Mom Brain Explained

This blog is the result of a mama brain nerd on stress and living in chaos. It’s also a result of me getting a great deal of joy from communicating what I learn about neuro topics because I live a hyper-stress, over-stimulation, survival-mode life that has an endless supply of opportunities to apply what I learn and derive meaning from the text. We learn because information gets attached to similar experiences or former knowledge that live in our brains. I think that’s why I’m both drawn to and retain information about stress and emotional processing, because that’s most of the real estate in my brain. Then, I take brain nerd stuff so it can help me mom. 

Caden’s brain taught me about how the brain processes and is affected by sensory input and your environment. Willow’s brain taught me how the brain stores and recalls memories and information — traumatic and otherwise. Gunner’s brain continues to teach me the impactful complexity of developmental psychopathology and the behavior that manifests as a result. They’re all fascinating to explore, frustrating to mitigate, and inspiring on a daily basis to help me adapt, overcome and mom on. 

I selfishly explore neuroscience to better understand how I’m processing emotional and stressful experiences because I’ve got no shortage of them and I can either have victory over that lifestyle or be a victim to it. Here’s a hint — the latter is not an option. The more I know about how my brain is processing emotional and stressful experiences, the more aware I am of the very natural psychological or physiological stress responses and I can make more intentional, informed decisions about how I respond and cope with the stress. I feel more grounded and this helps my engagement in life versus what could eventually evolve into a dissociation. I am also more capable of coaching my kids to be victors, not victims. 

I don’t lay claim to discovering anything I’m writing about here. I absolutely lay claim to living what I’m writing about here. The content or information is not new, it’s not groundbreaking, and it’s not unique to me; the circumstances in which I apply the information is pretty unique to me. I only mean to share my experiences and what I’ve learned so you can be nudged in the direction of self-awareness and creating your own coping catalog. I also write to just share the knowledge I’ve gained from brilliant authors like Drs. Faith Harper, Francine Shapiro, Bessel Van Der Kolk and Jill Weber. All have excellent books I read and apply, and I recommend you checking out if you dig the mom brain explained. 

Mom Brain Explained

I’m a 24/7, full-time single mom to three children who have unique needs. This beautifully stressful and chaotic lifestyle has been baptism by fire and I’ve been forged in it both spiritually and maternally. I’ve never been stronger in my faith and fellowship with Jesus. I’ve also learned to mom on in spite of feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated, burnt out, emotionally raw, mad, sad, exhausted, worried, anxious or scared. I feel all of those. My brain is processing all of those. My body is responding to all of those. But in spite of all of that, I need to find a way to successfully return my brain and body to chill, because dinner still has to get made. Laundry still has to get done. Medicine has to get administered. Homework has to be monitored. Meltdowns have to be mitigated. Work has to be navigated and accomplished. Logistics have to be mapped out and communicated to all my key players. I do feel my feels and give myself grace when I don’t respond constructively. I have the luxury of trying again because life is rapid-fire in this chapter of my life. Even though this stifles my ability to start my sourdough and chickens phase of life, I’m blessed by the grace and mercy of God and my kids to try again, so I keep learning. 

Stress is an extremely over-used word and I’m guilty of initially thinking a little bit like a Karen when I hear someone label an event or situation as stressful. However, I quickly get off my pedestal and remember that stress is relative to each person and completely subjective based on that person’s experiences. A person’s experiences shape everything their brain takes in and holds onto. Those experiences impact how a brain perceives and responds to sensory input, new experiences, and new information. 

This is an extremely primitive function of our brains and what I love most when analyzing behaviors, because behavior is just an observed illustration of a deeper internal process going on. That behavior can be explained when you think deeper about the brain and its most primitive functionality. Even though we are thousands of evolutionary lifetimes away from those caveman days, our brain is only moments away from responding in the same primitive way and with the same basic objective — survive. Based on caveman experiences, they observed the big, hairy saber-tooth tiger is dangerous and they quickly learned to fight or fly to survive when they see one coming before ending up like the last guy who didn’t run so fast. That process of memory recall and stress response served them well, I’d say. Well, maybe not for the slow runners.

We may not be cavemen — although, some men can still act like Neanderthals — but, our brains still function in much the same way using sensory input to analyze a person, place or thing, and determine if it’s a threat to our survival and respond accordingly based on past experiences. 

Bonus Brain Tidbit: This is also why we typically see something in a negative way at first, because we were cavemen who died easily and often, so we learned to assume the worst and then worked our way out of the cave a little at a time to see that sunshine. 

New experiences get filed away in our brain by straining out the important information and either logging it away in an established file or creating a new one in which to connect future experiences and information.  

Our senses take in the environment around us and send signals to the amygdala in the brain. The amygdala will then signal the hypothalamus who determines if that cacophony of sensory input adds up to a legitimate threat and whether or not to engage the sympathetic nervous system by sending out the troops — adrenaline and cortisol. Both aren’t always necessary since our body’s are designed to respond to a threat efficiently and effectively without wasting energetic resources. Adrenaline is a quick burst of energy to increase body functions like heart rate and breathing. It quickly goes up before we’re even aware it was sent out, and it quickly comes down after the “all clear” is given. If adrenaline bit off more than it can chew and the threat is too threatening, then cortisol gets deployed because it takes a little bit longer to rev up and subsequently takes a little longer to calm down. Again, the whole design is meant to see the threat, respond to it and then return to homeostasis again — return to chill mode. 

Here’s how I see this translating to mom brain. A mom becomes a mom the second a positive pregnancy test comes. Whether or not the pregnancy goes full term, every decision a mom makes affects the baby. Even a basic-minimum mom will make choices according to what keeps the baby alive — eat, sleep, drink water, don’t do meth — it’s all done with baby in mind. Again, the primitive function of a mom is to keep the baby alive until it can fend for itself against those saber-tooth tigers. Mom brains are wired to function with the baby’s survival in mind, as well as her own. When my mom amygdala (mommygdala? Ha!) is assessing a threat, it’s also using sensory input for every little offspring around me to assess threats to them. I’m taking in threats to me and threats to my kids. That’s a lot of sensory input! That’s a lot of threats! Especially if you have a toddler like mine who thought my warning about not jumping into the lake without a life jacket was just a suggestion meant to control his life experiences. I’m lame like that. 

Brains are not designed to deal with stress all the time and an over-stimulated mom brain is not what we were designed for. We’re still over here rockin’ it, so don’t fall into victim mode. Keep learning. What happens to our brains on chronic stress? Stressful situations end up being common experiences that continuously influence the amygdala when it’s trying to appropriately assess a potential threat. Chronic stress means it gets real good at sending that signal to the hypothalamus and the gravel road pathway gets paved to make signal transportation easier, smoother and quicker. When the chronic-stress brain’s synaptic connection is myelinated that way, adrenaline and cortisol are always at the ready and your brain gets a build up of cortisol because it never gets to go back to chill. When that build-up happens, our prefrontal cortex doesn’t function properly. Cortisol impedes that part of the brain which controls executive functioning — speech, conscious and rational thought, emotional responses, and the use of fine motor skills. This is why we sometimes can’t make the words to describe the things. Mom brains have a freeway built between their amygdala and hypothalamus that completely bypasses the prefrontal cortex. 

Obviously, this is a quick and light microlearning about a very complex and awesome function. What I won’t even venture into are the myriad and complexities of coping strategies. Why? Because that is going to be a long list of possibilities that neither of us has time to write or read right now. However, suffice it to say that the amount of time, energy and information needed to adequately discuss and list out coping strategies is indicative of its importance. An effective coping strategy is an essential part of disrupting the dysregulation and the catalyst to returning the beautiful rhythm to your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Just like a person’s experiences, coping strategies are unique and require trial, error and evolution based on circumstances, successes or failures. 

I’ve tried, succeeded and failed at so many strategies to cope with my stress. I’ve also tried, succeeded and failed at coaching my kids on various coping strategies for their own stress; again, stress is relative so not getting as much time on the playground can be stressful. We still don’t fall victim to it and rise up. When exploring coping strategies, I require two things — accessibility and sustainability. That actually goes for anything I implement — budget, workout routine, diet choices, discipline practices, home routines — I always consider:

• Is it accessible? I have to be able to recall it in the heat of the moment or the fog of mom war when my prefrontal cortex is drowning in cortisol. I have to be able to access it easily anywhere and at any time because stress doesn’t just happen at home on my yoga mat when the kids are occupied and dinner isn’t on the stove.

• Is it sustainable? I have to be able to afford it financially and energetically. I can’t always take a roadtrip, go to the beach, meet up with my sister or a friend for margaritas, or go on a shopping spree. I’m on a budget financially as much as energetically.

Bonus Brain Tip: Some coping strategies are just a dopamine hit that will temporarily return your cortisol back to normal which is fine for short-term stress. Chronic stress means cortisol is invoking squatter’s rights and needs a more sustainable and powerful eviction notice. 

And just like coaching my kids effective coping strategies, I also try to develop their own strategy for determining what warrants a stress response and what doesn’t. Remember, experiences shape your brain’s barometer for what’s a threat and what’s not. I don’t want my kids to stress out over every little thing. I don’t either! There are two criteria I use to both determine if something is worth a stress response and to what degree:

• Is it within my locus of control? There are so many things that happen that are out of my control. I am so quick to lie to myself and think that I have control over a situation or circumstances. I only have control over my response to a situation or circumstances and that’s it. Responding to what I do have control over instead of what I don’t grounds me. 

• Do I have that energy in my budget? Even though I want to justify my decisions or tell my side of the story, it’s not worth the energy that’s allocated for other things. Again, energy is currency and I’m on a budget. A quick analysis can determine if I have room in my budget to spend on what is triggering my mommygdala. (Last time, I promise.)

Just like learning about what my brain is doing and what it’s telling my body, I’m also always learning about coping strategies that fit those criteria above and answer those questions. Knowledge is grounding, humbling, and extremely empowering. It gives me a foundational understanding to navigate life’s storms because that’s the season I’m in. It’ll pass, but in the meantime, I’ll learn all I can to adapt, overcome and mom on.