Parts of the Brain
This is the little part of your brain that controls emotions.
What is the Amygdala?
This is the stress response triggered by the amygdala when stressed or scared.
What is fight, flight or freeze?
Which part of the brain do we use to when taking a test or trying to remember information?
PFC or Wise Owl
This is the part of your brain behind your forehead that helps make decisions.
What is the Pre-Frontal Cortex?
True or False: The amygdala always tries to keeps us safe?
True
You sit down for a test and suddenly you can't remember anything, what part of your brain is in control?
The Amygdala or the guard dog has activated a stress response.
This is located at the center of the brain and is responsible for storing memories.
What is the Hippocampus?
True or False: The amygdala can send out false alarms and activate a stress response when there isn't any danger.
True
How can you get the upstairs part of your brain and your downstairs part of your brain to work together?
Coping strategies.
This part of your brain is also know as the upstairs part of your brain or your wise owl.
What is your Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)?
What happens when you flip your lid?
The guard dog starts barking and the wise owl flies away, so we may not be able to make the best decisions because the amygdala is in charge.
(The Amygdala activates a stress response which overrides the hippocampus and PFC and makes it difficult to thing clearly or make good decisions.)
You are working on an assignment and you don't understand the problem, you feel yourself getting frustrated. You want to give up and put your head down on your desk but instead you take a drink of water, stretch your legs and then ask the teacher for help. Which part of your brain is in control?
Your PFC or wise owl. You used a strategy to settle your frustrated feelings and your upstairs brain and downstairs brain were able to work together to come up with a solution to the problem that you are having. The solution is to ask for help.
This part of your brain is known as your downstairs brain or your guard dog.
What is your Amygdala?
How does the prefrontal cortex (or wise owl) work with the hippocampus (or librarian) to make good decisions?
By using memories (stored in the hippocampus) to remember what happened in the past and apply those memories to the present to make a decision.
Name 3 coping strategies.
5-4-3-2-1, Positive self talk