tilt explained (by neuroscience)

[svenson]

a very rough explanation of the neuroscience of tilt goes something like this:
You get a bad beat. Your mind takes this as a threat (to your livlihood aka bankroll). First flow of adrenaline comes in. This flow is small, but prepares your mind and body for an encounter.
You hit another badbeat. (Usually your tilt after 2) Now the major flow of adrenaline and other chemicals comes.
Now here comes the intricate info, so pay attention.
You're brain is made up of many parts, but the two that are related to poker are the amygdala and the lymbic system.

The amygdala controls your basic emotions, sex,food,and when to fight or flight. Basically think of a dog's brain.

The lymbic system is what separates us from the dog. Its an extra layer of tissue that we evolved on top of the amygdala. It controls a lot of what we think of as "concious thought". It is attributed to calculations, logic, and rationality.

The amygdala is much more neccessary for us to live than the limbic system. It controls all of the basic needs for life, and its also the core part of the brain, the limbic system is an extension of it.

Now back to poker. When we hit that second bad beat, and the large flow of chemicals starts, the amygdala takes over. We've been threatened and if we were cavemen, we need to decide on fight or flight. The amygdala is much faster than the limbic system to make decisions, but the decisions are very crude and far from very accurate.

As the limbic system is no longer guiding our actions, we lose a lot of our control over solid logical decision making.

What do you do to fix this? Take a break, get some excersize, and do not ruminate on the bad beat, you will just make the flow of chemicals even stronger and you will lose even more control.

I hope everyone enjoyed this, I might make a small book with this stuff, I really enjoy it.