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The A2B Newsletter aims to improve your life by taking you from Point A to Point B. Every email shares one self-improvement idea you can read in five minutes or less.
Have you ever said something you didn’t mean in the middle of a heated argument? Or, have you ever overreacted when you felt frustrated or anxious? If so, understanding what I call the logic switch can help prevent this problem.
You can prevent your emotions from controlling you by learning why people lose their cool. As a result, you can regain control of your life.
The human brain evolved to be great at two things. Those are thinking and reacting to threats. The thinking part of the brain is smart but slow. In contrast, the reacting part of the brain is fast but dumb. Here’s why this is important.
Your brain receives information from the environment via the five senses. If the input is non-threatening, the information is sent to the thinking brain. After a logical response is formed, the input put is sent to the emotional brain for processing.
However, if the input is threatening, the information is sent directly to the reacting brain to save time. It’s as if a logic switch shuts off the thinking part of your brain. This allows you to react without thinking—a feature that’s helpful when avoiding a spider but unhelpful when responding to your boss.
Apart from threats, strong emotions can also shut off the thinking part of your brain. So, if you feel overly afraid, anxious, or excited, your thinking is likely impaired.
When your thinking brain is turned off, your brain is essentially in a dumb state. One easy way to improve your life is to stop making decisions when your brain is in the dumb state.
Here’s what happens to your thinking when your brain is in the dumb state.
These thinking problems explain why people say things they don’t mean in an argument. Or, why someone has a rebound relationship with the wrong person after having their heartbroken.
You can turn the logic switch back on with a two-step process.
Step 1: Learn to be aware of strong emotions. Strong emotions turn the logic switch off. Therefore, you can identify when your thinking is impaired by learning to recognize when you’re overcome with emotion.
Step 2: Wait. Your logic switch gets turned off when strong emotions elevate your brain chemistry. The logic switch gets turned on when your brain chemistry returns to normal. This process can take anywhere from 6 seconds to 20 minutes.
Knowing this, when you feel overwhelmed by emotion, learn to pause before making important decisions.
My video and article on the logic switch are full of additional information.
The full-length versions include:
Be sure to watch or read to learn more about how the logic switch can improve your life.
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