The Amygdala and You: Why Your Brain Reacts to Stress This Way

Someone you love says one sentence, and you go quiet. Not calm. Quiet. You have plenty to say, and none of it comes out. They ask what is wrong, and you say "nothing". In this episode, Theo explains why you go silent at the exact moment you most need to speak. Researchers have measured what happens in the body during an argument: in some people the heart rate climbs to around 100 beats a minute while they are sitting still, a state John Gottman calls flooding. Going quiet is the brake. The trouble is what the brake costs: hiding a feeling makes the body work harder, not less, and the person on the other side reacts to the silence too. We look at the brain-scanner study that started the "rejection hurts" idea (and the later study that corrected it), at what happens to a stranger's blood pressure when you hide your feelings from her, at where the habit may come from, and at a one-sentence, twenty-minute way to keep the pause without the damage. This video is an explanation, not therapy. Needing a pause is normal. If silence is being used to punish or control you for days at a time, that is a different thing, and it is worth talking through with a professional. Watch next: Why You Can't Let Go of That Argument: The Psychology Explained    • Why You Can’t Let Go of That Argument: The...   Chapters 0:00 Nothing. 0:57 It really hurts 2:16 Flooded 3:47 What silence costs you 4:52 What it does to them 6:29 Where you learned it 7:45 Twenty minutes 9:56 Tell them it is a pause