Campusalam

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Understanding how the brain works can help you to create good conversations and help to you overcome difficult situations.

There is a part of the brain that is particularly good at thinking. It is called the ‘neo-cortex’. It can deal with complexity: like trying to imagine things from a completely different perspective, or seeing things are not black and white but are many shades of grey. It can do ‘one the one hand, but on the other hand’; ‘the advantages are…but there are disadvantages too such as…’ and other kinds of balancing acts that require fine but important distinctions. It can do logic and analysis and reasoning. It can cope with facts or ideas that are subtle and complicated and have complex ramifications.

There is a part of the brain called ‘the limbic system’ – psychologists sometimes call it the ‘emotional brain’. Information comes in from our eyes and ears, and goes straight to this part of the brain. The emotional brain quickly and crudely matches it against its own past experiences – is this a threat? Is it a good thing I want? Depending on the result, the emotional brain tags the information with an emotional label. What happens next in our heads depends on this tag. If the situation is perceived as threatening or requiring some urgent, instinctive, response, then the emotional brain stays in charge. If not, the information can be passed on to the part of the brain that does the most sophisticated thinking.