The Physiology of Emotion (Affect) Regulation
Stress is an unavoidable aspect of life. Without it, we would be bored to death and lack the motivation to achieve. Most people know or have heard of lottery winners and recipients of large inheritances that fell prey to depression and aimlessness. I once heard that lottery winners had one of the highest rates of suicide. I don’t know if that’s true, but it kind of makes sense. Most of us would identify more with the impact of too much stress. It makes us sick, hurts our relationships, and can severely detract from our quality of life. For most adults, there are a variety of healthy and unhealthy methods by which to cope with stress. Healthy ones lead to a reduction in stress hormones and their damaging effects on the body. Most adults also have physiological mechanism to deflect, process, and manage the effects of stress. Healthy and physiologically developed adults have three working neurological systems that protect them from everyday stressors. If any of these are dysfunctional or underdeveloped, then relatively small stressors can have major effects on physical and mental health and the behavior that impacts both.
3 Parts of the Nervous System That Can Make Stress Manageable
1) The Parasympathetic Nervous System
This part, which branches out from the medulla in the brain stem, functions to prepare the body for rest and growth. It slows down the body’s arousal when it comes into contact with stressors. It also sets the stage for the neuroplasticity that rest allows, so that we can learn and adapt to the challenges of life. When we can rest and relax in a complete way, we are able to give our bodies what they need to prepare for the next round of life.
2) The Temporal Lobes
The temporal lobes sit next to amygdala and hippocampus and exert substantial influence over their activation. When the amygdala gets triggered, we go into a mode of “fight or flight”. This triggers the release of stress hormones and motivates behavior that we may later come to regret. They also play a large role in mood regulation. When I hear that a client has large mood fluctuations (often with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder or Mood Disorder NOS) while doing the initial interview as part of a QEEG assessment, I look closely at the temporal lobes when reviewing the Brainmap. I usually see that they are half asleep (excessive slow waves) and are not exerting much energy (low amplitude faster waves). When the temporal lobes aren’t working right, difficult events can produce a greater aggressive or fearful response than seems appropriate to the situation.
3) Prefrontal Lobes
This part of the brain plays a big role in controlling our behavior. I frequently tell my behavioral clients that it’s okay to get mad, but you are still responsible for the behavior you engage in when you are. The prefrontal lobes are the last wall of defense that can prevent us from acting out on our strong emotions and make matters worse. When they aren’t working well, we are prone to acting out on stressful emotions, leading to even more stress when we experience the fallout.
Children and adults often suffer from problems that are ultimately caused by dysfunction in one or more of these systems. They often have a strong desire not to be so sensitive to stress or so prone to acting in destructive ways, but they simply can’t control it. Behavioral strategies might help, but rarely resolve the core underlying physiological cause. That’s what got me into neurofeedback, biofeedback, and neuromodulation. Now I have the tools to treat the core of the problem.
