5 ways to handle the amygdala hijack: Don’t let your lizard brain control your email

No one is immune to the amygdala hijack! Our amygdala is part of the limbic ‘lizard brain’, part of our brain which processes emotions and makes decisions, especially fight or flight decisions. Imagine it’s late in the day and you open an email from your colleague, and a word catches your eye that fires up your heart rate and your blood pressure. You want to reply, and you start writing, but you know that all your words come out as angry and defensive. Welcome to the EMAIL-ygdala hijack!

The ‘hijack’ (a term coined by Daniel Goleman in Emotional Intelligence) describes how the amygdala can create an immediate and intense emotional reaction that is out of proportion to a situation, and take control so that all our normal considered thinking goes out the window.

An amygdala hijack is harmful because not only do we make everyone else angry, our reaction can be contagious and create an amygdala hijack in them too. An added bonus is that once our more considered thinking has processed the situation, intense guilt often follows. An EMAIL-ygdala hijack causes a breakdown in communication leading to conflict, stress, and productivity issues.

Anne Dickson has a wonderful phrase for some intense amygdala hijack triggers: ‘crumple buttons’ — things people say, even a single description like ‘selfish’, that hand control directly to the amygdala and make us lose it, as if there is a large button on our heads that someone has pressed!

Daniel Goleman sees some of the most challenging consequences in the workplace. Online communication makes these particularly hard. Email, for example, lowers our defenses: we don’t have the face-to-face signals to help us adjust, and we even ‘hear’ messages in our own voice, not other people’s, so criticisms can be taken extra-harshly.

So here, then, are our top 5 tips for handling an EMAIL-ygdala hijack and taking control of your email.

1. Take timeout. Counting to 10 works for a reason: it takes about 6 seconds for the chemical signals in an amygdala hijack to dissipate. It’s fine to take a few moments, chill a little, and process someone’s message fully. If you need more time to think things through, take it: emails, like lasagna, are often better the next day.
2. Make routine. In the Turalt offices, we have a new rule to take a break every afternoon. It’s very easy to get into the habit of responding to email all the time — now is the perfect time to block off time during the day as ‘email-free’ so it’s a planned task rather than a series of surprises.
3. Use empathy. Try to consciously put yourself in the position of the person sending the email. This works wonders when dealing with those emotionally-charged emails — not only can you see the message from the sender’s point of view, you can change the way you hear it too.
4. Cognitive reappraisal. This is the more rational twin of empathy. If something triggers you, see if you can reframe it as neutral. Maybe that condescension comes from their insecurity, maybe those unrealistic deadlines come from a customer request. Once you guess a root cause, see if you can devise a strategy to address that, not the communications.
5. Go slow. Faster is not always better. This is a great time to look at the slow movement. An amygdala hijack depends on speed and catching us by surprise, but there has never been a better time to reassess your sweet-spot between getting things done and taking the time to do them well.

Dr Chris McKillop has a degree in artificial intelligence and a PhD in educational technology. She is an international speaker and thought leader on Artificial Intelligence, ethics, and empathy. She is CEO and Co-Founder of Turalt.

Dr. Stuart Watt has a PhD in the psychology of social intelligence and develops AI technologies that use psychological insights into organizational processes to improve email practice. He is CTO and Co-Founder of Turalt.

Turalt is a Toronto-based AI company using feedback and analytic tools based on AI, psycholinguistics, and psychometrics to solve online miscommunication in business.

We would love to help you with your communication: @turalt, chris.mckillop@turalt.com

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