(5) Ageism or Amygdala Agility? – Brain Leaders And Learners

Healthy choices are to the amygdala, what healthy food is to the stomach!

We ignore our amygdala to our mental and emotional peril. As our brain’s vital processing center for emotions, the amygdala connects our emotions to other key brain abilities, that regulate memories, learning and our senses. An untamed amygdala can create disruptive feelings and devastating symptoms. For a tiny sac of neurons, our amygdala plays a big role. It can zap an ordinary day into havoc – like lightning strikes an iron rod. Long before we’re aware of it, our inner dragon moods can emerge from amygdala storage, and strike.

Think of our amygdala as our mood maker. New neural discoveries, such as our amygdala’s enormous ability to remain kind, act as a problem-solving tool, and help us react with calm and care even when stressors such as ageism arise. So why does an untamed amygdala fall into anxieties and expect toxic reactions whenever an ageist statement strikes a tender nerve? Simply stated, consider the opposite of “cranky” below.

Did even one elder hero in your life offer refreshing insights to disprove stereotypes of seniors. Consider a parent, cousin or grandparent who elicits mental and emotional choices for adventure, encouraging others, enjoys healthy interdependence, or looked at problems with possibilities in mind. Perhaps that elderly person loved and supported you without judgment or offered you wisdom when you messed up most.

Perhaps he or she modeled kindness that we’d like others to see in us. My own grandmother loved us without conditions and I still feel her enormous love when her name comes up. To claim, “we all get old and cranky,” is to overlook our brain’s enormous capability for tamed responses. Until she passed, my grandmother’s kindness came without conditions when I needed her support most, and without judgment when I likely deserved her care least.

Since emotions survive after actions and memories vanish, it’s worth a new look at regulating moods and our personal as well as collective behaviors that an amygdala controls. How so?

For instance, our amygdala (or the seat of all sentiments, reactions, and passions) stores every emotional response we choose to make daily. It’s also true that repeated emotional responses – both good and bad – become our identical reactions when similar situations arise in future. Have you experienced it?

Walk up to a senior and the brain reaches into its amygdala to retrieve and reuse our stored reactions to that person’s age. Children find more smiles than smirks filed there, because kids laugh about 300 to 500 times a day, compared to adults who average 17 laughs daily.

A complex blend of intertwined social, mental, spiritual and physiological factors arise to form our kind or cruel reactions when challenges such as ageism arise. It’s safe to say here that kind or caring responses come from a tamed amygdala, while cruelty or crankiness comes from an untamed amygdala. See the cranky or kind amygdala choices below.

We may use humor like the cartoon character Maxine who admitted, “I’m young at heart … and slightly older in other places,” and yet inner kindness foster freer choices we possess to move past the problems of ageism with the help of an amygdala uptick.

Ageism and Amygdala Agility

What if our response to any sudden jolt or unexpected disappointment could be kind and caring far more than cranky and critical in our senior years? What if we could decide ahead what moods to expect on most days? Or do we simply wait and leave it up to fate? Some seniors argue, Why leave up to chance whether we’ll feel cranky or if we’ll be less useful as we age?

According to Dr. Leslie Kernisan (MD) we can cultivate possibility beliefs about our own age. Furthermore we are more likely to recover from mild cognitive impairment if we become aware of our attitudes about aging. If we acknowledge and process fears and if we cultivate acceptance and gratitude we improve our brain health as we age. We can defy society’s focus on youth centered attitudes that prevail, and we can even become part of the growing movement to take charge of our health through emotional well being practices that are vital to brain health.

One of my graduate students joined the MBA program to alter his career direction after being laid off by a large airline that was downsizing. While we applauded Alan for learning new skills to operate his own business, we worried about his emotional health during this transition. No matter where I encountered Alan, or what topic we began a conversation about, he defaulted back to statements such as, “If I were younger, I’d be rehired by now!” In spite of his young age of 52, Alan felt convinced that youth is preferred and age is discriminated against in the career world.

“I sent out 63 resumes,“ Alan complained. “The problem is not my work record, references or qualifications. It’s my age that prevented me from getting any responses back.” The young guys are getting hired for all the good jobs he insisted. When I looked at Alan’s generalized CV, I saw a different story. It was immediately obvious that not one of Alan’s resumes had been tailored to the many diverse positions he’d applied to. Nor did his one-size-fits-all cover letter show that he’d researched the firms he hoped to join. Nor did Alan suggest any niche where he might be helpful in contributing unique strengths to assist these organizations to meet their mission statement or achieve their unique goals. In Alan’s case the problem or barriers seemed to be more his attitude and lack of emotional health than about ageism in hiring practices.

Not to say ageism is a thing of the past, yet our healthy perception of age and the risks we might take to stay current remind us of Dicken’s words, “The things I do not know are coming now.” We can choose to meet the challenges fueled by cortisol that leads to depression as Alan did, or we can choose to be energized by serotonin that leads to a growth mindset, as seen in seniors who thrive and prosper as they age.

Emotional well being is clearly recognized as one of the factors associated with less cognitive decline. Similarly important is better physical health, and better use of mental strengths in our elder years. Kernisan speaks of new breakthroughs in neurons that foster mental and emotional healing. It turns out that we have many more neurons than most of us need and these extra neurons can take over the function of neurons that die off or shut down through age.

Art and Science of a Cranky or Kind Amygdala

Science determines our mental regression or growth opportunities within the amygdala, but art determines the emotional and mental benefits or battering we’ll build from our stored and then reused amygdala experiences.

In Yeats’ poem, “When You Are Old” his apparent ageism shows through when he tries to capture the attention of Maud Gonne, who was much younger than him. Maud’s rejection of Yeats had him longing for her to understand his feelings toward her. Notice how Yeats ascribes old age to represent loneliness and stored feelings of longing for something left behind.

When You Are Old

(William Butler Yeats)

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Written in 1892 Yeats shows in this poem how rejection of his marriage proposal by the beautiful actress Maud Gonne was caused by his lover’s ageist belief that beauty and vitality disappears when youth moves on. Really? Do you think Yeats had a choice here, or was this ageism he displayed caused by his harsh inner critic and commonly held beliefs at his time? Perhaps he may have won over his lover had he held healthier beliefs about the wonderful potential and purpose of our awesome senior years.

Had I known the amygdala’s superpowers in younger years as a career leader and single parent without any support, I’d have been a far better balanced parent and leader. Luckily my career was good to me and my amazing daughter loves me in spite of weaknesses. Whether we benefit from or batter our brain depends on the choice to be kind to ourselves. A robust and healthy amygdala, it’s important to note, rarely beats up on our personal emotional missteps. In fact our brains favor new awareness that offers inner strengths and also benefits others more while judging far less. Consider the art and science of an awesome, or awful, amygdala.

Whenever a situation jolts us off reliable tracks, it’s likely the seething amygdala culprit that burns like fury just below the surface. MYG (nickname for amygdala) is one of six fictitious characters with real brain parts that forms the namungo gang!

Research shows our amygdala is also key to socializing, and therefore in building stronger senior communities. A healthy amygdala means more fun within closer social interactions. It’s not about denying hurtful feelings when wronged, but is about reacting with a brain-friendly solution in the hurtful situation. With a tamed and healthy amygdala, Alan may have impressed his potential employer that he is well controlled emotionally and confident that the wisdom gained with age will make him the better candidate for any firm to hire and prosper.

Yeats may have won over his lover and even may have added their children to his legacy of the fact that age can be an advantage in love and in life. I certainly would have avoided conflicts, nurtured deeper relationships with elders earlier in life, and been a better parent had I known the potential of a tamed amygdala. As we age, and act on information to tame our untamed amygdalas we unleash emotional and mental potential to improve our attitude about age and live more agile adventures that outshine stereotypes of ageism. How so?

Choose genuine forgiveness to an unfair barb, for instance, and our amygdala stores that act of forgiveness rather than self-pity that files away there if we dwell on personal injustices.

Communities can develop a collective amygdala storehouse that files caring reactions to handle hot topics without shout out attacks, for instance. As the seat of our emotions, the amygdala can turn ordinary communities into train wrecks and can transform challenging communities into magical adventures.

At times it’s a matter of learning to let go, yet once its power over our group gets discovered, we can guide the amygdala to work more in our favor. It even helps us move from fear of inviting a new person to join, into freedom that celebrates diverse insights welcomed on every topic.

Located deep within our brain’s temporal lobes, this almond shaped mood bender, helps to shape and store reactions to unexpected shockers in our day. Will we shout or smile? Will we freeze in fear or risk with courage? The little neuron group pretty much decides for us, based on what emotional reactions we stored there over time.

Sit through an upsetting meeting, and this tiny arousal center may incite negative emotions in response, or calmly doodle in the margins to apply something learned. The former stores frustration, the latter stockpiles curiosity-building and a sense of wonder.

There’s more too. An agitated amygdala control center engages brain stem circuits that impact facial expressions and body language. It also triggers release of chemicals such as serotonin spigots of wellbeing or cortisol toxins into the blood.

It triggers back courageous reactions, or unwanted knee-jerk emotions. It’s even activated by nasty or nice odors on occasion. So why does the human brain come with such a predictable and sometimes pesky part?

It’s quite straightforward. Without our amygdala, we’d lack any response to screams, cries for help, shocking movies, or other horrific encounters. Perhaps more importantly, it helps us laugh more at self, and bypass bullies or cynics we encounter.

Unfortunately though, it also tends to toss us into turmoil without much notice. Can you see why people develop skills to tame dysfunctional thinking and modify behaviors that follow toxic amygdala triggers?

Our outside world, our experiences and our reactions impact and shape this unique area in human brains. It’s to blame for knee-jerk responses and unwanted panic reactions just as it deserves credit for those compassionate exchanges that serve others well.

You’ve likely surmised the brain’s emotional storehouse is also flexible. Our amygdala can even be tweaked to transform panic reactions into calm responses in the face of fear, anxiety, stress, or frustration encounters. How does it happen?

In the diagram above you will see MYG, the fictitious character with a real amygdala. MYG illustrates how we simply and deliberately can act in the opposite direction of any volatile, negative, or moody feelings. If feeling fearful or if you are embarrassed, for instance, try disagreeing more with the brain in mind. In this way, the very act of using a skill to disagree well, begins to rewire our brain for healthier responses in future situations.

Simply put, we can learn to bypass our amygdala‘s automatic default operations, in much the same way we choose to tap different buttons on a computer, in order to enter a different screen.

Awareness counts here. React in the default mode and our amygdala can heat up a situation by placing us in far too sensitive a mood, flooding our brain with cortisol chemicals, and causing us to overreact. Caught under attack we’ll respond accordingly, whether the attack is real or perceived, unless we help out our brain by storing kinder emotions, rather than gotcha-reactions.

Because of our amygdala, we can develop, store and use different strategies to add calm under pressure. As we build and model healthy emotional patterns for dealing with stressors, we begin to see mental wellbeing in practical and useful tools. Mindful tactics help us to deal more calmly with difficult situations that arise in every community, simply by doing what we’d like others to see in us.

Entire communities can help tame a group amygdala more than most people realize. In fearful situations, others can emulate support for the opposite of fearful reactions, for instance. With another person’s encouragement, our stored amygdala’s typical fear response can suddenly fade or disappear – replaced by stockpiled supportive emotions from like-minded individuals.

When emotional lightning strikes, hold a community back, it’s likely time to snip our amygdala before it snipes back? We can also introduce transformational tone tips that amp up cognition from diverse angles with tamed amygdala exchanges! We every emotional response we shape our MGY storehouses in more yeah or more yuck responses about age and ageism.

Moods Trigger Cool Choices

What’s around our next corner that could hurt, or disappoint, or leave us feeling sad, guilty or in mental ruts for days? Perhaps cynics will trigger us to reject, belittle, or ignore those who differ as they age? Sometimes though, it’s merely a matter of forgiving an older person in order to regain good moods and reignite healthier relationships.

Holidays however can be the worst time for depression, ageism and loneliness to spawn! But it doesn’t have to be this way, if we create space for mindfulness, so that stress shrinks by default!

Seniors choose daily between accepting ageism or taming their amygdala in protest of its toxins!

We Can Snip Our Amygdala Before We Snipe Back

It’s not easy to remain calm when we feel the sting of words that hint of ageism are spoken by a trusted friend or family member. We feel the sudden sting if we open a critical email that mocks, rejects, criticizes, or diminishes us as we age. But why intensify the damage, when we possess mental possibilities to replace our moody stockpiles and to stop beating up on ourselves or blaming others for our feelings.

Rather than judge a culprit’s motives, regret our own weaknesses, or focus on deciphering what that person could be saying in meta-messages spoken, simply snip away. Sure, use good tone, and name the problem honestly rather than deny it exists, but then react in a way that lays down new neural connections mentally in a place to grow from the experience.

Store a few delightful emotional reactions and we may even help to mitigate ageism if we simply offer an olive branch in response – rather than grow depressed over aging challenges we face.

Refuse to Replay Personal Hurt Narratives

Instead let’s replenish our deep pool of inner wellness, so that we begin to speak and act with respect even to those who disagree.

Fun new adventures in the direction of community service or mutual support offers our brain a gentle place to build new neuron pathways for amygdala health.

Through our focus on an activity with shared value, we also reclaim our sense of wonder and we set the stage to welcome back that inner joy many crave and few facilitate in our senior years.

Record progress as the communities grows. Have you been confronted with a shattering experience, yet remained calm because you deliberately snipped your amygdala before it sniped back?

Let it Go!

When we truly let go – we break from inner fears or confusion and we prepare our brains for a confident and courageous response. Yes, even when we confront a bully’s taunt’s or golf a round that disappoints.

Not that we deny personal affronts. Just the opposite. We choose calm deliberately and let go of anything that blocks its benefits. Denial, along with its handmaiden, inner rage, would likely store away there only to pop up and sink our wellbeing in the next emotional reaction to an insult. What emotional responses to stress are stored most in your aging amygdala? Cranky? Or kind? Ageism cannot withstand the latter!

How Amygdalas Replay Our Stored Reactions

Have you ever wondered why we blurt out responses that create problems for us later? Or did you know that our experiences are carried first to the thalmus, where they are sorted and sent as data to different areas of the brain for our response?

Simply put, when we see, touch, taste or experience any situation, information may go to the cortex for rational thought and consideration. Or data may jettison to that tiny, potent amygdala area, deep within our brain.

What good news that at every stage in life, including our senior years, we can awaken far finer emotional and social health, as a way to direct the brain’s amygdala toward consistent and observable benefits? Enter the namungo gang!

Interestingly we have already stored reactions in our amygdala, which is why some people gently swish a bothersome hornet away, while others swish dishes off a table in fear. Either way, the amygdala tends to act quickly and rather instinctively, whenever stored responses get sparked through daily experiences. It also releases chemicals such as serotonin or cortisol into the blood, to fuel either awesome or unwanted emotional responses.

On one hand amygdala responses are good since they can move us off the road if a mac truck barrels around the corner. On the other hand though, untamed amygdalas are mighty dangerous to our mental and emotional health, especially in our later years. How so? If we’ve ever taken offense at another person’s words and lashed back without thought of the consequences, we can blame our amygdala for lost relationships, fleeing opportunities, or regrets that can last a lifetime.

How do we tame our amygdala, and rewire our brain as we age to respond to emergencies quickly but without fear, regrets or anger of the cynic?

Simply act deliberately in the opposite direction of any volatile, negative, or moody feelings. If feeling fearful or if we are embarrassed, for instance, try disagreeing more with the brain in mind. In this way, the very act of using a skill to disagree well, begins to rewire our brain for healthier responses in similar situations.

Simply put, we can learn to bypass our amygdala‘s automatic default operations, in much the same way we choose to tap different buttons on a computer, to enter a different screen.

React in the default mode however, and our amygdala can heat up a situation by placing us in far too sensitive a mood, flooding our brain with cortisol chemicals, and causing us to overreact. Caught under attack we’ll respond accordingly, whether the attack is real or perceived, unless we intervene to help out our brain rewire for inner kindness.

Because of our amygdala, we can develop and use different strategies to add calm under pressure, and as we build emotional patterns for dealing better with stressors such as ageism, we begin to see their practical usefulness in happier outcomes.

Brain tactics such as taming our amygdala help us to deal more calmly with life’s difficult situations, simply by doing what we’d like others to see in us at every age.

Speaking of others – peers too can help tame an amygdala more than most people realize. In fearful situations, others can support the opposite of fearful reactions for instance. With another person’s encouragement, our stored amygdala’s typical fear response can suddenly fade or disappear – simply by support from a like minded individual.

Have emotional lightening strikes held us back, or do we snip our amygdala before we snipe back? We can also adopt transformation tone tips that amp up learning from diverse angles with a tamed amygdala!

Additional Posts that Include Mita Growth Mindset Tasks To Thrive Beyond Ageism

YOUR TURN! Join our Brain Based Circles! Would love to meet you at any of the following!

Brain Leaders and Learners Blog
Mita Brain Center Facebook
efweber on Pinterest
@ellenfweber on Twitter
ellenfweber on Instagram
Ellen Weber on Google+
Ellen Weber on LinkedIn

SECTION 5 – AGEISM OR AMYGDALA AGILITY

Two – Footed Questions to Address Mita Growth Mindset Senior Sessions

1). Why are some seniors mostly cranky and others mostly calm?

2). How does a tamed amygdala equip us for calmer and kinder moods?

3). Is it safe to say that cruelty or crankiness comes from an untamed amygdala?

4). How do we stockpile the kind f stress that steals mental health from our amygdala?

5). How do we deny our amygdala’s poor behavior by claiming, “Everybody’s cranky at times?”

6). Do you agree that, “Healthy choices are to the amygdala, what healthy food is to the stomach! “

7). Who’s one hero in your life who offers refreshing insights to resolve stress-related situations?

8). Should we calm our amygdala and forgive unfair barbs?

9). Could our amygdala help us to replenish our deep pool of inner wellness, so that we begin to speak and act with respect even to those who disagree?

10). When emotional lightning strikes is it a likely time to snip an amygdala before it snipes back?

FINAL Question: What’s one activity we can do to remove a fixed mindset and add a growth mindset for this topic? Discuss the above chart that shows healthy juices and toxic bleach and come up with one way that chart could help seniors to have a better day with good emotional and mental health.