Human Brain's Response to Stress and Pressure

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to another episode of Leading under Pressure, where we explore how leaders rise, respond and recover when unexpected events occur. This is a show where we help leaders within businesses or corporations respond with confidence and to guide their teams from those moments of crisis to a state of clarity during difficult times. And we help to improve workplace culture. During this first series, we call it the first 48. We're going to continue navigating ways that leaders within companies can respond effectively when everything seems to change in an instant within your organization due some type of tragedy or crisis or loss. I'm referring to things like employee death, a crime that has occurred on site or off site, but connected to the company. I'm referring to things like mass layoffs and other disruptions that may have a negative and a lasting impact on workplace culture. My name is Carmel Brown. I am, um, the founder of Nuvante Consulting, where we apply the science of people to the art of business. We help companies through crisis stabilization, we offer crisis stabilization consulting and rapid response training, and so much more. I personally specialize in organizational crisis intervention and workplace wellness. Essentially, I help companies create a psychologically safe workplace in which employers and their team members proactively build resilience and they are prepared when they are faced with a crisis rather than having to respond to a crisis. However, in addition, I'm also present when businesses are facing or in the midst of a crisis. So each episode we're going to dive into practical strategies, real world stories, and psychology backed insights to help you lead with clarity and empathy and in strength. So whether you are a CEO, a manager, or an HR professional, this podcast will give you the tools that you need to stabilize your team and turn moments of disruption into moments of growth. So today we're going to make it quick. I want to talk about what happens in the brain when a person is under pressure. Okay. Because as we are proceeding with this Leading Under Pressure podcast and responding during the first 48, I have to acknowledge what is going on inside or within the human brain during these moments in which I am giving you guidance and suggestions. You need to know what's happening with your brain when you get unexpected news or you're faced with a sudden crisis. So one of the things I want to mention is the, uh, amygdala. Now, the amygdala is activated when you are under pressure, when anyone's under pressure. The main function of the amygdala is to process emotions, particularly emotions like fear and anxiety. Uh, it's involved with things like emotional memory, which means it connects emotional meaning to memories, which essentially helps to learn from experiences and to remember events that have strong emotional significance. The amygdala also triggers the fight or flight response by releasing stress hormones in response to perceived danger. The amygdala, uh, plays a role in decision making, Instinctive behaviors, and reward processing. So when stress occurs, kind of acting as the brain's alarm system, it floods the body with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. But because the brain is functioning in that way, Sharpening your focus on the immediate threat, it can narrow your overall perspective, Leading to impulsive or even overly defensive decisions. So keep that in mind. Something else that's activated at this time is the prefrontal cortex. It is suppressed when you're under pressure, where logical thinking occurs in the prefrontal cortex. This is the brain's command center for executive functioning. So the prefrontal cortex is responsible for things like planning and problem solving, impulse control, reasoning, weighing out options. This part of your brain becomes less active when you're under intense stress, and the result of that can be, uh, defaulting to habitual responses rather than thoughtful strategies. And this is also a time when working memory overload occurs. So stress reduces your working memory capacity, Making it harder to hold multiple factors in mind. This can impair judgment in serious and complex high stake scenarios. So there's a cost that comes with, uh, decision making under stress based on those things that I just mentioned with regards to brain, uh, functioning under stress, Tunnel vision occurs, focusing only on the urgent missing, the important risk aversion or risk seeking extremes that fight or flight emotional reactivity instead of measured responses and fatigue driven decision errors. So I want to talk real quick about how leaders can improve decision making when you're under pressure. And this episode is going to be short. I just felt it was necessary to come, uh, on and talk to you about this because if I'm telling you things that you should be doing during these moments, you truly need to know what you're up against with regards to the human brain. So how can leaders within organizations improve decision making under pressure? Number one, very simple. Pause and breathe. Slow, deep breathing regulates the nervous system, and it also can lower that amygdala activation that has occurred. Number two, name the stress. Labeling the emotions that you are experiencing activates that prefrontal cortex that is suppressed during those stressful moments, hence restoring balance. So saying things to yourself like, I am anxious about having to make this decision. I am anxious about having to talk to my team members and tell them the rest of the details, whatever it is that you're feeling fear, worry, anxiety, uncertainty, remind yourself, label those emotions. Number three, reframe pressure as a challenge. This is a mindset shift from threat to opportunity. This can improve cognitive flexibility. Then train under stress. Simulated scenarios, kind of like crisis drills, helps leaders build muscle memory for calm decision making. Then I want to say lean on your teams. So collective decision making distributes cognitive load and it also reduces individual stress. So essentially what I'm saying here guys, is neuroscience shows us that under pressure, leaders are more likely to default to instinct rather than strategy. But with trauma informed and resilience based practices, they can regulate stress, keep access to rational thinking and make clear choices. The science is clear. Leaders who prepare their brains for pressure make better, more steady decisions and their teams feel the difference. At Novante Consulting, we can help leaders translate neuroscience into practical strategies for crisis leadership, resilience and psychological safety. We can help to do some of that training under stress or crisis drills as I call them. We can help out with, uh, implementing trauma informed and resilience based practice and management. So as you and your team are facing those first very challenging 48 hours following a crisis or some type of loss or tragedy or disruption, it's important to remember the amygdala takes over, fight or flight happens and then there are typically going to be reactive choices as a result. Number two, the prefrontal cortex slows down, meaning this often or most likely will result in less reasoning, more habits, and then you're working memory streams which makes it harder to juggle complex factors. The result of this is tunnel vision, emotional reactivity and risk extremes. So I ask you, leaders, CEOs, managers, supervisors, directors, presidents, VPs and other leaders within organizations, what technique have you used during a difficult time to stay clear headed or rational or reasonable so that you can make good sound decisions when under stress? I'd like to hear from you. At Novante Consulting, we have an extensive catalog of trainings, seminars, webinars, workshops that help to proactively respond to difficult times. We also have a workshop that's Neuroscience Informed Decision Making during moments of Crisis. So that is a workshop that will equip leaders within your organization with neuroscience based insights, tools and practices to make more clear and effective decisions when experiencing stress, especially during crisis or high pressure situations. If you're interested in knowing more about our workshops, our consulting services and such, our crisis response services, go to nuvanticonsulting.com that's N U V A N T I consulting.com that's all I have for this episode. We'll see you on the next one. Take care. It.