NEUROSCIENCES BASED BRAIN/ MIND REGULATION: BEHAVIORS ASSOCIATED

 

Navigating Modern Stress—Understanding the 'Fight or Flight' Response

Picture this: you are driving when a car suddenly cuts into your lane. Your heart pounds, muscles tense, and you react in a split second to avoid a crash. That is the fight-or-flight response—our brain’s ancient survival system, wired to protect us from immediate threats.

While this instinct once served us well, today it can backfire. In a world filled with injustice and constant stress, reacting from the primitive “survive mind” can trigger impulsive, irrational—even dangerous—behaviour. Left unchecked, this survival-driven response can overpower our empathy and fuel actions rooted in fear and division—from hate crimes and violent protests to systemic racism, police brutality, and terrorism.

Understanding the 'Survive Mind' and 'Thrive Mind'

The 'Survive Mind'

The 'Survive Mind' refers to a state dominated by the fight or flight response. In this mode, our reactions are swift and instinctual, prioritizing immediate safety over long-term considerations. While beneficial in genuine emergencies, prolonged activation can impair decision-making and emotional well-being.

Case-in-Point: During the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals experienced heightened stress levels, leading to decisions driven by fear—such as panic buying or social withdrawal. This illustrates the Survive Mind in action, where perceived threats trigger protective behaviors, sometimes disproportionate to the actual risk.

The 'Thrive Mind'

Conversely, the 'Thrive Mind' embodies a state of calm and rationality. Here, the prefrontal cortex—the brain's center for reasoning and planning—guides our actions. This mindset fosters resilience, adaptability, and thoughtful decision-making.

Case-in-Point: Healthcare professionals managing high-stress environments often employ techniques to maintain a Thrive Mind. For instance, mindfulness practices have been integrated into medical training programs to help practitioners remain composed and effective under pressure.

We have a choice to permit our lives to be driven by our survive mind’s violent reactions or drawn from our thrive mind’s calm, compassionate, and clear-minded actions. Our lives are shaped from the inside out. If we lose our inner connection, in small ways and big, our personal lives and the world unravel.

We all have an inner voice guiding us—whether it is resisting that extra slice of pizza, holding back frustration during a tense Zoom call, or reacting to upsetting news. Yet, how often do we say or do something we later regret? That is our impulsive, reactive Survive Brain at work. 

When clarity returns and regret sets in, we have shifted to our reflective, intentional Thrive Brain. But what if we could lead with that mindset more often—responding thoughtfully instead of reacting instinctively?

Self-Talk: Thrive talk instead of survive talk creates greater resilience.

The Power of Self-Talk: Self-talk involves the internal dialogue we have with ourselves. Positive self-talk can enhance performance, reduce anxiety, and improve coping strategies. Self-talk and how we consciously use it is a relatively effortless form of self-control in many different areas of our lives: diet, athletic performance, scholastic achievement, emotion regulation and impulsive behaviours.

The way we talk to ourselves can help us survive or thrive. There was a time when people who talked to themselves were considered “crazy.” Now, experts consider self-talk to be one of the most effective therapeutic tools available.

Practical Application: Athletes often use self-talk to boost confidence and focus. For example, tennis player Serena Williams has spoken about using affirmations to maintain composure during matches, demonstrating the efficacy of this technique in high-pressure situations.

Our inner voice—a constant blend of conscious thoughts and unconscious beliefs—helps us process daily experiences. But how we use this voice matters. 

Groundbreaking research by psychologist Ethan Kross, author of Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It, reveals that using self-distanced self-talk—referring to ourselves by name or using “you” instead of “I”—activates the thrive brain. This subtle shift enhances self-control, lowers anxiety, improves emotional regulation, and boosts confidence. It helps us create psychological distance from the survive brain’s ego-driven impulses.

Kross and colleagues found that third-person self-talk helps us respond to challenges the way we might advise a friend—leading to wiser decisions and greater calm. In high-performance environments, researchers like Angela Duckworth and Sian Beilock have shown that non-first-person self-talk (“we” instead of “I”) improves focus, reduces rumination, and enhances outcomes in sports and leadership alike.

Simply by adjusting how we engage our inner dialogue, we can strengthen mental clarity, manage emotions more effectively, and move from reactivity to reflection—fueling long-term resilience and self-mastery.

Self-Distancing

Embracing Self-Distancing:

As human beings, our sense of self, or ‘ego’ governs a large part of our behaviour, like our interactions with other people, our sense of self-worth and the image we have of ourselves in our minds. And often this image is very fragile, susceptible to all kinds of doubt and insecurity. Recent studies show that creating an alter ego or thinking of one’s self in the third person can go a long way in boosting morale and instilling confidence.

First-name self-talk helps us engage our inner voice the way we’d speak to a friend—calmly, clearly, and with perspective. Instead of reacting through the survive brain’s egocentric lens, we shift into the thrive brain, where we see possibilities, not threats. 

By using our name or “you” instead of “I,” we create psychological distance from emotional reactivity. This simple linguistic shift rewires how we interpret stress: not as danger, but as a challenge. Over time, this self-distanced language builds emotional intelligence, resilience, and wise decision-making, a concept echoed by Kelly McGonigal in The Upside of Stress and Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Practical Application: In corporate settings, leaders facing challenging decisions may benefit from self-distancing by considering how they would advise a colleague in the same situation. This approach can lead to more balanced and less emotionally charged decisions.

The Language of Separation

The language of separation allows us to process an internal event as if it happened to someone else. Thus, our survive mind’s story is not the only story and the thrive mind has a chance to shed a different light on the scenario. Experts have found that the best approach to deal with the survive mind is to respond as if it is another person. We must remember that the voice is not us. Some Examples of the language of separation and practicing self-distancing are:

The Big Picture: How Self-Distanced Thinking Builds Emotional Resilience

When caught in emotional turbulence, we can shift our mental state by viewing ourselves not as the actor, but as the narrator of our experience. Research shows that narrative expressive writing, a technique explored by psychologist Dr. James Pennebaker, helps us adopt a self-distanced perspective—reducing stress, regulating cardiovascular responses, and promoting wiser, less impulsive decisions.

Like the zoom lens of a camera, Mother Nature has hardwired our survival brain for tunnel vision to target a threat. Our brains are biologically wired to focus narrowly on threats—a survival mechanism that clouds judgment and narrows perspective. But by engaging in reflective self-talk and narrative writing, we zoom out, reframe challenges, and access a fuller range of possibilities, solutions, and choices. As Kelly McGonigal notes in The Upside of Stress, this kind of reframing turns adversity into growth, not paralysis.

Self-distancing doesn't suppress emotion—it helps us make meaning of it. And that meaning fuels clarity, confidence, and calm under pressure.

Self-Affirmations

In 2014, Clayton Critcher and David Dunning at the University of California at Berkeley, conducted a series of studies showing that positive affirmations function as “cognitive expanders,” bringing a wider perspective to diffuse the brain’s tunnel vision of self-threats. Affirmations help us transcend the zoom-lens mode by engaging the wide-angle lens of the mind. Self-affirmations help cultivate a long-distance relationship with their judgment voice and see ourselves more fully in a broader self-view, bolstering our self-worth.

Relationships with Our ‘Parts’

When we notice that we are in an unpleasant emotional state—such as worry, anger, or frustration—holding these parts of us at arm’s length and observing them impartially as a separate aspect of us, activates our thrive talk (clarity, compassion, calm). Thinking of them much as we might observe a blemish on our hand allows us to be curious about where they came from. Instead of pushing away, ignoring, or steamrolling over the unpleasant parts, the key is to acknowledge them with something like, “Hello frustration, I see you are active today.”

This simple acknowledgment relaxes the parts so we can face the real hardship—whatever triggered them in the first place. This psychological distance flips the switches in our survive brain and thrive brain at which point we are calm, clear-minded, compassionate, perform competently, and have more confidence and courage.

Self-Compassion: The Brain’s Hidden Superpower for Resilience and Success

Self-compassion isn’t soft—it’s scientifically linked to greater happiness, well-being, and sustainable success. As Dr. Kristin Neff, a pioneer in the field and author of Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, explains, treating ourselves with the same kindness we’d offer a friend strengthens our emotional resilience and reduces burnout.

Research using fMRI scans (Davidson & Lutz, University of Wisconsin) shows that loving-kindness meditation rewires brain regions associated with empathy and emotional regulation. Just as we build muscle through repetition, positive self-talk and mindfulness practices develop neuroplasticity—rewiring our brains for compassion, calm, and confidence.

In the workplace, empathy isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a performance lever. According to a 2021 Catalyst study, leaders who show empathy boost employee engagement, retention, and a sense of belonging. When we practice compassionate communication, we influence not just mood but psychological safety across teams.

Self-criticism—often triggered by the brain’s survive mode—undermines motivation and performance. In contrast, forgiving self-talk helps us recover from setbacks faster. As productivity researcher Dr. Timothy Pychyl notes in Solving the Procrastination Puzzle, self-forgiveness after procrastination reduces the likelihood of repeating the behavior. In short, compassion fuels progress.

Whether facing personal failure or high-stakes leadership, choosing kindness over criticism helps us bounce back stronger, think more clearly, and connect more deeply—with ourselves and others.

Conclusion: Cultivating Resilience Through Neuroscience

Understanding the mechanisms of the fight or flight response and differentiating between the Survive and Thrive Minds empowers individuals to navigate stress more effectively. By incorporating practices like positive self-talk, self-distancing, and mindfulness, we can foster resilience and enhance our capacity to respond to challenges with composure and clarity.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.