8,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
Developed from clinical psychologist and executive coach Chantal Hofstee’s highly successful book, Mindfulness on the Run, Renew Your Mind is the essential guide to rewiring your brain so that you can lead a rich and rewarding life that leaves you energized, healthy and happy. Incorporating the latest neuroscience as well as aspects of mindfulness, the result is an effective program that leads to a calmer, more focused mind; greater productivity; enhanced creativity; and improved relationships.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 292
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
Ähnliche
RENEW YOUR MIND
How to rewire your brain for a happier, healthier life
~
Chantal Hofstee
Clinical psychologist and executive coach
To Pieter,
Thank you.
CONTENTS
Introduction: Busy people
Chapter 1: Understanding your brain
Chapter 2: Renew your mind with mindfulness
Chapter 3: Navigating emotions
Chapter 4: Green-brain connection
Chapter 5: The power of thoughts
Chapter 6: Renew your mind, change your thoughts
Chapter 7: Mantras
Chapter 8: The mind–body connection
Chapter 9: Creating success and happiness
Chapter 10: The beginner’s mind
Chapter 11: Improving relationships
Chapter 12: Solutions for conflict
Chapter 13: The purple brain and courage
Chapter 14: Self-compassion
Concluding thoughts
References
Index
INTRODUCTION:
Busy people
When was the last time you were not busy? How often do you feel stressed? Imagine that you could navigate your everyday life with a mind that is calm and focused and face your biggest challenges with courage and positive thoughts — what would be different?
Would you feel better? Stay calm when things don’t go according to plan? Be more effective at work? Would your relationships be different? Would you be kinder to yourself?
It’s easy to see stress as a normal part of life. But it does not have to be that way. I used to feel tired and stressed most of the time. My life felt like a never-ending race to do more, do better and tick the boxes on my to-do list, only to then add new things to it. Negative chatter and worries crowded my thoughts and I needed to achieve more and more to feel good about myself. All of this made it hard to be present and enjoy life.
I am grateful that those days are gone, and I have the Renew Your Mind techniques described in this book to thank for it.
These techniques are effective in reducing stress, and using them doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming; you don’t have to go away on a retreat or sit still for 20 minutes a day to calm your busy mind. Renewing your mind and training your brain can be simple and practical. In this book, I will show how you can achieve this not by changing what you do in everyday life but by changing how you do it. So you can enjoy a busy life without a busy mind.
The Renew Your Mind techniques described in this book are drawn from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), research-based mindfulness and many other techniques that I have come across in my training and work as a psychologist. They have been combined and adapted to enhance efficiency without reducing effectiveness.
The main pillars of the Renew Your Mind techniques, however, are CBT and mindfulness, as research shows that both mindfulness and CBT effectively:
Reduce
Increase
Stress
Physical health
Anxiety
Emotion regulation
Depression
Productivity
Impulsivity
Overall wellbeing and happiness
CBT and mindfulness are two different ways to gain greater control of your thoughts which equals having greater control over your emotions, actions and their outcomes. The Renew Your Mind techniques changed me from a stressed and anxious over-committer to a content and mindful partner, parent and entrepreneur — and they could do the same for you.
This book will:
»Give you insights into the functioning of your brain.
»Help you understand the origins of your unhelpful patterns that cause stress.
»Teach you practical techniques that you can use in the midst of your busy everyday life.
Each chapter has been organized from broad (theory) to specific (how the theory relates to you personally). This has been done through exercises and sections called ‘Insight inspiration’ which contain questions that are designed to help you relate the theory to your personal life. This creates powerful insights and motivation for creating change through practising the suggested techniques that follow. You might want to use a notebook or journal to write down your answers.
To reach results more quickly and easily, I recommend the Renew Your Mind download. It has nine tracks with guided brain-training exercises you’ll find in this book. This way you don’t have to remember the steps; you just turn on the track of the technique you want to practise and hear my voice guiding you through the steps. Your practice couldn’t be easier.
You can purchase the download from our website: www.renewyourmind.co.nz
Today I am a clinical psychologist and executive coach. But I first discovered most of the techniques described in this book years ago, when I was a student. CBT and mindfulness techniques became a very effective stress-reduction toolkit through my university days. Years later, however, I found myself highly stressed, trying to juggle my roles as a partner, a parent and a director in a busy psychology practice. I just couldn’t find the time to keep up my practice and keep my stress levels down, which led to a dilemma:
You need mindfulness practice the most when you are busy and stressed, but during those times you cannot go on a retreat or set aside 20 minutes a day to meditate — you are simply too busy!
My life was not going to change any time soon, so I had two options: either give up practising mindfulness and the CBT techniques, or create a way of practising that would fit in with my busy lifestyle. This led me to develop the Renew Your Mind method: mindfulness and CBT techniques that are practical and highly effective, yet do not require you to sit still and meditate but instead can be done ‘on the run’.
Let me share a real-life example of how I use the techniques on the go to combat stress. Just recently I was packing my things in the morning, and I had exactly 20 minutes before I had to leave the house. I was going to drop off my two-year-old son at his nanny’s house and then calmly and mindfully make my way to the university where I was invited to lecture to a group of 32 students.
At the time, our house was being renovated, so we were staying with friends. As I was preparing for the day my son was watching a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD in my friend’s beautiful home office. When all my things were packed, I went to get him — and found him drawing on her expensive, white office chair with a black marker. He could see the horror on my face and in an attempt to make me feel better he pointed at the drawing and said, ‘Mama, Thomas the train!’ I took a deep breath and suppressed the urge to scream ‘NO!!!!!!’ I calmly took the pen away from him and said, ‘Drawings on paper not on chairs, please.’
I tried to clean the chair with soap and water but the thick black stripes wouldn’t come off. Then I remembered I had read that milk can help remove pen from fabrics, so I poured a tiny bit of milk on a cloth and tried to clean the chair, but with no result. So, I went to the kitchen again to try the soap one more time. At this point I was already 5 minutes late.
When I ran back into the office, I discovered that my son had emptied the entire bottle of milk on the white fabric chair! Half of the milk was on the chair and the other half had ended up on the beige woollen carpet. Before I knew it a loud ‘No!’ came from my mouth, which resulted in him crying as I rushed to the kitchen to get towels.
At this point I was 10 minutes late, had a crying child and a bottle of milk spilled on an expensive chair and carpet in my friend’s home office. And there it was — the adrenaline and cortisol were kicking my stress response into gear. I could feel my breathing changing, my heart rate increasing and tunnel vision kicking in. Realizing that going into stress mode was not going to help me, I used the mindfulness technique called ‘breath and senses’ to calm myself down. For a few seconds I focused on my breathing and my surroundings to calm myself so I could make a plan. I called the nanny and asked her to come over and pick up my son. Then I comforted my son while trying to clean up the mess. When the nanny arrived I was 20 minutes late but I’d done the best I could to clean the mess. I jumped in the car and put the university address into my GPS system.
Then the thoughts came... What have I done? The milk is going to smell so bad. It will leave a big stain. My friend is going to be so upset! Knowing that there is absolutely no point, or benefit, to stressing out, I calmed my brain down with mindfulness of the breath and senses: looking at the views, listening to the sounds and feeling the steering wheel, the pedals, the seat.
Feeling relatively calm again — knowing that I could still make it to the lecture on time — I noticed that the GPS had directed me somewhere unfamiliar. I stopped the car to check the address. Yes, I had put in the right address ...
Ten minutes later I found myself in a part of town that was definitely not right. With just 5 minutes until the lecture was due to start I called the college to confirm the location and discovered I was 20 minutes away from it! Despair, frustration and pointless anger towards my phone kicked in. Again, I realized that this would not help me, it would only make me drive around like a mad woman, which isn’t good for anyone. So, I used the beginner’s mind technique to calm myself down again. I focused on the facts in a neutral, non-judgmental way: I am in the car, driving to the college. The GPS took me to the wrong place, but I know where I am going now and the students will be informed I am on my way.
This worked for a little while, until different thoughts started to creep in: They are all going to think I am useless and that I don’t care about being on time. They will never ever invite me back. No one will listen to my lecture. How can they take me seriously when I can’t even manage to show up on time? And by the way, I have ruined my friend’s carpet!
My inner critic always picks excellent moments to show up! But I knew I could tackle it with the thought enquiry technique. After working through each of my stress triggering thoughts, asking myself Can I be 100 percent sure that is true?, I came to realize that none of them was. While my situation was not ideal, it was not the disaster my inner critic had tried to convince me it was.
When I finally arrived, I was calm again; to keep calm I was mindful of my posture, facial expressions and my breathing. The class was happy to see me, and I started my lecture with a story of stress.
‘Just image that you are getting ready to deliver a lecture for a group of 32 students and your son is watching a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD while you are getting ready...’
This example shows that no matter how well you have trained your mind, you cannot eradicate stressful and challenging situations from your life; there is no escaping them. Training your brain with mindfulness and CBT is a way to train your brain to become better able to cope with these situations. It gives you a buffer that prevents your stressful thoughts or negative emotions from hijacking your brain and taking control.
CHAPTER 1:
Understanding your brain
When you want to make changes to the way you think and feel, it is important to understand the very thing that is making you think and feel: your brain. Your brain is your most important asset, a power station that connects your every thought, feeling and action. Yet people tend to take better care of their teeth, their hair and even their car than their brain. Understanding how your brain works helps you to take care of it and make it work better.
Your brain is made up mostly of water, about 10 per cent fats and 100,000 miles of blood vessels. The brain’s basic building blocks are called neurons, and your brain has around 100 billion of them, each with between 1000 and 10,000 connections with other neurons. Information is passed along these connections through chemical messages and electrical impulses. These connections are called neural pathways and I will also refer to them as pathways or roads within the brain.
Neuroplasticity
Scientists used to think that the brain is fixed and hardwired by the time we become an adult. Research in only the past decade tells us that this is simply not true. The brain is flexible and changes throughout our lives, and this process is called neuroplasticity.
You can think of your brain as a dynamic power station, with many neural pathways that light up each time you think, feel or do something. The more a pathway is used, the thicker and stronger it becomes. This makes it easy for your brain’s signals to travel that road. If you make a conscious effort to think, feel or do something differently, your brain begins to carve out a new road, which means a new pathway is established.
Brain training
Your brain is constantly changing and adapting based on your experiences. Changing old habits and creating new ones comes with directed and repeated practice of the new way of thinking, feeling and doing. By practising the Renew Your Mind techniques described in this book, you will literally rewire your brain. The techniques function as a circuit breaker that stops old, unhelpful patterns from being reinforced. They allow you to introduce and build new, more helpful roads. By doing this over and over again, the new pathways will become strong and take over. Eventually this new way of thinking, feeling or doing becomes second nature.
This process is not very different from physical exercise. Let’s take push-ups as an example. Every single time you do a push-up you are changing something in the structure of your muscles. The more you practise, the stronger the muscles and easier the exercise becomes.
It takes six to eight weeks of daily practice for a new way of thinking, feeling or doing to form a strong new neural pathway. The good news is that even if you don’t practise on a daily basis, you will start to notice changes within just a few weeks. The only requirement is that you do the exercises regularly.
The learning process has the following four phases.
Phase 1: Unaware unskilled
When you decide to start renewing your mind and training your brain, you are motivated to make changes. For most people at this stage, the desire to feel different is what drives them. When it comes to skills, at this stage you are unaware unskilled because you haven’t yet been introduced to the techniques that allow you to train new skills. Your old pathways and habits are strong and no new pathways have been built — yet.
Phase 2: Consciously unskilled
In the early days of your practice, your brain begins to form new pathways. It requires effort and conscious attention for your brain to build and use these new pathways because the old pathways are still dominant and therefore easier to use. In this phase it can be a real challenge to keep practising!
Phase 3: Consciously skilled
After some weeks of doing the exercises you will notice that your practice becomes a lot easier. New pathways have been established and are strengthening. At some point the new pathways will become the dominant ones. But be aware — in times of stress, the old pathways can still take over quite quickly!
Phase 4: Unaware skilled
In the last phase of retraining your brain, the old pathways have become dormant. New pathways have become ‘roads well-travelled’. Your practice is still important to keep the roads maintained, but you will notice the techniques have created a new way of thinking that now comes without conscious effort. You have become a more mindful person. At this point, a mindful way of thinking, feeling and doing has become second nature.
The green brain and the red brain
The way your perceptions, thoughts and emotions work and interact is quite complex. They are constantly changing and consist of many different layers. Some are part of your conscious mind, while others are part of your subconscious mind. At any given moment, when you peel away the different layers of thoughts and emotions all the way to the bottom of your subconscious mind, there are two options: your brain either feels safe or unsafe. Throughout this book I will refer to the unsafe state as the red-brain state and the safe state as the green-brain state. All of your thoughts, feelings and actions in that moment will come from either the safe (green) or unsafe (red) brain state.
There are various levels of safe or unsafe — you can picture this as a spectrum: at one end is the extremely safe green brain, and at the other end is the extremely unsafe red brain. Where your brain is on the spectrum depends on the situation, as well as your current thoughts.
The red brain
The red-brain state is a state of stress. You can see the state of stress as a fire alarm. Stress is activated when the mind perceives a threat; this activates the fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight response makes you faster and stronger. I sometimes refer to it as ‘the Hulk mode’. Having red brain available to us is actually very useful when there is a physical threat. Speed and strength are, after all, what keep you alive when you are faced with physical danger. When the fight-or-flight response kicks in, your brain and body are in the best possible state to deal with a threat, hence ensuring the greatest chance of survival.
The red brain can be triggered when there is no actual physical threat. Your brain reacts to how safe or unsafe you perceive a situation to be. Therefore, your thoughts are the most important factor in determining how your brain assesses a situation. For example, if you fear public speaking and say to yourself, ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘This will be a disaster’, your brain perceives the situation as unsafe and the stress response is activated. In this state, the hormones cortisol and adrenaline are released, creating the following effects.
Physical effects:
» Tunnel vision
» Shallow breathing
» Stopped or slowed digestion
» Increased blood pressure and blood sugar
» Increased heart rate
» Suppressed immune system
» Tensed muscles
Psychological effects:
» Judgmental and black-and-white thinking
» Feeling stressed
» Narrow or fixed point of view
» Unkind manner
» Disconnection from others
» Loss of the ability to think creatively, be flexible and see other perspectives
The consequences of these effects include:
» Overlooking information
» Referring back to old patterns
» Poor decision-making and prioritizing
» Approaching problems with familiar solutions
» Miscommunications
» Decreased compassion and empathy
» Emotion-driven action rather than well-thought-through action
Having the Hulk mode available is essential for you to be able to deal with extreme situations — such as being attacked by a snake, running from a fire or seeing a child run onto the road. When you are running from a fire you need tunnel vision, tensed muscles, increased heart rate, blood pressure and blood sugar because these things ensure all the available energy goes towards speed and strength. On the other hand, the Hulk might be strong but he isn’t very smart or considerate. Smart thinking and being kind and considerate are not priorities in red brain — you simply don’t have time to think about how your grandmother is doing when you are running for your life! It is all about survival, and unnecessary functions — including your immune system, digestive system and higher-level thinking — are put on hold.
This is evident when we look at activity in the different brain areas while under stress. The brain can be divided into three main areas. The first area is the reptilian brain. This is the most primal part of the brain and it looks after the body’s vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, temperature and balance. The next brain area is called the limbic system. This part of the brain looks after our emotions, motivation, memory and bodily functions such as appetite and sex drive. The third part of the brain is the neocortex, and this is the most developed part of the brain, responsible for higher-level thinking, speech and decision making.
Many studies have shown that stress leads to a dramatic loss of cognitive abilities by impairing the prefrontal cortex. Keep in mind that the brain is very complex and this is a simplification, but one could say that stress ‘deactivates’ most of the neocortex, leaving us with only about half of our brain active.
Looking at what stress does to our brain, it isn’t hard to see that stress benefits us when we need speed and strength to deal with problems but it is not helpful at all when our problem is a deadline, a messy house or a difficult conversation. Almost all of our problems require our full brain to be active to help problem-solve and be strategic, but in a state of stress — red brain — our brain is blocked from being effective when we need it most.
Another reason the red brain should be reserved for emergency situations that require speed or strength is that spending too much time in the state of stress damages both your brain and the rest of your body. The stress response is designed to get you safely through extreme circumstances and then return to a state of calm. Once the snake has left, your system can calm down again. When the fire is put out the system can relax. The problem with stress caused by non-threatening situations is that there is often no calming down. When you are in the state of stress too often or stay there for too long, you risk ongoing negative physical consequences such as high blood pressure and heart failure, and psychological problems such as burnout, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. In less extreme cases, heightened stress leads to not being able to ‘shut down’ from work and constant worrying.
If you want to live a healthy and balanced life, the red-brain state does not have to be eliminated but should be reserved for emergency situations only.
The green brain
The green-brain state or, as I like to call it, ‘the everyday brain’, is on the opposite end of the spectrum. In this brain state the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline are reduced and the ‘relationship hormone’ oxytocin is released, stimulating the following responses.
Physical effects:
» Wide vision and flexible attention
» Deep and slow breathing
» Optimal digestion
» Reduced blood pressure and blood sugar
» Reduced heart rate
» Optimal immune system
» Relaxed muscles
Psychological effects:
» Non-judgmental thinking
» Feeling calm and in control
» Seeing the bigger picture
» Increased kindness and empathy
» Feeling connected to others
» Mental flexibility and perspective-taking
The consequences of these effects include:
» Improved health
» Eye for detail as well as the bigger picture
» Good decision-making and prioritizing
» Creative problem-solving
» Effective communication
» Improved relationships
Spending time in the green-brain state is essential for your physical health because it is in this state that your breathing, heart rate and blood pressure are able to find their natural base-rate levels. Essentially, your digestive system and immune system work at their best in this state.
In the green-brain state, all the resources in your brain become available to you and the smartest part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, is fully engaged. High-level thinking, creativity and flexibility are unlocked and you are able to see the bigger picture and facts objectively. It is in this brain state that you can make good decisions and be truly effective and productive. In this state you will also be able to relax and process events and emotions. On top of that, the release of oxytocin immediately increases compassion, empathy and the desire to connect with others. This hormone is the fuel for our relationships and is essential for wellbeing.
The orange brain
The neutral, middle ground on the spectrum is the state of achieving, which I will refer to as the orange brain. This brain state is the ‘go-go-go state’, in which you plan and think about goals, and then set about working to achieve them. These goals can be big, such as building a house, or they can be small, such as simply posting a letter. This brain state is an area that falls between the green zone and the red zone on the spectrum. In this state you are telling your brain it will make it to the green zone once this or that task is completed. The orange brain does not have the negative symptoms of the red brain, nor does it have the benefits of the green brain. Because it is so goal-orientated, you can easily move from the orange to the red zone when something prevents you from reaching your goal.
It is important to keep in mind that these states fall on a spectrum, and we can move very quickly from one zone to another — sometimes within a split second! Also, there is nothing wrong with any of the brain states. Red, orange and green all serve their own purpose, and there is a time and place for each. Understanding how they affect your health, feelings and behaviour can be very useful because it helps make sense of how you live your life. The goal of CBT and mindfulness is not to block any of these states; it is to allow you to take greater control of the state your brain is in.
Productivity myth
Many people spend most of their time going back and forth between the state of achieving (orange brain) and the state of stress (red brain). Being aware and present (green brain) is reserved for after the work is done and special occasions like holidays, and is often associated with being lazy and unproductive.
This pattern makes sense because there is a small sub-state that is highly addictive and it is called success. When you reach your goal, the chemicals dopamine and serotonin are released, making you feel great. The sub-state of success can make it easy to get hooked into the pattern: achieving-stress-success. The problem with this pattern is that your happiness becomes tied to reaching your goals, instead of happiness coming from life in general. When your happiness is restricted in this way, it is fleeting and before you know it you are back in the stress or achieving state in order to reach your next goal and have your next ‘hit’ of fleeting happiness. This is an unsustainable pattern and ultimately leads to burnout, because we simply cannot function well without having enough green-brain time.
Research tells us that the belief held by many in this busy, modern world that stress increases productivity is simply not true. When you operate from a state of stress you are cognitively slower, waste more time, make more mistakes, overlook details and are less likely to perform well. You might feel as if you are doing well, but if you look at it objectively your performance is likely to be poorer than it would be if you were in the green-brain state. In a state of stress you might work harder, but in green brain you work smarter.
Working from a state of stress is like driving your car with the handbrake on: you might get from A to B, but it takes a lot of effort and in the long run it does damage.
Spending time in the green-brain state is not a luxury; it is the key to achieving optimal brain activity. Being in this brain state is incredibly healthy — reduced blood pressure and blood sugar, reduced heart rate, optimal digestion and immune system — and allows your body the opportunity to restore itself. Research shows that the green brain is also the ideal brain state for you to be effective and productive because you can see the bigger picture and have all your brain resources available to you, thus allowing your brain to function at its best. When you operate from this brain state you are at your most productive, effective, efficient, flexible and creative, so things seem to come more easily, sometimes even effortlessly.
Just think back to a time when you had a lightbulb moment, found a solution to a problem or had an idea that was truly innovative or a breakthrough of some sort. It is very likely that this idea, strategy or breakthrough came to you when you were in green brain. Perhaps you were in the shower, or walking in nature, exercising or about to fall asleep. One thing I know for sure, you didn’t have a lightbulb moment when you were in red brain because your brain activity won’t allow it and you probably weren’t thinking hard on it either.
In green brain, while you are enjoying the moment, your smart brain is at work in the background, sorting information, making links, thinking innovatively and creatively and at some point this high-level thinking will enter your conscious mind, creating what we call an ‘aha moment’. When you are doing green-brain activities that, on the surface, seem unproductive, your brain is highly productive. It doesn’t go on a break as most people think; it is working for you in the background and it is working both on maintenance (processing and storing information) and engaging in high-level thinking, including creative problem-solving if you have given your brain that ‘assignment’.
To further illustrate this there is fascinating research that shows us the very best way to tackle a difficult assignment or problem. According to this research, step one is to go through all the relevant information, allowing your brain to absorb it without yet asking your brain to do anything with that information. The next step is to pull out a pillow and take a nap. Yes, you read that correctly. According to research the best way to come up with brilliant ideas isn’t to research more or to brainstorm. The best answer to a tough problem is to take a nap. While you are asleep (in green brain), your brain gets to work and processes, sorts and analyzes the information it has absorbed. Your brain connects that information to your experience and information stored in your memory and, while you are sleeping, engages in high-level thinking so that when you wake up the answers ‘just come to you’. Even if you don’t wake up with the perfect answer, you will see the situation from a different perspective and have a fresh, green-brain view on it. If you then ask yourself the simple question ‘What would help?’ or ‘How can I fix this problem?’ and notice what comes to mind, you will be able to come up with new, innovative and creative ideas that your red and orange brain simply are not able to come up with.
‘I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.’
— Einstein
Activating our green brain is by far the best chance we have of operating to the best of our ability, and the good news is that it is also the brain state in which we are the happiest. When we understand more about how our brain works it isn’t hard to see that reserving green brain for after the work is done doesn’t make much sense. You need your green brain in order to do your work effectively. Starting the day in green brain will give you much better outcomes than saving your green-brain activities until the end of the day.
Activating the green brain strategically
The goal of renewing your mind and training your brain is simply to achieve more green-brain time because, from green brain, health, productivity, improved relationships and happiness flow naturally. These are simply by-products or symptoms of green brain.
The first step to activating more green brain is to identify what circumstances (things, activities or environments) naturally activate your green brain and to be more strategic about using these natural triggers. Rather than saving all the green-brain triggers for the end of the day, ideally you schedule a few green-brain triggers at the start of your day and during your day. This will make it easier for you to stay out of red brain and have more green-brain time throughout the day.
For example, I start my day with an early rise (green-brain trigger for me) and morning run (another green-brain trigger) followed by cuddles with the kids (green-brain trigger) and then family breakfast (sometimes green) followed by a morning coffee (green-brain trigger).
During lunch, I always leave my desk and spend some time reading a book. The amazing thing I have found is that it is often during my lunch break, while reading a book, that the best ideas come to me. So, even though I’m not ‘working’, my brain is doing business and leadership strategy development in the background! Because of this, I always have a notepad with me to write down ideas that pop up during lunch.
Another helpful question to ask yourself is ‘What are my red-brain triggers and is there any way I can reduce them or avoid them?’
For example, I avoid rushing by getting up early and not wasting time in the morning (avoids the red-brain trigger of rushing). I always put my keys in the same place (avoiding the red-brain trigger of not being able to find my keys), and my husband and I have a clear division of who does what in the mornings to make things run relatively smoothly (avoids rushing and irritation).
Often it is small preventable things that cause unnecessary stress (like not being able to find my keys) and activating green brain can sometimes be achieved through simple little things (like reserving 5 minutes each morning to cuddle with my kids).
Identifying your red- and green-brain triggers and then being strategic about them is the first step to having more green-brain time.
INSIGHT INSPIRATION: BRAIN TRIGGERS
1.List three red-brain triggers2.List three green-brain triggers3.How can I have more of the green-brain triggers?4.How can I minimize or avoid the red-brain triggers?Thoughts and the brain states
When there is a real physical threat, your system immediately moves to the red zone. However, there is another powerful trigger that can set off the red, orange or green brain: your thoughts. Your brain uses your thoughts as cues to determine how safe or unsafe a situation is, and based on this assessment it will activate one of the three states. Underneath all the rational thinking, your brain perceives worries and judgments as threats because they communicate to your brain that something is not right, and the brain then moves to the orange or the red zone.
