The Age of the Emotional Brain --[Reported by Umva mag]

The thinking brain's fall from grace began in 1980, at least that's when the telltale signs that something was running amuck started showing up in the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which revealed rises in stress-induced health problems, specifically obesity.

The End of the Age of the Thinking Brain

By the 1990s, evidence that the thinking brain was on a collision course with the growing stress of modern life started appearing in the literature. Yet it was not until the early 2000s that a near panic set in for the medical research community.

I remember it well. In one of the monthly Grand Rounds talks of the UCSF's Center for Obesity Assessment, Study, and Treatment, a researcher said, "Stress is rotting out the prefrontal cortex ("thinking brain") and the hippocampus, the only two sources of personal control, so we are left to the circuits in the emotional brain to control responses."

What was not fully appreciated at the time was that stress was fast becoming its own pandemic and causing CPSO (chronic physiologic stress overload) to be the root cause of most of our mental and physical health problems. The rotting out of the prefrontal cortex, the overseer of the primitive emotional brain, was hastened by stress ("allostatic") emotions becoming hard to process, with a growing cadre of drugs and temptations from pornography to ultra-processed foods making matters worse.

Now Enter the Age of the Emotional Brain

The thinking brain chronically doused with stress chemicals has created massive problems in our world. This is mainly caused by our deeply held belief that we can think our way out of problems, whereas science has shown that in stress, thoughts flat-out fail the stress test.

Meanwhile, the emotional brain sits neatly tucked under the thinking brain, perhaps muttering, "I got this!" With 2025 fast approaching and our crisis in healthcare, it's time to make a major shift in our national awareness that we have a real gem in that unconscious mind. The perfection of the emotional brain, the center of connection and the seat of the soul, makes me swoon almost daily.

This beautiful unconscious mind has magical emotional pathways, and by doing a little emotional dance (the EBT 5-Point System of Emotional and Behavioral Regulation), it can process the brain's chemicals and electricity out of stress and into joy. That's enormously helpful because stress causes our problems and blocks our joy, causing all those pent-up drives for the indulgences and vices of modern life.

Using what we've got

Meanwhile, the emotional pathways that can return us to joy often lie dormant or, at the least, are underutilized. By shifting from seeking control through our thinking brain to embracing the wisdom and power of our emotional brain, we could go a long way toward treating our health crisis effectively and lessen our dependency on medications and one-on-one therapy.

Let's face it: we have entered the Age of the Emotional Brain, and by celebrating that reality, perhaps more people can prevent or treat trauma, gain clarity about their purpose, and live a life of peace, love, and joy. 

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