How to Stay in Control in Stressful Situations [Amygdala Hijacking Explained]

Have you ever had an amygdala hijack? You might be asking yourself, well, what the heck does that even mean? Right? How can I be hijacked by my amygdala? Well, your amygdala is the part of your brain. Okay. That is the fight or flight response mechanism. It's the emotional part of your brain. So we have basically two sides of our brain. We have the cognitive part of our brain where we think and we reason and we can be rational or innovative and creative. And then we have the emotional part of our brain where all of the emotions lie, some positive emotions and some negative emotions. But we also have that part of the emotional brain called the amygdala, which is the fight or flight response mechanism. This is our survival mechanism and it's important. We need it so that if we step out into traffic, we can quickly react and get out of the way of danger. Or if somebody is attacking us, we can fight them off or we can flight, we can run. And this part of our brain serves us because it allows us to survive, right? However, that part of our brain can't differentiate between a physical attack, a real attack or a car coming at us or some bear coming out of the woods or something like that. And a verbal attack or, or an emotional response to some trigger about somebody blaming you or judging you or, or calling you out. It doesn't know the difference between just words and a physical attack. So it responds the same way. It puts you into a what's called an amygdala hijack. And what happens is the body wants to fight off this danger or run. And so it's activated and blood rushes to the muscles and you tense up as soon as somebody verbally attacks you or, or says something you didn't like, or you hear something that triggers you, you tense up like you're ready to fight or flight when that happens. Okay. The blood that's in our body, right? Rushes to those muscles to activate them. And we don't have an infinite resource of blood in our body. We have about nine pints. And so if all this blood is rushing to your muscles so you can fight off this perceived danger, it had to leave somewhere to get there. Where did it leave? Well, much of it left your brain. Okay. And your brain needs that blood and the nutrients in that blood to be able to reason and think. And so if you've just flushed your brain of all this, the nutrients to reason and think, you no longer can be rational and think. So you say things that you wish you didn't say later, you do things that you wish you wouldn't have done later. Okay. When you've calmed down and the blood's back in your brain, you're like, I can't believe I said that. I can't believe I did that. Right. You have a sudden onset of emotion that takes over you and you've been hijacked by your amygdala. It's like you're possessed by somebody all of a sudden you're doing things that you would never do. And if, if somebody recorded you and you watch that later, you'd be appalled by the things that you did that you didn't even know you did because it happened really quickly and unconsciously. It's like when you're driving down the street and somebody cuts you off in traffic and suddenly you have a sudden onset and amygdala hijacking, you're screaming at the top of your lungs. Words that should never come out of your mouth are coming out of your mouth. Fingers go up in the air that shouldn't come up there. You're screaming at somebody, you're chasing them down. You're completely irrational. Why is that? Because you just are hijacked by your amygdala. And so this is an extreme case, but this can happen while you're sitting at your desk or sitting in a meeting and somebody calls you out or judges you or blames you for something. And suddenly you have this sudden onset and you tense up and your muscles get tight. And when your muscles get tight, the blood's rushed to them and suddenly you say something that you wish you didn't say. It could happen with your significant other or your children. When you yell at your children for something so random. And then later when you see, if you were to watch that recording of you freaking out on your children who, or your child who's four years old, you'd be like, I can't believe I did this. This child's only four years old. I just went completely ballistic. You were hijacked by your amygdala. So we have to understand how this happens, right? So the blood goes rushing from your brain to your muscles because the brain doesn't know. It doesn't can't differentiate between a real attack and something that just feels like an attack. So it behaves the same way. So for you to be able to get in front of this, okay, which is important, we're all going to have an amygdala hijack, but we need to get in front of it as quickly as possible. You need to know your body. And when you sense that your body is tensing up because somebody just triggered you, and obviously you should know your triggers to what triggers you, what makes you angry, what makes you frustrated, what annoys you or who annoys you, who makes you frustrated, who angers you try to try to either stay away from those people. Or if you can't, because they're in your life and your family or whatever, or your work, then recognize those triggers and make sure that you're prepared for that, right? You're prepared. You're walking into a situation where you could be triggered to know that, right? Stay in control, breathe. Okay. And then when you sense that this is coming on, when somebody says something and your brain says, okay, I'm being attacked, recognize your physiology, recognize that you test up. When I know that my body is tense, right? Um, I recognize that this isn't a good time to open my mouth because the blood that's in my brain, that's supposed to allow me to reason and think is now on my muscles. Bad time to open this mouth. So what do I do? I try to take a few deep breaths, right? I might tell myself a different story, right? Maybe the first thing that I say, if somebody attacks me or says something that I don't like, I say, isn't that interesting? And that allows the me to relax. That might work for you. Isn't that interesting that they just said that. So ask yourself a few questions, right? Um, what am I thinking? What am I feeling? What might their positive intent be? What do I want? For what kind of an outcome do I want? Or even start off like I do more often than not. I say, isn't that interesting? And it just relaxes me just saying that right now, just relax me a bit. Okay. And I say that to myself, obviously, right? So this is an internal story to get me to relax. When I feel like I'm finally relaxed and the blood's flowing again. Now I can rationally speak to this person rather than being possessed by my eye, by my amygdala. Okay. You could say to yourself, what's their positive intent? Um, you could ask yourself, what am I thinking and feeling right now? Right? Get into a story and you might, as soon as you feel the tension, get yourself into a story that's going to help you release the tension. Maybe even taking a sip of water momentarily, just the moment of time. It takes a sip. Water might get you just to the point where you're relaxed. And when you feel like you're relaxed now, you know, the blood's flowing again. Now you have a better opportunity to reason and think because your brain hasn't been flushed of the nutrients that it needs to reason and think. All right. So this is how we get in front of the amygdala hijack. Okay. It's going to happen. It's going to happen to you, right? Just try to get in front of it as quickly as possible. Try to slow it down before you are possessed and in, and your brain is in control of you versus you being in control of your brain. I hope this served you. If it did, please like this video. Um, if you know somebody who constantly is in amygdala hijack, share this with them, it could serve them. And of course, subscribe to this channel. Um, and every time I post a video, you will be notified. Thanks for watching.