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What parts of the brain are activated when we make a gut decision?

, clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, explained the complex process of how our minds and bodies formulate and respond to a hunch for my video series

“There are networks of that serve as information processors. They’re like little computers arranged in a spider web-like network called a . Unlike the linear computers we have, these parallel processors can actually learn and think.

We have this spider web-like set of connections in our skull, which we usually refer to as the brain. But we also have neural net processors around the heart and intestines that process information in very complex ways.

These information processors of the internal organs of the body, called , are not rational or logical. But it is processing information and sending signals up from the body itself, to the spinal cord in a layer called .

Lamina I carries the information from the intestines, heart, muscles and bones upward from the spinal cord. As it comes up, part of it goes to the deepest part of the brain called the brainstem, which influences our heart rate and respiration.

Also a twig of it will go over to an area called the , where it will govern what to do with our , and influence your hormonal environment.

Another branch goes to an area called the . There are two aspects of the prefrontal cortex that Lamina I data from the body receives. One twig is called the insula. It’s a part of what some people called the .

The other part goes over to the . It’s like a loop that goes frontward and backward. The anterior is the front part of that loop. What’s fascinating is people who are aware of their interior, called interoception, or perception of the interior, are people who are more empathic.

People who have more interoceptive ability have greater activity of the right insula, which makes them more self-aware, at least of emotions. One view of emotions is that they’re generated from what are called . The cortex is the higher part of the brain. Beneath the cortex are the , the brainstem, and the body proper.

The subcortical area mixes together and forms states of , which you could call emotion. They are driven upward through the insula to the cortex where we become aware of it.

When you’re self-aware, you get a gut feeling. You have a heartfelt sense. Sometimes those feelings are really important. There’s wisdom in the body. Yet sometimes, if we have been traumatized, for example, the gut feeling we get can lead us astray.

If you’ve been bitten by a dog or hurt by someone who had red hair, when you see a dog or a person with red hair, your gut may say “bad, bad, bad�, and may create a tone of negativity that is based on past traumatic experience. So bodily input doesn’t always mean you should respond to it directly. You should analyze it.�

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We’ve all worked with people we may not trust. No matter what you do � interact with them differently, keep a paper trail � you can’t shake your unease around your interactions with them. Yet you’re still expected to produce quality work as a team.

IMD professor and renowned hostage negotiator, , offers ways to navigate your dealings with an untrustworthy colleague � even if it's your boss.

“The first step is to go inside yourself. Know what it is that you want. Are you sad? Are you angry? Once you find some clarity, try to sit down and talk with that person � transparently with empathy and � about why you're unhappy with them.

If the untrustworthy co-worker is your boss, that’s trickier on different levels. For starters, . They're only looking at goals and performance. They're not .

But great leaders . They want to know what they can do to help � or change. High performing leaders want to know the truth. They would rather be slapped in the face with the truth than lied to with a kiss. They are open-minded enough to change their behavior.

If the untrustworthy colleague is a direct report, show that you care about them while still holding them accountable for their actions. The if the person knows that their boss cares about their personal and professional development.

Addressing trust with colleagues requires a series of "" in a stronger way each time. You give a person a chance. Your emotional state can change somebody else's emotional state.

I love to work with the bullies who say ‘I'm a bully, I've always been a bully and I'm never going to change.� You can alter how you interact with such people if you engage in a dialogue to help them understand why they are the way they are, and what the benefit is if they change their behavior."

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The hallmarks of the pacesetting leadership style sound admirable. The leader sets extremely high performance standards and exemplifies them himself. He is obsessive about doing things better and faster, and he asks the same of everyone around him. He quickly pinpoints poor performers and demands more from them. .

You would think such an approach would improve results, but it doesn’t. In fact, the pacesetting style . Many employees feel overwhelmed by the pacesetter’s demands for excellence, and their . Guidelines for working may be clear in the leader’s head, but she does not state them clearly; and even thinks, “If I have to tell you, you’re the wrong person for the job.�

Work becomes not a matter of doing one’s best along a clear course so much as second-guessing what the leader wants. At the same time, people often feel that or to take initiative. Flexibility and responsibility evaporate; work becomes so task- focused and routinized it’s boring. As for rewards, the pacesetter either gives no feedback on how people are doing or jumps in to take over when he thinks they’re lagging. And if the leader should leave, people feel directionless � they’re so used to “the expert� setting the rules. Finally, commitment dwindles under the regime of a pacesetting leader because people have no sense of how their personal efforts fit into the big picture.

For an example of the pacesetting style, take the case of Sam, a biochemist in R&D at a large pharmaceutical company. Sam’s superb technical expertise made him an early star: he was the one everyone turned to when they needed help. Soon he was promoted to head of a team developing a new product. The other scientists on the team were as competent and self-motivated as Sam; his métier as team leader became offering himself as a model of how to do first-class scientific work under tremendous deadline pressure, pitching in when needed. His team completed its task in record time.

But then came a new assignment: Sam was put in charge of R&D for his entire division. As his tasks expanded and he had to articulate a vision, coordinate projects, delegate responsibility, and , Sam began to slip. Not trusting that his subordinates were as capable as he was, he became a micromanager, obsessed with details and taking over for others when their performance slackened.

Instead of trusting them to improve with guidance and development, Sam found himself working nights and weekends after stepping in to take over for the head of a floundering research team. Finally, his own boss suggested, to his relief, that he return to his old job as head of a product development team.

Although Sam faltered, the pacesetting style isn’t always a disaster. The approach works well when all employees are self-motivated, highly competent, and need little direction or coordination � for example, it can work for leaders of highly skilled and self-motivated professionals, like R&D groups or legal teams. And, given a talented team to lead, pacesetting does exactly that: gets work done on time or even ahead of schedule.

The pacesetting style has its place in the leader’s repertory, but it should be used sparingly.

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Now that meditation has hit the , the has brought meditating executives to the headlines, and figures from to 50 Cent do the practice, a bit of backlash was inevitable.

But I was surprised to see my dissenting (at least a bit) in a New York Times blog �.� Tony’s sense of the working world ranks first class, but this time I think he got the facts wrong, in two ways.

To be sure, he nods to the : it lowers levels of the stress hormone cortisol, enhances the immune response, lifts mood, helps us and .

But where he gets it wrong, in my reading of the data, is in expecting that practicing meditation should mean we experience fewer distractions. In fact the mind is wired to wander about 50% of the time, found (and FYI, it wanders most on your commute, while working, and when you’re looking at a digital screen).

The scientific data suggests it’s not that we have fewer distractions, but that we can handle them better. In fact, meditation takes advantage of the mind’s wiring to wander to create an opportunity for mental training.

Wendy Hasenkamp and Laurence Barsalou at Emory University and : you focus on one thing (say, your breath), your mind wanders off, you notice it wandered, and you shift attention back to that one thing again. And you do this over and over again.

Turns out that this simple movement of mind strengthens connections among the brain’s circuits for concentrating. .

This is the , quite akin to lifting free weights. The idea is not to stop our mind from wandering. The point is to be mindful of its wandering and shift to where you want it to be.

Some clarification here. “Mindfulness� refers to that move where you notice your mind wandered. With mindfulness you monitor whatever goes on within the mind. “Meditation� means the whole class of ways to train attention, mindfulness among them.

just have you be mindful of whatever goes on within your mind � thoughts, feelings, fantasies, etc � without judging or reacting; this self-awareness in itself tends to quiet the mind. But in contrast many meditation methods are concentrative � you continually bring your mind back to one point of focus like your breath or counting or a simple sound you repeat mentally. Concentrative methods use mindfulness to notice when your mind wanders so you can bring it back to that one focus.

The other place Tony gets it wrong is in the expectation that meditation will resolve our inner conflicts or fix dysfunctional relationship patterns. It was never designed for that � psychotherapy was. Mindfulness and psychotherapy are like hammers and saws � different tools for different jobs.

Except that it turns out the two in combination are particularly powerful � witness the rise of mindfulness integrated with cognitive therapy, which studies find to be one of the most powerful treatments for everything from depression to, just perhaps, dysfunctional relationship patterns. The first big discovery: found that mindfulness plus cognitive therapy reduced episodes of depression by 50% in chronically depressed patients who were not helped by any other means, from drugs to electroconvulsive therapy.

Full disclosure: my wife was a pioneer in in her books and more recently, . (I just told her what I wrote here and she said, “Don’t over-simplify, honey. It’s a work in progress!�)

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A growing body of research on the human brain proves that, for better or worse, The reason for that lies in what scientists call the open-loop nature of the brain’s limbic system � our emotional center. A closed-loop system is self-regulating, whereas an open-loop system depends on external sources to manage itself. In other words, we rely on connections with other people to determine our moods. The open-loop limbic system was a winning design in evolution because it let people come to one another’s emotional rescue � enabling a mother, for example, to soothe her crying infant.

The open-loop design serves the same purpose today as it did thousands of years ago. Research in intensive care units has shown, for example, that the comforting presence of another person not only lowers the patient’s blood pressure but also slows the secretion of fatty acids that block arteries. Another study found that three or more incidents of intense stress within a year (for example, serious financial trouble, being fired, or a divorce) triples the death rate in socially isolated middle-aged men, but it has no impact on the death rate of men with many close relationships.

Scientists describe the open-loop as “interpersonal limbic regulation�; one person transmits signals that can alter hormone levels, cardiovascular functions, sleep rhythms, even immune functions, inside the body of another. That’s how couples are able to trigger surges of oxytocin in each other’s brains, creating a pleasant, affectionate feeling. But in all aspects of social life, our physiologies intermingle. Our limbic system’s open-loop design lets other people change our very physiology and hence, our emotions.

Even though the open-loop is so much a part of our lives, we usually don’t notice the process. Scientists have captured the attunement of emotions in the laboratory by measuring the physiology � such as heart rate � of two people sharing a good conversation. As the interaction begins, their bodies operate at different rhythms. But after 15 minutes, the physiological profiles of their bodies look remarkably similar.

Researchers have seen again and again how emotions spread irresistibly in this way whenever people are near one another. As far back as 1981, psychologists Howard Friedman and Ronald Riggio found that even completely nonverbal expressiveness can affect other people. For example, when three strangers sit facing one other in silence for a minute or two, the most emotionally expressive of the three transmits his or her mood to the other two � without a single word being spoken.

The same holds true in the office, boardroom, or shop floor; group members inevitably “catch� feelings from one another. In 2000, found that in 70 work teams across diverse industries, people in meetings together ended up sharing moods � both good and bad � within two hours. One study asked teams of nurses and accountants to monitor their moods over weeks; researchers discovered that their emotions tracked together, and they were largely independent of each team’s shared hassles. Groups, therefore, like individuals, ride emotional rollercoasters, sharing everything from jealousy to angst to euphoria. A good mood, incidentally, spreads most swiftly by the judicious use of humor.

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The pace of modern life doesn't always lend itself well to focus or concentration - especially given all the things we try to get done in a day.

I recently hosted a live Q&A on about the importance of strengthening our attention in different areas in our lives: work, school and home. Below are simple, effective strategies that can help you move past distraction and enhance your concentration. Additional resources on ways to bolster your focus are available at the end of the post.

Q: I’m curious how to balance the three types of focus in the fast-paced high tech world. It seems there are fewer and fewer spaces for having a focused, that embraces empathy and compassion.

A: Good question. The faster the pace, the bigger the challenge. It does take a bit of non-goal focused time to tune in and connect with the other person. You may not be able to do this on every phone call, but it’s worth doing at some point during the day or week, especially with people you work with continuously. A genuine connection, one with mutual empathy and interest creates a better container for communication when the pressure is high.

Q: I am currently working on a venture to help students focus on school work (through the use of mindfulness and creating focused environments for doing school work). I noticed you have several . How do you recommend teaching these to young students? I know that young adults are beginning to realize the importance of mindfulness for daily life, but what is the best way to approach this with elementary/ high-school students?

A: I’m thrilled to hear that you’re doing this. I think it’s important to understand that young people can learn to improve their focus, and that this also makes them more ready to learn. This seems a logical next step to add to curriculum in schools everywhere. I think it’s important to do this in an age-appropriate way. I’ve seen second graders in Spanish Harlem lie on the floor with their favorite stuffed animal on their stomach, and watch it rise on the in breath, counting 1, 2, 3�, and same on the out breath. Five minutes of this made the classroom calmer and more focused for the rest of the day. I know teens who have actually gone on retreats, and done this much of the day. The benefits are very real at the brain level, shifting moods toward the positive, enhancing concentration, and speeding recovery from stress arousal. Here’s an video about

Q: Why do we see so much variation in kids� ability (or lack of) to manage those three types of focus? Nature vs. nurture?

A: Our ability to focus on ourselves, on other people, or on the world at large, is a combination of nature and nurture, but mostly nurture. For instance, kids with ADHD may get that label because adults don’t realize that the attention circuitry of the brain continues to develop from birth to the mid-20s. Adults think seven-year-old kids should act like 12-year-olds, and give them the diagnosis on ADHD. However, But schools don’t do this. They expect kids to have the skill. We should nurture these abilities in children by helping them along.

Q: What is the relationship between focus and grit?

A: Grit is the term psychologist Angela Duckworth uses for the ability to keep your focus on long term goals and strive for them despite setbacks. The ability to focus is the center this capacity. Cognitive control, being able to focus on one thing that’s important and , is essential to every step toward that larger goal. Both grit and cognitive control can be classified as self-regulation, which is a major part of emotional intelligence.

Q: (My Question to the group): Does anyone have a ? (Participant response): I have had a few, very smart, but also very driven by his own needs. I survived being fired by focusing on what they did right, but staying silent when I didn’t agree. Not easy while trying to keep my sense of honor alive and well.

A: Sorry to hear about your . The best ones pay attention to the feelings and needs of direct reports in a fashion that’s like good parenting. This lets people feel secure enough to take smart risks, to innovate, to be creative. This leadership style has great return for companies. Learn more about this .

Q: What is the main obstacle to focus?

A: There are two obstacles to focus. Both of which have to do with how we manage our inner world. First: emotional distractions. These are the things in our lives, often relationships, that trouble us, but we can’t stop thinking about. Rumination is the most powerful distraction. On the other hand, thinking them through, and let the worry go is a good thing. Second: mindlessness. Our mind wanders and loses focus. The good news, mindfulness can be strengthened like a muscle. We can develop a habit of monitoring our attention and bring it back to what’s most important. Read more about this concept here >

Q: What’s the connection between focus and discipline?

A: Another word for self-discipline is cognitive control, a term neuroscientists use for the ability to hold our attention on the one thing that’s important in the moment, and let our distractions go. For instance, do your homework before getting to the Xbox. This is sometimes called impulse control. This ability has been found to predict a child’s financial success and health in her 30s better than IQ, and better than wealth of the family she grew up in. This article might be helpful >

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As the workplace grows more diverse, and as businesses become more global in their customers and clients, organizations can learn much from what psychology knows about overcoming negative stereotypes that generate friction between groups.

And at a time when the news offers a steady stream of ways , there's an antidote sorely needed: an understanding of the ways someone else shares our common human condition. Call it "just like me."

That's the attitude that counters the we-and-they thinking epidemic in the kind of cliques in schools that foment fights or bullying, in the biases against diversity in the workplace and in the wars being fought between groups worldwide.

It was called the "narcissism of small differences" by Freud. , a Turkish psychiatrist, saw this at work in his native Cyprus, where for generations, Cypriots and Turks waged a war against each other when, to the eye of someone just visiting the island, they were one and the same people. He recognized that each group had seized on some small custom unique to the other group and demonized them for it, all the while ignoring the vast number of ways they were similar.

That's the story of all too many wars throughout history, of too many arguments against letting people of all backgrounds have a fair chance, and of too many instances of

The problem comes down to attitudes, . Dr. Volkan could name the moments in his childhood he was taught to hate some minor trait of the other culture. He devoted much of his career to finding ways to inoculate against such toxic biases; he saw that just as prejudice can be taught, it can also be unlearned.

One of the more powerful means to counter the toxicity of such intolerance is reflecting on all the ways someone else, particularly someone from an "other" group, is "just like me." Making that reflection a daily practice primes our minds to focus on similarities, not differences -- a practice that could be useful for any program in diversity training in the workplace or tolerance and anti-bullying in schools.

Another way: . Getting to know someone from another group both lowers anxiety about that group and enhances empathy toward them. The strength of contacts in countering prejudice was confirmed in an analysis of 515 studies involving a total of 250,000 people by Thomas Pettigrew, a social psychologist.

He found that prejudice against another group is lowest among people who have friends with or grew up among people from that group, and learned that "they" are "just like me."

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An iteration of this article originally appeared on .

The central question right now for both long-time mindfulness practitioners and individuals and organizations looking for mindfulness training is: What makes a good mindfulness coach?

Mirabai Bush, Senior Fellow and the founding Director of , has taught mindfulness methods for many years to a variety of organizations � Google, Hearst Publications, AMEX, to name a few. She offers some insights for organizations looking for such services, and for what it takes to be an effective coach.

Mindful presence

When you’re interviewing potential teachers or coaches, notice whether the person is in the moment, without judgment, and really present for you. Be aware that there are many different styles for teachers of mindfulness. The person should embody qualities and competencies that you are looking for in your group or yourself. Humility and a sense of humor are usually good signs.

Are they trained?

Before people begin to teach mindfulness, they should do significant practice, not just in mindfulness but in teaching mindfulness. There are several reputable training programs available:

- Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program ()

- Google’s Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute ()

- UCLA’s Center for Mindfulness (.

Are they ready?

Like any hiring process, ask them about their experience. There are many people who want to start teaching right after they learn it. After spending some time practicing � or even after some formal training � it’s easy to assume, “Oh, I could teach people to sit down and bring their attention to their breath and breathe in and out. Anybody can teach that.�

But that is not true. You can read the techniques in a book or listen to a CD and probably learn some from it. But teaching mindfulness is different from practicing mindfulness.

Can they coach?

With mindfulness coaching and training in an organization, you’re asking your team to look inside themselves and begin an inquiry into the parts of our minds, bodies and hearts that most of us ignore most of the time. That’s profound. You really want to have someone you can trust to lead you through that exercise.

That’s very important because many people haven’t done any practice that takes them into their inner lives. A teacher or coach needs training and experience in answering the students� questions: Am I doing it wrong? I can’t do it because my mind is racing. Oh, I fell asleep. Am I going to become totally self-centered? If I’m not judging, how will I make decisions?

is Senior Fellow and the founding Director of , a non-profit organization that encourages contemplative awareness in American life in order to create a more just, compassionate, and reflective society. Her latest CD is available from .

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It’s very hard to be creative on demand. Most of us , which requires thinking alone, without . It also requires being able to breathe, think and take in the volume of information to deal with solving a problem. I spoke with Teresa Amabile for my series about how individual and collective focus plays a key role in creative problem solving.

“Let’s take a business meeting as an example. A lot can happen in a relatively short amount of time. Many interesting connections can develop. A great deal of information can be exchanged. As a result of so many stimuli, it’s sometimes . Focus is particularly important when people are trying to solve an urgent creative problem.

To help a person or on coming up with the , people have to be protected from other agendas. They have to be protected from the necessity to fight fires in the day-by-day crises that come up in other arenas of work. They have to feel that they're on a mission in order to be creative - that's absolutely crucial.

Here’s a brief illustration of how an organization does it right. An IT team was really protected from outside distractions in order to complete a difficult project in a short amount of time. They had the help that they needed from others in the organization, which is a key condition for people to make progress on something meaningful.

They were also given a lot of . Managers would check in: What do you need? What can we get for you? They would even bring them food and water if they were working late into the night. This really had an impact on people. The team understood that what they were doing was truly important. These actions by colleagues on every level gave more , because they felt valued by that organization.

Even though they had enormous technical obstacles to overcome, they were able to see themselves making progress every day in the face of setbacks. During those eight days the team was more motivated and happier than they had been in a long time, even though they were working extremely hard. That's the progress principle in action.�

from my conversation with Teresa Amabile, or about creativity and innovation in the workplace.

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Like any other human skill set � IQ, hacking skills, strength � it can be used for self-serving ends or for the common good, as addressed in Adam Grant's recent article for The Atlantic titled .

You see the dark side at work when EI gets used to manipulate others, not for the betterment of an organization. refers to our ability to read and understand emotions in ourselves and others, and to handle those feelings effectively. In general, a high level of EI predicts better success in school and in career, in relationships and in leading a fulfilled life. For leaders EI can make the difference between success and failure.

But EI is not just one single ability that we are good at or not � we can have strengths in one part of EI � like excellent self-management, the key to self-discipline, achieving goals, and “grit� � while lacking in other parts, like empathy or social skills. In fact that very pattern is common in the workplace, marking those who are outstanding individual performers (at programming, say) but who are not able to work well as part of a team or as a .

Within each component of EI we can make nuanced distinctions. So when it comes to empathy � the ability to understand how another person experiences the world � there are different types, each with its own benefits.

Cognitive empathy refers to being able to sense how another person thinks. It can help us be better communicators by putting things in terms the other person understands. Research shows that get better-than-expected results from their direct reports. And executives with high cognitive empathy do better at because they can more quickly pick up the implicit social norms and mental models of a new culture.

Emotional empathy means we feel in ourselves the other person’s emotions � . People adept at emotional empathy can form warm bonds with others, and have good chemistry. Such rapport makes , and just about any shared task go better.

Then there’s empathic concern, sensitivity to other people’s needs and the readiness to help if need be. Workers with such concern are the good citizens of any organization, the ones everyone else knows can be counted on to help when the pressure is on. Among leaders, those with empathic concern create a the sense that your boss has your back, will support and protect you as needed, and gives you the security to take risks and try new ways of operating � the key to .

This is the kind of empathy that serves as an antidote to � the manipulative use of talents in EI in the service of one’s own interest, and at the expense of others. Narcissists, Machiavellians and sociopaths all do this, as I’ve detailed in . A Norwegian study found that men who lacked empathic concern in childhood were far more likely than others as adults to end up as felons in prison.

Empathic concern means we care about the well-being of the people around us. It’s the opposite motivation of the self-serving types who use whatever influence or other empathy abilities solely in their own interests � the Bernie Madoffs among us. Empathic concern is what to look for when , when promoting, and when developing leadership talent.

Have you encountered a colleague who used emotional intelligence skills for the wrong reasons? Share your experiences in the comments section, or tweet them to @DanielGolemanEI.

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