HOW OUR 

Brains WORK

Stress is actually good for us. It primes our minds and bodies to tackle a sudden problem head-on. But we are only designed to experience stress in small doses. When it shows signs of never relenting then we face a problem.

In simple terms, we have two parts to our brain which control what we do, how we do it and how we feel. The left pre-frontal cortex is our logical rational brain also known as our conscious brain. This is the part of our brain that has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years and it’s the part that has created the amazing world we all live in, filled with the latest technology and modern advances. We don’t share this part of our brain with any other animal – we are unique. It’s like the boss and runs everything efficiently and effectively, it’s generally very positive and comes up with the right solutions. When we operate from this part of our brain life is pretty good and we find we can cope.

The second part is our subconscious, also known as our primitive and emotional brain and it operates at a very different level. This part has not evolved since primitive man, and its primary concern is to keep us safe. I often refer to this part as our health and safety officer, on the lookout for any sign of danger 24 hours a day and is always on alert. In primitive times it was all about survival and our flight, fight and freeze responses. Imagine if faced with a sabre tooth tiger in those times, there would only have been one of three options to choose from – run away, kill it or be killed – flight, fight or freeze. Any of these options would have been over very quickly and if we were still alive to tell the tale, our stress levels would return to normal and life would go on until the next threat of danger. It was a stressful and dangerous world back then, with the risk of death never far away, and it was our early warning system. We would have died out as a species very quickly without it.