self-regulation Archives - Amazing Health Advances

How to Become a Responder Not a Reactor + How Arguments Affect Your DNA & How to Use Mind Management to Resolve an Argument

AHA Publisher — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 07:00:10 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – Think of the last time you had an argument and how it made you feel, both physically and mentally. Pretty bad, right? Well, it is not all just in your head! Unresolved arguments can be harmful to your health, and can potentially decrease your longevity! In this podcast (episode #408), I talk about the importance of resolving arguments, and the incredibly beneficial impact this can have on your wellbeing and quality of life. A recent study from Oregon State University found that when people have resolved an argument, “the emotional response associated with the disagreement is significantly reduced”, while, “in some situations, it can be entirely erased”. Why is this important? Essentially, when you work to resolve an argument, you not only improve your relationships, but also your emotional health, which, in turn, can improve your overall wellbeing. There is much research, including mine (for more on this see my latest book, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess), showing how unmanaged minds can result in toxic stress levels that affect our mental and physical health. This makes sense with major stressors like poverty or violence, but research has shown that daily chronic stressors like minor inconveniences and unresolved arguments can also have a lasting impact on our health and mortality. When it comes to arguments, avoidance and lack of closure can increase anxiety levels, which can impact our overall health (due to the mind-body-brain connection I discuss in detail in Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess). The Oregon studymentioned above notes that this includes “avoiding an argument to ‘keep the peace’” and/or “having an argument but not resolving it”. In this study, this avoidance resulted in increased reactivity, which lead to an increase in the subjects’ negative emotions, as well as an amplified emotional “residue”, that is a prolonged negative emotional toll the day after the negative experience occurred, all of which impacted the subjects’ health and mental wellbeing. However, in that same study, if an argument was resolved, “people reported half the reactivity on the day and no residue the day after”, which resulted in better health outcomes. What does all this mean? While people cannot always control what stressors come into their lives, and while the lack of control is itself a stressor in many cases, they can work on their own emotional response to those stressors. As I always say, we cannot always control our circumstances, but we can control our reactions to our circumstances. This is mind-management in action, and leads to a host of positive health outcomes, including better ageing and better stress resilience. In fact, through mind management and self-regulation, you can learn to manage your stressors in a way that they do not have a gnawing impact on you over the course of the day, which will help minimize the potential long-term impact of negative emotions on your health. I recommend doing a Neurocycle, which is a way to harness your thinking power through mind-management that I have developed and researched over the past three decades (I discuss this in detail in my book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess), to identify where you are at in your relationships and help resolve an argument. This process has 5 steps: First, take a break, go into another room or space and calm the brain down by breathing deeply. I recommend breathing in for 5 counts and out for 11 counts, and repeating this technique 3 times (for around 45 seconds). Next, GATHER awareness of your emotional and physical warning signals, such as tension in your shoulders, indigestion or feelings of anxiety. How has this argument made you feel emotionally and physically? Then, REFLECT on why you are having these feelings. Ask, answer and discuss with yourself what was said or done that resulted in the argument, and how it has made you feel. What do you think these feelings are telling you about the argument and about your response to the argument? What happened? What was said? Why? What assumptions may you be making? Why do you think the other person reacted the way they did? After this step, WRITE down what you reflected on. This will help you organize your thinking. Then, RECHECK. Look for triggers, thought patterns and “antidotes” (that is how you would like to respond in the future and how you would like the situation to end). Lastly, practice your ACTIVE REACH. Practice using the “antidote” you came up with in the recheck step to deal with your trigger. For example, this could be as simple as practicing not raising your voice or being more aware of your body language. To read the original article click here.

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A Neuroscientific Approach to Setting Sustainable & Attainable New Year Resolutions

AHA Publisher — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 08:00:45 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #345) and blog, I talk about New Year’s resolutions, including what they are, how to think about and make New Year’s resolutions, and how to use resolutions to bring about sustainable change in your life. First, let’s be honest with ourselves: many of us don’t stick to our New Year’s resolutions. And we are not alone! Several studies show that around 80% of people abandon their resolutions very early in the new year. So, why do we keep on making resolutions? What drives us to make changes in the new year? Is this a bad thing? Not at all! We should be excited to start the new year with new goals and resolutions. A New Year’s resolution means setting a goal for ourselves, which we should all do on a regular basis, and not just in the new year. From a neuroscientific perspective, it is good to set goals. When we set goals, we are using our executive functions, — thinking, feeling and choosing — in a more coordinated way, which generates coherence and healthy changes in the brain. For instance, the amygdala is arranged to respond like a library, which means that when we set a goal, it evaluates how important that goal is for us based on past goals we have set and achieved (or not achieved). Our frontal lobe responds when we think, feel and choose, which helps us problem solve, introspect and figure out the details of how we will accomplish our goal or resolution. Both of these parts of the brain function coherently together when we are focused on a specific goal. As we start focusing on this goal, these areas in the brain get higher beta and gamma energy across the left and right side in a more coherent way, which helps support healthy cognitive function. In fact, when the frontal lobe works with the amygdala to achieve our goals, we will start to perceive obstacles that might hinder the goal as less significant! But resolutions can be hard to keep, even with all these great things happening in the brain—we all know this. I think a great way to see a New Year’s resolution is to imagine it is a cake. There are certain ingredients that make this “cake” bake well: 1. Be kind to yourself and grateful for what you did achieve this past year, or even over the past two years! Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small or big they are. One great way to do this is writing down all the things that happened in the last year that brought you joy. Note what has changed in your life for the better—what happened over the past year that got you here? Celebrate these achievements! And, when you do this, try to focus on the positive and reframe the negative. You may feel a sense of peace when you write this list. Embrace this feeling! Take that list and try to surround yourself with the people who made you happy, the things that brought you joy and the places that made you feel at peace. Next, write down all the things you are looking forward to in 2022. Is there a vacation you are looking forward to taking? Are you visiting a friend/family member you haven’t seen in a while? Is there a new movie or TV show you want to watch, or a book you want to read? Are you starting a new job, or plan to start a new job? Do you want to achieve something specific? Why? How will this improve your life? As you write these lists, you will feel more encouraged and develop your sense of hope for the future. 2. Remember that the biggest thing about goals is the TIME it takes, whether it’s a new lifestyle habit or changing something that is stealing your peace. Changes in thinking and behavior occur in 63-day cycles, which is how long it takes to build a new thought network that influences how we think, feel and choose. (I discuss this in detail in my latest book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, my app Neurocycle and my blogs and podcasts.) Essentially, for a thought network ormemory to be usable (which is how a goal starts in the mind), it needs lots of energy. It gets lots of packets of energy when you repeatedly think about and practice it daily, especially during the first twenty-one-day cycle, which facilitates the required neurochemical and structural changes in the brain that make it a usable and useful thought. Then, for the next forty-two days, you need to continue to consciously practice using the new thought, which allows a useful habit to form. This means that we can all realistically achieve 5 to 6 major goals or resolutions each year! (Just do the math: 365/63=5.8) This may not seem like a lot, but it actually is! Can you imagine making 6 major changes to your life each year? The transformation would be incredible! However, I do not recommend trying to figure out 6 different things all at once when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve. Rather, find 1-2 specific goals/resolutions and break them into 9-week segments that you can start working on. A large group of different studies indicates that new year’s resolutions tend to fail because they are often quite overarching and not specific enough. We tend to give ourselves a big task when we see the whole year ahead of us—it seems like the perfect amount of time to achieve our resolution. Indeed, it is easy to look at the big picture and say, “By the end of the year, I will have changed this!” However, when we start doing the work as the year goes on, it seems like a lot more effort is needed—definitely more than we anticipated! Consequently, our motivation tends to wane as we see all the days stretch out ahead of us. When we do this, we are essentially treating what should be a marathon like a quick sprint. If you start a marathon by sprinting, you will be completely worn out by the first mile! It is far better to measure your pace so you don’t tire out too fast. So, instead of sprinting towards your resolution, try setting increments of tasks every 7 days to achieve a specific goal at the end of the 9 weeks. For example, you may wish to be more adventurous. This is the big picture goal. Now, you can break that down and say something like, “Each month I will think of something new that I want to do that will fulfill my needs in that moment and make me feel like I am adventurous.” This will help you focus on the present moment while keeping your bigger goal in mind. When you set a goal/resolution in increments like this, on January 1st all you need to focus on is your incremental goal for the month of January. February will come when it comes; you are in the “here and now” and just need to focus on the first part of your goal. As a result, the small changes that you make each month won’t feel so intimidating, and you won’t feel as worn out by achieving them! 3. Practice daily mind management and self-regulation to achieve your overall goal. Make sure you stay focused on what you want to change each day by building your goal into your mind, brain and body in little bits each day. To do this, I recommend using the mind management technique I have researched, developed and applied clinically over the past three decades: the Neurocycle. The kind of self-regulation that is achieved using the Neurocycle is a great way to deal with the root of the toxic cycles in your life and reconceptualize them and how they impact your wellbeing. It is done in 5 steps: Gather awareness of what you are feeling emotionally and physically as you work on a negative cycle/habit in your life. Reflect on how this is impacting you and why—be as specific as possible. Write this down—this is way to help organize your thinking and gain clarity. Recheck what you have written. Look for patterns in your life, your relationships, your responses, your attitudes and so on. What is the antidote? What do you want to change and how? Take action. I call this step an “active reach”. It is essentially an action you take to reinforce the new, reconceptualized pattern of thinking you want in your life (which is replacing the old, toxic habit). For more on the Neurocycle method and how to use it to break toxic cycles, check out my latest book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess and my app Neurocycle. 4. Set a time for when you are going to build this goal into your life, and pick a theme for the year. This could be any word, idea, or concept that speaks to you. For example, my theme last year (which I am going to use this year again!) was to have a possibilities mindset, and my mantra is that every failure is knowledge gained—when something doesn’t work out, this is a possibility to grow, because now I know something doesn’t work, and I am one step closer to achieving my goals! As you face the start of a new year, give yourself space, compassion and grace to achieve your goals. Don’t rush the process—take things moment by moment. Remember to enjoy life while trying to achieve your goals. Don’t try to sprint through the marathon! Pace yourself, and you will be able to finish. You got this! To read the original article click here.

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The One Mind-Management Technique Required for Sustainable Healing

AHA Publisher — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 08:00:25 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #344) and blog, I talk about the importance of self-awareness and how it is a key part of the healing process. Without awareness, we cannot change or move forward. To make changes in our thoughts and subsequent communication, we need to be strategic, proactive and deliberate about our thinking. We need to try to be aware of what we are thinking about every day. This is called self-regulation. Self-regulation means that we don’t need to be held captive to our thoughts. Instead, we can capture our thoughts and change the way they impact our lives, and this begins with awareness. Awareness means tuning into the messages coming from ournonconscious mind into the conscious mind, where they can be changed. Once a thought is in the conscious mind, directed neuroplasticity(the ability of the brain to change) kicks in, and the protein branches holding the memory information in vibrational frequencies weaken. That’s when the thought is at its weakest and can be reconceptualized. This is why I keep talking about embracing our issues. We need to face what is bothering us and become aware of it—that is, be conscious of it—by gathering an awareness of the signals our mind, brain and body are sending us, such as feeling anxious, depressed, upset, sick, overwhelmed and so on. Once we do this, we can draw out the toxic stuff in our nonconscious mind and bring them into the conscious mind, where they are malleable. Only then can we process and reconceptualize what is bothering us and move on. Questions that can be helpful to ask as you do this are: 1. What keeps popping back into your mind? What thought(s)seem urgent? 2. What are you experiencing through your five senses? How are these thoughts making you feel physically? Gather awareness of these physical warning signals emerging from your body. 3. What is the information in the thoughts bubbling up from your nonconscious mind into your conscious mind right at this moment? Gather awareness of this information, noting how many thoughts there are and what they are. 4. What feelings are attached to the information the thought contains? Every thought has emotions as part of its structure—they’re stored in the nonconscious mind. When thoughts move into the conscious mind, we feel the emotions of them. How are these thoughts making you feel emotionally? Gather awareness of the feelings attached to each thought. The key thing to remember as we practice self-awareness is that we need to manage what we are aware of, or the thought can go back into our nonconscious mind even more toxic than before. Self-awareness is one part of the mind-management, as I discuss in my latest book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, my app Neurocycle and my blogs and podcasts. The easiest way to understand the whole process of mind management is to imagine a thought tree. Look at it from the branches to the tree trunk to the roots. The first thing you need to do is gatherawareness of the branches and leaves, which are your behaviors and their attached emotions. Then you need to focus on the whole tree to try to make some sense of it—the branches, trunk, and roots, or the detail of your behaviors and emotions, what perspective they bring, and where they come from. This is a very revealing process—you are bringing the memories of the thoughts out into the open and into your conscious mind so that you can work on pruning and grafting the leaves and branches based on your process of self-awareness and self-discovery. This, in turn, will help you work towards stabilizing and consolidating the growing branches and leaves, much like those posts that are often tied to a tree or part of a tree to help it grow. Then you should allow the new branches to settle a little before you do more work on them to change the way this thought plays out in your life on a long-term basis. All of this first starts with awareness! To read the original article click here.

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How to Make Healthy Decisions Under High Pressure & Anxiety

AHA Publisher — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #334) and blog, I speak about the link between anxiety, stress, and decision-making. Often, when we are in an anxious state, we cannot seem to make a decision, or, if we do, we end up making a choice we regret. I know this has happened to me many times! What should we do when this happens? Is there a way out of this mental swamp? Thankfully, yes! To make healthy decisions, our brain needs optimal blood, oxygen and energy flow, especially in the front of the brain (the frontal lobe). When we are in toxic stress, this flow is constricted, which can impact how and what we choose to say or do in the moment, as well as our overall wellbeing. However, we can learn how to make our stress work for us instead of against us. The key point here is to see our anxiety as a signal telling us something is going on in our lives that needs to be addressed. Anxiety is not something we should suppress or ignore. It is designed to get our attention in a focused way, so we can deal with the disequilibrium we are experiencing in our life. If we ignore this signal, it can affect our wellbeing, putting us in a toxic stress state that can impact our ability to make decisions and increase our impulsivity. It can also impact our mental and physical health due to the mind-brain-body connection (known as psychoneurobiology). We need to learn how to tune into these signals and manage them before they take over our thinking. This includes nothing our unique red flags: how anxiety and stress show up in our life, how we feel emotionally and physically, and how we can manage these signals to make healthy decisions. Self-regulation is key! When we make a decision, we should try to get into the habit of observing ourselves. Why did we choose this? What impacted our choice? Why did we feel this way? How did this impact our ability to decide? One way I like to do this is by practicing pausing just before I make a decision. During this pause, I breathe in deeply for 3 counts, and breathe out for 7 counts, and do this a few times depending on how I feel and how important the choice I am about to make is. As I do this, I am better able to observe what I feel in the moment because I am getting my neurophysiology under control, which, in turn, helps me better understand my anxiety signals and stress state, bringing back balance into my brain so I can make a good decision. This really is a great way to calm down the mind when things are difficult! If, after doing this, you still feel you need more time and information (as often happens with really big decisions), this is totally okay! Just say you need more time to think about it (if possible)—never be ashamed of needing more time or asking for more space to think something through. If you feel a lack of confidence in the moment, remind yourself of all the times you made a good choice in the past. Give yourself a little pep talk: remember when you made a choice under pressure and managed to successfully overcome a challenge. If you still feel stuck, work on what I call the “possibilities mindset”. Think of all the possibilities in each situation. How will this choice play out? How did this play out in the past? What if you made a different choice? What if this happened? What have you learned? This is a great brain exercise and a reminder that life isn’t linear—we can never truly grasp all the threads that lead us to where we are, or where we will be. If you are not sure how to do this, use the 5-step mind management system I developed based on my clinical practice and research, called the Neurocycle (for more on this, check out my latest book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess and my app Neurocycle). First, gather awareness of the information you need and your past choices. What is the data telling you? What worked? What didn’t? Now, reconceptualize all “failures” as “I haven’t failed; I have learned x things that now I know don’t work, which is great to know!” Reflect on what these lessons are by asking, answering, and discussing them to find the information, emotions, and physical responses in your brain and body. Write down what you have been reflecting on, in as much detail as possible, to help organize your thinking. Then, recheck what you have written to add more insight and look for patterns. Now, practice looking at what you have written and use it to make good choices. During this time, watch how this carries over into your day-to-day life; observe and write how this mental exercise helps you, especially during tough times. To read the original article click here.

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