The Three Brains

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast 

Episode 690 - The Three Brains

#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #brains #generationZ

 I like how authors Scott Larson and Daniel Tocchini describe the three brains in their book, Groundwork.

• The first brain is the Survival Brain or “Reptilian” brain.
  • This is where you experience a fight or flight reaction to alarming situations.
  • No thinking, just reacting
  • Established at birth.
• The second brain is the Logical Brain or Prefrontal Cortex.
  • This is our center for logic, language, and reasoning.
  • It is fully developed for girls at the age of 22 and isn’t fully developed for boys until the age of 25.
• The third brain is the Emotional brain or limbic brain
  • Wraps around the survival brain
  • Generates positive and negative emotions

Young people in general process nearly all new information from their survival brain since their logical brain is still in development. In the United States, you can go to war at 18 years old, drink at 21 years old, and rent a car at 25 years old.  Why is that? Because data has revealed the best way to reduce risk as it relates to certain things (except going to war at 18; I personally don’t get that one).

This is the foundation for my message to Gen Zers when I encourage them to wait on major decisions in their life.  Social Media and video games has brought stress into the lives of our young people that is yielding awful results because brains aren’t fully developed. If you have a little one, be the parent. Take responsibility in making hard choices even though your children may think you are over-protected or out of line. Remember, they are using the survival brain to make logical decisions and that isn’t logical.