Emotional Intelligence & Your Brain

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Rebooting the 'operating systems' in your brain: The 'Know' System - the prefrontal cortex - is the most advanced part of your brain. This is the center for advanced thought in your brain - what neurologists call 'The High Road.' The 'Go' System, or 'Low Road,' is the amygdala & limbic system, which controls emotions and quick reactions. These are like different 'operating systems' in your head. Your most complex reasoning and memory is handled by the Know system, but the speed of processing that information is very slow compared to the Go system. The quick response-time of the Go system, on the other hand, comes with a very rudimentary, sense-driven system of memory storage, and an extremely limited space for storing reactive patterns to events. (In fact, most of those patterns are already formed by the time you learn how to talk.)

The Low Road has the advantage of speed - it will always arrive at an emotional response quicker than the High Road can process external events. But the High Road can conceive of doing things you've never done before; the Low Road can't. If we can learn not to act on our emotional reactions, we can do a 'reboot' of our operating systems and put the High Road back in control. Then we can practice new behaviors to bring more positive results.