🧠Weekly Mind Sweep #115 | Manage Your Mind | Pride
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Did you know Pride and Shame light up some of the same areas of the brain?
“Pride and shame/guilt conditions both activated typical emotion-processing circuits including the amygdala, insula and ventral striatum, as well as self-referential brain regions such as the bilateral dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.” [ 1]
In other words, for our less brain-geeky crowd, these emotions activate the same areas of the brain:
Amygdala - which manages emotions
Insula and ventral striatum - guides behavior
Prefrontal Cortex - intelligently regulates our thoughts, actions, and emotions through extensive connections with other brain regions.
Let’s hop in the way back machine for a moment to see why.
Back in the day, caring about what others thought of us was crucial for fitting into our tribe. Seeking validation for our achievements provided both internal motivation and external validation [2]
Fast forward to today and what we’ve covered the last two weeks; we’ve got Authentic Pride (the good stuff) and Hubristic Pride (the not-so-good ego trip)
Society and science have evolved to gain a better understanding of this positive social emotion. [2a]
A fellow brain geek recently decided to study the influence of pride emotion and Executive Function, which immediately caught my attention. [3]
Just a quick reminder: Executive functions are those nifty skills that help us regulate attention, set goals, resist distractions, and plan for the future [4]
This study shares that the Pride emotion affects cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control. Fascinating!
Hold up, all pride is bad?
Not so fast.
Turns out all emotions - yes even the good ones - limit our resources of working memory, perception, attention, learning, reasoning, and problem-solving. [5]
And where our brains in our heads manage our body budget (the energy your brain allocates to each of your body's functions to keep you alive and running efficiently), we’ve got to take a pause.
The power of the pause can transform a potential meltdown into a chef’s kiss moment of clarity.
By giving our emotions a chance to chill and our biology a chance to reset, we’re better equipt to make better decisions.
So, whether you are basking in the glow of pride or navigating the murky waters of shame, it boils down to hitting pause, cutting through the noise, and getting to the real talk.
After all, our brains need a reality check now and then, don’t they?
What strategies do you find most effective for hitting the 'pause' button in moments of intense emotion, such as pride or shame, to ensure clearer decision-making and self-reflection?
Hit reply and share your thoughts with me!
[Source 1] Pride and Shame; Brain Activation
[Source 2] The Purpose of Pride
[Source 2a] Pride is a positive emotion
[Source 3] Pride and Executive Function
[Source 4] Executive Function
[Source 5] Influence of Emotion
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