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You Don't Have To Decide Now

October 11 2022

how (not) to decide
neuroscience
my relationship with the brain

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How to bounce back faster from events that disrupted your life When change happens, it is so sudden that we don't even have time to process it. Instead, we make decisions unaware of what is really happening inside us, which often leads to dissatisfaction and remorse. This article is about behavior and decision-making in that critical timeframe after a disruptive event, and how to reframe it to rebound faster. This is a ten-minute reading but if you only have time for conclusions, please scroll down to read it. 1. Behavior and decisions To understand how we behave and how we make decisions as human beings, we first need to dive into the circuitry of our brains. Understanding how your brain functions under stress and practicing self-soothing techniques at the right moment can help you improve your reaction time, just like an athlete can improve his muscles by engaging in the right training activities. Some funny brain anatomy One of the greatest authors when it comes to breaking down hard scientific facts into accessible and digestible material is Robert Sapolsky, a distinguished (and very funny!) professor of Biology and Neurology at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky's exquisitely written Behave. The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst is a mustread for any neurology and psychology aficionados. As you might already know, since the sixties, science relies on the "three brain" model: the instinctual brain, the emotional brain, and the thinking brain. You'll find more details on the functions of each at the end of the article. If you like anatomy and want to play with 3D interactive models of the brain to learn more, I recommend the site Biodigital. It's beautiful, fun, and simple to use. As Dr. Sapolsky rightly puts it, this model is just a simplistic categorizing of a continuum, as things tend to be a bit more complex when it comes to the brain but he uses it as a good organizing metaphor. The three brains talk to each other but probably the most important dialogue and the one paramount for this particular article is the dialogue between the prefrontal cortex and the emotional brain, part of which is a structure called the amygdala. Think of the prefrontal cortex as the bossy authoritative figure, who constantly tells you what to do; by contrast, the amygdala is a big drama queen, with emotional issues. When we feel safe and connected, we can focus better, we take good decisions for ourselves and we're up to our usual tasks. But what happens when we are confronted with a life-threatening event? Our brain turns off the upper levels and defaults to the lower levels of functioning: we are in survival mode, drowning in emotions and NOT thinking. The physiology of your brain and body changes in ways that make you become incapable of rational thinking, unless you are a Buddhist monk or a shaolin warrior, in which case thank you for reading my article but it does not concern you. This means two things: we don't have time to analyze a situation and we act rather on impulse; secondly, we become a little stupid. How many times you found yourself asking "oh my God, but what was I thinking?" You weren't, because your brain does not think when he's busy keeping you alive. So next time don't blame yourself for acting disproportionately in a tense situation, you probably did your best. What about our behavior? Everything is circumstantial and has to be considered within a given context, sustains Dr. Sapolsky. The lack of control and predictability is aversive to humans and the period of anticipatory dread increases the activation of the amygdala, responsible for fear and aggression. In other words, people as a species evolved to hate uncertainty and choose to live with the proverbial evil than to take a leap of faith into an uncertain future. Keep that in mind the next time you go to vote or decide whether your partner is really "the one". Happily enough, we also evolved to own a frontal cortex, and as Dr. Sapolsky puts it, the frontal cortex makes you do the harder thing when it’s the right thing to do: anything from gratification postponement (anybody on a diet?), long-term planning (yes, that 3 years business plan on which you've been working so hard), reining on impulsivity (giving you the strength not to scream at your boss in those tensed moments). Deciding between conflicting options is the prefrontal cortex and that includes resolving the conflict between cognition and emotions. Consider someone deciding whether to press a button, writes Dr. Sapolsky. The frontal cortex makes its decision; know its neurons' firing patterns and you can predict the decision with 80 percent accuracy about seven hundred milliseconds before the person is consciously aware of their decision. This leaves us somewhat perplexed: how free are we regarding our decisions? Are we mostly functioning on automatic pilot due to our life habits? How much of our behavior is the result of inertia and how much is made out of free-willed conscious decisions? The book outlines the answers to some of these complex questions and I encourage anybody who wants to learn more about their behavior to be curious. In the last chapter of the book (War and Peace), after noting the extraordinary truces of the World War I trenches, Dr. Sapolsky offers some food for thought, very appropriate for these turmoil times: Would hatred be less painful, if you know that with time it would fade and similarities between Us and Them would outweigh the differences? And that a hundred years ago, in a place that was hell on earth, those with the most temptation to hate often didn’t even need the passage of time for that to happen?

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2. Emotions Let us move on from the anatomy lesson, and dive into the fascinating world of emotions. If you liked the TV Series Lie to me, then you are surely familiar with the work of Dr. Paul Ekman, especially with his bestseller Emotions revealed. Dr. Ekman rightfully evidences that emotions determine the quality of our lives and relationships. His fascinating work involves cross-cultural studies of facial expressions and it took him across the world to research whether human beings have the same facial expressions regarding emotional states. They do. But a more fascinating question that was statutory for his book was: Do we feel emotions the same way other people do? We do, he answered, identifying seven emotions that every person on this planet experiences throughout their lives: joy, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, and surprise. Think about it for a second. Wherever you are in the world, whatever your age, social status, profession, or hair color, you will end up feeling all of the emotions above, just like the rest of us. This emotional democracy is most probably the result of our evolution as a species, needing to signal inner states through the same facial expressions, which could be easily decoded by anybody from the same group. You are what you feel Things are all good for when we are full of joy; but what happens in intense negative states? When we are gripped by an inappropriate emotion, we interpret what is happening in a way that fits with how we are feeling and ignore our knowledge that doesn’t fit, explains Dr. Ekman in chapter 3 (Changing What We Become Emotional About). We do not seek to challenge why we are feeling a particular emotion; instead, we seek to confirm it. […] For a while, we are in a refractory state, during which time our thinking cannot incorporate information that does not fit, maintain or justify the emotions we are feeling. […]Difficulties can arise or inappropriate behavior may occur when the refractory period lasts much longer…A too-long refractory period biases the way we see the world and ourselves. This is worth considering concerning all those moments when "we lose it" and snap at other people, especially our loved ones. Instead of arguing about who is right or wrong, maybe we should consider taking a break, doing some exercise, or a long walk outside, focusing only on emotions, and most importantly, NOT taking any major decisions about that situation. In these situations, those gut feelings are simply anger or frustration and we need to take some time to cool off. Being aware of one’s emotional state during high-intensity and emotionally tense situations helps us de-escalate faster. Our emotional responses are linked not just to our evolutionary past but also to our personal past and our present. […] Behaviour patterns that were acquired early in life, that were learned during a highly intense and dense emotional episode or series of episodes, will be harder to modify or unlearn, writes Dr. Ekman in chapter 4 (Behaving Emotionally). We have learned so far that our behavior is partly generated by the physiology of our brains and that we constantly adapt our behavioral patterns to the present moment. But what can we do to put ourselves in a more peaceful state of mind? We'll cover that in a future article.

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3. Complex decisions We have seen how our emotional state influences our behavior and decision-making. Taking simple, everyday decisions might be one thing, but how do we take complex life-changing decisions? When making a complex decision, we often break the problem down into a series of smaller decisions, according to an MIT study from 2019. The brain creates a hierarchy of the decisional process and people are navigating it while considering the probabilities of different outcomes. The factors that influence the decision-making process operate at different timescales. What happens when the outcome is not the one we desired? MIT neuroscientists explored how the brain reasons about probable causes of failure after a hierarchy of decisions. They discovered that the brain performs two computations using a distributed network of areas in the frontal cortex. First, the brain computes confidence over the outcome of each decision to figure out the most likely cause of a failure, and second, when it is not easy to discern the cause, the brain makes additional attempts to gain more confidence. So, confidence in one's performance is paramount to the decision-making process. But confidence in oneself, in one's work and performance is built slowly over time and it is often the result of trial and error and validation by peer-review. "Find something that you enjoy and be the best at it" is easier said than done. How to make the best of playing tennis Consider tennis. After losing a match, one takes the time to review and analyze the game to see how it can improve. Understanding what went wrong and what are the weak points is very important since this allows the player to improve their techniques and adapt the practice accordingly. Not understanding this aspect leaves the player confused and unable to accept the situation. Sometimes what went wrong on the field is a matter of physical training, sometimes there are psychological factors at play. In any case, the meaning that the player attached to what happened and the significance of the event will ultimately make the difference between a champion and an amateur. In my opinion, assigning a positive meaning to our failures and seeing them as opportunities to improve ourselves, boosts our confidence and enables us to make better decisions in the future.

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4. Meaning Why is meaning so important? We just saw how humans are evolutionarily wired for selective meaning depending on the circumstances and their emotional state. An aversion to uncertainty, a refractory state where we scan our environment to confirm the emotionally inappropriate behavior, all this makes us understand that we’re quite fragile in certain states and we shouldn’t blame ourselves all the time for eating that chocolate chip cookie. But what if we could give a positive meaning to the disruptive event? What if we could decide that eventually, sometimes in the future we will be able to see the positive aspects of what seems to be hell right now? Look for the positive outcome The shorter the amount of time it takes to assign positive meaning to a disruptive event, the faster the recovery. In fact, I would say, if you have to build one muscle during your lifetime, build this one. In the long run, it doesn’t really matter what happened to you, details will be forgotten, memory altered in time, lost ones impossible to retrieve. If you only own the present moment, be mindful and search for a positive meaning or a future positive outcome that has yet to manifest. Two things will happen if you do that: you’ll feel better, more optimistic, and calm; secondly, your mind will automatically look for confirmations in the outer world of the assigned meaning. Remember that we seek to confirm what we feel, as Dr. Ekman said. If you feel joy, you’ll look for joy all around you.

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5. Conclusions • your behavior is partly driven by the physiology of your brain; if you're stressed, the instinct will override the rational mind and you might react disproportionately • emotions are tricky and misleading; we automatically seek to confirm our emotional state by scanning the immediate environment, so don't trust your judgment if you are in a negative emotional state • when making complex decisions, the brain creates a hierarchy of the decisional process and searches for all potential outcomes. Confidence is paramount for bouncing back in case of negative outcomes. • searching for positive meaning in any disruptive event is key to our recovery; the shorter the amount of time we take to assign that positive meaning, the faster the recovery. • learn to put yourself in a positive and calm emotional state when disruption occurs. This way, any decision you take will be the right one, regardless of life circumstances. We'll see, in a future article, what are the best methods to regain your calm and what are the most efficient strategies to cope with high-intensity negative states. THE THING TO REMEMBER: You are not able to think under stress, so don't make any important decisions; rather learn how to calm yourself and whatever the circumstances, start looking faster for the positive outcome. If you liked this article, have a question or a suggestion, please drop me a message, I'd be glad to consider it. References: 1. R. Sapolsky, Behave. The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, Vintage 2017, p. 22, 23, 45, 47, 669 2. P.Ekman, Emotions revealed (Recognizing faces and feelings to improve communication and emotional life), St. Martin's Griffin 2003, p. 39, 70, 71 3. S. Morteza and M. Jazayeri, Hierarchical reasoning by neural circuits in the frontal cortex, AAAS, Science 364, 6441 (May 2019); link to neuroscience news, where the article was quoted: https://neurosciencenews.com/complex-decision-making-14014/ 4. In chapter two (One second before) Dr. Sapolsky describes the “trinuine” brain model as proposed by the neuroscientist Paul MacLean in 1960. This model conceptualizes the brain as having three functional domains: 1. Layer one (the instinctual brain): an ancient part of the brain, which mediates automatic, regulatory functions, generally having to do with body temperature, cold, and hunger sensations. 2. Layer two (the emotional brain): a more recent part of the brain, having to do with emotions. Regions of these parts of the brain send down signals to the first layer in case you’re feeling terrified (making you shiver with emotion), sad because you’re feeling unloved (and you’ll start craving for that chocolate chip or bag of crisps). 3. Layer three (the neocortex): the recent layer, responsible for cognition, memory, abstractions, and philosophy.