Does it ever happen that, under pressure, you "lose it" and react in a wildly disproportionate way — only to regret it right afterward? These reactions that get away from us generally stem from a series of well-known psychological and physiological mechanisms: emotional defense mechanisms.
How Does the Brain React Under Pressure?
Faced with a stimulus, whatever its nature, the limbic system (the part of the brain that processes emotions) is said to react first — even before the neocortex (the "thinking" part) has analyzed the information. Its responses are therefore often imprecise. The amygdala, tasked with scanning the environment and storing emotional reactions, assesses the situation: could this thing cause harm, pain, or fear? If the answer is yes, the body activates the functions useful for fighting the threat and pushes everything else to the background.
The brain then secretes the hormones needed for both flight and fight: the field of vision narrows, the pulse quickens, blood circulation goes off balance — and with it, our capacity for reflection. Meanwhile, the neocortex is inhibited, and reactions become purely instinctive.
Why Does This Reaction Still Happen Today?
This mechanism is thought to be evolutionary in nature: our distant ancestors, faced with real danger (enemies, animals), had to either flee or fight. Our reactions today are said to remain the same in the face of perceived danger — but socially, neither fleeing nor fighting is acceptable: these emotion-driven responses tend to be too fast, imprecise and abrupt.
These automatic responses from the limbic system, developed from childhood on, are supposed to fade by adulthood. When the emotional defense mechanism kicks in, all attention narrows onto the stimulus triggering the surge of emotions, making any rational explanation impossible in the moment.
How Can You Better Control This Mechanism?
One way to manage it would be to learn to listen to your body and your emotions: before things spiral out of control, an emotional overflow shows itself a few moments beforehand. Recognizing that moment when you feel your temper "starting to rise" would allow you to act before the amygdala inhibits the rational brain — and to avoid reactions you'll regret afterward.
In practical terms, it means learning to recognize the warning signs of an emotional slip: a racing heartbeat, hot flashes, sweating, trembling. Identifying and naming them is thought to engage the neocortex and the mechanism of rationalization, rather than leaving room for automatic reactions.
Things do not change; it is we who change.Henry David Thoreau
We cannot prevent events from happening, nor the reaction they trigger in us. What we can do, however, is learn to change the way we face them.
