The Art and Science of Rational vs. Irrational Reponses

Changing the way we think… about communication.

“All Behaviour is Communication” (L.R. Knost)

Have you ever wondered, “What were they thinking?” OR “Why did they just do that?”

I am convinced that there are a great many of us who have on occasion wondered about a response we got from a family member, friend, colleague and/or even an acquaintance.  We might have on those occasions questioned their rationale.  Well…. Guess what!  If their reaction appeared to be irrational, there was a very real possibility that they were either “irrational” or possibly even “non-rational” at the time of their response which may have been driven by the Limbic system in their brain.

As remarkably complex as the brain is, we can simplify our look at it by subdividing it into three parts.  The reptilian brain, the mammalian brain, and the prefrontal cortex.  Each section characterized by the colours Brown, Red, and Blue, respectively. The Brown or Reptilian Brain is responsible for functions aimed solely at ensuring survival and is made up mainly of the brain stem.  The mammalian (Red) brain consists of the limbic system and includes where memories are made and stored, threats are perceived and the fight/flight response initiates. The Blue or prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain that does the thinking, evaluating and decision-making, or what have come to be known as executive functions.

Long considered a model that represents the brain’s evolution, this representation is much less an evolutionary model and much more of a functional depiction with acknowledgment to The MEHRIT Ctr.

While the Brown Brain regulates our basic metabolic functions, the Red Brain is constantly scanning the environment for threats and danger, and once perceived primes the body for action:  muscles tense up, respiration quickens as oxygen is needed, heart rate accelerates to prime us for rapid reactionary response.

The problem however lies in when events occur that then require our attention to potential threats.  Attention that has our brain is consuming energy in the form of glucose.  When this glucose energy reserve becomes depleted, we have little if any left to fuel our Blue Brain’s, evaluative, thinking processes that are also demanding and energy expensive.  We fall into a primal Fight of Flight response that is so often not rational at all but rather a product of the perceived threat’s interpretation. This places us squarely in the High Tension/Low Energy (HT/LE) quadrant I described in last month’s article.

So, the next time you get a response that you feel is an over-reaction… ask yourself Why? And Why Now?  What stressors have them so depleting their energy (glucose) levels so as to be feeling that they are in that HT/LE state? You will then be Reframing their response.