What Happens In Your Mind And Brain During An Emotional Outburst? Master The Art Of Self-Control
- Jul 19, 2024
- 5 min read
Adriana Barbara is a Mind specialized Coach that is focused on helping CEO's and high-level entrepreneurs to develop their leadership teams by assisting each member to transform their mindset from the root.
Have you ever experienced your emotions taking complete control, making you react impulsively, and then, upon reflection, regretting your response and wishing you had acted differently? Surely, yes. We have all been victims of these emotional outbursts. The question is: What causes them? How can we control them? In this article, you will discover the answers.
To master the art of self-control, we must first understand how an emotional outburst originates on a mental and cerebral level.
Our mind and brain function as a unit. The mind activates and directs the brain according to our mental and emotional conditioning, guiding it in interpreting environmental stimuli so the body can react emotionally and physically. The parts of the brain involved in this process are:
Amygdala
Plays a crucial role in regulating emotions. It constantly evaluates external stimuli and identifies potential threats. When it detects a threat, it quickly sends signals to the rest of the brain to trigger an emotional response. During an emotionally intense situation, the amygdala activates and triggers a series of physiological and behavioral responses to help us deal with the problem. This includes the release of stress hormones like cortisol and the activation of the autonomic nervous system, which can provoke "fight, flight, or freeze" responses.
Hippocampus
Plays a fundamental role in the formation, organization, and storage of memory. It is key in emotional conditioning, working closely with the amygdala. The hippocampus is responsible for forming contextual memories, associating events with the contexts in which they occur. It helps contextualize emotional experiences, linking emotional responses with specific places, times, and circumstances.
The amygdala and hippocampus play a crucial role in how we react to emotional stimuli and how we learn to associate certain stimuli with specific emotional responses, a process known as emotional conditioning.
Example: Imagine a dog attacked you as a child, creating a strong emotional impact. The hippocampus stored the image and sounds of the dog barking, attacking you, its smell, the park where you were, the heat of the sunny day, and the emotions you felt: terror, anger, etc. Your reactions were running, covering your face, falling to the ground, screaming, and crying. This experience became ingrained in your emotional conditioning (in the mind and brain), so when you perceive any environmental stimulus that threatens you with a possible dog attack, your mind, brain, and body will react similarly, even if this is unlikely to happen.
So, if you suddenly see a dog (or perceive something related to that experience), your mind activates the brain: the amygdala detects the possible threat, and the hippocampus brings up the emotional memory, causing the body to react with the same emotions of terror, making you run, fall to the ground, or scream. If the dog was indeed going to attack, your reaction was appropriate. However, what usually happens is that the amygdala takes only a fraction of the information from the external stimulus it perceives as a threat, relates it with the hippocampus's help, and makes us react instantly.
In this example, you might have heard a bark from a dog that was locked up, and your amygdala, perceiving “the threat,” made you scream, cry, and run. In the end, you were safe; it was not a real threat, but your amygdala interpreted it that way. The same thing happens with other types of stimuli that the amygdala can interpret as threats that are not real: a facial expression from your boss, an unanswered WhatsApp message, a comment from your partner, and the list goes on.
You might then wonder, are we destined to react according to our emotional conditioning without control, even to perceived but unreal threats? The answer is NO. Another part of the brain comes into action and helps us avoid this, which is the:
Prefrontal cortex
Regulates emotions and impulse control as it helps evaluate the validity of a perceived threat and modulates the emotional response generated by the amygdala. It can reduce the intensity of the emotional response through reasoning. It makes rational decisions and plans actions, especially in emotional situations, and helps inhibit automatic emotional responses that may be inappropriate in certain contexts. We can say that the amygdala and hippocampus are activated by our emotional mind, while the prefrontal cortex is activated by our thinking mind.
In the previous example, the prefrontal cortex helps us see that the dog is locked up and that we are safe, preventing impulsive reactions.
So why, if the prefrontal cortex helps us respond more rationally, do we still experience impulsive emotional outbursts?
Reason 1: Response time
The amygdala is the fastest to react (10 to 20 milliseconds), followed by the hippocampus (100 to 300 milliseconds). The prefrontal cortex is the slowest, taking 300 to 500 milliseconds to intervene. This is why, after some time and with a “cooler head,” we evaluate the situation more objectively, make better decisions, and respond more wisely.
Reason 2: Emotional conditioning
The interpretation of stimuli depends on our memories and how we think and feel about them. If we think dogs are dangerous and feel fear about them, every time we see a dog, our mind and brain will interpret it as a danger.
So, what is the key to being more emotionally intelligent and responding to the environment in a better way?
Here is a technique to apply when receiving an emotional stimulus and identifying the emergence of strong emotions:
Do not take immediate action.
Apply breathing techniques: for example, inhale for 3 seconds and exhale for 7 seconds.
Give yourself space and step away for a few minutes.
Question the stimulus: Ask yourself, is this really a threat? How am I interpreting it?
View the situation objectively: Remove all emotional associations from previous experiences.
Reconceptualize: View the situation from another perspective and evaluate it from a positive position to respond better.
I invite you to practice this; by doing so, you will train your mind and brain to respond instead of reacting, thereby increasing your emotional intelligence.
In my Neuroscience Coaching process, I help my clients discover their mental and emotional conditioning, understand it, and reconceptualize it to transform it from the root, change how they interpret the environment and modulate and improve their reactions in a positive direction.
If you are interested in exploring how neuroscience can transform your personal or professional life, I invite you to learn more about my program at Adriana Barbara Neuroscience Leadership Program. Together, we can discover how to maximize the power of your mind to achieve your goals.
Don’t miss my next article, where we will continue exploring the mind and how to use it effectively to achieve better results.
Adriana Bárbara Rodríguez, Mind Coach
Adriana Barbara is a Mind specialized Coach that is focused on helping CEO's and high-level entrepreneurs to develop their leadership teams by assisting each member to transform their mindset from the root, achieve their full potential and improve their highest productivity in order to accomplish the organization’s goals in an effective and sustainable way, with her innovative Neuroscience method in leadership.
