Chris Crouch's Blog

Hold My Beer and Watch This!

Imagine suddenly finding yourself driving around in a high-powered race car without a steering wheel. Sounds like an accident waiting to happen doesn't it? Now replace the words 'driving around in high-powered race car' with 'walking around in a teenage body' and 'steering wheel' with 'prefrontal cortex' and you can begin to understand how nature can sometimes play nasty tricks on us humans. The prefrontal cortex is a fancy name for the part of the brain that helps control impulsive behavior, planning, organizing, good decision making and other so-called executive functions of the brain. It's our neural steering wheel. Some brain researchers believe that this part of the brain is not quite ready-for-prime-time until humans are well into their twenties. That's probably why so many young people display a "hold my beer and watch this" attitude until their mid-twenties. The part of the brain that handles sound judgement and responsible behavior is simply not finished yet. Of course, most scientists would rather share toothbrushes and underwear than share conclusions. Therefore, as usual you can expect to encounter plenty of disagreement among the experts on this prefrontal cortex issue if you dig into it.

I doubt if many teenagers are reading my blog...so what does this have to do with those of us, shall we say, beyond the mid-twenties. First, it helps us better understand the young people in our lives and gives those of us who are parents a way to distance ourselves from the erratic and sometime outrageous behavior of our offspring. We can always say to others, "I raised them to know better...it's that prefrontal cortex stuff causing problems you know!" It also helps us understand why we frequently have the desire to unwind some of the major decisions we made earlier in life. Of course, the two big ones are: Now...let me think about it again..."Why exactly did I choose this career?" or "Why did I marry this person?" If things have worked out great for you in both of these areas of life...then consider yourself pre-frontally blessed (or lucky). If they didn't, now you have a great excuse. You no longer have to try and convince yourself or others that you didn't really make a mistake...or that things are not really that bad. Now you have a scientific excuse and a neural scapegoat to blame...you can comfortably and blamelessly put past mistakes behind you and move forward in life.

Of course, you all know that making excuses and blaming your neurons won't really solve anything. But knowing that many of our major life decisions were made when we were in our "hold my beer and watch this" phase of life may help you understand, reevaluate and possibly alter your path in life now that your prefrontal cortex is fully up and running. If nothing else...you can use this information to scientifically scold your children. The next time you are going on a trip with them, you can say..."If you kids don't exercise some measure of control over your prefrontal cortices...I'll turn this car around and go home right this minute!"

If you want to know more about this prefrontal cortex stuff, go on the internet and take a look at some of the information on Dr. Jay Giedd's research.

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Chris Crouch, president of DME Training and Consulting, has spent years researching and studying both the mental and physical aspects of being productive.

Do You Want to Avoid Getting Whacked?

I recently read something interesting in a book titled The Biology of Belief by Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D. It was about how human bodies generate and use energy (see chapter six "Growth and Protection" if you want more details). Dr. Lipton is a cell biologist and his comments made me think that allocating energy to the various body systems designed to promote growth and protection is a bit like playing the game Wac-A-Mole. Wac-A-Mole is a simple game. Moles constantly pop up through holes and you whack them with a hammer. Unfortunately, there are several holes...many moles...and only one hammer. So what does this have to do with human energy use? Let's imagine for a moment that whacking a mole with a hammer symbolizes allocating energy to the various body systems. After all, it takes energy to swing a hammer and whack a mole. According to Dr. Lipton, there are four major body systems or "energy using moles" that may pop up and need to be whacked at times. The body needs energy for:

• The sympathetic "fight or flight" system (to deal with real or perceived external threats)
• The immune system (to deal with internal threats, viruses, bacteria, etc.)
• The cell replacement system (cells constantly wear out and need to be replaced)
• The energy replacement system (it takes energy to generate energy)

Just as you only have one hammer in Wac-A-Mole, you only have so much energy to allocate to the various systems. You just can't whack them all at the same time! Therefore, if one system is hogging too much energy (needs too much whacking), the other systems cannot do their jobs. This, in my mind, is a good illustration of how stress can kill you...or as they say in the Sopranos...whack you. Think about it. If you constantly operate in a stressful environment and your "fight or flight mole" needs constant whacking...there is not enough energy left over to fight off internal threats, generate new energy and replace worn out cells. It's the human body's version of a deadly zero-sum game. Keep up the rushing around, multitasking, overloading, under-relaxing, and all the other stress generating activities, and you will eventually whack yourself. Yes, we all need some stress to function properly. But we don't need to play Wac-A-Mole with our lives. I don't know about you, but I want my immune, cell replacement and energy replacement systems to have all the energy they need to do their jobs.

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Chris Crouch, president of DME Training and Consulting, has spent years researching and studying both the mental and physical aspects of being productive.