Estanislao Bachrach is a doctor in Molecular Biology from the UBA (University of Buenos Aires) and the University of Montpellier. After working for 17 years in different laboratories in Argentina, France and the United States, a professional and personal crisis led him to change the course of his life.
Searching for himself He delved into neuroscience and began to dedicate himself to the dissemination of issues related to emotional intelligence and creativity, focused on change. Starting from the fact that one teaches what he has to learn, according to his own words, he has just published In limbo. Learn to design your emotions to become who you always wanted to be (Grijalbo).
–If our limbic system, where our emotions reside, is responsible for most of the decisions we make, as he states in his new book ‘In Limbo’, why has so little attention been historically paid to emotions?
-I believe that there has always been a prioritization of reason, of analysis… The scientific world, which is a very arrogant world, has been more interested in how we think, how we reason, how we make decisions based on logic and those scientists who studied emotions were considered soft scientists. So, when distributing the money for research, because we scientists live from that, it was a matter of understanding more what was happening in the prefrontal cortex, the area that differentiates us the most from animals.
Over time, thanks also to research, they realized that emotions played a critical role in decisions, even rational ones. We always have an emotional bias when deciding and many of the decisions we make are emotional and the reason serves to justify, to conclude, to reassure us of the decision we made.
–Since 1990 (and 31 years have passed) we have heard about emotional intelligence, with authors like Daniel Goleman and others, but emotions are still not worked on at school, which is the cradle of the future society… Why do you think this is due to ?
–This does not seem curious to me, because in my personal experience, at least in Latin America, I don’t know about Spain, although it seems to me that it is a bit similar, the school has always been a bit late to scientific advances. 30 years later, at least. Of course, before he gets to the school, teachers have to be trained. And who is going to train them, under a public body, in private courses…?
Each country will have its policy, but this change will come. I believe that there are teachers who realize that children not only have to develop strong emotional intelligence to know themselves, make better decisions or for their well-being, but also to improve academically.
–You suggest in your book In limbo that it is possible to design our emotions to have a more meaningful and happier life. What is the point from which we should start to work on our emotions?
–The first thing to work on is self-knowledge, the ability that each one of us has to know ourselves in depth. What do we feel? Why? How are we thinking? How do we make decisions? Where do we want to go? There are many disciplines that can help us to know ourselves: doing psychotherapy, praying, meditating, coaching, mentoring…
I am not a fan of any, but without knowing your own feelings and emotions it is very difficult to develop emotional intelligence. Then there is what most people are looking for today, at least in the pandemic, a lot happened: How do I regulate that emotion. If I am very afraid, how do I lower the fear; If I have a lot of anguish, how do I lower the anguish… People already realize that it is not bad to be afraid, to be sad… There are no bad emotions.
In Biology we say that emotions are information, it is something that is registered throughout the body, and we can distinguish between pleasant and unpleasant emotions.
We scientists are convinced that the best way to understand the other is by knowing yourself first.
-And when we start to know each other?
–Aside from self-knowledge, seeing how society works today, it is interesting to be less self-critical and have more compassion, especially with ourselves. There are many curious experiments on what generates self-criticism in the brain. Areas are illuminated that have nothing to do with change, risk taking, motivation, security… Criticizing yourself all day generates a lot of discomfort and bad decisions.
It is a lie that one changes when criticized. Being able to accentuate the things that one does well is very important for oneself and for others… And on the other hand, we manage to have a fuller life when we take problems as challenges.
The problem has a negative connotation; the challenge, on the other hand, is a little more positive. Sometimes the subtlety of words achieves many changes in how we feel about what happens to us. Then, it is important to be clear about how much time I dedicate to the problem and how much to the solution and to understand that any change, improvement or learning takes time and it is normal to feel sad and hurt at times. Not denying emotions is also important for a better life.
–And when these emotions are very intense?
–In the face of challenges, problems or situations that we do not like, it is essential to pay attention to what I am thinking while this situation happens. What people find is that many of the thoughts we generate intensify the magnitude of the situation. “I’m going to die”, “they’re going to fire me from work”…
So detecting thoughts and modifying them for more positive ones can generate a great change. The anguish and fear decrease and in that state of less intense emotionality, you make better decisions. You generate more well-being, you are less impulsive, you treat others better… I propose in these cases to observe what we are thinking and change those more irrational thoughts for more real ones.
–Currently, the changes that we are observing in the world make many people collectively conditioned by fear, sadness and uncertainty. How do these emotions affect our brain?
– Biologists say that emotions are biological. They not only influence our thoughts and behaviors but also our endocrine system and our autonomic responses (blood pressure, digestion, hormonal system…). When we feel something, changes are generated in almost all our organs. We manufacture different neurotransmitters, different hormones… Being angry is not the same as being happy.
Obviously it’s not the same, but chemically it’s not the same either. The emotions that we experience are generating changes in our body because they are modifying our chemistry and on the other hand, when the emotion is high, intense, regardless of the name and surname of the emotion, be it panic, euphoria or fury… when it is intense, we can’t think straight.
At intense emotions we make bad decisions.
So much of my book has to do with regulating those emotions. I am not going to make your fear disappear, because fear is normal; but with panic you are going to be much more wrong. You are going to be more impulsive, more reactive… and the anger cannot disappear.
You can’t help but feel angry about a situation, but you have to lower the intensity, because if you continue like this you’re going to make bad decisions. You have to demystify that you’re going to be happy all the time, you can’t. You will feel different things, but if you learn to manage the intensity levels of emotion, you will make better decisions.
–Is the will to generate positive emotions more powerful than our epigenetic conditioning factors?
-If it is more powerful I have no idea, but it is possible that it is. It has to do with what we Latinos call “the attitude.” Pleasant emotions have to do with our way of thinking, of being able to sustain a certain degree of well-being by thinking in a more realistic or positive way.
Again, it is important to detect negative rational thoughts, those that do sink you in the context that you are. One must understand how one thinks and realize that this rumination can be virtuous or vicious. 50% of what you feel you can’t seem to change much, but the other 50% can.
If you have been interested in this interview…
you can buy the book In limbo.Learn to design your emotions to become who you always wanted to be (Grijalbo)