Brain function and gut feeling

No book or workshop on the subject of human behaviour during transformation and change management can do without information or lengthy explanations about the structure, function and influence of the human brain. After all, the control centre of our feelings, thoughts, decisions and actions is located in this complex system.

What happens in the brain

A basic distinction is made between the cerebrum and the limbic system. The cerebrum is younger, works on different levels, takes some time and is more responsible for making rational decisions. The limbic system is older in its evolution, works faster, consumes more energy and controls - among other tasks - primarily our emotional reactions and reflexes. In literature, the roles / functions of the cerebrum versus the limbic system are therefore often referred to as “slow and fast thinking” or “autopilot and pilot” or “rider and elephant”.

The limbic system goes back at least to the time of the dinosaurs. To illustrate the functions of this complex system and the effects on human behaviour, the threatening situation when encountering a sabre-toothed tiger is often used as an example. If a person thinks he is in danger, he reacts without thinking with spontaneous reflexes such as rigid shock, fight or flight. Transferred to today's everyday life, such situations arise when personal security, autonomy, one's own territory or the hierarchical self-image are challenged in professional or private life. Just look at the last situation in your daily work in which you reacted emotionally. 

Hand on heart: the reason for your behaviour almost certainly had its cause in one of the challenges of your self-assertion mentioned above. What can you do about it? Block the spontaneous fight or flight reflex and switch on the cerebrum: think first, act later. If only it were that easy! In this article, however, I would like to point out a completely different aspect: a gut feeling

How the stomach reacts

A gut feeling is a variant of the limbic system. As an emotional memory, a gut feeling can signal happiness, love, but also insecurity, fear and danger. We all know the phrases, “butterflies in my stomach”, “love goes through the stomach”, “airplanes in my stomach” but also “I feel sick to my stomach”, “that gives me a stomach ache” and “a gut punch".

The stomach gives us signals that we can feel and sense. Let us imagine that we are faced with a situation that we cannot assess. For example, a lecture in a steering committee. Assuming that the facts and information necessary for the meeting are not sufficiently available to the cerebrum to be able to weigh things up rationally and decide as quickly as possible or to provide answers to critical questions. Further suppose that our experiences so far that are stored in the limbic system signal uncertainty and danger. Then the gut feeling of the malaise will inevitably show itself.

In this case, we can understand the movement of the stomach as a kind of warning system: “Caution, danger is imminent - the limbic system senses adversity and the cerebrum cannot offer any rational solutions. But, now we have to let something guide our decision or our behaviour. Who or what takes the helm in such cases? It's intuition.

Intuition - it's all in the mix

I understand intuition is a result of the interplay of the limbic system, stomach and cerebrum. No part should act alone. There are as innumerable examples of this as there are people and their experienced situations. Let’s try to approach this topic further by means of a rough clustering.

Variant 1: the cerebrum helps the limbic system

A team member, in front of the assembled team, declares a project manager incompetent. The limbic system is triggered immediately and triggers the reflex of an emotionally charged counterattack in the project manager. It’s not the first time this has happened, therefore, the project manager already had a bad gut feeling. Intuition tells him straight away that it will not be expedient to put the team member in his place with a public attack. So the project manager begins to think about why the team member is actually acting this way. The cerebrum is turned on. The result: the project manager realizes that the team member does not feel valued. With this understanding, the project manager can now react more appropriately and does not have to go into an emotional counterattack. He can thus protect himself against hasty emotional reactions, which, without doubt, would have made him sorry afterwards, possibly immediately. It is not uncommon for our immediate reactions to contradict our ideas of morality, ethics, justice or interpersonal respect.

Variant 2: Limbic system helps cerebrum

Intuition navigates us through countless situations in our life. Because we almost never have sufficient facts at hand to think through a situation holistically and to be able to make the right decision free of risk, with guaranteed success. Let's be honest. The rationally thinking cerebrum also reaches its limits when making big decisions. For example, when concluding contracts, buying shares, setting budgets or making personnel decisions. Then, in turn, the limbic system helps us with its stored experiences and heuristics. This does not result in any facts that can be derived from the current situation, but at least rules of thumb that help you to act and decide intuitively - based on the best possible gut feeling.

So we can be happy when the parts of the brain and our stomach work so well together. And as long as intuition controls our behaviour and our decisions correctly, we can be grateful for this complex teamwork.

However, if you only have an indefinable gut feeling, but don't know how to deal with it and you find it difficult to make decisions, then I recommend consulting a business coach. See also my article "Consulting Coach". A good coach will be able to work out with you whether and to what extent your situation is one of the two variants mentioned above - and how you can use the limbic system or the cerebrum more consciously to solve your problems or, if necessary, to define and achieve your goals .

Do you have any questions or comments? I look forward to hearing from you.