Podcast Summary: Office Hours with Arthur Brooks

Episode: How to Control Your Emotions (According to Neuroscience)

Date: January 15, 2026
Host: Arthur Brooks

Episode Overview

In this episode, Arthur Brooks explores the neuroscience behind emotional self-management and offers practical strategies for controlling emotions rather than being controlled by them. Drawing from research, personal anecdotes, and examples from history and politics, Brooks breaks down metacognition—"thinking about thinking"—and presents three categories of tools anyone can use to become the executive of their emotional lives. This episode is positioned as a foundational “Part 1” on emotional self-management.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Neuroscience of Emotions and Self-Control

• From Limbic to Executive:

  • Emotions are born in the limbic system (like the amygdala and insula), which triggers immediate, often primal reactions.
  • The goal is to transfer emotional data from the limbic system to the prefrontal cortex, where we can reflect, analyze, and make decisions—a process known as metacognition.

• The Classic “Count to 10”—Why It Works:

  • Origins of Advice: Tracing back to Thomas Jefferson: “When angry, count to ten. When very angry, count to one hundred.”
  • Science Update: Recent research suggests counting to 30 is optimal. During the count, intentionally imagine the consequences of your triggered response.
    • Quote:

      “By 30, you just saved yourself a trip to human resources. Congratulations. That’s kind of how metacognition works.” — Arthur Brooks [03:06]

• Metacognition Defined:

  • Metacognition is giving your prefrontal cortex time to catch up with your emotions.
  • “Metacognition means thinking about thinking… it practically involves giving your prefrontal cortex time to register what’s going on with your emotions.” — Arthur Brooks [02:35]

Three Categories of Metacognitive Techniques

1. Knowledge: Understanding Your Brain

• Being aware of which brain regions are activated helps defang negative emotions.
  • Example: The insular cortex, responsible for the emotion of disgust, can be manipulated—both in daily life and historically (e.g., political rhetoric).
  • Noticing when media or leaders use language to stir up disgust helps protect your own reactions.
    • Quote:

      “Next time… they try to stimulate your disgust reflex against a fellow human being, you’re going to say: ‘Yeah, I know what’s going on here. Hands off my insula, man.’” — Arthur Brooks [07:44]

  • Knowledge about how the brain works (e.g., the amygdala, the anterior cingulate cortex) shifts the emotional experience from something that happens to you to something you manage.

2. Contemplation: Reflection and Meditation

• Using mindfulness, meditation, or prayer to observe and contextualize emotions.
• Insight Meditation (Vipassana):
  • Sitting quietly and naming your emotional state, then tracing its origins—e.g., lack of sleep leading to irritability.
  • Self-talk example:

    “Arthur’s feeling a little sad and angry today. Why might that be? Well, it kind of makes sense… when he sleeps less than five hours a night, his negative emotionality is turned up a little bit higher than it would have been otherwise.” — Arthur Brooks [11:38]

• Religious Contemplation:
  • Prayers of petition require naming and offering up feelings, activating the prefrontal cortex.
  • Any contemplative or structured reflective practice helps you “observe yourself in a quiet, serious, and methodical way.” [13:30]

3. Documentation: Writing and Journaling

• Putting feelings into writing is inherently executive, engaging the prefrontal cortex.
• Brooks’ “Fear Journal” Practice:
  • Regularly write down your biggest sources of anxiety or fear.
  • For each:
    1. Name the fear.
    2. Write the worst-case, best-case, and most likely scenario.
    3. Assign probabilities to each.
    4. Write what you would do for each scenario.
  • Quote:

    “You’ve made it into a realistic scenario... It’s one of the reasons the insurance industry is truly a happiness industry. It’s transferring fear from uncertainty into risk that can be managed.” — Arthur Brooks [16:06]

  • Review your “fear journal” weekly; writing creates distance and perspective, helping with both sleep and stress management.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Counting and Metacognition:

  "Count to 30 and imagine the outcome that would occur from doing that thing that your amygdala is telling you to do." — Arthur Brooks [02:18]

• On Emotional Self-Management:

  "What I want you to understand is that you can manage your emotion such that it's not managing you... You're learning and growing as a result." — Arthur Brooks [04:30]

• On Manipulation of Emotions in Politics:

  “Dictators and demagogues always vilify other people by stimulating the disgust reflex in the population... You gotta make them think they're not sisters and brothers, they're pathogen carriers.” — Arthur Brooks [08:24]

• On Journaling and Managing Anxiety:

  “When you put things into words, when you journal things, you’re exercising an extremely high level of metacognition, and that’s why it makes you feel better.” — Arthur Brooks [14:20]

• On Documenting and Defanging Fear:

  “This is your insurance policy vis a vis your prefrontal cortex. And that’s all through documentation, that’s all through journaling. And it’s a miracle. I promise you, my friends, this is going to be a game changer.” — Arthur Brooks [16:51]

Important Timestamps

• 00:28 – 03:14: Neuroscience of emotions; “count to 30” technique; metacognition introduction
• 04:00 – 10:04: Knowledge as power; disgust reflex; manipulation in history and politics
• 11:10 – 13:30: Contemplative practices; meditation; religious examples
• 14:00 – 17:18: Documentation; journaling techniques; managing fear and anxiety
• 17:18 – 17:37: Preview of future episodes; summary of the importance of metacognition

Tone & Style

Arthur Brooks adopts a conversational, accessible, and motivational tone, blending neuroscience and practical life advice with humor and cultural observations. His approach is encouraging, emphasizing self-compassion and the empowering potential of self-understanding.

Episode Takeaways

• Self-managing emotions is not about having fewer emotions, but understanding and guiding them constructively.
• Three key metacognitive practices—knowledge, contemplation, and documentation—can profoundly change your emotional life.
• Start by counting to 30 when emotions spike, cultivate self-reflection, and write emotions down to regain control.
• Recognize manipulation of your emotional reflexes, particularly disgust and fear.
• Regular reflection and structured journaling turn chronic, unfocused anxiety into specific, manageable concerns.

Brooks promises to expand on these themes in future episodes, including emotional repair and “joint metacognition” in relationships.