Stress Resources- Mental Stress
Introduction, thoughts that loop are the ones that keep coming up over and over again. We just can’t seem to get rid of them. They can trigger feelings of fear and insecurity. Below are some examples.
'I am not good at this.'
'I feel not good enough.'
'I will never get all this done.'
'I don't think that they like me.'
In our heads most of the time.
Some people can become disconnected from their emotions and operate primarily from the mind’s logic. You have probably met people like this who can over analyze everything! But operating mainly from the mind can lead to a lack of feeling and emotional experience— and rob a person of joy and deep friendships. It is also now known that the 3rd brain needs the feeling parts of the 2nd brain in its decision-making processes when choosing appropriate actions and behaviors—for instance, the right thing to say in a social situation and the right time to say it. It just makes sense that the brain would need more than pure logic to make wise choices.
We need to have good communication between our emotional and logical centers to be able to recognize and understand what others are feeling and how our behaviors are affecting them, a skill that is critical for making and keeping friends.
How Perceptions Affect Emotion: The Slow Track
Of course, such memories do not happen just with dogs. They happen with all of our past situations, including our relationships with other people and places and situations that have left deep impressions on us. A person with a certain kind of walk or body type might cause you to feel fear because he reminds you of someone who once bullied you. The smell of a hot dog can make you nauseous because you down with a stomach flu after eating one once. You may dislike people with red hair because of that one red-headed person who once picked on you. And the list goes on.
Our emotional memories can cause us to stereotype whole group of people with certain physical characteristics, affecting how we think about them. Remember a time when a memory was formed in the past and how it affects you now in the present.
You can gain tremendous benefits once you recognize that your emotional memories are affecting you and, in many cases, controlling and limiting you. When you realize this, you can begin to reduce these inappropriate fears, anxieties, angry reactions, and other unhealthy emotions caused by emotional memories.
As we become interested in our inner experiences we begin to see/feel how the different brain levels can talk to each other. The heart and brain communicate with one another and the messages they send back and forth affect us in many important ways.
The Heart-Brain Connection
There is a nervous system pathway that carries signals from the heart to the brain, as well as one that carries messages from the brain to the heart. Surprisingly, the heart sends more signals to the brain the brain sends to the heart!In a way, we could say that the heart and brain “talk” to one another—and together they “talk” with the body. The signals they send, whether harmonious or chaotic, can make all the difference in how we feel and act.
Nerve impulses from the heart are received first at the 1st brain level, then move into the brain’s higher centers (2nd and 3rd levels) affecting how we feel, think, perceive, and perform.
How Heart Activity Affects How We Feel (Read in order of numbers)
These messages are sent through the nervous system pathways. The pathway starts in the heart and goes to the 1st brain, then to the amygdala in the 2nd brain. The pattern of the signal tells the 2nd brain what the heart and body are experiencing, while the 3rd brain monitors the 2nd brain and categorizes and names the feeling of fear, anger, joy, appreciation, or whatever it is—after we’re already experiencing it.
When we pretend to breathe through the area of the heart and generate a positive feeling—appreciation, for instance—we can actually change the signals the heart sends to the brain, influencing the brain’s perception and improving how we feel. This signal affects how the brain perceives and is an important way that the heart influences how we are feeling.
How Heart Activity Affects Our Ability to Think
THALAMUS: Synchronizes cortical activity.
MEDULLA: Regulates basic life functions
Disordered heart rhythms inhibit 3rd brain activity and inhibit our thinking.
Ordered heart rhythms improve 3rd brain activity and facilitate our thinking.
Another important pathway, is mainly related to the activity of the 3rd brain and our ability to think clearly. It carries information from the heart to the thalamus, a key brain center that has many crucial roles. One of its roles is to distribute incoming sensory information to the different sections of the 3rd brain and ensure that the signals are in sync. Another function that the thalamus performs is to help synchronize the activity in the 3rd brain itself.
When the heart’s signals to the thalamus have a jagged and irregular pattern, they interfere with the ability of the thalamus to perform this function. This results in what is called cortical inhibition. In this state the brain is not working as well as it could—your reactions are slowed and you cannot think as clearly. This is why when you get angry or upset, you can say or do something that you would not’t normally or do. You hear someone say, “What were you thinking?!” What happened was that stressful feelings caused the signals in your nervous system to get out of sync, creating disordered heart rhythms and reducing your brain’s and body’s ability to perform well.
Positive feelings and smooth, even heart rhythms, however, facilitate or improve the brain’s ability to process information; this is called cortical facilitation. This means that our physical reflexes are faster and we can think more clearly. We can see more options and solutions to problems and situations than we could before. This is important not only for tasks that require us to be able to focus, think, and make decisions, but also for ones that require us to have good coordination and speed—in sports, for example.
If we get upset while playing sports, not only do we drain our energy reserves more quickly, but our ability to perform is affected as well. This is because of the disorder caused in the nervous system by feelings like frustration, worry, and anxiety, and also because of the “noise” they create in the brain. An excess of mental and emotional noise in the brain can make it difficult to perceive what’s going on. It overloads the circuits the brain needs for focusing, learning, remembering important details, and maintaining mental stability. The whole brain system goes into overload.
This is what happens when people are anxious about taking a test. Anxiety drives up the mental noise to such a pitch that they cannot see as much of the world around them, since the brain circuits usually available for recognition and understanding are busy with the internal noise. They will look at a test question and overlook certain words, miss the meaning of the question, and give the wrong answer. They can even miss seeing entire questions on the page!
This same process can happen when we are talking with our friends or family members. If we are not able to maintain a neutral feeling, we can literally be unable to hear what is being said and miss the meaning of what is communicated, which can further upset us.
Adapted from a free email booklet by HeartMath