Yesterday my friend sent me a video. A guy is walking in the woods and another guy sneaks up behind him and attaches a huge fake spider to him. He FREAKS out and fights this fake spider to the ground multiple times. I imagine it’s supposed to be funny, but mostly it just made my heart hurt for this poor guy who was being so traumatized.
My 9-year-old and 2-year-old both saw the video and had interesting reactions. My 2-year-old kept saying over and over, “Fight ‘pider?” (and when I reassured him it was a pretend spider, he kept saying “Fight ‘tend ‘pider?”…but don’t think he knows what pretend means…)
My 9-year-old was very confused as to why the guy was freaking out so much — there aren’t spiders that big in the world. My son knows this, so he was convinced that if he was in the same situation, he wouldn’t try to fight a spider that clearly couldn’t be real.
I explained to him how we have two parts to our brain: the lower part that is solely focused on our survival, and the higher part that can think and reason. When we get sneak-attacked by a giant fake spider while walking alone in the woods, our lower brain will kick into high gear and go into fight/flight/freeze mode without consulting the higher thinking brain’s vast knowledge of spider realities.
This is true for all of us. You, too, have a higher brain and a lower brain, which I’m referring to as your toddler brain. Only one of these is in charge at any given moment. Either your higher brain sees and recognizes that a spider that size can’t be real and reassures your lower brain that everything is fine; or your toddler brain senses danger and responds accordingly.
Interestingly, our toddler brains (like my toddler) can’t recognize the difference between real spiders and pretend spiders. When they sense danger, they respond the same way, whether it is a real or perceived threat: the same chemicals are released and our bodies prep for that fight or flight, whether we are being attacked by a monster spider or we’re just thinking about a stressful event coming up.
When someone has a concussion, it’s very common for that toddler brain to be on high alert more of the time than usual. They can be in an almost-constant state of fight or flight, and that adds greatly to the challenges they face.
Whether you’ve had a head injury or not, becoming aware of which brain is running the show is very useful, and learning ways to calm that toddler down so the thinking brain can come online will be incredibly useful.
One of the tools that can help calm the toddler brain down is breathing. Breathe slowly, deeply, through the nose, with the exhale longer than the inhale. Take the time to practice this, and use it when the toddler is tantruming or going at it with a monster ‘tend spider.
Stay tuned for other ways to calm down your lower, toddler brain, and ways to train that higher thinking brain. They are both truly amazing!