Bravery in the Brain
I first heard about a Word of the Year from Lisanotes and am happy to follow her recommendations on how to further incorporate the word each month. This month, she suggested we learn something new about our word.
I decided I wanted to know how bravery works in the brain. It turns out there have been a couple of experiments in the last several years which have helped identify the areas of the brain where fear and bravery live. One involved a typical animal experiment and the other actually used humans as the subjects. The one that struck me was an article that summarized the human study with a bit of humor. But the conclusion was interesting (referenced below):
A decision for courage is more likely because it’s easier =
Courage put into action through the motor cortex to the body.
That’s courage. It’s not the absence of fear. It’s making a courageous choice in the face of fear. It’s giving precedence to what you believe, desire and value. It’s letting others influence you to make the right choice. And it gets better. If you choose courage, it gets eventually gets easier. But if you don’t choose courage, your amygdala feels vindicated in its fear and fear messages gets stronger. That means the ACG and the rTP have to work harder to pin it down the next time and the OFC has a harder job to do.
Choose courage.
So here is an equation we will complete in the next post if you dare choose courage in your life.
Living out Courage = Feeling Fear + Aware of All factors + Choosing Courage.
The last line was the result of the study, that courage is choice. It also concluded that there are therapeutic means to make courage easier each time we face a situation. Basically, we had to choose bravery and not fear, the choice would reinforce itself. So fear reinforces fearful responses and bravery reinforces courageous responses.
That sounds like I would expect it, but it is cool that they have found the areas of the brain that respond this way. And maybe that is why we find verses of the Bible that repeat that we should be courageous. We need the repetition!
