Still reading my way through 10 Mindful Minutes, and while I'm not finished I can recommend it as valuable for anyone interested in raising children, education, neuroscience, or meditation. It could be rewritten with half the words, but never mind that.

The amygdala sits low and center in our brains near the spinal cord. It controls our fight/flight/freeze response and is associated with our primal emotions, good and bad. If it senses danger it shuts down flow to the prefrontal cortex, which is our center of higher thought and creativity. Some children have found it helpful to think of the amygdala as a guard dog. Sometimes its laying restfully in its dog house. Sometimes its up barking it head off running up and down the path.

Normally, when we are happy, relaxed, creative, and receptive to learning we are mostly thinking through our prefrontal cortex. If there is an emergency, we are transitioned via the amygdala, out of our prefrontal cortex. Which can be great, if a tiger is chasing you and you need to respond without thinking. However the amygdala, like our old shepherd Daisy, occasionally has trouble discerning trouble from not trouble. A tree about to fall on your head is super trouble. Reading about a tree about to fall on your head is not trouble. But your body can experience the same feelings of fear and then be ushered right out of the prefrontal cortex into a more primal, less thinking, state.

"The practical applications of having such knowledge are infinite, and are best demonstrated in how children manage their reactions to events and other people, especially when they are feeling anger, fear, and stress. Knowing that the amygdala not only detects fear but generates [those feelings] can make all the difference."

We can all be trained to recognize the moment the amygdala begins to hijack our emotions for less than true emergencies. Most of us get a handle on it naturally as we grow up. Mindfulness exercises teach how to become more peaceful feeling, happier, and how to think more clearly. In other words, how to stay centered in your thoughtful creative prefrontal cortex rather that reacting constantly through the amygdala.

Right? We see this in children all the time. This is exactly what happens when an adult looks down at a child and asks a question that puts them on the spot--or, in other words, triggers the freeze response and a feeling of fear: "What do you think? What do you want for your birthday? What is 7 times 6? What is (for heavens sake!) Santa going to bring you? Please come to the front of the class..." And the child stares blankly.

Adults also get triggered unnecessarily, but less often. I suspect too much stress too often can turn the amygdala/prefrontal cortex pathway into a highway, and by the time we're grown can become the neurological foundation of Dissociative Disorders. There is a solution for children and stuck adults and 10 Mindful Minutes is a good guide.