Amygdala Hijacking

The last couple of years have been stressful for most humans. And unless you sheltered-in-place in a remote cave, you've witnessed on the news (or in real life) someone "losing it."

Most of us have experienced at least one point in our lives when we "lost it." It's those times you used inappropriate language, acted irrationally, yelled at a fellow human, felt embarrassed afterward, and regretted the way you behaved. At the time of the event, many humans feel as if they have no control over themselves. It's a moment of "I can't believe I did or said that."

These heat-of-the-moment episodes have a name — Amygdala Hijacking.

I first heard the term "amygdala hijacking" circa 2005 while training a group of mental healthcare professionals. One of my students had a trigger that she had no control over — her anger would go from zero to off-the-charts when anyone brought up the subject of physical abuse. My student was a former victim and mentally time-traveled back to her traumatization at the mention of the subject. "Helping Clients Overcome Abuse" was a topic in the training, and my student was very noticeably disturbed. Another student in the room spoke up, "Your amygdala is being hijacked. Breathe deeply and focus on your breath."

At the time, I had no idea what amygdala hijacking was, and I set out to learn everything I could about it. Unfortunately, I had to sort through hours of information to understand the concept. This article aims to help you understand and prevent amygdala hijacking in significantly less time than it took me to comprehend the subject.

The Term

Psychologist Daniel Goleman is credited with naming the emotional overreaction to stress an "amygdala hijack." He coined the term in his 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence.

The Amygdala

The amygdala is an almond-shaped mass of gray matter in each side of your brain — you have two. You can visualize the location of your amygdala by imagining a horizontal line from your left ear to your right ear and then drawing horizontal lines straight through your pupils to the back of your head. Where the lines intersect are about where you'll find your amygdala.

The amygdala is part of the brain's limbic system. The limbic system is responsible for a human's emotional and behavioral responses. The primary responsibility of the amygdala is to regulate emotions associated with fear and aggression — a well-known example is the fight-or-flight response.

Without input from your conscious mind, your amygdala activates your fight-or-flight response the moment it thinks danger is near. This activation floods your brain with stress hormones.

Two hundred thousand years ago, danger meant spotting a saber-toothed tiger, coming across a venomous snake, encountering humans from other tribes, and dangerous weather.

Today, the fight-or-flight response is most likely activated by emotions such as anger, anxiety, fear, and stress. In other words, your thoughts trigger the flood of stress hormones — tricking the mind into reacting as if you are in a life-threatening situation.

In order to understand amygdala hijacking, you need just a bit more information — specifically, about your thalamus and prefrontal cortex.

The Thalamus

The thalamus routes the signals pouring into your brain from your senses (except smell) to your amygdala and prefrontal cortex simultaneously.

The Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex is the region of your brain associated with higher-level operations such as decision making, the ability to suppress emotions and urges, reasoning, predicting future consequences of current actions, and much more. Essentially, the prefrontal cortex keeps humans from committing socially unacceptable acts.

The prefrontal cortex allows you to evaluate a situation before deciding if it's a threat. In contrast, your amygdala automatically flips the panic switch when a threat is detected.

The prefrontal cortex can frequently override your amygdala when dealing with mild to moderate threats, allowing you to evaluate the situation rationally. But if the perceived or actual threat is severe enough, the amygdala has the ability to disable your prefrontal cortex.

The Amygdala Hijacking

When your amygdala disables your prefrontal cortex, that's an amygdala hijacking. Your amygdala controls your brain and actions, taking away your ability to make sound decisions. Also known as "losing it."

The Fix

I have learned and conditioned myself to recognize the space between a stimulus and the response. In that space is where your free will lives. It's the moment to remember that you are speaking to another human being, the moment you choose to be calm and collected or "lose it."

This skill develops as you become more self-aware, learn your triggers, and discover how you instinctively react. Begin to pay close attention to that space between stimulus and response. Practice taking a moment before you respond to happenings in your life. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. I'm not going to lie; it takes commitment and hard work to develop this skill.

I recommend you start by making a list of the triggers you have. For example, if someone raised their voice to me, I used to match their tone and volume — sometimes, I went well beyond. My mind was under the impression that the louder human wins. Now that I know it's a major trigger for me, I focus on the moment after a human raises their voice to me. I then take a breath and decide to keep my voice average conversational volume.

Do I ever screw up and raise my voice?

Absolutely!

There are times that my amygdala takes over before I can consciously choose how to react. But those times continue to grow fewer as I continue to practice.

When you practice this skill every day, you will begin to notice that you become conditioned to taking that moment to think. Perhaps you misplace your keys, and your modus operandi is to get frustrated and angry. Stop, take a moment to breathe, and choose the emotional state that will optimize the finding of your keys.

The Tool

Meditation is a tool that I have found to help avoid amygdala hijackings. I've been meditating off and on since my early 20s. Over the past six years, I have meditated almost every day. As a result, the stress and anxiety I used to experience have been minimized, and amygdala hijackings are very rare.

Meditation isn't an overnight fix — it's called meditation practice for a reason. Set aside at least 10 minutes each day to practice meditation. If this is your first experience with meditation, you'll quickly realize how many thoughts go through your mind at any one moment. Meditation isn't meant to eliminate those thoughts; it's meant to sit with your thoughts as they come and go. I imagine that my thoughts are clouds floating across the sky of my mind. Sometimes the sky is very cloudy, and other times the sky is nearly clear.

As you train your mind using meditation, you'll learn to take a breath, center yourself, and override your amygdala more often.

Need a Little Help?

I created an audio program to help humans start their meditation practice. It's available on my website for $1 because I want it to be accessible to everyone. I believe that the more humans who implement a meditation practice, the better the world will be.

Meditation can help you gain a heightened state of awareness and focused attention. In addition, it has been shown to have many benefits on physical and psychological well-being.

The purpose of meditation isn't solely to reduce stress or make you feel better in the moment — it's to discover your own mind.

You may download my 15-Minute Meditation here... https://the-hypnosis-for-humans-store.constantcontactsites.com/buy-stuff/product/p_2809994.