neuroscience – Lion's Whiskers

Right-Brain Workouts for Kids & Parents

admin — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

So, what do you do if your child is no longer a babe in arms? How do you continue to nourish his/her brain’s right hemisphere, not to mention your own, to promote emotional intelligence and overall well-being? In Western culture, we tend to overvalue and over-emphasize left hemispheric learning. Therefore, to keep nurturing right hemispheric health and the connection between you and your child, I have adapted Jill Bolte Taylor’s (2006) and Rick Hanson’s (2009) recommendations for right-brain health. A brain in balance increases the likelihood for physical, emotional, social, and mental health.

Dr. Lisa’s Parenting Tip:

Right-Brain Workouts for Kids & Parents:

v Be present. Notice when your mind is elsewhere, bring it back to the present moment. Easy ways to become more present: sit down and put your feet up for five minutes, look around at your surroundings, gaze into your child’s eyes as he/she is speaking, notice your breath breathing you—in and out, in and out, in and out. Straighten your posture to wake your body up. Do a few gentle neck or shoulder rolls. Imagine you have roots growing from the bottom of your feet grounding you in this moment. Ask your child to imagine strong roots extending through their feet deep into the ground. Now try to lift him/her or ask someone to try and lift you…you might be very surprised by the power of your mind!

v Touch. Offer your child a manicure or pedicure, or ask for one. Hold your child’s hand on a walk. Massage each other’s feet at bedtime while telling one another about your day. Snuggle your child in your left nook. Offer a kiss! Touching the lips stimulates the parasympathetic branch, the calming side, of the autonomic nervous system.

v Look for Beauty. Fill your home with art, music, flowers, aroma therapy…anything that your eyes, ears, mouths love to feast on that fills your hearts with joy.

v Eat, Drink, and Be Merry. Good nutrition is the foundation for brain health. Try not to skip meals and become over-hungry—a big trigger for mood meltdowns. Make dinner together. Cook to your favorite music. Decorate the table as if it is a special occasion, even if it’s just Meatball Monday or Tofu Tuesday. Make spaghetti and eat it with your hands. What we eat results in positive or negative feelings and thoughts—it’s up to you. Under your paediatrician/physician’s guidance, take a good multivitamin (complete with B vitamins) and an Omega-3 Fatty acid supplement.

v Play. Find games or activities that fill you up and that your kids love, too. The goal is to have fun, laugh…not to raise the bar even higher and feel like you’re not a good enough parent because you don’t play enough. Scrabble’s not your thing, try bananagrams. Puzzles make your head hurt, try jumping on the trampoline or bed. Play Pat-a-Cake or make up your own secret family handshake.

v Be Creative. Finger paint, draw each other’s body outline, make cookies and handle the dough with your hands, play music, make a collage of pictures and words that represent your goals and visualize your family’s future, dance, do a few yoga moves, knit, sing, hum—you don’t need to be an “artist” to be creative and inspire your kids’ creativity!

v Get all the information FIRST. I often remind myself and my kids to “get all the information first, before freaking out.” Inevitably, when we are able to do so, we slow down our emotional reactivity significantly enough to be able to respond much more proactively, calmly, and accurately to the situation at hand. Remember, it only takes as little as 90 seconds to change your biochemistry response to any situation. So, count to 90 and get all the information before making a decision.

v Start with “YES”, then move to “NO”. This suggestion relates to getting all the information. When stressed, we are apt to shut down our kids’ requests with an abrupt “No!” Instead, respond, “Yes, I hear you. I need to think about your question. Please ask me again in 5 mins. when I can give you a thoughtful answer.” OR “Yes, I hear that you want to visit X, let’s look at the calendar to decide when the best time would be.”

v Call a friend. Listen more talk less. Ask for help. Feel your feelings. Be brave and share what makes you feel vulnerable.

v Love. Notice something you love about yourself. Notice something that you love about your child today. Something that makes you feel especially proud of or appreciative about in him/her. Heart-to-heart communication strengthens emotional intelligence skills like empathy and compassion.

v Smell. Close your eyes and breathe in the sweetness of your child’s smell. Spritz yourself or your house with your favorite non-synthetic scents like lavender or rose, lemongrass or jasmine.

v Take a Bath. Lie in silence under the water with your ears suspended in sound deprivation. Or, fill the tub with bubbles and make bubble sculptures.

v Take a walk in the woods. There is no better place to feel present, to tune-up your tired senses, or connect with your child, than in nature.

v Send a prayer. Think of someone you love. Picture them in your mind’s eye. Send them this prayer:

May you be safe.

May you be healthy.

May you be happy.

May you live with ease.

Try any of our 5-Minute Courage Workouts, too, to help boost your Six Types of Courage Quotient!

Sources:

Bolte Taylor, J. (2006). My stroke of insight: A brain scientist’s personal journey. New York: Penguin Group.

Hanson, R. (2009). Buddha’s brain: The practical neuroscience of happiness, love & wisdom. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Let’s Start at the Beginning…Childbirth

admin — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

What does our child’s birth have to do with courage? Birth triggers similar neurological mechanisms and the release of many of the same neurochemicals associated with courage. If you don’t think it takes courage to give birth, to adopt a child, or unconditionally love another human being then stop reading right now!

Let’s start at the beginning. I didn’t have the “perfect birth” with either of my kids. READ: quick, soothing music, no emergency interventions and/or numbing chemical infusions, surrounded by family/friends/a birthing coach/midwife/massage therapist all focused on giving me exactly what I needed when I needed it, maybe even at home! The kind of birth I’d read about in some of the baby and childbirth books I’d found. The kind of birth other expectant moms and I proudly and excitedly whispered to each other about having in our childbirth education class or whilst we stretched our swollen limbs together in prenatal yoga class. Or the “natural births” other moms bragged to me about at baby showers or in grocery store lineups where I was, yet again, buying the weirdest combinations of food to stave off my pregnancy cravings and nausea whilst ensuring a hefty weight gain. Well, maybe they weren’t bragging, but as a slightly competitive person myself (note the understatement) I definitely heard the brag. Honestly, I even skipped over the Cesearean sections in all the baby books. I figured: not going to happen to me, don’t need to read it! Boy, was I humbled and deeply grateful that an OB/GYN I trusted happened to be on-call.

That all said, when my kids ask about the day they were born, I fluff up my fur (a.k.a. my crazy curly hair) with pride, wrap them inside my protective lion mama arms, and whisper how I fell in love with them on the day they were born. I tell them how brave they were (in their own specific ways) and how their cries could be heard far and wide awakening the world to their arrival. How their dad and I wept with joy when we first saw them and heard their cry. But most of all, how grateful we are to know them, to witness them grow every day, and to be their parents. Turns out it’s the most “natural thing” in the world to love your child!

Just like the quest for the perfect wedding, it’s nice if everything goes according to plan and it doesn’t rain…but it’s the marriage that really matters. So, I worried about not having had the “perfect birth” for about as long as it took me to bond with my babies—not long. As soon as I was able to hold them, we quickly discovered we fit perfectly together. I was just happy that they, and I, had survived the whole experience! In large part due to my husband and aunt’s loving support. That’s the whole deal with bonding: it helps us survive. If we aren’t bonded as a species, why would we care enough to have the courage to save each other and our planet?

Friends of mine who’d been brave enough to walk the path of parenthood ahead of me taught me a valuable lesson: accept your experience—and your child for that matter—as the perfect learning for you. Other friends and clients of mine, who’d suffered the losses and, sadly, the self-recrimination sometimes associated with miscarriage, infertility, or even a C-section—as if these physical realities were personal failures instead examples of the arbitrariness of life—showed me the way to walk with courage over the hot coals of our own and others’ expectations, judgments, and often limited perspective about the learning deep in birth narrative.

The other thing you need to know about when I had babies: I had my basic needs (food, water, shelter, quality healthcare) provided for—and could therefore ensure my baby’s basic needs were met—and I had a loving partner (even if sometimes asleep) beside me. Many mamas on this planet don’t. Yet another reason to develop courage in ourselves and our children to share our plentiful resources with the rest of the planet, therefore ensuring the survival of our species.

When my babies were born, I wasn’t chronically or significantly stressed. Chronicity and intensity of stressors being correlated with a decrease in human resiliency. Like any new parent, I was stressed to the extent I could pay close attention to my own and my baby’s needs. My limbic-hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (LHPA-axis) was releasing enough cortisol to boost my now-understood female “tend-or-befriend” responses (Taylor, et al., 2000). I had enough cortisol to boost not only my ability to form a secure attachment with my baby, but to boost his/her neurological development also. But I wasn’t stressed enough to prevent oxytocin’s ability to mediate the effects of the stress-hormone cortisol from stunting the parent-child bonding process. That’s why advice like “Nap when your baby naps,” or “Accept all the help you can get,” and anything else that helps take the stress level of becoming a parent down a notch, is good advice to heed.

When we are neurochemically in-balance (as much as is possible for any new parent), we are able to promote the bonding process. We are able to provide the necessary cues for emotional regulation that begins the process of ensuring we can be a secure base for our infant. Clients and friends of mine who have had to navigate the dark corridors of post-partum depression are often best-served by short-term psychotropic medication (i.e. an antidepressant) intervention at this stage, often combined with some psychotherapy to help ensure the effectiveness of the intervention. The good news: as long as those periods of emotional disregulation are brief and not chronic, the human being (whether in infancy or adulthood) is resilient to withstand such stress.

http://www.emotion.caltech.edu/courses/ss140/May8-1.pdf

Knudsen, E. (2004). Sensitive periods in the development of the brain and behavior.

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16, (8), 1412-1425. doi: 10.1162/0898929042304796

Palmer, L. (2002). Bonding matters: The chemistry of attachment. Attachment Parenting International News, 5,(2), 1-4. http://www.newbornbreath.com/downloads/Handouts/Chemistry%20of%20Attachment.pdf

Pilyoung Kim, P., Swain, J. (2007). Sad dads: Paternal postpartum depression. Psychiatry 4, (2), 35-47.

Porter, L. (2003). The science of attachment: The biological roots of love. Mothering, 119, 1-10.

http://mothering.com/parenting/the-science-of-attachment

Taylor, S.E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B.P., Gruenewald, T.L., Gurung, R.A., & Updegraff, J.A. (2000). Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: Tend-and-befriend, not fight or flight. Psychological “Review”, 1073, 411-429. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.107.3.411

What is Emotional Courage?

admin — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Compiled and written by Lisa and Jennifer:

This is the fifth in the “Six Types of Courage” that we will explore in-depth here on Lion’s Whiskers. We hope you’ve already had the chance to read over our page called “The Six Types of Courage” for a brief overview of our definitions. The examples we give for each type of courage may apply to your children and/or to you — when you are reading this post please keep in mind that some of these examples may involve taking “baby steps” on your way to emotional courage! Every step towards courage is both worthwhile and important.

Emotional Courage

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”— Elie Wiesel

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” — Thornton Wilder

Emotional courage is being open to feeling the full spectrum of emotional experience, both positive and negative. Oftentimes, the terms “emotions” and “feelings” are used interchangeably, but it’s worthwhile to be more precise. A simplistic, but helpful distinction between emotion and feeling is as follows:

· Emotion is the complex psychophysiological experience combining our internal (biological) response to external (environmental) stimuli.

· As that emotion crosses the threshold between unconscious to conscious awareness, the verbal and non-verbal language of “feelings” comes into play as we engage higher, prefrontal cortical processes to seek to understand, label, express, suppress, and/or make choices based on the lower and middle brain regions’ generation of core emotions. All emotions evoke feelings, but not all feelings evolve from core emotions. Some feelings are subtle variations like ecstasy which is related to joy, or melancholy which relates to sadness. Other feelings are associated with the states between core emotions and are not directly traced to one core emotion as opposed to another.

For example: let’s say there is a loud crashing sound, a stimulus which triggers an emotion. Immediately, the pulse accelerates, the breathing quickens, and a number of other physiological things happen in a cascade without our conscious participation. Then the mind creates a feeling based on thoughts about that stimulus: “Hooray, the fireworks are starting!” or “Oh no, the scaffolding collapsed!”

Researchers such as Paul Ekman and Antonio Damasio posit approximately ten core emotions: anger, fear, sadness, enjoyment, disgust, surprise, contempt, shame, guilt, embarrassment, and awe. Some are genetically-driven. Others (like compassion, admiration, pride which may also share some of the same core emotion attributes) are social adaptations based on genome potentiality. The most universal are happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. All are associated with biological intelligence and a drive to survive.

Our emotions are an evolutionary adaptation to help support our survival. At a highly unconscious level, the limbic system generates the physical arousal associated with each emotion. Once an emotion intensifies, thoughts begin to form about the emotion, cognition is engaged, and behaviors are generated to deal with the emotion and the needs that must be met.

Feelings can help guide us back to the core emotion we are experiencing; they can help answer our need for connection, wellness, and ultimately survival. Emotional intelligence is, in essence, a study and practice devoted to supporting human insight and evolution based on emotional awareness. We start at birth: babies are born with the capacity for fear, anger, sadness, and joy! Then we begin to learn the over 4,000 words devoted to the feelings that flow from our core emotions and experiences in life!

Here are some helpful resources with feelings broken down into positive and negative emotion.

For children: A list of feeling words
For teens: A list of feeling words
For parents: A chart of feeling words that relates feelings to core emotion & A list of feeling words

We can teach our children to become emotionally intelligent by giving them the language of feelings, modeling healthy emotional expression, pointing out the various thoughts/facial expressions/body reactions associated with core emotions, and honoring their feelings as signposts of underlying emotion linked with core needs. We can observe what is happening in our body, our facial expressions (or those of others) for example, as signposts of core emotions and secondary feelings.

What we are suggesting by emotional courage, is being willing to be vulnerable, truthful, and aware of your conscious experience of core emotions, which you think about and express often in language as feelings. When we choose to ignore, suppress, or deny our emotion, we risk a reduction of insight, leading to faulty decision-making, inaccurate mental representation of our experience, and/or even failure to ensure or restore homeostasis and thus ensure our survival.

Unfortunately, we can’t have only positive emotions — it’s a package deal. But, we can choose where to place our attentional focus. According to Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2000) pioneers in the field of Positive Psychology, when we shift our attentional focus from fear, for example, to experiences that are associated joy or “flow” (an intrinsically rewarding, completely focused, motivation in performance or learning that evokes joy, rapture, and renewed energy for the task at hand) the happier we become. For example, shifting your focus to gratitude may be one of the easiest ways to diminish irrational fear that results in feelings we label “worry.”

Emotional courage also means loving yourself, being proud of yourself, and believing that you are worthy of love and happiness. Essentially, it is related to self-acceptance, coupled with a willingness to move outside our comfort zone, to explore new ways of being that may not be familiar. It also seems related to the quest for self-realization and fulfillment. Emotional courage requires digging around and uprooting the tangible and mostly intangible sources of fear resulting in anxiety, worry, sorrow, and depression that can poison the proverbial wellspring of joy. Happiness is the buzz word most associated with emotional courage—having the courage to be unconditionally happy.

Emotional courage means being willing to give your heart without expecting anything in return. Remember Princess Di visiting with AIDS patients in early years of the epidemic, listening to their stories, holding their hands, meeting their gaze without turning away? If your daughter dreams of princesses, tell her what a real princess did.

Here’s a fantastic video from the TED.com site that speaks to emotional courage in a thoughtful and often funny way. It’s about 20 minutes long. If you don’t have time for it now, please come back to it later. You’ll be glad you did.

helping friends grieve a loss

confronting a family member about abuse or addiction

crying in a therapist’s office

making friends at sleep away camp, even when you know you might never see them again

taking in an injured animal

forgiving someone you love

laughing so hard the tears come

expressing gratitude

crying without embarrassment

helping a stranger who is in distress

public displays of affection

maintaining eye contact and smiling

working as a social worker, counselor or emergency medical personnel

Lack of emotional courage looks like:

looking away, avoiding eye contact
walking away from an “emotional” situation
covering up or suppressing an emotional response, such as crying
laughing off, mocking, or otherwise dismissing someone else’s emotional response
begrudging someone else’s success or happiness
embracing the victim role
numbing feelings through overuse of drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, food, etc.
losing your temper and lashing out at others
blaming others for faults or failures that you are covering up in yourself
avoiding self-reflection, even after a loved one expresses heartfelt concern
kicking the dog
never being willing to be alone
checking out of your life through obsessive behaviors like excessive t.v. watching, shopping,

Emotional courage sounds like:

“I can do it!”
“I can’t do it — yet!”
“Congratulations! I am so happy for your success!”
“I love _______ about you.”
“Thank you!”
“I’m angry right now but I know it won’t last forever!”
“I can see you’re angry at me right now and that’s okay.”
“I’m good at ___________.”
“Let me help you.”
“I feel___________.”
“You are amazing/awesome/special.”
“I’m worthy of love.”
“I love you.”
“Are you okay? Would you like to talk?”

Lack of emotional courage sounds like:

“I don’t like talking about my feelings.”
“Boys don’t cry.”
“You’re too big to cry.”
“I never get angry!”
“I’m bored.”
“Don’t be sad, I hate it when you’re sad!”
“Get over it!”
“It’ll just make me feel worse if I talk about it, and I don’t want to feel that.”
“You’re fine.”
“Oh, grow up!”
“I can’t.”
“I won’t talk until you control yourself.”
“You’re getting carried away as usual!”
“Why do good things always happen to other people?”

Grab Some Lion’s Whiskers!
Here are some tips for developing emotional courage for you and your kids:

set goals
try acting! Acting out feelings can help you get used to feeling your feelings. Role play scenarios your kids may be currently facing
learn from your mistakes without punishing yourself or making yourself “bad” or feeling guilty
practice gratitude by saying blessings at meals (religious or secular), sending thank you notes, making thank-you phone calls, etc.
find a service project that has meaning for your family
give your kids meaningful jobs to do at home so they can feel they can make an important contribution to the family
acknowledge your own power to choose happiness
tell a friend what particular quality makes their friendship special to you
develop healthy habits: exercise regularly, eat a balanced diet, minimize the use of alcohol and/or other stimulants/depressants that are often used to numb feelings, and cause psychological, social, or occupational distress and stress
tell stories that call upon a wide range of emotions
decide on some emotional courage challenges and support each other in their pursuit

Here is a quick “Emotional IQ” test on Discovery Health.
You can also find a number of useful questionnaires on the Authentic Happiness page.

What are your ideas about emotional courage, your parenting tips to promote it with kids, or your favorite emotional courage story (fiction or non-fiction)? We’d love to hear from you!

Here are some posts on the blog that are related to emotional courage: Getting to the Heart of Courage, Chapter One: Jennifer and the Lovely K., Defining Courage for Yourself, Two Parables from Rumi, Courage as an Antidote to Fear, Healthy Attachment Between Parent and Child, Sharing Family Stories, Let’s Start at the Beginning…Childbirth, The Chemical Soup called LOVE,
My Hansel and Gretel Moment, 10 Tips for Talking About the Tough Stuff With Kids,
Bonding with Baby, The Way We Hold Our Babies, Raising a Leader, I HEART Snuggling, Never Can Say “Good-Bye”?, I Can’t Do It. Yet. , The Flyaway Lake, , Quitters, Campers, and Climbers: Which One are You?, The Black Belt Wall, My Year of Living Fearlessly, Running Plan B

Here’s more on the types of courage:
What is Physical Courage?
What is Social Courage?
What is Intellectual Courage?
What is Moral Courage?
What is Spiritual Courage?

Sources:

Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes Error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. NY: A Grossman/Putnam Book.

Lane, R. & Nadel, L. (Eds.). (2000). Cognitive neuroscience of emotion. NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Prinz, J. (2004). Gut reactions: A perceptual theory of emotion. NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Seligman, M. (2000). Positive psychology. In Gillham, J. (Ed.). The science of optimism and hope: Research essays in honor of Martin E.P. Seligman. (pp. 415-430). Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation Press.

neuroscience – Lion's Whiskers

More Evidence On the Power of Stories

Right-Brain Workouts for Kids & Parents

Let’s Start at the Beginning…Childbirth

What is Emotional Courage?