Our Brain Runs by Predictions

This is the first essay of a series addressing the biology of performance.

A little understanding of our nervous system may go a long way to our being more effective.

Let's briefly look at two components of this network—our brain, as explained by Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD., and our autonomic nervous system (ANS), based on work by Neuroscientist Stephen Porges, PhD. Together, these biological wonders, our brain and ANS, heavily influence our experience of the world.

This duo does so, for instance, by determining both when we feel threatened and when to reallocate bodily resources to meet those potential dangers. Part of those reallocations include shifting our neural circuits to defensive mindsets and behaviors. We may feel a pop of energy or anxiety, with an urge to do something.

These defensive neural circuits prioritize our safety and limit or turn off our potential for accessing key brain areas such as those enabling compassion, curiosity, and higher level critical thinking capacities. We are often unaware this switch to a threatened physiological state has happened. Not surprisingly, these shifts may often be quietly disruptive.

The Brain Predicts

One well-received theory is that the brain's evolutionarily crafted purpose is to take care of the body. Housed inside the black box of our skull, the brain learns what it needs to do through reverse inference—it guesses what’s going on outside its box given the clues of resultant body sensations and categories of somewhat similar past experiences.

Feldman Barrett describes how our brain takes care of our body by continuously anticipating our body’s resource needs by predicting what its resource demands will be—our brain runs a model of the body.

In order not to miss a threat, the brain runs by predictions. For that purpose, it works together with the autonomic nervous system to monitor what’s happening:

(i) within us (mind and body),

(ii) between us and those around us, and

(iii) in our environment.

In each of those areas, the cues of safety and threat are tallied without our being aware of this process. In this way, the ANS helps the brain anticipate resource demands.

Feldman Barrett points to this key brain budgeting function as managing our body budget—balancing resource demands based in large part on how our past experiences have taught us is the most effective way to take care of ourselves. These are our habitual beliefs and behaviors that are often outdated. Most likely, they served us in situations that no longer exist, but these behaviors can remain so deeply ingrained in us that we can't easily recognize them.

And yes, they are frequently a reason for coaching.

This all has broad implications for decision-making. The more stressed we are, the more likely we are to overly rely on past experiences and (mis)interpret current ones. We tend to treat experiences with similar tactics instead of noticing how they are different. This short-cutting simply takes fewer resources. It oversimplifies complexities.

Considering the above, we likely "know" much less than we think we do. A few steps to better tailor our response to what's facing us now instead of defaulting to habitual reactions:

1) Identify and test our inevitable assumptions

2) Create new, positive experiences

3) Look for information contradictory to our assumptions

4) Notice any inclination for quick assessments and take that as a cue to step back and ask what makes this person or situation unique

5) Although it may feel counter-instinctual under stress, we can try to recover an attitude of curiosity over judgment

Primary Sources: Lisa Feldman Barrett PhD., Stephen Porges, PhD., Deb Dana, LCSW.

Key related coaching topics: Overwhelm, Resilience, Perceptions, Attentional Control, Focus, Conflict Management, Decision-Making, Anxiety

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