Why You Aren’t Thinking Clearly:

The Brain Science of Fear in Uncertain Times.  

Excerpt from LinkedIn blog post by Hildy Gottlieb:

This is Your Brain on Fear

During times of crisis and extreme uncertainty, you may feel like you’re not yourself. Perhaps you’re finding it hard to concentrate. You may suddenly be dropping things, feeling unusually clumsy. You may be spending hours playing solitaire or mindlessly flipping through Instagram. You may have trouble sleeping or eating. Or maybe it’s the opposite, that all you want to do is sleep or eat (or both).

All those responses are actually built into our DNA. Here’s the science:

The primary purpose of all animals, humans included, is to survive, so that we can eventually reproduce. Survival is therefore the primary function of our brains.

In humans, the reflexive survival areas of the brain are located at the base of the head, directly connected to the spine and the rest of the body, for immediate access to the body parts that will get us out of danger.

In addition to that survival mechanism, we humans also have a well-developed capacity for reason, creativity and compassion. That capacity for higher thought is primarily centered at the front of our heads, in the frontal lobe of the brain.

Given the brain’s primary function of survival, when we perceive a threat, the survival center reflexively triggers chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol into our bloodstream.

We all know what a rush of adrenaline feels like. Adrenaline is one of several hormones that increase our heart rate and blood pressure to get us moving quickly.

To clear the way for those get-moving chemicals to do their job, chemicals like cortisol slow down the bodily functions that are not necessary for survival – digestion, metabolism, the immune system. We’ve all heard that when we’re under stress, we might gain weight or have stomach problems. Cortisol and its slowing-down counterparts are actually doing that on purpose, because properly metabolizing your lunch is secondary to getting out of danger.

Important for this discussion, when we feel threatened, access to the thinking parts of the brain is also seen as “unnecessary,” because when we are in danger, our bodies need to just go, not think about it. So when we’re afraid, if we’re not thinking clearly, that’s not us being silly or forgetful – it is instead those chemicals like cortisol, doing their job to keep us safe, to pave the way for get-moving hormones like adrenaline to get us out of there!

Here is what makes this so important:

The survival region that is in charge of releasing those chemicals is incapable of thought. Instead, this area is a reactive, reflexive machine, ruled by and ruling our emotions, and pre-programmed from birth simply to keep us alive.

What that means for our day-to-day lives is this:

When we are afraid, a mechanism that is NOT capable of rational thought is the guard whose job is to keep us away from the area that IS capable of rational thought!

That explains why, when we perceive a threat (like the fear of Coronavirus), our brains do not know the difference between a real threat and a perceived threat. Nightmares, for example, wake us up with our hearts pounding and blood pressure sky-rocketing, even though the threat is not real. It is also why any stress – a deadline, a pile of work on our desks, money fears, and in current circumstances, fear of a potentially deadly disease – will trigger those involuntary responses. Those survival mechanisms are not weighing the facts, because they are not capable of doing so.

So first, it’s important to know that if you’re not 100% yourself these days, that is 100% normal.

When the brain’s survival functions are ruling our actions, therefore, we humans could almost predict our reactions. We suspect other people, we hoard resources, we hunker down, we make short-sighted and often downright outrageous decisions – all instigated by an involuntary chemical response to feeling threatened.

I spent much of last weekend on airplanes that were packed to capacity with 200 strangers from all over the world. On each flight, I diligently wiped my aisle seat with disinfectant wipes, offering wipes and hand sanitizer to my seatmates.

On one of those flights, two sisters were my seatmates, and they seemed to struggle from the time they arrived. They couldn’t find their own package of wipes, grateful that I was sharing mine. Before we had even taken off, the one by the window had spilled her coffee all over the floor by her feet. An hour into the flight, the sister next to me spilled her iced tea on her tray table, missing her laptop keyboard by a fraction of an inch before we all dove in with napkins.

Still an hour from our destination, my immediate seatmate looked distraught as she rummaged once more in her purse for something else she couldn’t find. “This is so not like me,” she mumbled to herself.

All of that is what happens when our survival brain is in charge. (During this American election season, it is important to note that politicians know we cannot think clearly when we are afraid – that we are easy to manipulate when our survival brain is in charge. Beware of messages from either side that make you feel afraid!)

During this current pandemic, when we are all afraid of something very real, about which we have zero control, every single one of us has at least a low hum of that fear as our baseline.

Suddenly fighting over toilet paper in the supermarket makes sense. We are chemically, biologically being held hostage from the rational, creative parts of our brains.

Therefore the key to accessing our ability to think is to create conditions that keep the survival brain calm, creating feelings of safety. Because when we are not afraid, we humans have boundless potential for good.