Nothing Is Wrong With Your Brain: Part 1 (The Lower Brain)

Can you relate?

Have you ever experienced a time where you were just sitting around, minding your own business, and out of nowhere, your heart starts pounding out of your chest, your palms start sweating, and you feel a dreadful sense that something terrible is about to happen…but you have no idea how it all started?

Or how about a time you were having a seemingly calm conversation with someone and all of a sudden, that person says one little thing that has you clenching your fists so you don’t shake them and scream obscenities in their face?  Where the heck did that even come from??

I hear stories like this from the clients I work with all the time, followed by sentiments like:

“I’m pretty sure I’m just a psycho.”

“I promise I’m not a terrible person!”

“You probably think I’m absolutely crazy…am I your worst client?”

“There’s something really wrong with me.”

Here is what my answer ALWAYS is:

Nothing has gone wrong with your brain.  You have a human brain that is being a human brain!

If you have worked with me before, you know I spend a lot of time talking about your brain! 

I think it is so important for us to understand how our brains work in relation to our mental health and what we are thinking and feeling.  So many clients I have worked with come in exasperated, sharing with me that they think there is something terribly wrong with how their brain is working.

What has actually gone wrong?

What I think has gone wrong is that our society does not teach us how to understand and manage our minds.

We learn high-level math and physics.  About the history of our cultures.  About politics and how to bake an exquisite cake.

But no one ever sits us down and says, “Hey!  You know that feeling when out of nowhere, you feel like you’re going to die?  Here’s what is going on in your brain when that happens…”

Hell, I have two degrees and several licenses in mental health and it STILL took me several years of my own research and personal development to figure this out!

So, we go through our lives thinking that when that does happen, something awful has happened, and that our brain is broken.

Your brain is not broken. 

I promise. 

It is doing exactly what a human brain has been programmed to do. 

If society won’t teach you, I will!

I’ve put together a series of posts to help you start to understand your Lower Brain, your Higher Brain, how the two interact, where pain and suffering occur, and what to do about it!

This post is an overview of your Lower Brain.

Warning: This is by no means a comprehensive exploration of the human brain.  For purposes of this post, I’m going to keep things nice and simple. 

Your Lower Brain

Aliases: Amygdala; Monkey brain; Unsupervised toddler brain; Emotional brain; Unintelligent brain; Survival brain

I want to talk to you about the lower brain first.  This seems to be where most of our pain and suffering come from. 

Your lower brain processes emotions and responds to perceived threats.  It likes to seek immediate pleasure, and avoid pain at all costs.  It also likes predictability, repetition, and doing things that do not require the use of a ton of energy.  Think about it…seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, and doing things we know how to do repeatedly is how the human species has survived!

Staying alive…that’s great, right?

During the days of the caveman, it made sense to have a brain that was hyper-focused on survival.  There were so many threats to our safety on a daily basis back then: a lion hunting us and our family, severe weather without adequate shelter, lack of access to medical care, and so on.  We constantly had to be on the lookout for things that may kill us and squander our hopes of survival and passing along our DNA.

Our world has evolved so much since then. 

We have Ibuprofen (and coffee) for the tiniest headache.  Weather-proof housing with heating and air conditioning.  Access to clean drinking water (and Diet Pepsi).  Animals don’t hunt us on the daily (ahem, this blog is not referring to you if you live in the Everglades or if your neighbor’s dog is a monster).  For most of us, it is very rare that we encounter something that threatens our literal existence.

Here’s the thing:

Our lower brain has not evolved to understand that we are no longer under constant attack.  It cannot distinguish between that awkward conversation you’re about to have with your boss and that hungry lion racing towards you.  Its response is the same: “You’re going to die!”

Have you ever noticed your physiological response to someone who you thought made a rude comment to you, cut you in line at a store, or did something you felt was unjust or unfair?  Many of us have a physical response as if we are under attack!  Our heart starts to beat rapidly, we feel hot or clammy, and we freeze up or have the urge to run and hide or ‘attack’ back.

Then, when you are in a calm state, you think back to the encounter and feel like you may have overreacted?  That whatever that other person said or did was really not that big of a deal? 

Your lower brain believed differently! 

It perceived the encounter as a life-threatening attack that you needed to protect yourself from.  This is where the Fight/Flight/Freeze response comes in!

Our lower brain’s primary function is to keep us alive and safe, yet it is not intelligent enough to be able to distinguish between an actual threat and one it perceives to be dangerous. 

Don’t stress!  We have a better tool!

This is where the Higher Brain becomes imperative!  In the next post, I will explain the functions of our Higher Brain, and you will see how we are able to use it to supervise and manage our Lower Brain.  Stay tuned!