Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Brain Balancing + Trauma
Transcript
- 0:03This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
- 0:07and with chronic pain and trauma get into the heart of how to heal.
- 0:12I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
- 0:18discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones, and
- 0:23anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
- 0:27world that we live in. Oh, the brain, the beautiful, beautiful
- 0:41brains that are between our two ears and behind our eyes, you know,
- 0:45super complex little place, and can we all agree for just like a hot
- 0:50minute, that it is kind of important that we take care of it and
- 0:54that we understand it. We all sit here and go, yeah, yeah,
- 0:57our brain, our brain, our brain. You know what it is
- 1:00like. As you guys have listened to this show for as long as you
- 1:03have, and if you're new today, welcome. Our brains are so incredibly
- 1:07powerful, and so incredibly sensitive and so incredibly complex. But we have the
- 1:12power to make our brains work better for us. And it is something that
- 1:18I am learning with every episode that I do, every study that I read,
- 1:22every incredible person that I meet that makes me have far more hope than
- 1:26I had before I started this show. So today we're going to talk a
- 1:30little bit. We're going to rap a little bit about balancing this precious brain
- 1:33of ours, right, We're going to talk about trauma and brains response to
- 1:36it. We're going to talk about oh stress and how chronic stress just completely
- 1:42messes us all up. Sleep deprivation because we have to talk about sleep deprivation
- 1:48as my guest knows about me and you guys do too, and the impact
- 1:52and power that our brain has on us to help us heal. We're also
- 1:56going to quick touch on the effects of COVID, and I know we all
- 2:00are kind of sick of COVID the word as a whole, but it is
- 2:06incredibly important for us to understand what COVID did do all of us, not
- 2:08just as adults, but really what's happened from newborn's up. And while we're
- 2:14at it, I was thinking maybe as a team, we could seek out
- 2:16like maybe a looney bin to check myself into if I don't get any sleep,
- 2:23to heal my brain and heal my food in twenty twenty four, so
- 2:25as a group, we can all start to look for one if I don't
- 2:29get in sleep in this year. So let's talk about it. Let's talk
- 2:34about getting our brain back on track and getting a deeper understanding of why and
- 2:38how our struggles are so real to us, and how my de gorgeous guests
- 2:44in front of me today can help not only you, but everyone in your
- 2:47life, no matter what age we're at, because it's not just about kids.
- 2:51We're all kids, you know, we all need help. So,
- 2:54without further ado, I'd like to introduce to you to my beautiful guest,
- 2:58doctor Rebecca Jackson. Happy New Year, Happy New Year, Lindsay. I
- 3:05am so happy that you're here today. I've been looking forward to this conversation.
- 3:07Doctor Rebecca Jackson, you are an industry leader in brain health and optimizing
- 3:13the brain to enhance how we feel in function. She brings us fifteen plus
- 3:17years of experience as Chief Programs Officer of Brain Balance. In her role,
- 3:22she has published research on improving cognition, development and well being, drives programmatic
- 3:28enhancements, and creates new programs to meet growing demands of people wanting to achieve
- 3:32more and feel better, not just for ourselves, but for our children,
- 3:37our spouses, our loved ones. You know, the crazy people in our
- 3:40lives. She is the author of the book Back on Track, a practical
- 3:44guide to help kids of all ages thrive, and is a frequent media guest
- 3:49as an expert on improving brain health, development, and cognition. God bless
- 3:53America, I need cognition help. Her work has been featured in Mayo Clinic
- 3:58Press, Forbes, psych Central, Business Insider, and more, and she
- 4:01has appeared I'm Exhausted on both local and national news shows such as The Doctor's
- 4:05Show and NBC's Night Leaders. So welcome. I'm rolling out the red carpet
- 4:10for you, babe. Are you pooped listening to all the things that you
- 4:14do? And that's just like the cusp? Well, no, I'm so
- 4:17excited to be here. And I always tell people when it comes to the
- 4:19brain, the more I learn, the more I feel like I know nothing.
- 4:23I feel like I'm at like a kindergarten level for what's out there because
- 4:26there's so much to it. As you said, the brain is powerful,
- 4:30it's sensitive, but it's also resilient. And so that's what we're going to
- 4:33get to talk about today is understanding what can we do to build that resilience
- 4:38and tap into that power. So we all feel and function for best.
- 4:41Yeah, and resilience is such a great word that you chose because it is
- 4:44it is mission critical for us to understand that it is resilient. It's like,
- 4:47you know, they say that our liver can you know, regenerate.
- 4:51That's what we're all hoping for. That's our new Year's resolution for everyone.
- 4:57Can our livers regenerate themselves? With doctor Rebecca exactly, we just changed the
- 5:01episode, so let's get it. I know me too, let's get into
- 5:09it. So talk to us. Yeah, well, you know, the
- 5:13first time I met you, lindsay, I feel like our challenge is to
- 5:15not have this be a three hour And it's so interesting in talking to you
- 5:20because you've lived so much personally, where so much has personally impacted your life
- 5:26and your health, which directly impacts your brain. So you're living the reality
- 5:30of when there's impact to your brain, whether it's chronic stress, whether it's
- 5:35trauma, these things all have a very very real impact. And I think,
- 5:40you know, there's so many things that we minimize in life, but
- 5:43it's real and understanding that. But then to me, it's always where do
- 5:46we go forward from here? So we know it's real. We know there's
- 5:49an impact, but the empowering part, the exciting part, is knowing that
- 5:54there is a path forward. And when it comes to the brain, so
- 5:57often it's all about going back to the basics. It's it's not always super
- 6:00complex, but sometimes it's just realizing what do we have at our fingertips that
- 6:06we can do on a daily basis to set our brain up for the best
- 6:10success. And to me, brain health is everything. It's our mood,
- 6:14it's our cognition, it's how we function. Brain health is our mental health
- 6:18as well as our physical health and wellbeing, for sure. And I think
- 6:21one of the things that is for me with my brain and I can only
- 6:25speak to mine and it is a wack of do place to live in guys.
- 6:29Is I really struggle when we talked about this. I've had six concussions.
- 6:32We'll just start there. And I do not play for the NFL,
- 6:39thank god. But you know what, it's one of the things that I
- 6:43really struggle with because even though I consider myself to be a fairly bright human
- 6:46being, I am funny, I'm like hearted, I show up, I
- 6:49do all of these things. I have no idea what it would I would
- 6:54actually be, like if my brain was functioning the way it's supposed to,
- 6:59I'm pretty sure. Or I'd be a Nobel Peace Prize winner. There are
- 7:02so many things that I feel like I would be. I'd be Gwen Stefani
- 7:05or Madonna or like, no, I don't want to be Madonna. She's
- 7:09putting fake button her just putting the fake things in her body. No,
- 7:12but you know what I mean, Like, it's it's really unbelievable, how
- 7:15how foggy I have gotten over the years, and it's just been a little
- 7:17tingle in the back of my brain stump here, and there's been like whoa
- 7:20am I on a boat? Like there's so many weird things that happen,
- 7:26and over time they've been so small that now they've just gotten bigger and bigger
- 7:30and bigger, and so now here we are trying to fix the brain well.
- 7:34And concussion is such an interesting world and one of the mind bombs for
- 7:40me when I was and this is attending an International Brain convention, this is
- 7:45right before at COVID, and they were talking about how all the research on
- 7:49concussion has been on males, not on females, And the conversation was all
- 7:54around understanding. Why is it that there can be what is perceived as a
- 7:58mild concussion that has major lasting impacts, but then sometimes there's a major concussion
- 8:03that has mild lasting impacts. One of the things that they're finding is that
- 8:07as a female, when the concussion occurs throughout your monthly cycle has an impact
- 8:13on the severity. How nuts is that? And I can't I'm not the
- 8:18expert of that, so I can't tell you what time of the month is
- 8:20good or bad for concussion. But as females were constantly cycling, so we've
- 8:24got different levels of inflammation, we've got different levels of hormones activated at different
- 8:28times during the month, and they're finding that impact. Right, So the
- 8:31fact that you're a female with six concussions might have compounded your challenge. Yeah,
- 8:37and it's not like one goes away. They just to use your term,
- 8:41it's compounded on top of the other one and one one was a little
- 8:45bit more severe than the next one, or one was more than the first
- 8:46one. I mean, it's an all very different and all different sides of
- 8:50my head. So it came from I had front of my head, jaw,
- 8:56jaw, back of my head, back of my head, back front
- 8:58of my head again, so you know, you think about it all.
- 9:01And two of them, both of my eyes, so you're thinking, like,
- 9:05oh my god, this poor brain of mine feels like soup. I
- 9:09always say, it feels like somebody's like whisking their eggs to get ready to
- 9:11cook them. And it's just this like like porridge, feeling almost like I'm
- 9:16drunk. And in fact, in our meet and greet you mentioned about we
- 9:20talked about sleep deprivation and how one I believe and correct me if I'm wrong.
- 9:24If you said one day of sleep deprivation makes you feel it's significantly it
- 9:30makes you feel like you are drunk. So this is a study from Cambridge
- 9:33Brain Sciences, so they're leaders in cognitive assessments and they did this study looking
- 9:37at sleep and what they found was sleep deprivation for your cognitive abilities is equivalent
- 9:43to being mildly intoxicated. So I remember that as a brand new mom,
- 9:48sleep deprivation a couple months into things, and I remember saying to my husband,
- 9:50I shouldn't drive far right now. I don't feel okay. Yeah,
- 9:54And as it turns out, I was exactly right. I would have passed
- 9:58if it was a you know, blow on the sure you know there was
- 10:01there was no alcohol in my in my blood. But sleep deprivation is the
- 10:05equivalent of cognitively being intoxic. So I've been intoxicated since I was nine.
- 10:11Yeah, without the buzz, what a bummer. But but what it caused
- 10:18was, over time, a different kind of buzz. And it's one that
- 10:22I didn't know at nine years old. I certainly didn't know up until probably
- 10:26about two years ago. And I look back and I'm like, my parents
- 10:30were amazing, my my mom and myself Dad, Where the hell were you
- 10:33during all of that? Right, Well, it's the eighties. Our parents
- 10:37didn't think anything was going on. So with sleep and that deprivation, I
- 10:43mean, obviously we're not going to cure sleep deprivation here on this on this
- 10:46episode. So we're we've talked about sleep deprivation. So what are we doing
- 10:50now to to move us into the next stage of our episode? Here is
- 10:56the development from such a young age and that important of how we start to
- 11:01develop and why that is so important and how it doesn't like stop for starters
- 11:07because I was like, oh, yeah, well, like your book says,
- 11:09you don't just like stop developing. I'm developing right now as we're talking.
- 11:13You know, all the developments from coordination and our sensory or find motor
- 11:18skills, our attention, relationships, communication me all of those things, and
- 11:22how COVID came in and kind of screwed a little bit of that up for
- 11:26us. Yeah, I mean, there's so much to unpack here, but
- 11:28you're absolutely right where development begins in utero and it doesn't stop. We think
- 11:33about development as childhood. But the World Health Organization did a position paper in
- 11:37twenty twenty two talking about brain health and what are the what constitutes brain health
- 11:43and what are the detriments of brain health, And one of the detriments of
- 11:46brain health is considered development. If your development as a child wasn't on track,
- 11:52that is a detriment to your adult brain health. The good news in
- 11:56that statement is that the brain can change it any age. And this is
- 12:01the beauty of the era that we're in, is we get to be empowered
- 12:05to do things to improve our brain. We can continue the development that maybe
- 12:09didn't happen when it was supposed to, So it's never too late to change
- 12:13the brain. I'm always a big fan of the sooner we get things in
- 12:16place, the better. Sure there's you know, but there's you never give
- 12:20a pop, there's always still an opportunity to change things. And you know,
- 12:24to tie this back into sleep, it's so easy as a parent to
- 12:28look at the challenge and your child and think of it as you know,
- 12:31my child isn't sleeping well. I have to hold them to nap. They're
- 12:35up multiple times a night, and they're two years old. I thought they
- 12:37were going to outgrow it by now, so it's easy to look at that
- 12:39as a sleep problem. Or if they're melting down all the time and tantruming,
- 12:43it's easy to look at that as a behavior problem. Right. The
- 12:46brain health underlies all of that, and so when we think about development and
- 12:50how your development contributes to sleep. When an infant is born, their nervous
- 12:56system is in fright or flight. The baby comes out kicking, screaming,
- 13:00crying, rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing. And then over time, as they
- 13:05develop, they go from this predominant fight or flight state, and the more
- 13:11the nervous system develops, what becomes predominant is our calm mechanism. So as
- 13:16adults, we should be calm and relaxed the vast majority of the time,
- 13:22and we should only go into fight or flight when we're really angry, really
- 13:24emotional, really scared, really upset. It's the extremes. What happens with
- 13:28our kids is if there's immaturity in the development of their brain and body,
- 13:33they're going to be at a higher fight or flight level. That disrupts sleep,
- 13:37that disrupts food digestion, It disrupts their ability to stay calm and regulated.
- 13:45So a red flag early on is if we have a child that isn't
- 13:48able to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night, a child that isn't
- 13:52able to nap where they're napping in twenty minute increments at boast and you have
- 13:56to hold them the whole time. Those are red flags that that nervous system
- 14:01is in fight or flight and that is going to have an impact on that
- 14:05child's development. So it's interesting then at the flip side to watch when development
- 14:09starts to kick in. And I saw this at Brain Balance and early on
- 14:13in my years at Brain Belts. Coming back fifteen years now, families would
- 14:16comment on they would talk to me about their child's group, which I never
- 14:20expected to have conversations at Brainblance about vowel movements, and they would talk to
- 14:24me about their child's sleep, and this would always be at the end of
- 14:26the program and they'd say, you know, hey, I don't know if
- 14:28this has anything to do with anything, but my child used to be constipated
- 14:31all the time and they're not anymore. My child used to not sleep and
- 14:35they're sleeping so much more regularly. Does that have anything to do with what
- 14:37you're doing? And so why is that when you see balance, coordination,
- 14:41attention, emotional regulation develop, you see it impact the whole system. So
- 14:48development is everything, brain health is everything. And the pandemic to bring it
- 14:52back around to that point of a conversation, the pandemic was such an interesting
- 14:56time. I mean, we are going to be learning and unpacking information from
- 15:00this time for decades to come. But all of our lives changed dramatically overnight
- 15:05and stayed change for a long period of time, and those changes had an
- 15:09impact on the development of our kids. Our kids are further behind, and
- 15:13we're seeing this in structural imaging with brains are different and babys's the youngest six
- 15:18months of age born during that time. Kids are further behind in social emotional
- 15:22development and coordination. Those are the pieces that ultimately build towards your ability to
- 15:28pay attention, your ability to execute on executive functions. So the pandemic,
- 15:33it was a Peatrie dish of when we introduced massive change, massive stress,
- 15:39we reduced sensory exposure, we reduced social interaction, and we saw that that
- 15:43was not a good recipe for supporting the development of our kids or the well
- 15:48being of adults. Yeah, and we did not have that awareness before COVID.
- 15:54In my opinion, I do not think that we were in touch enough
- 15:58with the developmental challenges that we've been faced with since we were a little gram
- 16:03to being an adult. I certainly pay more attention to it than I ever
- 16:07did before. Some of that is my own health challenges, but a lot
- 16:11of it is going back and seeking for answers as to why I ended up
- 16:15here with my body and my health. The brain part of it for me
- 16:19is really the brain pain connection. So I know all of the horrible things
- 16:25that happened to me, and I also am not innocent and the things that
- 16:27I did in my life, my lifestyle choices were not ideal growing up.
- 16:32Some of that aces childhood drama, you know, and always feeling like it
- 16:38was my fault. Whatever happened to me was always my fault. So developmentally,
- 16:42as a child, I felt like I was an adult from a very
- 16:45very young age, so acted like an adult. I hung out with adults.
- 16:48I didn't hang out with a lot of kids. I hated high school.
- 16:52I was like, get me out, get me out of college,
- 16:55get me married, let me have a house, let me have some kids.
- 16:57Can I get done with this developmental stuff. I did not feel like
- 17:02I was getting what I needed at a young age, but I didn't know
- 17:06that until fairly recently when I started unpacking. It's nuts well and you know,
- 17:11to bring up trauma and looking at that with development. And one of
- 17:15the first times this really struck me is I was meeting with a mom.
- 17:19We had just assessed a child and the little girl was probably maybe eleven or
- 17:23twelve years of age, and doing her assessment, every single function that we
- 17:27measured came in at the level of a six year old. And mom came
- 17:30to us because emotional regulation issues, so you know, would melt down,
- 17:34fly off the handle, and struggling school, struggling with friends, impulse control,
- 17:38struggles with attention, and she the mom was you scared me to help
- 17:44better wits end and looking at the assessment and I've assessed over a thousand kids,
- 17:48and so you start to see the trends and patterns in the data,
- 17:52and this was just presenting different and you know, there wasn't this combination of
- 17:57strength and weaknesses. Everything was just vaulted. And I didn't realize where this
- 18:02conversation was going. And I made the comment, you know, boy,
- 18:04I don't know what happened at six, but you've got an eleven year old
- 18:07who developmentally is frozen at six, and the mom burst into tears totally,
- 18:11and I I just stepped in it. But when I stubbed that, and
- 18:15you know, turns out physical sexual assault at six years of age. And
- 18:21I saw it in the data. I saw where her body continued to grow.
- 18:27You know, this is a she had just gotten her period. So
- 18:29we have this child whoo's so socially emotionally immature, who's now having to deal
- 18:33with menstruation, which I don't know why this is the second time I'm bringing
- 18:36upminstruation in one short conversation. I mean, maybe let's bring it up three
- 18:38or four more times. I don't care. Yeah, we're on a roll.
- 18:42But so just seeing that lay out in the data and having this childhood
- 18:48in front of me of trauma froze several aspects of her development. And they
- 18:52had been working with you know, counselors and therapists and had a team of
- 18:56people working with them to address with they knew needed to be addressed, but
- 19:00then it was so fascinating to then watch. So she did the brain balance
- 19:03program and doing the exercises and activities that target and strengthen networks and pathways in
- 19:08the brain, she was able to develop past that, and by developing past
- 19:14that, she was able to continue to work through them more with her therapist.
- 19:17It doesn't make the trauma go away, but to sort of, I
- 19:21think of it as unlocking that that frozen aspect in the brain. And we
- 19:26know, you know, when it comes to trauma, it impacts the brain
- 19:29on multiple levels. But one of the things that happens is it changes our
- 19:32sensory perception. And sensory perception is everything. It is how we experience the
- 19:37world. For all of us. If we're coming into a new or unknown
- 19:41situation, our senses go on highler we're scanning the environment, trying to decide
- 19:47is this safe? Is this okay? What should I expect? Then once
- 19:49we realize okay, this is you know, let's say I'm going to a
- 19:52friend's house for the first time I've never been. I'm taking it all in.
- 19:56I see that I'm safe, I'm calm, relaxed. Now I can
- 19:59focus. When trauma has occurred, the brain is focused or functioning in that
- 20:04hyper vigilant sensory processing state because the brain doesn't know what it can trast and
- 20:11so I look at an environment, I think it's safe, but I thought
- 20:14it was safe before it turns out it wasn't. And so your brain is
- 20:18in this hyper vigilant state where and that is an incredibly draining, fatiguing place
- 20:23to be. When we're on that high alert, it takes a lot of
- 20:26resources from the brain because you're processing more information. A mature, calm brain
- 20:32filters information. So right now, as I'm talking to you, I'm ignoring
- 20:36my kids in the other road with the dogs ran by a outside. I
- 20:40can block out everything that's irrelevant so that I'm only focusing on what I see
- 20:42and care for me. With the trauma history, the brain isn't able to
- 20:47filter. It doesn't know how to identify what's important and what's not important.
- 20:52So think about a child sitting in a classroom and there's all the things all
- 20:56over the walls, and the teacher's talking and the kids are talking next to
- 20:57them, and there's a herd flying by the way window, and that brain
- 21:00doesn't know how to prioritize information. And now that child isn't keeping up,
- 21:04doesn't know the directions to do the homework assignment, can't remember what the teacher
- 21:07asked them to do because the brain hasn't prioritized. And then we get mad
- 21:12to saying, hey, you weren't paying attention, you weren't listening. Why
- 21:15didn't you do that? And it can go back to something as simple as
- 21:19trauma that changed the way the brain is taking in sensor information, so changes
- 21:25your perception. If I've got disruption or dysregulation in my senses, it can
- 21:30look like I'm lying, like I'm not trying, like I didn't pay attention
- 21:33when it could be my reality. But maybe I'm not taking in information and
- 21:37processing it accurately. So then what I'm retrieving and what I'm depending on is
- 21:42inaccurate. But it's my truth. Everybody just take a deep breath on that
- 21:48one. Okay, I hope everybody is parked. I'm not driving a vehicle,
- 21:53because some people may have just driven off of the route, including myself.
- 21:56I'm glad that I'm in my chair in my studio, but i I'm
- 22:00and as I read your book and as I'm listening to you speak, as
- 22:03everybody knows that listens to me and knows me, I am highly emotional.
- 22:07I'm a huge EmPATH. And one of the things that I do is I
- 22:11cry a lot. I literally have one tissue my house. So Rebecca and
- 22:18I were like, we gotta say that and use that. But it makes
- 22:22me sad hearing what you just talked about, because and I want to talk
- 22:26about what trauma actually is, because it doesn't necessarily mean that you had to
- 22:32be sexually assaulted. It doesn't mean that you had a drunk, alcoholic father
- 22:36who beat the crap out of you. It doesn't have to be that.
- 22:38It could have been a car accident, it could have been left at school
- 22:42every single day because your dad didn't pick you up, or your dad didn't
- 22:47show up because he just didn't show up for anything to pick you up on
- 22:51his weekend or you know, there's so many things moving as traumatic to kids,
- 22:56moving them from school to school. I mean, you just the list
- 22:59goes on and on with trauma and so what I think trauma gets such a
- 23:03bad rap, you know, which it should. But I think when people
- 23:07hear the word trauma, they process it like, oh, well, jeez,
- 23:11I don't want to talk to her about that because I'm uncomfortable talking about
- 23:15what her dad to do her or whatever whatever the you know, whatever that
- 23:18might be. But for me, it could be. It could be all
- 23:21kinds of different things to everybody, and for me, like with my pain
- 23:23stuff, I always say, pain is pain is pain. You could experience
- 23:26the exact same thing as me and not have any effect whatsoever. It would
- 23:32be like just like it's Sunday for me, it could just totally derail me.
- 23:37And part of the problem that I have with my emotion side is I
- 23:40care so much people pleaser. All that comes a lot of that sums from
- 23:44the T word big and little. I think they're all big. I don't
- 23:47know why, but there has to be a scale. Just don't like scales
- 23:51on anything of that regard. But it's I really, really really struggle with
- 23:55that sensory that you were talking about and the emotion behind it, because I
- 24:00I can get emotional about anything, drop a pen on the floor, world's
- 24:03coming to an end, or get in a car accident, you know,
- 24:06crash the tesla, yes, another tesla off the road, right. So
- 24:11I process things that happen around me a little bit differently than I think others
- 24:15do. Some of that's neurodiversity within myself. I mean, there's so many
- 24:18things, and that's the case because it's so complex, which is how I
- 24:22started the episode. We are such complex into visuals. We are each our
- 24:26own person, and when we have parents that put their stuff on us and
- 24:30we don't think that we're necessarily performing the way that we're supposed to do.
- 24:33I had that in my household, a little bit of the perfectionism. You
- 24:37know. We take things, we take things so personal, and we get
- 24:41so emotionally involved, and it just goes into all of our lifestyle and all
- 24:45the things that we do, and we have such a hard time focusing and
- 24:48we have such a hard time understanding why that got us so raled up,
- 24:52or our patience level is so low, where like that should not be something
- 24:56that I should be getting upset about there are so many things within that in
- 25:00that world, that realm that I struggle with on the daily. Is it
- 25:04all from trauma? Now? Is some of it from trauma? Sure?
- 25:08Some of it's life, Some of it's being a woman because we take on
- 25:11the world. Well, your face has nailed that one, so true.
- 25:18Well, and a couple of things from what you just said one hundred percent,
- 25:22trauma is trauma is trauma, and your trauma never compared to something.
- 25:26Never is it so easy to say, oh my gosh, what you went
- 25:30through is so much more than than what another person's right is it's all relevant
- 25:33to you and nobody else. And if it impacted your brain and impacted your
- 25:37brain, whether or not you think it should have, shouldn't and and but
- 25:41the beautiful part of this is yes, trauma can impact your brain and change
- 25:45sensory processing and change your level of vigilance. The change is possible. You
- 25:49don't have to stay stuck in that place. And it's knowing how to exercise
- 25:53and engage and mature those aspects of the brain to rebuild a threshold, to
- 25:56rebuild tolerance, to allow your sensory system to be able to relax and to
- 26:02be able to identify what's important and relevant information so you're not having to process
- 26:06everything. And I have to say, never apologize for the tears. This
- 26:11is another one of my like you know, I learned some nugget of information
- 26:14that just blows my mind. Tears helps to balance and regulate our hormones in
- 26:18our emotions. You cry, that's your body's natural way to regulate and to
- 26:22reset you. So you're crying to reset to homeostasis. So let the tears
- 26:26come out, man, Because I cry all the time album I not regulated.
- 26:33Well, I guess that means it really unregulated. You'res crying all the
- 26:36time. God, woman, it's unbelievable. And my sweeties, so funny
- 26:40is like what we are laughing and crying at the same time. I'm like,
- 26:44I'm also peeing. So I mean, it's just a big win for
- 26:45everybody here. So we talk about you. You mentioned about helping our brain,
- 26:52fixing our brain, helping us to make those changes to our brain.
- 26:55So let's move into how we get back on check and how we do start
- 27:00to fix our brain with you by our side, the help and the hope.
- 27:03That that's the part I like, I want to hope in an action
- 27:07place. Aymen's sister, You know again one of my mind bombs that I
- 27:11just loved. What I learned is is and we get to use this.
- 27:15So we have three primary sensory pathways, and these three primary sensory pathways contribute
- 27:23the maturation of our emotional circuitry. Our sensory system contributes to our emotional regulation.
- 27:32So when we do sensory processing and we're using these three primary sensory pathways,
- 27:37it helps regulate our mood and emotions. So in knowing so these three
- 27:42primary sensory pathways, they're light, their touch, and their sound, and
- 27:47the brain loves to do things together. So it's not about getting light stimulation
- 27:51and then at a separate time getting sound stimulation. It's working these systems together
- 27:53because our brain is never doing these things in isolation. While you and I
- 27:56are talking, we're watching, we're listening, we're blocking out just I'm not
- 28:00blocking out distractions. I'm literally forcing myself to not hear the dog not here,
- 28:03the gardener Jashut just went by. My sweetie just walked in and out
- 28:07of the garage. Seventeen times. My dogs have been barking. I'm like
- 28:11the fact that I'm able to focus right now is unbelievable. But I've been
- 28:15doing when you said earlier, like you've been able to do all of that.
- 28:18I have been literally doing everything in my power to not think about anything.
- 28:22But you, yeah, well and think how exhausting that is. You
- 28:26do it, and you do a remarkable job of it, and then you
- 28:29crash at the end because it takes more resources for you because you're you're And
- 28:33so that's where so starting a sensory stimulation. If you're only in your house,
- 28:37and this is what we saw throughout COVID, if you're only in your
- 28:41house all day, it's the same sensory input all the time. Yeah,
- 28:44if your barefoot, it's the same carpet and hardwood floor, it's your small
- 28:47house smells the same every day. So it's so important that we're getting a
- 28:51variety of sensory exposure and so simple things like being barefoot when you're going outside,
- 28:56going to a different market where there's fish smells, a different food smell,
- 29:00and it's then getting those exposures doing it repeatedly, so the first time
- 29:06you do something new, the brain's on high alert because it doesn't know what
- 29:07it is it doesn't know what's important. But then you do that same thing
- 29:11over and over again, and the brain starts to strengthen those pathways, and
- 29:15the brain says, hey, I know this environment, I know it's important.
- 29:18I know it's not important. And so it's finding ways to provide different
- 29:23sensory input in different sensory stimulation than what you're used to, trying new and
- 29:27different and then repeat it. And you know, a great example to give
- 29:32you the power of your sensory system. And so if you think back to
- 29:36you were just on vacation, if you were to think back and describe a
- 29:41memory from vacation, think about one of your favorite memories and whether you want
- 29:45to share it publicly or instantly. I know my favorite, Okay, so
- 29:48if you're willing to share, share that I will. Because my sweetie is
- 29:51hysterical. And I was sick in Cancune because we went away for ten days
- 29:56and we got sick, both of us, which of course happens because we
- 29:57work with work, grok work. And then we finally though and we're like
- 30:00and we collapsed, both of us. But I dared him. I'm not
- 30:04going to tell you what I dared him or what I told him that I
- 30:07would give him if if he didn't, I told him that's for a different
- 30:11kind of show anyway. He I'm like, I dare you to go out
- 30:15there on the beach right now, because there's a bunch of girls out there
- 30:18dancing. And there was a guy in like a tutu and glitter all over,
- 30:21and I said, I want you to go join the circle and start
- 30:23dancing. And this guy went out and he starts dancing. He has no
- 30:26coordination, he cannot dance. He's a little bit older than me, and
- 30:30so it's really funny watching him. He just doesn't care, Like he doesn't
- 30:34care. I could tell him to just up like a woman and like go
- 30:37through Costco and he'd be like, bring it, you know. And but
- 30:41this video I've watched it like one hundred and fifty times. It brings me
- 30:44so much joy. It was like the best fifteen thirty seconds of our trip.
- 30:48I love it. Yeah, well I think you can. You can
- 30:52picture it vividly. Every the smell, the smell of like the suntan lotion
- 30:56that was everywhere. It smelled like pineapple. Our whole thing is pine apples
- 31:00and pinicalttas. It's kind of our thing. Our song is the Pinacoalttas song.
- 31:02That's a whole different topic. But yeah, like, for sure,
- 31:04the sensory side of it. At the sand which I couldn't walk on because
- 31:07of my took d's, but watching other people in the sand and dancing,
- 31:11and the heat and the wind and the clouds and I mean all of it,
- 31:15and your senses form your memories. And so it's why if somebody walks
- 31:19by with perfume, you can you can instantly be brought back to spending time
- 31:23with your grandmother who passed away twenty years ago. Our sensory system is so
- 31:26powerful. It's what contributes for our memory. So as we expand our sensory
- 31:33processing and perception and our sensory experiences, it's just it's it's building memories,
- 31:40It builds our perception and processing. And for our kids, if there's any
- 31:45sensory dysregulation or disruption, this is attention, This is learning, This is
- 31:48socialization. If I'm having a conversation and I'm not sure what you just said,
- 31:52I'm going to be less likely to want to engage. I don't want
- 31:55to have to ask what over and over again. So I can't stress enough
- 31:59the power her sensory system, and I see parents minimize it. I see
- 32:02parents say always just a sensory kid, if he's so smart, they'll be
- 32:06fine, or oh yeah, they just don't like to get their hands dirty.
- 32:09It's nothing to panic about. But knowledge and information is power. If
- 32:13you see any dysregulation senses at any age, there's there's opportunity to strengthen that
- 32:19and improve it. And I see so often with auditory processing, if you're
- 32:23not processing what you're hearing auditorily, this can look like poor behavior, like
- 32:28poor attention, struggling to learn. And it could be just as simple as
- 32:31the brain isn't taking an auditory information as mature and accurately as it should.
- 32:37So the goal is then to make the brain stronger, faster and more efficient
- 32:42so you're able to capture more information accurately so that you can then turn around
- 32:45and apply it. And so within your program you do all of these different
- 32:50types of sensory strengthening exercises and all of that. Okay, so that we
- 32:53got we get did number one? What's number two? I forget what number
- 32:58two? Question? I know you? Oh, I said, there's two
- 33:04things. Oh, the three primary sensory PA yes, thank you. Light,
- 33:09sound in touch okay, yes, massage think vibratory stimulation. You're taking
- 33:19me down another road with vibrators right now. Okay, that kind of show.
- 33:22We thank you you well. It is that kind of show today is
- 33:25not supposed to be. No, it's fine. So okay. So when
- 33:30you talk about light and sound in touch right for me, like, I'm
- 33:32crazy sensitive to all of those things, like light, like normally, like
- 33:37right now, I've got light on in the in the studio, but I'm
- 33:40it's facing the wall, and when no one's in here, I work in
- 33:44the dark. And I always have sunglasses on when I'm outside. Sometimes when
- 33:47I'm sitting in a restaurant and then sound, I'm like, oh my gosh,
- 33:51like why is everything so loud? And so I feel like I'm always
- 33:55on, I'm always over stimulated, I'm always in fighter flight. I feel
- 34:00things more than I should or I don't feel things enough. So I kind
- 34:06of have like like bl bipolarity on like the feeling side of me, where
- 34:10I'm like I don't even feel that. Some of that is my CRPS,
- 34:14some of that is lime disease, some of that. So I have to
- 34:15like separate church and state from you know, the things that my brain is
- 34:21telling my body that's happening, which might not actually be happening. Like there's
- 34:23no way that I am walking on legos, gravel, hot coals, broken
- 34:28glass ice at the same moment. That's not happening in my feet. I
- 34:31don't rocks in my feet, right, But that's what it feels like.
- 34:35And so my brain is working over time to understand that sensation. Somebody said,
- 34:42don't use feeling, use sensation, so I've started to use the word
- 34:45sensation. So that feels like crap instead of being like, well, that's
- 34:47an interesting sensation. I'm trying it on. I'm trying it on. I
- 34:52like it. Well, feeling could be emotion or right, sensory feelings,
- 34:54so I do like that sensation, and you know, both can be true.
- 34:58You can you can be hyper sensitive to sensory input and hypo at the
- 35:01same time, So there can be things where you're hyper sensitive to sound but
- 35:06maybe don't feel deep pressure. So it just depends on which pathways are involved.
- 35:13And everything that you're describing, your brain is on high alert. It
- 35:15is on so you're again that hyper vigilance to sensing everything. And again that's
- 35:21going to be incredibly exhausting and fatiguing to the brain. So when it comes
- 35:25to light, there's two different aspects. There's how you how much light your
- 35:29pupil takes in, so how sensitive are you to light? And then there's
- 35:32processing differences in light. And so a great way to get light stimulation is
- 35:37something as simple as wearing blue safety glasses. So you can give them an
- 35:40Amazon for like a dollar ninety nine, And that's just giving your brain different
- 35:45input, different information, and it's just a way to kind of wake up
- 35:47your brain and exercise different pathwits. And especially we know blue light is great
- 35:52first thing in the morning. It signals to your brain it's time to wake
- 35:54up. It's you know, kind of replicating blue skies and sunlight. And
- 36:00so a great strategy is just doing blue safety glasses first thing in the morning
- 36:05when you wake up, signaling your brain it's time to be awake and work.
- 36:07It's just giving your brain different input. So it doesn't need to be
- 36:13fancy, it doesn't need to be expensive, just some simple strategies. I
- 36:17love it. Okay, so we work on some we come to brain balance.
- 36:22What are we expecting out of you guys? Like, what are we
- 36:23going in and going, hey, Okay, I've got a kid or I've
- 36:27got myself, because you don't just work with children at brain balance. Your
- 36:30specialty is in children more so, right, But at the end of the
- 36:35day, we're all kids. We're all we're all light hearted, we're as
- 36:38developed as we are going to be to day. But now we've got to
- 36:42fix some stuff, right, no matter what age we are. I've got
- 36:45a girlfriend who's got a four year old daughter, who, as you were
- 36:49speaking all of the things that you were saying, makes me very sad for
- 36:52her because she has so much going on in her household that she's competing against
- 36:58five dogs, two boys, her grandfather, her mom, and her dad,
- 37:01and she's like, all I want is like a lot of attention.
- 37:05I mean, that's what it feels like from the outside looking in, right,
- 37:07And so it's hard for me to not feel like, gosh, I
- 37:12hope everything's okay with her, and you know, they and I worry about
- 37:15her because I want to make sure that because she's so beautiful and she's so
- 37:17smart. But I feel like I don't want her to get lost somewhere in
- 37:22all of this, you know, because she was one and a half two
- 37:25years old during COVID, you know, and so you're you got that.
- 37:30And then there's a thirteen year old in the seventeen year old also in COVID.
- 37:32So you've got three kids that were all going through different things as they
- 37:37were developing during COVID, amongst all my other nieces and nephews, you know.
- 37:40So it's just and I'm not a mom, so I always lean on
- 37:45like, oh, these are my kids, and by proxy they're kind of
- 37:46my little babies, you know, And so I'm always worried about their development
- 37:50and how they're going to do and what they're going to grow up to be.
- 37:52And I almost feel like they're my kids sometimes because I'm so worried about
- 37:55their well being, mostly because I don't want them to go through an the
- 38:00crap that I'm going through. Yeah. Well, and we absolutely know that
- 38:04the pandemic did have an impact on development because life changed, sensory exposure changed,
- 38:09We all stayed home for a long period of time, and that impacted
- 38:12the developing brain even more than it impacted our brains, and it impacted our
- 38:15brains as well, And so we absolutely know that kids are more kids and
- 38:22adults are struggling now than ever with attention depression, with anxiety, and we're
- 38:25seeing differences in testing scores in social maturity, motion regulation. But again,
- 38:32to me, the hope is always there's opportunity or change. There's opportunity.
- 38:38Again, you're not stuck with the brain you have forever. It's what you
- 38:43have today, and there's a path forward that of being able to target and
- 38:46exercise specific areas of the brain. You can build the brain so it's stronger,
- 38:51faster, and more efficient, which means you're able to pay attention longer,
- 38:53blockout distractions, better manage your emotions, and regulate your emotions more consistently.
- 39:00So there's no such things as perfect development and a perfect brain. Sure,
- 39:02of course, it builds, it builds resilient. So to go back
- 39:07to, you know, if somebody comes to grain bounce, what can you
- 39:08expect? You know, first and foremost who comes to brain balance our individuals,
- 39:13whether it's adults or kids that have an area of struggle, And so
- 39:15often parents are asking the question of is this behavior? Is there something more
- 39:21going on? Is they're trying to understand you know, as parents it is?
- 39:24It? Me? Right? Yeah, yeah, my kids are getting
- 39:28suspended, they've got detention, they're in Saturday school, they're acting out,
- 39:31they're joy writing. Is it me that I mess it up? What it
- 39:35might be some of you environment and does play play a factor into this,
- 39:40But that brain balance for both kids and adults, we're looking at brain health
- 39:45and development. Is your brain functioning and optimal or is there opportunity for things
- 39:50to be better? And what we know we look at a lot of developmental
- 39:53aspects for especially when we're assessing kids, is to say, Okay, we've
- 39:58got a ten year old that's go with at tension, focus, learning,
- 40:00and behavior, and we start to do an assessment, and this ten year
- 40:04old might meet twelve on twelve years of age on some things that we measure,
- 40:07and might be six years of age and other things that we measure.
- 40:10So then we've got this conundrum. We've got these inconsistencies of skills and behaviors,
- 40:15which then in real life might look like a kid with amazing memory that
- 40:19melts down when he gets frustrated, that can pull it together and get us
- 40:22homework done one day, but then doesn't get it turned in the next.
- 40:24So we start to see these inconsistencies and you've got data points to support that
- 40:30points. Yeah, the data peaks a picture for us, and it resonates
- 40:34with parents where they're like, oh my gosh, no wonder why. And
- 40:37they'll say to us, I've got a child two years younger, but yet
- 40:39sometimes they seem older. This makes so much sense and I love that that
- 40:45aha moment for a parent of you know, sometimes it's not always the parent.
- 40:50Some kids are harder to parent than others. And when we've got a
- 40:52ten year old that we're putting ten year old expectations on but might have aspects
- 40:57of development in line with the six year old, that is going to take
- 41:00a lot more work. I'm going to have to see, you know,
- 41:01a six year old, I can't say, you know, go up,
- 41:04brush your teeth, play out your clothes for tomorrow, pack your school bag,
- 41:07and then come say good night. Six year old, I've got a
- 41:09one step at a time for brush your teeth, to do. Brush your
- 41:12teeth, now, let's do your clothes for tomorrow, versus an older child
- 41:15can do those things. So to me, it's it's providing and understanding to
- 41:19parents and here's why you're seeing what you're seeing. And then here's the action
- 41:22plan of how we close that developmental gap so that you've got a ten year
- 41:27old that's able to function like a ten year old. And to put this
- 41:30into perspective, what we know about ADHD is with ADHD, there's aspects of
- 41:35brain function that are about thirty percent behind their peers. So if I have
- 41:39a ten year old with ADHD, that means some aspects of development are going
- 41:45to be in line with a seven year old. So what that looks like
- 41:47is if I had a second grader sitting in a fifth grade classroom, and
- 41:51I'm asking them to interact with the fifth graders and pay attention as long as
- 41:54the fifth graders do and function at a fifth grade level. And so when
- 42:00we have expectations that are higher than what a child's able to acomplish, there's
- 42:07frustration on both sides, both sides. For sure. For sure, my
- 42:10parents didn't have a problem with me and my clothing. I had all of
- 42:15my outfits color coordinated and organized Monday through Sunday, laid out with two other
- 42:22options per day labeled WHOA, this is serious Sunday night prep work. This
- 42:29is me at nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, where I'm
- 42:31moving my furniture from one side of the room to another. In the middle
- 42:35of the night, my parents walk in. I'm like, don't have anything
- 42:37else to do. What are you guys up to leave me alone? I'm
- 42:40busy here, I'm painting. I was painting my ceilings. I was painting
- 42:44my walls. My parents were like, just keep it in these four walls
- 42:47in the ceiling, all right, Like that is just what I did to
- 42:51cope with what I call busy brain disorder. In fact, my family calls
- 42:53a busy brain disorder anxiety, insomnia, depression, all of those things at
- 42:59such a young age and not being able to process what that was or understand
- 43:02it's now starting to figure out what the heck was going on? You know,
- 43:07how are my parents like, well, we'll just give her some whiskey
- 43:10and honey and hope for the best. Didn't work out as planned. Not
- 43:15the strategy i'd recommend or not, it's not, but apparently that's a good
- 43:21tool in the eighties. Yeah, well, well, and then you know,
- 43:25when we think about that's what we see with kids and for adults,
- 43:29the adults that we work with. You know, whether or not you're diagnosed
- 43:30with ADHD or struggle with executive function. You work with a lot of individuals
- 43:35struggling with anxiety, and it all comes down to brain how. It's how
- 43:38your brain takes in, processes and reacts to information. And so if we
- 43:44can again make a brain that's stronger, faster, and more efficient, we
- 43:47process that information more accurately, doesn't drain as much energy, and we see
- 43:52greater success with productivity. And we haven't been working with adults as long and
- 43:58so our data and stead on that is newer than with the kids. But
- 44:02adults are self reporting improvements anywhere from like thirty six to forty nine percent in
- 44:07improvements and attentional productivity and organization reduction and anxiety. So some really you know,
- 44:15it's no one silver bullet, but it's some really meaningful changes that aren't
- 44:20coming with the side effects of medication or aren't thank you for helping when you
- 44:23remember to take the medication, and then you're you're back to the same place.
- 44:27And to be clear, there's a time and a place everybody needs to
- 44:30do what works for them. But all too often if it hasn't done,
- 44:32the trip appearance and adults don't know what else is available and don't know what
- 44:37else to do. So I think it's so important that people know that there
- 44:39are tools out there, such as programs like Brain Balance, my book Back
- 44:45on Track, that can empower you to lead and create change. Yeah,
- 44:50and get back on track or get on a track. Sometimes I feel like
- 44:55I'm derailed and they're like, oh my god, how am I going to
- 45:00get this? Caboos going? Like it? Sometimes it takes a lot to
- 45:04get this train movement in the morning. You know, a lot of those
- 45:06reasons is pain and insomnia because I'm up all night. I was up before.
- 45:09I lived in pain. Right now, you add the pain component to
- 45:13it, and it's like, like you told my sweetie this morning we were
- 45:15up really early early, and she was like, how did you sleep last?
- 45:19And I'm like, why do you ask this question every morning? Why
- 45:21do you do this? It's just torture. That's like, what do you
- 45:24say The answer is if I slept? Well, I'll tell you that's exactly
- 45:30right. I think. So let's look at the impact that has on you.
- 45:32Though I start my day with that question instead of hey, let's make
- 45:38it. I'll go there, you know, starting with a negative, but
- 45:42you look at you know, I think about each day. We wake up
- 45:44and picture each morning you wake up and I've handed you one hundred one dollar
- 45:47bill. So you wake up and you've got one hundred dollars to spend for
- 45:50the day. That's what I think of as our attentional resources. But then
- 45:53when you're in chronic pain, you just woke up and now instead of one
- 45:58hundred dollars every day, you've got seventy dollars to spend every day. And
- 46:00if you didn't sleep well, now you're down another ten or twenty dollars.
- 46:04So, no matter how brilliant your brain is, you've got an upheld battle
- 46:08when you're in pain. Stress is another thing. When we're facing times of
- 46:14stress or when we're facing times of change, that drains the resources from our
- 46:17brain. So when we think about trauma again, it's going to drain resources.
- 46:22There's all these things that take away from our abilities. And so again,
- 46:27regardless of your level of brilliance and what an amazing person you are,
- 46:30it makes every day things harder and you've got fewer resources to try to accomplish
- 46:36the same amount of things you do. Give me a sense of hope in
- 46:40this, and I love that the business of brain balance is based on data.
- 46:46Hello, it's not just like woo woo. You know, hey,
- 46:51there is a place for woo woo. I am a huge wo Wu person,
- 46:53but there's also a place for non woo woo. And this is a
- 46:58great place for us to start, not just says as parents that have children
- 47:00that might have some issues. I don't know one parent in my life right
- 47:04now that does not have a kid that they're dealing with right now, and
- 47:07the struggle is real. And then you add two, three, four.
- 47:10I've got a girlfriend that's got seven kids. I'm like, what is wrong
- 47:14with you for that number anyway? But you know, like, I don't
- 47:15even know how I would do that. I have no kids, and I'm
- 47:19like, well, let's be real, I'm sweet as kind of a kid,
- 47:22but you know they all are. But you know what I mean,
- 47:23It's like I've got dogs, I've got my bot, I've got him,
- 47:25I've got the show, I've got his show, We've got our businesses,
- 47:29We've got all these things. So there's always stuff going on. Stress level
- 47:31has not gone down, not at all. And chronic stress is such a
- 47:36huge component of my brain health. I know that to be true. And
- 47:38I've been making some pretty good sweeping changes though on stress reduction, and I
- 47:44did them, like fairly recently and fairly quick. I put up more boundaries
- 47:49in Q four of twenty twenty three than I've done in my entire life.
- 47:52I'm like, Nope. The word no is incredibly powerful, and with that
- 47:59comes so much more healthy decisions that I make that wrap around stress reduction,
- 48:05that wrap around taking care of me self care, journaling and reading and all
- 48:08the things that they tell us to do, but just things that like are
- 48:10important to me, that need to be done that end up well, fine,
- 48:15I'll just do that tomorrow. Yeah. Well, and to me,
- 48:19I love what you're talking about with the power of saying no, and what
- 48:22a relief that can be in setting up boundaries. But when you look at
- 48:25things through the lens of brain health, it gives you permission to say no,
- 48:30permission to say I don't function as well when I'm exhausted, and adding
- 48:34that is going to increase my fatigue and stress. So to protect my brain
- 48:37health, I'm going to say no to that right now. Ask again this
- 48:40time next year I might have a different answer for you, But this year,
- 48:44for my brain health estate, I'm going to say no. And one
- 48:46of the things that you hear me say all the time is I always say
- 48:49a tired brain as a negative brain. And one of my this is a
- 48:52pet peeve of mine, is you know, think happy thoughts, positive thoughts.
- 48:55Yes, I'm tend to be a positive, upbeat person. But it's
- 49:00easy to think positive thoughts when you're not under stress and when you're rested and
- 49:05your brain has fuel when you eat course, But if you're exhausted and you
- 49:10haven't eaten well, if your brain health is not in a good place,
- 49:15asking somebody to think happy thoughts is really really challenging. And now we're forcing
- 49:20something that the brain's not there to support. So I think as we empower
- 49:24ourselves, as we empower our kids, its awareness. So when I wake
- 49:29up in the morning and I'm driving my son to school and I'm cranky,
- 49:34I start asking myself a list of questions. Did I get enough sleep last
- 49:37night? Did I have breakfast this morning? Can I fit in a run
- 49:42some exercise this morning? What can I do in this moment to influence my
- 49:46brain health state in this moment that's going to allow me to naturally think happy
- 49:52thoughts. So rather than trying to force happy thoughts when you're not there.
- 49:54What can I make my state? Yeah, damn it, I am so
- 49:59happy right now. But if I put my brain health in a good state,
- 50:04the positive thoughts are going to come naturally. And then when I practice
- 50:08gratitude and do these things, it's going to continue to just cascade and snowball.
- 50:14And so it's looking at what can I influence so that I can reduce
- 50:20my stress level. Is a way to reduce stress because sleep is a big
- 50:24thing, but I don't always have time in the morning to go take a
- 50:28nap to make my brain happier throughout the day. Or maybe you're I also
- 50:31don't know what this word nap is. We've got my hom We've got now
- 50:36we're going to put together a quick little cheat sheet from the Dictionary of Miriam
- 50:39for all of you that don't know some of these big words she's using.
- 50:44Which is very sad. It is very sad because the calming thing I don't
- 50:47know. I don't even know this word. Like even when I spend money
- 50:52to go to like a day spot for the day, I cannot wait to
- 50:54get out of there. I am like I have so much to do,
- 50:59which is ridiculd give yourself the opportunity to relax and de stress. And that's
- 51:05one of the reasons. Right. Normally when we travel, we do like
- 51:08go hard. Like We'll go to Italy and we are there the entire time.
- 51:12I in my wheelchair doing like the coliseum over like you know, hundreds
- 51:15of years old cobblestones, you know. But this year we were like,
- 51:19you know what, let's just go and do nothing. We had no plans,
- 51:22which I'm a super planner, OCD all of it, and we had
- 51:25no plans. The only thing we had was an airline ticket and a ride
- 51:29to and from the resort. That was all we had. That was it.
- 51:32Then we never left the resort. We never left it. You know
- 51:36what. It didn't beautiful. Did we feel guilty? No? And that
- 51:40was weird because I was expecting my brain to be on fire all crazy out
- 51:45about I wasn't working, I wasn't working on the show, I wasn't doing
- 51:47this, I wasn't doing what are all the things that Lindsay's not doing right
- 51:51now? Instead I was like, what are all the things that Lindsay's not
- 51:54doing right now? It was very interesting and it was a good exercise for
- 51:59both of us to do because we're both wound up so much too, and
- 52:01we feed into each other. And that's something that we're working on too,
- 52:06is we're both wild and crazy and loud and obnoxious and zero calm and all
- 52:09of that. So we both have to work on how we how we both
- 52:15respond to each other's stressors and how he's a little bit more impatient than I
- 52:19am in some places, and so you know, we're trying to work on
- 52:22that together. And so it takes a village to get through our lives,
- 52:27you know, and relying on people like yourself and finding people like you is
- 52:31so incredibly wonderful, and I'm so grateful to have met you and to learn
- 52:36more and read your book and to learn yet again how amazing our brain is
- 52:39and that there is hope for people like myself where we I really have some
- 52:45massive challenges that I'm going to be faced with over the next couple of years.
- 52:49But I know that now and I've accepted it, and now I'm like,
- 52:52it's go time, baby, when to go tidy? How many people
- 52:57our age are, you know, as we start to look at our peers
- 53:00and how our parents are aging, and we worry about you know, what
- 53:02is my state, but to know or what is my state future state going
- 53:07to be, But to know there's things that we can be doing right now,
- 53:09right now to optimize how we feel in function today. But it also
- 53:13builds towards a healthier future. And I have to tell you one of the
- 53:16comments that you made right before we started filming was maybe one of my favorite
- 53:21book feedback comments I've gotten. As you said, you went through and read
- 53:24the book the first time, reading about kids, and how you know the
- 53:29book and development and the information about kids, and then you went back and
- 53:32read it a second time and you read it for yourself. I read it
- 53:35as a kid, and you saw yourself and how you saw things in yourself
- 53:40as a middle schooler, of areas that were impacted, and saw how those
- 53:45things are impacting you now today, how development as a child impacts us now.
- 53:52But this is where the brain can change at any age, and so
- 53:55having an understanding of what areas are off track gives us the power and the
- 54:00guidance. It's directional. Here's if we know where there's a deficit or a
- 54:06challenge, then we it gives us a directional guidance of what can we do
- 54:09to support that, And all too often what I see people jump to is
- 54:14practicing what they're deficient. If that is going to do the trick, you
- 54:17wouldn't need to practice it. If you're a child, or if you're an
- 54:20adult who struggles with attention, you've been practicing attention your whole life. Yeah,
- 54:23you've got an Academy award in that, Okay, right, If practicing
- 54:29attention is going to improve attention, you wouldn't need helput attention. It's foundational
- 54:34development, it's our sensory system, it's all of those pieces that culminate an
- 54:38attention. So we need to go back and fill in those brain health gaps,
- 54:44fill in those developmental gaps that lead naturally to enhanced attention. So to
- 54:49me, whether you know we're talking about an eighty year old, a six
- 54:52year old, a forty year old, or a twelve year old or a
- 54:53two year old, it all comes back to development. What can we do
- 54:57to optimize development every step of the way so that you get to benefit for
- 55:00the lifespan from that healthy brain and healthy development. Oh my gosh, you
- 55:07are amazing, and for so many different reasons. Not only are you just
- 55:10adorable to look at and to talk to you, but you're just it's easy
- 55:15to talk to you about this topic because so many people that I've talked to
- 55:19about brain it's so damn clinical and it's so hard to interpret. I mean
- 55:25some people can, Okay, great, I like the element of this show
- 55:30and the way that we talk about things that are clinical, but then we
- 55:32can talk about it like normal, real people that don't have to have PhDs
- 55:37to understand this. We've got parents that are like, hello, I need
- 55:40help, and I don't know any of these things that you just rattled off
- 55:44to me. Now I got to go home and google it, and now
- 55:46everybody in my family is dead because I went to Google and I googled everything
- 55:50that you just said. If it's not accessible, it's not helpful. If
- 55:55you just stole my word right out of my mouth. Accessibility. No,
- 55:59No, it's totally fine. Accessible because and that's why your book is so
- 56:02neat too, because it's it's it's backed by sight. Oh my gosh,
- 56:07the one part what did you call it? What do you call these little
- 56:09things inside of your book? Hold on the science moments? What are they?
- 56:13Science alerts? Science alerts? I was like, oh my god,
- 56:16it's so good because I like that because it's like there's all this stuff that's
- 56:21scientific, but it's it's so easy to understand. But then I love that
- 56:23you drop in like, guess what, there's actually science behind these guys people,
- 56:28you know, and that part is really good too. So everything that
- 56:30you do is accessible, but it's also backed by data and science and studies
- 56:34and all that, and that just it rounds you out as a human that's
- 56:37trying to do such wonderful things for the children of our world as well as
- 56:40us crazy wack of do as adults like myself. And I know that you
- 56:45guys are more new, more new, let's go with that in the adult
- 56:50side of things. But all of the work that you've done for children,
- 56:52we turn into adults. So I feel like you guys are good. We
- 56:58are and back for seeing it in the data. And you know, it
- 57:00was interesting when we when we started to dip our toes more and more into
- 57:04working with adults, because for a decade adults have been saying, where's the
- 57:07program for me? Right? Hello, we're raising these crazy people. We
- 57:12need it out right, Like you're working with my child that was me and
- 57:15now I've grown up and you know, so we kind of edged our way
- 57:20in. Of course, we worked with college students and then we and you
- 57:22know, we had this mentality of old brains harder to change things. Guess
- 57:27what, our college kids knocked it out of the water. Percentage wise,
- 57:31they did more growth than a shorter amount of time. Our adults are doing
- 57:36phenomenal. So loves old brain. Yes, there's layers of onions, there's
- 57:39you know, all sorts of complications. You know, there's trauma, there's
- 57:43history, there's environment, but we are seeing over and over that change is
- 57:46just as possible for adult brains as it is for the developing brain. So
- 57:51there is unique opportunity in the developing brain because so much is happening so quickly.
- 57:55There's these these massive growth spurts, but it's never too late. Well,
- 58:00thank you for that, because that gives me certain hope, because I
- 58:04do feel on some days where I'm like, well, I guess I'm just
- 58:07stuck with scrambled egg brain for the rest of my life. This is it.
- 58:09I've got this hum in the back of my head that's just going to
- 58:13be there forever. Got my fingers are numb and they're buzzing like I'm holding
- 58:16something that's vibrating in them. This is fantastic, Like it's just the weirdest
- 58:21stuff that's going on in my bot and I am wholeheartedly, one hundred percent
- 58:25believe that the majority of it is in my brain. So your brain is
- 58:30everything. We're getting my brain back on track, guys, or on a
- 58:31track. That's what we're going to do together. Thank you so much for
- 58:36being here today. I want to keep talking to you, but we can't.
- 58:40But is there anything that you would like to leave our listeners with before
- 58:43we kick the can down whatever track we're on. You know we covered so
- 58:47much, listeners, welcome to reach out. You can find me on Instagram,
- 58:52on LinkedIn. I'm at doctor Rebecca Jackson dot com. Brain Dances is
- 58:57here to help kids and adults and again it's open an action plan to improve
- 59:04brain health and development. I love it so very much and pick up her
- 59:07book Back on Track. It is not only an incredible read. I've read
- 59:10it twice, I've read it as a kid and as an adult. Back
- 59:15on Track, a practical guide to help kids and adults of all ages,
- 59:19thrived by doctor Rebecca Jackson. Thank you so much for your time today.
- 59:22You can find her at doctor Rebecca Jackson dot com. Find her on all
- 59:24the socials. You can find out all through your website. It has just
- 59:28been a pleasure and I'm so happy to have you in my life now and
- 59:30I can't wait to see what's coming up next with you, babe. Same
- 59:36right back at you, Lindsey. Thank you so much. You are exclusively
- 59:38invited to share this brain balancing, hopeful VIP pain journey together. Let's get
- 59:45to the heart of how to heal with you by my side. Do you
- 59:47know anybody that needs their brain back on track? Me certainly know one.
- 59:52Send them our way, Send them to doctor Rebecca Jackson. We are here
- 59:58to help you and all the people that you love in your life. If
- 1:00:00you need us, we're here. I would love to connect them and their
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- 1:00:07way here we'd love to connect with you. Please follow The Pain Game Podcast
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- 1:00:20listening to my little VIPs. Catch you on the other side.