The Amygdala and Fight/Flight Reaction

Video Transcription

Hi, I'm Julie Tietz. And welcome to Conflict Resolution-- putting the pieces together. Today, we're going to talk about our amygdala and our fight or flight reaction. So let's get started off with looking at some of our key terms.

Amygdala-- a structure in the brain which interprets stimuli as threat or nonthreat and initiates fight or flight reaction. Fight or flight reaction-- a condition in the body caused by the release of adrenaline preparing the body to flee from or combat a stimulus perceived as a threat by the amygdala. Threat-- a stimulus interpreted by the amygdala as harmful to an organism. Adrenaline-- a hormone that causes physical changes in the body during fight or flight reaction.

So now that we've got these terms covered, let's get started. So we're going to start off by talking about the functions of our amygdala. And our amygdala here is, looking at the back of our brain, is this little red spot here. And actually, you can think of it as the almond of your brain because amygdala in Latin means almond. So as we go through this, think of this little piece, little almond of our brain, and all of the functions that it does.

So first, it recognizes a threat. And once it recognizes the threat, it triggers our fight or flight response of reaction. And remember, that is where we are preparing our body to either flee from a situation or combat it.

And when we're talking about threat and fight or flight responses, it's important to know that our amygdala recognizes these. But it could be something as simple as a threat over somebody taking the last candy bar on the table. Or it could be something as well as somebody physically chasing you down the street, and you are fleeing from being physically hurt.

So your amygdala recognizes all of these threats, whether they're seemingly minor to something major as life threatening. And it also acts as a protector. We need to have the amygdala or the element of our brain to trigger these fight or flight responses and to recognize a threat so we can be aware of the issues and how to combat them.

So looking at the amygdala and its relationship to conflict, it recognizes and gives off physiological reactions to conflict in our bodies. So think of a time when you were in a conflict, whatever conflict it could be.

Think about how your body reacted to that conflict. Maybe you were sweating. Your heartbeat rose a little bit. Maybe you were physically shaking, or maybe you had a stomachache and you felt nauseous because of this conflict that you were in.

So these are all physiological reactions that the amygdala triggers in us when we are in conflict. And when we are feeling or having these physiological reactions, you can think of it as your adrenaline building up. And so this adrenaline building up causes the physical changes in our body.

And you can think of it as a pot of water boiling up in your body. And it's about to overflow over the pot. So this is what it feels like or looks like when we are having these physical or physiological reactions when we are in conflict.

So when our bodies are building up this adrenaline and making these physical changes within us, our flight or fight reactions are ignited. And so when we have this adrenaline rush, and it becomes to a level of such intensity, it can escalate conflict even to the point of physical violence, for instance, like these two guys in the picture here.

But it can also be, again, something minor as you wanting to defend the last candy bar at the office table. So it's important to recognize when we are feeling this adrenaline rush and how we can try and contain ourselves and hopefully prevent a physical altercation.

Our fight or flight reaction is an important function to have. But we, again, have to find ways to calm ourselves so we can control it because we don't want it to escalate into a really major conflict when we could try and contain it and resolve it earlier in our stages.

So now that we've talked about the amygdala and our fight or flight reactions or the little almond of our brain, let's go over some of our key points here. So the amygdala is a part of our brain that recognizes threat. So that little, tiny almond does so much in our brains. And it causes our bodies to react in such significant ways.

And it triggers our fight or flight responses or reactions where our body prepares to flee or combat a situation. And it builds up our adrenaline. So remember that's the hormone that builds up. And we have the physical changes. It's the pot of water boiling inside ourselves.

And when we build up too much adrenaline, it can result in escalation of conflict. So we need to figure out ways to regulate this, to control it, so we don't escalate into a conflict, such as the physical fight in the picture earlier.

Thanks so much for taking the time out to view this tutorial. I hope you learned something on your amygdala and your fight or flight reaction. And I can't wait to catch you again next time.