Amygdala hijack

An amygdala hijack is the emotional brain momentarily switching off rational thinking. Daniel Goleman popularized the term. When the amygdala perceives a threat, it starts a sudden and intense reaction, bypassing the prefrontal cortex that assesses the situation calmly; afterward a person says 'I don't know what I did'. This is a fast system that evolved for survival, but in daily life it often produces disproportionate reactions. In coaching, understanding this helps to handle a reaction without judgment and to think about how to cope with such a moment in the future.