Here’s an excerpt from a recent post by Emily Bennington at her website. She is the co-author of Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job with Skip Lineberg and, more recently, of Who Says It’s a Man’s World: The Girls’ Guide to Corporate Domination. Also, Emily has just completed an interview by me.
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Let’s say you came to work this morning and there was a 700-pound grizzly bear by the copy machine.
No, I’m not talking about Herb from accounting.
I’m talking about an actual frickin’ bear.
You’d get the hell outta there, right?
Of course you would because this is a classic fight-or-flight scenario.
And while I’d like to thank those prehistoric cave men and women for the evolution of this response in the wild, it’s obvious we are surrounded by a lot of modern-day cave folks as well.
You may not wear a leopard print loincloth (keep it to yourself if you do), but if you react to every “crisis” at work as if you were in real, physical danger – that’s cavewoman behavior, my friends.
I’ll explain.
Most of us already know that – broadly speaking – the left side of our brains handle more logic-based functions and the right side handles more intuitive and creative functions.
But here’s something you might not know.
If you were to reach up and touch your forehead – right behind your finger and spanning both sides of your brain – is a really important area known as the prefrontal cortex.
Basically, if your body were a company, the prefrontal cortex would be the board of directors because it’s where your problem-solving and decision-making happens. Aside from that, what’s MOST interesting about the prefrontal cortex is that when you’re under stress, it doesn’t function properly.
In other words, your board of directors is squabbling again.
And the reason this happens goes back to fight or flight.
When your body senses danger – and your body reads stress as danger by the way – your brain sets off an alarm system that triggers a flood of hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, thereby increasing your heart rate and blood pressure. Essentially, your heart is pumping blood to major muscle groups like your arms and legs to prepare you to HIT or RUN.
Of course, if you’re in the presence of a grizzly, this is fabulous news.
Well done, biology.
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http://emilybennington.com/strong-mind/any-grizzlies-in-your-office/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=any-grizzlies-in-your-office&utm_source=Seriously+Empowered+Subscribers&utm_campaign=17356385ee-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Who’s Emily Bennington?
“Stephen Covey once said, ‘between stimulus and response there is a space, and it’s in that space you choose how you wish to respond.’ I WORK IN THAT SPACE. Seriously, it’s where all the good stuff happens. It’s where you can react or, as Covey says, where you can respond. (And, yes, there is difference.) It’s where you can choose to live as your best self… or allow a trigger to decide. Every single moment of every single day. _The best news? If you screw it up there’s always another chance to get it right.”