Train Your Brain: Understanding Ourselves
A model to help understand and regulate emotions
Formerly know as Brain Gym
Train Your Brain is a model to help understand and regulate your emotions:
In these pages you will find information to help you better understand the brain and how it affects the way we think, feel and act. You will learn strategies to calm and reassure yourself when feeling low, anxious or overwhelmed, and ultimately be more in control of your emotions.
Life can often throw up challenges and difficult things can happen to us, as children, young people and adults. Sometimes these challenges can feel overwhelming, leading us to feel stuck, low and despairing. We can be our ‘own worst enemy’ resorting to self-blame, self-criticism and ‘kicking ourselves when we are down’.
The aim of Train Your Brain is twofold; firstly, to help you better understand your thoughts and feelings, and secondly to strengthen your ability to manage these more skilfully
We will look at how the brain generates thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, pleasant and unpleasant. We will then explore the role of attention, breathing, imagery, the body, and the relationship we have with ourselves and people around us in fostering good mental health. Brain Gym is designed as a guided self-help course where we will introduce tried and tested practices to bring some perspective and balance to our thinking and dampen overwhelming emotions. These practices form part of an emotion regulation toolkit that can help us respond skilfully to the various challenges life throws at us.
Like anything in life we want to become better at, we need regular practice. An emerging observation from brain science is ‘neuro plasticity’, meaning that the brain is malleable throughout our life. So, just like we need to do regular weightlifting if we want our muscles to grow and become stronger, for our brain to develop and become more functional, we need to give it a regular workout.
Emotional Intelligence
Whereas conventional intelligence is thought to be relatively fixed throughout our lifetime, emotional intelligence (the capacity to understand and manage our emotions effectively) can be developed and improved significantly over time. Emotional intelligence helps us to navigate life skilfully:
Self-regulation is seen as a central component of emotional intelligence; it helps us manage impulses, engage or disengage attention, and navigate between deliberate or automatic responses. This enables us to keep in control of challenging thoughts and feelings, stay focused on what matters to us, and maintain constructive relationships with people in our life.
Emotions can be hard to understand and harder still to manage. However, without the ability to understand and manage our emotions, our internal, and social, lives can become pretty chaotic. Sometimes we can be unaware of emotions, or we neglect them or try to numb them by any means possible (alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, sex etc). However, this can be a little bit like putting fuel on the fire.
Emotions are akin to waves in the sea, we may not be able to stop them, but we can learn to ride them skilfully and this is the very essence of emotional intelligence.
The Shaping of the Brain
The brain is an extraordinary organ capable of exceptional feats.
However, just like a seed needs nutritious soil, sufficient water and sunlight in order to germinate into a healthy plant, as human beings we need an environment that is physically safe and emotionally supportive in order for our brains to develop fully. Genetics certainly play an important role in how our brains are shaped; however, the quality of our environment plays an equally (and some would say larger) part in how we turn out. The study of the interplay between our genes and environment is called epigenetics. Epigenetic studies show that positive environmental factors (such as supportive relationships) actually ‘turn on’ good genes, so by making changes to our social environment, we can make changes to how our brain operates.
Whilst it is fair to say that there is much we do not know about the brain and its workings, many theories talk about there being three main parts of the brain that develop from gestation through to the finished product in our early 20’s
The three brain systems
The first, and most basic part of our brain is the brain stem; this deals with basic physiological processes
like keeping our breathing, heart rate and temperature within a healthy range.
The second part of brain development is the limbic system; this is responsible for sensing and feeling (eg., I see something threatening and I feel fear).
The final and most sophisticated layer of our brain is the cortex. The cortex allows us to reflect on what we think and feel, and grant permission to, or prevent us from, acting on certain feelings and impulses.
For example, I might feel really angry (limbic system firing up) with my manager for blaming me for something I haven’t done, and my urge is to yell at him. However, my cortex is telling me that this isn’t very sensible as I risk losing my job, so it prevents me from acting on this urge.
Sometimes we can experience what we call a ‘limbic highjack’; the limbic system gets overwhelmed and in effect shuts down the cortex. As the cortex, the part of the brain that speaks up to warn us against the consequences of an inappropriate, self destructive behavior is now effectively gagged, we might not be able to resist this angry impulse, and before we know it we have yelled at our boss or worse.
In essence it is our cortex that enables us to regulate the wide range of sensations and impulses that we experience at any one given time. An ‘offline’ or ineffective cortex is like a horse at full gallop without a rider to keep it on its course. By paying close attention to our feelings and learning ways to process and regulate emotions, we take control of the reigns and ensure that we stay in charge of our limbic system.
Fight, Flight or Freeze
When we feel threatened
an automatic physiological response within us, often called ‘fight, flight or freeze’, is activated. This response has evolved as it increases our chances of survival when in danger.
The fight, flight or freeze response is automatic and involves the activation of our sympathetic nervous system.
It diverts blood and oxygen to our large muscle groups, turns off our thinking mind (our cortex) and releases various stress hormones into our blood. The effect of all this is that our heart beats faster, our breathing speeds up, our pupils dilate and we are ready to fight or run (or sometimes just freeze on the spot). As well as this all our attention will focus on the threat we have spotted and we won’t take in other information.
It is important to stress that this is an automatic response that has evolved to help us survive a threat. It is not a choice or anything conscious that we do. If we have lived through a lot of threatening situations then this system can become overactive and be more easily triggered.
Understanding what is happening when this is triggered can help us to feel less panicked about it and do things to settle
us down again. It is not a sign that we are crazy or out of control, but an automatic physiological reaction to believing we are in danger.
Emotional Emergency Plan
Whilst the practices in this toolkit will help in the long term here are some short-term things you can try in an ‘emotional emergency’
It can help to write these ideas down on a flash card, or on your phone and carry them with you.
Growing Up
Co-regulation
As young children, we haven’t as yet developed much of a cortex, therefore our ability to regulate feelings and impulses is very limited
This is why as children we need balanced caregivers around us to help us manage our feelings. If we have caregivers who are reliably present and attuned to the difficulties we bring to them as children, their presence and soothing words or touch, quickly and effectively help us
to feel better (by dampening down our limbic system). This leaves us feeling safe and calm and we can return to focus fully on whatever is important to us. In effect children can ‘borrow’ the emotional intelligence (or cortex) of their caregivers to help them manage their feelings when things are difficult.
We call this process co-regulation; the child brings their distress to the adult, who in turn offers comfort. If this co-regulation happens consistently over time, the child is likely to grow up to be an adult who can self-regulate in times of difficulties. In essence the input we get from our caregivers stimulates our cortex, and like a muscle, it gets stronger and more effective.
If on the other hand
we don’t have a caregiver to turn to when we are distressed, or the caregiver is either inattentive, dismissive or abusive, our distress remains or deepens. Inattentive or dismissive caregivers often have their own troubles and difficulties which impact on their ability to manage their own emotions. These caregivers often struggle to effectively manage their children’s distress.
There is no such thing as perfect parenting and moments of inattentiveness or frustration are very unlikely to cause significant harm. What children need is ‘good enough’ parenting so that they feel safe and loved.
Sadly many children grow up in environments that are neglectful and abusive. For the child this is when tolerable, fleeting stress can become toxic, permanent stress. In this way, we can struggle to learn effective ways to self-regulate as adults.
We may develop a belief that negative emotions can’t be tolerated or changed and then seek external ways to self soothe, such as using substances.
If we grew up in an environment where we felt unsettled or unsafe, our limbic system (that perceives and responds to threats) can get over sensitive, contributing to overwhelming feelings, such as anger,
fear, jealousy, shame etc., and to strong urges and cravings. In combination with a cortex that struggles to effectively dampen these feelings, the consequence can be an eruption of feelings resulting in impulsive, overwhelming and self-defeating thoughts, feelings and actions.
It is important to notice that whilst we are clearly not responsible for the environment that shaped our brain, it is possible to try and understand and manage the difficulties that these experiences have led to. We can then learn to act in ways that minimise harm to ourselves and the people around us.
For example, if we are the victim of an unprovoked act of vandalism, such as our car being smashed up, that’s clearly not our fault, however, it is possible for us to repair the car so it’s roadworthy and in good shape. Now whilst this isn’t exactly ‘fair’ it does leave us with a working car.
Our brain has evolved different capacities that can sometimes have unwanted consequences
For example, the part of our brain that protects us from danger (limbic system/ threat response), is also the part of the brain that generates anxiety and makes it hard to relax and enjoy ourselves.
The input we get from our caregivers stimulates our cortex, and like a muscle, it gets stronger and more effective
And whilst our cortex allows us to plan for the future and reflect on events in the past, which is key to organizing our lives, we
can get stuck ruminating about negative past events or worrying about endless disasters in the future, which can make us overwhelmed and unhappy.
Emotional intelligence can be helped by having some knowledge of the workings of the brain and using this knowledge to keep our minds balanced.
Window of tolerance
Window of tolerance
refers to the optimal zone of arousal for a person to function in everyday life. When we are within our window of tolerance (calm arousal), we have full access to our Cortex, the part of our brain that enables us to think about challenges in a balanced way, make sensible decisions and communicate effectively. When we experience hurt, anxiety, pain and anger,
this may bring us close to the edges of
our window of tolerance. However, these emotions tend to naturally subside over time, or we may use calming strategies that bring the distress down to a tolerable level.
Similarly, we may feel exhausted, low or shut down, but we may naturally restore our equilibrium once we have rested and recharged, or we may engage in activities or practices that lift our mood and energy.
If a person has experienced significant adverse life events, such as trauma, they may have a smaller window of tolerance, so that even seemingly minor stressors can lead to states of hyper arousal (fight-flight) or hypoarousal (freeze).
In a hyper arousal state, we are more likely to over estimate the dangers of a situation and underestimate our ability to cope, sometimes resulting in avoidant or impulsive behaviours that can make the situation worse.
In a hypoarousal state, we may feel unable to think, make decision or act all together, leaving us feeling out of control and helpless.
A key aim of Brain Gym is to increase our window of tolerance so that we can deal with challenges more proactively and skilfully. We can achieve this by being curious about our emotions, rather than judging or supressing them. This can help us better understand, accept, tolerate, express and regulate emotions.
Making Sense of it All
When trying to help someone with their struggles psychologists often work on creating what they call a ‘formulation’. This is a way of making sense of how we end up where we are today: thinking, feeling and behaving the way we do.
Developing a formulation involves gathering important information about different parts of our life and linking this information together. This process is a bit like putting together pieces of a jigsaw and what we end up with is a coherent story, or a road map that can help us understand the path we have travelled on and also identify alternative, better paths going forward.
Have you ever found yourself turning down something you really want, such as an invitation to a social event or a job opportunity, ending a relationship that is going well, or getting drunk the night before an important exam?
At times we can act in ways that on the surface seem non sensical and self- defeating. However, our behaviours and actions always have a function, no matter how illogical they may appear. Behaviours we deem to be unacceptable can bring strong feelings of shame, which can make us push these behaviours out of our mind. This means we are unlikely to understand and learn from past unhelpful behaviours and more likely to repeat our mistakes in the future.
Many people who have sought help for their mental health difficulties have been faced with the question ‘what is wrong with you?’. The response to this might have resulted in a mental health diagnosis, maybe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Recurrent Depressive Disorder, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder etc.
Although there can certainly be benefits to a diagnosis, it doesn’t help us understand why we experience certain thoughts, feelings or behaviours. Shifting the focus to ‘what has happened to me?’ is likely to lead to a deeper, more nuanced understanding of our current difficulties.
By linking together significant experiences in our life with how
they made us feel and what we have done to cope, can help create a more compassionate understanding of why we think, feel and behave as we do.
There are many ways to go about making sense of our life experiences and how we have coped with them. One simple model that is relatively easy to follow is that used by the compassion focussed therapies developed by Paul Gilbert.
The first part of the process looks at significant experiences:
We know that early experiences and relationships that make us feel safe and cared about are key to good physical and emotional health throughout our life. However, when trying to understand the problems that we face in life it can be helpful to reflect on experiences that left us feeling unsafe or not cared about.
This could be incidences of physical, sexual or emotional abuse, or physical
or emotional neglect (in effect adverse Childhood Events, ACEs). It is the experiences that triggered our fight, flight, freeze or fawn response that can help us to understand the struggles that we face as adults.
The second part of the formulation is looking at the fears (beliefs) we have developed as a result of these significant negative experiences:
These fears might relate to us, for example that we are unsafe or vulnerable, that we have no worth or value. We might have fears about other people; we can’t trust others or fearing that others don’t care or might take advantage of us. Lastly, we may have formed fears that the world is unsafe, unpredictable and hostile. In fact, when we formed these beliefs, these fears may well have just been the facts of our life at the time.
The third part of the formulation relates to safety strategies we may have developed:
These safety strategies are typically formed in response to real threats we have faced and their function is to protect us against future harm.
For example, if we have repeatedly been let down by a parent in times of need, we might have formed a fear that people don’t care about us and can’t be relied on. These fears may in turn give rise to a safety strategy of keeping people at arm’s length and being self-reliant at all times.
The fourth section of the formulation looks at unintended consequences:
Safety strategies can be thought of as solutions we generate to problems we face. However, sometimes our solutions can make our problems bigger, not smaller.
If our solution to social anxiety is to avoid any social activities, we are likely to find that our confidence to manage social situations will diminish over time and our social anxiety is likely worsen. Moreover, if we avoid most interactions with people, we may become increasingly isolated, and we are likely to feel lonely and depressed.
Once we have linked all the four sections of the formulation together, we can start to see how some of our present day feelings, thoughts, beliefs and behaviour make complete sense when understood as reasonable responses to the challenges we have faced in life.
This in itself is often very helpful in managing how we feel about ourselves and may well help us to feel less shameful or guilty about how we have coped.
As well as this we can also reflect upon things. Are our fears or belief systems up to date? Are my safety strategies still needed or helpful?
If, as a child, we live in an unsafe environment and are harmed by our caregivers, or not protected from harm, then fears of being vulnerable and not being able to trust others reflect the reality of our situation. A safety strategy of being constantly on guard (hyper vigilance) and keeping people at arm’s length may help us survive.
However, if we fast-forward a decade or two and we are now an adult and being surrounded by people we can trust, these belief systems and safety strategies may no longer be necessary or helpful. In fact, they may stop us from connecting with people and living life fully, leaving us feeling depressed.
By practising different strategies, such as sharing or connecting more with people, putting ourselves forward for opportunities coming our way, we might have experiences that can help us see ourselves in a more positive light and our outlook might start to recalibrate in a more positive way.
Summary
As we have seen, our early social environment shapes our mind in important ways. If our immediate environment was characterised by danger, chaos and limited protection, comfort or guidance from adults, our mind might get stuck in ‘threat mode’ and the world we live in and people in it might seem unsafe and hostile.
We also looked at formulation which can be a good way to make sense of how our past experiences have shaped our thoughts, feelings and behaviours
The good news is that our brain remains ‘plastic’ throughout our lives. This means it is capable of change and we can learn how to regulate our emotions and sooth the difficult feelings we are struggling with. In what follows we will go through a range of exercises you can try that will give your brain and mind a ‘work out’ and help it develop some of the emotion regulation skills that help life feel manageable.
We have split these emotion regulation skills into three parts.
First, we will focus on things that help us to dampen down our stress levels.
Secondly, we move more towards looking at ways we can re-assess the difficulties we are facing to make them more manageable and importantly reduce feelings of self-blame and guilt.
Finally we will look at strengths and the things that you already do well but might not spend much time thinking about, or even realise are strengths that you have.
In the sections that follow it is fine to make use of those techniques that fit for you and to skip over any that don’t. We are all different and things that make perfect sense to one person and work well for them, won’t necessarily be helpful to someone else.