Supporting emotional regulation: check your ‘inner chimp’

Dr Steve Peters, author of the best-selling book The Chimp Paradox (2012), helps us understand why, even as emotionally intelligent human beings, we sometimes think or react in an overly emotional or irrational way. The notion of the ‘chimp brain’ stems from psychological theory, illustrating how our evolutionary history has influenced our responses to environmental challenges. For example:

• Jumping to conclusions or thinking in absolute terms.

• Engaging in paranoid thinking.

• Experiencing inner turmoil, making us overreact when we feel threatened or undermined. 

Peters distinguishes between the ‘human brain’, which allows us to respond with compassion and calmness by using both emotions and rational thinking, and the ‘chimp brain’, characterised by impulsive reactions, saying things we do not mean, sulking, or losing control in the face of opposition. Although our chimp brain operates much faster than the human brain, we can train ourselves to recognise when it is taking over. The goal is not to kill our chimp brain but to tame it – to calm ourselves and use logic to reassure it. This cultivates emotional literacy, enhancing our effectiveness as professionals.  

Learning to tame your ‘inner chimp’

• We can only regulate our emotions if we have the opportunity to express them; this process helps us manage socially inappropriate feelings such as frustration, anger and disgust. Therefore, it is crucial to vent – to provide a safe space for your inner chimp to have its voice in a safe space. Seek out individuals (within and outside the workplace) with whom you can safely share and release these feelings. Your Personal Board of Directors in FWB1 Safe and Secure (Quick Win) will help you with this.

• Having a safe space to vent our feelings enables us to start addressing our emotional reactions calmly, giving the rational part of our brain to determine a more reasoned response to the situation.

• Remember, being angry is perfectly natural and a logical response to some situations but is not always proportional or functional. FWB1 Safe and Secure provides some tips on how to manage conflict more effectively (see Quick Win).

• When we need to divert our inner chimp, it helps to count to ten or to use a breathing technique (see FWB1 Safe and Secure Quick Win) before we voice our reactions.

• Techniques to challenge unproductive thinking (see FWB5 Self-care and Wellbeing Core Action) can also help us calm our inner chimp.

Reflective pause

What situations typically trigger my inner chimp and how do I usually react when this happens, both mentally and physically?

The following exercises can help you develop a deeper understanding of your emotional responses and work towards managing your inner Chimp more effectively:

• Describe a recent situation in which you allowed your emotions to control your reaction to something that someone else said or did. How did their words or actions trigger you, and how did you respond? 

• How did you feel afterward? Did you get the result you wanted from your reaction? Why or why not?

• How could you have managed your Chimp better to allow your Human (your rational brain) to stay in control? 

If you speak to someone else using your Chimp (emotional side), they will most likely respond with their Chimp. Try to speak to other people from your Human (rational side) to their Human, leaving your Chimps out of the conversation. 

• Think of a recent conversation that you had in which your Chimp drove your words or actions. When you addressed the other person with your Chimp, how did their Chimp respond? 

• How did your Chimp respond when their Chimp spoke to you? Were you able to prevent it from doing so? Why or why not? 

• How could you have used your Human to better respond to the other person’s Chimp when it addressed you?