Of toilet paper, tigers and neuroscience

“Oh crap! I forgot the batteries”

Mike turns around and walks back to the supermarket. He’s stocked up on everything he needs, but he’s just remembered that the remote needs batteries. And he’s relying on the TV to get him through the next few weeks!

Mike suddenly notices the frenzied rush near the personal care shelf, where toilet paper rolls are stacked. People are buying them by the dozens and it seems to be running out very quickly. And he thinks to himself “Gosh, did I remember to get enough? What if I run out?”

He runs to grab two rolls, but in his hurry to get to the shelf, he elbows another lady. She turns around enraged and starts calling him nasty names. Mike tries to apologise but she’s furiously yelling and refusing to listen. Mike tries to hold onto his rising temper, but other shoppers join in shouting at Mike. A burly security guard walks by and rudely shoves Mike, asking him to fall in line. Finally, Mike just loses it and punches the guy on his face.

All for toilet paper that Mike didn’t really need…

So what happened here?

Remember a time when anger, rage or panic seemed to rise out of nowhere and erupted without warning? It probably happened so quickly that it left you wondering later “What was I thinking?”

Well it turns out that you were not… thinking, that is! Because you got emotionally hijacked.

Whether it’s receiving ‘negative’ feedback at work, having a difficult conversation with your partner or handling your child’s tantrums, we are all prone to ‘amygdala hijacks’. In fact it is one of the most ‘normal’ reactions faced by humans when we feel overwhelmed or threatened.

So what made a nice, mild-mannered guy like Mike lose his cool over something as trivial as toilet paper?

What is an Amygdala Hijack?

Humans have an almond shaped organ called the amygdala - one in each hemisphere of the brain. The amygdala is responsible for threat recognition and response – the well-known ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction of the body.

15000 years ago, our hunter-gatherer forefathers relied heavily on the amygdala to keep them safe while facing a tiger in the forest. The amygdala helped them make an instinctive, split-second decision on whether to run away or to stay and fight the predator.

When an organism is threatened, the thinking brain - the slower, more conscious, ‘responding’ part - shuts down. Instead oxygen and blood flows to the amygdala – the subconscious, more primitive, ‘fast-reacting’ part in our emotional brain. As a result, stress chemicals like cortisol and adrenaline are released in the body, severely compromising judgment, decision-making and perspective taking skills.

We see this all the time be it in business, politics and sports, don’t we? I know of a CEO who once threw a shoe during an All-hands meet, because he got enraged at a rude question that was asked. We know Joe Biden recently lashed out at a reporter when he was grilled about his feud with Bernie Sanders. And in sports, no one can forget Tyson biting off Holyfield’s ear in their title boxing match in ’93. Tyson’s hijack cost him $3million and lost him his boxing license! Wow, hijacks can be pretty costly, huh?

Because the amygdala’s main function is to detect and to deal with threats, it plays a crucial role in ensuring survival. However the amygdala is also an extremely silly organ, because it doesn’t recognize the difference in threats between facing a tiger and surviving the toilet paper crisis!

Emotional Intelligence and the Brain

EI is the very antithesis of an amygdala hijack. Emotionally intelligent people are aware of their thoughts and emotions, know how to de-escalate them and are able to sense and influence emotions of others even in emotionally tense situations.

Think of someone you know who is very calm in the face of calamity. You’ve probably admired them for showing tremendous grace even in challenging times. Now think of someone you know who is on the other end of the spectrum – someone emotionally volatile and prone to outbursts. If we were to put both of these people in fMRI machines to study their brains, we’d see completely different neural activity.

The brain scans of the emotionally intelligent person would show

·       More activity in the left PFC or prefrontal cortex (part of the thinking brain)

·       Reduced activity in the amygdala (part of the emotional system)

·       A stronger connection between the left PFC and the amygdala, suggesting increased ability of the thinking brain to override the emotional reactive systems.

Overcoming the Emotional Hijack

So what can Mike do the next time he feels an emotional hijack coming? Here are some things he could try, to give his thinking brain the extra few seconds it needs to kick in and override his amygdala:

1.     Deep breathing

The first step is for Mike to literally stop and take a couple of deep breaths. Deep breathing will help his body take in more oxygen to his brain and will help slow him down. Focusing on the rhythm and smoothness of his breath even for a few short minutes will halt the production of adrenaline and cortisol. Like any skill, mindful breathing takes practice but it can be a great emotional buffer in a crisis. A daily 15 minute practice builds the mindfulness muscle that is then readily available in times of conflict.

2.     Labelling the emotion

Curiosity is a great state to invoke whilst trying to control any intense emotion. If Mike is keen to explore and understand his experience, he can begin noticing the words he’s using, the tone of voice, his gestures and sensations in his body. Paying close attention to this, he can then ask himself “What emotion am I feeling now? Ok, this feels like anger. So on the anger continuum, is this mild irritation or full-blown rage? On a scale of 1-10, really how angry am I?”

The function of labeling an emotion and attaching a number to the intensity of emotions calls for analytical skills which is the function of the thinking brain.

3.     Building distance

A good practice after labelling the emotion might be to use the ‘third person technique’ and to view the emotion outside of oneself. So Mike can say to himself “Oh boy! Looks like Mike is getting really furious right now. I wonder how he’s going to react.”

Just thinking this way helps Mike move the conversation in his head away from what’s immediate and personal. It helps Mike see how this emotion might look to a third person and in the process, helps him create that much needed distance in the moment of the hijack.

4.     Perspective-taking

Perspective-taking helps let go of judgmental narratives that are running in Mike’s head. Moving away from personal labels like “Oh I can’t believe she’s so rude and mean. What the #$%^ is wrong with her?” Instead he could ask himself “I wonder what’s happening with her? What’s this situation like from her perspective?” Just thinking these thoughts can calm Mike down, as he would be calling in his higher order perspective-taking skills. And because the thinking brain loves questions, it gets teased into action quickly.

5.     Emotional audit

When Mike thinks of an earlier attack of panic or rage he experienced, in hindsight he knows that he probably had less than a few micro-seconds to catch himself before the hijack hit him.

After each hijack, reflecting on the experience and asking oneself questions are crucial to managing the next crisis well. “What exactly triggered me? What was I feeling? What could I have said instead? What can I try doing next time?” are all great questions Mike can ask himself post facto. With practice and over a period of time, he will be able to recognize an attack coming on, seconds before it actually hits him. 

Hijacks are very common at the workplace too. You might have seen your manager suddenly “lose it” when he reacts irrationally and disproportionately to something relatively small. The significant thing with work teams is that emotions are infectious and this ‘emotional contagion’ happens easier than you think especially with hijacks. If you have a team member who is prone to emotional outbursts, it can adversely impact everyone else’s reactivity and emotions can spiral out of control! But the converse is also true. Every time we are able to reign in our emotional outbursts and respond to crisis in a calm manner, we are also helping others around us do the same.

Today given the number of stressors of the VUCA world we live in, amygdala hijacks are understandable, but they don’t have to be the norm. The good news is that research shows us that our brains are trainable. We are constantly making new neural connections and easily learning newer and more functional ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.

So while Mike may not have control over a situation or another’s behaviour, he can choose how to respond. With enough self-awareness, mindfulness and empathy, Mike can train his brain to see the situation for what it is – instead of being tricked into seeing tigers where there exists only toilet paper…