Your Brain’s Fire Alarm

Fear is a normal response designed to keep us safe when things are obviously unsafe; but fear that starts hijacking our body and mind is not a good thing. We see this today on social media. The comments that people make. People are very reactionary. They’re not thinking clearly. They’re not articulating thoughts. They are just lashing out in fear and pain and this is driven through your amygdala – your reactive brain.

There’s a thing called an amygdala hijack where social media can literally hijack somebody’s amygdala. They go on a rant. They go crazy and boom. Why? Because this response in the brain bypasses the normal processing in the normal way in which a sound mind operates and it goes into a reactionary mode where the person is operating with their amygdala on full alert.

The amygdala is our brain’s fire alarm. This survival mechanism kept us safe for years out in the wild, but in an office environment when the amygdala is overreactive, it’s not a good thing because we are overly stressed when the reality of the unsafe situation may not warrant a full alarm response. We are overly anxious and the body is enduring a lot of stress from past traumas that are probably being stimulated through the subconscious mind, and even embedded in the nervous system after being conditioned to react this way as a result of unknown and unresolved triggers that stimulate the overdrive fear response. How does this show up at work? Defensiveness, anger, bullying, gossip for self-preservation, and comments that are out of line compared to what you would expect from someone who is neutral and not reactive.

So, understand that there are differences when people respond with logical adult behavior and when they react when the amygdala is being stimulated. If you understand this, you’ll also understand how your own brain works in stressful times to be a lot clearer and sounder in how you respond. Understand that there’s a difference between responding and reacting. As managers, we always want to be responding.