The Single Moment That Changes Everything

A practical look at amygdala hijacks and moments that can shape our relationships and leadership

I write about emotional intelligence because it is the most powerful way to positively shape life and leadership outcomes. I've spent years researching emotional intelligence and finding effective ways to apply it to life and leadership. I've progressively improved my application of the skills , but I've not mastered them , I'm not even close. This article, like most of my writings, centres on practical awareness rather than perfection. When it comes to recognising reactive instincts in the heat of a discussion, I've made progress over many years, but I'm still nowhere near perfect.

There are still times when tired, stretched, or feeling criticised when I react before I've really listened. Indeed, times when my words or actions race ahead of rational thought, often with regrettable outcomes. It might be in a meeting where someone legitimately questions a decision I've made, or at home when a conversation catches me at a bad moment. In both situations the same thing happens: my body tightens, my stomach fills with an anxious energy, and I feel a pull to respond before I've properly comprehended what's actually being said. It's as though my words are spilling out before I've ever formed them in my mind.

That moment has a name, the amygdala hijack.

The phrase amygdala hijack was popularised by psychologist and author Daniel Goleman, who drew on neuroscience research including the work of Joseph LeDoux. LeDoux's work in relation to the brain and fear responses helped explain how we react to perceived threats or danger before slower, more considered thinking has a chance to catch up. 

The almond-shaped amygdala sits deep in the centre of the brain and functions to detect threats. This neural configuration goes back to early human evolution, when the fight-or-flight response developed as a reflex to the many physical dangers around us. When the amygdala senses danger, it triggers a fast emotional response before the frontal lobe gets involved. The frontal lobe is responsible for executive functions such as rational thinking and sound decision-making. The sensory pathway to the amygdala is much quicker than the one to the frontal cortex, which is useful when a threat is real and immediate.

The challenge is that everyday stress can trigger the same shortcut to the amygdala, bypassing the frontal lobe. As a result, the brain can respond to a difficult conversation, a piece of criticism, or a challenge to your thinking as though it were a physical threat that needs an immediate reaction. That's where the feelings and reactive behaviour I spoke of earlier comes in.

When the amygdala quickly hijacks your thinking it temporarily crowds out the more deliberate parts of the brain. During a hijack, with your frontal lobe relegated to a back seat, you have less access to impulse control, perspective, and good judgement. You're less able to pause, weigh things up, and actually choose your response. Instead you interrupt, misread tone, jump to conclusions, or say something you end up regretting. What I find useful about understanding this is that it explains why a moment can feel so much bigger than it is or why an innocent question from a family member or colleague can suddenly feel like a full frontal attack.

At work we're most susceptible to the amygdala hijack when the pressure is already building and someone challenges something we care about. At home it might be a small comment that lands heavily on a day when you're already carrying too much. The setting changes but the pattern doesn't; stress accumulates quietly in the background, resilience slowly erodes, and then one more thing tips you over the edge.

That's part of why emotional intelligence matters, and I don't mean that as a leadership buzzword, it as a practical, everyday skill in both life and leadership. The ability to notice your own state, manage your reactions, and stay functional when emotions rise affects how you lead, how you work, and how you show up with the people around you. It also shapes whether people trust you.

Amygdala hijacks are more likely in environments marked by constant urgency, low trust, poor communication, and no real opportunity to recover. That's as true in personal life as it is at work. When you're exhausted, overloaded, or already carrying frustration from earlier in the day, there's less in the system to draw on when challenge arrives and your brain is more likely to choose that neural short out to your amygdala.

I recognise this in myself clearly. If I'm stressed or short on sleep, I'm more likely to get defensive in a conversation that was never adversarial to begin with. I can hear criticism in something that was only curiosity and I can quickly find myself responding to the feeling I had, rather than the words that were actually spoken. That's the real cost of an amygdala hijack. It doesn't just affect how you feel. It distorts how you think.

The question, though, is how does knowing about this neural shortcut risk help us?

For me, the first step is learning to notice the early signs. They nearly always arrive in the body before they show up in the mind: a tightening in the chest, thoughts speeding up, a strong urge to defend my position before I've heard the full picture. If I can recognise these sensations, I still have choices; the hijack is imminent but not inevitable.

The second step is deliberately slowing the moment down. A pause or deep breath helps. I might buy myself a little time by asking a question like, "Can you walk me through what you mean?" 

The third step is reminding myself that discomfort isn't danger. If you're like me, it might be worth reading that last sentence again. Feedback can sting and a tense exchange can feel like an attack even when nothing is actually under threat. Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is simply register that this is a hard moment, not a harmful one. Those two things aren't the same.

The fourth step is doing something about the conditions that make reactivity more likely in the first place. It could be a sleep issue, workload or just the fact I am generally rundown. Emotional intelligence is much harder to access when you're already running on empty.

And when I still get it wrong, which happens, I try to repair it quickly. That means owning the tone rather than defending it and acknowledging when I was reactive. That's probably the part I care about most in all of this. Understanding the amygdala hijack doesn't hand me an excuse , rather it hands me a responsibility. If I know that stress degrades my judgement, I need to take the signs seriously and if I know I'm capable of reactive behaviour under pressure, I need to keep working on catching it sooner.

I'm better at that than I used to be. Not perfect. Better.

So now, whether I'm sitting in a meeting or standing in the kitchen at the end of a long day, I try to catch the shift before it becomes something I have to walk back. Because the real issue is rarely just the comment sitting in front of me.

It's whether I let stress and an amygdala hijack do the talking instead.