What happens to our brain when we're distressed?

There are billions of neurons in the brain, sending and receiving messages. There are trillions of connections between all of those neurons, which are continually forming. And there are all these different sections of the brain responsible for different things. It can sound a bit mind-blowing right? A recent course I attended explained one part of the brain as being like a security guard. I liked that analogy, so I'm going with a character theme to help explain the brain a little further...

The security guard (amygdala)

The brain’s priority is survival. There’s a part of the brain that acts a bit like a security guard (its name is the amygdala) – it’s always on alert in the background, it frequently scans for threats and is ready to act on that threat at any moment. When it identifies something it thinks is a threat, it instantly acts to reduce the risk. This is your brain’s emergency response and it activates something called the sympathetic nervous system, more commonly known as fight or flight (can also include freeze and fawn). Depending on the situation, your brain will decide which of these is the best to keep you safe. The amygdala also contributes towards memory storage by processing emotional memory.

The project manager (prefrontal cortex)

Your brain learns from the past to predict what may be coming up and compares current situations to past experiences. This helps with things such as planning, decision making and problem solving. This is done by the prefrontal cortex – think of it like your brain’s project manager. So when the security guard sounds the alarm, your project manager takes a bit of time to assess whether the threat actually exists, because it's looking at those past experiences in order to make a decision. If there’s no threat, it will tell your security guard to stand down (stop the threat response), and then you start to relax. When you calm down, you engage your parasympathetic nervous system, also known as the rest and digest system.

The database administrator (hippocampus)

The hippocampus is like your brain’s database administrator. It processes short term memories and sends them into long-term storage. It loves organising your memories into categories, so each is tagged with certain information, including the date and time.

The effect of trauma on the brain

Going through an experience that you find extremely difficult to tolerate, that overwhelms your emotions or is something distressing that’s unexpected can be felt as a trauma. It may be a one-off experience or it could be something you're exposed to over a period of time. It’s very individual – what one person experiences as trauma, another may not.

At the time of experiencing trauma, the fight or flight can kick in, as this is the brain's way of protecting you in the moment. I mentioned earlier, you may find you freeze in the moment - you literally can't do anything. If this happens, it means your brain decided this was the safest thing, as to do anything else could have resulted in more harm.

After going through a traumatic or distressing experience, the security guard in the brain can get so obsessed with looking for threats, it doesn't stand down. This means your sympathetic nervous system is frequently engaged and you can feel this sense of constant alertness.

Trauma can also overwhelm your database administrator, meaning memories can get tagged with wrong or missing information and dates and sequences can get mixed up.

"Flipping your lid"

Dr Dan Siegal came up with a hand model of the brain - a simple way of understanding how the brain is structured. Place your hand upright, with your palm facing you. Tuck your thumb in and then curl your fingers over the top of the thumb.

• Your fingers represent the prefrontal cortex (project manager)

• Your thumb represents the limbic system, which incorporates the amygdala (security guard) and the hippocampus (database administrator)

• The bottom of your hand represents the brain stem, going down into your wrist, representing the spinal cord, which then has links into the rest of your body

Say something happens that you perceive as an extreme threat, or it taps into an emotion that's felt really intensely for you. It can result in "flipping your lid" - your thumb flips up, knocking your fingers away, sending the project manager into a spin. So you lose your ability to think and make logical decisions. Your emotions take over. They make the decisions. They influence what you say and do in that moment.

When your parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) comes back in and your fingers come back over your thumb, you may look back on your actions as being out of character, perhaps over the top or even scary. It can be easy to beat yourself up over this, but remember when you flip your lid, the 'thinking' project manager is out of action for a bit, so it's like you lose control over your reaction to the situation.

You don't have to flip your lid every time. You've already started to understand what's going on in the brain when this happens. Now focus on what that feels like for you - in your mind and body. What are the early signs? How does this compare to when it gets more intense? Can you identify what triggers you? Then think about what helps you to keep calm and how you might engage your rest and digest system earlier.

Counselling can help you to work through these and give you techniques to help manage your emotions in moments where you feel they could get out of control. It can also be a place to look at your past experiences, if and when you feel ready to. If you'd like to talk about how we can work through this together, book a free consultation call.

I write my own blogs. In the interest of full disclosure, the character images on this page were generated using yeschat.ai