A simple neuroscience brain trick to stay quiet instead of saying impulsive things you'll regret
Calm body, closed mouth.
A woman zipping up her lips.
There are times to speak up, moments when itās best to say nothing, and opportunities be very considerate in your response. But when youāre on the receiving end of a back-handed compliment, a foolish remark, or a coworker takes you down a peg, and your emotions are up, it can be hard to have a thoughtful response. Often, we say something we shouldnāt.
How is it that some folks fly off the handle and say things theyāll later regret, while others can stay calm and remove themselves from the situation or take the high ground? One way to be less impulsive with your words is to use the āname it to tame itā neuroscience hack, originally coined by author and psychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel. When used properly, it allows you to step back from the moment and choose the best response in a challenging situation.

How to use the āname it to tame itā hack
When someone upsets you, the first thing to do is to go inside yourself and describe the emotion that you feel in your body. Are you angry? Are you sad? Are you afraid? Do you feel rejected? Are you disappointed? The moment you name the emotion, it will begin to subside and give you the emotional and mental room to respond to the person who caused the negative emotion, rather than impulsively reacting.
How to respond to a reactive emotion so you donāt fly off the handle:
Event happens:
1. Your body stiffens up
2. You feel an intense emotion
3. You examine the emotion and give it a name: āMy body is telling me I am angry.ā
4. You should feel the emotion beginning to subside
5. Choose your response instead of being impulsive

Why does āname it to tame itā work?
āName it to tame itā works because, when we have a strong emotional reaction, our lizard brain kicks in, and we go into fight, flight, or freeze mode. The lizard brain is not known for giving thoughtful and strategic responses to challenging situations. When we name the emotion, our prefrontal cortex, or the thinking brain, kicks in. The thinking brain looks at the situation and says, āAlright, we donāt need to run or fight here. It's best to give a strategic response.ā
When we tune into the negative emotions by naming them, they relax because they feel heard, like when a child has hurt their knee or a loved one has real concern and you gives them undivided attention. Once the emotions are named, they are tamed. Then, you are more likely to respond to the negative person with grace and speak from the best part of yourself.
Dr. Dan Siegel, who coined the phrase āName it to tame it,ā explains the brain science behind the technique in the video below. He does a great job of explaining how it allows us to transfer our thoughts from the downstairs brain (the lizard brain) to the upstairs brain (the thinking brain), so we can calm down and respond appropriately to the situation.
- YouTube www.youtube.com



People practicing on the driving range. via
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Many people make bucket lists of things they want in life. 

People used to save letters they received.
Tony Trapani found a letter saying he had a son decades after it was sent.
Letter-writing is a lost art in the digital age.
Before you click 'send' on anything else, read this comic. It's important.
Everyone seems to be clicking "send" a bit too early nowadays.
We officially live in a world where internet trigger-happy world leaders can send massive populations into a devolved tail spin with erratic tweets, posts, and subsequent responses. These posts can have far-reaching consequences, and in the haste to respond in kind we've forgotten that we've normalized this kind of attitude.
Boulet is a French comic artist who has been writing about this for 15 years.
Originally he started writing an autobiographical series, but when he realized how accessible it was to his readers, he decided to make it fictional. "So it's mostly 'drawn stand up comedy,'" he explains. "I'm the main character, but in the same way comedians are there own character when they are on stage. The purpose is not really to talk about me but about situations of everyday's life everyone can relate to."
In his words, "The comic (below) was an anecdote about a Facebook mistake, I had basically two choices: Use it as a Facebook status to make my friends laugh or try to dramatize the whole process into an internal crisis to make it a story."
Comic by Bouletcorp, where it originally appeared. Used here with permission.
āāāāāāāThat "internal crisis" is something Boulet is very interested in.
Boulet enjoys using the accessible medium of cartoons as a way to explore complex issues. He loves learning about and studying consciousness and neuroscience. His fans enjoy this.
"There were fun discussions in the comments about how the brain works ... the very idea that we have a parallel process that can interfere, overlap or get in conflict is actually a thing. What I found most intriguing about this story was to literally feel my hand freeze BEFORE I could put an explanation on the WHY it froze."
He also had a great suggestion as to figuring out the motivations behind certain posts. "We should always go on social networks with EEGs on. We would learn a lot."
After what we've seen on social media over the last few years, it's hard to disagree.