The Brain & Constructive Feedback: A Dynamic Duo

Do you get frustrated when someone provides you with constructive feedback that is not entirely helpful or aligned with your perspective? You may find that your immediate thoughts include, “This is false and inaccurate – in fact, it’s not even helpful.”

You’re not alone.

What if I told you there is a part of our brain that’s controlling how we view the feedback as a threat and perceive it to not be helpful? 

That part of our brain is called the amygdala. 

The amygdala controls our fight or flight. It is there to protect us and its job is to tell us, “You’re in danger, you either need to fight or get out of there.”

So when your brain becomes aware of a threat, it sends sensory information to this almond-shaped part of the brain, the amygdala. It sounds great at first, but the amygdala can’t automatically and instantaneously discern between real threats and scenarios where we aren’t actually in physical danger. The good news is there are techniques (i.e. meditation, deep breathing, exercising, etc.) that can help us calm our amygdala and lessen the “fight or flight” response so that it can help us get to a place of awareness and understand what is truly harmful and dangerous and what is not.

So the next time someone is about to give you feedback and you notice a change in your body temperature or you notice the thoughts in your head resisting the feedback: Pause and take several deep breaths.

Then take a moment to remind yourself of the amygdala. From there consider asking yourself: “If the amygdala wasn’t hijacking my brain right now, how would I respond? Because I’m not in actual physical danger where I need to fight back or flee.”