[soychai]

When we experience a stressful event, the amygdala, an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing, sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus. This area of the brain functions like a command centre, communicating with the rest of the body to energize our fight-or-flight response. When this happens the part of the brain that is responsible for reasoning shuts down.

Those familiar with the work of Daniel Kahneman (2012) might recognize this as a System 1 takeover of System 2 (those not familiar can refer to this summary by Loo (2024). Essentially, the brain’s fast, automatic response system is preventing us from entering the slow, effortful, and logical thinking mode required to solve more complicated problems. This temporary loss of cognitive control can be bad news in situations where there isn’t a clearcut solution or procedure to follow and we need to harness System 2’s learning capabilities.

Fortunately there are many things we can do to get better at managing stress in difficult situations and ensure people are able to learn effectively. This blog post breaks a variety of research on this subject into 8 practical tips.