The Brain
The brainstem is also known as?
1) The limbic brain
2) The primitive brain
3) The cortical brain
The brainstem is also known as the primitive brain and develops first.
True or False? Trauma can weaken neural pathways to the thinking part of your brain and strengthen neural pathways to the survival part, thus bypassing the thinking part, which makes some children less capable of coping with adversity as they grow up.
TRUE
True or False:
Regular mindfulness can physically change parts of your brain
True. Practicing mindfulness -- especially meditation -- can make the area of your brain that controls your attention span grow over time. It can also fatten up your brain stem and increase the gray matter in your brain, all of which helps you process your emotions better and stay healthier.
What is a butterfly hug?
The Butterfly Hug is accomplished by an individual wrap their arms around themselves, so that each hand touches the opposite upper arm or shoulder. They then move their hands like the wings of a butterfly, to tap their arms/shoulders in an alternating rhythm.
https://emdrresearchfoundation.org/toolkit/butterfly-hug.pdf
Which side of the brain is responsible for logic, linguistics, and lateral thinking?
The LEFT
Which part of the brain is responsible for thinking, learning, language, and inhibiting?
The limbic brain
Categorize the following under the correct label (fight / flight / freeze).
Fight:
Flight:
Freeze:
True or False: Practicing mindfulness can affect your genes
True. The relaxation you feel when you practice being mindful might play a part in which genes are active in your body. Specifically, it can make the ones linked to inflammation less active. This can not only improve your health, but it may help you live longer, too.
Which is the correct order? Connect then redirect, or redirect then connect
Connect then redirect
Fill in the blanks. Negative childhood experiences can set our brains to constantly feel _______ and ____
a) overstimulated / excited
b) stressed / overwhelmed
c) danger / fear
Negative childhood experiences can set our brains to constantly feel danger and fear
What is dissociation?
Mindfulness helps with stress by:
a) Making your body resistant to stress hormones
b) Changing how you react to it
c) Distracting you until the stress passes
Over time, it gives you more control over your emotions and helps you process them differently. This may also help with anxiety and mood disorders.
True or False: Neuroception is the process by which we voluntarily and consciously search our environment for cues of danger
False. The process in which our neural circuits are reading cues of danger in our environment is neuroception. Through this process of neuroception, we are experiencing the world in a way in which we are involuntarily scanning situations and people to determine if they are safe or dangerous.
As part of our autonomic nervous system, this process is happening without us even being aware that it is happening. Just as we are able to breathe without having to intentionally tell ourselves to take a breath, we are able to scan our environment for cues without telling ourselves to do so.
True or false? Sugar causes inflammation in the brain and can cause the hippocampus to shrink
True or False? Childhood trauma is more likely to lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than trauma that occurs in adulthood.
True
What happens to the pupils of the eye during the fight-or-flight response?
- They constrict to limit light entering the eye
- They remain the same
- They dilate to allow more light to enter the eye
Correct answer: - They dilate to allow more light to enter the eye
FACT OR FICTION Listening to alpha waves music can cause our brainwaves to align with the frequency of the music creating a deep sense of calm and relaxation, while listening to delta waves music aligns our brainwaves to the same frequency as when we are falling sleep?
Beta waves can also help with concentration and studying
Fact or Fiction: The name social engagement system was chosen because the ventral vagal nerve affects the middle ear, which filters out background noises to make it easier to hear the human voice. It also affects facial muscles and thus the ability to make communicative facial expressions. Finally, it affects the larynx and thus vocal tone and vocal patterning, helping humans create sounds that soothe one another.
FACT
True or False
Extending exhales longer than inhales for a period of time activates the parasympathetic nervous system.
TRUE
The sympathetic nervous system gets the body ready for the fight/flight/freeze response. With the fight or flight response, the sympathetic nervous system begins revving up the heartbeat and blood pressure and stealing blood from the body to make muscles ready to run. If there is nowhere to run and no hope of escape, the sympathetic nervous system will cause the person to freeze or collapse (both forms of dissociation).
The parasympathetic nervous system is a calming force, that when kicked in, allows the heart rate and blood pressure to lower, calming down the body after a traumatic event.
If the sympathetic nervous system is hyper-aroused then the body suffers from a lack of adequate blood supply as the person is always ready to flee or fight. This damages the person’s ability to calm down after being triggered by something that even barely resembles the danger that damaged their sympathetic system.
If the parasympathetic system does not kick-in appropriately, the body suffers because blood pressure can suddenly drop leading to fainting and other physical problems.
Brain scans show childhood trauma can cause shrinkage in the hippocampus, the area linked to memory storage and retrieval. The constant state of high-stress can alter the ___________, the brain’s fear-processing center, and affect the neuro-endocrine and immune systems.
The amygdala
The adrenal glands release what as part of the fight-or-flight response?
Cortisol
Sweat
Serotonin
Cortisol
True or False. Mindfulness may help with depression
Early studies also show that people who have bipolar disorder or an anxiety disorder might benefit from it as part of their treatment plan as well. And if antidepressants have helped and you’re in remission, mindfulness may work just as well as medication to keep it at bay.
To stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, and cause a person to relax do you want the inhales to be longer than the exhales, or the exhales to longer than the inhales?
Slower respiration rates and longer exhalations physically and tonically stimulate the vagus nerve. Therefore, to help a person relax, you want the exhales to be longer than the inhales. Longer exhalations are an easy way to hack the vagus nerve, combat fight-or-flight stress responses, and improve HRV.
Pair the chemical with what it is also known as:
DOPAMINE, SEROTONIN, OXYTOCIN, ENDORPHINS
- The Love Hormone
- The Reward Chemical
- The Pain Killer
- The Mood Stabilizer
Dopamine - The Reward Chemical
Serotonin - The Mood Stabilizer
Oxytocin - The Love Hormone
Endorphins - The Pain Killer