Our brains need a major update!

There’s a very sensical reason why our brains have a negativity bias, are much more interested in what could go wrong, and frankly, can be such a jerk to us. It’s easy to forget that it’s been 4 million years since the earliest version of humankind started walking upright. They were called Hominoids and had a brain one-third the size of what we currently have. It’s been a long and slow evolutionary process, and as we started using speech and more sophisticated tools, our brains have been evolving with us over a period of millions of years. Our current genetic modern human form, Homo sapiens, first appears around 50,000 years ago. So, we’ve had this current brain for at the most 50,000 years, which might seem like forever, but compared to 4 million, it’s not very long in the big picture. It might even be considered cutting edge from an evolutionary perspective. During the initial stages of human cultural evolution, the rate of change was slow enough for genetic adaptation to keep pace. But in the last few hundred years, the rate of change in our culture and technology has been lightning fast, and our poor brains have just not been able to keep up and adapt.

It’s also easy to forget what is was like 50,000 years ago when or current brains made their debut. We can’t begin to imagine the violence, physical danger, and overall wildness our species was exposed to on daily basis. Not only with vicious wild animals, but conflicts with other bands of humans over food or other resources. In short, we either had lunch or were lunch.

Historians tell us we only started getting any sort of semblance of civilization 10,000 years ago. This is after the last ice age and with the development of agriculture, which began to replace the hunter-gatherer way of life and allowed for the growth of communities that were not nomadic. I’m not sure how civilized it was, even 1,000 years ago. We all ought to be grateful that we live now. Imagine trying to live without indoor plumbing or electricity? Those only became wide spread only around 100 years ago. Imagine living without computers, the internet, or cell phones? Or not ever knowing who was calling before picking up the phone?

So, what do you think was the prime directive of our brains when they made their debut? It was to keep us alive- so our genes could be passed on. We forget that for over 90% of the time we’ve had our current mental equipment, keeping us safe from danger and issues of life and death has been its main concern. To keep us alive, our brains needed to keep us on alert. The quality of our lives or reducing anxiety was not, and is not, the primary concern of our brain. Take the question, “Is there an enemy or tiger hiding behind that bush?” Your brain would rather have you assume yes and be wrong 100 times rather than assume no and be wrong once, which could be fatal. Take the carrot and stick analogy. Our brains are much more interested in the sticks. We can miss out on a carrot as there will be a chance for another carrot on another day. But miss out and not be prepared for a dangerous stick coming our way? That means game over. No passing on of our genes.

Thus, we’ve got to grasp that even in modern times, our brain is still doing this job. This outdated, obsolete, irrelevant job (unless you live in war zone). But what used to keep us safe can now easily make us go insane if we let it.

Nowadays, the same pre-civilized stress and fight or flight reactions can easily happen when we see we’ve received an electronic message before even opening it, or we anticipate things not turning out well. Or, we ruminate on one negative or disappointing result from the day and overlook all the positive things that occurred. Unfortunately, our brain really can be such a jerk. It reminds you about and re-plays your failures, and every time it’s replayed you feel the same emotions and responses that go along with it. Your brain is constantly scanning for danger and asking, “Is everything okay? Are you sure everything is okay? Well, what if ____happens? You better be ready for that.” This never stops. It’s like a nervous squirrel scanning in all directions for predators while gathering acorns. It’s trying to anticipate, trying to outsmart the danger.

What we need to do is refuse to engage in our brain’s overreactions. The old phrase, “the mind makes a wonderful servant but a terrible master” applies here. Resolve to be the master. Gently remind yourself that your brain desperately needs a software update from the App Store. Since that’s not forthcoming, tell yourself that you no longer need, or will be, ruled by life or death responses to things that simply are not life or death situations. You can even thank your brain for trying to protect you. Tell yourself, “this is not life or death. This is not an emergency.”

It’s easier when you can catch yourself before an overreaction gets too warmed up. Once the limbic system gets fired up and the stress hormone cortisol floods the blood stream, it gets harder. Notice the thoughts and recognize them for what they are- thoughts and old programming that’s obsolete. It’s mostly the acronym for fear that Neil David Walsh coined- False Evidence Appearing Real. We got to accept that the default state of our brains is mostly delusional. When we do this we no longer give it power over us. Tell yourself that you’ve evolved past it, you’ve outgrown it. You’re better than that. Your life is not an emergency.
© Kevin Stacey, 2018