How the Brain Processes Stress

Transcription

1 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 1 A QuickStart Guide: Keys to Changing the Brain with Rick Hanson, PhD; Ruth Buczynski, PhD; Ron Siegel, PsyD; and Kelly McGonigal, PhD How the Brain Processes Stress People often experience some amount of stress during the day. And any amount of stress can leave us feeling overwhelmed and drained. Here, Rick Hanson explains the dangers of high stress levels and ways to train the brain to better handle stress. Dr. Hanson: Mother Nature has endowed us with another setting in the brain the Whoa setting which is where we experience in our core that one or more of our fundamental needs of safety, satisfaction, and connection is not met. Then the brain fires up into its fight/flight stress response mode, or it goes into an intense freeze mode the red zone. In the red zone, which is not meant to be sustainable at all it is a brief burst the body burns resources faster than it takes them in. Bodily systems are really disturbed; there is a fundamental sense of deficit and disturbance, and long-term building projects like strengthening the immune system are put on hold.

2 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 2 In terms of avoiding, approaching, and attaching, the mind is colored with a sense of fear, frustration, and heartache. Red zone experiences are normal, but as Robert Sapolsky talks about in his great book, Why Zebras Don t Get Ulcers, most red-zone spikes of stress in the wild end quickly one way or another. Then the animals go back to long periods of green zone recovery refueling, renewing, and repairing. That becomes a problem with modern life. Most of us, at least, in the developed world, are happy, with some unfortunate exceptions. We are not spending our days running and screaming in terror from charging lions we don t have severe spikes of red zone stress. But on the other hand, we are exposed to mild to moderate chronic stress, with very little time for recovery which is a complete violation of the evolutionary model (on p. 8-9 in the Part 1 Transcript). Developing a Positive Mindset Bad days and negative experiences are sometimes just a part of life. But according to Rick Hanson, we don t have to let them ruin our mood entirely. Here, he shares his two-step process for shifting your brain s perspective from negative to positive.

3 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 3 Dr. Hanson: The neural psychology of learning shows us that this is a two-stage process. Quickly here, it moves from one, activation, to two, installation. In other words, we need to have a positive, useful mental state typically an experience of the inner strength itself or some factor of it. If you want to develop mindfulness, you want to have more moments in which you are mindful. If you want to develop gratitude as an orientation to life in general, you have more moments in which you are grateful. So now we have that activated mental state, but we need to install it as a lasting neural state: activation and installation. Once we have that neural trait growing inside us as an inner strength, it fosters states of it, which then give us new opportunities to install it as a positive trait. By the way, this process of going from state to trait to state to state, works positively and negatively. In other words, negative states rapidly become negative neural traits, which then foster more negative mental states. The brain is in fact biased toward that process of negative learning, and relatively poor at and weak at the process of positive learning even though positive states are the primary source of positive traits.

4 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 4 So that is what I have gotten very focused on, because most positive states are just wasted on the brain. They are momentarily pleasant, but if they don t transfer those short-term memory buffers to long-term storage, there is no lasting value (on p in the Part 1 Transcript). Having More Positive Experiences According to Rick Hanson, the brain tends to remember more negative moments than positive ones. But he says, we can cultivate certain inner strengths to become better at installing positive experiences. Here he gives us a four-step strategy for getting the positive memories to sink into the brain. Dr. Hanson: This acronym covers the activation and installation process. Then, as I hope we will talk about, you can use it for those specific inner strengths or qualities of mind and heart that you want to cultivate in yourself or in other people because those are the strengths that are really going to do the most good. The H in HEAL stands for Have. You have the positive experience in the first place either because you noticed one you are already having or because you actually create one.

5 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 5 Now, you have it going. It is activated. But if you don t install it, it is going to be wasted on your brain. Then you go to E, Enrich: you can enrich the experience. Borrowing or turning to the famous saying in neuroscience that Neurons that fire together wire together you want to get a lot of neurons firing together so that they start wiring together. There are five well-known factors in the neuropsychology of learning that promote installation that promote emotional psychological change as well as other kinds of learning. These are the five factors (and you can do one or more of them). Duration the longer you stay with the experience, the more it will sink in. Intensity the more intense you have the experience, maybe it is an emotion, maybe it is a body state, maybe it is an inclination of commitment, maybe it is an insight into your own psychology but whatever it is, the more intense it is, the more there will be the formation of neural structure. Multimodality is the third factor. The more that you bring experiences down into your body and have them be emotionally rich, maybe even enact the experience, like sitting up a little straighter to support an experience of

6 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 6 determination or inner strength the more neural structure they will build. Novelty is the fourth factor the brain is a big novelty detector. A lot of research shows that when we relate to things that are new, that heightens learning. Personal Relevance is the last factor Why does this matter to me? Why is it salient for me? Those are the factors of Enriching. You can do one or more of them and build up any one of them. The third aspect, or step, of the HEAL process is A for Absorb. This is where we prime memory systems we sensitize them to really turbocharge the installation process, by intending and sensing that the experience is going into us. Maybe we visualize it sinking in, like water into a sponge. With children, we will talk about putting a jewel in the treasure chest of the heart. This is just a kind of giving oneself over to the experience letting it land inside. Those are aspects of absorbing. The last step in the process is L for Link, and it is the optional one. It holds simultaneously in awareness some positive experience with some negative material painful thoughts or feelings or memories that this positive material is a natural antidote for.

7 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 7 Through holding it in the mind, since neurons that fire together wire together, the positive material will gradually associate with the negative material, soothing, easing, and eventually even replacing it. It probably it all sounds a bit complicated but it really boils down to four words: have it enjoy it and especially enjoy because that is when the installation occurs (on p in the Part 1 Transcript). Novelty and Neuroplasticity Many people rely on having a daily routine. But this might not always be best for the brain. Rick Hanson explains why it s important to focus on varying our experiences, and why it can be critical for neuroplasticity. Dr. Hanson: Novelty promotes neuroplasticity the capacity of the brain to be changed by its experiences. And we have heightened learning for what is novel. To bring it down to earth, if a person is having a fairly familiar positive experience like, Oh, that coffee tastes good, or they are touching someone they care about maybe their intimate partner, or they are experiencing a little gratitude, or maybe they are doing some meditative practice and it is getting more peaceful it is easy to take those experiences for granted.

8 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 8 But if instead, we see them, as the poet put it, Through the eyes of a child; or to use the Zen idea of beginner s mind, then we bring that beginner s mind to what it feels like to relax while breathing or to feel grateful for the blessings in our life. If we bring that beginner s mind and therefore a sense of novelty and freshness to the experience it will build more neural structure (on p. 18 in the Part 1 Transcript). Letting Go of the Negative Rick Hanson explains three practices for engaging the mind and letting go of the negative. Dr. Hanson: Negative experiences obviously are an essential part of life I think of the Buddha s Four Noble Truths, which are utterly psychological. The first truth is, There is suffering. To my way of thinking about it, Ruth, I use a framework that has helped me tremendously, personally and professionally, to think about the three ways to engage the mind. In effect, there are three ways to practice and engage the mind. The first way is to simply be with what is there, witness it, feel the feelings, experience the experience, maybe investigate it, maybe feel down to where it s softer and younger; certainly

9 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 9 try to hold it in a big space of spacious awareness. We are not trying to change it directly. It might shift as a result of being witnessed rather than identified with, but we are not deliberately trying to change it in the moment. The second way to engage the mind is to deliberately try to release what is negative in other words, try to help tension drain out of the body, for example, or to argue against negative, foolish thoughts, or release unwholesome desires like getting buzzed every night... That is the second way to engage the mind. The third way to engage the mind is to cultivate the positive to grow flowers, as it were. If you think of the mind as a garden, we can witness it, pull weeds, or plant flowers or, in six words, we can let be let go let in. That gives us a natural framework, and an appropriate one, for how to deal with negative experiences. In the first place, we want to witness them we can just be with them. We try to hold them in spacious awareness; maybe we try to bring to bear other factors that help us feel our negative feelings, like selfcompassion or mindfulness or a sense of inner allies with us. At some point, it feels right like the Goldilocks point not too tall, not too short, not too hot,

10 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 10 not too cold the just right place when it feels like it is time to move on, I am not suppressing the emotion but it is time to help it move on out of Dodge. Then we move on to the releasing phase reducing the negative in various ways draining tension out of the body, venting, turning it over to God, or whatever it is we let it go as best we can. In the third phase, when it feels right, we try to replace what we have released with some positive alternative. The cycle that I have gone through might take half a minute with some familiar negative material like maybe just a momentary irritation or something that didn t go well, or maybe something from the past that is well understood Oh that was my critical stepfather; that s my little inner critic yammering away. I know what you sound like, dude I m not going to listen to you anymore. From all that, we can move on fairly quickly. On the other hand, sometimes it takes a year or more, like grief over a serious loss, to move out of the being with way of relating to the negative, to then shifting into helping it release, and then eventually replacing it with something positive. (on p in the Part 1 Transcript).

11 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 11 The Importance of Evolution for Neuroplasticity A lot has happened to the brain over the past 600 million years, and it can be hard to keep track. But, according to Rick Hanson, it s important to understand how the brain has evolved. Here, Kelly McGonigal elaborates on Rick s view, and discusses how evolution can help us better understand brain change. Dr. McGonigal: I think one of the most interesting and important things that Rick talked about was how evolution operates on the brain that it doesn t basically take an old brain and completely overhaul and give you a new and improved brain, but that evolution is more like getting upgrades that will increase the flexibility and diversity of human responses. But, you know, evolution doesn t get rid of what he would refer to as the lizard brain and the other aspects of the brain that seem more primitive. And that is really important for people to understand that there is no way to fundamentally remove some of the experiences we have that feel maybe irrational or emotional things like stress or anxiety, things like social conflict. These are things that are part of what it means to be human, and evolution has given us also

12 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 12 diversity and flexibility about which systems are dominant and our choice of responses. And that gives us a lot of, I think, common humanity and self-compassion. And even to be able to recognize which system might be dominant what mode you might be operating from, and to recognize that as a fundamental human need, that evolution has maintained because it is important to our wellbeing. And I think this just goes a long way in helping people not feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with them because they have these experiences that we sometimes devalue or are looking to escape or evolve away from (on p. 4 in the Part 2: TalkBack Transcript). Balancing the Brain for More Happiness Rick Hanson discussed the idea of rewiring your brain for greater happiness. Specifically, he mentions the need to balance between our recognizing and embracing mental states. Kelly McGonigal shares why she believes this idea of balancing is so important. Dr. McGonigal: One of the things that Rick talked about that I think is incredibly insightful and important is that when you are in a red-light

13 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 13 state, it is often because a need is unmet and something happened that triggered the felt sense of that need being unmet whether a lack of safety or a lack of getting your basic needs met for rewards or mastery or flow, or a sense of disconnection or social conflict. And he says that the antidote to that will be balancing the positive state with embracing the unmet need. And then, look for strategies that allow you to connect the essence of that need, even while you are experiencing pain around the fact that it is unmet or that it has been triggered in you. One of the examples that he gives is that if you are feeling lonely or disconnected or rejected, that practicing loving has the same effect as the experience of being loved, and that when you are experiencing that need being unmet, you don t necessarily need to go out and find people to prove that they love you, but to choose an attitude of love or be able to commit an act of love will meet the need in the same way biologically and psychologically. I think this is a true act of self-compassion he is talking about here how when we are suffering from a sense of not having these basic needs met, it is a tremendous act of courage as well as self-compassion to say, I m going to honor this need rather than deny it or reject it or try to meet it in an unhealthy way, and I m going to actually really dive into what it would mean to

14 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 14 meet this need in a way that is possible in this moment, or see how it s already met (on p. 6-7 in the Part 2: TalkBack Transcript). Getting Rid of Fear According to Rick Hanson, taking in the good is so helpful for overcoming the brain s negative bias. Here, Ron Siegel shares his ideas on the importance of taking in the good, and gives another way to go about changing perspective. Dr. Siegel: Rick has famously said that the mind is like Velcro for bad experiences and Teflon for good ones the bad ones stick and the good ones slip away. And this makes perfect sense, evolutionarily, because it would be a real disaster for us in terms of passing on our DNA if we were to mistake a lion for a beige rock but mistaking a beige rock for a lion we can do time and again and still survive. Simply noticing that this is the case is very, very helpful you know, that we are all, like Mark Twain famously said near the end of his life when he said, I m an old man now. I ve lived a long and difficult life filled with so many misfortunes most of which never happened. You know, when I read that, I thought, Oh, yes, well it sounds like he s been living in my mind this is how it works.

15 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 15 So simply seeing this phenomena, simply seeing that the mind is going to default to expecting the worst; the mind is going to default toward remembering the bad things, the trauma, and tending to forget about the good ones simply keeping this in mind I think is our greatest asset because then we don t believe in the cognitions as much. Then, when the fearful thought comes up that, It s going to be a disaster, or, Once again I m going to be hurt and all of that, we can have another voice that says, Oh, yes there s that old tape. Yes, there I am being Mark Twain again; there I am playing out my evolutionary fate to avoid getting eaten by a lion. I think the other thing that is very, very helpful that when we do find ourselves involved in this kind of negativity, to think, What exactly is it that I am fearing or trying to ward off here? Is it that I am desperately trying to preserve my rank in the primate troop? Is it that I am desperately trying to make sure that I don t experience some bodily discomfort? Is it that I m afraid of some fantasy I have of what death is like? What is it that I am so afraid of here? And I think that often, if we do that with some care and some detail, we notice that, you know, we are afraid of experiencing an unpleasant cognition, an unpleasant affect, an unpleasant body sensation and that all of these things that we fear are actually tolerable if we see

16 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 16 them for what they are rather than get caught up in their symbolic meanings and their narrative. So I think that also helps us to not get so stuck in the negative (on p. 7-8 in the Part 2: TalkBack Transcript). Recognizing a Reactive Brain Rick Hanson compared the brain s reactive and responsive models to a red and a green zone. Here, he explains why it s so important to keep the brain out of the red zone, and how we can train the brain to stay in the green zone more often. Dr. Hanson: One of the most powerful things that I read in the research was that being upset feels bad because it is bad for us; in other words, the red zone feels bad. It feels bad to be angry, or anxious, or sad, or ashamed, or stressed in general. So one thing we can do is recognize that that is a signal developed in us over six hundred million years of evolution of the nervous system, that is Mother Nature s flashing red light: Danger, Will Robinson! Get out of the red zone as fast as you can. So that is one thing, to actually pay attention to the discomfort, the upset, the unease in the red zone, and take it seriously, rather than doing what many of us have done to kind of plod stoically through life, flogging that little, what

17 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 17 Mary Oliver calls Soft animal of the body, to keep it going, rather than really listening to its signals. You know, the distress and discomfort of the red zone is an inner signal planted by Mother Nature to get out of this zone as fast as you can. Her plan is for animals to spend a little bit of time in the red zone and get out of it quickly so chronic stress is really bad for us. The second thing I think is to really build up green-zone experiences. Because if you gradually grow green zone experiences inside yourself and you really help them sink in, you will be increasingly able to handle challenges without going into the red zone. There is no end of challenges in this life, obviously, including old age, disease, and death. It is how we meet those challenges that really determines whether we experience stress and the related wear and tear in the body or not. So one of the wonderful things is to appreciate how repeatedly internalizing everyday green zone experiences a moment of calm, a moment of pleasure, a moment of ease, a moment of connection with your cat or your friend is the best possible way, actually, to build up the neural substrates of the green zone so that you can deal with challenges, without going red with them (from Part 3: Next Week in Your Practice).

18 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 18 Applying the Positive Rick Hanson talked a lot about developing a positive mindset and why it is so important to do that. Here, Bill O Hanlon gives an easy way to approach each day with more positivity. Mr. O Hanlon: One of the most powerful things that I read in the research was that be I was talking about gratitude, and someone said, I m a psychology professional and I have my students do an exercise I call Twenty-five gratitudes before breakfast. And I said, I would never get to breakfast if you gave me twenty-five! He said, No they re simple ones; you know: I get up. I switch on the light and it comes on. And I get up and turn on a tap and water comes out. I have a roof over my head. And I thought, Oh, I could do twenty-five of those. The things we take for granted which is one of the things the brain does: once it is there a lot, we get used to it; we don t notice the good, as Rick said. We are not taking it in partly because we don t notice it. And it is those things: if you just went through a hurricane or the lights are out and you don t have any heat, you don t really appreciate that until it goes away. But if you can deliberately orient yourself to what you have that you have taken for granted, that is a really good thing that sometimes even kings and emperors five hundred years ago

19 Keys to Changing the Brain Rick Hanson, PhD - QuickStart - pg. 19 didn t have. I have this amazing Skype thing that we re talking on, that I can talk to you in a different part of the country. That s incredible! Twenty-five gratitudes before breakfast and you can make it five, you can make it three, you can make it ten or whatever you want you do need to get up and have breakfast eventually! But I think that is a great habit to get into, and it sets the tone for the day. As Rick said, you start to reorient your neurology, your brain, your attention to the good rather than just the negative and that gives you some resilience, even when the negative comes during the day (from Part 3: Next Week in Your Practice).