Loss and the Brain's Deep Limbic System

As I move through Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness , I find that learning about the way the brain processes loss is fascinating as well as healing.

Emotional bonds, Amen explains, occur in the "deep limbic system" deep within the brain. When you lose someone through death or separation, "Your deep limbic system misses the person's touch, voice, and smell." As we all know, this mental trauma becomes physical pain: "The deep limbic system, especially the hypothalamus at the base of the brain, is responsible for translating our emotional state into physical feelings of relaxation or tension." Women (who have larger limbic systems than men, according to an article called The Male vs. the Female Brain on ThirdAge.com)are particularly susceptible to these feelings and symptoms.

Apparently, this limbic response to loss decreases over time. Which we sort of knew without knowing it.

One surprising facet of deep limbic bonding is that it doesn't only occur between humans. "Many people," Amen writes, "become as attached to their pets as they do to the significant people in their lives. Pets often give unconditional love and connect with our innermost caring selves."

So, hypothetically, if my boyfriend were to accuse me of mental illness for being unwilling to part with my 20-year-old pet dove, Ed, well, he'd just be wrong. Science - 1, Boyfriend - 0.

The To-Do List - Valuable Tool, or Wrench in Productivity?

Anyone who knows me (and you probably do) is aware of my methodical, perhaps maniacal list-making habits. While I am thoroughly attached to the list-making process I've developed, I've become concerned that, instead of aiding me in my daily tasks, the lists may be thwarting my ability to get things done.

In his book, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long, David Rock explains that prioritizing one's tasks is among the most energy-consuming activities your brain performs, and he recommends that one complete this early on in the day, when energy levels are high. Rock also notes that when you store a list in your brain, much of the energy in your prefrontal cortex is dedicated to maintaining that list, whereas if you write the list down, you enable your prefrontal cortex to concentrate its limited attention (Rock writes that if your compare your brain functions to money, your prefrontal cortex, responsible for most of your conscious brain activity, can hold the equivalent of the change you have in your pocket, whereas the rest of your brain can hold the equivalent of the US economy) on other things.

As I interpret them, these ideas support list-making. I make lists in order to keep track of the tasks at hand in an aesthetically pleasant way, so that I don't forget to do anything, and also to reward implementation of my plans, as the physical crossing-off of list items is a satisfying thing.

The reality is that the lists I come up with either have too few items, causing me to feel like I have nothing to do, or too many items, resulting in an overwhelmed giving-up. There's also what I call "The Carry-Over Problem," which is the situation where an unpleasant or long-term task is carried over from one list to another, day after day, and becomes a dreaded, frustrating, impossible task.

Not all people may experience this, but my failure to complete a list results in feelings of general failure.

I'm presently reading Daniel G. Amen's Change your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness, which so far has been focused on the idea that the way you look at problems, obstacles, and other things that present themselves in life can affect the chemical balance in your brain. Amen indicates that if you look at a task as a to-do, as something you have to do, your brain is wired to not want to do it.

I guess the solution is to take a different approach to list-making and to generally lighten up. But suggestions are always welcome =)

Speaking of suggestions, I have not yet titled this new blog. Thanks for reading my first post!