Brain Care is Self-Care

1. Brain Care is Self-Care Promoting Resiliency: Student Success from Crayons To College and Career Ready June 11, 2014

2. Brain Care is Self-Care Linda Graham, MFT www.lindagraham-mft.net linda@lindagraham-mft.net Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain For Maximum Resilience and Well-Being

3. I arise in the morning Torn between the desire To save the world And a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. - E.B. White

4. Self Care: Antidote to Compassion Fatigue • Overwhelm of care for others • Self-care drops off the radar • Educators are vehicles for concern and care • Self-care: replenish and resource self • Energy and bandwidth to care for others

5. 7 R’s of Self-Care • Replenish • Recognize • Regulate • Reflect • Resource • Re-Frame • Re-Wire

6. Replenish • Sleep • Nutrition • Movement-Exercise • Laughter • Learn Something New • Hanging Out with Healthy Brains

7. Sleep • Housekeeping • Reset nervous system • Consolidate learning • Take mental breaks

8. How to Sleep Well • Stick to a sleep schedule • Pay attention to what you eat and drink • Create a bedtime ritual • Get comfortable • Limit daytime naps • Include physical activity in your daily routine • Manage stress • - Mayo Clinic

9. Take Mental Breaks • Focus on something else (positive is good) • Talk to someone else (resonant is good) • Move-walk somewhere else (nature is good) • Every 90 minutes; avoid adrenal fatigue

10. Nutrition • Less Caffeine • Less Sugar • More Protein

11. Movement - Exercise • Oxygen – brain is 2% of body weight, uses 20% of body’s oxygen • Endorphins – feel good hormones, brighten the mind • Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) - grow new brain cells, will migrate to where needed

12. Laughter • Increases oxygen and blood flow, reduces risk of heart disease and stroke • Releases endorphins – body’s natural pain killer • Reduces stress hormone cortisol, lowers blood pressure • Triggers catecholamines, heightens alertness in brain • Releases tension in body, balances nervous system

13. Laughter • Promotes work productivity • Reduces stress • Promotes creativity and problem-solving • Reduces mistakes, increases efficiency Promotes group cohesion • Promotes learning (through play) • Eases loss, grief, trauma

14. How to Promote Laughter • Humor • A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs – jolted by every pebble in the road. - Henry Ward Beecher • Play • Play, in short, prepares the brain to handle the unexpected. – Lee Alan Dugatkin • Playful resonance • Laughter is the closest distance between two people. – Victor Borge

15. Learn Something New • Speak a foreign language • Play a musical instrument • Juggle • Play chess • Crossword puzzles when you don’t know the words

16. Hanging Out with Healthy Brains • Brain is social organ; matures and learns best in interactions with other brains • Social engagement regulates nervous system • Resonant interactions prime the brain’s neuroplasticity; promotes learning and growth

17. Recognize Need for: • Mindful Self-Compassion • Awareness of what’s happening • (and our reaction to what’s happening) • Acceptance of what’s happening • (and acceptance of our reaction) • Brain stays plastic, open to learning

18. Self-Compassion Break • Notice-recognize: this is a moment of suffering • Ouch! This hurts! This is hard! • Pause, breathe, hand on heart or cheek • Oh sweetheart! • Self-empathy • Of course this is painful, and I’m not the only one; I’m not alone • Drop into calm; hold moment with awareness; breathe in compassion and care • May I be free of suffering and the causes of suffering • Share experience with resonant other

19. Compassion for Others - Self • Remember moment of compassion and care for another • Evoke felt sense of compassion in your body • When flow of compassion is steady… • Place yourself in flow of compassion, care, concern

20. Regulate: Keep Calm and Carry On Serenity if not freedom from the storm but peace amidst the storm. - author unknown

21. Hand on the Heart • Touch • Deep breathing • Positive Emotions • Brakes on survival responses • Oxytocin – safety and trust • Relationships as resources

22. Oxytocin • Hormone of safety and trust, bonding and belonging, calm and connect • Brain’s direct and immediate antidote to stress hormone cortisol • Can pre-empt stress response altogether

23. Calm through the Body • Hand on the Heart • Body Scan • Progressive Muscle Relaxation • Movement Opposite

24. Calm – Friendly Body Scan • Awareness • Breathing gently into tension • Hello! and gratitude • Release tension, reduce trauma

25. Progressive Muscle Relaxation • Body cannot be tense and relaxed at the same time • Tense for 7 seconds, relax for 15 • Focused attention calms the mind

26. Calm through Movement • Body inhabits posture of difficult emotion (40 seconds • Body moves into opposite posture (40 seconds) • Body returns to first posture (20 seconds) • Body returns to second posture (20 seconds) • Body finds posture in the middle (30 seconds • Reflect on experience • “Power posing”

27. Reflection Mindfulness comes to West: Focused attention on present moment experience without judgment or resistance. - Jon Kabat-Zinn

28. Reflection and Resonance Awareness of what’s happening (and our reactions to what’s happening) Acceptance of what’s happening (and our reactions to what’s happening) Mindfulness and empathy : two most powerful agents of brain change known to science

29. Mindfulness • Pause, become present • Notice and name • Step back, dis-entangle, reflect • Catch the moment; make a choice • Shift perspectives; shift states • Discern options • Choose wisely – let go of unwholesome, cultivate wholesome

30. Notice and Name • Thoughts as thoughts • Patterns of thoughts as patterns of thoughts • Cascades of emotions as cascades of emotions • States of mind as states of mind • Belief systems and identities as… • Mental contents, patterns of neural firing

31. Between a stimulus and a response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. The last of human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances. - Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist, survivor of Auschwitz

32. Resource • Practices • Places • People

33. Positive Emotions Gratitude Awe Generosity Compassion Delight Serenity Love Curiosity Kindness Joy Trust

34. Positive Emotions • Less stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness • More friendships, social support, collaboration • Shift in perspectives, more optimism • More creativity, productivity • Better health, better sleep • Live on average 7-9 years longer • Resilience is direct outcome

35. Kindness is more important than wisdom, And the recognition of that is the beginning of wisdom. - Theodore Rubin

36. Neuroscience of Sharing Positive Emotions • Social engagement system • Dyadic regulation • Vagal brake • Fusiformgyrus regulates amygdala • Emotional communication is 93% non-verbal • Restores equilibrium

37. Gratitude • 2-minute free write • Gratitude journal • Gratitude buddy • Carry love and appreciation in your wallet

38. Positivity Portfolio • Ask 10 friends to send cards or e-mails expressing appreciation of you • Assemble phrases on piece of paper • Tape to bathroom mirror or computer monitor, carry in wallet or purse • Read phrases 3 times a day for 30 days • Savor and appreciate

39. Circle of Support • Call to mind people who have been supportive of you; who have “had your back” • Currently, in the past, in imagination • Imagine them gathered around you, or behind you, lending you their faith in you, and their strengths in coping • Imagine your circle of support present with you as you face difficult people or situations

40. Take in the Good • Notice: in the moment or in memory • Enrich: the intensity, duration, novelty, personal relevance, multi-modality • Absorb: savor 10-20-30 seconds, felt sense in body

41. Places as Resources • Nature as refuge – re-Source • We can create and notice shifts in perspective • Improve cognitive functioning and memory

42. Shifting Perspectives in Nature • BELLY BOTANY • Find a one square foot patch of earth. Observe for two minutes. • (light and shadow, movement and stillness, beauty and decay, life and death) • Shift your view to the larger landscape, all the way to the horizon. • Reflect on shift in perspective.

43. People as Resources At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by the spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. - Albert Schweitzer

44. I have learned that people will forget what you said and people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou

45. Attachment Styles - Secure • Parenting is attuned, empathic, responsive, comforting, soothing, helpful • Attachment develops safety and trust, and inner secure base • Stable and flexible focus and functioning • Open to learning • inner secure base provides buffer against stress, trauma, and psychopathology

46. Insecure-Avoidant • Parenting is indifferent, neglectful, or critical, rejecting • Attachment is compulsively self-reliant • Stable, but not flexible • Focus on self or world, not others or emotions • Rigid, defensive, not open to learning • Neural cement

47. Insecure-Anxious • Parenting is inconsistent, unpredictable • Attachment is compulsive caregiving • Flexible, but not stable • Focus on other, not on self-world, • Less able to retain learning • Neural swamp

48. Disorganized • Parenting is frightening or abusive, or parent is “checked out,” not “there” • Attachment is fright without solution • Lack of focus • Moments of dissociation • Compartmentalization of trauma

49. Attachment Styles • Secure –safety and trust, stable and flexible focus and functioning, open to learning, inner secure base provides buffer against stress, trauma • Insecure-avoidant – stable, not flexible, focus on self-world, not on other or emotions, rigid, defensive, not open to learning, neural cement • Insecure-anxious – flexible, not stable, focus on other, not on self-world, less able to retain learning, neural swamp • Disorganized – lack of focus, moments of dissociation, compartmentalization of trauma

50. True Other to True Self The roots of resilience are to be found in the felt sense of being held in the heart and mind of an empathic, attuned, and self-possessed other. - Diana Fosha, PhD To see and be seen: that is the question, and that is the answer. - Ken Benau, PhD