CSChristoffel SneijdersThree brains: head, heart and gut for decisions you keep deferring

Who knows how a broken heart feels or anxiety and what does that to our 3 Brains?

1 Oct 2019 · 5 min

Watch on YouTube

4:35

In this informal talk, Christoffel Sneijders explores how intense emotions like a broken heart and anxiety affect the body, introducing his "three‑brain" framework that separates decision‑making into gut, heart, and head systems. He cites striking figures—90,000 brain cells in the gut and 500 million in the heart—to illustrate that each organ has its own neural network capable of influencing behavior. The gut‑brain, he explains, drives survival‑oriented actions (fight, flight, rest) and often seeks self‑preservation, while the heart‑brain prioritizes connection, compassion, and love. Sneijders illustrates how mismatched activation of these systems can spark everyday conflicts, such as a tired partner wanting solitude (gut‑brain) versus a partner seeking emotional connection (heart‑brain). He argues that recognizing which "brain" is active can reduce misunderstandings and arguments. The discussion also touches on his upcoming book, which aims to translate these neuroscientific insights into practical relationship guidance, helping people identify internal signals and respond more empathetically.

Chapters

Does anybody in this room besides me ever had a broken heart? Or maybe more than once? Okay, that's— I will not say that's right, but you already know how painful that is. And people even can die from a broken heart. And don't talk about— and I love to— I've been on the plane so many times. Do you know when people have a fear of flying, where is the most busiest spot? The toilet. Of course, to pee and poop and do everything else. Because if Anxious, where is anxious stored? When you're afraid, here. And don't you talk about gut feeling? Following your guts? So I came aware what's happening actually, and then I started to research, because I love research. And I came aware actually your brains. 90,000 brain cells here. Really brain cells in your heart. 500 million there. That's something like the size of a cat. Because the moment you label it differently, they can just communicate with each other. And you can say, hey, Now really a bit in your gut. And it makes sense because our gut— what does our gut like to do? This amazing brain, 500 million years old, it only wants to do one thing: survive. And as Amanda said, it does 3 things. Survive means fight, flight, run. It means we like to have a drink, or we like to have some food, or we don't survive. Or we just like to have the good fuck, otherwise we don't get new kids on this earth. And, and don't talk about lovemaking, it makes it extremely rude, because lovemaking is not a gut experience. Lovemaking comes from the heart, because our love— our heart just likes to make love, likes to make connections, likes compassion. Partly how it works. So what's my passion with my book actually? That I find it out, and that all of us have less arguments, less discussions, and that we start understanding each other. Because just imagine you come home tired from work. Do you know those moments you come tired from work, yet those colleagues were just annoying, clients were annoying, those kind of stuff? Maybe sometimes some people— I see some heads nodding— they come home. So which brain is active when you're tired? No, your gut brain. Survival. It's tired, it only wants to do a nap on the couch or whatever you like to do, napping, just like that. No kids, no fucking around, No husbands, girlfriends who talk to you just like to have me time. Now imagine you come home, your gut brain is saying, I'd like to have a drink, I'd like to have a sit-down, I'd like to have some me time. And your partner is a heart-brain person. When a heart-brain person is tired, they'd like to connect with everybody else. Heart-brains are all about us, us, us. You know the Labradors? They like to cuddle up with you even if you don't like them. So just a bit, you come home in that laboratory, girlfriend, partner, oh, how was your day? Tired. I'm tired. Okay, let's have a good talk. Let's, let's talk about what happened to me today. On that moment, you have a massive clash. The gut brain just says, me, me, me. Don't you see I'm tired, honey? Why do you always talk? It's always you who likes to talk. Don't you have any compassion for me? Don't you know what I need? And that's how we react. Not because they don't love their partner, because in that moment it's all about me. I need recovery time. And that person just thinks, he doesn't love me anymore. It means a big beep because we don't understand each other. What I hope is that book also creates, that people come over here to see those signals, what's happening. It doesn't mean you always have an excuse, but at least see them and recognize them. Hey, I'm now in this kind of mood. If I'm in this kind of mood, let's just test how the other one is before we start arguing. But you can only have a fight if you're in your gut system. You can have a misunderstanding when you're ahead. Here's the connection. Or hate if somebody really cheats on you and betrays all your stuff. Wow!
Chris, it's, uh, it's delicate. So yes, this is, um, actually very—
you mean it by hand?
Yeah, Amanda came up with the idea that it would be much easier to digest Chris's book this way.