IT'S BEEN A WHILE ...

… since I last blogged; it seems as if a lot has happened which is relevant to me in the last fortnight. The Coblin (see the amygdala chapter) party has started to throw some shapes, and the losers are jockeying for the position of prime loser in waiting. Le soleil brille for a while, which not only coaxed the Watson limbs into the light but also lifted my darkened soul into the brilliance with a cry of ‘Hakuna Matata!’ I have had love showered upon me from many directions, had hopes raised and dashed, have travelled in space and time, have gazed in wonder at the modest beauty of English flora and marveled at the snootfuls of scent that wafted unbidden into the holes in my face making me smile and say ‘Wow’ like some aging hippy.

Of course the term ’a lot’ is relative to your system of measurement and the norms your mind in programmed with. For me, this 2 weeks = 67 units of alcohol = 14 days = 224 waking hours = approx 13440 conscious minutes = 1,209,600 heartbeats. If every heartbeat were as precious as it ought to be – as it was when I first fell in love, or when my children were born, and as I’m sure it will be on my deathbed – then over 1.2 million heartbeats would seem like an enormous opportunity. What has seemed like a busy fortnight for me might appear to be trance-like in comparison to the sensations I could cram in.

If the heartbeat is your chosen unit of measure, then a way to stretch time could be to increase the number of heartbeats in a given time, increasing the intensity of experience using adrenaline promoting activities and exercise. Or you could just take a good look at the frightful mess of petty bureaucracy running amok in these sceptred isles. I was talking to a friend recently who is a saffer (South African) living in London; he posed the question ‘why is Health and Safety such a big thing in England – doesn’t anyone have common sense any more?’ A good question Doug, and one to which my immediate answer only promoted me to reflect more deeply on. More of that in the next exciting episode mes braves for now I must make like a chicken and cluck off to justify my existence … but after one last nugget, one little truffle-ette to flavour your lives.

Did you know that sunshine (well, actually all natural light, but the appropriate wavelengths are more intense in strong sunlight) stimulates serotonin production and it is this molecule that is important in regulating mood, appetite and sleep. The science of serotonin production is fascinating; the positive aspects of serotonin crossing the blood-brain barrier include mood enhancement, stimulated by strong sunlight as well as ecstasy, mescaline, anti-depressants and also - bizarrely – bananas. In areas of our body other than the brain however, serotonin is responsible for diarrhoea, vomiting and the pain we feel when bitten or stung by an insect. Crazy!

How awesome is our body? And what do most of us use it for most of the time? I rest my case!

Have a great Bank Holiday weekend followers, and remember what Joni Mitchell sang
‘ … You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone…’.

Anne

AMYGDALA

Amygdala

Wow! I am very excited by the current political situation in downtown UK, with our coalition government espousing a tribalist mentality for a pluralist philosophy. Granted it’s not a voluntary amalgamation and the compromise will be seen by some party activists as diablerie. I believe though that we must all put aside our fears and old allegiances and see how these two well educated men and their experienced teams go about coblin’ (it’s an anagram of Con / Lib) a solution together for our economic woes. So, a good result … unless you are a labourist or a latterday Celt.

Speaking of fears, I have recently been privileged to hear Anette Prehn dipping into the neuroscience toolbox to give some fantastic insights into ways that we lead teams, or indeed work in general; please indulge me whilst I bore you with an exerpt. The limbic system is a group of subcortical structures (the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, and the amygdala) in our 1.4 kilos of brain that are concerned especially with emotion and motivation. In particular, the amygdala is an area which triggers the sequence of events that lead to the fight or flight response and which destroys concentration, problem solving rationality and productivity along the way. Understanding the amygdala response allows us to use this knowledge to change habits, reflect on ones own (and others’) behaviours, and mitigate gnarly situations.

Overlaid on this brief description we have to know that

(i) we all have different triggers and levels of reaction for the amygdala threat response (although there is some commonality eg fear of spiders, fear of public speaking etc.) and

(ii) 20% of the population have an oversensitive amygdala

Right, for those of you still with me rather than reaching for the Mandies (oops, showing my age!) you can perhaps see where I’m going (or rather where Anette was going when she shone a torch into the dusty corners of my mind).

Concrete examples of the amygdala hijacking analytical thinking and impairing problem solving and creative insight are when you dry up (public speaking), fail to answer questions fully (job interview), babble incoherently (appraisals), face change in the workplace or your mind goes blank in exams. The important overriding principle is that these responses to perceived threat are autonomic (not under your conscious control) chemical responses designed through millennia of evolution to suppress everything but your ability to flee or fight. You really don’t need to rationalise with a charging mastodon nor to put a lucid case for a pay rise to the towering tsunami – just make like a sheep and get the flock out of there!

There are apparently only two ways to minimize dribbling your way through the scary parts of your life

(i) the limbic system learns by practice and repetition, so reduce the amygdala response by exposing yourself (steady tiger, I haven’t finished yet!) to those situations and practicing a more reasoned response, and ...

(ii) work for a nice boss who understands that conflictual situations destroy concentration and productivity.

If you are a boss - so that’s all the women in the Western world and the proportion of blokes who have ‘Manager’ (anagram Rageman often is a more apt descriptor) as their job title - you have to understand that the level of cortisol rises when you offer ad hoc ‘one-off’ feedback, send out those negative non-verbal communications (a fair proportion of the 2-4000 per day I suspect) or set overwhelming targets. If you bark orders rather than engaging someone with the necessary task, and conversationally compare people unfavourably with others, is it any wonder that they will not only consciously spend time having imaginary conversations with you using words you might not like, but also that they may be physically incapable of performing their job due to the amygdala response?

Phew, lesson over. But this is a topic which I recommend you involve yourself with if you are a manager (especially a HR manager) or indeed a harassed worker with a boss deficient in emotional or social intelligence. Google Anette’s web site ( www.where2next.dk ) or amygdala, hippocampus, limbic system; read it and just put it all into your work context – I guarantee that there will be mileage in it for you.

Now, where did I put those Mandies …?

Anne

CLEAR AS MUD

What a muddle! I need surety, a bedrock, a knowledge that I am (although not necessarily captaining the Good Ship Watson) heading in the right direction. Dealing with ambiguity is an occupational hazard as a manager, a father, a husband and as a citizen, but some kind of contextual surety is demanded to assure sanity.

Regarding the election, I needed someone clever, trustworthy and neutral to help me order my thoughts and make the right choice – not just for me, not just for my neighbours and for my ‘manor’ but for the greater good of my proud island race - including that lot at the top and the left of Great Britain. No such mentees were forthcoming, so I voted with my head, my heart, and my gut; the result has left me and my childers a financial headache for decades to come (to be fair, whatever colour takes the reins we must all quaff deeply from the poisoned chalice), the heartache of wondering whether my actions have dealt fairly with wimmin, gays and the (somewhat less vocal) majority of society who don’t care about ones sex or sexuality, and a sea of diarrhoea to swim through before a less smelly horizon hoves into view.

So, now the posturing and preening, the cajoling and romancing, the spinning and the flesh-pressing is over, what have we got?

Well, I now know what I know I don’t know, and the following is part of that cannon (WTF is he talking about? Ed.)

I am as vague about the election results as Bertram Wooster, but without the calming Jeeves to save me from disaster. How can the blue chappies have gained so many seats, hold more seats than the red wallahs and not have won (a dubious term in the UK’s parlous state) the right to govern? The election process we have at the moment (which I have not seriously queried in my 34 years as a voter, thus proving me to be a bear of very little brain) has the legitimacy of a game of P**h Sticks.

What is first past the post? What is proportional representation? Why are we one of the few European nations who cannot trust their elected representatives to deal with each other in the electorates interests in a collaborative, mature and non-tribal manner? How can the electorate not be allowed to vote because the rules say that the doors close at 22:00? Crikey, in Athens the presiding officers and their clerks would have been barbequed if they’d tried that! And what were all those queuing people doing for the other 14 hours of their day? I suspect that this is a reflection of the mobile phone, unlimited TV channel, ‘Googling is better than visiting a library’, just in time mindset which infiltrates all of our lives now – but hey, that’s another rant altogether.

I get why the global economy is so interested, and I suppose a run on the pound will stimulate the economy from an exporter’s perspective, though it will limit the amount of sangria I can afford … assuming I can fight my way through the ash cloud. At the risk of sounding like Edward (I hesitate to call him P**h Bear in case some fascist filters might stop my followers logging on via their work servers - I hear you my disciples, I hear you) we cannot carry on humming a happy tune and hoping the bees don’t sting us whilst we dip our paws into the hive for more honey. Then again, there is no sense in being alarmist and shouting ‘We’re all going to die’ as we rush to tell the King about the sky falling on our head.

The tale of Chicken Likken and Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, Goosey Loosey and Foxey Loxy (everyone’s favourite flea-ridden and urine-drenched cunning hero) has interesting parallels with my world, bearing in mind that my particular zone is a curious space with unique wants and needs which do not include a bigger, thinner TV or a chosen football team to dissipate my emotions. Although the fable has a common premise, the telling of it can focus on different subtexts depending on your chosen paradigm. Is it about stupidity and egocentricity, about not believing everything you are told, about the ability of Foxy to use the mass hysteria to his own ends? (Hmmm, I have a mental picture of cunning bankers licking their lips). And the ending is just as malleable, with some characters playing different roles and some happy endings focussing on escape, some on revenge.

Like I said – clear as mud. I know I can’t live in an Enid Blyton world, but surely I deserve some rational linkage between the levers pulled and the outcome? Isn’t that what we all want? Even if we see the world through a heroin haze we should be accorded the respect to know what the best gear is before we stick ourselves.

Keep warm, people, I’ll talk at you again soon..

Anne