Tools and Tips for Working with Your Brain

Transcription

1 Your Brain on Life Tools and Tips for Working with Your Brain Summer 2018

2 Emotions They re Not What You Think

3 The Vagus Nerve Connects the brain to your viscera (other organs), but especially to your heart and gut, creating a loop of communication back and forth. When we experience emotional stress, we feel it physically. Think about where you feel your emotions in your body. Conversely, when we experience physical distress, we feel it emotionally.

4 [S]ignals from the vagus nerve traveling from the gut to the brain have been linked to modulating mood and distinctive types of fear and anxiety. As with any mind-body feedback loop, messages also travel downstream from your conscious mind through the vagus nerve (via efferent nerves) signaling your organs to create an inner-calm so you can rest-anddigest during times of safety, or to prepare your body for fight-or-flight in dangerous situations. Bergland, Christopher. How Does the Vagus Nerve Convey Gut Instincts to the Brain? Psychology Today, May 23, 2014.

5 Healthy vagus nerve communication between your gut and your brain helps to slow you down like the brake on your car by using neurotransmitters like acetylcholine and GABA...they literally lower heart rate, blood pressure, and helps your heart and organs slow down so that you can restand-digest, which is the opposite of the flight-or-fight response that is also linked to the vagus nerve. Bergland, Christopher. How Does the Vagus Nerve Convey Gut Instincts to the Brain? Psychology Today, May 23, 2014.

6 Get to Know Your Emotions Emotions are physical, somatic responses in the body. The Vagus Nerve Cortisol, adrenaline, endorphins, dopamine, ect. Notice the physical sensation. Be aware of what you re feeling and where. Emotions are predictive. What do you think will happen next? Be curious about what you re feeling. Might there be a physical cause? Hungry? Dehydrated? Sleep deprived? What was the catalyst for the emotion?

7 Mind-Body Feedback Loop Many times, we are trying to escape the physical sensations of our emotional responses. This leads to sensation numbing and escapist behaviors: Substance abuse Self harm High-risk behavior Dissociation

8 Mark Twain addressed the backlash of conditioned fear when he said, We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. Bergland, Christopher. How Does the Vagus Nerve Convey Gut Instincts to the Brain? Psychology Today, May 23, 2014.

9 Responding to Your Emotions Be curious without judgment about what you re feeling, where you re feeling, what might have caused it. Orient yourself in the present. Remind yourself that this is a different situation. Using positive self-talk and taking deep breaths is a quick and easy way to engage the vagus nerve and parasympathetic nervous system to calm yourself from both the top-down and from the bottom-up. Deep breaths calm down your amygdala (the brain s fear alarm bell). Focus on your breathing. Physical exertion can also help calm down an anxiety-fear response.

10 Cortisol Some Things You Can t Run From

11 The Stress Hormone There s good stress (eustress) and bad stress (distress). Eustress is that high-energy, seize-the-day feeling. Distress is the flight-or-fight panic. Cortisol is the main stress hormone that gives your body the ability to escape from physical threats.

12 Elevated cortisol levels interfere with learning and memory, lower immune function...[and have been linked] as a potential trigger for mental illness and decreased resilience especially in adolescents. Bergland, Christopher. Cortisol: Why the Stress Hormone Is Public Enemy No. 1, Psychology Today, January 22, 2013.

13 Once the alarm to release cortisol has sounded, your body becomes mobilized and ready for action but there has to be a physical release of flight or fight. Otherwise, cortisol levels build up in the blood, which wreaks havoc with your mind and body. Bergland, Christopher. Cortisol: Why the Stress Hormone Is Public Enemy No. 1, Psychology Today, January 22, 2013.

14 Eustress creates a seize-the-day [feeling], which is invigorating and often linked with a tangible goal. Cortisol levels return to normal upon completion of the task. Distress, or free-floating anxiety, doesn t provide an outlet for the cortisol and causes the flight-or-fight mechanism to backfire. Bergland, Christopher. Cortisol: Why the Stress Hormone Is Public Enemy No. 1, Psychology Today, January 22, 2013.

15 5 Ways to Lower Cortisol 1. Regular physical activity Do what your body s telling you to do. Fight or flee. Get your heart into cardio for minutes on a regular basis. 2. Mindfulness Remember the vagus nerve? Take 10 deep breaths and feel your body relaxing. Practice mindfulness minutes a day or whenever you feel anxious. 3. Social Connectivity Cortisol leads to social aversion Isolation increases cortisol Connection reduces cortisol 4. Laughter and Levity Having fun and laughing reduces cortisol 5. Music Listening to music you love, and fits whatever mood you re in, has been shown to lower cortisol levels.

16 [T]he Vagus nerve also responds to human connectivity and physical touch to relax your parasympathetic nervous system. The tend-and-befriend response is the exact opposite of the flight-or-fight. The tend-and-befriend response increases oxytocin and reduces cortisol. Make an effort to spend real face-to-face time with loved ones whenever you can. Bergland, Christopher. Cortisol: Why the Stress Hormone Is Public Enemy No. 1, Psychology Today, January 22, 2013.

17 Anxiety Breaking the Cycle

18 Anxiety is a cognitive state connected to an inability to regulate your emotional responses to perceived threats. Mindfulness meditation strengthens a person s cognitive ability to regulate emotions. Bergland, Christopher. How Does Meditation Reduce Anxiety at a Neural Level? Psychology Today, June 3, 2013.

19 The Scarcity Trap When we believe we re lacking something, our brain creates a tunnel-visioned focus on that thing to the exclusion of other information. This can lead to poor impulse control and short-term thinking that sabotages us getting the thing we re lacking. E.g. Indian sugar-cane farmers, lonely people Scarcity can actually lower how you perform on an IQ test.

20 [Scarcity] leads you to take certain behaviors that in the short term help you manage scarcity, but in the long term only make matters worse. Vedantam, Shankar, et al. The Scarcity Trap: Why We Keep Digging When We re Stuck in a Hole, Hidden Brain, NPR, 2017 March 20.

21 When you re really desperate for something, you can focus on it so obsessively there s no room for anything else. The time-starved spend much of their mental energy juggling time. People with little money worry constantly about making ends meet. Vedantam, Shankar, et al. The Scarcity Trap: Why We Keep Digging When We re Stuck in a Hole, Hidden Brain, NPR, 2017 March 20.

22 She was so focused on getting the basic necessities that she didn t have the mental capacity to attend to anything else. There s a technical term for this. It s called bandwidth. If you re downloading a movie on your home Wi-Fi network, you might find your runs a little slower. The movie is hogging all the available bandwidth. Vedantam, Shankar, et al. The Scarcity Trap: Why We Keep Digging When We re Stuck in a Hole, Hidden Brain, NPR, 2017 March 20.

23 [O]ur minds work exactly the same way. If your mind is consumed with thoughts about something, there isn t room to think about other stuff. Scarcity fills the mind with intrusive thoughts about what you do not have. It doesn t leave room for anything else. Vedantam, Shankar, et al. The Scarcity Trap: Why We Keep Digging When We re Stuck in a Hole, Hidden Brain, NPR, 2017 March 20.

24 Katie realized she had been so narrowly, relentlessly focused on one goal, doing well at work, that she had ignored the very things she needed to succeed moment of relaxation, like watching TV or reading a book. Vedantam, Shankar, et al. The Scarcity Trap: Why We Keep Digging When We re Stuck in a Hole, Hidden Brain, NPR, 2017 March 20.

25 Katie actually pencils time into her schedule to do nothing.... She s consciously freeing up bandwidth. And something strange has happened as she s done so. The less consumed she feels about work, the better she does at work. Vedantam, Shankar, et al. The Scarcity Trap: Why We Keep Digging When We re Stuck in a Hole, Hidden Brain, NPR, 2017 March 20.

26 There was a time not long ago when we thought airline pilots who made mistakes were just bad pilots. [A] big reason air travel has become safer in recent decades is that there has been a shift in think about such mistakes. Designers have made cockpits fault-tolerant. Rather than trying to find perfect pilots, cockpits are now designed for human error. The goal is to alert pilots when they ve made a mistake and to diminish the consequences of mistakes. Vedantam, Shankar, et al. The Scarcity Trap: Why We Keep Digging When We re Stuck in a Hole, Hidden Brain, NPR, 2017 March 20.

27 Getting Out of the Scarcity Trap Identify what you believe you re lacking. Make sure to schedule time to do nothing. Make plans to spend time with friends face-to-face. Create a schedule that s fault-tolerant. Plan expecting you will forget things, make mistakes, lose things, ect. Create systems to alert you to mistakes, so it diminishes their consequences. Accountability Ask someone to look over your work Plan time to go back over your work

28 Self Regulation Tips and Techniques

29 Mindfulness Mindfulness is being in the present moment by focusing on breathing. It can included guided thoughts amidst the breathing. Certain yoga practices are types of mindfulness. (E.g. yin yoga.) Loving-kindness mindfulness is focusing on breathing while directing your thoughts to compassion and love for yourself and others. Mindfulness has been shown to increase attention, decrease anxiety, and help build self-awareness. Mindfulness does have its roots in Zen Buddhist meditation, however, it has been secularized and is not inconsistent with the Bible.

30 Be still, and know that I am God. Psalm 46.10

31 Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12.2

32 Test me, Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness. Psalm

33 Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Colossians 3.2

34 Put on then, as God s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another...and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts...and be thankful. Colossians

35 Mindfulness is premised on sustaining attention in the present moment and controlling the way we react to daily thoughts and feelings. Bergland, Christopher. How Does Meditation Reduce Anxiety at a Neural Level? Psychology Today, June 3, 2013.

36 Brain imaging found that meditation-related anxiety relief was associated with activation of the anterior cingulate cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and anterior insula. These areas of the brain are involved with executive function and the control of worrying. Meditation-related activation of these three regions was directly linked to anxiety relief. Bergland, Christopher. How Does Meditation Reduce Anxiety at a Neural Level? Psychology Today, June 3, 2013.

37 In general, neuroscientists have been studying the benefits of both mindfulness meditation, in which you focus on sustaining attention and guiding thoughts, and lovingkindness meditation, in which you focus on compassionate thoughts towards yourself and others. Both...have been proven to change brain structure and have dramatic physical and psychological benefits. Bergland, Christopher. How Does Meditation Reduce Anxiety at a Neural Level? Psychology Today, June 3, 2013.

38 Container Exercises Visualizations Picture a box or a foot locker, some kind of container, to put the emotions in. You will need to return to those emotions at some point or they ll become repressed. Hand-writing Lists Questions Journaling

39 Grounding Techniques Cross-body breathing Mindfulness Resources on weebly Yoga Note that all of these include intentional breathing.

40 Anxiety Management Techniques Person Next to You Hand Write Answer: What are your fears about the situation? Answer: What is in your control? Action plans: What can you do? Grounding techniques Reach out for help to someone in person

41 Show Yourself Compassion Ask for a hug. Ask for encouragement verbal or written. Soft and warm blankets. Hug stuffed animals. Play with and pet your pets. Warm drinks. Showering. Exercise/move around. Clean your space. Self-compassion mindfulness.

42 Self Care Any activity we do to take care of our emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical health. Self care needs to be a thing you intentionally plan. Self care can be a mug of hot chocolate, but it s also finishing your math homework or cleaning your room or going for a run.

43 Develop a Self-Care Plan Self-care plans are what you will do to take care of yourself in given situations. If you re feeling anxious, what can you do to take care of yourself? If you re in a situation where a friend is mistreating you, what can you do to take care do yourself? If you re feeling overwhelmed, what can you do to take care of yourself? Make a flow chart of your self-care plan. If X happens, I can do Y. Try including some kind of mindfulness or breathing.

44 Make Your Action Plan 1. Fill out your schedule for the week. 2. Be curious and answer tracking questions #3-4 throughout the week. 3. Pick three self regulation techniques to try throughout the week. 4. Pick three backup methods. 5. Be curious and notice where you feel your emotions. Develop a 5-step self-care plan. 6. Maintain #3, 5-6 from last week s Action Plan.