional responses to incoming sensory stimuli.
The neocortex (more specifically the prefrontal cortex) is where the context is added to the incoming stimuli. This is where sensory processing occurs, which allows rational assessment of any threat, so that the initial non-conscious, entirely emotional response of the amygdala may be modified. This is what happens when life is proceeding uneventfully - a sensory stimulus comes into the amygdala, a mild emotional response is generated, the prefrontal cortex processes the stimuli cognitively, adding context and meaning, and the motor cortex allows the body to take appropriate action.
However, if the emotion generated by the amygdala is particularly intense, it can completely override access to the prefrontal cortex. This prevents any cognitive processing and the intense fear directly drives the appropriate behavioural responses of taking flight, fighting or freezing (the survival strategy of playing dead).
For example, you’re alone in the house at night and there’s a loud crash. Your heart races, your breathing speeds up and you feel a moderate amount fear. That’s the amygdala kicking in with the fear response. Then you remember Moggy-cat usually comes home at this time, and you start to relax, as your prefrontal cortex processes the noise contextually, making a realistic interpretation of it.
But if in the past, you’d been burgled, your amygdala may flood you with intense fear, because it is reminded of your previous disagreeable experience. This intense fear literally switches off the neural networks from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, in a split second. The saying ‘I was so scared, I couldn’t think straight’ is literally true, because your amygdala is interested only in your survival and it needs to ensure that you don’t stand there computing the odds of it being another burglar versus Moggy - that would be rational, objective thinking.
Intense emotions from the amygdala beat your ability to think straight, hands down, every time. That’s the way we are designed - it’s not your fault, that is just how it is.
Our brain design and modern life
This brain design suited our needs as hunter-gatherers on the savannahs, much like other herd animals. There were a few very big dangers out there - sabre-tooth tigers and large bears - but apart from keeping fed, procreating and child rearing, early humans didn’t really do much else. In fact, up until the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s, humans lives were remarkably unchanged from one generation to the next. You were born and lived your entire short life in a small hamlet with a small community of others, you did basic foraging and agriculture, you had kids, caught illnesses and died.
Since the invention of machinery, life has changed dramatically. Modern environments differ dramatically from ancestral ones and there are numerically many more and complex stimuli to have to attend to. We have to attend to time, to getting multi-step tasks done, to exercising/ looking good/ getting that job, to social media /emails, to the expectations of others, to climate change and ethical buying… and on and on and on.
And all of these stimuli can be interpreted by our amygdalas as threats to our survival, as ‘danger, danger, look out!’ This is the key disadvantage of our brain design in modern times - that we experience a lot of false ‘danger’ alerts. Remember, the brain was not designed for you to thrive with wellbeing, only for you to survive long enough to pass on your genes.
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
In reality, the majority of the ‘alerts’ generated in our modern lives are not matters of life and death. However our brains still react to them as they would to the tiger or bear. So when we are criticising ourselves, or feeling angry at some workplace injustice, our amygdala can go into overdrive, just as if it were facing some life-threatening situation.
(If you’d like to better understand the structure of the brain in relation to its evolutionary history, I heartily recommend reading this lucid account of MacLean's Triune Brain Theory. There are many recent neuroscientific caveats to this theory, but bearing in mind that “essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful”, it’s a good one to go with. That little nugget of a quotation was coined by statistician George Box, by the way … a little distraction for you, you’re welcome).
The ADHD brain seen through an evolutionary lens
The Mismatch Theory of evolutionary psychology suggests that some ADHD characteristics, like novelty-seeking, high energy and impulsivity may have been advantageous in hunter-gatherer settings - someone had to try the red berries to see if they were food or poison, and it was probably an ADHDer who did so. The facts that ADHD runs in families, and has strong genetic heritability, supports the idea that ADHD had potential evolutionary benefits, conferring a survival or reproductive advantage.
But these same traits are less adaptive in the structured, sedentary and overstimulating context of 21st century life, which emphasises prolonged focus and routine. The demands of modern society can exacerbate the difficulties faced by ADHDers - the challenges are not wholly intrinsic to the individual but also a product of the environment.
The amygdala overdrive
And as any ADHDer can attest, we are more prone to emotional dysregulation than others. Our emotions are triggered more quickly and more intensely, they stay up or down for a longer time and we get stuck on them. In other words, our neurodevelopmental, genetically inherited condition makes us experience many, many amygdala overdrives. Life can feel like a constant rollercoaster of amygdala overdrives… and it’s exhausting, demoralising and relentless.
Six steps to managing your amygdala overdrive
recognise overdrive: you need to become reliably adept at recognising that ‘amygdala overdrive has arrived’. How? By recognising that you’re experiencing an intense and unwanted emotion, such as fear, anger, jealousy, grief etc.
give space to unwanted emotions: allow the emotions to deliver its message instead of immediately trying to reason it out. If the emotion is intense, reasoning simply won’t work as your prefrontal cortex has been switched off! Emotions serve as alerts, based on past experience. Let the emotion tell you what it thinks you need to hear - it’s not going to go away unless you let it speak. If you try to suppress or avoid it, the emotion will simply bounce back into your attention again, because it hasn’t delivered its message. (If you haven’t already tried the Pink Elephant experiment, please stop reading this now and go and do that immediately).
acknowledge the emotion: once the emotion has spoken, thank it for its concern, but recognise that it isn’t telling the whole story, only the ‘danger’ side of it. Invite the emotion to sit aside. You will not be ignoring it, but crucially, neither will you be feeding it by engaging in the narrative around the situation that generated it.
soothe yourself: instead, turn your attention to something that can soothe you in this moment. You might use a sensory stimulus to soothe, or you might do a breathing exercise or some other pleasant activity.
and repeat: remember you are not suppressing the unwanted emotion - it can have five or ten of your 100 units of attention - but you are not feeding it either. Instead, you are intentionally moving the 90-95 units of attention towards the sensory object, the breath or the pleasant activity. And when the unwanted emotion pipes up again - repeatedly - thank it again with kindness and compassion. Remind it again ‘you’re not telling the whole story, dear emotion, you have delivered your message, your job is done, I’ll take over from here’.
visualise your emotion: see if you can give the unwanted emotion a character - I sometimes ‘see’ fear in my mind’s eye as a Dementor, swirling quickly and coldly around me. I can greet and acknowledge this Dementor form, and shrink it down until it sits somewhere to my right, at ground level.
Summary
Our brains are designed for survival, and we react to all incoming stimuli based on our past experiences. If these were very disagreeable, the amygdala reacts with an intense unwanted emotion, which shuts down the ability to think rationally. In modern life, this can lead to everyday stressors triggering overwhelming feelings, particularly for those with ADHD. Understanding and managing these emotional responses is crucial for emotional wellbeing.
How to put this into practice
reflect on Victor Frankl’s quotation at the top of this article. Does it make more sense in light of what you’ve read? Are ‘freedom and power’ potentially available to you, with practice?
try out the 6 steps for managing amygdala overdrive next time you feel overwhelmed by an unwanted emotion. As usual, try it out when you’re feeling 2 out of 10 overwhelmed, rather than say 8/10 overwhelmed - that will take more repetition and practice.
repeat the soothing mantra ‘It’s not my fault that my amygdala is in overdrive, it’s the way that evolution designed my ADHD brain. Yet I can do something about it’.
Thanks Jenny, your feedback is much appreciated!
Fascinating read. Thank you!