My dear readers know we have a part of our brains called the amygdala, an almond shaped ball of tissue deep in the core of our squishy organ.

It’s responsible for those moments when we experience primal fear (think life-or-death danger — increased heart rate, sweaty palms, a sense of panic.)

Our amygdala evolved back with the early vertebrates, hundreds of millions of years ago. Even fish have stress responses.

We also have a part of our brains called the prefrontal cortex, right behind our foreheads. This is the part that allows us to think things through, strategize, and make well-reasoned, wise, and healthy choices.

When you play chess and are thinking a few moves ahead, you’re exercising your prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex arose when primates evolved, about 55 million years ago. If you look at primate skulls, especially great apes, you’ll notice the forehead is enlarged compared to non-primate vertebrates. That’s because we need room for this part of our brains.

I Promise this Section Relates

Scientists largely agree that the dinosaurs were really well suited to life on earth. They had been on a few hundred million year reign, and likely weren’t even halfway through with their dominance, when an incredibly unlikely event happened — a chunk of rock the size of the mountain slammed into our planet’s surface.

It vaporized many, threw up dust to block out sunlight, photosynthesis slowed, yada yada, less oxygen in the atmosphere, yada yada, the point is it was really bad if you were an oxygen-breathing creature. The result? A mass extinction event.

When the dinosaurs were around, mammals were mostly nocturnal, small scavengers (like shrews) with little diversity. They had to be careful as getting eaten by a dino was a daily fear. When the dinos died out, it allowed mammals to evolve and expand into more niches, giving rise to the primates, including us.

If that very unlikely event hadn’t occurred, it’s likely that dinosaurs would still be ruling our planet today and we wouldn’t exist.

Think about how humans (and other apes and monkeys) have the ability to strategize, work together, etc, whereas a fish, or even a bird or lizard, tend to act more on instinct. These non-primate vertebrates don’t have as developed prefrontal cortexes as we do.

The Important Point

Our amygdalas cannot distinguish between life-or-death danger or something like a confrontation with a noisy neighbor. It’s not advanced enough. It’s an ancient piece of hardware. It treats a broad range of stressful situations as if we’re in a life-or-death situation each time.

So, when we encounter a moment where this primal fear arises in us — which is pretty common given how stressful modern life is — how can we take the neural activity that’s going on in the primal amygdala and move it to our thoughtful prefrontal cortex so that we can make a wise decision?

A simple reframing exercise: we name the feeling! The more specific, the better. We can say, for example, “I’m currently in a stressful moment.” Or, “This is frustrating.” Bam. That’s it.

This super simple action gives us a small space between stimulus and action, can take the power away from our primal, one-size-fits-all fear response, and hand it over to the part of our brain that can strategize and make a wise, healthy decision.