#7 The Survival Brain
Why do I sabotage my efforts at achieving my goals? Who is that voice in my head, anyway?
If you’ve ever tried to break an old habit that isn’t serving you, or form a new healthier habit, you have probably encountered the phenomenon known as “cognitive dissonance.” One part of your mind is saying “yes, yes, yes” and another part is saying, “no, no, no” all at the same time or in rapid sequence. It’s like a tug of war with no peace in sight. It’s easy to feel like you are a spectator, a victim, just waiting to see who wins this time. How can you get control of the situation so that the “real you” wins?
Recent brain science has some answers about these two players in the tug of war. Simplified, it goes like this. About three million years ago, when our species began living in tribes, our brain was primarily concerned with survival. We needed to figure out how to find food, how to avoid predators, how to stay warm or get cool, and there were treacherous situations threatening to kill us and our offspring at every turn. Most of that thinking took place at the base of the skull or deep inside the “sub-cortex.” This ancient brain is now popularly referred to as the “reptile brain,” the “lower brain,” the “monkey brain” or other slightly derogatory terms. I prefer to call it the “survival brain” as this is what it’s concerned with. It has not fundamentally changed in these intervening three million years, though our environment has obviously changed completely! (For our purposes, for example, the survival brain does not understand that slightly limiting our food intake, when food is available 24/7 on every corner, might be a good idea. Instead the brain concludes mistakenly that we are experiencing a famine!) Its capacity does not extend to long-term planning, but only short-term. It is always concerned with avoiding pain and/or seeking pleasure. It is in charge of what people used to call “instincts” including the desire to eat, to have sex, to nurse our young, and to regulate our many bodily processes, prioritizing homeostasis (keeping things the same); above all else, it strives to keep us alive.
Continuing with our evolution, millions of years later, probably culminating around 140,000 years ago, another part of our brain evolved, called the pre-frontal cortex (PFC, located roughly in the front of our head, behind the forehead). This is the part of our brain that plans, that can feel empathy, that has a sense of morality, and that is capable, remarkably, of delaying gratification to pursue a larger goal that will be realized in the future. But that ancient survival brain is still very much in the picture. Together they run the show. And this explains our tug of war, as often they want different things.
From the pre-frontal cortex’s point of view--which is where our sense of “identity” resides, where “I” am located--the survival brain often “makes no sense.” It is irrational, illogical. But it’s important to understand that its ideas are not “random” but can be understood if you realize that it’s trying to react to emergencies through our nervous system’s fight, flight, or freeze responses in order to keep things the same, and keep us alive. It hates change of any kind for any reason. And it often interprets “discomfort” as a “threat,” so it does not want to tolerate any discomfort whatsoever. It always chooses short-term pleasure. And, no matter how much you try to argue with it or overpower it, no matter how successful the pre-frontal cortex or modern brain is in winning the tug of war, the survival brain’s messages will never go away. But they can be reduced from a bullying shout to a mosquito-like whisper. This takes time and some cunning on the part of the pre-frontal cortex, which you can control!
As an aside, I want to share a personal story. When I was involved in studying psychology, and in particular psychoanalysis, in the 1980s, I used to feel insulted by the whole field of “behaviorism” which essentially studied the survival brain and its impact on modern human behavior. You probably know about Pavlov’s dogs, the training of the ancient brain to seek reward through a manipulation of signs and symbols. The way that psychologists drew conclusions about human behavior and psychology seemed to reduce us to comparatively un-intelligent animals, really underestimating our sophistication (including that they missed our sophisticated ways of lying to ourselves and defending ourselves, by the way!) But now I get it. Especially since I’ve been working in the field of weight loss and behavior change around eating! The more primitive part of us does continue to operate until the day we die, and we would be foolish not to see it as an important “driver” of our thoughts and behaviors.
How to characterize the survival brain? You might have experience with a toddler. Ever notice that when a toddler wants something they can ask and ask again and again and never seem to get tired? And if the adult finally gets irritated enough, or exhausted enough, and gives them their way, then it’s basically Pavlov’s dog, right there! The adult rewarded their persistent behavior and can expect the drama to be re-enacted the next time the child wants something. It doesn’t matter how long the child had to plead; only the end result mattered. (It doesn’t matter how many times you say “no” to the potato chips on the appetizer table. If eventually you eat them, the survival brain has won the match and is reinforced for the next time.)
Or have you ever watched a dog who wants his human master to throw a ball so he can fetch it? He never tires of trying to put that ball in the master’s hand for another round of the game. This does not take “effort” on the part of the dog. It’s simply in their nature. This is how the human survival brain works. So in the tug of war, in the struggle of yes/no with the neo-cortex (“neo” meaning “new”, another name for the PFC), the pre-frontal cortex has to use effort and what we call “will power.” On the other end of the rope, the survival brain is tireless. This is its superpower.
Let’s take a more complex example that comes up often when weight loss is a goal. Because the survival brain is great at learning things through repetition, it picks up the messages our parents gave us when we were dependent upon them, and also learns messages from the culture that are often-repeated by powerful authorities (nowadays think: “influencers”). Therefore, your survival brain’s messages to you about food and weight may be similar to my survival brain’s messages to me, because the cultural influences may be shared, but the familial ones are likely different. You are probably different from your siblings, too, as each of us interprets our parental messages differently leading to endless individual variation. It helps if you can learn to “interpret” these messages for your particular experience and life. Sometimes it’s like dream interpretation, because the images don’t always seem to make sense. Sometimes things are contradictory.
For example, imagine that someone brings home a pink bakery-box filled with brownies (feel free to insert your favorite treat food into this example). You are immediately tempted, wish they hadn’t brought them home, and the yes/no battle starts to rage in your head. The survival brain says, “You’ve been so good. You’ve been staying away from sugary treats for “x” number of weeks or months. You should reward yourself. You earned it.” Or, “it’s ok. Just have one. We’ll restart the diet tomorrow.” Fast-forward and 20 minutes later you’ve consumed half the box of brownies. Now the survival brain says, “You idiot! Why did you do that? You should be ashamed of yourself.” Wait! You feel like saying, “But you’re the one who told me to do it! And now you’re saying I’m an idiot!!??”
In the first instance, the survival brain just wants you to feel good in the moment. This will ALWAYS be the message from that brain. But then after you’ve eaten, the survival brain reacts to the idea that “being overweight” or “not looking my best” is a threat. It’s a reason for you to be upset psychologically. It could cause people to judge you, to reject you, for you to feel bad about yourself which is indirectly a threat to your well-being. It could drive you to be “separated from the herd” so to speak. It also reflects the specific psychology of what you learned as a child about belonging, judgment, competition through looks, and the need to be “in control.” It is, in its own misguided way, trying to “protect” you. See how tricky this is?
The good news, for this tug of war problem, is what the scientists call “neuroplasticity.” Taken as a whole the brain can change! Literally, physically, through the sophisticated strategies launched by the PFC, you can change a habit. The PFC should be careful not to underestimate the survival brain’s simplicity but recognize it as what I like to call a “worthy opponent.” The survival brain will resist change. If the PFC wants to change a habit, it has to “train” that puppy. It takes a lot of repetition and maybe even some trickery. Or some gentle reassurance, or some distraction. “It’s ok sweetie, we’ll play with the ball tomorrow.” The good news is that the survival brain aims for efficiency and loves repetition which is why driving becomes “automatic” and so does brushing your teeth. So it is possible to teach it new habits with enough repetition.
Or you might want to try a paradoxical move: in the tug of war, just drop the rope. Refuse to fight with the survival brain. Allow the older brain to scream and fight and carry on, and just ignore what it’s saying! When the urge to eat comes, ride the waves but practice not doing the action that the survival brain is trying to insist upon. The PFC is in charge, or can be, if you decide it will be.
When the urge comes, usually it feels like “I’m not going to eat. I’m not going to eat. I’m not going to eat” until I can’t stand the tension anymore and I give in to “I’m going to eat,” just to relieve the tension! At that point I may not even be craving the food but more I’m craving the relief from this horrible tension! Another way to state this idea of “dropping the rope” is to think to yourself: “I am not choosing either option. I do not choose to eat. But I also do not choose not to eat. I am sitting calmly while there is tension between these two things, but I don’t engage the tension.”
This is not easy! But it can be done. And the more often it’s practiced, the less power the survival brain has to drive you to that unwanted behavior. Dropping the rope acts like kryptonite against its force! It can be your superpower!
In the next blog, I will discuss a specific strategy for resisting a powerful urge from the survival brain.
I’d love to hear from you! Please send all of your questions, comments, and suggestions for future blogpost topics to Linda@RiseUpSlimDown.com or https://www.riseupslimdown.com/contact
I answer each message I receive. Thank you for reading.