MHAW 2022: How to reconnect with your brain during uncertainty

Uncertainty is hard for us all. It causes our pre-conscious (subconscious) to go into overdrive as it tries to figure out what the future holds. This global phenomenon is causing harm, with violence increasing over 30% in the last number of months. What's not being reported is that it is also causing extreme sadness and leading some to become anxious, to have anxiety, and to become depressed. 

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the 'logical' part of our brain and is located at the front of the frontal lobe, hence its name. The PFC is commonly known as our executive function where problems are solved, where decisions are made, where logic sits, and thus provides us with self-control. 

The PFC doesn't fully develop until our mid-twenties which is when we fully connect with our limbic system, often referred to as our 'emotional brain'. Thus, a teenager who hasn't yet fully developed the PFC-limbic connection may act rashly under stress, even though they should technically know better because of their age. Without the full connection, teenagers learn by experiencing (experimenting) rather than thinking things through fully before acting. 

Most of us behave the way a teenager would when our brain cannot find certainty. The connection between the limbic system and the PFC is broken due to our automatic fight-or-flight (F-or-F) response therefore we remain in our emotional brain where our emotion regulator is found, the amygdala. 

Cortisol, a chemical released in F-or-F, triggers a cascade of stress hormones that produce physiological changes such as an increased heart rate, breathing quickens, muscle tense and beads of sweat may appear. Cortisol heightens our emotions which in turn increases the F-or-F response. Therefore the cycle of 'stressed state' continues!

The role of the PFC is to moderate our emotional brain, to bring logic to an emotional situation, to bring calm to the storm.

There are many activities that we can do to improve the operations within our PFC - gaming, learning something new, problem-solving activities, creative arts - the list is endless. These are fantastic mindfulness tools yet in our busy world they tend to hold us 'in the moment' for just the time that we are doing them. 

Promoting long-term wellbeing often comes back to the very basics, and reconnecting with logic is no different. Three simple activities that we can all do without any cost or major effort to reduce F-or-F (whether conscious or subconscious) and stay connected to our PFC for much longer - walking, writing and talking. 

Walking

Exercise needs to only be a 20 to 30-minute medium-to-fast-paced walk that lifts our heart rate to pump oxygenated blood through our veins, to burn off adrenaline and cortisol, and to reconnect us to our PFC. That reconnection we get is why ideas tend to come to us whenever we exercise. Plus, we get the bonus of pain-relieving endorphins to make us feel great.

Writing

Writing occurs in our frontal lobe. We string letters together to make words, words to make phrases, and phrases to make every sentence. We place ideas logically while also checking spelling, punctuation, usage, and grammar using fine motor skills. Plus we get the bonus of getting the issue outside of our head and accessing our preconscious thus controlling its automatic overthinking function. 

Talking

In general, the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for language and speech. However, there is an area in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere called Broca's area. It is next to the region that controls the movement of facial muscles, tongue, jaw and throat. If this area is destroyed, a person will have difficulty producing the sounds of speech, because of the inability to move the tongue or facial muscles to form words. Thus, we are in part, in our PFC when talking.