Calming the Amygdala

I have been engaging with Shirzad Chamine's work (Positive Intelligence) over the last fortnight, with real interest. And it occurred to me that a common thread with many of the other approaches that I am interested in, was this idea of calming the Amygdala. That, if I understand correctly, is what Chamine's work is predicated on.

Professor Paul Brown (who wrote Neuropsychology for Coaches, for example) suggested to Nancy Kline that her approach worked so well (more reliably, in his view than many therapeutic approaches) because it calmed the amygdala: a phrase that has stayed with me since Nancy quoted him on the topic.

The amygdala, it seems, is that part of the brain that scans the horizon for threat, and if any is detected, initiates our fight or flight response. 

Of course, many of the threats it now identifies are not of the sabre-toothed tiger about to jump on you type, but our neural response is the same. Daniel Goleman, in Emotional Intelligence, writes of the amygdala hijack: when our emotional response is rapid overwhelming and disproportionate.

So calming that - so that we are not overwhelmed and prompted to respond in a reactive way - is valuable. Viktor Frankl famously wrote: 'Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.' 

Stephen Covey, in his famous 7 Habits, suggests that the skill of proactivity includes creating a gap between stimulus and response, precisely in order to choose one's response.

And practices such as meditation are designed (inter alia) to help us to develop the discipline of focusing our mind on what we want to focus on, not on all the things that clamour for its attention.

One of the ways we attempt to do this is to strengthen alternative neural pathways to the disruptive ones of our habitual automatic responses. That is what visualisation seeks to do; also Chamine's PQ Reps, Affirmations, and the Enrich the Plot phase of my own Shifting Stories approach.  And this, I think, is what Peter Bluckert is getting at (in Psychological Dimensions of Executive Coaching)  when he says a core coaching competency is increasing psychological muscle.

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There's an old joke about someone who was lost in South Kensington, trying to go to a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. He saw someone coming out of the Royal College of Music, carrying a violin case, so assumed that she would know the way. So he asked her: How do you get to the Albert Hall?

'Practice!' she replied.

And the same is true, of course, of calming the amygdala.

Your Brain at Work

 

A few weeks ago I blogged about David Rock's SCARF model. At that time, as I said, I hadn't read his book, Your Brain at Work, which introduces the model.  I am now reading it; and whilst I have not yet finished it, I can highly recommend it. In the first place, that's because my friend and colleague, Deiric McCann at Genos recommends it, and he is nobody's fool.  But also I have now read enough of it to vouch for it myself. It is well-researched, very readable, well-written and very practical.

The subtitle of the book gives some good clues about its scope: Strategies for overcoming distraction, regaining focus, and working smarter all day long. And of course, the title gives another big clue.

What Rock has done, is pull together a coherent understanding of a broad range of research into the brain, and create a user's guide. 

He presents it as a series of fictional case studies: a day in the life of Emily and Paul, broken into short scenes that illustrate the problems they encounter in a fairly typical, stressy, day at work. After each scene, he reviews the relevant research and how it might apply to the situation that Paul or Emily has just messed up, and then offers an alternative scene, based on Paul or Emily applying the research intelligently to manage how they use their brain to inform their behaviour, interactions with others, and so forth.  Each chapter concludes with a summary of the key points (Surprises About the Brain) and some suggestions of Things to Try.

For example at the end of Chapter One, which is about Overload, the Surprises about the Brain are:

• Conscious thinking involves deeply complex biological interactions in the brain among billions of neurons 
• Every time the brain works on an idea consciously, it uses up measurable and limited resource 
• Some mental processes take up a lot more energy than others 
• The most important mental processes such as prioritising often take the most effort 

and Some Things to Try are:

• Think of conscious thinking as a precious resource to conserve
• Prioritise prioritising, as it's an energy-intensive activity
• Save mental energy for prioritising by avoiding other high-energy-consuming conscious activities, such as dealing with emails
• Schedule the most attention-rich tasks when you have a fresh and alert mind
• Use the brain to interact with information, rather than store information, by creating visuals for complex ideas and by listing projects
• Schedule blocks of time for different modes of thinking.

And so it goes on: pulling together, in simple, useable, understandable and accessible form a wealth of knowledge and practical applications. Much of this is not new if you have read around the subject; but some is. And having it all presented in such a well-explained and user-friendly way is very valuable. 

The book is divided into four Acts (each of several Scenes, or chapters) as follows: 

Act 1: Problems and Decisions

Act 2: Stay Cool Under Pressure

Act 3: Collaborate with others

Act 4: Facilitate Change

Whilst the Emily and Paul plot can feel a little contrived, it is nonetheless an engaging and most importantly clear and memorable way of illustrating the points that Rock is making.

All in all, this is an excellent and practical introduction to the key domains of Emotional Intelligence: self awareness, self management, awareness of others, and relationship management. 

 

It's probably helpful to add a link to the website, that has some excellent blog posts, too.

The Story of the Unfinished Business...

At a supervision meeting of volunteers I work with, the issue of Unfinished Business was raised. One of the least satisfying parts of our work is that we often never hear the end of our clients' stories. When they are no longer in crisis and no longer need support, our involvement can end. That can be very unsatisfying, and sometimes unsettling: we know we left them on an upwards trajectory, but rarely is everything sorted and perfect.

That issue of unfinished business reminded me of a story a friend told me over dinner a week or so previously. He had suffered from adult-onset epilepsy. The medication he was given had an unfortunate side-effect. He started to suffer from troubling flashbacks/daydreams. These were all of a similar nature. He would remember some past encounter, of a trivial nature, with someone whom he had only met once, when the encounter had ended unsatisfactorily from his point of view. Many of these dated back years, and he had not consciously thought about them since.

One example was a time he had been stopped by traffic police and one of them had been unnecessarily sarcastic, some twenty years ago. But what troubled him was that each flashback ended with an imagined scene in which he beat up the other person. Needless to say, he is not given to violence, nor even to violent fantasies. So he found these flashbacks/daydreams very troubling, and at one stage was having several a day.

He went for a couple of counselling sessions, and his counsellor suggested a very simple idea. He should re-visit each of these encounters in his mind, and re-write the story by imagining an ending with which he would have been satisfied. So in the case of the police, for example, he imagined that he had had a word with the non-sarcastic police officer about the other's behaviour. He further imagined that the non-sarcastic officer had returned to the patrol car and given his colleague some uncompromising feedback about his sarcastic behaviour.

As he was telling me this part of the story his wife chipped in, to say that she had been extremely sceptical of this idea when he returned from that counselling session. It sounded too easy, too simple, to be effective. Yet effective it was!

From the moment he imagined a better ending to each of these stories, which I suppose must have been lurking unresolved deep in his unconscious mind for years, the flashbacks stopped. 

Just when I thought I had completed my book on Story, too...

Habits of mind

I have just finished reading Neuropsychology for Coaches, by Brown and Brown. I found it a very interesting and enjoyable read, as it explained the lightest theories and hypotheses emerging from the ever-expanding understanding of how the brain actually works, and discussed the implications for coaches.

In many ways, it confirmed things I already knew, and also offered fresh understandings of why some of the things I know work are actually effective - not least the story approach about which I have written my own book.

One of the key things for me was reaffirming the power of established neural pathways: the way in which every time we follow a particular pathway, we strengthen it and increase the likelihood of using it again.

That is phenomenally useful in terms of learning: indeed that is how rote learning of things like times tables works. But it also informs how we make sense of the world: the stories we construct, which is what I explore in my book. (Incidentally, when this is disrupted, it has very grave consequences for the individual: see for example this article in today's Guardian). And, as Brown and Brown make clear, these strengthened neural pathways largely determine how we act. The more we behave in a particular way, the more inclined we are to do so in the future. This is the force of habit.

So some of the things a coach is seeking to do when helping someone to make desired changes are to help them to:

1  remember to avoid telling someone what not to do, as the brain has no capacity for that;

2  discover where the new thinking or behaviour already exists in their repertoire (since, with adults, it is far easier to strengthen neural pathways that already exist than to create new ones though that is possible)

3  rehearse the new thinking or behaviour frequently, both in the coaching sessions and outwith them.

That is the premise not only of my (exceedingly new and original) work with shifting stories, and the more widely-known use of affirmations, but also of the ancient wisdom of the Greeks (Plato and Aristotle in particular) with regard to virtues.

Virtues were regarded as habitual ways of behaving. As a teenager, I rebelled against that notion: surely to be virtuous one should be choosing on each occasion to do the virtuous behaviour. Now, however, I am more inclined to agree with the Greek (and subsequent Christian) understanding of virtue as habitual.

The merit in virtuous behaviour, in this understanding, springs from two things: one is the effort that has gone into establishing the habitual good behaviour in the first place; and the second is the effort required to exercise that behaviour when other influences (self interest, the natural appetites, external duress etc) are pushing one in another direction.

That of course begs the question what is good behaviour: and again, I think the Greeks had some insights here, which were built on in the Christian tradition, giving us the classic formulation of Faith, Hope and Charity; Justice, Fortitude, Temperance and Prudence. As a set, these are hard to beat; I recognise that many who are not religious will raise an eyebrow at Faith, but would suggest that they consider it in the light of Viktor Frankl's work, and see it as referring to that sense of ultimate meaning which Frankl identified as so important. 

But the practical aspect of this with which I want to conclude is the question of how we develop such virtuous habits. Again the Greeks, and the Christian tradition, have some wisdom; wisdom subsequently rediscovered up by theorists like William James (Henry James' brother) and later by experimental researchers such as James Laird. This is the simple notion of 'as if' behaviour (and indeed 'as if' thinking). 

To become brave, for example, repeatedly behave as a brave person would behave, and you will establish that virtuous habit. To become more hopeful, deliberately think about situations as a hopeful person would, on a regular basis. In that way, you can strengthen those neural pathways, until they are simply part of who you are. Whilst the wisdom has indeed been around for centuries, Brown and Brown's book shows that the latest advances in neuropsychology help explain how and why that works.

Tempting Providence

I have blogged before about the value of meditation: here about the theoretical benefits and my struggle to maintain a commitment to it, and here with something of a progress report as I got the practice better established as part of my routine.

This last couple of weeks have been challenging ones in a number of ways, and on Friday I was reflecting with my coach how relaxed I have felt throughout it all, and how differently I have responded to the way I would have done even just two or three years ago.

The challenges have been many and varied, and I don't want to go into all of them now, but they range from a number of difficult client interactions to the timing belt on my car snapping, which means the engine will need to be re-built or replaced.

Being an introverted sort of chap, there is always the risk that I bottle these things up, until they blow (as my wife and children will quickly tell you, should you ask...)

But I have been much more serene though this bumpy patch and able to maintain a more detached perspective; and that has had a number of benefits. Thanks, at least in part, to good conversations with my coach, I handled some of the situations with more grace and ease, and as a result did not project my own anxieties into them so that they were not difficult after all.  Others remained difficult, but they did not get to me, and thus did not contaminate my other work nor disrupt my relaxation, recreation or sleep. (Though again, a quick conversation with my family might, of course, yield another perspective!)

And I do attribute this to the discipline of meditation which I now have reasonably well established as part of my daily routine. Those 15 minutes each day of prayerful calm are having a huge impact. On top of that, was the wonderful break I gave myself by taking three days off to walk from Paris to Chartres with three of my children (and many other pilgrims). That had the quality of a retreat in many ways: complete withdrawal from all the business of life (no mobile phone or emails...) and three days of simply, walking, talking, thinking, praying, eating and sleeping.

However, I clearly am not wholly without worries yet: for I have a nasty anxiety that blogging about this is tantamount to tempting Providence, and that pride cometh before destruction and all that...


So the next blog post you read here may conceivably be about a complete meltdown in the face of something trivial. But at present, that feels very unlikely.

Brain Powered Goal Setting

Today's meeting of the Cumbria Coaching Network included a workshop on brain powered goal setting by Diana Shead. Diana's background is in health, in both clinical and managerial roles, and an integral part of her work as a physiotherapist is helping people with pain management.


She draws on her considerable understanding of the brain in order to help people to set and work towards their goals in ways that work.

So today she took us briefly through that process. She started with a quick overview of the brain's various functions, including the important role of the amygdala with regard to survival; and then she explained how that understanding informs her approach to goal setting.

So she always starts by getting people to consider the context within which they are setting goals: she has learned from experience that context is critical. If someone is already overloaded or stressed, then even a modest goal may be too much at that moment, and trigger amygdala highjack: that is the rush of adrenalin and cortisol that put the body in fight or flight mode. That fast and visceral reaction over-rides the frontal lobes, where our rational processing is centred, so it is important to be aware of that risk.

As she was talking, I was making my own links, too: both with The Chimp Paradox, which deals with similar issues, and Goleman's work on Emotional Intelligence, which highlights the need for emotional self-awareness and emotional self-management.

I was pleased to note that she also used her understanding of the brain to suggest alternative ways of doing the exercises: a left-brain and a right-brain option were offered, which was refreshing.

She then moved on to consider context in another way: the values which sit behind the goals we set. Her thesis here was that any worthwhile goal is derived from some good or goods we are seeking to honour or bring about in our life, and that articulating and connecting with that is important to provide both the motive power and the evaluative standards to help us deliver it.

She also looked at the value of allowing our brain some lee-way in deciding how to accomplish goals; to focus on what we want to achieve, and recognise that there may be different ways to do that; but keep focused on the values and the overall intention, including using visual reminders placed strategically around the home or office. 

Only then did she come on to action planning: and again she has designed a process based on her understanding of how the brain works. Key issues are to make the early steps manageable, so as not to provoke an amygdala highjack, to frame actions in a positive (not a negative) way, to foresee and plan to overcome blockages, and to act as if you are already succeeding.

And then she made two important additional points. One was the importance of celebration of each step along the way, to keep the dopamine reward system active.  The other was the value of an attitude of gratitude: for progress made, for help from others, and for learning when things don't go according to plan.  Again, my brain was busy making connections, this time with Margaret Chesney's work on stress. 

So all in all, a very useful and thought provoking day, which I will certainly be drawing on in my coaching work in the future.

Brain Myths

Fascinating programme on the brain on Radio 4 yesterday afternoon - Mind Myths, still available on iplayer - busting popular myths about the brain.  Perhaps the most notable is the canard that we only use 10% of our brains, leaving the rest dormant (and of course full of potential for scammers selling techniques to activate or access it).  Dale Carnegie was, apparently, the first to put the 10% myth into print in his hugely influential How to win friends and influence people.    However, brain scanning demonstrates the fallacy of this myth; and is somewhat humbling in revealing that motor action tends to require more of our brain than high level thinking...

The style is somewhat irritating, with regular jingles put in, presumably on the assumption that our attention span is only 20 seconds (another myth, in my view...) but when the experts are allowed to speak, it is really interesting; not least in exploring the origins of some of these myths, and the degree to which they have some basis in reality.

The bit I found least convincing was the debunking of the left brain/right brain issue.  It seems to me, listening to the evidence, that there are significant differences between the different hemispheres (left brain is sensitive to language, right brain to melody, for example).  I thought that to some extent they set up a straw man by taking the most simplistic and exaggerated left brain/right brain ideas to attack.  Certainly the work on creative thinking that I have studied and which I work with all stresses the fact that it is the whole brain working effectively that is likely to be most creative; and further that talk of left brain as processing logic and right brain as dealing with relationship is a metaphor - but one based on the neuroscience.

Well worth a listen, though...