Use your (head) hand

Understanding how our brain works, helps us to better understand what's going on when we "lose it" or "flip out" or simply feel overwhelmed. Daniel Siegel, a professor of psychiatry, introduced an incredibly simple and effective "Hand Model" to help with this.

Consider the palm of your hand as the "Brain Stem", which is the part of our brain responsible for automatic functions like our heart beating and our lungs breathing.

Now place your thumb over your palm. The thumb represents the "Limbic System", which is the element of the brain responsible for emotions and where our alert system exists to help us avoid danger in the form of Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn.

Now place your fingers over your thumb. The fingers represent the "prefrontal cortex", which is the thinking, planning, learning, decision-making and regulation part of the brain.

When all of these parts are working together, we function at our best. However, when a stressful situation occurs, our "Cortex" can go offline, which is a bit like our fingers flipping upwards and leaving our "Limbic System" exposed and in control (or rather, out of control). This demonstrates beautifully what happens when we "flip out" and find ourselves feeling big emotions that seem out of kilter with a situation and have us behaving in a way that we're not proud of.

Learning tools to manage those big emotions and to calm our system are key to ensuring our "Cortex" comes back into play (or our fingers lay back down to follow the analogy). DM me if you'd like to find out more or need help with this.