How to Use Your Brain
The Curious Incident of the Bug in the Night Time
A few nights ago my 8-year-old son watched one last cartoon before bed. When it ended, an ad came on that showed what seemed like millions of bugs crawling all over the screen. This particular son of ours has a diagnosed anxiety disorder and also a severe aversion to insects of any kind. I did my best to calm him down as we walked downstairs to his room.
I told him it was just something on the television and there are no bugs in the house.
I told him to look closely on the floor, walls, and ceiling and notice that no bugs were there.
When we got to his room I told him to look around on the floor and in his bed. Again, no bugs!
After several more minutes of this, he finally crawled into bed and began to settle in.
The second he did, a small spider climbed up the wall right beside him.
“You gotta be kidding me!” I said.
In one motion he screamed, smashed the spider with his bare hand, threw off the covers, and leapt onto the floor.
His worst fear had come true. And at that point I felt the panic of a parent who isn’t sure their child will actually go to sleep.
I said something like, “Wow bud! You did it! You saw a bug, got scared, and solved the problem yourself. See, you don’t have anything to be afraid of because you’re bigger than bugs!”
He didn’t buy it.
His body showed all the signs of panic:
shoulders pulled up close to his ears
hands gripping each other under his chin
eyes wide
fast breathing
alternating his weight rapidly from foot to foot
In my head I cursed whatever marketing agency thought it was a good idea to run an ad with bugs crawling across the screen after a children’s cartoon.
How to Use Your Brain
Since he could not be talked down, I decided to try a different approach.
I told him to stand on one foot and count backward from 10. Then stand on the other foot and count up to 10. I had him try the old “Pat Your Head and Rub Your Belly” trick. The challenge of it made him giggle. Next, I told him to look at the lines on the wall and count them as fast as he could, and then look down at the rug on the floor for 3 seconds, close his eyes, and tell me all the colors he could remember. Finally, I asked him, “What’s 1 + 1? What’s 2+2? What’s 4+4? What’s 8+8?” and so on. He got to 128!
It took about five or six minutes for his body to become noticeably calm. His shoulders fell from his ears. His hands were by his side. His eyes softened and his breathing slowed down. After the math quiz he said he was tired and asked if he could get in bed.
“Sure,” I said.
He laid down. I sang a song, and soon he was fast asleep.
The Human Brain
The brain is a pretty bizarre thing. I am not a neuroscientist, nor do I have any formal neurological education. But I read enough to know that, while significant parts of the human brain are still a profound mystery, there is also much we know about how the brain works, and we can use it to our advantage.
On this particular night, my son’s brain was completely controlled by his brainstem and limbic system - the fear and emotional center of our brain. No amount of reasoning worked because he wasn’t in the prefrontal area where reasoning takes place. No matter how many times I told him the bugs on the television screen were not real, or that the spider he saw on the wall was not going to hurt him, I could not get through because his ability to reason was completely shut off.
It’s like when you use the wrong key to open a lock. So that’s why I switched to some simple brain exercises.
In order to move control from his subcortical fear center into his more rational prefrontal cortex, I had to activate it with situations that can only be solved using motor skills, reason, and logic.
Standing on one foot activates our cortex where movement and muscle memory are stored. Sometimes, physical movement is a good first step when you feel scared, anxious, or angry because it doesn’t require the mental energy of logic and reasoning, but it gets you out of the fear center. The next time you feel anxious, angry, or afraid, go for a jog or do some sit-ups. Let your body be a participant in easing your anxiety.
Once the cortex had control of my son’s brain, I moved him into slightly more complex challenges like counting lines on the wall, remembering colors, and adding numbers. This activated his prefrontal cortex where all logic and reasoning occur. And once the prefrontal area has control of the mind, fear and anxiety are shut off.
By activating certain parts of his brain, my son detached himself from the emotion of the situation and was finally able to relax and fall asleep.
Our Reactions are Just Stories
If you break this down a step further, you see that my son was not actually afraid of the bugs. He was afraid of the story he told himself about the bugs. In his mind, the thought of bugs crawling across a screen translated into a probable situation in which bugs would crawl all over him. And if bugs crawled on him, they would probably bite him. And if bugs were to bite him, he would experience severe pain.
That’s the story he told himself about the bugs, and it was the story - not the ad itself - that caused his reaction.
We do the same thing, especially in moments of stress and conflict.
This meme template was popular for a while and it illustrates the point perfectly:
Not to ruin a perfectly great meme with an explanation, but the young woman is angry not over what the man is actually thinking, but the story she has told herself about what the man is thinking. If she knew what he was actually thinking, she might engage in conversation or maybe just roll her eyes and go to sleep.
In their book, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High, four researchers explain how this plays out in our day-to-day interactions with people. They tell a hypothetical story about a woman named Maria who suspects her husband is being unfaithful because of a suspicious charge on their credit card statement. She spends all day stewing in her feelings of anger, hurt, and betrayal until her husband arrives home from work. As soon as he walks in she shouts, “How could you do this to me?!”
With minimal investigation or information gathering, Maria:
observed the information (strange credit card charge)
told herself a story about it (her husband is having an affair)
felt a response to the story (hurt, anger, betrayal)
and then acted on that feeling (shouted at her husband)
That’s the pattern:
OBSERVE —> TELL A STORY —> FEEL SOMETHING —> ACT ON THE FEELING
It’s what my son did with the bugs and it’s what we do mindlessly every day. The vast majority of our behaviors have nothing to do with the actual circumstance and everything to do with the story we’ve told ourselves about it.
How Meditation Helps
A consistent meditation practice makes it much easier to consciously shift control to the prefrontal area of your brain when you feel anxious, angry, or afraid. Ten, twenty, or thirty minutes each day is great exercise for your mind. You develop the mental strength to experience your present circumstances as they are and deal with reality as it exists rather than react to the story you’ve told yourself about it.
One of the best - and most simple - ways to exercise your mind in meditation is to name what you experience. It is literally as simple as it sounds.
When you breathe in, say, “I am breathing in.”
When you breathe out, say, “I am breathing out.”
When you hear a car drive by, say, “I hear a car drive by.”
When your nose itches, say, “My nose itches.”
When you think about a conversation with a co-worker, say, “I am thinking about a conversation with a co-worker.”
When you name your present experience, you activate the prefrontal area of your brain so you can receive your experiences, thoughts, and emotions rather than react to them. As you develop this practice in meditation, you acquire the ability to access it in times of fear, stress, and conflict too.
Your brain is like a tool - the more you understand how it works, the more you can use it to your advantage. Take a moment and name what’s around you. Name what' your body is doing. Name what your mind is thinking. Experience the present moment just as it is, and let your mind find some rest.