The Amygdala Hijack

I first heard this term at Google, in a training session  on 'managing difficult situations or having difficult conversations'.  It spoke of how we ought to have difficult conversations as thought out processes, as the other person is in highly emotional space; how to keep the conversation under control and not let the emotions get the better of you. And I'd found myself thinking, that, while at one time I had been been a very temperamental person, I was well past that phase and was under no threat of an Amygdala Hijack.

But we never really are I guess. Life's dynamic ......thresholds can shift and buttons can get pushed at the most unexpected of moments. 

So first, what is an Amygdala Hijack? The Amygdala is the part of our brain that handles emotions, and the Amygdala Hijack is defined as 'an immediate and overwhelming emotional response out of proportion to the stimulus because it has triggered a more significant emotional threat'. 

                      

I'm sure we've all had those moments. Times when we do or say something in the heat of the moment that we regretted later. Our reaction flew out of the gate before we could catch it. It’s like our rational mind disappeared, was not even accessible, because later you'll find yourself wondering where that even came from. Like a 'What was I even thinking' feeling.  

Well in reality you weren’t thinking........ you were overwhelmed with an emotional reaction. You were hijacked.

There's apparently two minds. One that thinks and one that feels.

And look at this:

“…the architecture of the brain gives the amygdala a privileged position as the emotional sentinel, able to hijack the brain.” The stimuli comes in from the eyes or ears and goes immediately to thalamus and it then goes right to amygdala before a signal reaches the neocortex. 

This is a hardware survival mechanism that lets us react to things before the rational brain has time to mull things over. The hair trigger amygdala though can be sloppy and distort things in this quick reaction. It has been found the amygdala in animals can respond to a perception in as little as twelve thousands of a second.

We of course would be different in how much we use the rational mind over instincts. How often do we allow the amygdala to get hijacked ....how conscious is each step of what you do especially under difficult situations. And, how much do we live out of a space of conscious awareness such that even those momentary lapses are not part of pattern. For surely, anger never achieves objective.

But then, there are times the power of emotions overwhelms rationality. That is why when we are emotionally upset or stressed we can’t think straight.  It's why we know we shouldn't take decisions from that space of emotions. It is like losing 10 to 15 IQ points temporarily, which explains “what was I thinking?”

Interesting huh? Knowing, even if reiteration, could hopefully enable avoidance of the next hijack :)