anger and your brain
My fifth child has epilepsy. I have spent a decent part of the past five and a half years, learning about brains and how they work, a struggle for someone who, as my high school guidance counselor put it, "has a mental block in science." The brain is truly a fascinating organ. In a day and age of medical advances and knowledge, we tend to assume that someone out there knows all the things. The brain is hard proof otherwise. Scientists and doctors are still no where close to fully understanding how our brains work. Genetics is another great example of this. I find great comfort in knowing that God knows everything there is to know, not only about brains in general (and everything else), but also about each of our individual brains. What we do know is fascinating.
“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well. ”
So here are some interesting facts about brains that relate to anger that I have learned.
Our brains tend to naturally focus more on our negative experiences than on our positive ones. There's actually a name for this phenomenon. It's called a negative bias, and it simply means that we are super sensitive to the negative. In fact, researchers suggest that it takes about five positive interactions to balance out one negative interaction.
In the field of neuroscience, there is a theory that explains how our brains learn. The basic premise of Hebbian theory is that when two neurons fire together the bond between them strengthens. "Neurons that fire together, wire together." Each time that you repeat a thought process, the same neurons fire together and your brain adds just a little more cement to that connection. It becomes just like a well worn path that your thoughts naturally travel down. Think about the path that a sled makes in the snow. The more times your ride down the same path, the more times you are likely to go down the same path again. It takes intentionality to create a new path and it takes even greater effort and intentionality to get onto another path once you've started down your original path.
When you combine the Hebbian theory with our brains' negative bias, we have a tendency to go down the same negative paths over and over, only strengthening the negative bias. If you struggle with depression, anxiety, anger and their underlying emotions for a while, retraining your brain will require a plan and work.
At this point, I want to say that while they don't know everything about how our brains work, doctors do know quite a bit. Sometimes, medication can be a helpful tool in helping to retrain your brain. I won't get into it here, but the way that SSRIs work with the brain is truly amazing. Counselors are trained to help you make a plan to deal with your emotions.
Thankfully, we do know that our brains are able to change throughout our lives. It's called neuroplasticity. Even though neurons have been wired together and thought paths have been worn into our brains, there is hope! In the coming weeks, I'll look at anger from a spiritual perspective and share what I've learned to be effective ways of keeping anger from being such a big and unwelcome part of my life. But if this has been an issue for you for a long time, let me encourage you to seek help. Having someone to talk to, to help you work through all of the emotions associated with anger (as well as anxiety and depression) could make a huge difference.
If you missed last weeks blog about things that make us angry, be sure to check it out here. Next week I'll be blogging about God and anger.
