Amygdala hijack(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Amygdala hijack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala_hijack
23 comments
There’s a cliche that when you’re under real life stress, you fall back to your training. It’s a cliche for a reason. The whole purpose of training is to install these behavioral programs, whether in self defense or in a law enforcement or military context.
I remember reading a comment on AskReddit from an Iraq veteran. They were clearing a house and walked past a stairway. He checks the stairway and there’s a guy pointing an RPG directly at him. Without even thinking, he shoots and kills the guy. This was his first real combat engagement, and he said he was kind of shocked that without any conscious thought his training just sort of took over.
There’s another anecdote about the training thing. I forget where I heard it from, but the guy did lots of martial arts and knew the techniques to disarm someone attacking him with a knife. Anyway, this guy gets attacked with a knife, and his training just kicks in, and he successfully disarms the guy and takes the knife from him. And then—because this is what he does in training—he immediately handed the knife back to the guy, who stabbed him. That’s a pretty dire illustration of the point, I think, but people under stress can be extremely stupid exactly because they are executing whichever program got imprinted into their brain.
I remember reading a comment on AskReddit from an Iraq veteran. They were clearing a house and walked past a stairway. He checks the stairway and there’s a guy pointing an RPG directly at him. Without even thinking, he shoots and kills the guy. This was his first real combat engagement, and he said he was kind of shocked that without any conscious thought his training just sort of took over.
There’s another anecdote about the training thing. I forget where I heard it from, but the guy did lots of martial arts and knew the techniques to disarm someone attacking him with a knife. Anyway, this guy gets attacked with a knife, and his training just kicks in, and he successfully disarms the guy and takes the knife from him. And then—because this is what he does in training—he immediately handed the knife back to the guy, who stabbed him. That’s a pretty dire illustration of the point, I think, but people under stress can be extremely stupid exactly because they are executing whichever program got imprinted into their brain.
I've used the challenging freeze before where it seemed like I was deer in headlights but also guarded aware, capible and ready for both attack and defense because my unconscious saw sometbi g which triggered my alarms and so I was preparing mentally for the altercation real time as I absorbed more and more details of the altercation, sort of like slowing time.
This subtle preparation of mind and body in location of space and time. You move between the attacker and your loved ones. You gaurd up, and prepare to deal with the matter at hand in the now, trying your best not to let emotions play into further escalations but knowing shit is about to go down. Seeing a person or animal go into offensive or defensive manuvering as if a switch was turned on is always an intimidating observation and thus you could disarm an attacker's momentum and allow for potential descalations.
That said I've took a punch to the face sober from a slightly older drunk man because I was young and didn't understand he was in a different realm. Be careful with your freeze response and know yourself and your enemy.
Freezing is a good response when a weapon is pulled because it gives a chance to descalation. Freezing yeild advantage to the attacker so keep in mind: you may be ambushed on a whim so minimize your time spent freezing. Think and perceive just enough to allow your mature conscious egoic mind to choose a path, for example: instead of taking a punch to the face, disarm the drunk before he has a chance by a quick shove and entering a defensive position you have practiced and rehearsed since a child. Shout, "what the fuck do you think you are doing", make noise and draw attention. You have to put into action your training during these situations so you don't get anyone killed, but you also have to be ready to kill.
This subtle preparation of mind and body in location of space and time. You move between the attacker and your loved ones. You gaurd up, and prepare to deal with the matter at hand in the now, trying your best not to let emotions play into further escalations but knowing shit is about to go down. Seeing a person or animal go into offensive or defensive manuvering as if a switch was turned on is always an intimidating observation and thus you could disarm an attacker's momentum and allow for potential descalations.
That said I've took a punch to the face sober from a slightly older drunk man because I was young and didn't understand he was in a different realm. Be careful with your freeze response and know yourself and your enemy.
Freezing is a good response when a weapon is pulled because it gives a chance to descalation. Freezing yeild advantage to the attacker so keep in mind: you may be ambushed on a whim so minimize your time spent freezing. Think and perceive just enough to allow your mature conscious egoic mind to choose a path, for example: instead of taking a punch to the face, disarm the drunk before he has a chance by a quick shove and entering a defensive position you have practiced and rehearsed since a child. Shout, "what the fuck do you think you are doing", make noise and draw attention. You have to put into action your training during these situations so you don't get anyone killed, but you also have to be ready to kill.
> There are self-defense courses that literally reprogram your brain to have a more useful response!
Is this a part of a martial art? What is the term for such training?
Is this a part of a martial art? What is the term for such training?
This book covers this and adjacent topics very well
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9904173-facing-violence
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9904173-facing-violence
This is part of most (if not all martial arts) and other various "fighting" courses - it's part of the reason for what appears to be brainless repetition of certain moves, etc.
I do not remember the exact course, it was a specific class offered by a martial arts studio but it wasn't part of their regular martial arts classes.
I did a search for "adrenaline re-imprinting" and it looks like these folks are doing the same or something very similar: https://carpediemselfdefence.com/adrenal/
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edit: replying to bombcar and phenkdo:
This wasn't repetitive training, the whole class took only a few hours, we didn't learn fancy martial arts moves just a few very basic responses, the core of it was inducing controlled adrenaline rushes and then consciously responding in coherent ways which then (somehow) get "programmed" into the (?) amygdala to be activated automatically when the stimuli recur.
In the later stages of the class a big guy puts on one of those bear-proof suits and comes at you. I saw small ladies beat the everlovin shit outta that bear-man. Like fractured or broken bones and concussions delivered (virtually! The guy in the suit just gets rattled.)
The weird thing is you don't break your own bones. Adrenaline is a hellofa drug.
I did a search for "adrenaline re-imprinting" and it looks like these folks are doing the same or something very similar: https://carpediemselfdefence.com/adrenal/
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edit: replying to bombcar and phenkdo:
This wasn't repetitive training, the whole class took only a few hours, we didn't learn fancy martial arts moves just a few very basic responses, the core of it was inducing controlled adrenaline rushes and then consciously responding in coherent ways which then (somehow) get "programmed" into the (?) amygdala to be activated automatically when the stimuli recur.
In the later stages of the class a big guy puts on one of those bear-proof suits and comes at you. I saw small ladies beat the everlovin shit outta that bear-man. Like fractured or broken bones and concussions delivered (virtually! The guy in the suit just gets rattled.)
The weird thing is you don't break your own bones. Adrenaline is a hellofa drug.
AFAIK for conditioned reflexes (and most habits), the basal ganglia is responsible. The amygdala is the alarm center that kicks in for life/death situations.
caveat: have cursory knowledge of neuroscience
caveat: have cursory knowledge of neuroscience
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This is the part of psychology I don't like.
What really gets hijacked here is a basic understanding of neuroscience and neuroanatomy, used to support otherwise unsubstantiated theories of what is presented as a neurological phenomenon.
Look at the sources of this article: The UMass Family Business Center, Sport and Recreation New Zealand, the CEO of True North Leadership. None of them are scientific, none of them present any evidence themselves, all of them are regurgitations of the original source: Daniel Goleman and his book.
If Goleman presents any actual scientific evidence of this phenomenon in his book, none of it is listed in that article. It's just more pop psychology, more "Your right brain is responsible for creativity so you should focus on doing things with your left hand", "the limbic system is the primitive reptile brain", and other BS like that.
We literally have no idea what most brain structures actually do, just that they're involved in various processes, so to make the definitive claim that "this is how these processes work" is disingenuous at best.
/rant
What really gets hijacked here is a basic understanding of neuroscience and neuroanatomy, used to support otherwise unsubstantiated theories of what is presented as a neurological phenomenon.
Look at the sources of this article: The UMass Family Business Center, Sport and Recreation New Zealand, the CEO of True North Leadership. None of them are scientific, none of them present any evidence themselves, all of them are regurgitations of the original source: Daniel Goleman and his book.
If Goleman presents any actual scientific evidence of this phenomenon in his book, none of it is listed in that article. It's just more pop psychology, more "Your right brain is responsible for creativity so you should focus on doing things with your left hand", "the limbic system is the primitive reptile brain", and other BS like that.
We literally have no idea what most brain structures actually do, just that they're involved in various processes, so to make the definitive claim that "this is how these processes work" is disingenuous at best.
/rant
I find the summary quite reasonable. The following:
> Joseph E. LeDoux was positive about the possibility of learning to control the amygdala's hair-trigger role in emotional outbursts. "Once your emotional system learns something, it seems you never let it go. What therapy does is teach you how to control it—it teaches your neocortex how to inhibit your amygdala. The propensity to act is suppressed, while your basic emotion about it remains in a subdued form."[11]
also makes a lot of sense to me. It reminds me of the highest-rated visual novel of all time, Muv-Luv Alternative, which really retrains your brain so that you know to control your emotions and act responsibly and calmly even under the most adversarial and unexpected circumstances. It is the only piece of literally life-changing art that I've ever come across and I recommend everybody to read it. https://vndb.org/v92
> Joseph E. LeDoux was positive about the possibility of learning to control the amygdala's hair-trigger role in emotional outbursts. "Once your emotional system learns something, it seems you never let it go. What therapy does is teach you how to control it—it teaches your neocortex how to inhibit your amygdala. The propensity to act is suppressed, while your basic emotion about it remains in a subdued form."[11]
also makes a lot of sense to me. It reminds me of the highest-rated visual novel of all time, Muv-Luv Alternative, which really retrains your brain so that you know to control your emotions and act responsibly and calmly even under the most adversarial and unexpected circumstances. It is the only piece of literally life-changing art that I've ever come across and I recommend everybody to read it. https://vndb.org/v92
Isn't this just a panic attack?
Reading the article, no it isn't. Daniel Goleman, who also invented the term "Emotional intelligence", states you can have positive amygdala hijacks: let's say you're uproariously laughing out of control, that'd be a hijack that isn't panic related.
On the negative valenced side, it's not just a panic attack. It's more related to fight-or-flight than anxiety, though I see cases where amygdala hijack is overlapping with a panic attack.
On the negative valenced side, it's not just a panic attack. It's more related to fight-or-flight than anxiety, though I see cases where amygdala hijack is overlapping with a panic attack.
I've never seen fight of flight used with anything but anxiety since it's a fear response. Out of control laughter being included in that makes no sense.
Explain how out of control laughter elicits a fight reflex or a run reflex? Fight or flight is explicitly a survival mechanism.
Maybe a full on panic attack since that generally refers to something that isn't actually dangerous isn't the right word but anxiety/fear certainly is. PA's ARE fight/flight by the way.
Explain how out of control laughter elicits a fight reflex or a run reflex? Fight or flight is explicitly a survival mechanism.
Maybe a full on panic attack since that generally refers to something that isn't actually dangerous isn't the right word but anxiety/fear certainly is. PA's ARE fight/flight by the way.
No. As an example, if you've ever experienced an overwhelming urge to downvote a comment on HN despite the fact that it conforms to the site guidelines, but it makes you feel intellectually threatened, then you’ve experienced this phenomenon.
It's still general anxiety, which is just the lesser form of what eventually creates a panic attack and clearly not what he's referring to with a term like "amygdala hijack".
I see no reason to get pedantic with it and create and entirely new sensationalist term to describe what is essentially a panic response.
Also, in the example you've given most people have the ability actually think through the process logically and make a decision before they decide on something like voting.
In a true "amygdala hijack" (like a panic attack) you don't get the chance to decide you just immediately respond with fight/flight. If you had the ability to think it through it would be a shit survival mechanism.
I see no reason to get pedantic with it and create and entirely new sensationalist term to describe what is essentially a panic response.
Also, in the example you've given most people have the ability actually think through the process logically and make a decision before they decide on something like voting.
In a true "amygdala hijack" (like a panic attack) you don't get the chance to decide you just immediately respond with fight/flight. If you had the ability to think it through it would be a shit survival mechanism.
Not only is this a valid point in and of itself, but it bring up a fascinating (IMO) aspect of the human mind: just how abstract the "stimuli" can be that we respond to, eh? It's arguably a neurological "mis-wire" that it's even possible to be intellectually threatened, eh? Snakes, yes, but furious green ideas[1]?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_fu...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_fu...
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I’m gonna have to call this a bad example. I’m pretty sure the neocortex is heavily involved when you’re reading comments on Hacker News.
It's a terrible example. Most here don't seem to understand what actual fight/flight is and what this person has coined "amygdala hijacking". It wouldn't work as a survival mechanism at all if they had the ability to think their decision through.
In a true fight/flight scenario your amygdala responds in such a quick way that you really don't have time to override it. This IS a panic attack, except that panic attacks are usually used in reference to something that's not a real imminent danger. Regardless, the body response is the same with adrenaline, heightened sense etc..
In a true fight/flight scenario your amygdala responds in such a quick way that you really don't have time to override it. This IS a panic attack, except that panic attacks are usually used in reference to something that's not a real imminent danger. Regardless, the body response is the same with adrenaline, heightened sense etc..
[deleted]
No: Is jumping up and away feom the table because you see a spider on it a panic attack?
It's the same initial response yes. They're both anxiety/fear responses. Normally you realize the spider doesn't actually cause you an danger so it doesn't evolve into full fight/flight or panic. The spider respone may be very short-lived but it is still flight and your body/amygdala responded so fast you didn't have the chance to think about jumping away and worked liked the survival mechanism it is (if you smash it then fight..)
More generally just calling it anxiety would be fine.
More generally just calling it anxiety would be fine.
Second, although during the process the "emotional brain [amygdala] activity processes information milliseconds earlier than the rational brain, so in case of a match, the amygdala acts before any possible direction from the neocortex can be received", you can during non-emergency time reprogram the "immediate action plan" that the amygdala will enact during non-emergency time.
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E.g.: "adrenaline re-imprinting" is a thing. There are self-defense courses that literally reprogram your brain to have a more useful response! We often talk about "fight or flight" and omit the third typical response: "freeze". The formula is "fight or flight or freeze". In an adrenaline re-imprinting self-defense course you learn to change the response to an organized, coherent defensive manouver. It's so effective that people (attackers) are literally intimidated at a deep organic level. One's body knows that even a small woman in the throes of an adrenaline rush can kill with a single blow, just like in the movies, and no one sane will persist.
Story time. I took one of these courses and it worked: I was about to be set upon by three young thugs and the defensive posture and response triggered and, sure enough, they halted, taken aback, and were thereafter wary of me. We talked for a bit and at one point I made a motion with my arm and the boys fell back and raised their arms to guard themselves. I tell you they were frightened of me, after seeing a full-on coherent adrenaline response! A few minutes later a police car rolled up to talk to them, I wasn't the first person they messed with that day, and I left.
Anyhow, yes, amygdala goes first if it thinks it needs to, but it is your job to equip your amygdala with good programs for those emergencies. Same principle as buying a fire extinguisher, eh? Safety first and all that?