The Three Brains Theory

So you want to know why you abused that guy in the car in front of you in a split second without logic coming into play? Maybe you want to know why certain men / women attract you and not others? Or even why does your dog do the crazy things he does? It all comes down to the three brains theory, which explains why humans are the most evolved species on this planet and yet sometimes act like lizards and why we keep making irrational decisions when in love, and then we think that they are completely logical.

The Three Brains Theory is a theory created to figure out why we do the things we do, even if they seem completely illogical at times. The premise of the theory is that human brains have not simply evolved to the next level from our animal ancestors, they have simply built more evolved brains on top of each other. The first brain is the physical brain, this is essentially the fight or flight response found in everything from ants to lizards to humans, basically its most basic core survival mechanisms: surviving and replicating. The second brain is the emotional brain, it is found in most mammals and it allows us to connect emotionally with things and do more than simply have fight or flight responses. The emotional brain is found in everything from cats and dogs to other larger brain mammals such as cows and horses. Of course these brains are common and illogical, most of us hardly know how they work and how they make us do stupid and illogical things from time to time. Now the third brain is the brain that only humans on this planet have completely (apes and our close ancestors have very small versions) and it is what really separates us from animals, it is the logical brain. The logical brain is the most understood brain, as it is often considered the most important and performs most of our thinking. However, what most people do not know is that the other 2 brains are actually more powerful and many times they make our decisions for us instead of the logical brain, then simply through the process of rationalization in reverse they make us feel as if he had made a logical decision.

These three brains conflict in our daily lives and by default, without much effort to control itself, the most primitive brain always wins. This is why we often get off the hook by yelling at people when we feel threatened without even thinking about it. It’s also why we often make foolish decisions chasing after the love of our lives by doing things that don’t make any logical sense but make a lot of sense to the emotional brain. I often equate them as having 3 different people inside your head saying different things to you all the time, yet they say things to you in very different ways. The emotional brain informs you of information through your instincts, whether you are feeling happy, sad, anxious, etc., it is your emotional brain telling you that it thinks something is good or bad in your current situation. Your physical brain informs you through fear mainly, its duty is to keep you protected from harm, so every time it detects a danger, it freezes us or tells us to flee. The physical brain is also what controls our sexual urges and desires, and this is why we so often get completely distracted when we see an attractive member of the opposite sex – that’s our mating instinct kicking in from our physical brain.

You will also find events where it doesn’t make any logical sense to be afraid, however your emotional and physical brains scare you anyway, usually these are events where thousands of years ago, when your physical and emotional brains started to be created, It would make sense to be scared, but these days we have security measures to keep you from getting hurt. Such things include parachuting, working on a very high construction site, or approaching a girl at a club. In the past being high off the ground meant that you had to hold on for your life or you were going to die, these days with all of our security equipment this is not the case, but our physical brain does not realize this and try to stay alive by any means possible (usually by making you cling to your life).

So how does this help us? Now we will realize that we have 3 brains that are essentially totally different people living inside our heads, we can learn to tame these brains. Unfortunately, most people do this the wrong way. They don’t realize that there are 3 brains and when their physical or emotional brain tells them to do something, they completely turn off their logical brain and just follow their orders, thinking they are following logic when in reality they are not. This is why you often see others doing the strangest things (insulting someone on TV?) And if you ever ask them they get really defensive, then later in the day they remember what they did and sometimes see in a new light and see where they went wrong and how stupid they looked (when their logical brain comes back online). So the key to managing your other 2 brains is to realize that your logical brain often shuts down when certain events occur and you have to turn it back on (thinking rationally and taking into account everything everyone tells you without defenses) and think the situation that just happened.

Once you’ve turned it back on, you can also start training your other brains to respond differently, preventing your other brains from taking over when a situation occurs, and thinking about what you’re doing and then trying to change it to do. another thing. Like when I visit my parents, I notice how often they get mad when they watch football and someone drops the ball or does something stupid, while I laugh at the exact same event. It’s not that I don’t think it’s a bad game, I’ve just realized that it’s just a game and it’s not worth getting mad at and over time I’ve trained my emotional brain to think the same way.

Of course you can’t train your brain overnight, it will take time, just every time an event occurs, realize that your emotional or physical brain takes over and stop it in its tracks, then think rationally (is it really worth it? sorry to be mad about this?) and take steps to replace those bad emotions with better ones. Over time, your emotional and physical brains will begin to behave like mischievous children who are now given strict guidelines and allow you to live a much happier and more enjoyable life.