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Too much stress for too long deactivates our higher brain functions.

Dysregulation is contagious, but so is co-regulation.

Simple practices can bring our higher brains back online.

The distress we’re all feeling right now is our helpful alarm system to detect threats to our security and health. We need it to survive. And yet too much stress for too long dysregulates our nervous systems, regressing us all towards the harmful dynamics that created so much of our stress in the first place.

Right now, it feels like we’re tailspinning down a dangerous spiral. When most everyone is dysregulated, our reactivity creates an unsafe world. And without safety, everyone gets even more dysregulated, pushing us towards escalating disorder in all our interdependent systems, from the health of our bodies to our communities, countries, geopolitical relations, and ecosystems.

But no one is stupid or evil, even when we’re acting in unhealthy ways. We all just have times when we temporarily fry our abilities to respond more skillfully in favour of knee-jerk survival reactions. In these moments, our higher brain’s prefrontal cortex—the part that functions in complex reasoning, such as considering long-term consequences, values, other perspectives, and empathy—is deactivated by stress. Instead, we flip into the false refuge of certainty: We know we’re right, stick to our story, and shame and blame anyone who suggests otherwise.

Our nervous system’s regulation acts like an oven’s thermostat. We function best when we’re in balance and not too hot or too cold. But there are many situations that require us to turn up or down the heat.

In threatening environments, we........

© Psychology Today