While human civilisation has changed massively over the past 200,000 years, our emotional brains have hardly changed at all. Modern mini disasters can trigger us into full-on fight or flight mode – flooding our systems with anxiety overload and leading to stress-related illnesses. Here’s how to evolve your brain to help you survive and thrive in the 21st century…
Wild animals are no longer a threat, yet our emotional brain is still so reactive, a tiff with a teammate can feel more like a tussle with a tiger. To adapt your brain for modern times, you need to train it away from red alert into soothing calm. We’ll explore some techniques to help you do this – but first, here’s an overview of how your brain works.
Your emotional brain sits at the base of your skull. It has three zones which work differently from each other:
The Danger Zone
The Danger Zone’s function is to keep you alive. When activated, it triggers your sympathetic nervous system and releases the ‘stress hormone’, cortisol, giving you a huge burst of energy. This powerful fight-or-flight function saved our ancestors from many a brush with death, but it’s only intended as a brief, temporary measure. Cortisol is an inflammatory hormone and can lead to all sorts of illnesses if it stays in your system for extended periods of time.
In the Danger Zone you feel anxious, angry, overwhelmed, fearful, defensive, egotistical, etc. It’s difficult to reason or empathise because most of your brainpower is absorbed in ‘surviving’.
The Seeking Zone
The Seeking Zone’s function is to help you source the things you need to survive and thrive (like food, water, shelter, etc.). Nowadays, we shop on Amazon rather than forage in the Amazon and we climb career ladders rather than rope ladders. Like the Danger Zone, the Seeking Zone triggers your sympathetic nervous system. But instead of cortisol, it releases the ‘pleasure hormone’, dopamine, which is part of your brain’s reward circuitry.
In the Seeking Zone, you feel motivated, excited, driven, engaged, focused, etc. It’s a feel-good system that encourages you to pursue your passions with grit and determination.
The Soothe Zone
The function of the Soothe Zone is for connection, care-giving and social attunement. It naturally operates when there’s no danger to defend against, helping your body and mind to rest and digest so you’re restored and ready to go again. The Soothe Zone activates your parasympathetic nervous system, releasing the ‘love hormone’, oxytocin.
In the Soothe Zone, you feel safe, calm, creative, reflective, affectionate, curious, etc. You may want to reach out to connect with other people and let yourself be vulnerable. It’s a nourishing zone that gives you a deep sense of wellbeing.
Note: this natural ease is not to be confused with ‘coping’ strategies like bingeing on ice cream, booze or Netflix (only to feel guilty or hungover the next day). The Soothe Zone is wholesome and health-giving and doesn’t come with a backlash.
Why life is smoother in the ‘Soothe Zone’
In the Soothe Zone, you’re able to think deeply, broadly and creatively because you feel utterly safe. You’re naturally more innovative, reflective and able to see big-picture perspectives and patterns.
So, the more you can bring yourself into the Soothe Zone, the more you can build resilience as a creative and as an entrepreneur.
The main obstacle is ‘the negativity bias’. The brain is hardwired for negativity (from the days when we had to focus on danger to survive). Fortunately, the mind is like a muscle that you can exercise to steadily build better, self-calming mental habits.
Here’s a three-part technique to help train your brain to switch over to the Soothe Zone…
Moving from the Danger Zone toward the Soothe Zone
1. NOTICING:
As you go through your day, become aware of when you’re in your Danger Zone. Notice what you’re thinking, feeling and doing in that moment. Don’t judge what is happening – simply observe it.
2. LABELLING:
Next, try to identify the specific negative emotion you’re feeling (like anxiety, stress, overwhelm, etc.). Once you’ve identified it, label it and describe succinctly to yourself what’s causing it, i.e. “I notice I’m feeling anxious and overwhelmed by my work deadline.”
Research shows that this simple practice of labelling negative emotions (and calling them what they are) helps to reduce their power over us.
3. SMALL STEPS:
‘Small steps’ is a way of coaxing yourself out of stuck-ness towards an achievable step-by-step solution. For example, in the Danger Zone, you might be inwardly screaming, “I can’t do this!” A powerful way to disrupt this paradigm is to ask yourself, “OK, but if I could do this, what would the first step be?” Or you might ask, “What’s the smallest useful step I could take right now?”
The Danger Zone loves to have you catastrophising on a grand scale. So breaking things down into small, manageable steps reduces the overwhelm and helps you move towards your Soothe Zone where your thinking will be more rational and solution-focused.
Going nowhere fast
Many of us have low-grade anxiety, anger or other negative feelings constantly nagging away in the background. This can lead to a ‘burnout loop’ i.e. the stress of the Danger Zone sends us into the Seeking Zone trying to find relief but the results are short lived and we loop back round to the Danger zone. This is a bit like getting in a car and putting your foot down on the accelerator without having a clue where you’re going.
The antidote, of course, is the Soothe Zone. Here are some more exercises to help you put the brakes on and takes things easier and slower:
SAVOURING
Throughout your day, make a point of noticing whenever anything enjoyable or delightful is happening – even if it’s as fleeting as a sip of coffee, a snippet of birdsong, laughing with your friends, stroking your cat, the sun on your face or the breeze on your skin, etc. When you catch these moments, stop and savour them. Let a smile come to your face and smile inwardly too. This may sound simplistic but it’s an effective way of building up a reservoir of positive emotion. This reservoir helps you push back against that negativity bias, so instead of defaulting to the Danger Zone, the Soothe Zone starts to become your automatic go-to place.
THREE GOOD THINGS
A variation on the savouring exercise is a gratitude practice called ‘three good things’.
There’s a lot of evidence to show that gratitude supports wellbeing and helps to combat our negativity bias. So why not try this first thing in the morning, last thing at night and whenever you feel glum or stressed throughout the day…
Think of three things you’re grateful for and name them out loud. That’s it. Don’t worry if you think of more than three (name these too if you like but three is enough).
Again, this exercise helps give you the assurance ‘I’m OK’ and equips you for those sudden tsunamis of negative emotion that are unleashed by say, a malicious online comment, a relationship break-up, financial instability, grief, politics, Brexit, road rage – or other contemporary triggers.
To sum up: don’t let your primitive brain work against you
In the Danger Zone, we’re only able to think in a linear way – which was great when we were cave people: we saw a predator, we ran! But linear thinking is ineffectual for complex problem-solving. That’s why people today – and especially entrepreneurial creatives – need to get into our Soothe Zone where all sorts of surprising solutions, innovative angles and new perspectives naturally open up.
This how-to guide was inspired by one of our Zoom Dives with Michelle White, co-founder of LIVEWISE: a positive psychology consultancy.
Our Zoom Dive events are deep-delving discussions between our founder, Carolyn Dailey and a handpicked creative business expert. You can listen to Carolyn and Michelle’s full discussion here.
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