Your Gut Feelings, Should You Trust Them?

People use the term "gut feeling", but of course they don't originate in the stomach or intestines! These feelings that most of us experience at one time or another actually originate in the right side of the brain. This part of the brain is the non dominant sector for right-handed people. This group of people constitutes 90% of the population.

What the right side of the brain does is first to accept the information coming in. Then it compares and matches it with its store of similar previous experiences. These experiences are stored in the brain, sort of like videotapes. The brain is so amazing that is matches this information in only 1/10 of a second! For example, you know that you've seen that house before, or that you can play a particular song on the piano. This is oversimplified because we automatically associate with the things that we know, but this is how the right side of the brain works. This part of the brain can take from a small amount of data, a complete picture although some can be fuzzy or smudged. The right side is highly visual and it also links to our emotions.

So now, when the right side of the brain replays those videos of a previous experience, even a tiny portion of it, you not only receive clear visual information, you also receive emotional input attached to this information. This is what we call our gut feelings. Here's an example of this experience. Let's say you are in an apparent uneventful and innocent situation, but you suddenly experience an unexplainable, intense feeling of fear. This is your gut feeling. What happened is that the right side of the brain instantly analyzed the situation (remember at 1/10 of a second?) by matching the new experience with a related previous experience in its store of "files" or videos, and judged this new situation to be very dangerous. Now the left side of the brain is the rational portion. Of course it sees no hint of danger, but the right side is flashing RED ALERT! It's saying ESCAPE! Run as fast as you can from the situation!