Affect Regulation: A Mindfulness Practice (The Wheel of Awareness)

To listen to this complete episode, click here: Affect Regulation: How Mindfulness Can Help Integrate Your Brain

Trauma impairs integrative functioning in the brain. 

Neuroscience has demonstrated is that when you are a kid and you experience trauma or abuse is that your brain's natural process of integrating gets blocked. When you experience these things, the neurons in certain regions of your brain, are prevented from linking up with the neurons in other places in your brain. Integration refers to the connection between neurons. Trauma impairs integration in the brain. In other words, the various regions of your brain do not make enough neural connections with one another. 

When neurons are well-connected, your brain is more stable. And when you hear the word "stable" you should be thinking about affect regulation (go back to podcast episode #20 if this isn't familiar to you.) You know what it is like when you get unstable emotionally. It happens to varying degrees everyday for most of us. Affect disregulation happens when your brain is not well integrated. 

The brain is a complex system. These systems are most stable when their component parts are (a) differentiated and (b) linked. Your brain has 100 billion neurons. One neuron is connected to between 1 and 10,000 other neurons. This means there are billions and billions of connections in your brain. When you are disregulated, the neurons are not sufficiently connected! However, there is something you can do to promote integration in your brain. You are not bound by your brain's present level of integration. 

Today, we are going to discuss an exercise you can do to promote integration in your brain. When the brain heals, it becomes more integrated, and when it becomes more integrated, it heals. The Biblical term for this is the word Shalom. This refers to the webbing together of differentiated parts in a way that brings stebility, harmony, and peace. 

Dan Siegel wrote a book called Aware. In his book he uses the WHEEL OF AWARENESS. 

What does the word mindfulness actually mean? This means to paying attention on purpose to the present moment and doing this without judgment. For example: if you are doing a breathing exercise, and you get distracted, can you just come back without judging yourself for wandering? 

Mindful practices matter because they change the linkages between neurons in your brain. Repeated experience is why your brain acts the way it does right now. Aside from genes you were born of, everything is a function of the experiences you have had in life. Connections grow stronger by repeating the same thing repeatedly. What is practiced repeatedly, strengthens brain firing patters. With repetition, neural structure is literally altered. And if you do this each day, a state becomes a trait. 

The hipposcampus will actually GROW with practice and the amygdalia will SHRINK. Like for real!

 

Here is the WHEEL OF AWARENESS. 

1. The hub of the wheel -- this represents the knowing of being consciously aware of the knowns on the rim.

2. The rim of the wheel -- this represents all the knowns of life. Also includes your sense of relationship connectedness to other people. 

    A. Five senses -- what we we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch

    B. Sixth senses -- interior of the body

    C. Seventh senses -- the mental sea inside of us. 

    D. Eighth senses -- the relationships we have with other people (interconnectedness)

3. The spoke of the wheel -- the spoke represents attention. This extends out from the hub and survey the various knowns on the rim. 

At this point, you need to lay down somewhere calm and click on this link below. Don't think this is crazy. Just do it! Here is the link. It is 17 minutes long so give yourself time to do this.

Here is a recording for you to work through this mindfulness exercise yourself.  

Research has shown that mindfulness exercises: 

1. Increased growth in the prefrontal areas of the brain (which are largely responsible for regulating your affect) 

2. Increased growth in the corpus callosum which integrate your right and lefts sides of your brain

3. Increased growth in the hippocampus which deeply affects implicit memory (which I have spoken about before on my Blog.)

Here is a link to more information about this particular episode. You need to try to do this everyday. Add it to your morning devotions before you get up everyday.