The Teenage Brain Anxiety Courage to Create

ISSUE 4 VOLUME 9 • SUMMER 2018 HUMANITY’S NEW FRONTIER

Are Humor
and Sadness
Related?
Love Beyond
Emotion
Why Do We Blush?
How To Find Joy
Affective Narrative
Medicine
Feelings Over
Facts

FEELINGS AND
CONSCIOUSNESS:
A Q&A
WITH
ANTONIO
DAMASIO
 DIGITAL PRINT

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THE SCIENCE * THE DISCOVERIES
THE REVELATIONS * THE INSIGHTS * THE LESSONS
THE CONTROVERSIES * THE RESEARCH
THE WISDOM * THE MYSTERIES
OF THE HUMAN BRAIN 
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 Stanley Rogers,
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 Frontal Lobes
10 Joy and How to Find It
(Where You Might Be Overlooking)
64
12 Cool Head, Open Heart. How Bodily
Awareness Increases Empathy

WE ALSO ENGAGE IN
MOTIVATED REASONING Cover
14 Wired (and Ready) for Stories
TO DEFEND OUR
BELIEFS BY DISCARDING 20 Blushing. Why Your Emotions Are Written All
Over Your Face
INCONVENIENT FACTS

32 ATA 24 Coping with Comedy. The Relationship Between

Humor and Sadness
D IN
28 Speaking Up and Out. Taking Notice of the
THE Teenage Brain.
WE 32 Feelings Over Facts. How Influence Really Works
CAN GOOGLE EVIDENCE
TO DO THIS IS UNLIKE
ANYTHING WE’VE SEEN Brain in Focus

contents 36
BEFORE. 36 The Frontal Lobe. The Brain’s Powerhouse

6 brainworldmagazine.com
 52
SUMMER 2018

Health
38 Love and Emotion. Can You Have One
Without The Other?

40 Mending Mindless Multitasking and

Daily Brain Drains

Personality
42 On The Strange Order Of Things.
A Q&A with Dr. Antonio Damasio

46 How Emotions Are Made. A Q&A

with Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett

Science
52 Always At The Back of Our Minds.
Exploring The Science of Anxiety

56 Affective Narrative Medicine. The Role

62
of Emotion in the Clinical Conversation

60 Helping How We Feel. Regulating

Emotion Through ISF Neurofeedback

Resources
62 TV: Jane

64 Books: Writing for Bliss

65 Brain World Bits

Events
66 Calendar of Brain-Related Events

The Last Word

68 Courage to Create
42Summer 2018
 letter from
the publisher
■ How are you feeling? It’s probably the question we ask the most every day — and probably
also have to answer. You may find that rarely, if ever, do you have the exact words to describe
it — or the right people to tell what you’re feeling and going through on a daily basis. We have
trouble finding the right words to describe them: the mixed emotions we feel wandering through BrainWorld Summer 2018
a strange place, remembering a lost relative, or dealing with daily frustrations at work.
These feelings, once associated with the heart rather than the mind or the brain, were once
thought to be regulated by different portions of the brain. We long thought of the amygdala as Publisher
the brain’s fear response center, and the hypothalamus has long been associated with pleasure. Yet, The Earth Citizen Way, Inc.
new research shows that numerous portions of the brain are at work when we take in informa- Editor-in-Chief
tion from the world around us and process the way Isabel Pastor Guzman
it makes us feel.
Associate Editor
Our good days seem particularly good not just Ju Eun Shin
because we might have gotten that promotion,
or that unexpected visit from a friend, but also Assistant Editor
James Sullivan
because of the past memories that were invoked —
sometimes by things as subtle as a pleasant change Art Direction & Design
of weather. We feel like sometimes we let our emo- Dave Shulman
designSimple.com
tions, our feelings, get in the way — but in fact,
they are a significant part of who we are, and shape Contributors
us in ways we may never fully realize. Ralph Bernardo, Nicole Dean,
We might even like to think that we’re more David Driscoll, Isabel Pastor Guzman,
Rania Hanna, Stephanie Kramer,
level-headed than others in a given situation — Earl Meagan, Jacqueline Melendy,
that only other people are easily influenced and Lauren Migliore, Charles Ethan Paccione,
won over — that they break down easier than we Jane Piper, Charlene Smith,
do. This is because as we grow and develop, we James Sullivan, Drew Turney
also learn to recognize our own emotions in other Copy Editor
people; we empathize with sad faces and laugh Ralph Bernardo
when the people around us laugh. The eyes give it
Editorial Intern
away, or perhaps the shape of the mouth — we have long been taught that faces do not lie — our Sara Bellum
emotions are one of the reasons we evolved socially as a species.
Yet, we know much less than we think we do, and how we experience and express our own Advertising
Ju Eun Shin
emotions is never quite the same as the people around us. This is why we tend to think that is- Phone: 212.319.0848, Fax: 212.319.8671
sues such as depression or anxiety are easy to overcome — that we can always turn to our inner
thoughts and will ourselves out — when things are not so simple. It is for these reasons that we Subscriptions
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dedicate our summer issue to the topic of emotion and the brain to understand and explore their Brain World Magazine
full potential. It is our sincere hope that you enjoy reading this issue. 866 U.N. Plaza, Suite 407, New York, NY 10017
212.319.0848
brainworldmagazine.com
© 2018, The Earth Citizen Way, Inc.

Brain World is published by The Earth Citizen

Brain World is published by The Earth Citizen Way, Inc., a New York-based social enterprise
supporting brain awareness and brain-based holistic education projects around the world.
Visit us online at brainworldmagazine.com
Way, Inc. VOL. 9, NO. 4, Summer, 2018. All contents
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8 brainworldmagazine.com
 Frontal
Lobes
AND HOW TO FIND IT
(WHERE YOU MIGHT BE OVERLOOKING) BY EARL MEAGAN
oy is not in things; it is in us. It sounds simple Fortunately, recent research
J enough — but it’s an aphorism that’s all too easy to
forget as we live our day-to-day lives. Too many mo-
ments are spent simply trying to make ends meet — even
suggests a good place to start.
Joy may be in us, but how we
perceive our own lives could
be the exact thing that keeps
when we think that promotion or that new apartment is us from experiencing it. Shelly
bound to make us happier, more content with our lives. It Gable and Jonathan Haidt, ex-
may be common knowledge that acquiring more luxuries perts in a rising field known
doesn’t bring more happiness — no matter how in sync as “positive psychology,” have
with our dreams it may be. Finding that joy within us, demonstrated through research
seems a much more daunting task. We may come to believe that however unhappy we may
that it’s only available in small doses — you get that dream be with our lives, we typically
have three times more positive
apartment and then the refrigerator goes … life somehow experiences than bad ones on a
reverts back to normal eventually. We may spend our whole daily basis. For some reason, it’s
lives searching — trying to extract purpose from every- the bad ones that seem to stand
where we turn. out. Why is that? Experts have
singled out two factors: negativ-
ity bias and habituation.
As the psychologist Roy Bau-
meister once wrote: “Many good
events can overcome the psycho-
10 brainworldmagazine.com
logical effects of a single bad one.
When equal measures of good
and bad are present, however,
the psychological effects of bad
ones outweigh those of the good
ones.” You probably had a full
night’s sleep, picked up a surpris-
ingly decent cup of coffee on the
way to work, and probably just
opened your office window to
let in some unseasonably warm
weather, before sitting down
to check your email and find a
rather scathing one sent from
the project manager. It’s pretty
likely that whatever she wrote is
going to dampen the rest of your
day — no matter how many
pleasant little surprises are just
around the corner. If it’s a pretty
decent job on most days, and
you started with good pay, you
may forget the things you en-
joy about it the longer you stay
around — even promotions and
raises aren’t always likely to make
you happier — a cycle known as
the “hedonic treadmill.”
Aside from trying to reflect
on the good experiences you
have from day to day, maybe
you should feel free to share
them with those around you —
your spouse or significant other,
friends, co-workers, or family. It
might sound like showing off —
we all don’t want to be the office
overachiever. As a result, we tend
to play up the negative events in
our life, feeling it makes us easier
to relate to, and more empathet-
ic to our co-workers who don’t
have it so good. Yet, research
conducted by Nathaniel Lam-
bert and colleagues at Brigham
Young University demonstrates
that discussing your positive life
experiences not only increases
your well-being but your overall
satisfaction with life, and even
increases your energy.
Lambert and his researchers
suggest that you share the good
things that happen to you with
close friends or romantic part-
ners, those trusted confidantes
more likely to support you. The
participants in the project felt
happier and more emotionally
satisfied the more they shared
their experiences with people
on that particular day. Earlier
studies have also shown that
gratitude improves our ability to
connect with others, while also
making us more optimistic, and
even improving physical health.
Lambert’s study, however, shows
how verbally expressing the
gratitude is even more crucial
than merely experiencing it. Test
subjects were asked to write daily
reflections in a journal over a
monthlong period about events
they felt grateful for. The group
that shared their reflections by
reading aloud to a partner re-
ported greater satisfaction with
life, happiness, and their overall
vitality.
All too often we seek out peo-
ple we can confide in with bad
news. It may be just as impor-
tant that we are able to break
good news the same way, seek-
ing out a trusted listener who
can appreciate these moments
with us each day. For those we
care about, we can try to be
that person — a supportive and
empathic listener. You may not
only be helping your friend,
but the people around them as
well. It’s easy to think of seeking
joy as a selfish goal, or at least
a lonely one, but perhaps it is
long past time we see it differ-
ently — something we can share
with others while helping them
realize their own. The novelist
Virginia Woolf once cautioned
us: “Pleasure has no relish un-
less we share it.” Now we have
evidence she was right.
Summer 2018
 M any phrases and metaphors relate to the heart and the
brain: “Follow your heart.” “Mind over matter.” “He
has a cold heart.” “She has a steel mind.”
This sometimes makes it seem that the heart and the
brain are separate, each living in its own world, without
connection to the other. Research shows, however, that
the heart and the brain are interconnected, with one organ
passing information along to the other. Importantly, we
can recognize — and manipulate — our heart and brain
through our heartbeats.

CoolHead, HOW BODILY

AWARENESS
INCREASES

OpenHeart EMPATHY
BY RANIA HANNA

At the University of Sus- communicates the ever-changing

sex, Dr. Sarah Garfinkel tells
the story of how emotions and
cognition are embodied: how
your heartbeats and awareness
can shape your emotional state,
ranging from anxiety levels to
decision-making. These inter-
nal signals report back on the
homeostatic state of the body,
alerting the person to states like
hunger and thirst, anxiety, and
pain. This awareness is called
“interoception”: the sensing of
physiological signals, including
heart rate. Most of us know this
ability as your “gut feeling.”
One way the body and brain
communicate is via barorecep-
tors, which are sensitive to pres-
sure and stretch in the heart and
arteries. Every time the heart
ejects blood, the baroreceptors
analyze the strength and tim-
ing of each heartbeat, and send
the information to the brain via
the vagus and glossopharyngeal
nerves. This is the major mecha-
nism for fast- and short-term
blood pressure regulation. It is
also the primary way the body
state of the heart to the brain.
Every time the heart beats,
the brain flashes, and the brain’s
flashes coincide with how fast
and how hard the brain is beat-
ing. The brain changes alongside
the heart’s dynamic state, that
is, the amygdala and thalamus
— regions associated with fear
and pain — affected by this
heart-brain relationship. Your
brain, therefore, is its own entity,
but it also represents the body’s
activity, including that of other
organs. How your organs react
to stimuli can dictate how your
brain responds.
The brain and body shouldn’t
be separated; instead, the brain
should be seen as being en-
meshed with the body. This is
important in offering ways of
treating anxiety or behavioral
and emotional issues. Making
people more aware of their bodi-
ly sensations can make them
more aware of emotions, and
more empathetic toward others.
This is why engaging in medi-
tation or yoga, which increases

12 brainworldmagazine.com
awareness of bodily sensations,
can help develop emotional in-
telligence. When practicing yoga
poses regularly, people become
more attuned to how their body
feels in the poses. This makes
them aware not only of their
body in space, but also of the
state of their body, that is, intero-
ception. Being more “interocep-
tive” — more aware of the body
— also gives people a chance to
change their internal state.
Heartbeats are frequent, dis-
tinct, and can be easily counted
within a time frame, or associat-
ed with changes in external stim-
uli. In other words, heartbeats
can be noted in a variety of situa-
tions and provide easily obtained
quantitative data. Therefore by
measuring a person’s awareness
of their heartbeats, one can mea-
sure interoceptive awareness.
Those affected by autism
spectrum conditions (ASC)
have trouble recognizing and
regulating emotions. In a study
published in Biological Psychol-
ogy in 2016, Garfinkel’s team
decided to study those with au-
tism, since they also to tend
to have accompanying anxiety.
They found that those with ASC
have trouble with interoception.
They are less accurate and more
sensitive in processing bodily
signals; they’re less aware of their
own heartbeats. This can be re-
lated to the higher rates of anxi-
ety that those with autism tend
to suffer from, and the reduced
ability they have in being able to
recognize their emotions and the
emotions of others.
But the inability to recognize
interoceptive activity is not rel-
egated only to those with autism
Frontal
Lobes
WHEN CHANGES IN THE HEART’S internal state and how it is con-
tributing to their feelings —
STATE PASS A THRESHOLD, IT they may be better able to con-
BECOMES A CUE TO THE BRAIN — trol their reactions to stimuli.
AND THE PERSON. HOWEVER, WHEN Heartbeat-awareness training
THERE ARE BODILY SENSATIONS is possible. Interoception may be
THAT AREN’T ACCOUNTED FOR taught, increasing people’s accu-
racy in awareness of their bodily
BY THE PERSON, OR EASILY
sensations. This can help people
UNDERSTOOD BY THEM TO BE become more aware of their in-
RELATED TO CERTAIN STIMULI, IT ternal state in response to stimuli,
CAN COME OUT AS ANXIETY. for example, a black man holding
a cellphone. If a person sees a
black person and feels a threat
or anxiety. When changes in the exaggerated at systole. His study response, being interoceptive
heart’s state pass a threshold, it participants were more likely to may give them the moment they
becomes a cue to the brain — say that a black man was holding need to collect their thoughts and
and the person. However, when a gun rather than the phone or respond less negatively.
there are bodily sensations that wallet he was actually holding. Interoception can also re-
aren’t accounted for by the per- As troubling as this might duce anxiety by decreasing the
son, or easily understood by them be, there’s hope, though. These amount of unrecognized bodily
to be related to certain stimuli, it studies lend credence to the idea sensations. Staying “cool as a
can come out as anxiety. of interoception being a viable cucumber” can keep your brain
When interoception relates way of increasing empathy. If from setting itself metaphorically
to heart rate, two instances are someone is in a stressful situ- on fire — and keep you connect-
noted: “systole” and “diastole.” ation, but can recognize their ed with yourself and others.
Cardiac systole is when blood
is pushed out of the heart as it
contracts, and cardiac diastole is
when the heart refills with blood
as it relaxes. In a 2014 study pub-
lished in The Journal of Neurosci-
ence, Garfinkel and her colleagues
examined how faces are processed
emotionally. They found that
fearful faces were detected more
easily and felt more intensely
at systole than at diastole. This
corresponded with greater amyg-
dala responses to fearful stimuli
presented at systole rather than
diastole. At the neural level, baro-
receptor effects are associated
in the processing of threatening
stimuli and are involved in the
engagement of brain systems
related to emotional processing,
such as the amygdala.
This is especially important
when someone has to make a
threat assessment in a fraction
of a second. In a 2017 study
published in Nature Communica-
tions, the University of London’s
Ruben Azevedo and his col-
leagues found that negative racial
stereotypes of black people are
Summer 2018
 ■ Humans don’t only respond to stories, we can’t stay away structs and lives a ‘narrative.’
This narrative is us.” Philosopher
from them. Because of a unique emotional property, the brain
Daniel Dennett wrote, “we are
tends to connect us deeply to stories and narratives. Why are all virtuoso novelists, who find
we so primed for a good book or movie to carry us away? ourselves engaged in all sorts of
To understand how, look no further than Clark Kent’s behavior … and we always put
the best ‘faces’ on it we can. We
glasses. Stories connect with our emotions directly and try to make all of our material
make believers out of us. When you think about it, a su- cohere into a single good story.
perhero known the world putting on a pair of glasses and a And that story is our autobiogra-
phy. The chief fictional character
tie and going to work at The Daily Planet, where nobody at the center of that autobiogra-
recognizes him, is kind of ridiculous. phy is one’s self.”
Except it isn’t. It’s actually a tes- romance, drama, thrills, and Everything that goes on around
tament to what can be thought of terror have been a critical part of us is likewise a story, from war
as story-readiness potential. Our our social evolution as a species. and peace to a garden beetle we
emotional response sees us swept But while enjoying a good yarn watch climbing up a flower. We
up in stories and narratives in- on a screen or in the pages of a even attribute story where none
stinctively, even without meaning book (or around the primeval might exist — holding back from
to. If a film, book, comic, or even campfire) is great for relaxation impeding the beetle’s progress
a friendly anecdote builds a world and amusement, such a strong because of the disappointment
and characters and puts them in a disposition must have a deep- or frustration it might feel, even
coherent sense of their own logic, seated anthropological point. though we know both emotions
we believe it fully — often sus- are probably too advanced for a
pending belief in our own world TALKING TO OURSELVES beetle to ever experience.
to do so. When Superman puts The first step to understand It partly explains our ten-
on glasses and the dialogue and why humans are such effective dency to anthropomorphize,
performances make it obvious storytelling and story-readiness subconsciously applying human
nobody around him knows who animals is to realize that we our- characteristics and emotions to
he really is, it poses no barrier to us selves are “stories” — your un- nonhuman — sometimes inani-
believing it — no matter how silly. broken stream of consciousness mate — objects. In 2000’s “Cast
From jaw-dropping tales of is the “story” of your life, told in Away,” Tom Hanks paints a face
the hunt around the tribal camp- the language of emotion about onto a volleyball, and it becomes
fire to the incredible reach of the your memories and experiences. a stand-in for human contact
modern media, our emotional As the late neurologist Oliver to the extent it keeps him sane.
response to accounts of danger, Sacks wrote, “each of us con- Think of the way a child will ap-
ply human emotion and interac-
tional frameworks onto any toy
or object. (A practice that The
Walt Disney Company has made
a fortune out of over the years.)
We’re even hardwired to react
emotionally to stories so much
that we sometimes make them up
to make sense of the world when
they don’t fit all the facts, in a
phenomenon called “confabula-
tion.” (Note “fabula” is the Latin
word for “story.”) If two equally
qualified candidates — male and
female — apply for a job, the bias
toward believing males are more
capable in the workplace kicks
in, and recruiters will tell you
afterward they picked the male
candidate because he seemed
more qualified.
16 brainworldmagazine.com
THE POWER OF STORY
Our predilection for stories
makes them one of the most
powerful tools to communicate
with and sometimes manipulate
behavior through our emotional
response, as experts from ad-
vertising, politics, and plenty
of other professional fields well
know. Facts and reason are cold,
even-tempered — not concerned
with context. Stories connect di-
rectly with the emotions, so they
elicit a much faster, hotter, and
stronger response.
Think of the boundless statis-
tics about hunger in developing
nations we gloss over impas-
sively, while a picture of a single
sick, hungry child with flies on
her face in a magazine has us
reaching for our wallets to make
a donation. In his book “Hu-
man Errors: A Panorama of Our
Glitches, from Pointless Bones
to Broken Genes,” CUNY biolo-
gist Nathan Lents says, “Stories
carry more weight with us than
generalized statistics do because
we can relate to the protagonists
of a story and feel empathy for
them. We cannot feel empathy
for data.”
It’s the kind of ethos Hol-
lywood was built on — artifice
designed to move us emotion-
ally even at the expense of the
truth. How many movies “in-
spired by true events” have there
been? Today, commercial and
political interests, hoping to
convince the public, know how
important it is to find, design,
and spread the narrative about a
product or candidate. Against all
odds, a widely disliked man won
the White House with a simple
story (“Make America Great
Again”), beating an opponent
who seemed far more dignified
and experienced by comparison.
 But the emotional power of
stories isn’t just about swaying
people to your way of thinking.
Dr. Paul J. Zak is an author, pro-
fessor of economics, psychology,
and management, and the direc-
tor of the Center for Neuroeco-
nomics Studies at Claremont
Graduate University, and his
work has shown that character-
driven stories with emotional
content result in a finer under-
standing of key points and en-
able better recall later.
STORYTELLING MACHINES
What’s perhaps most amazing
isn’t just our willingness to buy
into stories, but the efficiency
with which our emotions latch
onto them even when we know
it’s a fictional construction.
Sit down to a movie with ter-
rible special effects and your
nervous and emotional systems
will still react as if there’s really
a giant lizard attacking a city,
or a madman in a hockey mask
skewering a nubile teenager with
a garden implement. Even if we
watch shadow puppets against
a wall, we immediately under-
stand the emotional journey the
dog and the rabbit is going on.
It’s not the quality of the art that
makes our response transcend
the artifice; it’s our constant state
of story-readiness.
Part of that is the extent to
which our brains want to believe
in illusions. We’ve all heard of
the experiments where mirrors
and rubber arms trick us into
thinking a fake limb is ours and
swear we can feel it being stroked
by a feather. Writ a little larger,
the same mental trickery can be
applied to the frameworks that
deliver narratives. One example
presented at Siggraph 2017 (the
annual trade show for computer-
driven visual technology) was a
new approach to virtual reality
(VR).
Traditionally a virtual space
has to be much the same size as
the physical space the user oc-
cupies. But by very slowly rotat-
ing the VR image at a different
speed to that of the user’s move-
ments and the selective moving
and replacing of features within
the VR world, the University of
Southern California’s Dr. Evan
Suma Rosenberg and his team
can make the virtual space far
larger than the real-world user
area. Part of Rosenberg’s research
came from psychology where he
discovered that even when the
brain perceives of something as
spatially wrong, it doesn’t take us
out of the experience as much as
you’d assume. It works partly be-
cause the changes made without
the user directing them are too
subtle to perceive, but also be-
cause the environment is simply
another story we instinctively
want to believe in.
But the second and maybe
even more fascinating aspect
of our hardwiring for stories is
the unique phenomenon where
we’re completely decoupled
from our conscious selves. There
are a couple of similar things in
the human behavioral repertoire
(sleep, the point of orgasm, etc.),
but when we’re watching a movie
or reading a novel, we quite liter-
ally forget we exist, vicariously
living the lives and feeling the
emotions of those in the story —
in place of ours. Until the movie
ends, we put the book down, or
internal mechanics (like a full
bladder) demand enough atten-
tion, we can become unaware of
the usual trappings of our sense
of self, like time passing.
THE SECRET INGREDIENT
The instinct that expresses it-
self as story-readiness might be
Homo sapiens’ advanced powers
of empathy — a critical skill in
the “collaborate or die” world of
protohumans. It’s a thesis that
some brain studies seem to bear
out. Dr. Tania Singer of the Max
Planck Institute for Human Cog-
nitive and Brain Sciences showed
how the brain responds to an
event that’s not happening to us,
but we nevertheless witness. If we
hit our thumb with a hammer,
one “circuit” ascertains whether
the sensation is pleasant or un-
pleasant, another tells us where
in the body the sensation is local-
ized, and the third gives us the
perception of the pain itself. If we
see someone else hit their thumb
with a hammer the first circuit —
distinguishing between pleasure
and pain — is activated, creating
a general awareness in us of how
nasty it must feel, despite not
feeling the pain ourselves.
There’s also the finding that
the stories you experience in films
and books might be making you
as fulfilled as if you’d lived them
yourself. As research from San
Francisco State University has
shown, books, videos, and other
“experiential products” provide
the same levels of happiness as life
experiences, suggesting that the
emotions portrayed in stories are
as real to us as our own.
Such a claim stands to reason
— as we’ve already seen in the
phenomenon where your sense
of self effectively ceases to exist,
a good story comes to life in our
consciousness, and feels as real
as other experiences in life when
you’re engrossed in it. Associate
professor of psychology Ryan
Howell, the study’s co-author,
called the results “good news for
materialists.” “If your goal is to
make yourself happier but you’re
a person who likes stuff, then
you should buy things that are
going to engage your senses,” he
said. “You’re going to be just as
happy as if you buy a life experi-
ence, because in some sense this
product is going to give you a
life experience.”
Lisa Bortolotti, professor of
philosophy at the U.K.’s Uni-
versity of Birmingham, who
specializes in the philosophy
of the cognitive sciences, says
that if our avid consumption
of stories is at least partly ex-
plained by our capacity to feel
for fictional characters, it seems
to fit the idea that fiction helps
simulate feelings appropriate to
Summer 2018
 different circumstances. “When
we read a book or watch a movie
about war, illness, or divorce, we
prepare ourselves for those situ-
ations that we might not have
encountered yet in our lives,” she
says. “Fictional stories are like a
practice run for real life.”
Clues from the chemistry of
brain response certainly seem
to identify empathy as the se-
cret sauce of story-readiness. As
Zak’s research showed, the brain
produces oxytocin when we feel
trusted or are shown a kindness,
and it motivates cooperation with
others, doing so by enhancing the
ability to experience others’ emo-
tions. “By taking blood before and
after the narrative, we found char-
acter-driven stories consistently
cause oxytocin synthesis,” he says.
MENTAL BEDFELLOWS
Just like our love of stories, em-
pathy predates language, which
gives a little more credence to the
idea that the two are inextricably
linked. Findings at London’s
University College go so far as
to claim that story-readiness was
the element that promoted co-
operation among hunter-gather-
ers before the advent of religion.
In fact, empathy probably pre-
dates human beings altogether.
Anecdotes abound of dolphins
rescuing terrified humans lost
at sea, or animals caring for the
young of other species they find
abandoned or alone, but pri-
matologist Frans de Waal once
saw it close-up. His book, “Our
Inner Ape: A Leading Primatolo-
gist Explains Why We Are Who
We Are,” talks about the day he
was showing child psychologist
Carolyn Zahn-Waxler around his
18 brainworldmagazine.com
chimpanzee colony in the Yerkes
National Primate Research Cen-
ter, when Thai, an adult female
particularly taken with de Waal,
started screaming and hitting
herself because he wasn’t paying
her enough attention.
That his subsequent fawn-
ing over Thai calmed her down
isn’t the interesting part. The
other apes in the colony crowd-
ed around her to murmur and
stroke her — comforting her in
her distress. Just as fascinating
was that Zahn-Waxler recog-
nized the behavior from her
work with children — babies ex-
hibit comforting behaviors from
little more than 12 months of
age. So not only does empathy
seem common to all primates,
we seem to be born with it.
The thing is, empathy makes
perfect evolutionary sense. See-
ing the signals tribe mates gave
off let us imagine the pain, fear,
or joy they felt before they had
the means to just tell us how they
felt, and the fact that empathy is
an entirely emotional response
gave us a very efficient method
of social interaction. Encourag-
ing everyone to be a productive
member of the group was often
a literal matter of life and death.
But what about story-read-
iness? “There are different hy-
potheses about the evolutionary
advantages our love for stories
might have,” says Bortolotti.
“Some think telling stories in-
creases sexual attractiveness and
improves our chances to repro-
duce. Others say storytelling
brings us together, forging so-
cial bonds among individuals
and supporting cooperation in
groups. One theory that reso-
nates with recent debates about
fake news and the power of sto-
ries in politics is that telling
stories helps us control other
people. We often tell stories to
support an argument and per-
suade others we’re right to get
them on our side.”
Weirder still, maybe being
hardwired for stories is just an
unintended evolutionary con-
sequence of empathy — a skill
taken too far like some research
suggests that language is in re-
lation to breath control. In a
world full of predators, rivals,
and mating opportunities, any-
thing (the prehistoric equivalent
of a good book) that so com-
pletely disconnects you from
your immediate sense of self and
your environment is dangerous.
Of course, evolution is a con-
stant series of trade-offs. We
won’t notice the hungry saber-
toothed cat sneaking into the
cave until it’s too late if we’re
in the throes of passion, but sex
ensures greater genetic diversity
across a species. Spending eight
hours a night unconscious like-
wise left our forebears complete-
ly unguarded, but sleep offers a
biological advantage that’s worth
the biological risk.
In the cost-benefit analysis of
empathizing with others to the
point where a story will carry
us away from the here and now
and leave us vulnerable, how can
story-readiness possibly be an
evolutionary advantage? If the
upside wasn’t worth the risk, evo-
lution would have elected against
the behavior (or gene) long ago.
Bortolotti agrees that our ca-
pacity for becoming engrossed in
story has both benefits and costs
when it comes to survival. The
advantage might be that stories
count as practice for the day that
we ourselves live the experience
depicted, whether it’s falling in
love or fighting off alien invad-
ers. “But too much empathy
or too much involvement in a
story can also be costly,” she says.
“Things are complicated!”
USING IT
We can artificially change dopa-
mine levels, affect thought pro-
cesses with transcranial magnetic
stimulation, and improve brain
health in countless other ways.
Could we somehow hack our
hardwired propensity for narra-
tives to treat mental illnesses or
brain disorders?
Zak’s lab has found that high-
ly immersive stories can change
attitudes, opinions, and behav-
iors effectively, even weeks after
the story was seen or heard. “I
haven’t seen a systematic applica-
tion of story to mental illness,”
he says, “but take the friend or
family member who convinces
you to visit a psychiatrist, the
psychiatrist who convinces you
to take some medications or join
a counseling group, the stories
by others to stay on the medica-
tions that often have unpleasant
side effects.”
“Some mental illnesses are
what I call ‘cortical fantasies,’
like depression and pain. Not
to say they’re not real, but the
brain establishes a maladaptive
loop where anxiety leads to inac-
tion [depression] or pain signals
are experienced as debilitating.
Social support, which always
comes with a story, can change
our interpretation of the stressors
and, in some cases, make them
disappear. I don’t think stories
are the most effective treatment
for severe mental illnesses like bi-
polar disorder or schizophrenia,
but they could be part of it.”
The concepts of self, story,
emotion, and empathy are
closely linked in the human
animal. Whatever they can teach
us about what we are and where
we’re headed — it’s certain
they’ve played a pretty big part
in getting us this far.
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■ Nearly everyone can remember a situation in which
they’ve said the wrong thing. Who hasn’t suddenly felt their

COVER
cheeks burning and their face redden with humiliation?
Although embarrassment isn’t actually painful, its intensity
can create an agonizing memory that lives in our minds for
years. For some people, it can lead to a vicious cycle of feel-
ing increasingly awkward and blushing more.
“It’s hard to walk through life if you’re constantly blush-
ing and embarrassed about your blush,” says Dr. Mark
Leary, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke
University in North Carolina. While some people blush
only a few times a year, others blush a dozen or more times
a day. An unfortunate few find blushing so frustrating and
distressing that they resort to cognitive behavioral therapy,
medication, or even surgery.
One reason we dislike having flushed cheeks is that we
worry others might judge us negatively. But if we believe
that blushing makes everything worse, then we could be
mistaken. In fact, some studies show the opposite to be
true. Researchers have found that people often prefer men
and women who blush. So instead of being a bad thing,
blushing might have some positive effects.

WHY DO PEOPLE BLUSH? involuntary, so it’s not under our

Embarrassment is emotional as
well as physical. When embar-
rassment strikes, it causes us to
flush and even freeze up for what
can seem like an unbearably
long moment. Your body goes
into fight-or-flight mode, which
is the same sympathetic nervous
system response that kicks in
whenever you feel fear or anxi-
ety. It also triggers the release of
adrenaline and other hormones.
Adrenaline causes the small
veins under the skin’s surface, or
capillaries, to open wider which
allows more blood to flow into
them, giving you rosy cheeks.
People who are fair-skinned
flush more easily and notice-
ably than people with darker
skin, in whom a blush is often
still visible but less conspicuous.
Women tend to blush more
readily and frequently than men.
Like all sympathetic nervous
system reactions, blushing is
control.
It’s perhaps the uncontrol-
lable nature of blushing that
bothers us most. Psychologist
Dr. Ian Stephen of Macquarie
University in Sydney, Australia
has found that, contrary to what
we might believe, most people
consider faces with more red-
dishness to be more attractive.
When Stephen presented people
with images of visages of varying
skin tones, and allowed them
to enhance their appearance,
participants almost invariably
added an extra hint of pink to
increase their rosiness.
Of course, turning red-faced
with embarrassment is a differ-
ent matter. Blushing affects our
most visible feature — our face
— and it often happens when we
least want to be the center of at-
tention. As Stephen puts it, you
don’t always want your feelings
displayed on your face. »

Summer 2018

PEOPLE INTERPRET
BLUSHING AS A SIGN OF
TRUSTWORTHINESS AND
ARE THUS MORE WILLING
TO ASSOCIATE WITH
OTHERS WHO BLUSH OR
SHOW OTHER SIGNS OF
BEING EMBARRASSED.
IT SHOWS THAT YOU
CARE WHAT OTHERS
THINK OF YOU.
Some people are more vulner-
able to blushing. People who are
very shy or have social anxiety
can have a much harder time
than the more confident. “It
depends on how sensitive your
nervous system is,” says Leary.
“How is your brain is designed?
How easily are certain emotions
triggered?”
“People differ in how much
they think people think about
them,” says Leary. “The more
you think about what other
people are thinking about you,
the more likely you are to blush.
You’re more attuned to social
attention.” For instance, people
who worry about their public
image, have low self-esteem, or
are highly concerned about the
negative opinion of others are
more vulnerable to blushing.
This raises two questions:
What is the purpose of blush-
ing when we feel embarrassed?
And how might it serve as a
social cue? Many psychologists
believe that after a social mis-
step — like if you open a bottle
of water and it sprays all over the
22 brainworldmagazine.com
stranger next to you — blush-
ing apologizes for the mishap.
It acknowledges having broken
a social rule and helps avoid a
more serious confrontation.
But negative attention is not
the only reason people blush.
There are other reasons as well.
“We think of people blushing
with embarrassment. But people
can blush when they’re viewed
positively,” says Leary. You can
blush when receiving an award,
or being complimented, or hear-
ing profuse thanks.
“There’s a point at which even
positive attention is too much,”
says Leary. Confused or ambiva-
lent feelings can also put you on
guard and cause the blood to
rush to your face. This can hap-
pen, for example, if you sense
a group of people sitting on a
bench staring at you.
Yet you can also blush at some-
thing someone else says or does.
This seems to suggest that other
factors, besides social attention,
might be part of the puzzle.
FAKE HUES?
Some scientists think blushing
has an even broader social func-
tion. What might that be? To
get at this question, neuroscien-
tists and behavioral psychologists
have studied the nuances of why
people show embarrassment and
how others respond. One theory
is that silently expressing our dis-
comfort with a situation com-
municates something vital and
important about our social values.
In a series of studies, Dr. Mat-
thew Feinberg, an assistant pro-
fessor of organizational behavior
at the University of Toronto, ob-
served how people react to em-
barrassment in others. He tested
whether blushing has a positive
social aspect, for instance, as a
means of showing that you are
the type of person who doesn’t
take advantage of others.
During one such experiment,
researchers asked people to
describe an embarrassing inci-
dent from their past (such as
tripping over their shoelaces in
public). They first measured
how intensely the participants
blushed as they recounted the
experience. Next they tracked
how much each person spent
on a raffle ticket. It turns out
that people who were more eas-
ily embarrassed also exhibited
greater generosity when pur-
chasing the tickets.
In a second part of the study,
the scientists tested people’s
willingness to act in a proso-
cial manner (for example, being
cooperative) toward someone
depending on whether they ex-
hibited higher or lower levels of
embarrassment. They found that
people were more likely to coop-
erate with those who openly dis-
played their awkward feelings.
The reason, they believe, is that
doing so increases trust.
“A blush is something you
can’t fake,” says Feinberg. People
PEOPLE WHO WORRY ABOUT
THEIR PUBLIC IMAGE, HAVE
LOW SELF-ESTEEM, OR ARE
HIGHLY CONCERNED ABOUT
THE NEGATIVE OPINION
OF OTHERS ARE MORE
VULNERABLE TO BLUSHING.
interpret blushing as a sign of
trustworthiness and are thus
more willing to associate with
others who blush or show other
signs of being embarrassed. It
shows that you care what others
think of you.
Embarrassment is different
from shame or guilt — all of
which belong to a group of “self-
conscious emotions.” These also
occur after failing to meet social
expectations, but each of them
is expressed differently and felt
differently. Unlike shame or
guilt, sheer awkwardness doesn’t
involve a moral transgression.
“When people are ashamed they
will cover their face, but with
embarrassment you grimace and
turn it to the side — you don’t
cover it,” says Feinberg.
Not blushing may be worse.
It could be seen as evidence of
a person lacking self-awareness
or insight into oneself. On the
other hand, if embarrassment or
momentary awkwardness brings
on a blush, this only reveals our
concern for others’ feelings.
So, although it sometimes
can make us feel uncomfort-
able, the advantages of blushing
might outweigh the disadvan-
tages — it just doesn’t feel that
way at first.
 COPING WITH
COMEDY
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
HUMOR AND SADNESS
BY NICOLE DEAN

24 brainworldmagazine.com
 COVER
Photo by Dave Shulman

COMEDY, WHETHER WE ARE

VIEWERS OR THE MAKERS OF IT, IS
A KIND OF SELF-MEDICATING, A WAY
OF SEEING THE LIGHT AT THE END OF
DARK TUNNELS. MORE AND MORE
PSYCHOLOGISTS HAVE ACKNOWLEDGED
ITS USEFULNESS FOR BOTH DIAGNOSIS
AND TREATMENT WHEN USED
DELIBERATELY IN CLINICAL SETTINGS.

Summer 2018
 ■ According to the old adage, “Laughter is the best medi- Robin Williams was not alone
in his struggles, either. Comedi-
cine” — and who would disagree? Nothing lightens our ans Freddie Prinze, Ray Combs,
moods and lifts our spirits better than a good belly laugh. Richard Jeni, and Charles Rocket
From simple horseplay among friends to the witticisms of all committed suicide, too. And
beyond these sad endings, nu-
the most talented stand-up comedians, making each other merous comedians, including El-
laugh is a universal human activity — helping people from len DeGeneres, Sarah Silverman,
Richard Pryor, and Woody Allen,
every culture on earth cope with the difficulties of life. Sev-
have spoken (or joked) about the
eral scientific studies have confirmed that comedy is indeed depression and lack of self-worth
good medicine, effectively reducing the stress response, that has haunted them in the past
or present. For those struggling
bolstering the immune system, and relieving chronic pain. with drug and alcohol addiction,
Why, then, are the lives of comedians so often marked it can be a way of dulling the pain
that they feel.
by tragedy and sadness? One might think that these folks
One of the earliest psychologi-
would be the healthiest people in the world, able to laugh cal studies of comedians, com-
off all the hardships of living. But instead, the comedy pleted in 1975 by Samuel Janus
of New York Medical College,
world is full of people battling demons, and often losing. surveyed 55 full-time, success-
When news broke in August 2014 that Robin Williams ful comedians (defined as those
making a six-figure salary or
had killed himself at age 63, the nearly universal response
more). Janus found that 80 per-
was shock. “How could such a funny man, someone who cent of the comedians had sought
had given so many happy memories to so many, have done psychotherapy at some point
in their lives. Interestingly, he
this to himself?” we collectively asked. In the weeks that commented in his article, “They
followed, a tragic story of a man haunted by a combination repeatedly expressed the fear that
of depression, alcoholism, and dementia was added to Wil- if they were successful in analysis,
to the point where their suffering
liams’ legacy of brilliant comedy. was greatly relieved, they would
then cease to be funny.” There
was not only an observable cor-
relation between mental distress
and comedy, but the comedians
themselves saw this distress as
integral to their abilities.
When you look at what makes
us laugh, this connection be-
tween humor and psychological
pain makes some sense. Humor
can vary drastically by culture,
26 brainworldmagazine.com
and psychologists and philoso-
phers have been debating for
decades about what makes one
joke shine while another flops.
One thing is clear, though —
laughter is connected to our
sense (and fear) of humiliation.
In its most juvenile forms —
schoolyard teasing or slapstick
pratfalls, for example — it is
very obviously that; we are gig-
gling watching while someone
else is made the fool. Cartoons
in the style of Looney Tunes and
Hanna-Barbera function simi-
larly: they are funny because we
see Wile E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd,
and Tom Cat fail miserably to
capture their prey over and over
and over again. In real life, these
predators are on the top of the
food chain, but in these cartoons
they are laid low … and that’s
just funny to watch.
More sophisticated comedy
has this same element, even if
it may not be as obvious. In
romantic comedies, for example,
the protagonist is continually
frustrated in his or her efforts to
succeed with the desired roman-
tic partner. When the connec-
tion finally happens, the story is
over. Likewise, in typical family-
focused sitcoms, we often see
parents, often single parents as
on “One Day at a Time,” “The
Andy Griffith Show,” and “Full
House,” bumbling through the
process of raising cheeky, preco-
cious children. In classic shows
that focus on married couples,
traditional roles are often turned
upside down for humorous ef-
fect. For example, in “I Love
Lucy,” the female protagonist
Lucy repeatedly goes against the
wishes of head-of-the-household
Ricky — trying to start a show-
biz career, buying expensive new
furniture, getting a candy factory
job — only to find embarrass-
ment that sends her back to her
“proper” role of a housewife. In
all these cases, frustration is the
key comedic element.
In stand-up comedy, the same

PSYCHOLOGISTS HAVE
OBSERVED, THOUGH,
THAT COMEDIC ABIL-
ITY IS OFTEN DEVEL-
OPED AS A COPING
MECHANISM IN ADO-
LESCENCE. THESE
CHILDREN ARE HIGHLY
SHY AND SENSITIVE
TO HUMILIATION, AND
THEY DEAL WITH THE
THREAT OF SOCIAL
EMBARRASSMENT
THROUGH CLOWNISH
EXTROVERSION.
is true even if no one is act-
ing out the roles; the humilia-
tion here is primarily delivered
through words. One of the most
common types of jokes in this
genre involves self-depreciation,
as when Kevin Hart references
his own diminutive stature, or
Phyllis Diller calls herself ugly.
Other stand-up jokes skewer
powerful figures, such as those
in the endless stream of Donald
Trump jokes, or they challenge
social assumptions, conventions,
and hierarchies, as in the humor
of George Carlin, Lenny Bruce,
and Dick Gregory. Psychologists
refer to this as “benign violations
of social norms.”
Comedians may be good at
what they do because they them-
selves are especially well tuned
in to feelings of humiliation.
Psychological studies have found
that comedians tend to be highly
introverted, which might seem
surprising since they make their
living standing in front of audi-
ences and acting silly for a living.
Psychologists have observed,
though, that comedic ability
is often developed as a coping
mechanism in adolescence.
These children are highly shy
and sensitive to humiliation, and
they deal with the threat of social
embarrassment through clown-
ish extroversion. Comedians are
also very likely to have come
from difficult socio-economic
backgrounds or to have experi-
enced traumatic childhoods, so
they know the pain of being a
low-ranking social outcast. Con-
sciously or unconsciously, they
decide for themselves, “To avoid
being laughed at, I’ll make a fool
of myself and purposely make
people laugh.” Thusly, they take
control of the situation, and the
class clown is born.
These same youngsters also Elcha Shain Buckman’s “The
tend to experience depression Handbook of Humor: Clinical
and feelings of social isolation;
a study of depressed teens con-
Applications in Psychotherapy”
and Herbert Strean’s “The Use
ducted in 1998 and published in
the Journal of Adolescent Research
of Humor in Psychotherapy” are
now classic educational texts.
observed a definite connection
between comedic ability and
The problem for comedians
(and others) appears to be that,
depression. Furthermore, co- ultimately, jokes alone cannot
medians have IQs much higher
than average — between 110
eliminate the monsters that can
plague our inner lives; some
and 160, as compared to the
average 100 — which has also
turn to drugs and others to sui-
cide. Laughter may be the best
been associated with depressive
tendencies. Psychologists theo-
medicine, but it isn’t a perfect
medicine. Writing over a cen-
rize that this is true because very tury ago in a 1907 edition of the
intelligent people are simply
more aware and therefore more
still-flourishing The American
Journal of Psychology, L.W. Kline
sensitive to the vicissitudes of
life. And, of course, they have
expressed the purpose of comedy
in these words: “No stimulus,
greater capacity to make a witty
remark in response.
perhaps, more mercifully and
effectually breaks the surface ten-
In an interview for Time mag- sion of the consciousness, thereby
azine, comedian Jim Norton
remarked in response to Robin
conditioning it for a new forward
movement, than humor.” In the
Williams’ death, “The funniest
people I know seem to be the
end, comedy can’t get rid of all
the sadness we humans hold in-
ones surrounded by darkness. side, but at least it can lighten the
And that’s probably why they’re load for a little while, so we can
the funniest. The deeper the pit, keep on moving forward.
the more humor you need to
dig yourself out of it.” Comedy,
whether we are viewers or the
makers of it, is a kind of self-
medicating, a way of seeing the
light at the end of dark tunnels.
More and more psychologists
have acknowledged its useful-
ness for both diagnosis and
treatment when used deliberate-
ly in clinical settings. Books like
Summer 2018
28 brainworldmagazine.com
 COVER
TAKING Photo by Toshifumi Hotchi/Shutterstock.com

NOTICE
OF THE
TEENAGE
BRAIN BY CHARLENE SMITH
Summer 2018
 ■ The young are our conscience. Lord Byron wrote in the Young people who feel emo-
tionally abandoned or bullied
early 19th century, “when we bid adieu to youth, slaves
OF NOT to the specious world’s control, we sigh a long farewell to
with access to weapons may
act on inner turmoil and rage,
BELONGING truth; that world corrupts the noblest soul.” Regardless of harming themselves or others.
OR BEING the impulsivity of youth, shown in Shakespeare’s Romeo Psychologists Roy Baumeister
of Florida State University and
SCORNED and Juliet killing themselves before considering other op- Mark Leary of Duke University
CREATES tions, Byron’s observation about the clarity of truth in argue that belonging to a group
EMOTIONAL young eyes remains. While the old become corrupted by is a need —not a desire or pref-
erence — and, when thwarted,
FALLOUT power, the young dare to defy it. leads to psychological and physi-
It was the young who rose against the Vietnam War, lead-
SO INTENSE cal illness. Purdue University
psychologist Kipling Williams
ing to its end. Teenagers and young adults led the ill-fated
THAT THE Arab Spring and Tiananmen Square uprisings. Success-
observed that belonging, self-
BRAIN ful boycotts and revolts ended apartheid in South Africa.
esteem, a sense of personal con-
trol, and belief in a meaningful
REGISTERS IT Student demonstrations for gun control following years of existence are the four fundamen-
AS PHYSICAL harrowing school shootings have sparked an awareness in tal psychological needs to func-
tion as social individuals.
PAIN. BRAIN America, perhaps not seen since the anti-Vietnam War and The average American teen-
SCANS CAN civil rights demonstrations. ager spends several hours a day
on social media — seeking to
DETECT Research by neuroimaging expert, professor B.J. Casey at
belong — but where cyberbully-
Yale University, and teams at the Sackler Institute at Cor-
THIS IN THE nell University and the California Institute of Technology
ing and isolation come into play.
Neuroimaging studies reveal
DORSAL has revealed that “Adolescents show adult levels of intellec- that being rejected, based only
ANTERIOR tual capability earlier than they show evidence of adult lev-
on one’s profile pictures, results
in increased activity in the me-
CINGULATE els of impulse control ... Adolescents may make informed dial frontal cortex in adults and
CORTEX — choices about their future (e.g., terminating a pregnancy) children, and also enhanced
pupil dilation and increased
A PART OF but do not yet have full capacity to override impulses in
emotional intensity in adoles-
THE BRAIN emotionally charged situations that require decisions in the cents. A sense of not belonging
heat of the moment.” or being scorned creates emo-
REGION tional fallout so intense that the
Existing research shows that improved cognitive con-
ASSOCIATED trol and emotion regulation with the maturation of the
brain registers it as physical pain.
Brain scans can detect this in the
WITH THE prefrontal cortex, suggest a linear increase in development dorsal anterior cingulate cortex
EMOTIONAL from childhood to adulthood — but this is not the whole — a part of the brain region
associated with the emotional
COMPONENT picture. Casey’s team found that brain imaging studies component of physical pain. Iso-
OF PHYSICAL “suggest an increase in subcortical activation (accumbens lation or aloneness is dangerous
PAIN. and amygdala) when making risky choices and processing for mental health.
The National Vital Statistics
emotional information that is exaggerated in adolescents,
System of the Centers for Dis-
relative to children and adults.” ease Control (CDC) notes that
in 2015, its most recent mor-
tality survey, that 10,186 teen-
agers, aged 15 to 19, died. The
statistical breakdown is that 38.5
percent died in accidents, 20 per-
cent committed suicide, and 15.6
percent died because of assault or
homicide. Note that the CDC
is prohibited from researching
gun violence by the 1996 Dickey

30 brainworldmagazine.com
Photo by Eric O. Ledermann/Shutterstock.com
Amendment, which reads: “none
of the funds made available for in-
jury prevention and control at the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) may be used to
advocate or promote gun control.”
Alex Gaffney of auditor Price-
waterhouseCoopers, however,
looked at the CDC data and
found that on average 2,300
teenagers were killed by fire-
arms each year, from 2010 to
2016, in the United States. In
2016, guns killed more high
school students, aged 15 to 19,
than cancer, heart disease, and
diabetes combined (the first two
are among the top five causes of
adolescent death). Globally, over
3,000 adolescents die each day
— 1.2 million a year — from
preventable causes, according to
the World Health Organization.
Casey and her colleagues
found that for adolescents in
emotionally charged situations,
the more mature limbic system
wins over the prefrontal control
system. “When a poor decision
is made in an emotional context,
the adolescent may know better,
but the salience of the emo-
tional context biases his or her
behavior in the opposite direc-
tion of the optimal action,” says
Casey. Several research studies
have found peaks in dopamine
expression during adolescence
with dopamine receptor expres-
sion highest in the nucleus ac-
cumbens — a part of the brain’s
“reward system” — during early
adolescence. With immaturity
in the so-called behavioral con-
trol areas and a heightened re-
sponsiveness in the “reward”
areas of the brain, teenagers tend
to seek immediate, rather than
long-term, gratification. Even in
comparison to children, aged 7
to 11, and young adults, aged 23
to 29, adolescents “showed an
exaggerated accumbens response
in anticipation of reward.”
Working with, or perhaps
against, this are the increased
hormonal charges of adoles-
cence. Casey and her team note
that, “elevated risk-taking be-
havior appears to occur across
species and have important
adaptive functions. The increase
in emotional reactivity during
this period may allow adoles-
cents to be more vigilant and
aware of threat, to ensure their
survival as they move from a safe
environment to a novel one.”
Eveline Crone and Elly Koni-
jn writing in Nature Communi-
cations about their neuroimaging
research into adolescents and FOR ADOLESCENTS IN
social media note that the teen EMOTIONALLY CHARGED
years are a time when white
matter connections increase al-
SITUATIONS, THE MORE
lowing better communication MATURE LIMBIC SYSTEM
between different areas of the
brain. “Changes in gray mat-
WINS OVER THE PREFRONTAL
ter volume are observed … in CONTROL SYSTEM. WITH
brain regions that are important
for social understanding and
IMMATURITY IN THE SO-
communication such as the me- CALLED BEHAVIORAL
dial prefrontal cortex, superior
temporal cortex, and temporal
CONTROL AREAS
parietal junction.” AND A HEIGHTENED
There is some evidence, how-
ever, that some young people
RESPONSIVENESS IN THE
have a more significant predis- “REWARD” AREAS OF
position to risk-taking or dan-
gerous behavior than others,
THE BRAIN, TEENAGERS
but the exact why has yet to be TEND TO SEEK IMMEDIATE,
ascertained.
While young people may be
RATHER THAN LONG-TERM,
braver than adults in speaking GRATIFICATION.
out or acting up, neuroscience
shows that they don’t always
understand the consequences of
actions. Adults do. Perhaps we
need to become better at listen-
ing, helping, and supporting.
Summer 2018
 HOW INFLUENCE REALLY WORKS

OVER FA

32 brainworldmagazine.com
 ■ Imagine this for a moment: It’s the afternoon of Feb-
ruary 6, 2018, and you just watched the SpaceX Falcon

COVER
Heavy rocket successfully launch into space. With it was
Elon Musk’s signature in the form of a red Tesla Roadster
aboard the rocket. Two things stood out about this launch.
First, Elon Musk broke barriers (literally), as the Falcon
Heavy is now the most powerful spacecraft in operation
and among the highest-capacity rockets ever built. It’s also
worth mentioning that it’s the first time a consumer car
has left this atmosphere, and it was equipped with cameras
that provided views of Earth against the backdrop of space.
Secondly, there’s a growing group of people who think the
BY LAUREN MIGLIORE entire launch was a conspiracy … wait, what?!

ACTS
They’re known as The Flat Earth Society and as their
name suggests, they believe the Earth is a flat disk. They
released a statement following the rocket launch that read,
“People who believe that the Earth is a globe because ‘they
saw a car in space on the internet’ must be the new incarna-
tion of ‘It’s true, I saw it on TV!’ It’s a poor argument.”
Are they serious? Hard to say. theory. I can, however, explain
But upon looking further into a glimpse into how the brain is
The Flat Earth Society, they influenced by certain appeals,
believe the North Pole is at the while other times we hold tight
center of this Earth pancake and to our existing beliefs. It may not
the edge is protected by an ice change your mind if you believe
wall (also known as, Antarctica). in a flat earth, but it could help
They write off more than 2,000 detail what will.
years of scientific observation Data and facts never meant
and evidence, and their society much to me until I was sitting in
has grown by about 200 people my first cognitive neuroscience
per year. Some celebrities, in- course as a psychology major.
cluding NBA star Kyrie Irving Instead of Freudian theories and
and rapper B.o.B, commit to assumptions, the evidence and
this misguided belief and rejec- data that accompanied neurosci-
tion of science. It doesn’t make ence was like a tidy and orga-
sense, right? (How can this pos- nized set of answers. It resonated
sibly make sense?) with my Type A personality and
If it seems that facts, data, and rule-following tendencies. But
evidence are falling flat (pun in- as it turns out, facts and figures
tended) in the face of influence, aren’t what influence people.
that’s because they do. Similar Even in our current digital era
to those skeptical of climate with a tsunami of information
change, vaccination-linked au- at our fingertips, powerful ana-
tism, or even Obama’s U.S. citi- lytic tools, and 2.5 billion giga-
zenship, facts are not enough to bytes of data produced per day,
change beliefs or opinions that it still falls short when it comes
are already set. I can’t tell you to changing minds. The mind is
why some want to ignite a Flat- not easily swayed.
Earthapalooza debate, or what Neuroscientist and author Tali
they have to gain from pouring Sharot may have explained it
their energy into this specific best: accessibility to data is the

Summer 2018
 product of the last few decades,
WHEN YOU while the brains we are attempt-
PROVIDE ing to influence are the prod-
uct of millions of decades. The
SOMEONE problem with making decisions
WITH NEW through an approach that priori-
tizes information and logic is that
DATA, THEY it ignores the core of what makes
ARE QUICK us human: our motives, fears,
hopes, desires — essentially, our
TO ACCEPT emotions. Because of this, estab-
lished beliefs can be extremely
EVIDENCE THAT resistant to change, even when
CONFIRMS scientific evidence is provided to
undermine those beliefs (cough
THEIR PRIOR cough, flat earth, cough).
BELIEFS. In fact, information tends to
polarize opinions even further,
WHEN THOSE especially when it comes to is-
BELIEFS ARE sues people are passionate about,
such as abortion, same-sex mar-
CHALLENGED, riage, politics, gun control, and
PEOPLE DIG the like. Sharot tested this by
asking a group of volunteers
THEIR HEELS about their opinions regarding
climate change: “Do you believe
IN AND HOLD that man-made climate change
TO AN EVEN is happening, and do you sup-
port efforts to reduce greenhouse
STRONGER gas emissions?” Based on your
OPINION THAN answer, you were assigned to one
of two groups: “weak” believers
BEFORE. of man-made climate change
and “strong” believers. Sharot
then informed both groups that
climate scientists estimate that
the average global temperature
would rise by approximately 6
degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, and
asked them to write down their
own estimates of the likely tem-
perature rise by 2100.
Following their estimates, one
of the groups was informed that
in recent weeks, scientists had
reassessed the data and concluded
that the situation was not as dire
34 brainworldmagazine.com
as they originally assumed. The
other group received opposite
news — they were told that after
reassessing data, scientists realized
climate change was far worse than
previously assumed, suggesting a
temperature increase of 7 to 11
degrees. The volunteers were then
asked if they would like to pro-
vide a new personal estimate for
the likely temperature rise.
Sharot found that people ad-
justed their estimates only if
the new information fit their
original beliefs. Climate change
nonbelievers were influenced by
the news that the situation was
better than previously thought
and their estimate dropped by
about 1 degree. However, news
that climate change was worse
had no impact on their esti-
mates. Strong believers showed
the exact opposite pattern. They
were less persuaded by news that
climate change was not as dire,
yet heavily influenced that the
situation could be worse.
When you provide someone
with new data, they are quick
to accept evidence that confirms
their prior beliefs. When those
beliefs are challenged, people dig
their heels in and hold to an even
stronger opinion than before.
We also engage in motivated
reasoning to defend our beliefs
by discarding inconvenient facts
and using data subjectively. And
in today’s society, the ease by
which we can Google evidence
to do this is unlike anything
we’ve seen before. We’re able to
easily discredit any opinion to
support our own with the power
of the internet. In 0.45 seconds,
Google produced 17.9 million
results about the negative health
effects of dark chocolate. Want
to make an argument for the
contrary? No problem, it only
took 0.56 seconds to come up
with 23.8 million items support-
ing the health benefits of dark
chocolate. With an overload
of information out there, this
makes it impossible to agree on
a single truth for anything be-
cause we will generally manipu-
late information to preserve our
self-interests and strengthen our
existing biases.
The tendency to cherry-pick
and interpret new evidence that
confirms our personal views
is something we are all guilty
of. In fact, being intelligent
and informed can often make
the problem worse. The higher
someone’s IQ and analytical
abilities, the better they are at
twisting data to support a posi-
tion — but only a position they
already agree with. Yale profes-
sor and researcher Dan Kahan
demonstrated this in a study that
tested people’s ability to view
data and facts objectively given
their political beliefs.
In the experiment, a random
sample of individuals with vary-
ing political beliefs were given
two data sets. The first was on
various skin creams and their
ability to reduce rashes. The sec-
ond set showed crime statistics in
various cities and whether these
cities would benefit from a law
that banned private citizens from
carrying concealed handguns in
public. The participants had to
use quantitative skills to solve
each of these problems. Herein
lies the issue: the exact same set
of numbers was used in each
scenario. The only thing that
changed across the two data sets
was the topic being analyzed.
Participants were easily able to
analyze the numbers rationally
and solve the skin cream prob-
lem, but not the one for gun
control. In case you missed it, I’ll
say it again: the data sets for each
scenario were absolutely identi-
cal. But because the gun control
problem is a topic that elicits
strong opinions and biases, it
tainted the participants’ ability
to analyze objectively.
 We like to think we’re fairly
rational and sensible beings. So
then why do we tend to sub-
consciously discount conflicting
data and skew information in
our favor? In the old days (before
Google and modern-day tools),
the brain evolved to evaluate
information in relation to what
we already believed, as a way to
help us make decisions quickly.
Certain pre-existing beliefs also
become part of our identity and
ideology. When these are threat-
ened, it can feel like our identity
is being threatened.
Neuroimaging results have
shown that in the brain, parts
involved in logic and reasoning
take a back seat when it comes
to analyzing new information.
Instead, areas that are known for
processing emotions and con-
flicts — the orbitofrontal cortex
and anterior cingulate cortex —
light up with activity. Research-
ers have also found that when
people receive information that
does not fit with their earlier
beliefs, their brains almost “shut
down” in a way and neuronal
responses reduce.
What then, if anything, can
we do to evolve stubborn be-
liefs and opinions? How do we
illicit change?
Sharot explains that to suc-
cessfully elicit change, we need
to identify with common moti-
vations and consider the other
person’s mind. Beliefs and opin-
ions are usually intertwined with
our identity — how we grew up,
experiences that have shaped our
outlook, religion, politics, etc.
By identifying with common
goals and relating to emotions
instead of resorting to logic, we
have a better chance of getting
our message across to someone.
When we argue about the facts
of an issue, rarely is it about the
facts at all; it’s more so a dispute
over values that don’t align with
our own and our emotions em-
bedded with those values.
It goes without saying that as
humans, we’re emotional crea-
tures. Just try to watch one epi-
sode of NBC’s “This Is Us” and
try not to get emotional. (Nearly
impossible.) From a scientific
standpoint, emotions are a phys-
iological reaction to external
events or internal thoughts. The
brain uses them to alert us about
a situation or environment we’re
in. But from a social perspec-
tive, emotions are one of the
strongest ways we impact and
communicate with one another,
as well as garner attention.
When someone has a message
to convey, emotion is the quickest
ways to engage an audience. Ap-
ple does a perfect job at utilizing
emotions to create a connection
with their consumers. If you’ve
ever watched an iPhone commer-
cial, at no point do they merely
list off the stats and specs of the
product. Instead, Apple creates
commercials that appeal to our
basic emotional need of wanting
to be part of something bigger.
They also brand themselves as a
platform through which you can
unleash your creativity and be
part of a technological revolution
— and it works.
In the corridors of the brain,
emotion creates synchroniza-
tion, which causes us to react in
similar ways to emotion-eliciting
stimuli. Your amygdala — the
region in your brain important
for signaling arousal — is ac-
tivated, and it prompts people
to act and view the world in a
similar way. Politicians know
this, and it’s why they aim to use
emotion when campaigning and
speaking to their audiences. Ac-
cording to researchers, emotion
creates a connection between the
speaker and the listener, making
it more likely that the listener
will process incoming informa-
tion in a similar manner to how
the speaker sees it. Not only
does it increase the likelihood
of influence, but it also helps
communicate ideas in a way that
NEUROIMAG-
others are able to imagine that ING RESULTS
specific point of view.
When it comes to influencing
HAVE SHOWN
others or being influenced our- THAT IN THE
selves — awareness and emotion
is key. Understanding why we are BRAIN, PARTS
the way we are, how we feel about INVOLVED IN
a certain situation, as well as our
deep-rooted life experiences can LOGIC AND
help us to pause and re-evaluate.
So, let down your guard.
REASONING
Consider if there’s merit in the TAKE A BACK
opposing views, and if you un-
derstand someone else’s view-
SEAT WHEN
point — or more importantly, IT COMES TO
the feelings that accompany it.
When you are the one trying to ANALYZING
influence, think about how you NEW INFORMA-
can reframe your information
to find commonalities, instead TION. INSTEAD,
of differences. And if you can AREAS THAT
— you’ll find it induces less re-
sistance and more effectiveness. ARE KNOWN
There is still a lot of research
to be done to fully uncover and
FOR PROCESS-
understand the various appeals of ING EMOTIONS
influences on the brain. But the
knowledge we do have is begin-
AND CONFLICTS
ning to help us parse how certain — THE ORBI-
influences activate the brain’s re-
ward system and neural pathways. TOFRONTAL
We all have differences, per- CORTEX AND
sonality quirks, and our own in-
dividual upbringings that make ANTERIOR CIN-
us unique. But sometimes we
tend to focus on that, and we
GULATE COR-
forget that our brains are actu- TEX — LIGHT UP
ally organized very similarly.
Our reactions to experiences
WITH ACTIVITY.
and stimuli tend to mirror each
other, and that’s what makes it
easier to communicate our ideas,
express our feelings, and navi-
gate through life’s challenges.
Summer 2018

The Brain’s
Powerhouse
BRAIN IN FOCUS:
THE FRONTAL LOBE
By James Sullivan
■ On Valentine’s Day, 2018, tragedy
struck. A lone assailant, carrying a
backpack and a duffel bag entered the
hallways of his former high school
and opened fire — killing 17 people
at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High
School. While not the worst, the hor-
rific episode ranks as one of the world’s
deadliest school shootings. What
comes in the aftermath has seemed al-
most too commonplace — politicians
of both sides argue about possible gun
control laws and Second Amendment
rights until the news cycle changes.
Things didn’t quite go back to normal
— as a wave of protesters took to social
media and to the streets — many of
them students who demanded stricter
gun control laws and saw activism as
the only way things could be changed.
THE FRONTAL LOBE ENABLES US TO
TAKE THE INFORMATION AND ENVISION
OURSELVES TAKING A COURSE OF
ACTION BEFORE WE ACT — IMAGINING
THE POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES
DEPENDING ON WHICH PATH WE TAKE.
EVEN SPONTANEITY IS A FUNCTION OF
THE FRONTAL LOBE, ALLOWING US TO
THINK ON OUR FEET.
36 brainworldmagazine.com
The #NeverAgain movement has been met
with praise as well as scorn — with many of its
detractors saying that the younger protesters
are too young to understand the arguments or
causes they’re taking up. This may be true for
some, as the connections in the brain between
the amygdala and the frontal lobe are just be-
ginning to strengthen. It is a transitional time
between relying on the emotional brain, while
recognizing the capacity for deeper thought.
“High school kids are able to do more
abstract thinking than ever before in their
lives,” says Dr. Gene Beresin, a professor of
psychiatry at Harvard University. “They can
think about justice and altruism and fairness
and rights and duties and responsibilities.
They are really grappling with these things,
and in past years they couldn’t do that. They
can look at complexities and nuances they
never could before.” Their frontal lobe is
just coming into focus — it develops later
than nearly the rest of our brain and yet its
properties will likely diminish the earliest,
but perhaps tackling complex social issues is
a good way to help it reach its full potential.
PUT IN PERSPECTIVE
It’s the largest, and perhaps best-known, lobe
of the brain — one of four regions making
up the cerebrum. Altogether, it makes up
one-third of the entire organ. You might even
say it’s the part with the most personality.
We use it when we recall episodic memories
— events that stand out from childhood, as
well as the proud and/or embarrassing ones
that have come to define us. The dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex portion of the frontal lobe
is responsible for executive decision-making:
making plans, solving problems, giving you
the capacity for abstract thought, and allow-
ing an individual to think about multiple
subjects simultaneously. This cortex also un-
locks your working memory — it’s the reason
you never forget how to drive or ride a bike.
The frontal lobe’s anterior cingulate cortex
(ACC) is also involved in weighing routine
decisions — it’s the part of the brain that
anticipates reward, and is connected with
the frontal eye fields and motor system. This
is also the part involved in regulating emo-
tions — both our own and recognizing the
emotions in others. Functional MRI studies
have shown that the ACC became more ac-
tive when patients were shown video clips
of people grieving. The ACC is also what
helps us determine the appropriate response
based on the information our brain processes
— think of it as an abbreviation for the so-
called common-sense filter.
The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) portion of
the frontal lobe evaluates the significance of
potential rewards — acting as a second opin-
ion for whether or not you should eat that slice
of cake. It also monitors ongoing behavior —
it’s why you second guess how you’re doing at
any given moment at a party, or can never be
too sure how your yearly performance review
will go. The OFC also allows you to revisit
emotional experiences in the past — allowing
you to relate when your friend loses a grand-
parent or has a terminally ill parent.
The frontal lobe actually contains the
most dopamine-sensitive receptors of any
part of the brain — so behaviors can be
learned and rewarded quickly. These cortices
all work together to form what we like to
refer to as the conscience — we filter out
socially unacceptable behaviors and weigh
out the potential rewards of our actions. In
each situation, the brain gives us sensory
information that we process — the frontal
lobe enables us to take the information and
envision ourselves taking a course of action
before we act — imagining the possible con-
sequences depending on which path we take.
Even spontaneity is a function of the frontal
lobe, allowing us to think on our feet.
A MARK ON TOMORROW
While the frontal lobe seems to be a power-
house to so much of our mental faculties, it
is also vulnerable to a number of disorders
— a whole host of symptoms not fully un-
derstood occur here due to lesions — more
often than in any other part of the brain.
Difficulty in information feedback has been
observed, which has been attributed to
greater risk-taking than normal. Left frontal
lesions have been known to impair the abil-

ity to recognize and use fewer spoken words
as well as fewer facial gestures. Those with
lesions on the right frontal lobe tended to
use both verbal language and facial move-
ments to excess. Even when patients make
a successful recovery from traumatic brain
injury, it’s not uncommon to have difficulty
concentrating or remembering things as well
as they once did.
In the wake of tragedies such as Stoneman
Douglas, the shooter’s mental health often
comes up in debate, though little is changed
to make psychological help more readily avail-
able to people who might commit violent
crimes. While legislation may have a ways to
go, modern medicine may be on the verge of
breakthroughs that could help to relieve some
of the stigma of mental illness and also make
it easier to explore options for treatment.
Matthew Scult and fellow researchers at
Duke University are working on one such
breakthrough. They are currently in the early
stages of creating a noninvasive physical test
to diagnose known mental disorders, one
that you could get as routinely as you have
your blood pressure checked. To know what
sort of “biomarkers” to look for, Scult’s team
looked at brain-activity patterns related to
depression and post-traumatic stress disor-
der. They performed a series of fMRI scans
that looked at the prefrontal cortex of the
frontal lobe, the connected ventral striatum,
which responds to positive stimuli like
pleasant scenes or faces, and the amygdala,
an almond-shaped portion of the brain in
the temporal lobe that recognizes sensory
input and assigns emotions to it. While most
of these regions are consistently similar in
ordinary people, activity in each one is not
always consistent — particularly in people
suffering with anxiety or depression.
In their first task, the test subjects played a
guessing game — they were presented with a
playing card and asked if the card would be
higher or lower than five. If they guessed cor-
rectly, the researchers told them they would
win $10 at the end of the game. The ventral
striatum became active when the partici-
pants were informed that they had guessed
correctly. The second task activated the
amygdala — subjects had to look at pictures
of faces expressing fear and anger. Lastly, par-
ticipants were given two sets of mathemati-
cal problems — solving simple calculations
on a computer screen and another set from
memory, activating the prefrontal cortex.
Scult initially hoped to use all three pat-
terns put together as a biomarker that would
predict depression and anxiety in his patients,
but after gathering a large enough sample
BRAIN IN FOCUS
size, realized that they might be able to pre-
dict one or the other. This is a significant find
as the symptoms of both tend to overlap.
High prefrontal cortex activity suggested
that people were less likely to suffer from
anxiety, while high activity in the amygdala,
and low reward-related activity in the ventral
striatum were both markers that the patient
would suffer from worsening anxiety over
the next six months. As the participants, all
college students, were not asked to regulate
their emotions during any of the assessments,
the activity could potentially gauge how the
brain functions on a number of tasks.
There are still a number of unanswered
questions — and Scult is currently perform-
ing follow-up studies with people in different
age groups to get a larger sample. At present,
psychotherapy as well as magnets directly
stimulating brain waves are being looked
at as two options. (Using electromagnetic
waves to stimulate nerve cells in the brain
is already being used to treat cases of severe
depression.) A question to further explore is
how to increase prefrontal cortex activity in
people at risk of developing anxiety. Mindful
meditation — bringing the mind to reflect
on the present moment — may be effective
in activating the prefrontal cortex and reliev-
ing more mild symptoms of anxiety.
Summer 2018

Love and
Emotion
CAN YOU HAVE ONE
WITHOUT THE OTHER?
By David Driscoll
■ According to the Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention, the di-
vorce rate for first marriages is around
50 percent. For those who remarry,
do things tend to work out better the
second time around? Unfortunately,
the answer is apparently no. Second
marriages end in divorce around two-
thirds of the time, and for third mar-
riages the divorce rate is around 75
percent. Statistics weren’t available for
fourth and fifth marriages, but you can
guess by the trend that they’re prob-
ably not built to last either.
WHILE THE ONE WORD “LOVE” CAN AND
DOES REFER TO A WIDE VARIETY OF
EXPERIENCES, THE ANCIENT GREEKS HAD
DIFFERENT WORDS FOR VARIOUS KINDS
OF LOVE … EMOTION PLAYS A PART IN
ALL OF THESE TYPES OF LOVE, BUT IT IS
TREATED DIFFERENTLY IN EACH. GENERALLY,
THE MORE LIKELY IT IS FOR EMOTION TO
DOMINATE OUR CONSCIOUSNESS, THE LESS
HEALTHY AND IDEAL IS THE FORM OF LOVE.
38 brainworldmagazine.com
But in all seriousness, how come marriage,
one of the most ubiquitous social institu-
tions in the modern world, is so difficult to
maintain? Are human beings simply flawed
when it comes to lifelong commitment?
Should we continue to believe in the impor-
tance of marriage, or is it a vestigial social
appendage from past eras? How come so
many people who sincerely tie the knot end
up cutting the cord (on average about eight
years after getting married)? And regardless
of your philosophy on marriage, is it possible
to increase your chances of sustaining a lov-
ing relationship in the long run?
Falling in love is undoubtedly an emo-
tional experience. Falling out of love can be
highly emotional as well, but in a different
way. Some people fall in love again and again,
attracted to one partner after another. Others
are hopelessly lovestruck in the beginning
only to discover that the feeling fades over
time, leaving a troubling lack of emotional
connection. And while philosophical differ-
ences sometimes contribute to the end of a
relationship, more often the breakup is due to
fluctuating emotions. The power of emotion
is a double-edged sword. For many people
it is the reason a relationship starts and the
reason it ends. Are we destined to be slaves to
the changing tides of emotion?
Some people seem to find it easiest to
ignore emotion altogether. These individu-
als approach relationships logically. They
might be seen as cold, calculating, and
distant; in short, not everyone’s cup of tea
when it comes to a relationship. And while
this approach prevents certain emotional
difficulties, it obviously can lead to others.
Being logical does not in and of itself ensure
a lasting relationship.
Those who give too much attention to
emotion, however, suffer from the funda-
mental reality that emotions change over
time. These individuals consider emotion to
be deeply important and honest. They may
trust their emotions to guide them beyond
logic and understanding. Unfortunately, we
know that emotion is not necessarily a wise
teacher. Following the romantic notion that
feelings should be taken as our guide insures
that we will find it difficult to create stable
and resilient relationships.
Interestingly, while the one word “love”
can and does refer to a wide variety of ex-
periences, the ancient Greeks had different
words for various kinds of love. “Eros” refers
to sexual passion or desire, the kind of love
that we would relate most closely with lust.
There’s also “philia” — a friendly love —
familiar to you perhaps because of the name
Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.
“Storge” refers to the love between parents
and children, or in other natural familial
relationships. And “agape” refers to a widely
beneficial love based on principles of univer-
sality and faithfulness.
Emotion plays a part in all of these types
of love, but it is treated differently in each.
Generally, the more likely it is for emotion
to dominate our consciousness, the less
healthy and ideal is the form of love. Eros,
for example, is a natural and healthy form of
love, but easily dominated by the emotional
experience. Therefore the Greeks deemed
eros less desirable, and in some ways more
dangerous, than other kinds of love. Storge
and philia are also healthy and even beauti-
ful loves, but they can be prone to emotional
attachment. Agape — the highest form of
universal love, is characterized by the fact
that, while it stirs strong emotions, is also
essentially transcends our personal emotions.
Neuroscience also suggests that there is a
complicated relationship between love and
emotion. Darby Saxbe, Ph.D., an assistant
professor of psychology at the University
of Southern California, writes about what
happens when stress hormones sync up be-
tween partners. She states that couples with
more synchronicity tend to have less stable
and lasting relationships. In laymen’s terms,
couples that “tune in” excessively to each
other’s emotions have a harder time main-
taining their relationships. This could be
because stress is amplified when one person
feels and reacts to the emotional stress of his
or her partner.
Other studies, however, emphasize the
value of emotional synchronicity in healthy

relationships. Karen Nikos-Rose of the
University of California, Davis writes that
couples whose emotions are out of sync for
more than a few days are more likely to break
up than those who “ride the waves” of emo-
tion together, even during the down times.
What gives? Is it better to be in sync — or
out of sync — with our partner’s emotions?
As the Greek words for love suggest, stability
and long-lasting love may not be the result
merely of being in sync or out of sync with
each other’s emotions. Rather, it could be
the result of having the power to love be-
yond emotion.
In the Taoist yoga tradition that I teach
we often say, “My emotions are not me,
they are mine.” Emotions, like thinking, are
something that we cannot help but experi-
ence while we have a body and brain. They
are not, however, the true essence of what we
are. Emotions pass just like all phenomena of
the body. Our soul, true self, or essence is be-
yond emotion. I would argue that love, while
often manifesting along with powerful emo-
tions, is not fundamentally just an emotional
experience. It is an example of consciousness,
truth, and will.
The Greek agape suggests the nature of
love that is “beyond” emotion. Someone
who demonstrates agape displays a love for
all human beings equally — rather than
conditionally according to someone’s physi-
cal, familial, emotional or social form. To
achieve such a love requires great patience,
understanding, and will power. It requires
a sensitivity to emotion, yes, but also the
ability to choose love — in spite of emotion.
Because in every relationship there will be
times when our emotions are in conflict.
So rather than love being the result of
emotion, lasting love must have the power
to observe and redirect emotion. This power
comes from having an awakened conscious-
ness that can “watch” the thoughts and
feelings that the mind creates. It can also
develop through the power of a choice made
HEALTH
with conviction. When people choose to
trust and love each other regardless of the
obstacles that may arise, they are putting
into practice an ancient form of wisdom.
Perhaps you’ve heard such wisdom from
elderly couples who explain how they stayed
together throughout the years. Sometimes
they say it was easy — that they feel the
same emotion as the day the met. But more
often they report that love took work, each
and every day. The love that grows out of
our sustained choice and effort is, although
perhaps less glamorous on the surface, all the
more beautiful and fulfilling in its depth and
resiliency. So enjoy the ups and downs of
emotion in your relationships, and choose to
love whenever you can.
Summer 2018
 We live in a world where everything hap-
Mending pens at a fast pace. With a few clicks you
can request an Uber, book a restaurant, read
Mindless emails, or buy groceries. We’ve also become
impatient and expect things to happen much
Multitasking faster. Waiting in line feels excruciating slow,
and Daily so we jump from line to line. Or push the
elevator button multiple times, as if it will
Brain Drains make it come sooner. Or check our emails
while waiting for dinner to heat up in the
microwave or brushing our teeth.
The very technology that enables us such
ease and convenience also creates stress. Our
By Jane Piper smartphones are a constant interruption.
They flash, beep, tweet, alert, and even occa-
sionally ring — demanding our attention in-
It’s not mind over matter, but what is stantly. The constant interruptions take away
on your mind that matters. our attention and focus. A surprisingly short
interruption of checking an alert takes up to
OVERWHELMED 25 minutes to get back into concentrating
AND OVERCONNECTED on a task, according to research from Gloria
■ It can feel like you are too busy to Mark at the University of California, Irvine.
It means we are often multitasking without
think. Your head is full and in the fran- even noticing it. Jumping from one email to a
tic rush between meetings, answer- text message, then to a call without ever con-
ing emails, and finishing things just centrating fully on any of them: doing too
many things at once and none of them prop-
before the deadline you react without erly. Multitasking divides our attention and
thinking, usually resulting in subpar focus, lowering performance on all the tasks.
decisions that in the end take more We feel busy and productive but beware — it
is a trap. To perform well on a task requires
time. In the frenetic haste it seems like focus and attention on one task at a time.
your mind is scrambling to keep up. The security and convenience of having a
Technology and the general speed of smartphone with you 24/7 means you can be
connected to the world at any time. It also al-
the world contribute to a feeling of
lows you to be connected to your work 24/7.
being out of control. It doesn’t have to The boundaries between work and nonwork
feel like this, if you learn to focus your become much more blurred. With a smart-
mental energy. phone your work can be right there in your per-
sonal time and space, like it never was before.
ONE OF THE REASONS OVERWIRED BRAINS
DISTRACTIONS AND The frantic pace, constant interruptions,
MULTITASKING LEAD TO and multitasking leads to a state where our
LOWERED PERFORMANCE brains are constantly semidistracted and agi-
IS “ATTENTION tated from juggling too many tasks at once.
RESIDUE.” ATTENTION Our performance and productivity improve
RESIDUE IS WHEN THE when we focus deeply on one task, or a series
PREVIOUS TASK IS of similar tasks, calmly one after the other.
HANGING AROUND IN One of the reasons distractions and multi-
THE BACK OF YOUR tasking lead to lowered performance is “atten-
MIND. IT IS THE FEELING tion residue.” Attention residue is when the
THAT YOU HAVE THAT previous task is hanging around in the back
YOU HAVEN’T QUITE of your mind. It is the feeling that you have
FINISHED SOMETHING that you haven’t quite finished something or
OR YOU’VE FORGOTTEN you’ve forgotten something. It is your un-
SOMETHING. conscious brain still working on the last task,
40 brainworldmagazine.com
and not concentrating on the current task.
This creates a cost on your performance. To
perform better you need to disengage from
the first task. You need to close the chapter to
move on to the next, so to speak.
The multitasking also leads to the feeling
that nothing is ever finally completed. In a
study of what makes people feel happy at
work by Teresa Amabile of Harvard Univer-
sity, she reviewed 1,200 journal entries about
people’s feelings about work. She found that
getting something done — for example
solving a problem or finalizing that report
— made work satisfying. That’s the buzz of
having made some progress. With multitask-
ing it is much harder to feel that anything is
ever really completed.
The 24/7 “always on” style of work con-
tributes to the feeling of being wired. Our
mental energy is limited and requires time
to refresh through sleep and a break. Taking
five minutes here and there over the evening
or weekend to check emails means that work
is always on your mind. The time those work
thoughts stay on your mind is much more
time than the physical time it took to read
and respond to the email. The brain then has
less time to refresh and recharge for the next
day — lowering performance.
The high level of stress associated with
our hectic lifestyles has a negative impact
on our mental performance. A little stress
can sharpen thinking, but too much limits
performance on cognitive tasks. The most
advanced part of our brain, the prefrontal
cortex, is most negatively impacted by stress.
As research published in the Journal of Cogni-
tive Neuroscience by Sandra Ackermann and
colleagues has shown, a stressed brain is less
effective in processing information, solving
problems, and more likely to forget things.
While we live in this fast-paced, 24/7
world, you still have the choice as to how
you respond to it. If you want your brain to
perform better, you need to take control. Give
yourself time to focus and concentrate, and
then allow yourself time to rest and refresh.
Jane Piper is a registered psychologist and is
the author of “Focus in the Age of Distrac-
tion” (Panoma Press). She has over 20 years
of experience working with individuals and
small and medium-sized enterprises. Three
years ago she set up her own company, Pipsy,
and consults to organizations on people man-
agement and coaches people on careers and
stress management.

Six Tips To Stop Brain Drains
By understanding your brain
there are some simple things
that you can do to stop the
overwired and out-of-control
feeling:
1. STOP MINDLESSLY
MULTITASKING
You’ll be more productive and
creative if you focus on one
task at a time. A quick shift
of your attention takes lon-
ger than you think to regain
concentration and focus. It is
too easy to get distracted and
interrupted and then realize
that you are multitasking. Feel
the buzz of progress when
you get a job done.
2. DEAL WITH DIGITAL
DISTRACTION
Take control of your smart-
phone, so you can work
smarter. You don’t have to re-
spond instantly to every alert
that comes on your phone,
especially those from more
“infotainment” channels like
Facebook, Twitter, and the like.
Turn off push notifications
and alerts. You decide when
you want to review your so-
cial media. If you really want
some uninterrupted time then
put your phone into do not
disturb or airplane mode. You
might be surprised to find
that the world doesn’t stop
even though you were not
connected for an hour.
3. CHUNK YOUR WORK
Organize your work in chunks
of time about the time of your
attention span (20 to 50 min-
utes). Work on a block of work,
the sort of task that requires
mental energy like planning
a project, reviewing the cases
for a legal brief, or writing a
report. During this time don’t
check emails or alerts. Review
your emails during one block
of time three to four times a
day so you are not switching
from deep work to reactive
work.
4. CLOSE THE CHAPTER
Wrap up what you were work-
ing on nicely. Write it down
what you completed and note
what needs are next steps. It
helps avoid attention residue
and contributes to that buzz
of progress.
5. CREATE BOUNDARIES
Prevent home invasion by
your smartphone. You don’t
have to work everywhere and
HEALTH
anytime. Create a boundary
between work and nonwork
time. For example, decide to
work for a few hours Sunday
evening rather than five to
10 minutes here and there
throughout the whole week-
end. Think about the physi-
cal space that you take your
phone in your home. Create
some spaces that are a sanc-
tuary from work, like the bed-
room, the bathroom, or a liv-
ing room.
6. SIZE UP STRESS
The overwired, stressed brain
is not the most productive
and creative. Look at what
is causing you stress — over-
committed, long hours with
no time to unwind. Deal with
your stress and you’ll perform
better.
Summer 2018
 Personality

A Q&A WITH DR. ANTONIO DAMASIO

by Isabel Pastor Guzman

■ Antonio Damasio is a neurologist and a neuroscientist. He

is the neuroscience chair, professor of psychology, philosophy,
and neurology, and the director of the Brain and Creativity
Institute at the University of Southern California in Los
Angeles. He is the recipient of many awards, a member of the
National Academy of Medicine, and a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Bavarian Academy of
Sciences, and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
   

42 brainworldmagazine.com
Summer 2018

“CULTURES” AND DIFFERENT
ARRANGEMENTS SUCH AS
MORAL SYSTEMS,
GOVERNANCE, JUSTICE
SYSTEMS, TECHNOLOGY,
SCIENCE, THE ARTS — ALL OF
THESE INVENTIONS WERE
MOTIVATED BY FEELINGS. IF IT
HADN’T BEEN FOR THE FACT
THAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE
USUALLY EITHER IN A STATE OF
WELL-BEING, OR IN A STATE OF
PAIN OR SUFFERING, WE
WOULD NOT HAVE INVENTED
ANYTHING.
Damasio has extensively pub-
lished on a wide variety of top-
ics related to specific aspects
of the human mind, such as
how we perceive things, how
we communicate and process
language, and — perhaps most
importantly — how our emo-
tions are produced in the human
mind and how we experience
those emotions in our bodies.
Damasio has made seminal con-
tributions to our understanding
of consciousness, our awareness
of our experiences, and our ca-
pacity to observe ourselves. His
most recent book, “The Strange
Order of Things: Life, Feeling,
and The Making of Cultures,”
is the culmination of decades of
research and an effort to identify
the source of all human creations
— our feelings.
44 brainworldmagazine.com
Brain World: Tell us about your
latest book.
Antonio Damasio: My latest
book, “The Strange Order of
Things,” is fundamentally about
the processes of life, about what
it means to be living, and about
how we can regulate our lives so
that we can live normally and be
complete human beings.
One of the main aspects of
the book is that it explains the
process of “feeling.” It explains
the fact that in the middle of
all the different processes of our
mind, such as perception and
reasoning, there is something
very important which relates
directly to how our life is be-
ing lived by our living organ-
ism, and that is feeling. The
main point of the book is that
“cultures” and different arrange-
ments such as moral systems,
governance, justice systems,
technology, science, the arts —
all of these inventions were mo-
tivated by feelings. If it hadn’t
been for the fact that human
beings are usually either in a
state of well-being, or in a state
of pain or suffering, we would
not have invented anything. So
the point that my book is mak-
ing is that in order to invent
cultures, we had to have a very
basic motivation to get rid of
pain or suffering, or to aspire to
a state of well-being and hap-
piness, which we can describe
generally as pleasure. Without
that, we wouldn’t have a reason
to invent anything.
BW: Why are emotions so impor-
tant when it comes to studying
the mind?
AD: Feelings and emotions
are fundamental to what we
are. They are very basic reac-
tions of living organisms — not
only human beings, but other
living organisms as well. We
react to what is around us with
emotions, with certain move-
ments or attitudes of our bodies
that signify that we are either
threatened and need to defend
ourselves — that’s what occurs
with emotions such as fear —
or that we feel positively about
the things that are around us
— which would be expressed by
emotions such as joy. Other ba-
sic emotions include anger for
example, which is used for our
protection, or sadness, which
happens when we are in states
of loss.
Those are all fundamental
reactions. They are also very
old, and not only human, they
come from a long history of liv-
ing creatures. All those reactions
are experienced in our bodies.
Our body changes when we are
having an emotion. We also ex-
perience in our mind what is go-
ing on in our bodies, and that’s
what we call “feelings.” In other
words, feelings are our mental
experiences of the states that we
have in our living bodies.
BW: How do you explain this
mind-body relationship from a
scientific standpoint?
AD: We humans are living or-
ganisms, and so are many oth-
er creatures that we recognize
around us. But even creatures
that we do not see, such as mi-
crobes and bacteria, are also
living. Now, only some of those
creatures have minds, and the
ones that have the possibility of
having minds, have minds be-
cause they have nervous systems.
You can call them in very general
terms, brains, but some nervous
systems are far simpler than our
brains. The point is that in order
to have a mind, in my perspec-
tive, you need to have a nervous
system. And when you start
having nervous systems in the
course of evolution, then you
have the possibility of having
feelings, and consciousness, and
a mind in the proper sense.
BW: How do emotions and feel-
ings relate to our cognition?
AD: Cognition is a very broad
term, and the word can be used
in different ways. It relates to
practically everything that your
mind can do: perception, such
as seeing or hearing or creating a
memory of what you see or hear,
and then manipulating memo-
ries in a way that allows you
to reason and make decisions.
Cognition is the collection of all
those processes.
BW: What is consciousness?
AD: Consciousness is the ability
that we have to know ourselves,
to know that we are in fact in-
dependent creatures that have
a mind — a mind that is taking
on the world around us and the
world inside ourselves. Emo-
tions can occur in the absence
of consciousness. But you only
have consciousness when you
have a sense of your own being,
of taking on the world in terms
of what you’ve seen, or heard, or
touched, or felt. Consciousness
is the ability to have a mind
with subjectivity, the sense of
being a subject.
FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS ARE FUNDAMENTAL
TO WHAT WE ARE. THEY ARE VERY BASIC
REACTIONS OF LIVING ORGANISMS — NOT ONLY
HUMAN BEINGS, BUT OTHER LIVING ORGANISMS
AS WELL … THEY COME FROM A LONG HISTORY
OF LIVING CREATURES. ALL THOSE REACTIONS
ARE EXPERIENCED IN OUR BODIES.
BW: Emotions are essentially are perfectly compatible. We
the same for all human beings. are the same human beings in
How did we come up with such a terms of our abilities to perceive,
diverse set of cultures? to manipulate the world, and
AD: Yes, human nature is ex- to have emotions and feelings.
tremely similar across different Our biology is the same, and we
human groups and different have the same essential motiva-
parts of the world. Human na- tion: to be well, to be happy, to
ture is, in essence, the same. We avoid suffering. But the resulting
have certain characteristics in cultures are distinct and these
our bodies, in our nervous sys- distinctions derive from the con-
tems, certain reactions that are ditions of the places where they
clearly very similar in all human have evolved (climate, geogra-
beings. But the way things get phy, etc.) and by the history of
invented and constructed has a each place and its people (wars,
lot to do with the things going conflicts, etc.).
on in the particular part of the
world you are in. Basic things,
such as the climate surrounding
us, have a great impact. We’ll
make efforts and create things
to adapt to the temperatures and
climate around us, and so forth.
So, the way that cultures have
evolved in different parts of the
world, have both similarities
and differences. The two things
Summer 2018
 Personality

A Q&A WITH DR. LISA FELDMAN BARRETT

by James Sullivan

■ We often think of our emotions as sudden and fleeting, and we

pride ourselves on making our decisions based on reason and logic
— not letting our emotions get in the way. The reality is a bit grayer.
Our emotions, it seems, are a bit more complex than we think. We
respond to them in a variety of ways that may surprise us — and use
multiple parts of the brain. The process has been a longtime interest of
neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, author of “How Emotions Are
Made: The Secret Life of the Brain,” which was published last year. She
has given a number of lectures on the subject and was the recipient of
the National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award in 2007. She
is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern
University of Massachusetts.
Her theory of constructed emotion explains why we experience emotions differ-
ently — and why we think we can perceive the emotions of others, even if we’re
not necessarily accurate. Brain World recently had the opportunity to sit down with
Barrett to discuss her work.

Brain World: What got you interested in
neuroscience?
Lisa Feldman Barrett: I was always
super interested in biology and in physi-
ology and in anatomy. So I ended up
going to graduate school, and I became
very interested in the science of emotion
when I was completing my doctoral
dissertation because I had a collection
of self-reported measures of emotion,
where you ask people how they feel —
that weren’t performing the way they
were supposed to, according to people’s
beliefs about emotion at that time. So
when people reported feeling anxious,
they also reported feeling depressed and
vice versa, and I thought, well, it’s obvi-
ous that anxiety and depression differ in
many ways — including in how aroused
people feel, so there must be some
physical ways of measuring emotion.
There must be some objective ways of
measuring emotion that can tell you
when someone is accurate about their
experience and when they’re not.
I thought it would be a really simple,
straightforward task that I would just
go through the literature, look up the
evidence and use it, because we all learn
in our introductory psychology classes
   
Summer 2018

WHAT WE LEARN IS THAT THE
BRAIN FOR THE MOST PART,
WHEN IT COMES TO
PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA
LIKE THINKING AND FEELING,
AND DECIDING AND SEEING, AND
SO ON, DOESN’T HAVE ANY
DEDICATED REGIONS OR EVEN
DEDICATED NETWORKS FOR
THESE PHENOMENA. INSTEAD OF
ASKING WHERE IS EMOTION IN
THE BRAIN, WHAT YOU CAN ASK
INSTEAD IS — HOW IS EMOTION
CREATED BY THE BRAIN?
and all through graduate school
that there are several categories
of emotions that are universal
— anger, sadness, fear, disgust —
that everyone around the world is
born with a brain that has circuits
for these emotions. When the
circuit triggers, everyone makes
the same expression on the face
and the same autonomic changes
in the body, and everyone can
recognize these expressions, and
so on. You know, when you’re
angry, you scowl and your blood
pressure goes up, and so on.
So I went through the litera-
ture, and I found that in fact,
that’s not the case at all. Certainly,
there are claims that that’s the
case, but when you actually look
at the data, it doesn’t support
those claims — at all. Like, not
even a little bit. You have people
48 brainworldmagazine.com
claiming that everybody scowls
when they’re angry and pouts
when they’re sad, but when you
actually measure those muscle
movements in the face electrically,
you don’t find that at all. You
know, sometimes in anger your
heart rate goes up, sometimes it
goes down, sometimes it stays the
same. It all depends on what your
brain is preparing your body to
do — what action to take.
So as I was going through this,
people started making claims
about the localization of emotion
in the brain that there were par-
ticular brain regions dedicated to
particular emotions. So I started
off as a clinical psychologist, and
I retrained in psychophysiology,
so I could learn about the elec-
tromyography of the face — the
electrical signals of facial mus-
cle movement — and I learned
about autonomic physiology so
I could measure the end organs
of the body. This was right at the
time when brain imaging started
to become very popular, and I
thought, well now I needed to
become a neuroscientist.
So I did. I did all of those
things as a professor, moving up
through the ranks in a lab, and
I took a little bit of a different
approach than most neuroscien-
tists coming out of psychology
do. People studying the brain
and the mind tend to start with
the message. They might learn
about functional brain imag-
ing, for example, or they might
learn about measuring electrical
changes in the brain, or invasive
brain stimulation. Instead of do-
ing that, I decided I would start
by learning the anatomy of the
nervous system. So I started with
the anatomy of the peripheral
nervous system, up through the
brain stem, into the cortex. I
think this gave me a really dif-
ferent view than my colleagues,
and I also think that because
I didn’t start off steeped in the
assumptions — I wasn’t trained
in a neuroscience program — I
was free from the assumptions of
my field. I just came in kind of
naive, and I think that allowed
me to see some things that other
people didn’t see at that time.
BW: Has our understanding of
emotion changed significantly?
How so?
LFB: Well, I’d like to give you a
redemption story. Scientists had
mistaken ideas about emotions
and then came neuroscience and
now we know better — look at
the revolution that occurred. I
don’t think that’s exactly what
happened. I do think that brain
imaging played a super impor-
tant part. I think the story is
more like this — that since the
time of the ancient world, people
have believed that emotions are
these urges that are built in to
the more animalistic parts of our
brains from birth, and that they
can be localized to particular
regions of the brain. So back
in ancient times, some people
weren’t thinking about the brain
as being important for the mind,
like Aristotle, but other people,
like Hippocrates, were really
interested in the brain as the seat
of the mind. The assumption
was always that the brain, or the
cortical parts of the brain, were
important for thinking, and the
body, or the subcortical parts
of the brain which control the
body, are important for emotion.
This was always the assumption.
Yet at every point in history,
whoever was writing about emo-
tion also raised concerns about
this view — and nobody ever lis-
tened, really. Whatever counted
as data, in any particular era,
was brought to bear against this
view — but no one listened.
Then in the late 19th century,
when psychology was emerging
as a science, researchers tried to
understand the physical basis of
thinking, or of being angry. Dur-
ing this time, there were scientists
like Wilhelm Wundt or William
James, who said our understand-
ing of emotion is completely
wrong. For many years, people
tried to find the physical basis of
emotion in the body, in the brain,
and nobody could do it.
So people started to offer ideas
on how the brain was creating
emotion, but those ideas were
never formalized really well.
When brain imaging emerged,
people started to again test the
hypothesis that emotions can
be localized in different parts
of the brain, and that’s actually
how it looks for a little bit of
time in some of the first studies,
but it quickly became clear that
that wasn’t the case. One of the
things that you sometimes hear
from neuroscientists is that we’ve
learned nothing from brain imag-
ing at all for various reasons, but
that’s completely untrue. We’ve
learned a tremendous amount
from brain imaging. It’s just not
what people expected to learn.
What we learn is that the brain
for the most part, when it comes
to psychological phenomena
like thinking and feeling, and
deciding and seeing, and so on,
doesn’t have any dedicated re-
gions or even dedicated networks
for these phenomena. Instead of
asking where is emotion in the
brain, what you can ask instead
is — how is emotion created
by the brain? We understand
now that the brain is equipped
with large-scale networks that
are involved in a lot of the same
functions. Neuroscience didn’t so
much give us an aha moment as
it put the nails in the coffin built
over a very long period of time.
BW: How good are we at inter-
preting emotions?
LFB: That’s a great question,
and I can answer it as a scientist
or as a person. “How good?”
is what a scientist would call
“validity.” If you and I are talk-
ing, and I’m guessing that you’re
interested — how “valid” is my
guess? Normally, in science, we
want to have an objective cri-
terion — so we can objectively
measure your interest and let me
compare that to my judgment.
Nothing like that in emotion
exists, because there’s nothing
about your face, your body, or
your brain that, even in combi-
nation, will tell me in a given
instance whether or not you’re
interested, or feeling contempt,
or feeling angry. The reason why,
is that the category of emotion,
like interest, is not a thing. It’s a
variable set of instances — in the
way that any member of a given
species, like a cocker spaniel, is
not a “perfect” individual. It’s a
highly variable group of individ-
uals whose features vary in a way
that’s important to the environ-
ment that they live in. The same
thing is true about emotions.
As a consequence, to ask about
the questions of validity — am
I guessing correctly — we have
to compare it to something else,
like your judgment of whether
you’re interested, or somebody
else’s judgment of whether you’re
interested. Do we have two peo-
ple agreeing? — what we call
“inter-rater reliability.” Now it
turns out in everyday life, that’s
mostly what matters. Mostly
what matters for our ability to
communicate, is that I’m guess-
ing in a way that makes sense of
your physical movements and
the acoustics of your voice, in
the same way that you’re making
sense of your own sensations.
That’s actually what brains do.
It’s not that you have some state
of interest that then you detect
and perceive, it’s that you have a
set of ingredients that are avail-
able to your brain, and your brain
“makes” interest. What it’s doing
IT’S NOT THAT
when it’s making interest, or an- YOU HAVE
ger, or actually any mental state at SOME STATE OF
all, is it’s trying to make sense of INTEREST THAT
internal sensations in your body
in relation to what’s going on THEN YOU
around you in the world. DETECT AND
So am I good at making sense PERCEIVE, IT’S
of all of this in the same way
you are? I would say if we come
THAT YOU HAVE
from similar backgrounds, then A SET OF
I’m probably not bad. If we’ve INGREDIENTS
learned the same ways of mak-
ing sense of things, I’m probably
THAT ARE
not bad. It’s also possible that AVAILABLE TO
I’m not great, but the question YOUR BRAIN,
is how much agreement do you AND YOUR
actually need? So in some cases
all you need is the gist — I just BRAIN
need to know that you’re feeling “MAKES”
pleasant or unpleasant. That’s INTEREST.
enough. So I might not think
you’re interested. I might think
WHAT IT’S
that you’re happy, but it’s close DOING WHEN
enough for the purposes of a IT’S MAKING
single interaction.
However, there are lots of
INTEREST, OR
times when it’s not enough. For ANGER, OR
example, take the whole #MeToo ACTUALLY ANY
movement. It’s really important
that people are making sense of
MENTAL STATE
their own sensations in a way AT ALL, IS IT’S
that’s congruent with how other TRYING TO
people are making sense of their MAKE SENSE
actions. When that doesn’t hap-
pen, lots and lots and lots of OF INTERNAL
problems arise. I’m not just say- SENSATIONS IN
ing instances of sexual harass- YOUR BODY IN
ment, rape, or what have you;
I’m talking about instances where
RELATION TO
people are misunderstanding WHAT’S GOING
each other, which happens quite ON AROUND
frequently. It can happen in the
courtroom, it can happen very
YOU IN THE
tragically in the emergency room, WORLD.
it can happen definitely across
cultural boundaries. It happens
enough that we should pay atten-
tion to it and try to fix it.
Summer 2018

YOU COULD JUST LEARN HOW
IT’S MADE — AND YOU CAN ALTER
THE RECIPE. SO IF WE
UNDERSTAND HOW EMOTIONS
ARE MADE, AND MORE SO HOW
OUR OWN BRAINS WORK, IN
RELATION TO OUR BODIES AND
WHAT’S GOING ON AROUND US,
THEN WE’RE IN A BETTER
POSITION TO CHANGE THE
RECIPE. MAYBE EVEN TO CHANGE
THE INGREDIENTS.
BW: So how do we fix it?
LFB: Imagine you’re interested in
changing how something tastes
— like baked bread. You could
just slather some butter on, right?
— or peanut butter and jam, or
something. You could add some-
thing after the fact. Or you could
just learn how it’s made — and
you can alter the recipe. So if we
understand how emotions are
made, and more so how our own
brains work, in relation to our
bodies and what’s going on around
us, then we’re in a better position
to change the recipe. Maybe even
to change the ingredients.
That’s a more effective way of
doing things. Instead of asking
where are emotions located in
your brain, explain to people:
“Here is how your brain works.
This is what we know so far. Giv-
en that this is how a brain works,
in the world surrounded by other
brains and bodies, what’s the
most effective way to change the
ingredients?” That’s really the
approach that I take in my book.
50 brainworldmagazine.com
BW: How are emotions created?
LFB: Your brain didn’t really
evolve to think and feel and see,
it evolved to regulate your body.
As bodies got bigger, what scien-
tists call the “ecological niche”
of an animal got bigger — their
brains got bigger. I like to think
about the brain as kind of like
the financial office of a com-
pany. In a company, you have
lots of offices, and each office
is spending revenue and getting
deposits. The goal is to not let
any office go bankrupt. You
need to keep the whole country
fiscally sound and everything in
balance. You want to be able to
invest in opportunities that may
not pay off, but you want to take
that chance. I think that’s what
the brain is really doing for the
body — it’s running a budget.
Instead of money, the budget
is for things like glucose and salt
and water. It’s tracking expen-
ditures and revenues, and it’s
attempting to do this in the most
metabolically efficient way, be-
cause a major constraint on brain
function is metabolic efficiency.
Twenty percent of your brain is
metabolic budget. It turns out
the most efficient way to regulate
a system is to run a model of that
system and correct it, as needed.
Basically, you have a model and
it makes predictions of what’s go-
ing to happen next in the system,
and if the model’s wrong, you
just correct it.
It turns out that the brain is
structured this way — that neu-
rons in the brain are structured
to predict as opposed to react
to the world, so basically what
your brain is attempting to do
is while it’s thinking and feeling
and seeing, it’s simultaneously
attempting to anticipate the
needs of the body and meet
those needs before they arise. If
your brain’s going to stand you
up, it will raise your blood pres-
sure before it stands you up so
you don’t faint.
You may be asking what all
of this has to do with emotion
— well, it’s really important
to understand this to under-
stand how your emotions are
made, because when your brain
is regulating systems in your
body, there are sensations that
arise from those changes. You
don’t experience those changes
in high fidelity, in the same way
that you see and hear. Instead of
like an HDTV, it comes in like
a fuzzy, black-and-white image.
You experience them as simple
feelings — pleasant or unpleas-
ant, feeling worked up. These
feelings are with you every wak-
ing moment of your life. They’re
not emotions, they’re the result
of your brain’s budgeting.
So we have names for these
feelings — some people call
them “moods,” scientists call
them “affect,” some people call
them “gut feelings.” So your
brain is trying to make sense of
these feelings and of the world,
in order to prepare your body
for what to do next. If I have a
big change in the systems of my
body, and I feel intensely un-
pleasant, my brain might make
an instance of anxiety. It might
make an instance of longing
if I’m waiting for my lover or
best friend or daughter to come
home. It might make an instance
of nausea or just hunger.
But it may affect my percep-
tion of the world — if I’m driv-
ing on the highway and some-
one cuts me off, my perception
could be that that guy’s a jerk.
I might think he’s the cause of
these sensations of unpleasant-
ness. So it’s not your reactions
to the world — it’s the way your
brain makes sense of the inner
workings of your body in rela-
tion to the world.
BW: So this is why so many
people express their emotions
differently.
LFB: Yes. It’s not so much that
other people express their emo-
tions differently — it’s that you
yourself experience the same
emotion category differently in
different situations. Sometimes
in anger you’ll lash out, but
sometimes in anger, you cry, you
freeze. Sometimes in anger, you
withdraw, or you laugh in the
face of anger. It’s very similar to
Darwin’s definition of a “species”
— you know, just like there are
many individuals in a species,
you have many different instanc-
es of emotion, a category like
anger. There are also differences
in people between cultures and
also within a culture. In some
cultures, anger doesn’t even exist
as a category — people make
sense of those sensations in a
very different way.
BW: Do you think artificial
intelligence will ever be success-
ful at understanding human
emotion?
LFB: We’re just a bunch of brains
trying to understand how brains
work. That’s a very limiting fac-
tor. I think technology holds the
key to answering some of these
questions. If variability is the
norm in any emotion, then how
does the human brain solve this
problem? The answer is the hu-
man brain has a way of dealing
with variation. We just have to
take a clue there. So if we’re build-
ing technology to answer ques-
tions like how to read an anger
expression, and what they mean
by that is to detect a scowling
face, that is going to go nowhere.
They’re equating the measure-
ment with their interpretation of
the measurement. Facial move-
ments alone have no meaning
without context and the rest of
the signals in creating an emo-
tion. I think the answer is there,
I just think someone in the tech-
nology industry has to be brave
enough to ask the right questions.
BW: How does gender bias guide
our emotional perception of oth-
er people?
LFB: In very significant and
substantial ways I would say.
The law is probably the clearest
place where you can see this.
You can see it in politics pretty
clearly I think. You can see it
anywhere really, medicine too.
We have very gendered beliefs
about emotion. So for example,
when people in our culture look
at a man who is scowling or ap-
pears to be angry, on average,
people assume he’s angry be-
cause something in the situation
has caused him to be angry. His
anger reflects something about
the state of the world.
When a woman is angry, on
average, people assume she’s an-
gry because she’s a shrew or she’s
overly emotional — that her
anger reveals something about
her as a person. Women have a
bit of a “double blind” in our
culture — because the stereo-
type is that women are these
overly emotional creatures who
can’t control themselves, and
who should not be in positions
of authority. That’s a bit of a
caricature, but it’s still assumed
that women are more emotional
than men. If you ask a woman
if she’s more emotional than a
man, on average, she’ll say yes —
and men agree.
When you track women’s and
men’s emotionality in day-to-day
life, you don’t see any differenc-
es on average between men and
women. So there are some peo-
ple who are more emotional and
some who are less, but, on average,
men and women are not different.
I’ll give you an example. I
have a student who’s a woman
— she was trained in linguistics,
but she spent the last several
years in graduate school learning
computational modeling from a
group of signal processing engi-
neers — very mathy, sophisticat-
ed stuff. She wrote a fellowship
application. Despite the fact that
she has been making progress
over several years and has let-
ters of recommendation from
engineers saying she’s a fantastic
candidate, one of her reviewers
denied her application. She may
not get funded now because she’s
a woman. That bias that girls
can’t do math, could affect the
rest of her career. So I think the
idea that when women are logi-
cal, it’s an anomaly — but when
they’re emotional, they’re not fit
for leadership or anything that
requires logical analysis.
BW: How do we build emotions?
LFB: If you believe you were
born with a set of emotional cir-
cuits prewired into your brain,
and the way emotion works is
one of these circuits gets trig-
gered — then you have a feeling,
an expression, an obligatory
change in your body — then
regulating emotion means that
all you can do is avoid the situa-
tions that will trigger the circuit
or try to regulate things after
the fact. When you understand
how the brain works and how
emotions are made within that
framework, what it does is wid-
en the horizons of control for
you. There are things that you
can do, outside of the moment,
that will make it easier for your
brain to construct the feelings
that you find beneficial.
Generally speaking, there are
three domains of ingredients —
the sensations of regulating your
brain’s body budget — mood
or affect. There’s the situation
you’re in that your brain is trying
to make sense of. And there’s the
internal model that your brain
is running, to make predictions
about what’s going to happen
next, which comes from your
past experience. So if you change
any of those things, you change
your emotions. You have control
over your emotions.
Some of them are easy; some
of them are much harder than
others. It’s never the case that
you can snap your fingers and
just change how you feel. On
the other hand, you have more
control than you might imagine.
Some people like to ask, “If I
could control one thing about
my emotions, what would it
be?” and the answer is — get
some sleep. Get enough sleep.
That sounds really boring, and I
sound like a mother when I say
this, but I am actually talking
as a neuroscientist. Anything,
which makes it easier for your
brain to keep your body’s budget
in balance, will make it easier for
your brain to make beneficial in-
stead of problematic emotions.
Eat properly, eat healthfully,
which is really hard to do in our
culture, and exercise on a regular
basis. The more difficult it is, the
more unpleasant you will feel —
the greater opportunity there is
for negative emotions.
It’s that simple. Another thing
you can do is in the moment
— change the situation that
you’re in. Get up, take a walk.
Get outside yourself. If you can’t
physically change rooms, you
can figuratively change, by pay-
ing attention to different things
around you. In any room that
you’re in, your brain is paying
attention to some things and
ignoring others — so you can
change your surroundings by just
paying attention to other things.
You can look out a window, look
at a plant, look at a photograph.
This is why a lot of people are
interested in mindfulness. The
most interesting thing you can
do — you can’t change your past,
but you can cultivate experiences
in the moment that sort of feed
your brain to predict differently
in the future. You can expand
your emotion vocabulary. You in-
vest a little in the present to culti-
vate emotions that we know to be
helpful — gratitude and wonder
and awe. Practice them enough,
and your brain learns how to
make them automatically.
Summer 2018
 THE MORE TIRED YOUR
BRAIN IS, THE MORE
DIFFICULT IT IS TO ASSESS
AN ORDINARY SITUATION
FROM A THREATENING ONE.
YOU MIGHT ATTRIBUTE
FEELING TIRED AFTER WORK
TO CRUNCHING NUMBERS ALL
DAY, BUT WORKING LONGER
HOURS AND SLEEPING FEWER
HOURS ACTUALLY LEAVES YOU
VULNERABLE TO MORE NEGATIVE
EMOTIONAL STATES.

52 brainworldmagazine.com
 SCIENCE

ALWAYS AT THE

BACK OF OUR

MINDS
Exploring The Science of Anxiety
BY JAMES SULLIVAN

It keeps us up long hours, fearing sleep. Perhaps it’s the reason we toss
and turn at night, or wake up in a panic, sometimes even struggling to
breathe, or why you find yourself reluctant to look at the news alerts on
your phone — or read email. As advanced as our species has become over
the last two centuries, it seems we cannot elude the primal state of anxi-
ety — it’s almost always right there waiting for us. Of course, some sense
it more than others. Usually, you’ve got a good reason to be worried — will
your yearly job review be a good one? Did you prepare enough for your
final exam? Will the hospital test results come out OK?
It’s easy to think that we’re the only ones off when the brain’s amygdala first processes
who agonize like this over events that are all the threat. It relays a message to the hypo-
too often inevitable, but what we’re experienc- thalamus, activating the pituitary gland that
ing is actually something our species has long begins to secrete the hormone epinephrine,
evolved with. Our primate ancestors navi- rapidly increasing blood flow to the muscles
gated a harsh and unforgiving terrain — having and allowing our ancestors to either flee or
to retreat to trees or caverns when nightfall intimidate their attacker. The rush of chemi-
came — bringing with it an array of predators. cal signals from the brain produce cortisol —
Those who survived the prehistoric times — at increasing blood sugar and blood pressure to
least long enough to produce offspring, were heighten that same energy and awareness we
those who could best recognize approaching sense in a stressful situation.
danger — to spot leopards, snakes, even larger
primates, hiding in the tall savannah grasses. TO FLEE OR NOT TO FLEE?
Crossing paths with a striking adder would From the time Walter Bradford Cannon first
have triggered the classic “fight-or-flight re- described this response back in 1929, we have
sponse” in their brains. The response starts come to equate the almond-shaped amygdala
»

Summer 2018
 SCIENCE cont’d
with the emotion of fear — thinking
with our amygdala, the primal so-
called reptilian brain, when we are
easily startled. Recent research,
however, suggests that basic emo-
tions like fear and anger are hardly
restricted to any particular region
of the brain. As Aalto University
doctoral candidate and research-
er Heini Saarimäki describes it,
“From the biological point of view,
an emotion is a state of the entire
brain at a given moment.”
Rather than specific regions of
the brain being activated when we
anxiously await our test results, the
emotion we feel is actually the sum
total of a number of factors. The
doctor’s tone of voice or the way
they enter the room, may be inter-
preted by the brain as ominous or
reassuring. As that happens, the
brain is also quickly pulling up a
number of memories — where you
were the last time you received
bad news, for example.
You may wonder why painful
memories remain so detailed in
our minds for years after they hap-
pened — why it’s possible to replay
them and revisit them so often,
while forgetting mundane details
from yesterday. We may now know
why this has become part of our
mental fabric. A recent study iden-
tified “anxiety neurons” residing in
the hippocampuses of lab mice,
using calcium imaging to highlight
brain activity. The hippocampus is
a part of the brain’s limbic system
that plays a role in the formation
of memories.
SHINING A LIGHT
To instill feelings of anxiety in the
mice, the researchers at the Uni-
versity of California, San Fran-
cisco, placed them in an intricate
maze. Some of the trails brought
them to open spaces, others lifted
them onto a different platform —
forcing them from the safety of
the walls. Even though they have
no natural enemies, the mice dis-
played the same feelings of vulner-
ability to predators, just as their
cousins would in the wild. Minia-
54 brainworldmagazine.com
TRY TO OBSERVE WHAT IS
HAPPENING AROUND YOU IF YOU
FIND YOURSELF LOOKING TOO
FAR INWARD. KEEPING A JOURNAL
IN WHICH YOU SIMPLY LIST EVENTS
THAT HAPPENED THROUGHOUT
YOUR DAY CAN HELP US TO LOOK
OBJECTIVELY, EVEN HELPING TO
REMEMBER SOME OF THE
THINGS WE ACCOMPLISHED
MORE SMOOTHLY.
ture microscopes placed into their
brains highlighted a burst of activ-
ity in the ventral CA1 region of the
hippocampus, the more agitated
the mice became.
The output from these neurons
came from the hypothalamus,
responsible for regulating the
hormones behind emotions. The
same regulation process occurs
in people too, so the researchers
suspect that the same anxiety neu-
rons occur in human biology. The
good news is that at least for the
mice, there’s a way these neurons
can be controlled.
The technique is known as “op-
togenetics” in which the cells are
controlled by a beam of light, shone
directly onto the ventral CA1 region.
The cells that were activated during
periods of high anxiety shut down,
and the mice confidently explored
their environment once again. Ad-
justing the light settings further al-
lowed the researchers to reverse
this effect. They were able to in-
crease anxiety levels even when
the rodents were safely enclosed in
familiar surroundings. The team sus-
pects that these neurons may exist
in other parts of the brain as well.
“These cells are probably just
one part of an extended circuit
by which the animal learns about
anxiety-related information,” said
neuroscientist and lead research-
er Mazen Kheirbek, who plans to
pursue the study further. Perhaps
one day in the future, conditions
like post-traumatic stress disorder
could become as treatable as turn-
ing a light switch on and off.
bring to the table when you live
your day-to-day life — try to ob-
serve what is happening around
you if you find yourself looking
too far inward. Keeping a journal
in which you simply list events that
happened throughout your day
can help us to look objectively,
even helping to remember some
of the things we accomplished
more smoothly.
The constant fear of preda-
tors likely stole sleep from our
ancestors — and even though we
have moved from the grasslands,
the problem of sleep deprivation
plagues us today. Nearly one-third
WHAT ABOUT US?
of the population is thought to suf-
Another experiment, performed
fer from what the World Health
at University of Waterloo in Can-
Organization has described as a
ada looked at anxiety levels in
catastrophic sleep-loss epidemic.
80 different students who were
Around 31 percent of the Ameri-
categorized as having either high
can and Canadian population falls
or low anxiety, though all at levels
into this statistic.
they could manage. They were
With an eventful workweek, it
shown words that flashed across
may seem like second nature to
a computer screen, superimposed
lose a few hours of sleep, but our
on random images, and then
brains take a toll that we may not
quizzed on the words they could
realize. The more tired your brain
remember. While the high- and
is, the more difficult it is to assess
low-anxiety groups seemed to re-
an ordinary situation from a threat-
call similar numbers of words, the
ening one. You might attribute feel-
researchers noticed that the high-
ing tired after work to crunching
anxiety group was actually better
numbers all day, but working longer
at recalling words superimposed
hours and sleeping fewer hours
on the more bleak images — pic-
actually leaves you vulnerable to
tures of car wrecks or burning
more negative emotional states.
buildings, for example.
With sleep deprivation, the con-
“Their memories were more
nectivity of the amygdala to the
emotionally tinted,” says professor
ventromedial prefrontal cortex
of psychology Myra Fernandes,
is weakened. The amygdala initi-
who co-authored the study, “and
ates a fear response but cannot
as a result rendered more memo-
act without the approval of the
rable.” While anxious people may
ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
have an advantage with memory
Connectivity between the insula
over their less anxious peers,
and the amygdala are increased,
there is a caveat. If you have too
magnifying the fear response. As
much anxiety, your mood can also
basic as it sounds, getting a mini-
affect the way you perceive day-
mum of seven to eight hours of un-
to-day events.
interrupted sleep is crucial — for
Therefore, Fernandes suggests
much more than we realize. Just
being mindful of the biases you
getting back those few extra hours
each week can be the difference
that push us to go the extra mile
— to chase after the dream job or
apartment that we never thought
we could get, rather than to just
play it safe and keep our deepest
fears at bay.

New Pill Reverses
Memory Loss in
an Amazing Way
Developed by top Israeli doctor; study shows key ingredient
reverses years of mental decline and may also prevent
dementia; initial users in America report improvements in
memory, concentration, and thinking power
Daniel Ward, Sr.
Associated Health Press
AHP – It is not often that another country beats
the US to a medical breakthrough. So when it
happens, you know it’s something special. That’s
why doctors and patients are so excited that Israel’s
new memory pill is now available in America.
Sold under the brand name Lipogen PS Plus, the
new pill contains a key ingredient that regrows cells
in the part of the brain that stores memories, which
improves memory, concentration, and thinking
power.
The phenomenon of growing new brain cells
is known medically as neurogenesis. American
scientists believed it was impossible to experience
after a certain age. It may now be achieved at any
age with Lipogen PS Plus.
“With daily use, Lipogen PS Plus will help
replenish your natural brain’s “building blocks”
and develop healthy cells, which restore memory
functions, enhance cognition, and prevent further
mental decline” explains David Rutenburg,
President of the parent company behind the Lipogen
pill.
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56 brainworldmagazine.com
 SCIENCE

AFFECTIVE NARRATIVE

MEDICINE
The Role of Emotion in the Clinical Conversation
BY CHARLES ETHAN PACCIONE

Medicine has always relied heavily upon the art of conversation in order
to successfully treat the behaviors, thoughts, and especially emotions of
those who are suffering. However, there is little research which explores
how well clinicians can recognize and manage their own emotions during
difficult health care conversations. Furthermore, practical and theoreti-
cal approaches, on how patients and clinicians can optimize their aware-
ness and utilization of these emotions within the clinical encounter are still
somewhat unknown.
Many patients and clinicians still believe that An article published in 2015 by Margo M.C.
the body can be successfully treated without van Mol and colleagues in the journal PLOS
much conversation and use of emotions. How- One, titled “The Prevalence of Compassion
ever, the underlying etiology of much of psycho- Fatigue and Burnout among Healthcare Pro-
pathology is the inability to separate thought fessionals in Intensive Care Units: A System-
from emotion — and emotion from physiological atic Review,” investigated how emotions can
health. Health care professionals often deliver bidirectionally and negatively effect both the
their care in a logical, evidence-based fashion, patient and the caregiver within stressful clini-
and patients tend to withhold their emotions cal environments. Burnout among nurses and
due to their state of vulnerability. When health physicians who work in intensive care units
care professionals and patients have difficulty (ICUs) can be a direct result of the demanding
recognizing, managing, and reflecting upon and continually stressful work environment. It
their emotions, they can find themselves at is thought that end-of-life issues, the nuances
their mercy. How can emotions be a source of of ethical decision-making, observing the
healing and empowerment for both doctors and continuous suffering of patients, and miscom-
patients, and how can we imbue the clinical en- munication with the patient’s relatives emo-
counter with the values of narrative medicine? tionally affect many ICU professionals. From
It seems that the ability of doctors and patients their analysis, van Mol’s team determined that
to successfully communicate emotions can be the difficulty with communication might be
both a cause of — and a remedy for — suffering. a major source of emotional distress. Due to
»

Summer 2018
 SCIENCE cont’d
the fact that many patients in the
ICU lack optimal decision-making
capacity, health care professionals
must successfully communicate
with relatives for decision-making
in regards to care — and this can
be a serious source of miscommu-
nication and misunderstandings in
regard to treatment expectations.
The emotional burden of medical
care and failure to communicate
may ultimately cause absenteeism
for both the patient and the care-
giver who wish to preserve their
own health.
A 2015 study published in the
journal Patient Education and
Counseling, titled “Clinicians’
recognition and management of
emotions during difficult health-
care conversations,” by Elliott B.
Martin and colleagues examined
the most commonly reported
emotions faced among health care
practitioners when holding difficult
conversations with patients. The
study composed of 152 medical
practitioners including physicians,
nurses, and psychosocial profes-
sionals with a broad range of ex-
perience levels who completed
self-report questionnaires before
stimulation-based communication
workshops. Clinicians were asked
to describe up to three emotions
58 brainworldmagazine.com
MANY PATIENTS DESIRE TO
FEEL UNDERSTOOD, RESPECTED,
AND SEEN FROM A HUMANISTIC
AND SUBJECTIVE POINT OF VIEW
RATHER THAN A PROBLEM THAT
NEEDS TO BE OBJECTIVELY
SOLVED. THIS IS ESPECIALLY
IMPORTANT IN MEDICINE WHERE
A PATIENT’S VULNERABILITY
IS COUPLED WITH FEELINGS OF
SHAME, FEAR, AND LOW
SELF-ESTEEM.
they experienced when having
difficult health care conversations
with their patients. The research-
ers also used subsequent ques-
tions to measure the frequency of
each emotion and whether or not
the clinical care was affected.
Martin’s team found that em-
pathy and anxiety were emotions
perceived to influence care more
than sadness, frustration, and in-
security, and that most clinicians,
regardless of clinical experience
and discipline, strongly believe
that their emotional state influ-
ences the quality of care that they
deliver. It is especially important
to note that anxiety and empathy
emerged as the most common
emotions within their analysis.
Although anxiety is considered a
negative emotion, the researchers
were more interested in the posi-
tive consequences of anxiety, such
as the constant desire to succeed
in clearly relaying information to
the patient, attention to details,
and overall conscientiousness.
The findings showed that empathy
was generally described as a posi-
tive emotion, since it emotionally
grounds the clinician and enables
him or her to experience the emo-
tions of others with which they
work. However, the researchers
found that empathy, to a particu-
lar degree, can be experienced as
a negative emotion when it starts
to contribute to the overidentifica-
tion of difficulty, loss, and sadness
of a patient. Given that there were
no significant differences that
were found based on discipline
or work experience, empathy may
reflect a personality trait for those
who are drawn to work in the
health care field in general.
Physical emotional stress reac-
tions such as headaches, sleeping
disturbances, low back pain, and
stomach problems as well as men-
tal responses such as irritability or
hostility, cognitive fog (that is, loss
of concentration), low self-confi-
dence, and emotional instability
could all indicate the presence of
an emotional trauma. The field of
traumatization, which focuses on
the process and origin of develop-
ing stress symptoms, makes a clear
distinction between “primary” and
“secondary” traumatization. Pri-
mary traumatization is the process
that can occur from having persis-
tent, intense, and direct contact
with a traumatic event, such as
a situation of violence or sexual
abuse, whereas secondary trauma-
tization is the process via an indi-
rect exposure, which may develop
from hearing about a traumatic
event or caring for someone who
has experienced a traumatic event.
In particular, secondary traumatiza-
tion may lead to burnout, vicarious
trauma, and “compassion fatigue,”
which many health care profes-
sionals suffer from.
Compassion fatigue (CF) is a
state of physical or psychological
distress in caregivers that may
occur as a consequence of an on-
going relationship with a demand-
ing patient or colleague. It is also
known as the “helper syndrome,”
which results from a continuous
onset of disappointing situations
that leads to moral distress. CF
was originally described within
the literature as the loss of com-
passion resulting from repeated
exposure to suffering during
work. Eventually CF was defined
as a “secondary traumatic stress”
condition resulting from a deep
involvement with a traumatized
person due to the “friendly fram-
ing” of the encounter. Generally
speaking, CF contains two parts:
the first part contains issues such
as exhaustion, frustration, and de-
pression, while the second part
contains the negative feelings
driven by concerns such as hy-
pervigilance, avoidance, fear, and
intrusion. This poses the question
as to whether or not compassion
and empathy felt during a medical
interaction between patient and
clinician can be a source of health
and resiliency rather than sickness
and fatigue. Indicators of emotion,
which range from facial responses
to changes in body positioning,
represent an essential part of
nonverbal communication in ev-
eryday life and may be an impor-
tant means of creating a healthy
caregiver-patient relationship.
Doctors and nurses who instill
in a patient a sense of motivation,
positive expectations, and pride
have better clinical outcomes
than those who are less emotion-
ally interactive and supportive. A
2016 study by Louise H. Hall and
colleagues, titled “Healthcare
Staff Wellbeing, Burnout, and Pa-
tient Safety: A Systematic Review,”
showed that poor well-being and
moderate to high levels of burn-
out among health care providers
are associated with poor patient
well-being and safety outcomes,
such as medical errors. In regards
to patient well-being, a 2008 study
published in the Journal of Happi-
ness Studies by Ruut Veenhoven
of Erasmus University Rotterdam,
titled “Healthy happiness: effects
of happiness on physical health
and the consequences for pre-
ventive healthcare,” investigated
whether or not happiness is in fact
good for one’s health. A synthetic
analysis of 30 follow-up studies on
happiness and longevity was per-
formed and found that happiness
does not predict longevity in sick
populations, but instead, predicts
longevity among healthy popula-
tions. In other words, happiness
does not cure illness but it strong-
ly protects against becoming ill.
Proud patients are more will-
ing to cooperate with caregivers
than patients who lack the com-
petence to manage their own life
situations. When caregivers are
often feeling emotional distress,
it often ironically results from
their lack of emotional care, which
they are prescribing to their pa-
tient. Patients can often become
ambivalent and frustrated if they
become dissatisfied with the in-
adequate emotional care and sup-
port that they are receiving from
their health care provider. Many
patients desire to feel under-
stood, respected, and seen from
a humanistic and subjective point
of view rather than a problem that
needs to be objectively solved.
This is especially important in
medicine where a patient’s vulner-
ability is coupled with feelings of
shame, fear, and low self-esteem.
A study published in 2006 in
the Journal of Neuroscience Nurs-
ing, titled “Emotions in relation to
healthcare encounters affecting
self-esteem,” by Lena Räty and
Barbro Gustafsson of Karlstad
University identified emotions in
patients with epilepsy, as a result
of health care experiences that
can be defined as being either
emotionally “confirming” or “dis-
confirming.” Räty and Gustafsson
found that confirming health care
encounters aroused emotions like
hope and feelings of security, joy,
relief, and pride, while disconfirm-
ing encounters aroused emotions
such as despair, fear, unrest, resig-
nation, shame, and guilt. The most
important emotions that were
identified to be playing key roles
within the confirming clinical en-
counters were motivational. Emo-
tions, such as a feeling of security,
aroused a desire within patients to
fortify their positive self-percep-
tions and motivate them to have
constructive and sympathetic at-
titudes toward the health care ex-
perience. Disconfirming encoun-
ters were defined by emotions,
such as anger, that caused patients
to maintain their self-respect by ei-
ther avoiding difficult situations or
ignoring problems altogether. This,
in turn, causes patients to feel
alienated and objectified within
clinics and can have negative ef-
fects upon their overall health.
Furthermore, it was found that
emotional care and support is es-
pecially crucial when treating com-
mon diseases and conditions that
have a complex and unknown eti-
ology. Patients who suffer from a
variety of chronic pain conditions
are often suffering from serious
bouts of low self-esteem, depres-
sion, and trust in their own ability
to express what they are feeling to
their doctor.
Chronic pain (CP) is currently
considered one of the leading
social and economic burdens to
society, and is one of the most
difficult pain conditions to treat
and manage. This may be due to
an unknown etiology and a lack
of current treatments designed
specifically to meet the complex
pathophysiology and emotional
profile of those suffering from it.
None of the most commonly used
pharmacological, medical, or surgi-
cal treatments are, by themselves,
sufficiently able to remove pain
or to significantly enhance physi-
cal and emotional functioning for
patients suffering from CP. How-
ever, affective coping strategies,
motivation, and positive treatment
expectancies may play an impor-
tant role in the treatment of, and
adjustment to, CP.
A 2010 study published in the
journal Current Pain and Head-
ache Reports by John A. Sturgeon
and Alex J. Zautra of Arizona State
University, titled “Resilience: A
New Paradigm for Adaptation to
Chronic Pain,” strongly proposes
optimism and resiliency as the
integrative perspectives that can
illuminate the traits and mecha-
nisms underlying the sustainability
of CP recovery and well-being. A
2008 multilevel modeling analysis
by Zautra and colleagues, titled
“Positive Affect as a Source of
Resilience for Women in Chronic
Pain,” in the Journal of Consult-
ing and Clinical Psychology found
that weekly elevations of pain
and stress predict increases in
negative affect in CP patients, and
both higher weekly positive affect
results in lower negative affect,
both directly and in interaction,
with pain and stress.
Research investigating the re-
lationships between CP patients’
dispositional optimism and pes-
simism and the coping strategies
they use has found that there is a
positive relationship between opti-
mism and the use of active coping
strategies, and pessimism and the
use of passive coping strategies. In
a 2012 study by Carmen Ramírez-
Maestre and colleagues published
in The Spanish Journal of Psychol-
ogy, titled “The role of optimism
and pessimism in chronic pain pa-
tients adjustment,” found that ac-
tive emotional coping is associated
with low levels of pain, anxiety, de-
pression, and impairment and high
levels of functioning, whereas pas-
sive emotional coping is related to
high levels of pain, anxiety, depres-
sion, and impairment and low lev-
els of functioning for those suffer-
ing from a variety of CP conditions.
Identifying the factors that
influence affective coping and
expectancies could potentially
help clinicians facilitate the use
of emotional adaptive coping
strategies for treating patients
that suffer from several condi-
tions. Even though clinicians and
patients seem relatively capable
of recognizing and managing their
emotions, there is still significant
room for growth. Further quali-
tative research and continuing
education programs designed to
increase clinicians’ and patients’
recognition of, reflection on, and
management of emotions may be
helpful in improving their ability to
navigate difficult health care con-
versations. Understanding how to
manage emotions is a powerful
strategy for nurturing clinicians
and patients who are more resil-
ient, aware, and capable of engag-
ing with the hardships and losses
that life sometimes has to offer.
Summer 2018
 Helping How
We Feel
REGULATING EMOTION THROUGH
ISF NEUROFEEDBACK
By Jacqueline Melendy
As many as one in six American adults
face each day with the weight of an in-
tense emotional struggle. Since the 1950s,
Western medicine has sought to treat
emotional disorders through prescription
medication, the philosophy being that
proper emotional regulation lay solely in
having balanced brain chemistry. There
are various methods to achieve this, from
diet and lifestyle changes to more serious
medical interventions. For some people,
despite various treatments, they don’t
feel better or feel how they would like to.
Emotions live as much in our bodies
as they do in our minds. For some with
an emotion disorder, they have found
relief in a brain- and body-based treat-
ment that targets the underlying neuro-
biological mechanisms that contributed
to the emergence of the disorder, called
infra-slow functuation (ISF) neurofeed-
back. A modern version of neurofeed-
back, which was developed in the 1960s,
ISF neurofeedback capitalizes on the
brain’s neuroplasticity and retrains the
brain to operate in an optimal state. ISF
neurofeedback is a brain- and physiol-
ogy-based treatment that guides the
brain and central nervous system to
learn to work in harmony and strength-
en the areas of the brain involved with
emotional control and integration.
60 brainworldmagazine.com
Figure 1: This is what Rachel’s brain looked like before any ISF neurofeedback treatment. Her brain was putting
so much power into the slow waves, and the communication is heavily on the left side. These can be the major
signs of depression.
The brain has a complex way of generating
emotions and responses, utilizing the limbic
system (composed of the thalamus, hippocam-
pus, amygdala, and insula), which is the hub for
sensory input, memory, and emotional integra-
tion. This is the part of the brain that lights up
when a stimulus, for example, a smell, picture,
or touch triggers a memory and subsequently
a feeling. The limbic system gives feedback di-
rectly to the autonomic nervous system (ANS),
which is responsible for regulating heart rate,
blood pressure, and most systems that are
thought to be beyond voluntary control. The
ANS can be broken down into two subdivisions,
the sympathetic nervous system, which is “fight
or flight,” and the parasympathetic nervous sys-
tem, which is “rest and digest.” It is the balance
and response of these two subsystems that
generate the physical components of emotion,
like when you get angry and your pulse quick-
ens, muscles tense, and body temperature in-
creases. That physiological response is as much
the “emotion” as the label that identifies it.
But that means like many things, our brains
and its systems can become “dysregulated” if
not given any guidance. The brain wants to be
efficient, so if a certain neural pathway is easi-
est to use — that is what will get used. This dys-
regulation can trickle to the ANS, leaving some-
one perpetually in fight or flight. This leads to
a weakened emotional response, because the
body and the brain aren’t communicating and
adjusting the way they should be.
Emotions are often thought of as a bottom-
up process, a reaction to an event — that our
emotions “happen” to us. After all, we can’t
help how we feel … or can we? It turns out that
emotional regulation and responses can be
practiced and can be improved. If you wanted
to strengthen your muscles, you would go to a
gym, but your emotional regulation systems de-
serve a good workout as well.
ISF neurofeedback allows an individual to
receive real-time, auditory feedback about how
their brain is functioning, which in turn, allows
the brain to shift and operate with more adapt-
ability. Neurofeedback is a subdivision of bio-
feedback, but focused solely on the brain, using
EEG (electroencephalogram) readings. It is a
noninvasive, drug-free treatment that directly
impacts the brain and autonomic nervous sys-
tem, gently guiding them to an optimal operat-
ing state. ISF neurofeedback gives the brain an
opportunity to work in concert with the ANS, to
shift to a “regulated” state, instead of being in
a “reactionary” state. The brain then learns to
identify the regulated state as the goal — how to
get to and stay in that state for longer and lon-
ger periods of time. When the ANS is regulated,
the brain and body are able to shift states with
greater ease and flexibility. Reactions become
more measured, anxiety becomes situational
 EMOTIONS ARE
OFTEN THOUGHT

Figure 2: After five months, Rachel’s brain had dramatically changed. Her brain is communicating in a healthier,
more efficient manner and is distributing power in new ways. The deep depression has lifted as her brain
learned to communicate more efficiently.]
instead of chronic, and people are able to exert
some control over how and when they respond.
So how does ISF neurofeedback work? In
our brains, chemical and electrical signals are
constantly firing and influencing one another.
These electrical signals travel at various speeds,
or frequencies, and it is these frequencies that
help determine one’s mental state. Too much
“fast wave” in an area, you might experience
anxiety, and too much “slow wave” in an area,
you might experience depression. ISF neuro-
feedback is a unique brain-training method
that targets the infraslow frequencies (below
0.1 Hertz) that occur throughout the brain and
work to coordinate processes in the body with
processes in the mind. ISF neurofeedback can
directly target deeper brain structures, such as
the limbic system. This degree of control allows
for targeted treatment of the emotional pro-
cessing centers of the brain.
The goal of neurofeedback to train the brain
to produce the correct amount of electrical
activity in specific parts of the brain, taking
advantage of neuroplasticity and training the
brain through auditory feedback. The auditory
feedback acts as a mirror, allowing the brain to
adjust as necessary for the individual to feel
calm and relaxed. Strengthening appropriate
communication between brain regions allows
someone to better their emotional response
as a whole.
For example, “Rachel” was experiencing ma-
jor depressive disorder, where she was unable
to maintain friendships, didn’t have any interest
in activities, and was having a hard time getting
to work. She had tried prescription medication,
but found the side effects to be unbearable.
She made dietary changes and found some re-
lief — but she still wasn’t happy or motivated —
and talk therapy only took her so far. After do-
ing a qualitative electroencephalogram (qEEG)
brain map (see Figure 1), it was discovered that
her brain was putting almost all of its finite pow-
er into deep, slow waves. These waves are nor-
mally associated with deep, dreamless sleep;
she had them when awake, and they dominated
her brain.
Rachel began ISF neurofeedback treat-
ments for 30-minute sessions, once per week.
Within a few weeks she started noticing
that her sleep improved, she was able to fall
asleep and stay asleep much better than she
had been. Within a couple of months, she was
taking long walks and hikes with her husband.
After five months of treatment, she was no
longer having emotional outbursts, her moods
were stable and she was starting to feel happy
again. Although the process felt slow, ISF neu-
rofeedback was helping her brain make new
neural pathways — pathways that allowed her
body systems and her brain to work together
better (see Figure 2).
SCIENCE
OF AS A BOTTOM-
UP PROCESS, A
REACTION TO AN
EVENT — THAT OUR
EMOTIONS
“HAPPEN” TO US.
AFTER ALL, WE
CAN’T HELP HOW
WE FEEL … OR CAN
WE? IT TURNS OUT
THAT EMOTIONAL
REGULATION AND
RESPONSES CAN
BE PRACTICED
AND CAN BE
IMPROVED.
For Rachel, guiding her brain to redistribute
its power and pruning efficient neural path-
ways was the key for her to feel better and
gain control of her life again. For other people,
it can be creating new pathways or increasing
the brain’s output of a particular wave. Each
brain is unique, with its own set of connec-
tions and needs. ISF neurofeedback allows for
each individual’s experience to be specifically
targeted and worked on. There is no one-size-
fits-all solution.
As long as humans have brains and bodies —
we will have emotions. After all, that’s how our
brains encode experiences and communicate
to our minds and bodies. It is when our emo-
tions feel so vast, as if we’re adrift in a sea with
no control, that our brains might need some
guidance, a gentle nudge in the right direction.
Emotions don’t have to only happen to us, with
practice and maybe some training, you can feel
the way you want to — not the way you think
you have to.

Summer 2018
 RESOURCES
TV

“JANE”A FILM BY BRETT MORGEN

BY RALPH BERNARDO

“Suddenly, I found I ■ “Here I am, an ordinary person, doing

was actually living
in my dream. I
already felt that I
belonged to this
new forest world.
what I always wanted to do. Out in the
open, sleeping under the stars, watching all
the animals. Is it possible? Can it really be
me?” says the celebrated primatologist and
conservationist Jane Goodall about her first
trip to Gombe, Tanzania, where she would
began her landmark study of chimpanzees in
the wild. In the biographical documentary
“Jane” filmmaker Brett Morgen presents the

That this was where story of an extraordinary person who did

what many of us rarely dare to do — she
I was meant to be.” followed, and lived, her dream. “Going to
Africa, living with animals. That’s all I ever
—Jane Goodall thought about,” says Goodall.
Her lifelong passion for animals im-
pressed her employer enough, the famed
paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, to send
his 26-year-old secretary, who had no formal
scientific training, into the unknown realm
of wild chimpanzees. As documented in the
film, Goodall is a keen observer and meticu-
lous note taker, and unaware of traditional
research protocols. She readily forms an
emotional bond with her subjects of study,
“At that time in the early 1960s it was held
at least by many scientists that only humans
had minds. Only humans were capable of ra-
tional thought … I felt very much as though
I was learning about fellow beings capable of
joy and sorrow, fear, and jealousy.”
Her unorthodoxy, diligence, and months
of patience to gain the animals’ trust even-
tually did pay off beyond anyone’s wildest
expectations. Having the ability to closely
observe, one day in 1960 Goodall saw one
chimp she called “David Greybeard” use a
twig to unearth ants from their mound. This
capacity to make and use tools — a trait

62 brainworldmagazine.com
 “Gradually I was able to penetrate further
and further into a magic world that no human
had explored before. The world of the
wild chimpanzees.”
—Jane Goodall

Gombe, Tanzania — “David Greybeard”

was the first chimp to lose his fear of
Jane, eventually coming to her camp
to steal bananas and allowing Jane to
touch and groom him. As the film “Jane”
depicts, Jane and the other Gombe
researchers later discontinued feeding and
touching the wild chimps. Photo: National
Geographic Creative/Hugo van Lawick.

once thought that distinguished humans
from other animals — rocked the scientific
world — this historical “wow” moment vi-
sualized beautifully in the film with the
accompaniment of Philip Glass’ rising score.
“Jane” was created with over 100 hours of
never-before-seen footage, shot by renowned
wildlife photographer and filmmaker Hugo
van Lawick that was once believed lost,
and had been in the National Geographic
archives for over half a century. “My forte
as a documentary maker has to do with
seeking out archives and constructing films
by reappropriating found footage,” says
Morgen, who wrote and directed the film.
His past work has focused on rebels and rock
stars, from movie mogul Robert Evans in
“The Kid Stays in the Picture” to the Nir-
vana frontman in “Kurt Cobain: Montage of
Heck.” Says Morgen, “The footage showed
one of the most profound intersections of
wilderness and civilization that has ever hap-
pened. The rules have changed dramatically
since Jane did her early work because now
people aren’t allowed to touch the chimps, so
this footage documents something that only
happened once in the entire history of evolu-
tion — and it was shot so well.”
One could argue that Jane Goodall eas-
ily fits into the filmmaker’s penchant for
subversive subjects. Here we have a woman,
whose chimpanzee research challenged the
male-dominated scientific consensus of her
time, and a novice who ended up revolu-
tionizing our scientific understanding of the
natural world. How did Jane accomplish
this? By doing what we’re encouraged to do
at a young age — she followed her dream.

Summer 2018
Book Writing for Bliss:
A Seven-Step Plan for Telling Your Story and Transforming Your Life
by Diana Raab, Ph.D.
(Loving Healing Press, 2017)

Roundup ■ It seems that for nearly as long as writers

have been writing in one form or other, there
have been books on how to write. Aristotle
wrote “Poetics” in ancient Greece, examining
what makes a powerful and effective drama —
a story to arouse pity and fear in the audience,
and most of it is still pretty good advice that
modern screenwriters try to work with. Of
course, styles have changed since Aristotle
and sometimes it’s as though audiences have
demanded what he warned against, so over
the last two centuries, we’ve gotten a deluge
of books on plotting and writing your own
stage play or short story that will sell, finishing
your novel, or pitching your screenplay. Robert
McKee has made a living traveling the globe to
teach his famous book on plotting and story
structure — and not just aspiring authors take
the course — in attendance are game design-
ers and photojournalists, among others. Now,
there’s even a rising trend of books on how to
keep a diary and the therapy of journal writing.
Raab’s latest book is an assortment of all
these things. Unlike most books that teach
the craft, she seems particularly interested in
the writer and how they transform along the
way. She begins by talking about what drove
her to become a writer — how keeping a diary
became her way of coping with the loss of her
grandmother, who was her primary caretaker
before committing suicide, and how finding
her grandmother’s lost journal that chronicled
growing up in Poland between two world wars
seemed to make her grandmother immortal.
She found the same solace in writing when
diagnosed with cancer decades later, and
pursued a master’s in creative writing.
Writing allows us to relive our lives, to place
things in perspective and further make sense
of the world around us. We like to think of
stories as something that writers need black
magic to conjure up — at least the best of them
who don’t copy off everyone else. Raab’s book
works from the thesis that we all have stories
to tell, and that they all come from places we
often overlook. Writers of fiction often find
that their stories end up being more truthful
and healing than writing nonfiction — that they
feel safer delving into the imagination while
writing it. Most books on writing tend to be fo-
cused on writing a marketable story — retool-
ing your work to fit a formula that appeals to
publishers. Most writing classes tend to place
an emphasis on style over story structure.
Raab understands that there is another reason
to write: to create something beyond the ego
and realize your own potential.
—Earl Meagan

CHUCK THE MONK

64 brainworldmagazine.com
Brain Overall 20
Happiest
Overall
Happiness
Happiness
Rank for
World Countries
Ranked
Study
Score
Foreign-
Born
Bits 1 FINLAND 7.632 1

The Happiest 2 NORWAY 7.594 3

Places on Earth
3 DENMARK 7.555 2
While The Walt Disney Company claims
the “Happiest Place On Earth” has
4 ICELAND 7.495 4
been located in Anaheim, California
since 1955, the Sustainable Develop- 5 SWITZERLAND 7.487 9
ment Solutions Network of the United
Nations has undertaken a more rigor-
ous study since the release of its first
6 NETHERLANDS 7.441 11
annual World Happiness Report in
2012. This year’s report has a special 7 CANADA 7.328 7
emphasis on migration, both internal
(from rural to urban areas) and inter-
national, investigating the happiness of
8 NEW ZEALAND 7.324 5
migrants, their families left behind, and
the countries receiving migrants. “The 9 SWEDEN 7.314 8
most striking finding of the report is
the remarkable consistency between
the happiness of immigrants and the
10 AUSTRALIA 7.272 6
locally born,” says co-editor John Helli-
well. “Although immigrants come from 11 ISRAEL 7.190 12
countries with very different levels of
happiness, their reported life evalua-
tions converge towards those of other
12 AUSTRIA 7.139 14
residents in their new countries.”
Here’s a look at the top 20 happiest 13 COSTA RICA 7.072 18
countries in terms of six key variables
(added together to form the overall
happiness score) believed to best sup-
14 IRELAND 6.977 13
port well-being: GDP per capita (in-
come), freedom to make life choices, 15 GERMANY 6.965 28
perceptions of corruption (trust),
healthy life expectancy, social support,
and generosity. Also included is how
16 BELGIUM 6.927 22
these countries rank in happiness for
those who are born in another country. 17 LUXEMBOURG 6.910 17
The full report is available online at
worldhappiness.report.
—Ralph Bernardo
18 USA 6.886 15
19 UK 6.814 20
20 UAE 6.774 19
Source: Helliwell, J., Layard, R., & Sachs, J. (2018). World Happiness Report 2018, New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Summer 2018
 SUMMER 2018 July 25–26

Events 1–5
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
24th International Congress of
the International Association
for Cross-Cultural Psychology
Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada
5th World Congress on Mental
Health and Well-Being

(IACCP 2018) August

Madrid 6–8
5–6
Madrid, Spain
London, United Kingdom
26th European Neurology
BPS (British Psychological
Congress
Society) Psychology of Sexuali-
ties Section: 20th Anniversary
13–14
Conference
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
31st Neurogenetics and Neurode-
7–11
generation Conference
Berlin, Germany
11th FENS (Federation of Euro-
27–28
pean Neuroscience Societies)
Tokyo, Japan
Forum of Neuroscience
8th Global Experts Meeting on
Advances in Neurology and Neu-
19–21
ropsychiatry
Austin, Texas, USA
The 5th Biennial APA (American
29–30
Psychological Association) Divi-
Zurich, Switzerland
sion 45 Research Conference
4th International Conference on
Epilepsy and Treatment
22–26
Tokyo 4th World Congress on Parkin-
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Alzheimer’s Association Interna- son’s and Huntington’s Disease
tional Conference (AAIC 2018)
31 (to Sept. 1)
23–25 Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Birmingham, United Kingdom 14th World Summit on Alzheim-
24th International Conference on er’s Disease, Dementia Care
Neuroscience and Neurochemistry Research and Awareness
World Summit on Heart, Stroke
23–27 and Neurological Disorders
Prague, Czech Republic
23rd World Congress of the Inter-
national Association for Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied
Professions (IACAPAP 2018)

Prague

66 brainworldmagazine.com
 Vancouver

Boston

September
14–15
Richmond, Virginia, USA
Annual Neurochemistry and
Neuropharmacology Congress
14–15
Singapore City, Singapore
29th International Conference on
Psychiatry and Mental Health
15–16
Copenhagen, Denmark
6th International Conference on
Brain Disorders and Therapeutics
21–22
Philadelphia, PA, USA
3rd International Conference
on Neuropsychiatry and Sleep
Medicine
8th International Conference
on Cognitive Science, Brain
Disorders and Research
26–27
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
International Conference on
Neuroimmunology, Neurological
Disorders and Neurogenetics

17–18
Cape Town, South Africa
Cape Town
World Congress on Epilepsy and
Treatment

19–20
Tokyo, Japan
18th Global Neuroscience
Conference

20–21
Rome, Italy
7th International Conference
on Neurological Disorders and
Stroke

Philadelphia

Summer 2018
THE LAST WORD
Courage to
Create
by Isabel Pastor Guzman
■ Courage is not the lack of fear, but
rather, it is what enables us to do the
very thing that frightens us.
In the face of great fear, when your
hands are sweating, your heart is
pounding, and your legs are shak-
ing, you are essentially left with two
choices: to press on or to give up.
We’ve all felt it. And if we haven’t,
we have fallen into numbness —
which is scarier than fear itself.
It may have been when seeing someone
you’re heads over heels in love with, when
speaking to a large audience, when facing your
boss with a tough question, or simply when
saying, “Thank you,” or “I’m sorry,” or “Please
help me,” wholeheartedly. These situations
activate our body sensations in such freaking
obvious ways. But the same goes on, in more
subtle and prolonged ways, when we face big-
ger challenges, like making a career change,
starting or ending a relationship, going into an
operation, or running out of money.
It happens when we face situations that
have the potential for us to feel unsafe, to
be hurt or singled out, to feel embarrassed
or awkward, to feel weird, inappropriate,
uncomfortable, disillusioned. It happens in
environments where we sense we could make
a mistake or show our incompetence or vul-
nerability. You name it. What it all really boils
down to is: fear of failure. We fear failing.
68 brainworldmagazine.com
But where do all these emotions come
from? Who sets the bar for what we perceive
as failure? Failure to what exactly? And what
makes us build up the courage to overcome
our fear and move on to action? Perhaps
we need to look no further than ourselves.
Even though society exerts all sorts of pres-
sures on us, it is ultimately up to us to set
expectations for ourselves, and allow all the
emotions that come with those expectations.
So pressing on might do us well.
We might fool ourselves into thinking that
avoiding danger makes us safe, but in the
long run, avoiding danger is no safer than
downright exposure. Safety might in fact be
more dangerous than boldness. The most
successful, scientific approach to eradicating
fear is probably to systematically expose our-
selves to the thing that scares us. We can start
with the small things, and build acceptance
and confidence as we overcome, working our
way up to bigger and more serious things.
There comes a point, when we face our
deepest fears, where we can reach a state of
nothingness, free from all fear. And all of a sud-
den, BOOM! — there is a spark of creativity.
Such creativity is not meant for only a few
talented ones. We all long for it. As Rollo
May, the author of “The Courage to Create”
puts it: “We are called upon to do something
new, to confront a no man’s land, to push
into a forest where there are no well-worn
paths and from which no one has returned to
guide us. This is what the existentialists call
the anxiety of nothingness.”
Think about it. I’m sure you’ve experi-
enced it. That moment where you’ve gotten
to the bottom of something, where you’ve
really done all you could and you’ve over-
come all your demons along the way. You’ve
completely centered yourself and are filled
with trust and confidence. You are ready to
give birth to something totally new.
On a larger scale, our fears stem from the
gap between our ideals — or dreams — and
our reality. Between what we wish and what
we actually have in front of us. In the hearts
of some people, those dreams have already
come true. These people whose dreams are
already achieved in their hearts boldly throw
themselves into it without hesitation. I believe
we can call this true courage — the courage
to create. And somewhere deep inside, we all
know we can find it. The key is choice, con-
tinued choice, the choice to press on until our
heart is fully open, and we unlock the power
of our potential for all to see.
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