React or Respond

“Learn to respond, not react” – A Zen quote

You must have heard this quote many times that we must avoid to react and try to respond to the situation. In this article, I will try to explain the difference between these two terms, why responding is better than reaction, the psychological and neurological phenomena behind these two terms and with the practice how we can learn to respond and to avoid reaction. Though both of same dictionary meaning but their impact on us life is huge and both affect our life in entirely different ways.

Difference between React and Respond

Reaction is an automatic or unconscious response while Response is a conscious, planned reaction. Reaction is an emotional stimulus, when we react we don’t think much. It happens instantly with in a second. Someone called you stupid and instantly you replied you are stupid. Someone provoked you and you instantly shouted. Your habits, your body language and all the activities that happen at the heat of the moment fall under reaction category. Since Reaction is an emotional response so it contains different type of emotions (Praise, love, Anger, Fear etc) but doesn’t contain reasons. Response is a logical stimuli and it comes after considering all the facts. Response is slow compare to reaction. It’s a time taking and calorie consuming activity. Reaction occurs automatically and we can’t easily control our reaction but response we have to make and it doesn’t occur instantly. We respond normally in that situation where stakes are high and margin of error is low like in business dealings, legal matters, dealing with superiors.

Mind and Brain Concept

As explained in theory of mind and brain, we have two decision making units- one is mind that unconscious, automatic and fast while other is intellect or brain that is conscious, logical and slow. Reaction is the mind’s nature while response is the brain’s nature. Mind is dependent on impressions stored in subconscious mind so whenever something happens when immediate reaction is required mind takes control on our decision making and subconscious mind automatically search the database of previously stored impressions and select the suitable impression and prepare mind for suitable reaction. All process happens with in a blink. So in the reaction we mostly depend upon our past impressions so if you see a person calling stupid to another person and another person reacts by saying you are stupid then later if someone call you stupid your reaction will also be “you are stupid” since its stored as impression in your mind. Decisions makes that are merely on the basis of impressions are prone to have bias. It can instantly give you emotional satisfaction but at a long term gives you only pain so it is taught to us to avoid react in the situation since its comes under a wrong decision but it’s not easy to avoid reactions. 

As explained in first chapter mind can’t be our friend either it’s a obedient servant or ruthless master and these days normally people are slave of their minds so they act accordingly to mind. Brain who is responsible for respond can take decision freely only that time when mind is under control. It doesn’t mean that some people 24 hours make decision by mind or some 24 hours make decisions by brain. Both mind and brain keep shifting their duties. At the most of the time mind is in charge while at crucial time brain is active, especially where self-control is required.

Amygdala Hijack

The term Amygdala Hijack was coined by Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ. Amygdala is part of our brain within the temporal lobe that is responsible for our emotional reaction. Amygdala automatically hijacks our logical brain in the fight or flight situation. Fight or flight situation consist of perceived harmful attack, or threat to survival. In that situation, Amygdala triggers the HPA (hypothalamic –pituitary – adrenal) hormone and hijacks the rational brain. Every individual’s amygdala maintains a list of threat situations. This emotional brain activity processes information milliseconds earlier than the rational brain, so in case of a match, the amygdala acts before any possible direction from the logical brain can be received. If, however, the amygdala does not find any match to the stimulus received with its recorded threatening situations, then it acts according to the directions received from the neo-cortex (logical brain). When the amygdala perceives a threat, it can lead that person to react irrationally and destructively. So basically when we react we are in amygdala hijack situation. Since threat situation is perceived differently by different persons so in same situation some people react while some persons react.

Why reaction is not good

Human brain evolved through the million of years. We kept learning from environment and kept adapting. May be thousand of years ago reaction was not bad for human at all since situations were different that time. Human used to live in forest, life was very difficult and threat of life was there any time so combating those situations Human learn to react instantly to save his life but in today's scenario life has changed tremendously. There are no as much 24x7 life threats that it used to be earlier. Life has become more intellectual than physical and we have more opportunity to control the situations so controlling has become more important phenomena than speed in this era. That's why responding is considered better than reaction since better control is possible only in response so those people who are more apt in responding do better in their career and social life.

The controlling phenomena can be explained by cause and effect theory. When we react to some person or situation than control in the hand of situation or that person we just become puppet. So that person or situation is cause and we are effect of that cause so in reaction we can easily be manipulated and can be used by anyone and eventually ends at being hurt and regret. While in responding, control is completely in our hand, no one can manipulate us. We examine the situation and take rational decision so we don't fall in the trap of cause and effect. But it doesn't mean that reaction is always bad. Reaction have one advantage and that is speed. So whenever there is life threat situation, reaction is best alternate since nothing is more important than life.

Do you react frequently ?

It's very easy to find our your basic nature is reaction or response. Just ask following question to yourself-

1. Do you often feel regret of your decisions ? feeling of "I should have not done this", "I should have avoided this", "it was my mistake".

2. Do you often lash out on your loved ones ?

3. Do you often apologise ?

If your answer is yes in most of the time then it means you are reactive kind of person. So its time to move from reaction to response. These are some of the points by using it you can start to respond rather reaction.

How to start Responding 

The simplest answer is you cant avoid reacting. Our biological system is designed in such a way that reaction is our automatic response and it cant be turned off but you can program your reaction.So how ?

 I read lot of thoughts on this topic and read comments of intellectuals talking about rejecting your first response, keep silence, count one to ten, take deep breath, take full sleep, avoid spicy food etc. These all tips can be used but they are not much effective and the reason for this is in amygdala hijack state we can't think logically so normally in that conditions decision is taken by emotional mind in place of logical brain so no logical solution will serve the purpose here. Since mind is in charge here so any idea related to mind will work and mind can be trained and controlled. So you can program your mind to tackle certian situations where you usually react and later feel regret and technique to program mind to react in a particular way in particular situation is called - Simulation 

Simulation : Simulation or conditioning is a technique by which we can prepare our mind for a particular situation. As explained earlier that our mind maintain a threat list and event related to that list happened amaygdala immediately take control. S the idea is editing that threat list. In normal condition mind cant distinguish between the situation of 100 people coming to beat you or 100 people sitting front of you to listen you but by practise we can create the difference in these situations. So the idea is list down situations when you often react. It may be in heated discussion with your spouse, or giving speech in front of large audience or anything where you feel you lose your control. Sit in the room alone, imagine that situation and do role play with yourself like you are calmly resolving discussion with your wife or give speech in front of 8-10 knowns. These all are simulation techniques extensively used in military. The idea is to remove uncertainty from an event. I learnt this technique from my martial arts training. Earlier I used to react in street fights by randomly hitting kicks and punch but after learning simulation I became more trained in fight in place of moving hands and leg immediately I see opponents move and takes rational decision. Same applies to trained swimmer, negotiator, pick up  artists etc they practise and they know how to respond in place of react.  

Meditation is the mother of all mind controlling technique. After getting proficient in meditation, your mind becomes your slave. Your can control your hormones, Your amygdala doesn't take any decision without asking you. It's an ultimate stage

We lose lot of relations, things in our life just because of we reacted when we needed to respond. No one is immune from it, I too have lot lot of things in my life but need of hour is to understand this phenomena and get ride from it.

Read More »