Mind Your Brain - Part 1: The Primitive Brain

Credit: Free images from acobox.com

This is the first part of a series of blog posts about the brain and the impact of stress. When I did my hypnotherapy training, understanding the brain was a vital component of the therapy that would be offered to clients. Research had shown that once patients understood how their brains worked, therapy would be more successful. 

As an added bonus, learning about and understanding how my brain works has helped me enormously to understand myself better, why I do certain things, how to break unhealthy habits and patterns, and generally how to feel better about myself and create a better life. It also helps with managing stress.

So, let me explain the Primitive brain in simple terms. We have an Intellectual (rational) part of the brain and a Primitive (emotional) part of the brain. In the picture above, the Primitive brain is around the Hippocampus and Hypothalamus areas. In some texts, it has also been called the Limbic System.

The subconscious Primitive part has been there ever since we were cavemen and cavewomen, and houses our fight/flight/freeze response (in the amygdala in between the Hippocampus and the Hypothalamus). Its function is to ensure our survival. The Primitive brain is negative and obsessional. It stores templates of how we survived in dangerous situations (e.g. running away from a hungry bear), and refers back to them to tell us how we should respond in similar future situations. 

The Primitive brain cannot be innovative and focuses on the worst case scenario. We don’t have time to stop and think rationally, for example to assess whether the bear has already eaten its dinner. By then, he will have devoured us. In that split second, the Primitive brain sets in motion a chain of events in your body (sweaty palms, heart beating faster, adrenaline rushing to all your muscles, shutting your digestive system down, etc) in order for you to get away immediately.

Nowadays, we are less likely to run into that bear; we run into stress instead. When we are stressed and it overwhelms us, the Primitive part of the brain will think we’re in some sort of danger and will take over, responding with anger, anxiety and/or depression. It’s often not the events in our lives that are stressful, but how we think about them that causes the stress. Our brains cannot distinguish between reality and imagination. 

In the Primitive brain, we are on auto-pilot. Things become mindless: mindless eating to comfort ourselves when we’re depressed; mindless angry outbursts when the toothpaste has run out; mindless nail-biting before public speaking. The Primitive brain focuses on what we don’t want. 

We are no longer ourselves; our personality changes and our negative traits and fears come to the fore. If we were approachable before, we’re now pathetic. We can become selfish, dramatic and sometimes suicidal. Or suddenly, our claustrophobia (fear of being in enclosed spaces) or arachnophobia (fear of spiders) flares up. As a result of being in our Primitive brain for too long, we may suffer physically from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), migraines, or insomnia, for example.

Next time, I will discuss The Intellectual Brain. In the meantime, I invite you to notice when your Primitive brain is in action. What triggered it? What seems to be the pattern? Can you identify with my examples above? 

Please note that I am describing everything in broad terms and not everything has been covered, but if you’re interested in reading more technical texts on the matter I can recommend a few fantastic books, such as:

• Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson
• The Tell-Tale Brain by VS Ramachandran
• Human Givens: a new approach to emotional health and clear thinking by Joe Griffin & Ivan Tyrrell
• Why zebras don't get ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky