The Triune Brain

Nothing will assist you more in learning how to conquer stress than understanding “the triune brain”.

Some years ago, Paul MacLean, M.D., announced a remarkable simplification of the human brain after years of studying the brains of many animal species. His discovery has penetrated our popular culture so thoroughly that you may not realize that a single person came up with it after many years of careful analysis or that the result of his reasoning is as powerful as it truly is. Yet scientific breakthroughs are often remarkable simplifications of what at first seems to be a mountain of unanalysable data.

What MacLean discovered after years of brain research was that the human brain consists of a large cerebral cortex (the thinking brain ) which is uniquely human, surrounding a mammalian brain (capable of experiencing emotions and of linking memories to events), and that these two in turn surround a reptilian brain whose main concerns are survival, territorial defense, food, mating, dominance, and avoiding subjugation.

Interestingly, in non-stress, the human brain dominates, making emotions subservient to the cerebral cortex’s greatest strength - communication. This is why actors can deliver such impressive lines in the most stressful of make believe circumstances (e.g. “Make my day!”). They are not in real stress and they deliver their communications with perfectly appropriate emotions.

Yet we all know that when the chips are down and the situation is really stressful, it is the rare individual who can remain calm enough to deliver any communication with a perfectly nuanced emotion. This is because in stress, the cerebral cortex loses its ability to think calmly, and the more excitable reptilian brain takes over the emotional system leading to attack or to flight, the famous fight or flight response.

Have you ever wondered why political debates are so emotion-charged, so lacking in reason? It’s because the reptilian brain has taken control of the emotional system from the cerebral cortex.

My book “Calm” is about how to regain control of the emotional system when the stress based reptilian system has taken it over, so that even in the most highly charged and stressful situation you can remain calm and act rationally. This is the same behavior that martial artists utilize to remain calm in combat.