A timely new book sheds light on our neurobiology and the fundamental role it plays in navigating our life challenges
Five-minute read – 100% written by humans
Here’s a thought experiment: Following a particularly volatile meeting, it’s suggested that one colleague was hormonal. What’s your assumption about the gender of the colleague being described?
The assumption seems so obvious that the question is virtually rhetorical. And yet the behaviour of the most shouty, high-dominance, alpha-male colleague is every bit as likely to be driven by hormones. Hormones govern most aspects of our working lives. And yet too many of us have too little understanding of them.
The inside story of our hormones
Given that these complex chemical compounds are our brains’ – and therefore our minds’ – primary messengers, we spent far too little time thinking about them, that’s the thesis of the new book, Signals, the inside story of our hormones. If we believe we are the sovereign of our own lives, hormones are truly the power behind the throne. They are the primary determinant of our day-to-day mood and behaviour.
The author, Dr Saira Hameed argues that simply appealing to people to change their behaviour – quit smoking, exercise more, eat less, don’t shout at the kids – through the usual combination of consequences and rewards, is bound to fail. Decades of public health advice about diet has failed to create any significant change in behaviour. On the contrary, obesity has shown a steady rise in most developed countries.
Tuning in to our body’s signals
Hameed argues that the behaviours that matter most are governed not by our will, but primarily by our neuroendocrine system. Essentially, we are our neurobiology. This doesn’t let us off the hook when it comes to taking responsibility for our behaviour. On the contrary, it means that we are most effective when we tune in to our body’s signals and understand how they respond to different contexts.
Toxic cultures
Neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky from Stanford studies primates with whom we share the vast majority of our evolutionary history. What he discovered may help to explain why corporate cultures can so readily become toxic.
Sapolsky’s research discovered that when a male is subjected to aggression or bullying by a higher-ranking male, he experiences a sharp spike in the activity of glucocorticoids (a class of steroid hormones that include cortisol and become very active during times of stress.)
Now, it won’t surprise you that this doesn’t feel good to our male baboon who wants to get back to feeling normal as soon as possible. Once our male baboon bullies a lower ranking male, his glucocorticoid activity falls. He feels less stressed.
Things are similar for female baboons. A female subjected to aggressive behaviour will likely show increased aggression toward other females or her offspring. What’s true of our closest evolutionary cousins, is true of us.
This neurohormonal response explains why a front-line manager on the ground, who’s snapped at, treated dismissively or sarcastically, or had ideas shot down, will – all things being equal – feel that instinct to treat their team in the same bullying way. And as we know, sadly all too often, we bring this sort of behaviour home to our families.
It’s tempting to believe that our responses to situations are governed by a steady and predictable personality. In reality our behaviour is not only largely contextual, it is also governed by our neurobiological state in the moment. We can react in very different ways to the same stimuli, depending on context.
No easy hormone hack
Now, the idea that we can simply hack our hormones is a seductive one. This was the theory behind “Power Posing” – if we adopt expansive open powerful body language, we boost our level of circulating testosterone and therefore our confidence. The TED Talk given by Amy Cuddy, the Harvard Business School psychologist who co-led the research, has chalked up over 56 million views. But in 2016 Cuddy’s fellow academic Dana Carney, published a paper questioning the scientific integrity of the research behind Power Posing. The journal Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology published seven studies, all of which attempted to replicate the effects of the power pose research. None of the studies showed positive effects of power poses on levels of testosterone. The idea fell apart.
How not to be a baboon
Nonetheless, listening out for our neuro-endocrine signals enables us to be better pilots of our lives. In one organization with which we worked, the story of the baboons created such an imprint that it entered the day-to-day language. Managers would say things like, “I was having a rough day, but I decided not to be a baboon. So, I took a moment first before dealing with it…”
Now, one important caveat: The growing recognition of the profound effects of menopause brought about by rapid hormonal change is long overdue. These are beyond the scope of what we are discussing here. Nevertheless, when it comes to becoming better attuned to our neuroendocrine state and responding more effectively to it, there are several evidence-based principles we can all take on board.
- Awareness: The starting point is awareness. We are infinitely more effective when we attune ourselves to the signals of our mind and body.
- Reflection: Practice reflecting on what is going on for you in the moment, both in terms of your thoughts and your physiology. What’s the context that might be affecting your current state?
- Pause: Pausing and taking time between stimulus and response creates the space to choose wiser responses.
- Alter your physicality: The brain continually takes readings from our physicality and adjusts accordingly. Because we are creatures who crave consistency between our feelings and our actions, if we adjust our physicality, our feelings tend to follow.
- Breathe: The breath remains a primary mediator of our mental state. Adjusting breathing helps to adjust mood.
- Self-compassion: Self-compassion is key. We argue for this not because it’s nice and warm. We argue for it because the evidence shows it supports our personal effectiveness. And its flipside, self-admonition is counterproductive, especially under conditions of stress. Put simply, be aware of what is going on for you and be kind and patient with yourself about it.
Modern research suggests that practices such as yoga can influence the biological systems involved in stress regulation, including autonomic nervous-system activity and in some populations, cortisol levels. The effects are neither simple nor universal, but they reinforce an ancient insight: mind and body operate as an interconnected system.
Yoga originates from a Sanskrit word meaning to unite or make whole. Both Yoga and Tai Chi work on the principle of combining muscle movement with the breath and a clear calm focused mindset. It is no surprise that both have been around for millennia.
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