We as humans are made up of three basic components: our Body, Human Brain, and Animal Brain. The extent to which these components interact and are in balance is vital for our physical, mental, and emotional health.

The relationship between these three components can best be personified as siblings, each having a unique “personality” that is important to understand in order to create internal balance. Let’s start with the Body.

🚹 Body

Our Body which is our most straight forward component, simply refers to our physical selves or hardware–our flesh & bones. The archetype of the Body is the good sibling that prefers to keep to himself. Although he might drop hints when something is bothering him, he rarely confronts his more experienced siblings directly. While this tendency to avoid confrontation makes him easy get along with, it also allows him to get taken advantage of by the Animal and Human brains from time to time.

🧠 Human Brain

Next up is our Human brain or Mind, which allow us to make decisions, use willpower, and plan for the future. The extent to which this higher order thinking occurs in humans is rather unique, thus its name the “human brain”. The Human brain can best be described as the snarky sibling who thinks he’s got everything figured out. Though he is very smart and has many good personality traits, he is not always wise. His attempts to control the Body and Animal brain often lead to quarrels between these three metaphorical siblings.  

🦎 Animal Brain

Our third and final component is our Animal brain. I use the term Animal brain here to keep things simple, but it is actually made up of both our mammalian brain, which experiences emotions, and our reptilian brain from which our instincts arise. The Animal brain is the oldest and wisest sibling, and while she is known to pick on both the Mind and Body on occasion, deep down she wants what’s best for everyone. She often appears irrational, especially to the Human brain, who has not yet had the experiences from which her opinions are derived. This difference in perspective between these two brain regions often leads to a disagreement.

Internal Conflict ⚔️

With eating disorders, at least the variety that commonly results from chronic dieting, this internal conflict plays out something like this.

  1. Your rational human brain and your survival focused reptilian brain have different goals.
  2. Neither side is willing to compromise, resulting in on ongoing war between your rational and reptilian brain.

It’s Like A Card Game 🃏

You can think of it almost like a card game: you play a diet card and your animal brain responds by playing a survival card. But you’re not giving up that easy, so what do you do? You double down on the diet card… However, your animal brain’s not having it either, so it and doubles down with an even stronger survival card–It’s a never-ending game.

When Does This Game Become Problematic?

The “disorder” doesn’t begin until the doubling down occurs. Neither your initial diet card, nor your body’s survival card are the disorder. That’s exactly how our brains were designed to interact. While your human brain’s job is to make sure your animal brain doesn’t randomly act on impulse, the reverse is also true:  your human brain tries to see what it can get away with, and it’s your animal brain’s job is to keep it in line. This feedback is important because allowing our hyper-rational human brain to control all of our actions without any influence from our emotions or instincts could be highly problematic. 

You can imagine a scenario in which you see no logical reason to have friends so you simply cut them all off out of the blue… only to become social again a few months later after reading in a WIRED magazine article that having more social connections can increase your lifespan. In short, we would be a lot like robots; all of our actions and decisions would be superficial. 

All Is Fair in Love and Starvation…

Now back to this internal negotiation going on in our heads. In the instances where this negotiation is over something necessary for survival, such as food, we can make two logical predictions based on what we know about neuroscience and our bodies.

  1. The war will go on forever because for the animal brain, surrender is not an option–Mother Nature is very stubborn.
  2. There is absolutely no winning this war. 

What’s more, even if you are able to somehow overpower your survival instinct’s demands for more food every single time, is that even winning?

For the longest, I defined “winning” as exactly that–willing my animal brain into submission. But how can this ever be winning if it means that you will never be able to give 100% of your attention to anyone or anything because a part of you will always have to remain diligent in the never ending war going on in your head? Not to mention the collateral damage inflicted on your body in the process.

Shifting My Paradigm

It wasn’t until I re-evaluated my idea of winning, and even began to question the utility of this war itself, that I was able to shift my paradigm. I had to really sit down and ask myself why I was so damn adamant on taking my human brain’s side on everything in the first place. I mean, isn’t my animal brain and body and just as much a part of me as my human brain?

Why is it that we see our survival instincts as the enemy? Why would we have such as hostile view of the very signals that are there to protect us and keep us alive?

This is where “we” come into the situation. Although, we are comprised of our Body, Human brian, and Animal brain, we tend to only identify with one of these–the Human brain. 

Who Are You?

You see, the Human brain or Mind is where self-consciousness or our sense of the “Self” originates. It’s that little voice that fills your head with endless chatter: going on about the merits of rice over pasta, or reminding you about that awkward conversation at happy hour. 

If you are perpetually engaged with this internal chatter you will likely interpret everything, including the signals from your Animal brain, from the perspective of the Human brain. From this perspective, the Animal brain appears an “enemy” for two reasons.

  • It Seems Alien: While the chatter of the Mind is easier to comprehend, the messages from our Animal brain are far more obscure. These are often experienced as craving or emotions that our Human brain then tries to identify and explain. Since we often experience life from the point of view of the Human brain, these cryptic signals from our Animal brain seem to come from somewhere else entirely.
  • It Has Different Goals: Anyone who has ever dieted can appreciate the fact that the survival instincts of the Animal brain do not share the same desire to achieve a beach body as your Human brain. In fact, these two almost never see eye to eye. Keep in mind (pun intended) that this internal disagreement is not inherently a bad thing, but rather a natural form of checks and balances. Our Human brains however, don’t see this internal negotiation as a useful process, but rather as an obstacle that must be overcome.

You Are Not the Voices in Your Head

After coming to grips with the source of the animosity that I’ve had toward my animal brain for years, I began to reason myself out of the fallacy that my human brain was always right. And trust me, the irony of that last statement is not lost on me.     

This disregard of the needs of my Animal brain and body were driving my eating disorder and other internal wars for years until I finally came to the realization that they are just as much a part of me as my Human brain. Now, instead of seeing myself solely through the lens of my human brain, I identify with all three on a similar level.

Finally Seeing the Big Picture

This change of perspective provides a 30,000 foot view of the situation where I can observe my Human and Animal brain in disagreement, as well as what that conflict in turn does to my Body. This new outside perspective gives me enough distance to consider all three perspectives when making a decision. If we want to get creative, a decision might look something like this:

Human Brain: Hey guys, let’s go for a run.

Body: I don’t know, I’m still kind of sore from our last run.

Animal Brain: Yea, I’m not really excited about the idea of a run right now.

Me: Human Brain, they do have a point. How about we take a walk instead. Besides, we will get much more out of a run if we wait a few days until the Body is no longer sore and the Animal brain is eager to run again.

This is not to say that I don’t end up siding with my Human brain most of the time; of course I do, or I’d probably be in jail, as we’d all. I’ve simply developed a new respect and appreciation for my Animal brain and my Body.

👉 Next time you notice an internal war going on in your head, stop and think Hey Gang, stop arguing. We’re all in this together…

If you think someone could benefit from hearing this message, please share with your friends and family. ✌️