Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life by Margaret Moore Page A

University, Christine Hooker, has done interesting work in this area: she and her colleagues studied brain activity after arguments with partners, in order to assess brain activity in the days following a fight and, importantly, to link it to how we feel afterward. Those subjects with a greater level of PFC activity (remember, the PFC is part of the “thinking, rational” cortical brain) reported a greater ability to bounce back emotionally after a fight. These subjects demonstrated greater cognitive control in other tests in the lab as well.
    Clearly, Mitch’s wife was onto something when she steered him toward therapy. He can get “pretty ticked off,” as he says. But counter to what he thinks or tries to believe, he is not managing his anger well. His hippocampus—his brain’s memory center—is packed with vivid memories of people at work and situations he’s angry about, some of them going back years. Because Mitch is busy being angry at his boss for the mistakes that led the firm into bankruptcy, he doesn’t pay attention to the work at hand. And then because he makes a mistake, he gets mad—and dwells on that mistake for days and weeks to come, making him even angrier. It’s a vicious cycle.
    â€œThese forms are going to kill me,” he said during one of our sessions.
    â€œYes,” I respond, “that really is possible.” I was only half-joking. Clearly, Mitch needed to manage this anger, not only for the sake of getting his life better organized but for the sake of his health.
    He nodded. “I know, it’s not good. And I’m the first to admit that paperwork is not my strong point. But you see in the old firm, I had someone to do this stuff for me.”
    â€œMaybe you can do it here, too,” I said. “Find someone who can help you part-time. A bookkeeper or someone who can come in and take care of the forms and paperwork.”
    That way, I reasoned, Mitch could play to his strengths. He could make client calls, help broker deals, be the idea guy—and, of course, generating ideas takes cognitive work. I envisioned Mitch’s PFC working away, cooling off his emotional centers and putting some healthy distance from those angry memories.
    That’s what Mitch did. He got down to business—or at least the kind of business he enjoyed doing best. In letting go of the parts he was flubbing and instead concentrating on the other aspects of his job, he was more able to move on, keep busy and be successful. He was able to let go of the angry memories because he started to see them as unhealthy.
    The funny part is that once he had tamped down his anger, he probably could have taken care of all the paperwork himself. In the calmer, less-distracted state he’s in now, he wouldn’t be as likely to make mistakes.
    FRENZIED CONCLUSION
    Frenzy happens.
    Anxiety, sadness, anger happen. These emotions are part of the human emotional palette. But the good news is that they can be checked and handled. The science has now revealed to us the brain mechanisms that both feed and tame the frenzy and has also showed us that the more we work at it—the more we work to control our negative emotions—the more effective our efforts can be. They are efforts worth making.Because when you have calmed your frenzy, you will have the opportunity to be better focused, less distracted and more organized.
    Let’s find out now exactly how we do that.
    COACH MEG’S TIPS
    Frenzy is an emotional state, where we feel a little or a lot out of control, making us agitated and edgy. Dr. Hammerness has beautifully described the three root emotions that underpin this state that we call “frenzy”: anxiety, sadness, anger. The opposite of a frenzied state is feeling calm and peaceful, even when we’re engaged in high-energy activities—and that’s where we want to get you!
    Unfortunately, for many of us, feeling frenzied isn’t