The holidays and your brain – a neuroscientist explains how to identify and manage your emotions

  Just as the shift to shorter days and colder weather can bring with it mood swings and other emotional challenges, the holiday season can also bring about somewhat predictable changes in mood and behavior.

  Around this time of year, many of us experience more stress, anxiety, and frustration than usual. These stressors have been linked to higher levels of heart failure and alcohol poisoning and an increase in deaths from stroke.

  Learning how to recognize what brings about stress and what parts of the brain are actively involved can help with managing the stress response.

  As a neuroscientist, I am often curious about the dynamic connection between behavior and the brain. I’ve learned that, biologically speaking, there are ways to manage your responses to holiday stressors through awareness of why they happen.

Harnessing the hypothalamus

  Delays in itineraries, crowded airports, and congested highways can easily lead to frustrations for those traveling to spend time with family or friends.

  One region of the brain involved in your response to these types of stresses is the hypothalamus, a structure deep in the brain that is involved in trying to keep the body in a stable state, known as homeostasis. The hypothalamus works to regulate the autonomic nervous system, a system that coordinates involuntary responses such as heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration. It is the key component of the fight-or-flight response to real or perceived threats.

  When you are under stress, such as when you learn that your flight has been delayed or even canceled, your hypothalamus stimulates the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine. These hormones in turn trigger physiological responses like increased heart rate, perspiration, and feelings of irritation and frustration.

  When you experience these stressors, deep breathing exercises can help stimulate the body’s parasympathetic nervous system. This is known as the “rest and digest” system because it is responsible for helping your body relax and recover from stress. By taking slow, deep breaths, you can engage the parasympathetic nervous system, which can in turn calm your nerves and reduce frustrations.

Family dynamics and interactions

  Getting together with family during the holidays can bring about complicated emotions when there are conflicting personalities, unresolved issues, or awkward family dynamics.

  Frustrating or aggravating conversations with relatives often trigger a region of the brain known as the anterior cingulate cortex. The anterior cingulate cortex has a unique position in the brain, establishing connections with both the “emotional” limbic system and the “cognitive” prefrontal cortex.

  This brain region is involved in monitoring and regulating cognitive processes, conflict resolution, and error detection. It plays a role in processing frustration by signaling when there is a conflict between expectations and outcomes. The anterior cingulate cortex is also involved in what’s known as action-outcome learning, where you evaluate the consequence of an action and adjust your behavior based on feedback.

  When you are feeling overwhelmed or frustrated, taking short breaks to step away from the situation can provide a fresh perspective and allow you to return with a clearer mindset. This break will allow you to reinforce this action-outcome learning, helping you learn to associate an action – a short break – with the outcome of the action, which is more relaxed breathing and a clearer mind.

Financial worries

  The holiday season can put an unnecessary burden on those who are experiencing economic or financial hardship. The cost of hosting a holiday meal, buying gifts, or traveling can contribute additional financial strain during an already stressful time.

  The brain region primarily associated with memory and learning is the hippocampus. When you recall past experiences, such as how much you spent last year during the holidays or remember that the credit card bill is coming soon, you activate your hippocampus. The hippocampus is critical in the interplay of memory formation and recall and retrieval of individual episodic memories.

  Some ways to reduce stress may be to make gifts for friends and family instead of purchasing them. To help cut down on travel costs, perhaps take a virtual holiday visit now, followed by an in-person visit later when it is less expensive or when financial strains have eased. When reminded of stressful experiences, the hippocampus sends signals to the hypothalamus and other brain regions to help restore balance in your mind. The hippocampus also aids in your adaptation to these stressors by helping you learn how to adjust your expectations. In the end, you have to remind yourself that it truly is the thought that counts most.

Loneliness and isolation

  Feelings of isolation and loneliness can arise for those of us who may not have family or friends to celebrate with, or perhaps are unable to travel to see those we love.

  This is where the “default network” of the brain plays a role. This network, made up of brain regions including the amygdala, is involved in thoughts of future planning, reminiscing, and imagining. The amygdala is a part of the limbic system and is associated with processing of negative emotions to stimuli, such as the irritation from not being able to travel, and how you react.

  Studies have shown that you can help improve your mood and reduce feelings of frustration and irritation by having a regular exercise routine. Physical activity can be an effective outlet for releasing built-up tension and stress. Aerobic exercise can also modulate connections between and within the amygdala and help reduce feelings of depression. As an added bonus, if you work out in a gym or park, you have an opportunity to be around others, which can help you feel more connected with communities of people with similar interests.

Political discussions

  Family gatherings can lead to discussions about current events or politics, which can result in heated debates and disagreements among family members. These conversations can be very frustrating and even upsetting, especially in today’s polarized world.

  The prefrontal cortex is an area of the brain involved in impulse control, decision-making, and emotional regulation. It plays a crucial role in assessing certain situations, such as supercharged conversations, and it helps you evaluate and consider your potential actions and temper your emotional responses. Understanding what triggers your frustration in these situations is crucial to developing proactive strategies to manage or avoid them.

  For instance, this might take the form of empathizing with the opposing side, or perhaps stepping away from the table when voices start to rise, or you feel your emotions building. The prefrontal cortex plays a dual role in regulating the relationship of your initial emotional reaction and the shift to your empathetic emotion. Your ability to build empathetic perspectives and increase cognitive control helps to further develop your prefrontal cortex, potentially making it easier to de-escalate the next time around.

One step at a time

  Reducing frustration is a gradual process, and different strategies work for different people.

  It is important to identify the root cause of your stress and frustration so that you can develop your own targeted coping strategies. Some examples include engaging in a hobby, listening to music, going on a walk or run, or simply practicing relaxation techniques. It is essential to experiment with various techniques and not be afraid to move away from ones that don’t work and toward ones that do.

  The most important thing to remember is that retraining your brain is more of a marathon and not a sprint. It will include trial and error and open-mindedness, but if you focus on identifying your triggers and adapting your own coping strategies, it will almost certainly get better with time.

  About the author: Seena Mathew is an assistant professor of biology at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.

  This article was published by The Conversation. 

‘Tis the season to be jolly — even while shopping

  People are not at their best in crowds. It’s as if every survival-of-the-fittest primordial instinct comes out to obliterate thousands of years of civilization. Pre- and post-holiday shopping, and the inevitable lines, test our character.

  My wife’s a professional shopper. She has strategies on where to park and how to find the fastest moving line (which I’ve discovered is not always the shortest). But what I admire most is her resolve not to let it get her down. In fact, this is her "good attitude Olympics."

How Hanukkah came to America

  Hanukkah may be the best known Jewish holiday in the United States. But despite its popularity in the U.S., Hanukkah is ranked one of Judaism’s minor festivals, and nowhere else does it garner such attention. The holiday is mostly a domestic celebration, although special holiday prayers also expand synagogue worship.

  So how did Hanukkah attain its special place in America?

Whether slow or fast, here’s how your metabolism influences how many calories you burn each day

  It’s a common dieter’s lament: “Ugh, my metabolism is so slow, I’m never going to lose any weight.”

  When people talk about a fast or slow metabolism, what they’re really getting at is how many calories their body burns as they go about their day. The idea is that someone with a slow metabolism just won’t use up the same amount of energy to do the same task as does someone with a fast metabolism.

Accountability in the workplace

  Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time consulting with large companies concerned with strengthening their ethical culture.

  Although I’m sure the leaders I work with care about ethics and virtue for their own sake, I know the driving force to seek outside assistance is self-interest. The risk of reputation-damaging and resource-draining charges resulting from improper conduct is so high that it’s a matter of prudence and responsible stewardship to stress ethical values and moral principles.

Do you eat with your eyes, your gut or your brain? A neuroscientist explains how to listen to your hunger during the holidays

  The holiday season is upon us, and with it, opportunities to indulge in festive treats. The proverbial saying “you eat with your eyes first” seems particularly relevant at this time of year.

  The science behind eating behavior, however, reveals that the process of deciding what, when, and how much to eat is far more complex than just consuming calories when your body needs fuel. Hunger cues are only part of why people choose to eat. As a scientist interested in the psychology and biology that drives eating behavior, I’m fascinated with how the brain’s experiences with food shape eating decisions.

Being basically honest

  After a workshop, a fellow came up to me and complained that I had made him feel uncomfortable. “I’m not perfect,” he said, “But I’m basically honest.” His implication was that it’s unfair to expect people to be honest all the time.

  His comment reminded me of a cartoon where one fellow confided to another, “I admire Webster’s honesty, but his insistence on being scrupulously honest is really annoying.”

A backlash against ‘mixed’ foods led to the demise of a classic American dish

  At the end of “Over the River and Through the Wood” – Lydia Maria Child’s classic Thanksgiving poem – the narrator finally gets to his grandfather’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and settles down to eat.

  “Hurrah for the fun!” the small boy exclaims. “Is the pudding done? Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!”

  Pumpkin pie sounds familiar, but pudding? It seems like an odd choice to headline a description of a Thanksgiving dinner. Why was pudding the first dish on the boy’s mind and not turkey or stuffing?

The first Thanksgiving is a key chapter in America’s origin story – but what happened in Virginia four months later mattered much more

  2020 marked the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving in New England. Remembered and retold as an allegory for perseverance and cooperation, the story of that first Thanksgiving has become an important part of how Americans think about the founding of their country.

  But what happened four months later, starting in March 1622 about 600 miles south of Plymouth, is, I believe, far more reflective of the country’s origins – a story not of peaceful coexistence but of distrust, displacement, and repression.

Who will we thank next year? Those who fought

  Anticipatory obedience, a term we will all be familiar with by Jan. 20, describes how major figures and institutions appease an authoritarian before he takes power.

  It’s hard to maintain a straight posture against threats and coercion, particularly if you think no one else will stand with you.

  So they bow and scrape, hoping it will spare them pain or punishment. They pull punches. They accommodate. They hope to maintain what used to be normal life.