However, although all information flows through this system, often your threat system does not know anything about quality or the source of the information flowing through it.
Without a healthy and functioning threat system, our species would be in serious trouble – we would not be motivated to protect ourselves from danger and we would likely take risks with catastrophic outcomes – humans would probably not have survived as long as we have.
These will then all work together to protect you from the perceived threat. This then completely reorients your mind’s focus and its attentional resources, and your motivations and your actions. If your limbic (aka ‘threat system’) perceives something as a threat, it has the power to reorganise the mind and body by triggering a cascade of neurophysiological responses (like the fight-flight-freeze response!). This includes information from both your 5 senses (the external world) AND all of the information generated by your mind (your internal world). The limbic system keeps you safe, by evaluating whether or not something is threatening. In other words, Threat System = Survival (survival emotions and instincts).Īll information being processed by your brain passes through the limbic system and this forms part of the brain’s threat processing system. These form part of our limbic system (aka ‘threat system’), the oldest part of the brain that helps to protect us and keep us safe. Although this may be ‘nice’ when we are daydreaming about pleasant things – this means a whole world of suffering and anguish if we are engaging in distressing, anxiety-provoking or threat-based mental processes.Īll humans and other mammals (including: dogs, cats, apes, tigers, mice, elephants, gorillas, pandas, horses, whales, and dolphins) have a pair of amygdala an almond-shape set of neurons located deep in the brain’s medial temporal lobe. This information applies to all of us: Being unaware of this difference and not having the skills to wilfully discriminate between these two sources of information, leaves us open and vulnerable to being ‘pushed around’ and influenced by whatever our minds are focusing on. reality – The information flowing through your 5 senses. This page is not just about negative thinking – It is also about something that your brain probably ‘thinks’ that it knows (but actually probably doesn’t)! – If you are someone who struggles with negative thoughts, it is likely that your brain probably does not know the difference between the stories created by your mind in the form of thoughts, imagery, memories and predictions … vs.