The Thinking Brain vs. The Emotional Brain

Consider These Two Situations

1). You’re watching a horror/thriller movie when something unexpected happens and you can’t help but scream.

2). In an ordinary life moment, you notice an unexpected sound or a smell—and suddenly your body reacts before you can think.

Why these reactions? A movie is not real (actors reading prepared lines and next month they may be in a different movie so we know they didn't really die in the movie), and yet we react.  Maybe like me you find that in moments of stress, you may know what you should do—but your body and brain react in an entirely different way. Do you know someone who experiences a tug-of-war between logic and emotion? This isn’t a personal flaw—it’s biology.

Our brains have different parts and systems for thinking and feeling, and understanding how they interact can help us see why trauma, stress, and anxiety feel so powerful. The good news is that healing is possible.

The Emotional/Limbic Brain: Quick and Protective

Our emotional brain, located in the limbic system, works like an alarm system with many parts—always scanning, always ready to react. It’s fast, instinctive, and focused only on survival. For example, if you touch a hot stove, the alarm goes off before you even think about it, pulling your hand back to keep you safe.

Within that system is the amygdala, the brain’s guard dog. Quick and reactive, the guard dog is built to bark at danger—sometimes at real threats, other times at things that only feel threatening. Its job is survival, not accuracy. Meanwhile, the hippocampus (the brain’s memory center--think of it like a box full of ticket stubs and photos of your past) stores the event, but often in fragments—more like scattered snapshots than a complete story.

Here’s the tricky part: the emotional brain has no sense of time. To the guard dog, trauma from 30 years ago can feel the same as something that happened 3 seconds ago. That’s why sensory reminders—like the smell of grandma’s cookies or hearing the screech of tires before a crash—can make that past event feel as if it’s happening all over again.

How Your Thinking Brain Helps (and Why It Sometimes Can’t)

And then we have our “thinking brain,” technically called the prefrontal cortex. This part takes longer as it manages reasoning, planning, problem-solving, logic, and self-control. When it’s able to freely communicate with the emotional brain, it helps bring about calm by putting experiences into context. For example, it allows you to realize: That sound wasn’t a gun shot—it was just fireworks. I'm okay.

But under extreme stress or trauma, chaos takes over: the guard dog goes into full protect mode and the wise guide goes “offline.” When that happens, survival mode kicks in—Fight, Flight, or Freeze. Energy shifts to the alarm system, leaving reasoning and logic impaired. This is why, in a crisis, it can feel almost impossible to think clearly, remember details, or make decisions—even though it seems like you should be able to.

Why This Matters for Healing

The clash between the thinking brain and the emotional brain can help explain why traditional talk therapy sometimes isn’t enough to resolve trauma. Talking appeals to the thinking brain, but trauma is stored in the emotional, memory, and sensory systems. Healing often requires approaches that calm the body, reset the nervous system, and help the brain rewire its patterns. Something as simple as deep breathing and bring some calm and a sense of control.

There is hope. Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain can change. With the right tools—such as psychosensory methods like Havening Techniques®, mindfulness, or grounding practices—the emotional brain learns to quiet its alarms while the thinking brain regains its role in calming and guiding. Over time, restoring balance creates space for safety, resilience, and peace.

A Path Forward

It’s important to be kind to ourselves as we learn about the difference between the different regions of our brain. Yes, I can personally attest that trauma can feel overwhelming—but recovery really is possible. Healing doesn’t mean erasing the past; it means restoring balance between these two systems so you can live with greater clarity, calm, and strength.

What are your thoughts or experiences about the thinking vs emotional brain regions? If you found this article interesting, please share it!

Until next time, please take kind care of yourself.