Change Your Brain Every Day - The 5-Step Process to Managing Trauma, with Dr. Caroline Leaf

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

The COVID-19 Pandemic has brought with it a great deal of trauma for many people. Some people haven’t developed the proper coping mechanisms to help them get through these tough times, which can make things even worse. In this final episode of a series with Dr. Caroline Leaf, she illustrates her 5-step process to properly deal with emotional trauma, so you can make it through the difficult times with a healthy perspective.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We are here with cognitive neuroscientist, Dr. Carolyn Leith, author of Think, Learn, Succeed. Think and eat yourself smart. I mean,

as everybody knows on the Brain Warriors Way podcast, we're just a huge fan of food, healthy food, and then switch on your brain. Carolyn, thank you so much for being with us. What are the most practical things people can take away from your work, especially now during a pandemic? And then where can they learn more about you and what you do and the resources you have to offer? Wonderful. Thank you. Well, I think the first thing is the 30 to 60, 30 to 90-minute rule.

And that's as you are hearing something, like reading maybe another piece of bad news or someone tells you someone else has died, or there's another fun, whatever, whatever news comes in, is not to react immediately to that. Because as that signal of that information is coming in, as you guys know, your brain is adjusting. For the listeners, your brain is adjusting to this information. It's a quantum signal. It's a sound signal.

Your brain responds electrochemically and all kinds of things. So while your brain's in that state where it's processing and you're building that information into your brain as a structure, just listen, just read and get to that point where you can calm down and respond. That works brilliantly as well, considering we're all on top of each other in our homes. A lot of people in small spaces and it can be you're with each other all the time. So in terms of, because we get lots of questions like I'm sure you do about, wow, I love my daughter or my husband or my wife, but we are getting on each other's nerves. How do we handle toxic words and toxic people? The 30 to 90 second rule is, I know it doesn't happen to you too. Getting on each other's nerves.

No, I think out of the whole house, we're the two that didn't. There you go. But isn't that the same? We've loved it. We work together all the time. We actually have a rule in our house. It's a pandemic. You get a tantrum a week.

Oh, I love that. More than a tantrum a week and we have to talk about it. We have to talk about it. Okay, I love that. I threw a tantrum last week and he just looked at me and went, okay, honey, I love you. And he walked away and I came back 10 minutes later and I'm like, I'm sorry.

I love you. I'm sorry. That was my tantrum. I'm done. I love it. I love you. I'm sorry. That was my tantrum. I'm done. I love it. I love that. I love it. That's so practical.

Well, here's another practical one that we've been doing and it works really well is have a COVID-19 area in your house. And that's the only area we talk about COVID-19. And it works so well because it got, as my youngest daughter, we were sitting and all having these dinners and which is, have become quite a ritual that always were, but half Italian. But now with COVID, they've even become more of a ritual. And we were talking about COVID nonstop. And my daughter said, I've had enough. So we have one area in our house. And that's what I recommend people do. One area in your house where you talk

about COVID. And then also in that time, limit the time and then talk about not just the negative, but also the positive. Even if you can't find a positive, there's something. We still got each other. There's always something, always in the conversation on something positive, and there's always something positive that we can have. Yeah. I find a lot.

We actually limited it so that we can't talk about COVID at dinner because that's our big gathering time where we all sit together. So there's no COVID talk at dinner anymore because initially that's all it was. I know. It I said, what is happening? We don't know what's going on. You're gathering information, talking about it. And all of a sudden we realized this is really unhealthy. And so we're not going to do that anymore. We can have our time, you know, you know, during the day that we talk about it, we gather, we talk about it, but we're not talking

about it at dinner. And like you said, we talk about the positives. Like I realized life was moving too fast. I like moving slower. I like the dinners together yes i like all of this stuff exactly that's what i'm focusing on i agree with that and that's i love that and what you've just said life is better now in terms of certain things and that's why i think people to think that's going back to normal it's one of the i know the things you were going to just maybe discuss that's that would be a third practical point is don't i don't want to go back. Stop thinking to go back to normal. Cancel that from your mind.

And what was it? It wasn't very nice anyway. So, yes, the financial and the health-wise, we're going to move forward. We can't go backwards because backwards doesn't help us now. We have to move forward. So that's something is to think don't try and go back but go forward. So don't look for what's the new normal. Just look for how can we creatively reconceptualize what we're doing now.

And then a fourth thing is I would recommend that people understand in terms of trauma that because you are going to have trauma, accept it, embrace it, celebrate it. Because as soon as you embrace and celebrate, you're not celebrating the pain of what you've gone through. You're celebrating the fact that you're aware. From the research that I've done on the conscious and the non-conscious mind and the neuroscience stuff, you can't change something if it's shoved down into the non-conscious mind. That is shortening your lifespan.

That is causing all kinds of chaos and damage. You need to embrace how you feel. And you need to not stay stuck in just embracing. People are quite good at saying, I feel scared. They're being very encouraged. A lot of psychologists and a lot of mental health experts have been advising people to express how they feel. not stay stuck in just embracing. People are quite good at saying, I feel scared. They're being very encouraged. A lot of psychologists and a lot of mental health experts have been advising people to express how they feel. I'm saying express how you feel and process it.

So go through it. What are the detail, go through the detailed steps of what does this mean? Process through, not just I feel scared, but be very specific. And then reconceptualize, which means redesign, look at it differently. I can't do what I used to do.

I can cry over spilt milk and throw endless tantrums, or you can throw one tantrum a week and move forward and reconceptualize and design. And what I did was all that, over the years, all these techniques I developed, I put into the main technique that really drives the mind to drive the brain to rewire is a five-step process that I developed that's based on the neurophysiology of how thoughts form inside the brain. And that's called the five-step process very simplistically. And you were asking where people can get their hands on that sort of thing. So, I mean, I can show you, we've got an app called Switch. I don't know if you can see this. We can send you the details, but I've put the five steps and I can

tell you what the five steps are. So the app is called Switch? Called Switch, and it's available wherever, Google, iTunes, you know, the normal place. And it's an audio-driven 63-day program. You keep doing it. It works in cycles of 21. So changes in your brain happen in cycles of 21.

What I did was a lot of work on how does a habit form and the cycles of neuroplasticity. And if you're going to really change something, it's not going to change overnight. We all know that. We all know little habits. We all know that. But how long does it really take,

which has been 38 years of my work? And it's cycles of 21 days. So it takes 21 days to build a long-term memory, but it takes 63 to build a habit. So therefore, I've taken that concept and put that into if you're learning for school, you're going to have to work in those cycles to really build knowledge that is going to stay in you that you can actually use. I used to train medical students for years.

For 25 years, I'd go in and teach medical students how to learn all the information, just as a side note, but you've been in the medical field. Then also, if you're detoxing a trauma, it's going to not take four days where people give up mostly after four days. It's going to take at least 63 days to heal a trauma. It's going to take, so these things that we're going through now, as we transition, we're in the initial stage. We've been in it now for almost six weeks.

We've kind of built along to memory. We've almost habituated. We've almost automatized this way of functioning. So we've actually already entered, which is good news, entered into a new way of thinking. So now we have to just unpack what that looks like in each of our lives. And as long as we – and that takes that 63 days. So in terms of cycles of, so in terms of what I teach in here

and also in Switch On Your Brain is the version that's the descriptive version of what's in the book. This book I teach how to learn. I mean, there's tons of, these five steps are in different versions in the book. The app is easiest because it's audio driven. But essentially, the first thing is you've got to be aware. You've got to gather awareness the second thing is you've got to really focus your reflection on finding you've got to dig deep into the non-conscious mind to find out what you need to process we've got to write things down your brain writes genetically when you write things down it does all kinds of things as you

know to bring things out of your brain you've got to recheck you've got to work on reconceptualizing which is redesigning seeing it differently and then you've got to work on reconceptualizing, which is redesigning, seeing it differently and then you've got to practice doing that. And these five steps can be done in as short as the research I've done shows, in short as 7 to 16 minutes a day over cycles of 21 days. And that's how you can really practically learn

to deal with the trauma that we're going through in this current time and any traumas from any stage. That's what I did with my patients for years. What I used to go into the township areas, into Rwanda, I would teach these five steps, how to learn, same five steps, slightly differently, how to build your brain, and in the same five steps, how to detox your brain. So you've got to using our mind to fix our mind, to fix our brain.

So let's use a practical example, me. So the pandemic has been sort of a wild ride for me. I have eight clinics around the country. One in New York that we actually had to close for two weeks because one of our employees ended up on a ventilator with COVID-19. And then my parents got sick and ended up in the hospital together. And then they came out. But my dad really never got completely well

because he had other medical things and last week he died. Oh, no. I'm so sorry. And I've been teaching people about grief and how to manage it and how to manage my thoughts. I love what you've been calling it. He's doing a series called Good Grief. And it's been really good.

That's good. And it's not funny, but it's odd when, you know, I post because I've been posting almost every day. If my siblings hear me say something not complimentary about my dad

because he was brutal in bites. He was a was brutal and bites he was a very powerful man he's a very powerful person that they get upset and i'm like no good grief telling the truth and his last year so he was one of my best friends i mean he's like he was tan and my dad and um but but i would love your thoughts, you know, having done a lot of your early work in South Africa. Obviously, grief is a part of what you've done to help people. What are some of the strategies you use to help people process grief? And I imagine it's very similar to that five-step process you just told

me. Yeah, definitely. So if you take the five, excuse me, the first thing is, I'm sorry. I really am sorry for what, because the last time we spoke, you were telling me about your mom and dad and how they, so I'm sorry. How they beat it. Yeah, no, that's still an incredible story. So there's, the first part is gathering awareness. The fact that you actually are not pushing it down, you're going through, you know, you're getting it out. You know, the stages of grief that people talk about, they aren't actually linear. They don't happen in that nice little neat package. It isn't actually how the lady who developed it, her name's going to come up in a second. It's actually a much more fluid process. So that's the first thing is we've got to get it out in our time that we

ready. So not all of us are going to be able to talk about it straight away. So some people like maybe your siblings, some of them are not dealing with it as like you are. I mean, you're talking, some of them might push it down a little bit for a while, but at some point we do have to get it out.

So that's the gathering awareness of where I act. Do I want to talk about this now or in a month's time or in two weeks time? Or do I want to talk to who? Do I want to tell everyone? So part of what you're doing is you are gathering your awareness by translating it into what you naturally do, which is teach people. You transfer your knowledge and that's how you process, which is brilliant. So your reflection, the second step is you've taken this grief and this death and you've turned it into lessons. So you're processing. You're processing by teaching people.

So it's almost like the steps you're going through. So the second step that you reflected on your pain and you've turned that into step three, which is like a series of lessons. And as you are teaching them, you're kind of in that fourth step, recheck, because as you're teaching them, I bet you, as you talk, you learn more and more and more, and you're getting healing coming. And then the actual teaching that you're doing would be the five step. That's your act of reach. You're doing something.

So before you started your teaching process of these series of grief, you would have gone through those five steps, because you go through them every time. You literally go through them. These numbers are insane. On an unconscious level, you go through those five steps at 400 billion actions per second. Just before you're consciously aware, you're going through them just 10 seconds before you're aware of doing something. At 40, you literally, at this, it speeds, it slows down a little bit. By the time you're conscious, you're actually going through those five steps 40 times a second, but you're only aware of it every 10 seconds.

And so that means that when we go into this five-step process, we start training ourselves to become very aware of the every 10-second moment, which is living a very self-regulated life. So translated, the most simple basic thing is being self-aware. All those numbers simply translate into being self-aware. Self-awareness enables you to bring healing between the non-conscious and the conscious mind. The non-conscious mind is your truth value. The pain of losing a loved one creates tremendous confusion of energy. And energy is not something weird. Energy is what keeps us alive. The Zoom is energy. The Zoom technology is energy. So energy is in the non-conscious mind, energy needs to be balanced.

And part of balance is expressing your grief, acknowledging, recognizing it will never leave you. That's another big thing with grief. It's never going to get better. The worst thing I could tell you is time will heal. It won't heal. What you will simply do over time is you learn to manage the pain. That keeps balancing in the energy in your brain. In the non-conscious level, if you start denying and pushing down, your non-conscious forms like little, I'm just giving you simple analogies, like little knots, like when you overdo exercise and you don't and you get knots in your muscles. That's what if you don't deal with grief, if you don't process it, if you don't go through in some way, all the stages, anger, denial, in whatever order, there's no order, you can do it in whatever way and it's going to be up and down and in six months time you'll have

a bad day and then it'll be fine for six months and then three years later it could come back. If we don't allow ourselves to process that, we build up these clumps of energy and they send little warning signals through your subconscious into your conscious mind. And every 10 seconds or so you'll be aware of, I feel anxious, I feel edgy, there's something not quite right. This is what trauma does, any kind of trauma. Grief is a trauma.

And if we become self-aware and train ourselves to become self-aware, we can listen to those messages of the subconscious mind, which is then telling us the root of the issue that we need to just unwind. And part of grief is not, I have to get over it. I have to just go beyond. It is accepting it's always going to be with you. So great techniques for grief are remembering the good times. When you're feeling really sad, cry when you need to cry. Feel the sadness.

You're human. It's beautiful to feel the sadness of grief. It shows you what relationship you had. We're scared of grief, but we must embrace grief because it shows the beauty of the relationship that you had with that person. So when you feel that sadness, you can also just to balance and help yourself, think of a really fun time or a really good example of just a great memory, especially around Christmas and birthdays when it's really hard, is just express the emotion and then grab onto some happy memory, which can kind of just bring that balance back again. Yeah, which is really nice. And the other thing is to allow space. Like sometimes, like my dad died actually in 9-11,

literally a month after. And they were in New York when 9-11 happened. He went back to South Africa and he died a month later, which was a total shock to everyone. But my mom remarried. And I know when she remarried a few years later, she said to me the one day, I really battled with, I still love dad, you know, I still love your dad.

I said, mom, it's okay. You've got space for both. And that's what we need to understand with grief. If you remarry or if you find that you find now you transfer that, that, that need or that what your dad met in you, you might have a mentor or a friend who seems to be fulfilling it, but it's not replacing. It's just, you've got another space.

So you can hold. Not being disloyal. Exactly. Not being disloyal. You can hold two people in. You can love two people at the same time. You can love the person who's died and you can love the new husband or the new mentor, whatever it is, holding them in those spaces. That's a couple of things that I would recommend. Thank you so much. I found because good grief, you do cry because you're sad. And I have his voicemail saved on my phone, so when I

need to cry, I listen to it. I come in his office and he's listening to it. I did that for my Daniel, I did that with my dad when he died. I've still got it now. It's how many years later and I still have that recording. And it did, it was such a comfort and for years I did, I listened to it.

Yeah, I'm doing his memorial service. He's so comforting and for years I did I listened to it so yeah I'm doing his memorial service and so I've written a poem that I'm really excited about because it's really how he continues to live and even though he he died he continues to live not only through me, but I have six siblings and 50 nieces, nephews, you know, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And I think it's really special because your early years with your dad were more difficult. And so to see that you like have resolved that and you're beautiful. Yeah. And, and this grief process is one where you're realistic about your relationship with your dad, but it's also with fondness that you're able to do that. And it's just been, yeah. I love the realistic, but that's great, Tana, that being realistic, being honest.

We talk about the bad times, too. You don't just suddenly have to pretend everything was great because not everyone is great all the time. Because you can validate your own feelings. Well, and the last line in the poem is, and he was perfect for me because I really like how my life turned out. You have so much of your dad in you. Sometimes I laugh because his dad is very strong. He's an overcomer.

He is, you know, he's a powerful man. And I'm like, sometimes he would say like these things, why his dad annoyed him when he was young. And I'm like, really? Because I see that in you. That mirror image thing, mirror image happening. The goat. Okay, stop.

Now you just left them with something that they have no idea what you're saying. I love it. that was something that they have no idea what you're saying. Carolyn, we're so grateful for you and for your time. I'm glad that we've been able to get to know each other. Oh, I'm too. I'm so excited and I hope we can keep connected. It's just lovely talking to you and I just love what you're doing and what we're collectively trying to help everyone, which is so great. You're doing a great, great job great job so thank you I'm so excited to connect with you finally

well we will post these links and Dr. Carolyn Leaf author of Switch on Your Brain you can also get the app at the app store called Switch she's also the author of Think, Learn, Succeed, Think and Eat Yourself, Smart. We are grateful to you. Stay safe. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain healthy supplements from BrainMD, you can use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at brainmdhealth.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.