Is stress hijacking your brain? Part 4: Take control

Over the last few weeks, I have explored what is it about acute stress that we hate so much and how to manage such moments.

When you are under severe stress, the rational and logical version of you is not in control. Instead, the fearful, irrational, and hyper-emotional version of you takes over. You’ve been hijacked.

It's one thing to point out that your amygdala has hijacked your brain in a stressful scenario but another to turn it off. Although stress management is a complex topic, the following are some suggestions on how to handle key stressor moments.

Planning

When are you stressed? Before you stand up to speak? Is it bracing yourself for when your counterparty reveals the topic of their “chat”? Visualize the moments that stress you the most and plan your reactions ahead of time.

Believe it or not stressful things become less stressful when you plan for them. If you rehearse what you are going to say, how you are going to say it, and how you will respond to the variety of potential outcomes, you allow your frontal lobes to do the thinking before your amygdala hijacks your brain.

Second opinion

If you are stressed or anxious about an event, get a second opinion. Tell someone you trust what you are anxious about and why. When we don’t reach out to others, we fail to test how much fear is driving our thought process. The chances are your amygdala is keeping you from seeing the whole picture.

Anxiety audit

Anxiety is a painful planning tool that cannot be ignored. Anxiety is designed to remind us of our greatest threats, and it can’t be silenced until it’s had its say.

Let your anxiety speak and tell you what the worst possible outcomes are. Write them down and consider how you could react to each scenario. You will find most of your fears fall into three categories… serious, exaggerated or Alice in Wonderland crazy.

Although the logical part of you may have already identified the exaggerated and crazy fears, your anxiety will not rest until you take the time to analyze the true validity of these fears on paper.?

Breathing?

Most people have heard of breathing exercises that help keep you calm but many disregard this advice because they don’t know why it works. Your brain and body are connected, and communication goes both ways. Your mind can signal a reaction to your body, but your body can also signal a reaction to your mind.

A common physiological reaction to stress is an increased breathing rate. If you are stressed and you breathe quick shallow breaths, that harmony tells your brain that you are in danger. If, on the other hand, you purposefully slow your breathing, you can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, a rest response that reengages the frontal lobes.

Demand Complexity

When you are in an amygdala hijack your brain is negating the frontal lobes from the decision-making process. One way to reengage the frontal lobes is to force your brain to do other complex tasks. This usually works best when the task you choose is unrelated to the event that is causing you stress.

Say you’re about to give a big presentation and you are very nervous about it, you could distract your brain with an unrelated complex task. Plan a date for your spouse or consider which route to take on your way home to avoid the traffic.

When your amygdala has your brain at gunpoint, demand complexity. When your amygdala takes over it is because your brain has decided that it is the best tool for the job at hand. Complexity is the arch nemesis of the amygdala.

Mindfulness

What is the quickest way to an amygdala hijack? A surprise! Surprises throw you off your game and jolt you immediately into a hijack. When you’re surprised, expect to be on your worst behavior.

Mindfulness, the meditative practice of noticing your environment, is a great tool to keep that behavior in check. Where is your heart rate, what emotions are you feeling and how many?ways can you react to this moment?

Cognitive Reappraisal

How many times have you felt stressed over an event but, upon conclusion, realized that it wasn’t as bad as you made it out to be? Our brain is wired to remember threats and forget non-threatening situations. Because of this, your mental catalog of regrets and embarrassments can be full while your memories of neutral events remain relatively empty.

Keeping that mental catalog in balance can go a long way in relieving anticipatory anxiety. When an event that initially made you feel stressed goes smoothly, it is important that you reflect on why it did.

What did you do to make the interaction successful, and what stress did you blow out of proportion?

Intentional evaluation of stressful events gives you more control over your amygdala.?

Getting to know you

It’s hard to admit when something like stress is affecting you. It can feel like an insurmountable task to change who you are. The good news is the best way to change outcomes is not by changing who you are but knowing who you are.

You are not alone. Stress, like many other aspects of negotiation, affects almost everyone. Embrace both the strengths and weaknesses of yourself by understanding them fully and create a plan that leverages both to your benefit.