Amy Banks: The Neurobiology of Harmonious Relationships. Review: On the same wavelength. Neurobiology of Harmonious Relationships, Amy Banks

11.10.2019

Amy Banks, Lee Hirschman

On the same wave. Neurobiology of harmonious relationships

Amy Banks, Leigh Ann Hirschman

Four Ways to Click:

Rewire Your Brain for Stronger, More Rewarding Relationships

Scientific editor Vladimir Shulpin

Published with permission from Jeremy P. Tarcher, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, and Andrew Nurnberg Literary Agency

Legal support for the publishing house is provided by Vegas Lex law firm.

This book is well complemented by:

Daniel Siegel

Foreword

Do you want to experience more joy and contentment in your life? All scientific studies related to happiness, longevity, mental and physical health point to the importance of such a factor as the strength of human relationships. In On the Same Wavelength, psychiatrist Amy Banks, MD, provides an innovative, easy-to-understand overview of the vast body of research in the neuroscience of relationships and offers readers ways to use this knowledge to rewire the brain for healthier connections that bring deep inner satisfaction. What does it give you personally? The ability to consciously change your life by improving relationships with other people. Relationships are not just the most enjoyable aspect of life. Relationships are life.

The result of a long study of the influence of culture on the formation of relationships, as well as the work of Amy Banks as a clinical psychiatrist, is a brilliant system called C.A.R.E., which helps to improve four aspects that allow us to get along with each other: how calmly we feel surrounded by other people (“C” - calm); accept whether they are us ("A" - accepted); like us resonate with their inner world ("R" - resonate) and how these contacts charge us energy("E" - energize). Using the C.A.R.E. as recommended in this book, readers can purposefully work with neural pathways that require fine-tuning to improve the quality of relationships with others. Understanding how our brains actually function will help us consciously change our lives!

I like this book! It is captivating, inspiring and beautifully written.

Do you want to find happiness? Live longer? To become healthier in mind and body? Then mastering the four ways to form more meaningful relationships that bring deep inner satisfaction is your key to achieving these goals. May Amy Banks show you the way to a better life filled with love and joy. Enjoy reading!

Daniel Siegel,

Doctor of Medical Sciences

Jamie and Alex for the love and joy that fills my life

Borders are exaggerated

A new look at relationships

Borders are exaggerated.

If you feel the need for a healthier, more mature relationship, want to let go of the old patterns of building relationships that bring you pain, are tired of feeling emotionally detached from the people you spend time with, intend to develop your inner world, then first question the idea of the existence of a clearly defined boundary between you and the people with whom you most often communicate.

People who talk a lot about such boundaries tend to have the following beliefs:

If you have a strong sense of self, you shouldn't care what other people do or say to you.

How do parents determine that they have achieved success? When their children are not dependent on them.

Close friends and true love are the destiny of the young. As you get older, you naturally move away from people.

You should not feel the need for others to complete you.

You wouldn't have so many problems if you stood on your own feet.

The main idea of all these statements is obvious: the need for other people is an unhealthy phenomenon, therefore, under no circumstances should you be influenced by their feelings, thoughts and emotions. The above statements are meant to have an emotional impact on you. You may have noticed that they sound somewhat disapproving and judgmental. They make me feel uncomfortable; reading them, I feel like I'm standing under a spotlight, and someone is pointing a finger at me and says: "You ruined everything and it's entirely your fault".

A culture that inspires you to distance yourself from people and be independent, among other things, imposes on you an ancient scenario that is based on the brain not in its current form, but in the way it once was.

Many years ago, my then very young children were presented with a set for growing a frog from a tadpole. Burning with curiosity, we set up a home for a frog in the kitchen and placed a tadpole in it, which we named Uncle Milty. Uncle Milty's house was next to the cooking area. Every morning before breakfast we looked into the little container of water to see if Uncle Milty's paws had grown. Weeks passed. Milty's head and torso got bigger and bigger, but... there were no legs. Everyone in our family understands how important relationships are for good health and development, so it was only natural for us to think like this: maybe Uncle Milty does not turn into a frog because he is lonely in his house? Just as human children suffer without care and affection, maybe Milty could not grow legs because there is no other amphibian next to him, to which he could cuddle? Perhaps, without a relationship, he will remain an immature, unsatisfied tadpole? No. Our family tried to analyze Milty like he had a human brain. But he didn't have that kind of brain. He had a reptilian brain.

For five hundred million years, the brains of reptiles and amphibians, in fact, did not develop. The reptilian brain doesn't need a relationship. For physical development, he does not need connections with other beings. The reptilian brain is entirely focused on survival, breathing, eating, reproducing, fighting and running from whatever wants to eat it. Uncle Milty never grew paws (the poor guy couldn't have run away from anything), but he most likely fell victim to a genetic mutation, not loneliness, since the reptilian brain cannot experience this feeling. He doesn't care about those around him. It's just a pattern of separation and complete independence.

Humans still have a portion of the primitive reptilian brain; this is the part of it that we call the brain stem. However, the brainstem is just one element of the human brain that has evolved into a much larger, more complex and advanced structure than the reptilian brain. There are a huge number of differences between the human and reptilian brains, but what interests me most is the fact that over the millennia, the human brain has lost the independence of the reptilian brain. For example, reptiles don't have the neural structures that make them feel pain if they're excluded from a social group... but we do. Reptiles don't have a nerve that uses a benevolent facial signal to reduce stress... but we do. Reptiles don't need to know that other reptiles really understand them... but we do. Reptiles don't release stimulatory neurochemicals in the company of their own kind... but in us... - you probably already understand what I mean.

Uncle Milty didn't need friends to turn into a fully grown frog, unlike us, for whom having healthy connections is vital. The ancient reptilian scenario of single-handed survival is life-threatening for mammals. This is a real threat for all of us. Fortunately, it is possible to write a new script that harmonizes with the actual structure of the human brain. A person has developed a deep need for communication with his own kind. In addition, we are constantly learning something new about the neuroscience of relationships. In this chapter, I will cover several aspects of this process.

No single part of the human brain is entirely responsible for regulating relationships; this function is integrated into many parts of the nervous system. While there is always a risk of oversimplification when describing neuroscience, I find it useful to consider the human brain's need for relationships in terms of the four major C.A.R.E. neural pathways discussed in the previous chapter. When you keep in touch with other people, your brain sends signals that help you to be in such states:

Calm ("C" - calm): intelligent vagus nerve.
Acceptance ("A" - accepted): dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC).
Resonance ("R" - resonant): a system of mirror neurons.
Energy ("E" - energetic): dopamine reward system.

The viability and strength of these neural pathways depend on the relationships that we had in childhood, and then their structure changes throughout our lives, again in the context of relationships. Yes, that's right: relationships determine the structure of the brain. Their quality determines our ability to be motivated, to remain cool in critical situations, and to correctly perceive the social signals of others. This is amazing news because it means that even if our C.A.R.E. are not functioning effectively, we can learn to use the power of relationships to heal and change them. In addition, we can approach raising the next generation differently so that our children and grandchildren have fully functioning systems for connecting with people.

"C" - "calm": intelligent vagus nerve

I'll start by talking about Brooke, my client. I'm sure her story will sound familiar to you. Perhaps you too have been in a similar situation.

Brooke was overjoyed that, after a long search, she finally landed a job just before the winter holidays. But at the same time, she was very worried about the upcoming holiday party that her boss was throwing on Friday. As the end of the week approached, Brooke became more and more torn between the desire to make a good impression on her colleagues and the fear of socializing in a large group of strangers. She imagined strained conversations with co-workers she barely knew, the humiliating feeling of her sweaty palm in another person's dry hand, and the awkward but reassuring moment when the other person announces that it's time for them to talk to someone else. Brooke resigned herself to the fact that the party would be a real stress for her and that she would have to take part in it for the sake of her career. The only hope for salvation could be either a sudden natural disaster or a free bar serving very large glasses of white wine.

That evening Brooke, upon entering the hotel lobby, immediately felt like an outsider. Everywhere she looked, there were crowds of people. It seemed to Brooke that some of them were looking in her direction and smirking. Calm down, thought Brooke, no one is laughing at you. However, she stood aside for almost half an hour, sipping wine and looking around in vain for someone who showed at least a little friendliness.

Salvation came in the form of Pete, Brooke's colleague, who greeted her warmly and wished her Happy Holidays. Almost immediately after that, Brooke began to calm down. She and Pete met a few days ago during a lunch meeting at the office. During the break, Brooke discovered that she and Pete shared the same sense of humor and an unusual hobby: fly fishing. At the party, they started the conversation where they ended it during the meeting: sharing stories about streams near the roads and discussing the best fly fishing lure for catching striped bass.

The rest of the party went off without a hitch. Pete brought two of his colleagues into the discussion, and Brooke met a few other people. Maybe it was the effect of the wine, as Brooke noted to herself, but those present began to seem more and more friendly and open to her.

In fact, the wine had nothing to do with it (Brook drank very little). Due to Brooke's difficult life circumstances, the neural pathway in her nervous system was unable to read correctly and adequately respond to the people she saw when she came to the party. Instead of friendly faces, Brooke seemed to be ridiculed. Even as she tried to talk herself into thinking differently (“Calm down, Brooke, no one is laughing at you”), she couldn’t help feeling insecure and feeling like she was an unwanted guest. But when she talked to her new friend Pete, this pathway in her nervous system (the intelligent vagus nerve) began to do its job. Brooke was able not only to relax, but also to transmit and receive social signals better. She exuded benevolence, and the response of those around her was not long in coming.

The human central nervous system is the control center for the electrical activity that initiates your thoughts and actions. The CNS contains an important subsystem: the autonomic nervous system, which allows you to quickly respond to threats and stress. It works constantly, performing its functions beyond your conscious understanding. This system covers the entire body, regulating the functioning of muscles, organs and glands. It used to be that the human autonomic nervous system resembled Uncle Milty's in many ways and consisted of two main parts:

- sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the famous fight-or-flight response;
- parasympathetic nervous system, causing the "freeze" response.

In other words, scientists believed that when you feel surprised or threatened, your body automatically responds to them in one of two ways: either the sympathetic nervous system is activated, providing you with the energy and attention you need to fight or flee, or the parasympathetic nervous system is activated. system, slowing down the processes occurring in the body to such a level that you either freeze or pretend to be dead. According to most introductory courses in biology and psychology, your "fight, flight or freeze" response is largely dependent on the degree of danger and your ability to withstand it. If the threat seems surmountable, and you are a big and strong person, you openly confront it. If you are small and weak, you better turn around and run as fast as you can. These are the behaviors in accordance with the fight-or-flight response dictated by the sympathetic nervous system. On the other hand, if you find yourself in a life-threatening situation, you can do the same thing as the little bunny I found on my porch last spring. This little bunny was left on the porch for me by one of my cats as a special "gift" and looked dead. In reality, he has a full-fledged “freeze” response, during which the parasympathetic nervous system has a slowing or calming effect. The body and brain stop working and literally freeze. Ideally, this reaction causes the predator to lose interest in its prey and leave. In addition, if the predator continues to attack, the “freeze” response provides protection from pain and stress. This is what the expression “play dead” is connected with, only the reaction “freeze” has nothing to do with pretense and is not amenable to conscious control. Moreover, it is so effective that a quarter of the animals that pretend to be dead actually die. (Fortunately, when I shielded the rabbit from the pursuers for several hours, the parasympathetic stimulation stopped, the rabbit came to life and ran away.) Obviously, such a reaction is the last line of defense for any animal, including humans.

The “fight, flight or freeze” responses of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, identified in the early 20th century by the physiologist Walter Cannon, were considered in society and scientific circles to be the true model of the stress response. But times are changing. And scientists today are looking at people's responses to stress from a different angle, arguing that "fight, flight or freeze" is not an exhaustive list of the body's possible course of action.

One such scientist, Stephen Porges, director emeritus of the Center for the Brain and Body at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, has for the first time identified a third branch of the autonomic nervous system, the intelligent vagus nerve, which is a newer evolutionary sense of the neural pathway than the sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system. While amphibians, reptiles, and fish show an older response, mammals have a sentient vagus nerve in addition to the first two neural pathways.

From an evolutionary point of view, the development of intelligent vagus has been inextricably linked with the emergence of mammals and their increased complexity of social organization and interdependence. Prior to this, the world was inhabited by creatures that were less dependent on each other in terms of survival. The fight-or-flight and freeze reactions were enough for them to cope with the complexities of the world around them. Have you ever wondered why turtles lay heaps of eggs while fish spawn huge amounts of eggs? The main reason is the need to increase the likelihood that at least one of the offspring will survive and be able to reproduce. Small turtles, fish, and many other non-mammalian creatures have no psychological or physical need for parental love; they immediately after birth begin to get their own food. Such animals are born with a full set of instincts related to hunting, feeding and self-preservation. They have everything they need to survive in their habitat... except for their size. Unfortunately, in a world where turtles eat fish, size matters. And significant. Therefore, the only hope for the survival of the species is to produce a large number of young in the hope that some of them will be able to avoid extermination by predators, live to the stage of maturity and produce offspring. For many millennia, this approach did work, but it was far from being the most effective.

Mammals are different from other classes. Our reproductive efforts are more efficient in the sense that we produce fewer children, but they are more likely to survive. One of the features is the dependence of a young mammal on others in the process of growth and development. Such a cub, in order to develop safely, needs not only food and water, but also hugs, gentle words and other stimulating contacts with adults. While turtles, fish, and frogs are born with the instincts necessary for independent living, the human baby is born with a full set of instincts for establishing contact with others. By carefully observing a newborn baby, you will notice how some of these instincts manifest themselves. Under the influence of the root reflex, the baby opens its mouth and turns its head towards the mother when looking for the breast in order to calm down and eat. The Moro reflex is manifested in the fact that the child spreads his arms and as if hugging himself with them. These instincts are of vital importance, since a newborn mammal is unable to survive without the help of a mother or other older member of the group who cares for him.

Most likely, as mammals evolved and the social complexity of life on Earth increased, there was a need (or opportunity) to use social ties to relieve stress. So you and I got a reasonable vagus - a vagus nerve that starts from the tenth cranial nerve at the base of the skull and goes to the front of the head, where it connects to the facial muscles of the face, as well as speech, swallowing and auditory muscles. (Yes, there are muscles in the hearing organs—tiny muscles in the inner ear.) When the facial expressions and voices of those around you convince you that these people are not a danger to you, the intelligent vagus signals the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems to shut down. Basically, he's saying, "I'm with my friends, so everything will be fine. At the moment, you don't have to fight, run, or freeze." The intelligent vagus nerve is one of the reasons why we are less stressed around people we trust.

In addition, when you feel safe, your muscles, thanks to the intelligent vagus nerve, perform the motor work necessary to maintain contact with others. Your eyelids and eyebrows are lifted, making your face look more open. The muscles of the inner ear tense up and prepare you to actively perceive the words of the interlocutor. Without even thinking about it, you look directly into his eyes. You have a lively expression that accurately reflects your emotional reaction to the situation. The mind vagus is the nerve that supports social interaction, allowing you to transmit and receive emotional information, which brings you closer to those around you and helps you feel calmer. This is precisely the "reasonableness" of the vagus nerve.

In an ideal world of relationships, your autonomic nervous system automatically reads information from the environment and responds to it by activating the intelligent vagus when you feel safe, the sympathetic nervous system when you are in danger, and the parasympathetic nervous system when your life is threatened. . However, if your intelligent vagus nerve is not working properly, it limits your ability to correctly interpret other people's intentions; you will not be able to see or hear others and risk misinterpreting their facial expressions. You find it harder to make eye contact and your facial expressions become more despondent, making you more likely to be perceived as hostile or indifferent. Imagine how others will react to your face if it looks aloof or angry.

If the sentient vagus nerve senses that others are unsafe, it automatically shuts down and stops sending inhibitory signals to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, leaving them free to unleash their stress response. If you are really in danger, such a reaction is quite justified and will benefit you. But if you're around people who don't pose a threat, and your nervous system has misidentified them as unsafe, the fight-or-flight response becomes a problem. You end up experiencing the familiar sensations that come with stress: increased heart rate, sweaty palms, dry mouth, and mental confusion. You may not hit anyone, but you can unleash a quarrel. Or resort to the social equivalent of running away (have you ever passed out mentally during an unpleasant conversation?). The parasympathetic “freeze” response is usually reserved for life-threatening events. However, in rare cases, people who have been significantly traumatized by others may temporarily switch off in social situations. Moreover, their reaction goes far beyond nervous trembling; such people literally cannot speak or move.

As for Brooke, at the very beginning of the office party, her sentient vagus was inactive, and her sympathetic nervous system was in working order. Few people would have liked the idea of going to a party where no one they knew would be, but Brooke was tormented by something more than simple anxiety. She had a genetic predisposition to an acute reaction to stress. In reality, both Brooke's mother and grandmother were anxious people who often preferred small groups of loved ones over large crowds. On the other hand, both women knew how to show Brooke their love and support. These two factors, anxiety and love, influenced the response of Brooke's autonomic nervous system to interpersonal interaction. She didn't have what neuroscientists call high vagal tone. Brooke's sentient vagus nerve didn't always perform well, making it difficult for her to deal with social situations. She tended to feel threatened by strangers, even if they showed friendly or neutral intentions. Brooke spent a whole week in fear of the upcoming event, so without the encouraging presence of a friend, she could not perceive the smiling faces of those around her as benevolent - they seemed to her mocking and indifferent. Since Brook's sentient vagus did not perceive the environment as safe, he was unable to provide a calming signal to the sympathetic nervous system. As a result, Brooke did not run away from the party, but chose to get lost somewhere on the sidelines.

Although Brooke was unable to correctly interpret the facial expressions of strangers, fortunately, her sentient vagus nerve was not completely out of order and was still able to respond to the presence of a friend. When Pete approached Brooke and wished her happy holidays, the vibrations of his voice reached her ear and affected tiny muscles, which in turn excited the sentient vagus nerve. Almost immediately, Brooke was overcome by a wave of relief. Her eyes scanned Pete's smiling face and she gave him a gleeful smile. As the muscles around the mouth and eyes tightened, they also excited the sentient vagus. After such stimulation, he immediately sent an inhibiting signal to both Brooke's sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. She no longer felt the urge to run away from the party, was safe, and talked to Pete about fly fishing. There is nothing surprising in the fact that other participants of the event began to seem to her benevolent and affable people, which caused a similar reaction in them.

Overall, Brooke's social anxiety was fairly mild, and talking to a friend helped break that cycle. However, for some people things are much worse. Such people have extremely low vagal tone, sometimes due to an unfortunate genetic predisposition, but much more often due to the fact that their nervous system was shaped by exposure to a constantly threatening environment.

The human nervous system is formed in early childhood. There are many everyday stressors in the life of a young child, such as hunger, the desire to sleep, wet diapers, and harsh sounds that signal discomfort or danger and excite the sympathetic nervous system. Ideally, when a child cries bitterly, his loved ones respond to this by taking care of him. The baby is changed in a diaper, offered milk, or hugged tightly and rocked from side to side. Under the influence of such an attitude, the infant's brain produces neurochemicals such as serotonin and endogenous opiates that reduce the sense of threat. The child calms down and ceases to feel fear. This experience not only allows the baby to associate the person who cares for him with safety, but also helps to form a more stable connection of the intelligent vagus with the parts of the brain responsible for recognizing safe faces, smells, sounds, etc. Over time, all the sensations that are associated in the perception of the child with healthy relationships, are encoded in his nervous system. The regulatory neural pathway between the sentient vagus and the sympathetic nervous system is becoming more and more stable. As a result, connections between people can already reduce a child's stress response. The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems can be calmed or turned off completely when the child is around loving family members or friends. The child develops the ability to distinguish between danger and safety and to form healthy relationships with others.

The process of strengthening the intelligent vagus nerve continues throughout a person's life, even when he reaches adulthood. If you've had a terrible work week, you know that Friday night dinner with a friend will help you unwind, as your friend will share your anxiety and share her bad news too: her mother has been diagnosed with a chronic illness. You will cry and laugh together, and at the end of the evening you will disperse in different directions. This meeting will not only make you feel better; stimulation of the intelligent vagus will fine-tune it. Every time you tell someone about problems and get support, your intelligent vagus nerve sends out its chemical signals faster and more efficiently.

But what happens if a sentient vagus forms in a chaotic, disconnected, and frightening environment? If a child is constantly in a state of psychological stress and no one calms him down, his sympathetic nervous system is constantly stimulated. A child's intelligent vagus nerve doesn't learn to associate human relationships with comfort and safety, and their brain doesn't know that there are times when the stress response can be turned off. If a child lives in a state of high alert for danger, he is unable to relax even when nothing threatens him, and will not enjoy interaction with others, even if they have good intentions.

Infancy is the most important period for brain development, but believe me: in a dangerous environment, the intelligent vagus nerve of an older child or adult is bound to suffer too.

If you are constantly in danger due to a bad family situation, high levels of violence in your area, or war, your brain responds rationally by being on high alert. The sympathetic nervous system goes into the “on” position and, depending on the degree and stability of the threat, can remain in it for a long time. Your heart starts beating faster, your lungs expand to provide more oxygen, and the blood vessels in your limbs expand to allow more blood to pass through. All this puts you in a state of readiness to fight or flee in case of danger. If an extremely unfavorable situation develops, the parasympathetic nervous system can prepare you for the “freeze” response. However, the human nervous system is designed to respond to a threat with short bursts of activity, not twenty-four hours a day. Being in a state of deep chronic stress, the body begins to break down. There is an increased risk of heart and other diseases, insomnia, depression, etc. Cortisol, a chemical produced to overcome the effects of the stress response, can damage brain cells responsible for memory if it is generated for too long.

The almost constant activation of the stress response is a kind of training for the neural pathways that provide the “fight, run or freeze” response: they become more stable and faster. The intelligent vagus, on the other hand, doesn't get the opportunity to exercise well and eventually loses its tone and weakens, leaving you with an active and hypersensitive set of stress responses that will cause you to perceive others as dangerous and evil, whatever the reality. This is a tragic situation, because we have an inherent desire to use safe relationships as a way to relieve stress. Without it, we may look more independent, but in reality we become weaker. Fortunately, there are many options to increase the tone of the intelligent vagus nerve. Below I will describe them in more detail.

"A" stands for "acceptance": dorsal anterior cingulate cortex

In 2003, three UCLA scientists invited several volunteers to take part in an online ball-passing game called Cyberball. The volunteer came to the lab and started playing the game while connected to the fMRI scanner. The game began quite friendly: the participant of the experiment and the researchers threw the ball back and forth. Everything was going well. But over time, the volunteer was gradually removed from the game, and no one explained why. No one even acknowledged the fact that something unusual was happening. In the end, the participant in the experiment was generally left out of the game, while the other players continued to pass the ball to each other.

Compared to other forms of social isolation, such as being beaten up on the playground or being snubbed by someone who is different, being kicked out of Cyberball without explanation is the most innocuous event. However, researchers Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman found that even this mild social isolation activates a specific part of the brain - the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex.

The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, or dACC, is a small, narrow area of brain tissue deep in the frontal lobe of the brain that is part of a complex signaling system that, until this experiment, was believed to cause negative sensations due to physical pain. Hit the corner of the kitchen table? dACC is activated. Pinched your fingers in a box? It's your dACC screaming, "Stop this terrible pain."

Therefore, the researchers were surprised when dACC was activated not because the person was hit or pinched, but because of a normal suspension from the game. Don't forget: the participants in the experiment did not experience any physical pain. They were simply ignored. The more emotional suffering the exclusion from the game caused the subject, the stronger the dACC region was excited. The authors of the study concluded that for our brain, the pain caused by social rejection is similar to the pain provoked by injury or illness. Our main signaling system is activated by both physical and social pain, and this confirms how important it is for us to be part of a social group, as well as how harmful it is for us to be excluded from it.

In our rigid, hyper-competitive culture that encourages the individual to overcome themselves, some therapists adhere to the standard practice of relieving the pain of rejection or loneliness by encouraging patients to become more emotionally independent. However, when doctors learn about a study that has established a link between social and physical pain, they rethink this strategy. This is explained by the fact that specialists providing social, medical and other assistance treat physical pain with all responsibility. Chronic physical pain is known to have serious consequences such as stress response, depression, anxiety, and physical health problems. Imagine a person in severe physical pain who goes to the emergency room. Doctors may not agree on the best course of treatment, but most of them will try to address both the pain itself and its cause. No true doctor would even think of ignoring this person's suffering by telling him, "We are going to re-educate you so that you become less emotionally dependent." After experimenting with Cyberball, it seems terribly cruel to do this to a person suffering from social pain. It is much more humane and expedient to recognize its existence and help a person establish healthy relationships with others, since for all of us belonging to a group is something more than one of the pleasant aspects of life. This is a biological need.

To understand why social isolation leads to dACC activation, let's take a closer look at what we know about physical pain. According to the division of functions, the nervous system registers the unpleasant physical sensations caused by pain, while dACC registers the suffering that you experience because of this pain. The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex is like a fire alarm that warns you to leave the house in the event of a fire - only the dACC sounds an alarm when you feel pain so that you can respond to the injury. Without such a signal, you would continue to walk through the forest without noticing that your ankle hurts. Or they might not see that blood is pouring from the cut, which means they would not stop it and wash the wound. In other words, the suffering that causes you pain provides you with information that will help you maintain physical health and even life. In rare cases, when a person experiences severe chronic pain, the cause of which cannot be eliminated, the neurosurgeon decides to perform a cingulotomy - the surgical removal of a fragment of the dACC associated with suffering from pain. As a result, the person continues to feel pain, but it ceases to bother him. Having a cingulotomy is like turning off a smoke detector: you still feel pain, but without the alarm of suffering, you have no incentive to look for its source in order to eliminate it.

The fact that this same region of dACC registers the stress associated with social exclusion was a real revelation for scientists, although I think that this discovery would have seemed elementary to our cave ancestors. The suffering caused by social pain warned them that it was extremely risky to live a lonely life. In a group, they could exchange information about food sources or unite to hunt a mammoth, and alone die of hunger or die in a fight with a beast. In the 1950s, American psychologist Harry Harlow conducted an experiment by placing baby monkeys next to two artificial mothers: one made of wire mesh and feeding the babies, while the other did not feed the babies, but was covered with a soft cloth. The monkeys preferred a soft artificial mother. Primates (which include you and me) are characterized by an acute internal need for physical intimacy, which is much stronger than the need for food.

Since humans are by nature social beings and are in dire need of contact with other people, we must pay attention to the distress signal given by the dACC. When we have feelings of isolation or alienation, we should be able to say, “This is a terrible feeling. I need to do something about it!” - and then direct all your energy to solving the problem. To do this, we can turn to reliable friends for help, if necessary, repair a crack in a relationship or reconnect after a long, sometimes difficult parting.

However, if we are supporters of the idea of self-reliance and independence, we react to the emergency signal that our brain gives in a completely different way. Instead of listening to it, we try to suppress it: “To experience such feelings is stupid! I'm an adult, I don't need anyone!" or "I'll just deal with it." It's like hearing a smoke detector and walking away saying, "I guess I just need to get used to that awful sound." You are ignoring the cause of the alarm. Meanwhile, your house is slowly burning down.

What worries me is what happens to our brains in a world where interpersonal relationships are not considered a priority. We humans are endowed with the ability to think abstractly and remember the events of the past - and this is our blessing and curse. These two qualities of the human brain are capable of increasing our life satisfaction. You use them when you're imagining the date you're going on, or imagining having fun with friends by the pool, or looking forward to a warm family reunion after a long business trip. Of course, it is impossible to predict how a relationship with another person will develop. In fact, you are constantly making assumptions about it based on past experience.

The problem arises if you live in a culture that doesn't support healthy relationships or teach people how to form them. A person who has been repeatedly socially isolated in the past uses this bitter experience as a template for creating a picture of the future. You expect another lockdown and will likely interpret your social contacts in line with those expectations. The more you are excluded from the social circle, the more these negative experiences are intertwined with your neural pathways. Instead of looking forward to warm encounters and pleasant experiences, you assume that you will be rejected again. And when it does, dACC almost always activates at least a little. This creates a particularly big problem when people experience rejection and abuse during childhood, when their brains form the first neural pathways for building relationships. The neural pathway that should help them connect with other people, on the contrary, turns into a neural pathway that keeps them in fear and isolation.

One of my favorite films, Good Will Hunting, perfectly illustrates how past relationships can lead to the creation of a hyperactive dACC. The protagonist of the picture, Will, was born and raised in the dilapidated neighborhood of South Boston (before the inhabitants of the big city moved there and put things in order). Will is an Einstein-level math genius who works as a janitor in the hallowed halls of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) by day and hangs out with friends at night. At a local bar, he meets a Harvard student named Skylar and charms her with his intelligence, sense of humor, and good looks. As their relationship grows closer, Skylar tries to deepen it and Will loses his temper. He yells at her, talking about the abuse and neglect he experienced as a child. (I would venture here to suggest that yelling is hardly an effective way to convey the message of vulnerability to others.) Overwhelmed by emotion, Will lifts his shirt and reveals a long red scar on his body left by a blow from one of his adoptive parents. Clearly, in showing clear evidence of his deepest wounds, Will is not inviting Skylar to get close to him, but is actively trying to push her away. At the end of this scene, Will tells Skylar that he doesn't love her and runs out of the room.

Perhaps you know a person like Will, or even are one yourself. His relationship pattern (which might be called a controlling mindset since it largely keeps his adult life in check) was formed in early childhood and reinforced repeatedly by severe beatings, frequent rejection, neglect, and poverty. In each of our lives, the environment of early childhood determines the creation of new neural pathways, including the dACC tool for measuring suffering. In Will's case, as with other abused children, the dACC neural pathway established a link between closeness and the threat of rejection and physical pain. This is the brain-generated equivalent of readiness #1. As a result, your ability to think is relegated to the background, and the brain uses its most powerful weapon - fear and self-preservation. When this happens, attempts to get close are indistinguishable from attempts to kill.

People who have suffered severe emotional trauma are not the only ones with hyperactive dACC. Moderate experiences of rejection also have lasting consequences. Even if you had a perfect, love-filled childhood and a trouble-free adolescence, you still live in a culture that judges success by how much you need other people and whether you were able to fight your way up. Of course, we understand that we must behave politely with others and that each person is an individual. However, in addition to learning the alphabet at an early age, children learn from adults the idea that people should be divided into the smartest and the dumbest, the fastest and the slowest, and also know which children are brought from the old central quarters of the city to the outskirts. to the best schools, and which ones can go to the same school from their big house. In our culture, a high level of competition is at the core of raising children and shaping their brains. I am in no way detracting from normal, healthy competition (put me in front of the basketball hoop and I'll get the better of you...but then we'll go eat pie together). I'm talking about a rivalry that is purely subjective, that underpins judgments about who deserves love and acceptance and who doesn't, and makes everyone worry that it's only a matter of time before being 'banished from the island'.

In an environment with a high level of competition, value judgments and rejection, all relationship models are distorted, and dACC is more or less active. Evidence of this can be found in the behavior of adults who experience an exaggerated need to control a narrow circle of people at work or in social life. Such people may behave like kings or queens of the hill, but the more they try to secure their place in the group by excluding others from it, the more anxious they feel when members of the group exclude them from among "their own." If these people were not afraid to be frank, they would admit to you that being at the lowest rung of the hierarchy is so painful that they would avoid it at all costs, but being alone at the top rung is no less destructive.

Another extreme is a person who easily takes on the role of an outsider, not even expecting to become a member of any group. The first type bears the burden of rage, while the second type bears the burden of shame. Both emotions arise when a person feels unworthy to be part of a larger community, and both are cause and effect of social isolation as well as hyperactive dACC.

"R" stands for "resonance": a mirror system

Resonance is a deep non-verbal connection between our organs and the brain, thanks to which we feel warmth in the hands when another person rubs their hands, or feel the sadness of a friend before she talks about it. At the heart of the resonance is what Rizzolatti and his team encountered when they discovered that the brain of a monkey mimics the actions of a researcher raising his hand.

The mirror system that creates resonance is the third neural pathway of C.A.R.E; her story is even more amazing when you consider the role she plays in understanding what the other person is saying. When you have ten minutes to spare, a clean pencil, and a friend nearby, do this experiment (designed by Paula Niedenthal of the Emotion Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to emphasize the importance of the mirror system in rapport).

Sit opposite each other and remember some detailed emotional story. The first listener should place a pencil or pen horizontally in their mouth and keep it there while the other tells the story. Then switch roles.

Have any of you noticed that the process of listening to an interlocutor with a pen in your mouth is different from the usual process? I use this exercise with workshop participants, and every time I hear the same answers to this question. As a rule, at first, the narrators complain that they felt completely ridiculous trying to communicate with a person holding a pen in their mouth, and that this distracts from the flow of the story. As for the meaning of what they heard, the opinion of the subjects is usually unanimous: when the facial muscles are busy holding the pen in the mouth, it is much more difficult to perceive information. To most of us, this conclusion may seem strange and unexpected. After all, the pen does not cover the ears. What does all this mean?

Steven Wilson was a graduate student at UCLA when he began studying the relationship between speaking and listening, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see what is happening in the brain. As a result, Wilson found that the participants in the experiment activated the same part of the brain when they listened and when they spoke. In another study on overlapping listening and speaking, the German neurologist Ingo Meister used a new technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation that actually turns off the speech center in the human brain, and found that when the motor neurons that control speech are turned off, people harder to understand what they hear. In all likelihood, the internal imitation of another person's speech during a conversation is important for understanding what was said.

So what happens when your face is essentially paralyzed? The ability to make different facial expressions can not only be blocked by taking a pencil in the mouth, but also not have at all due to a condition that prevents the movement of the facial muscles. People with Möbius syndrome (a rare congenital condition associated with damage to the facial nerves) provide researchers with an opportunity to study this issue in real life. Since such people always have a frozen expression on their faces, it is difficult for them to convey their emotions to others. Considering how often we rely on our facial expressions to show our feelings to others, this is not surprising. What really came as a surprise to scientists was that Mobius syndrome makes it harder for people to read other people's emotions. Just as a pencil in your teeth prevents your brain from imitating the speech of another person, facial paralysis prevents those suffering from Möbius syndrome from internally copying the actions of other people. And given that such imitation is the key to the perception of what is heard, it is much more difficult for victims of this disease to understand others. People who have facial wrinkles treated with Botox also have difficulty reading the emotions of others. Because Botox injections temporarily paralyze the muscles, these people cannot perform internal imitation in the way they used to.

Your brain doesn't just copy people's movements. A series of experiments since Rizzolatti's research have shown that the mirror system works at a deep level. If you see a person in pain, your brain mimics that experience. When you watch another person smile or frown, the same parts of your brain are activated, although their activity will not be as intense. The mirror system is activated even when a person only hints at what he is going to do. Let's say you're standing in line at Starbucks and the man in front of you starts moving his arm. In this case, you just “know” that he is going to point at the lemon cake (even though he doesn’t actually do it yet), because your brain copies this movement and uses the information received to interpret the actions and emotions of this person, as well as predict what he might do next. Other people do the same with you.

Apparently, the mirror system is the most important element of the complex act of empathy. As soon as your mirror system registers information about a person's actions or feelings, this data passes through the insula of the brain - a small piece of neural tissue that lies deep in the brain and helps to establish a correspondence between the content of the action and the feeling state. The experience that arose as a result of imitation becomes the feeling that you experience in connection with the emotions of another person.

Of course, this process has its limits. We do not copy all the actions that are performed before our eyes by another person, and we do not experience all the feelings that others experience. It would be too tiring and might even paralyze our activity. A world filled with unfiltered emotions would turn into a real nightmare! Fortunately, for most of us, biology has once again made life easier by creating an additional mirror system as an integral part of the great plan to understand other people.

An additional mirror system acts like a brake when idling a car. In modern cars with an automatic transmission, the initial mode of movement is set at the entrance to the traffic light. If you just take your foot off the gas pedal, the car will move on. If you want it to stop, you need to put your foot on the brake pedal. In the same way, a conventional mirror system is constantly registering the feelings and actions of others, so sometimes it is necessary to "hit the brake" to stay in a neutral position. It is at this moment that the additional mirror system is launched. And thanks to her, you don’t have to cry too if someone is crying nearby, or repeat the movement of your hand when you see someone in a cafe reaching out for pastries.

UCLA psychiatry professor and author Marco Iacoboni believes that the Auxiliary Mirror System has a regulatory, inhibitory effect on the normal Mirror System so that we don't physically act out every action or feeling of the people around us. In collaboration with Itzhak Fried (a researcher who studied epilepsy by connecting electrodes to specific areas of the brain), Jacoboni began to map the accessory mirror system in the frontal lobe of the brain. Whether you actually do something or just know that another person has done it depends on how the normal mirror system and the additional mirror system interact with each other. The first is activated both when you yourself move your hand and when you watch the person on the other side of the room do it. The second is more active when you are watching someone's hand move, and less active when you move your hand yourself.

My experience with a client named Jessica shows how both systems work together to elicit an empathic response. The evening before her scheduled therapy session, Jessica told me that her boyfriend had broken up with her for a year and whom she (and everyone else) thought she would marry. Ray had been quite aloof for the past two weeks, but Jessica attributed it to the upcoming holidays and his family's arrival in town, believing he was just busy. She tried to convince herself that everything would be all right with the coming of the new year. However, during the usual (as it seemed to Jessica) dinner, Ray broke off relations with her right in the restaurant. Jessica's message said, "Ray just dumped me. I'm shocked!

When I saw Jessica in my waiting room the next morning, my mirror system responded immediately. Looking into the girl's red, sad eyes and downturned lips, I was so filled with sympathy for her that the neurons in my prefrontal cortex fired up to such an extent that my internal state imitated her suffering. The neurons in my somatosensory cortex recreated the state of itchy, swollen eyes that had been crying all night. As the insula relayed this information to my visceral system, I felt a heaviness in my stomach and chest. This empathic experience of Jessica's pain was immediate.

Fortunately, my complementary mirror system (therapist's best friend) also activated, allowing me to experience what my client is feeling - but only to feel. As Jessica sat in front of me crying with her face in her hands, I felt tears welling up in my eyes, but I held back. This ability to reduce the intensity of emotions plays a crucial role in maintaining good relationships. Think about this. If we constantly imitated everything that happens around us, humanity would be swept by a gigantic wave of one feeling. But, fortunately, we manage to avoid this.

When the mirror system triggers an empathic response, the latter is not an exact copy of the other person's experience and does not lead to a complete fusion of feelings. However, Jessica's sadness was strong and clear enough for us to have an empathic connection. Just like a fish knows how to turn with the whole school, Jessica and I instinctively knew how to get closer to each other in this magical, heartfelt moment. This happens not just at the emotional level, but at the biological level. There was harmony between us on the physical, emotional and neural levels. For both of us, it was a reminder that we humans cannot and should not be alone in this world.

Unfortunately, the model of human development, which is based on the theory of separation-individuation, does not leave much room for reflection on the mirror system and kinship between people. In the recent past, mental health professionals were taught that empathy should not be a part of psychotherapy sessions, as it was believed that empathy could have a detrimental effect on the treatment process, which was to look for mental blocks that prevent a person from “standing firmly on their feet.” Many psychotherapists now view empathy as the most important element of a healthy healing relationship. However, the old approach is still reflected in the idea that we should not feel the need to connect with other people in order to share happiness or heartache, or that healthy people should avoid "capturing" the emotions of others. To be sure, this approach is found in competitive everyday environments, in which we tend to view others as rivals rather than potential friends, and almost everyone is constantly under stress. According to the existing ideal of success, you are admired for your ability to do something well without regard to the impact of these actions on others. To relieve stress, people play computer games or watch violent TV shows.

Such an environment actively destroys the natural physiology of connections between people. In our competitive, overly violent world, a person experiences so much pain that the only way to survive is to ignore the signals of the mirror system about the feelings, actions and intentions of other people. Although the mirror system is activated involuntarily, you can consciously reject the signals given to you by those around you. Over time, you can even develop the ability to separate from your own body, which is a larger version of facial paralysis by holding a pencil in your mouth and makes it even harder to decipher other people's feelings. When you are separated from your body, you do not perceive the sensations that it tells you about. Many years ago, I treated a woman who had been physically abused as a child. This patient, in order to protect herself from feeling pain, ignored the basic signals of the body for so long and effectively that, as an adult, she had no idea what it means to be hungry. Have you ever felt a slight ache in your chest when you wake up in the morning? You and I know that this is a feeling of hunger, but my patient hardly noticed it. When she nevertheless paid attention to this sensation, it seemed to her that her stomach hurt. As a result, she rarely ate breakfast, and during the day she ate only in order to stay on her feet. This woman had to relearn how to focus her attention on her own body in order to understand the signals she should have read instinctively.

Any time you receive an empathic signal that makes you feel uncomfortable (such as pain), you can discard it. But if you do this often enough, you can harm the mirror system, because it only develops with constant use and consists of neurons located in different areas of the brain, especially those that control actions, sensations and feelings. As you will see in the next chapter, complex neural pathways become stronger when they make strong connections under repeated stimulation. It is this bonding of different parts of the brain that provides the formation of a three-dimensional perception of the world of another person. This gives you clearer, more complex information, which means that your empathic response is more in line with the other person's true feelings. In the absence of repeated stimulation, the pathways between neurons weaken and lose their ability to transmit signals. Our complex mirror system needs this kind of stimulation so that we can retain the gift of understanding each other.

Will we really lose the ability to communicate due to the rapid development of modern technology? I don't think it will happen, but we need to educate children and adults about the role of the mirror system in human interaction, as well as teach them how to keep their nervous system in proper condition. I am writing this chapter while I am sitting in the Panera restaurant, and the patrons of the restaurant are having good old-fashioned conversations around me. Elderly men and women sitting at a large table laugh, talk, drink coffee, eat muffins - and thereby stimulate their mirror system. Another group of co-workers is discussing a working draft; two people are leaning over their computers and typing something on them, the rest are talking, laughing, drinking coffee - and stimulating their mirror system. My children are at school now. On a typical day, they might work in small groups in the lab, learn to assign tasks and collaborate on a report, goof around at lunch with friends, or ask teachers for help—in all of these interactions, they stimulate their mirror system. Nowadays, such communication between people is as widespread as Apple products. We are shaped not so much by the devices we use, but by the culture in which they are placed. If we, as a society, see human connections as the focus of our lives and recognize the need to stimulate our mirror system to maintain our ability to understand and cooperate with others, then the electronic world will follow suit.

"E" stands for "energy": the dopamine reward system

In the fourth neural pathway, we meet dopamine, a neurotransmitter that makes our lives much more enjoyable. Like many other neurotransmitters, dopamine performs different functions in our brain and body depending on which neural pathway it travels. The dopamine pathway directly associated with relationships - the neural pathway that enters the reward system and is known as the mesolimbic pathway - originates in the brainstem. It then sends projections to the amygdala, which is responsible for the formation of feelings and emotions, and passes to the thalamus, which acts as a kind of relay. The mesolimbic pathway ends in the orbitomedial prefrontal cortex, where decision-making takes place, and then returns to the brain stem, forming a closed loop, and modulates the production of dopamine.

Dopamine stimulation in this neural pathway allows you to experience pleasant emotions. Remember how Jean Baker Miller talked about how relationships that promote growth create a special interest in life? We owe this to dopamine; our sensations resemble a surge of warm, motivating energy. The purpose of this system is to reward healthy growth-promoting activities (such as eating right, having sex, and maintaining warm relationships) with the release of dopamine, which makes us feel good. The upliftment we experience as a result motivates us to engage in these healthy activities even more. Such a system encourages people to do what is good for all of us.

It's a brilliant system, but only if it works properly. In an ideal world, a person is born with a brain that associates human communication with dopamine. During the first months and years of life, you develop such pleasant and healthy relationships with others that the dopamine system learns to establish an even closer connection between relationships and well-being. The results of one study showed that the more dopamine receptors in the striatum (part of the forebrain), the higher your social status and social support. The more dopamine, the stronger the connection between people.

However, what happens to this neural pathway if in the first months and years of life the child does not feel the care and support of others? What happens to children who are taught that independence should be above all else? With children who have been taught that relying on others is a sign of weakness and vulnerability? In these children, the relationship is disconnected from the dopamine reward system. From the brain’s point of view, this is a perfectly logical defensive measure: if the relationship is threatening or unhealthy, it should not be associated with a rewarding release of dopamine. In adult life, these people do not get much pleasure from communicating with others and are unable to draw energy from it; on the contrary, it only empties and exhausts them.

This is why you may have heard of the notoriety of the dopamine or mesolimbic pathway. It has recently been discovered that drugs (indeed, all addictive habits) stimulate the mesolimbic pathway and the production of dopamine. And the more often this happens, the more stable the addiction becomes.

It is important to understand how a neural pathway seemingly designed to stimulate healthy relationships between people can contribute to the formation of drug addiction. Addictive drugs (such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana) attack the central nervous system from two directions. The first effect of the drug on the body is unique for this narcotic substance. Cocaine causes euphoria and a burst of energy by generating a release of large amounts of the natural neurotransmitter norepinephrine. Heroin, on the other hand, mimics the effects of natural opiates produced by our body.

While the initial state of high after taking the drug is very tempting, it is the second aspect of the action of drugs that leads to drug addiction - stimulation of the dopamine reward system. In the case of repeated use of the drug, the body adapts either by producing less dopamine or by suppressing the receptors. As a result, you get less "high" (or reward). Over time, addiction develops and it becomes necessary to increase the dose of the drug in order to experience a state of euphoria.

Drug and alcohol addiction is the most famous, but far from the only type of bad habits. In fact, any action that, due to frequent performance, interferes with other important activities, can be attributed to this category. By perverting the original design of the dopamine system, the brain learns to associate dopamine production with extremely harmful hobbies. When the powerful chemical mechanism of addiction kicks in, humans are no different than lab rats obsessively pushing the lever to get stimulants, even if they starve to death afterwards.

The mechanism of addiction is specific and destructive. However, in some sense, we all strive to get more dopamine and live from one dopamine surge to another. What really matters is the source of dopamine. It can be life-affirming, like quenching your thirst or having a baby, or it can be destructive, like drug addiction. But each of us craves dopamine. Such is human physiology and the operation of the dopamine reward system.

When we are forced to be highly self-reliant, independent individuals, we risk limiting our access to the main beneficial sources of dopamine. However, it is possible to rewire your brain so that you enjoy relationships more and seek to connect with others instead of looking for dangerous substitutes. In The Neuroscience of Human Relationships, Luis Cozolino writes, “It is critical to realize that healing involves reconnecting the dopamine reward system to the relationship.” Through practice and understanding of how the dopamine system works, you can teach your brain how to stop looking for dopamine in the wrong places, as well as show it that the easiest way to feel better is to talk to someone who is not a danger to you.

The scientific basis for this process is obvious. Social withdrawal stimulates our brain's pain pathways and stress response system, making us more likely to seek out harmful sources of dopamine. In addition, we deprive ourselves of the richness of human experience, of empathic connections, the complex network of which determines the depth and strength of feelings and emotions.

But there are many ways to fuel neural pathways to keep in touch with other people. If these neural pathways are damaged, you can start repairing them. If they are just abandoned, you can develop them. And if they are too tense, you can calm them down. In the next chapter, I will tell you how to change our brain for the better.

On the same wave. Neurobiology of harmonious relationships Lee Hirschman, Amy Banks

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Title: On the same wavelength. Neurobiology of harmonious relationships
Author: Lee Hirschman, Amy Banks
Year: 2015
Genre: Foreign psychology, Personal growth, Social psychology

About the book “On the same wavelength. The Neurobiology of Harmonious Relationships by Lee Hirschman, Amy Banks

A recent study showed that 25% of people find it difficult to name a person who is truly close to them. Surprisingly - did the "social animal", having got into social networks, lost the ability to create strong relationships with its fellows?

Not at all, say Lee Hirschman and Amy Banks. The authors of the book “On the same wavelength. The Neurobiology of Harmonious Relationships are convinced that the key to strong ties with people dear to you - lover, parents, friends - is in your hands. Or rather, in your head, because the method proposed in the book is to develop the so-called "neural pathways" - the mechanisms responsible for rapprochement with other people.

Psychiatrist Amy Banks and co-author Lee Hirschman share how developing these pathways of calmness, resonance, acceptance, and energy help build healthy, trusting relationships. The toolkit offered by the book "On the same wavelength" is based on the latest achievements in neuroscience. It will allow the reader to take a step towards happiness, tuned in to the full disclosure of their potential in relationships with others.

This guide is not just for those who are dissatisfied with their current relationship (or lack thereof). The book by Banks and Hirschman is also addressed to those who feel superfluous in the company of friends and misunderstood in the family, suffer from any addictions, or simply need friendly advice. At the same time, acting as friends, Lee Hirschman and Amy Banks give advice based not on subjective "worldly wisdom", but on real scientific and medical experience.

"On the same wave. The Neurobiology of Harmonious Relationships is an invaluable guide to a world where people build walls around themselves. Social networks, distance learning, remote work - all this makes us pathological introverts, losing the ability to truly open up to people. This book will remind you that boundaries in a relationship can be overcome, and show you how to become a little closer to each other - no matter if it's family, colleagues or fans of the same team.

On our website about books, you can download and read online the book “On the same wavelength. Neurobiology of Harmonious Relationships" by Lee Hirschman, Amy Banks in epub, fb2, txt, rtf formats. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and a real pleasure to read. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For novice writers, there is a separate section with useful tips and tricks, interesting articles, thanks to which you can try your hand at writing.

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Harmonious close relationships, or lack thereof, have a huge impact on our health and well-being. Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Amy Banks in the book "On the same wavelength" talks about the neurobiology of relationships and suggests literally "rewiring" your brain in order to be able to create harmonious relationships with others. Thanks to the Mann, Ivanov and Ferber publishing house, the book will soon be published in Russian. And with their permission, we publish several excerpts from it.

Amy Banks— MD, clinical psychiatrist and psychotherapist. For fifteen years, she has helped clients form strong bonds with others and heal nervous system disorders caused by social isolation and emotional withdrawal. In On the Same Wavelength, she talks about the neuroscience of relationships and invites us to rewire our brains for C.A.R.E. It includes four aspects, thanks to which we can build harmonious relationships: how calm we feel surrounded by other people (“C” - calm); whether they accept us ("A" - accepted); how we resonate with their inner world (“R” - resonate) and how these contacts energize us (“E” - energize).

The Amy Banks system is a series of simple actions that help us influence neural pathways and literally heal the brain and establish harmonious relationships with others at different levels: from cellular to behavioral.

As Daniel Siegel writes in the preface to this book, “Relationships are not just the most enjoyable aspect of life. Relationships are life."

On the same wave. Neurobiology of harmonious relationships. Amy Banks

calmness

Feeling calm is partly regulated by a neural pathway in the autonomic (autonomic) nervous system called the intelligent vagus nerve (intelligent vagus). When you experience anxiety, your primary brain tries to get involved, and if it takes over, the decisions it makes are far from good for the relationship. In the presence of strong connections with other people, the intelligent vagus can reduce the stress response and prevent the primary brain from taking control of what is happening. You become healthier, think more clearly, and have a creative approach to problem solving instead of succumbing to temper tantrums or running for your life.

However, if you are isolated from others, your intelligent vagus nerve may be in a state that neuroscientists call low tone. And in this case, the primary brain is able to take control of the situation. In the short term, this leads to relationship problems, and in the long term, it is fraught with the development of chronic stress, illness, depression, and irritability.

Adoption

The sense of belonging to a social group arises as a result of the correct functioning of the dorsal zone of the anterior cingulate cortex (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dACC), the role of which is displayed in the theory of superposition of physical and social pain. Its authors believe that social exclusion causes physical pain.

Unfortunately, a person who often experiences feelings of social exclusion can develop a dorsal anterior cingulate cortex that is highly responsive to social pain, causing them to feel rejected even when people are kind to them. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were lashed out by a person after a completely seemingly harmless and friendly address, such as: “Listen, you look a little tired today. Are you okay?" Then you know what an overactive dorsal anterior cingulate cortex is.

Resonance

Resonance with other people (that feeling that arises among friends who understand each other perfectly) is formed through the mediation of the mirror system. As I said before, the sensations of other people literally leave an imprint in our nervous system. If mirror neural pathways are weak, it can be difficult to read others, or even give signals that allow them to read you.

Energy

Energy is a consequence of the work of the dopamine reward system, functioning in those parts of the brain that are responsible for relationships. Initially, a well-thought-out mechanism for improving life was laid in a person, which still exists. By engaging in healthy, developmental activities, we are rewarded with a release of dopamine, which activates the entire reward system and causes a wave of euphoria and a surge of energy. The uplifting effect that comes with dopamine release is one of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Water, a balanced diet, sex and relationships with other people stimulate the production of dopamine.

It was a simple and ingenious plan...until casinos, malls and opium dens came along. Sadly, if people don't truly enjoy relationships, they turn to less healthy sources of dopamine, such as shopping, drugs, or compulsive sex. By using them often enough, people can rewire their brains so that dopamine pathways are no longer related to relationships. In this case, even if there are excellent relationships, some people will not enjoy them.

Calm. Adoption. Resonance. Energy. Each of the four paths forms a feedback loop. Include good relationships in it and it will strengthen the corresponding neural pathway. Strengthen the neural pathway - and your relationship will bring you even more pleasure. Each of the paths contains many areas where you can intervene and activate the entire system.

"C" - "calm": intelligent vagus nerve

The human central nervous system is the control center for the electrical activity that initiates your thoughts and actions. The CNS contains an important subsystem: the autonomic nervous system, which allows you to quickly respond to threats and stress. It works constantly, performing its functions beyond your conscious understanding. This system covers the entire body, regulating the functioning of muscles, organs and glands. It used to be that the human autonomic nervous system consisted of two main parts: the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the famous fight-or-flight response; the parasympathetic nervous system, causing the "freeze" response.<…>

The “fight, flight or freeze” responses of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, identified in the early 20th century by the physiologist Walter Cannon, were considered in society and scientific circles to be the true model of the stress response. But times are changing. And scientists today are looking at people's responses to stress from a different angle, arguing that "fight, flight, or freeze" is not a complete list of the body's possible actions.

Basically, he's saying, "I'm with my friends, so everything will be fine. At the moment, you don't have to fight, run, or freeze." The intelligent vagus nerve is one of the reasons why we are less stressed around people we trust. In addition, when you feel safe, your muscles, thanks to the intelligent vagus nerve, perform the motor work necessary to maintain contact with others. Your eyelids and eyebrows are lifted, making your face look more open. The muscles of the inner ear tense up and prepare you to actively perceive the words of the interlocutor. Without even thinking about it, you look directly into his eyes. You have a lively expression that accurately reflects your emotional reaction to the situation.

The mind vagus is the nerve that supports social interaction, allowing you to transmit and receive emotional information, which brings you closer to those around you and helps you feel calmer. This is precisely the "reasonableness" of the vagus nerve.

If you are really in danger, such a reaction is quite justified and will benefit you. But if you're around people who don't pose a threat, and your nervous system has misidentified them as unsafe, the fight-or-flight response becomes a problem. You end up experiencing the familiar sensations that come with stress: increased heart rate, sweaty palms, dry mouth, and mental confusion. You may not hit anyone, but you can unleash a quarrel.

Or resort to the social equivalent of running away (have you ever passed out mentally during an unpleasant conversation?). The parasympathetic “freeze” response is usually reserved for life-threatening events. However, in rare cases, people who have been significantly traumatized by others may temporarily switch off in social situations. Moreover, their reaction goes far beyond nervous trembling; such people literally cannot speak or move.<…>

Infancy is the most important period for brain development, but believe me: in a dangerous environment, the intelligent vagus nerve of an older child or adult is bound to suffer too. If you are constantly in danger due to a bad family situation, high levels of violence in your area, or war, your brain responds rationally by being on high alert.<…>

"A" stands for "acceptance": dorsal anterior cingulate cortex

In 2003, three UCLA scientists invited several volunteers to take part in an online ball-passing game called Cyberball. A volunteer would come into the lab and start playing a game while connected to an fMRI scanner. The game began quite friendly: the participant in the experiment and the researchers tossed the ball back and forth. Everything was going well. But over time, the volunteer was gradually removed from the game, and no one explained why. No one even acknowledged the fact that something unusual was happening. In the end, the participant in the experiment was generally left out of the game, while the other players continued to pass the ball to each other.

In an environment with a high level of competition, value judgments and rejection, all relationship models are distorted, and dACC is more or less active. Evidence of this can be found in the behavior of adults who experience an exaggerated need to control a narrow circle of people at work or in social life. Such people may behave like kings or queens of the hill, but the more they try to secure their place in the group by excluding others from it, the more anxious they feel when members of the group exclude them from among their own. If these people were not afraid to be frank, they would admit to you that being at the lowest rung of the hierarchy is so painful that they would avoid it at all costs, but being alone at the top rung is no less destructive.

"R" stands for "resonance": a mirror system

To most of us, this conclusion may seem strange and unexpected. After all, the pen does not cover the ears. What does all this mean?

In another study on overlapping listening and speaking, the German neurologist Ingo Meister used a new technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation that actually turns off the speech center in the human brain, and found that when the motor neurons that control speech are turned off, people harder to understand what they hear. In all likelihood, the internal imitation of another person's speech during a conversation is important for understanding what was said.<…>

In the same way, a conventional mirror system is constantly registering the feelings and actions of others, so sometimes it is necessary to "hit the brake" to stay in a neutral position. It is at this moment that the additional mirror system is launched. And thanks to her, you don’t have to cry too if someone is crying nearby, or repeat the movement of your hand when you see someone in a cafe reaching out for pastries.

Whether you actually do something or just know that another person has done it depends on how the normal mirror system and the additional mirror system interact with each other. The first is activated both when you yourself move your hand and when you watch the person on the other side of the room do it. The second is more active when you are watching someone's hand move, and less active when you move your hand yourself.<…>

Many psychotherapists now view empathy as the most important element of a healthy healing relationship. However, the old approach is still reflected in the idea that we should not feel the need to connect with other people in order to share happiness or heartache, or that healthy people should avoid "capturing" the emotions of others.

It is this bonding of different parts of the brain that provides the formation of a three-dimensional perception of the world of another person. This gives you clearer, more complex information, which means that your empathic response is more in line with the other person's true feelings. In the absence of repeated stimulation, the pathways between neurons weaken and lose their ability to transmit signals. Our complex mirror system needs this kind of stimulation so that we can retain the gift of understanding each other.

Will we really lose the ability to communicate due to the rapid development of modern technology?

I don't think it will happen, but we need to educate children and adults about the role of the mirror system in human interaction, as well as teach them how to keep their nervous system in proper condition. I am writing this chapter while I am sitting in the Panera restaurant, and the patrons of the restaurant are having good old-fashioned conversations around me. Elderly men and women sitting at a large table laugh, talk, drink coffee, eat muffins - and thereby stimulate their mirror system. Another group of co-workers is discussing a working draft; two people are leaning over their computers and typing something on them, the rest are talking, laughing, drinking coffee - and stimulating their mirror system.

My children are at school now. On a typical day, they might work in small groups in the lab, learn to assign tasks and collaborate on a report, goof around at lunch with friends, or ask teachers for help—in all of these interactions, they stimulate their mirror system. Nowadays, such communication between people is as widespread as Apple products. We are shaped not so much by the devices we use, but by the culture in which they are placed. If we, as a society, see human connections as the focus of our lives and recognize the need to stimulate our mirror system to maintain our ability to understand and cooperate with others, then the electronic world will follow suit.

"E" stands for "energy": the dopamine reward system

The mesolimbic pathway ends in the orbitomedial prefrontal cortex, where decision-making takes place, and then returns to the brain stem, forming a closed loop, and modulates the production of dopamine. Dopamine stimulation in this neural pathway allows you to experience pleasant emotions.

The purpose of this system is to reward healthy growth-promoting activities (such as eating right, having sex, and maintaining warm relationships) with the release of dopamine, which makes us feel good. The upliftment we experience as a result motivates us to engage in these healthy activities even more. Such a system encourages people to do what is good for all of us.

In these children, the relationship is disconnected from the dopamine reward system. From the brain’s point of view, this is a perfectly logical defensive measure: if the relationship is threatening or unhealthy, it should not be associated with a rewarding release of dopamine. In adult life, these people do not get much pleasure from communicating with others and are unable to draw energy from it; on the contrary, it only empties and exhausts them.

If the dopamine reward system is not associated with healthy relationships, the brain looks for other ways to enjoy, and thus other ways to stimulate the dopamine system. These "other ways" are well known to all of us: overeating, alcohol and drug abuse, compulsive sex, shopping, risky activities, gambling. This is why you may have heard of the notoriety of the dopamine or mesolimbic pathway. It has recently been discovered that drugs (indeed, all addictive habits) stimulate the mesolimbic pathway and the production of dopamine. And the more often this happens, the more stable the addiction becomes.

In The Neuroscience of Human Relationships, Luis Cozolino writes, “It is critical to realize that healing involves reconnecting the dopamine reward system to the relationship.” Through practice and understanding of how the dopamine system works, you can teach your brain how to stop looking for dopamine in the wrong places, as well as show it that the easiest way to feel better is to talk to someone who is not a danger to you.

"S" means "calm". Make the Smart Vagus Nerve Even Smarter

Signs that relationships are strengthening the neural pathway of calmness:

I trust this person with my feelings.

"E" means "energy". Reconnect the Dopamine Reward System and Healthy Relationships

How do you know that a relationship with a particular person is stimulating your neural pathway of energy? According to the following indications:

Being in a relationship with this person helps me achieve more in life.

I love spending time with this person.

Laughter is one aspect of the relationship with this person.

Thanks to communication with this person, I am energized.

Amy Banks, Lee Hrushman. "On the same wave. Neurobiology of harmonious relationships”, M.2016.

Amy Banks

Practicing psychotherapist, former lecturer at Harvard Medical School, director of the Center for Excellence at Wellesley College. Having dedicated her career to researching the neuroscience of human relationships, Amy Banks has developed a simple guide for doctors and the general public to improve communication.

After 15 years of psychotherapy, the author of the book argues that the mindset on building boundaries that is instilled in us from childhood (think for yourself, be independent from parents, stand on your own feet, not be emotionally attached to friends or lovers) is outdated.

Recent studies have shown that people who do not have meaningful close relationships with others have more cardiovascular problems, more cancer, and a 340% higher risk of premature death.

According to a more productive approach of relational-cultural theory, there are no walls between people. The normal functioning of the autonomic and central nervous systems, as well as the dopamine reward system, is impossible if you are isolated from others.

At the same time, strengthening the necessary neural pathways is possible at any age.

Each of the neural pathways forms a feedback loop. Include good relationships in it and it will strengthen the corresponding neural pathway. Strengthen the neural pathway - and your relationship will bring you even more pleasure. Each of the paths contains many areas where you can intervene and activate the entire system.

We face different situations in life. With an unfortunate combination of circumstances, a person may develop poorly the mechanisms of the nervous system responsible for interacting with others. However, to deny their presence is to equate your brain with the brain of reptiles.

In any case, the body is inclined to take its own. If dopamine levels are not increased in healthy ways, such as empathic communication, then habits will develop that are commonly referred to as: drugs, compulsive sex, gambling. In addition, even if you are the most talented specialist in your field, without good social skills you are unlikely to achieve success worthy of your knowledge.

It may seem that this book is a call to abandon individuality and join the herd. However, its purpose is different. The approach described here will help improve the quality of those relationships that are valuable to you, form the correct structure of the brain and correct distorted relationship patterns.

what relationships are most important to you;
what goes wrong in your brain;
that in communication eludes your attention.

Based on this assessment, you will be able to choose a development strategy and, with the help of appropriate exercises, learn to react without aggression even to people you don’t like.