1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,280 Hi, and welcome to the In The Cortex podcast. 2 00:00:09,280 --> 00:00:10,280 We are your hosts. 3 00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:11,600 I'm Poloma Garcia. 4 00:00:11,600 --> 00:00:13,640 And I am Danny Parakoni. 5 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:17,240 And we're the founders of In The Cortex, an online community with programs that show 6 00:00:17,240 --> 00:00:21,480 people the tools that they need to change their lives, their brain reorganization, no 7 00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:23,880 medication, just movement. 8 00:00:23,880 --> 00:00:28,080 When you get your brain out of survival mode and regulate your nervous system, you start 9 00:00:28,080 --> 00:00:32,160 to live in the fun, logical part of the brain, the cortex. 10 00:00:32,160 --> 00:00:36,520 Subscribe today and learn how to live your best in the cortex life. 11 00:00:36,520 --> 00:00:39,200 And now, on to today's episode. 12 00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:43,320 Let's start out with a quick cortex moment from one of our members. 13 00:00:43,320 --> 00:00:46,000 Okay, so picture this. 14 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:52,720 You have a young boy, my son, 13, 14 years old, just getting into adolescence, big growth 15 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:58,360 spurt, trying to socialize, and he has massive social anxiety. 16 00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:02,200 And the social anxiety comes from not being able to interact. 17 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:05,640 He always feels like he's being interrupted. 18 00:01:05,640 --> 00:01:08,520 He can't join in conversations easily. 19 00:01:08,520 --> 00:01:11,760 He has funny things to say when he writes, he's hilarious. 20 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:13,840 When he's on his own, he's hilarious. 21 00:01:13,840 --> 00:01:19,880 But he always feels like he's being interrupted or that he can't participate fully and interact. 22 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:25,080 That anxiety spills out sometimes in anger, sometimes just a little bit sad, a little bit 23 00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:26,480 down. 24 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:32,440 Just not a happy situation for a 13, 14 year old boy, especially when it's your own son. 25 00:01:32,440 --> 00:01:37,520 Now fast forward, this kid is now grown. 26 00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:41,320 He lives in a foreign country. 27 00:01:41,320 --> 00:01:42,480 He's a podcaster. 28 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:43,880 He's a public speaker. 29 00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:47,920 He owns his own company and has tons of friends. 30 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:51,360 He's extremely funny, extremely sociable. 31 00:01:51,360 --> 00:01:52,360 So what happened? 32 00:01:52,360 --> 00:01:53,600 What made the difference? 33 00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:58,320 We ran into a methodology that had to do with creeping and changed his life and changed 34 00:01:58,320 --> 00:02:02,840 our lives as a family too, because nobody wants to have an unhappy or anxious family 35 00:02:02,840 --> 00:02:04,400 member. 36 00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:11,960 And that creeping and crawling allowed my son to reorganize his brain, to organize his 37 00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:18,920 thoughts, to be able to speak quickly, get rid of his anxiety, and turned him into another 38 00:02:18,920 --> 00:02:19,920 person. 39 00:02:19,920 --> 00:02:24,880 I know it might sound incredible, but people that have knew him before and people that 40 00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:27,120 know him now can attest to this. 41 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:33,840 He is a different person, changed his life, and he became a better version of the great 42 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:40,960 person he already was. 43 00:02:40,960 --> 00:02:45,760 Okay, Danny, today we're going to talk about something that lots of people relate to, which 44 00:02:45,760 --> 00:02:47,280 is anxiety. 45 00:02:47,280 --> 00:02:51,480 And we want to start out this episode of saying that we feel you. 46 00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:56,600 We are here from a space of empathy and compassion in talking about something that's not easy 47 00:02:56,600 --> 00:02:58,000 for anybody to navigate. 48 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:01,200 We're talking about where it's coming from, and we're going to tell you a few things that 49 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:05,680 you can do to diminish your anxiety, both in the short and the long term. 50 00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:09,600 So first, let's take a second to remember what anxiety feels like if you're somebody 51 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:14,040 who's ever felt anxious, which is most of us, slash probably everybody, at some point in 52 00:03:14,040 --> 00:03:15,040 your life. 53 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:19,240 Close your eyes and just think about where do you feel that anxiety? 54 00:03:19,240 --> 00:03:21,720 I know for me, for example, it's usually in my stomach. 55 00:03:21,720 --> 00:03:23,320 It's like in the pit of my stomach. 56 00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:26,000 I know some people feel like nauseous. 57 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:28,960 They feel like their heartbeats are to race. 58 00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:30,920 They feel like maybe even a cold sweat. 59 00:03:30,920 --> 00:03:33,280 They'll feel it in their chest. 60 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:36,640 And of course, that goes usually accompanied with racing thoughts, right, of whatever's 61 00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:38,320 making you anxious. 62 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:39,960 Sometimes people don't even know why they're anxious. 63 00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:43,960 They're just feeling this feeling and there's no reason for it. 64 00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:46,160 So Danny, tell us a little bit about this. 65 00:03:46,160 --> 00:03:48,680 Why do we experience this and when is it normal? 66 00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:51,720 There is a spectrum here of what is normal. 67 00:03:51,720 --> 00:03:56,200 And a lot of times we can experience as humans whenever we're walking to a new experience 68 00:03:56,200 --> 00:04:00,520 or something we haven't had and baseline for understanding what to expect. 69 00:04:00,520 --> 00:04:04,080 We start to get that feeling of like, whoa, I'm stepping out of my comfort zone. 70 00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:05,200 Something new is happening. 71 00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:09,280 It feels a little uncomfortable because it's something I haven't experienced before. 72 00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:11,280 So in that case, that's when we have that anxiety. 73 00:04:11,280 --> 00:04:14,560 We have a little bit of the butterflies in our stomach and we kind of have that prep 74 00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:16,800 for something new is coming. 75 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:19,600 I need to be ready for whatever's coming my way. 76 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:22,080 I'm in an alert state. 77 00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:23,800 Then it goes a little bit further. 78 00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:30,400 If you're someone who does really feel anxiety deeply and it's your everyday experience, 79 00:04:30,400 --> 00:04:32,200 that's when it starts to stop you dead in your tracks. 80 00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:37,240 That's why it's kind of got that spectrum of when is anxiety something that we all experience 81 00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:42,080 and then when is it too much and I can't just get on with my everyday life. 82 00:04:42,080 --> 00:04:43,080 Exactly. 83 00:04:43,080 --> 00:04:46,320 That's the challenge is when it starts to interfere with your everyday life and you 84 00:04:46,320 --> 00:04:51,520 can't push yourself into these new experiences or even do just your day to day activities 85 00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:56,280 because you're constantly feeling anxious or you just always have that undercurrent of 86 00:04:56,280 --> 00:05:01,880 like anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, no matter what you're doing during the day. 87 00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:05,680 And so let's just talk really quickly about a few statistics. 88 00:05:05,680 --> 00:05:12,440 Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the US affecting 40 million adults 89 00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:13,760 in the United States. 90 00:05:13,760 --> 00:05:18,120 And there was an increase in people reporting high levels of anxiety during of course the 91 00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:19,120 pandemic. 92 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:27,000 So it went from 19.8 in 2018 to 19 to 24.2 in 2020, 2021. 93 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:29,400 And I think a lot of us can relate to that, right? 94 00:05:29,400 --> 00:05:34,600 Yeah, the pandemic really rocked everybody at some point on this planet. 95 00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:39,560 So what do you think about when you hear the term survival mode? 96 00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:43,320 And is it somebody who's thinking of like a caveman running from a saber to tiger, usually 97 00:05:43,320 --> 00:05:44,320 my favorite example? 98 00:05:44,320 --> 00:05:47,320 Is it the show survivor? 99 00:05:47,320 --> 00:05:50,640 Is it a child that falls into a pool that can't swim? 100 00:05:50,640 --> 00:05:54,080 Is it a car coming at you while you're walking across the street? 101 00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:59,280 Or even a pandemic that definitely was a thing that put a lot of people into survival mode 102 00:05:59,280 --> 00:06:02,600 or you're someone who's like, huh, I've never actually thought of survival mode. 103 00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:04,920 I have no idea what you're actually talking about. 104 00:06:04,920 --> 00:06:07,160 So let's break down what is survival mode. 105 00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:11,360 Survival mode is when your brain and your body are reacting to a stressful life or death 106 00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:12,360 situation. 107 00:06:12,360 --> 00:06:16,120 There's no long term or medium term plan in that moment. 108 00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:19,640 It's all about what is happening right here and right now. 109 00:06:19,640 --> 00:06:22,800 So for the examples of a child falling into the pool that can't swim, that's a right here 110 00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:23,800 right now moment. 111 00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:25,920 You're not going to sit there and contemplate and be like, hmm, I wonder if they're going 112 00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:26,920 to get themselves out. 113 00:06:26,920 --> 00:06:31,560 You're like, no, jump into action, save the child out of the pool or a car coming at you 114 00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:32,560 down the street. 115 00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:35,360 You're like, oh my gosh, there's a car driving down the street at me. 116 00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:37,360 Do I sit there and think out my different things? 117 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:40,000 No, you immediately jump out of the way and survive. 118 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:43,920 And that is what your survival brain is designed to do. 119 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:48,880 And if we go back to the caveman example, that was obviously very relevant in caveman 120 00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:49,880 times. 121 00:06:49,880 --> 00:06:52,680 We are not being chased by tigers anymore. 122 00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:56,200 I mean, obviously unless a tiger gets out at the zoo and or you're living out in the 123 00:06:56,200 --> 00:06:57,920 middle of nowhere and there's tigers everywhere. 124 00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:00,520 Some people are, some people do for sure. 125 00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:04,080 But and I think people who are listening just don't experience that on the daily. 126 00:07:04,080 --> 00:07:10,480 So the examples of, you know, more common examples of a car coming off the road and 127 00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:15,360 threatening you, that's when you want that survival brain to turn on and we want there 128 00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:17,480 just to be that reaction. 129 00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:24,840 However, there is an instance where or many of them where stressors are coming at us and 130 00:07:24,840 --> 00:07:29,680 your brain is constantly in that state of is this real survival or not? 131 00:07:29,680 --> 00:07:34,800 And if you already have a dysregulated nervous system, or if you're prone to being in survival 132 00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:41,680 mode more times than not, you're going to experience everything coming in as a real threat. 133 00:07:41,680 --> 00:07:45,800 So we always like to break down what's a perceived threat and versus a real threat. 134 00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:49,480 So the real threats are the ones I mentioned, child falling into the pool, car coming at 135 00:07:49,480 --> 00:07:52,160 you, the pandemic for a lot of us, right? 136 00:07:52,160 --> 00:07:56,840 But then the perceived threat could be something as something we've all experienced, like someone 137 00:07:56,840 --> 00:07:59,240 left you on red on a text message, right? 138 00:07:59,240 --> 00:08:05,880 They didn't respond to you right away, especially in today's instant gratifying world. 139 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:11,160 Missing a deadline at work or forgetting something when you needed to bring something with you 140 00:08:11,160 --> 00:08:12,720 and you forgot it. 141 00:08:12,720 --> 00:08:17,040 So basically anything that's not going how you want it to go, but it's not considered 142 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:18,520 a life or death situation. 143 00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:19,880 Those are perceived threats. 144 00:08:19,880 --> 00:08:24,600 That is your brain still interpreting the information as stressful and still turning 145 00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:30,080 on all the survival centers, all of the survival hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that 146 00:08:30,080 --> 00:08:35,080 get your brain and body pumped up and primed and ready to take on whatever is coming their 147 00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:36,080 way. 148 00:08:36,080 --> 00:08:40,600 So most of the time though, after you experienced something like that and it was a perceived 149 00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:44,360 threat, say you were left on red, they didn't respond to you right away and you went down 150 00:08:44,360 --> 00:08:47,960 that whole entire spiral of, oh my gosh, what did I say? 151 00:08:47,960 --> 00:08:48,960 What did I do? 152 00:08:48,960 --> 00:08:52,400 I started texting them like crazy, like when you're responding to me and then they're like, 153 00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:53,720 oh, I just didn't have my phone. 154 00:08:53,720 --> 00:08:57,680 It was charging and you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe all those things I just said 155 00:08:57,680 --> 00:08:58,680 and did. 156 00:08:58,680 --> 00:09:00,040 And now you feel really embarrassed. 157 00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:02,800 You're like, I can't believe I did that. 158 00:09:02,800 --> 00:09:07,600 And that was because your brain did not have the ability or the bandwidth to zoom out and 159 00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:11,680 look at all the options because you were in survival mode. 160 00:09:11,680 --> 00:09:14,920 And that just shows that that's not living in the cortex. 161 00:09:14,920 --> 00:09:20,040 It's just a moment of, hey, I was totally responding to right here right now, full on 162 00:09:20,040 --> 00:09:21,920 reaction mode. 163 00:09:21,920 --> 00:09:26,040 And yeah, and nothing ever really good comes out of those moments. 164 00:09:26,040 --> 00:09:31,440 Well, after most of us have a disorganized brain, a dysregulated nervous system, brain 165 00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:35,760 that's stuck in survival mode from the time we're little because that's when we missed 166 00:09:35,760 --> 00:09:41,040 out on that movement that preps the brain to understand the survival brain and actually 167 00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:43,200 operate from the cortex. 168 00:09:43,200 --> 00:09:49,440 And so after spending years and years and years responding to this, to your life in this 169 00:09:49,440 --> 00:09:57,200 way, you're creating these really, really strong ingrained neural pathways in your brain. 170 00:09:57,200 --> 00:09:58,800 And this becomes your go-to response. 171 00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:04,040 And we've all seen it in somebody or some of us have experienced it where the second 172 00:10:04,040 --> 00:10:08,360 something starts to happen that's maybe not going your way or you start to think maybe 173 00:10:08,360 --> 00:10:12,880 something bad's going to happen or something's going to be out of alignment with what you 174 00:10:12,880 --> 00:10:13,880 wanted. 175 00:10:13,880 --> 00:10:17,120 Boom, you go back into that fight or flight reaction. 176 00:10:17,120 --> 00:10:22,000 So it's fight, you might get really angry, start screaming, throwing things, flight, 177 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:26,440 you might just avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, get away or freeze. 178 00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:29,320 Sometimes people are just like, okay, genuinely don't know what to do. 179 00:10:29,320 --> 00:10:32,280 And you just stop dead in your tracks like you said earlier. 180 00:10:32,280 --> 00:10:36,520 And so we all have those reactions that we sometimes we want to get out of them, but 181 00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:37,520 we just can't. 182 00:10:37,520 --> 00:10:41,920 And so there's a lot going on there, of course, because neuroplasticity works both ways. 183 00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:46,240 It works for the amazing changes you can experience when you're doing something new, when you're 184 00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:50,960 learning new things, when you're reorganizing your brain, but it also works in the other 185 00:10:50,960 --> 00:10:56,520 way where it really does solidify these go-to reactions that sometimes are not logical and 186 00:10:56,520 --> 00:10:57,840 they're definitely not serving us. 187 00:10:57,840 --> 00:10:59,040 There are a lot of reasons for this. 188 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:01,200 It happens because of our genetics, right? 189 00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:06,400 Just an individual, a group of genes that are involved with who we are as humans. 190 00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:11,600 There's epigenetics as well, which is how the environment, the behaviors can cause changes 191 00:11:11,600 --> 00:11:14,640 that affect the way that our genes are working in our day-to-day life. 192 00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:19,520 A lot of time that comes from our parents, what they've lived, what they've gone through, 193 00:11:19,520 --> 00:11:21,760 and that gets transmitted when we're born. 194 00:11:21,760 --> 00:11:23,160 We also have our brain chemistry. 195 00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:27,000 Everybody has a difference of neurotransmitters and chemicals going on in their brain. 196 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:30,800 If you, for example, naturally have a low-level serotonin, then your brain is going to be 197 00:11:30,800 --> 00:11:35,040 more prone to anxiety in your day-to-day life, right? 198 00:11:35,040 --> 00:11:38,760 We all have the norepinephrine that totally spikes when we go into that fight-or-flight 199 00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:39,760 mode. 200 00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:43,800 We're like, these chemicals can become addictive. 201 00:11:43,800 --> 00:11:48,440 Without knowing, we don't want to go into that fight-or-flight mode, but our brain can 202 00:11:48,440 --> 00:11:55,080 become addicted to just reacting that way because the truth is, adrenaline is very, very powerful. 203 00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:57,920 Sometimes our brain doesn't know how to get it. 204 00:11:57,920 --> 00:12:02,160 If we're not somebody who understands, oh, maybe I'm just going to go for a run or I'm 205 00:12:02,160 --> 00:12:08,200 going to meditate, I'm going to do something else to balance my brain out, do some brain 206 00:12:08,200 --> 00:12:15,240 work, do some ITC work, then a lot of us will go back into that really, really strong fight-or-flight 207 00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:19,080 mode connection because the truth is, in the moment, it doesn't feel great, but afterward 208 00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:21,360 we have that adrenaline release. 209 00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:23,600 Your brain gets a lot of what it was seeking out. 210 00:12:23,600 --> 00:12:26,560 Our personality is also going to affect the way that we react to things. 211 00:12:26,560 --> 00:12:30,280 Of course, life events, different traumas that we've had, different things that have happened 212 00:12:30,280 --> 00:12:34,560 in our lives, and this is where the movement comes in. 213 00:12:34,560 --> 00:12:38,240 If we are somebody who didn't move enough in that first year of life, and this is something 214 00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:42,720 we talked about in our last episode, if we didn't get enough of that movement in the 215 00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:48,320 first year of life, our primitive brain did not finish developing and understand what 216 00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:54,480 Danny is saying, how to distinguish communically with the logical brain, which is the cortex, 217 00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:59,280 to distinguish what is a real threat and what is a perceived threat, which is why we end 218 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:05,560 up getting into this cycle, this loop of anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety reactions. 219 00:13:05,560 --> 00:13:09,360 It's really important to note, too, that if you do go through something that's traumatic, 220 00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:14,480 that survival brain is wired and designed to come back online and to take over to help 221 00:13:14,480 --> 00:13:16,320 you through the task. 222 00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:21,160 The key part is then to help it reintegrate and lie dormant again, waiting for the next 223 00:13:21,160 --> 00:13:24,120 survival situation to happen. 224 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:25,200 That's an important part. 225 00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:28,920 Even if you did do all the movements as a child and you did get them, your brain totally 226 00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:34,640 wired where it needed to be, then you still could have moments of it coming online. 227 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:36,720 That's where a lot of PTSD comes from. 228 00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:40,760 When we have a lot of our vets that come back, they have a lot of moments of reverting back, 229 00:13:40,760 --> 00:13:44,440 and it's because their brain went back into survival and they didn't bring it back into 230 00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:45,440 cortex. 231 00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:47,200 What do we now know about the subconscious stuff? 232 00:13:47,200 --> 00:13:48,200 What about that? 233 00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:51,760 There's so much other stuff that's going on that we talk about. 234 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:54,760 That's really, if you think about it, it's really just your script on how you handle 235 00:13:54,760 --> 00:13:55,760 life. 236 00:13:55,760 --> 00:13:59,560 When Loma mentioned, what did your caretakers do? 237 00:13:59,560 --> 00:14:00,840 How did they handle situations? 238 00:14:00,840 --> 00:14:04,040 That was when you were in a critical time of just downloading it. 239 00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:05,400 You think about your upbringing. 240 00:14:05,400 --> 00:14:08,400 You think about how that is now transferred into your life. 241 00:14:08,400 --> 00:14:12,520 We mentioned this in a previous episode of, oh my gosh, it just sounded like my mom. 242 00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:14,040 Where did that come from? 243 00:14:14,040 --> 00:14:15,680 That's that subconscious. 244 00:14:15,680 --> 00:14:19,000 This is where our attachments, Jeff, comes from our programming or learn response. 245 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:23,320 That's something to also take into account when we're talking about anxiety and how you 246 00:14:23,320 --> 00:14:27,240 are perceiving events and stressors in your life. 247 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:28,240 Exactly. 248 00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:31,280 What the thing is, now we get into what do we do about it? 249 00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:34,240 Most models out there are top down. 250 00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:39,360 We're thinking, we've all heard the typical count to 10, take a deep breath, count to 251 00:14:39,360 --> 00:14:41,960 10, and think positive thoughts. 252 00:14:41,960 --> 00:14:46,360 That bleeds into that toxic positivity where you're like, I can't. 253 00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:47,520 I'm in survival mode. 254 00:14:47,520 --> 00:14:49,280 I cannot think positively. 255 00:14:49,280 --> 00:14:52,560 That is the literal thing that my brain is struggling with right now. 256 00:14:52,560 --> 00:14:56,560 It's only looking at the right here and the right now. 257 00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:59,720 That is where we come in and we're doing bonds up. 258 00:14:59,720 --> 00:15:06,160 We need to get the brain, the nervous system regulated so that it's able to get out of that 259 00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:08,560 survival mode much, much, much quicker. 260 00:15:08,560 --> 00:15:13,840 Like Danny said, zoom out and look at the reality of what's going on and decide, how 261 00:15:13,840 --> 00:15:18,440 do I respond to this rather than letting our primitive brain react? 262 00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:19,840 This is how we're designed to operate. 263 00:15:19,840 --> 00:15:25,120 This is why we have our parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest. 264 00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:31,920 We have the sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight or flight reaction, survival 265 00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:36,480 brain, but then we're always supposed to go back into the parasympathetic nervous system 266 00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:42,360 afterward to rest and digest and let our bodies and our brains process what just happened. 267 00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:47,560 That's where we were talking about that adrenaline moment where you're like, you feel it after 268 00:15:47,560 --> 00:15:51,600 a release, you feel it after you've done something big. 269 00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:54,080 That's something that we're all supposed to go back into. 270 00:15:54,080 --> 00:15:58,360 Unfortunately, the way that we're all wired nowadays, or a lot of us are wired nowadays, 271 00:15:58,360 --> 00:16:04,640 we're spending most of our time in the sympathetic nervous system in that reaction state. 272 00:16:04,640 --> 00:16:05,640 Yes. 273 00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:10,120 While this episode is focusing mostly and just focusing on the topic of anxiety, it's 274 00:16:10,120 --> 00:16:14,360 very much aligned with the very first pillar that we talk about in the cortex, which is 275 00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:15,360 the pons. 276 00:16:15,360 --> 00:16:19,640 The pons is the part of the brain that is really the reptilian, primitive part of the 277 00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:20,640 brain. 278 00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:24,880 It's developing from zero to five months of life, and it has many jobs that are very 279 00:16:24,880 --> 00:16:27,040 critical and helping. 280 00:16:27,040 --> 00:16:29,120 This is where it's interesting. 281 00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:33,160 Anxiety is very much rooted in being able to manage your fight, flight, or freeze, or 282 00:16:33,160 --> 00:16:34,840 fawn response. 283 00:16:34,840 --> 00:16:37,440 That is exactly what the pons job is to do as well. 284 00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:41,600 Now, we're not trying to say that we're curing anything and that, hey, by doing this, all 285 00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:44,440 of a sudden you have no more challenges in life. 286 00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:50,280 We're just showing that there's a very giant overlap between anxiety and the pons and a 287 00:16:50,280 --> 00:16:54,640 lot of other functions of the pons, regulating your automatic functions like breathing and 288 00:16:54,640 --> 00:16:56,020 digestion. 289 00:16:56,020 --> 00:16:58,720 What happens when you're in an anxious state? 290 00:16:58,720 --> 00:16:59,720 You're not breathing. 291 00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:04,600 I've had so many people tell us, I've just realized I wasn't breathing. 292 00:17:04,600 --> 00:17:06,440 I never took a deep breath. 293 00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:11,200 If you think about it, it's up in the upper chest and you're, when you're in that really 294 00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:15,800 hyper ventilating state where you're just breathing through your chest instead of breathing 295 00:17:15,800 --> 00:17:18,760 deep down in your belly, digestion is off. 296 00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:22,040 So many of us complain of stomach aches when we're really anxious. 297 00:17:22,040 --> 00:17:27,120 Again, that's the same function of the pons as being able to regulate that automatic eye 298 00:17:27,120 --> 00:17:28,120 of movements. 299 00:17:28,120 --> 00:17:34,600 If you think about from the survival standpoint, your eyes are tracking and looking for negative 300 00:17:34,600 --> 00:17:37,440 perceived or anything that could have harm to you. 301 00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:42,520 Being able to move your eyes horizontally automatically should be an automatic function, right? 302 00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:47,080 But if you don't have that in place, and that's where your cortex is constantly taking over 303 00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:52,120 and having to do more work, and that's where you then have to learn how to compensate. 304 00:17:52,120 --> 00:17:58,240 So this is where anxiety and the pons development overlaps because if your pons is not wired 305 00:17:58,240 --> 00:18:03,880 to do the basic functions, your cortex has to take over. 306 00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:07,640 And that means it's exhausted by the end of the day because if your eyes aren't tracking 307 00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:11,720 horizontal to the automatically, then your cortex has to figure out different ways to 308 00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:13,080 get that job done. 309 00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:16,440 So maybe you have to turn your whole head and the list goes on and on. 310 00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:21,280 So there's a lot of overlap here regulating your sleep, your emotional regulation, your 311 00:18:21,280 --> 00:18:28,120 vestibular input, your hearing, your motor control, your pain and temperature sensation, 312 00:18:28,120 --> 00:18:32,640 your proprioceptive system, all of those functions are coming from the pons. 313 00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:37,200 And those are all things that get altered if you're also someone who is experiencing anxiety 314 00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:38,920 on a daily basis. 315 00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:39,920 So pull them up. 316 00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:41,040 How do you develop the pons? 317 00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:46,960 The pons develops when babies are creeping and you've heard us talk about this before, 318 00:18:46,960 --> 00:18:51,080 hopefully, but we don't mean creeping like stalking your ex's MySpace page. 319 00:18:51,080 --> 00:18:56,560 We mean creeping like when babies are on the floor, they're on their belly and they're 320 00:18:56,560 --> 00:19:00,760 moving from point A to point B. It kind of looks like an army crawl. 321 00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:05,280 And most babies will do this movement from zero to about five months of life. 322 00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:10,320 We don't want to get too technical with the timelines because everybody's brain is completely 323 00:19:10,320 --> 00:19:13,600 different and some people need more movement than others. 324 00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:15,360 And that's what's developing the pons. 325 00:19:15,360 --> 00:19:20,320 And so that's how we can see where somebody's brain left off in development. 326 00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:24,760 We had in the cortex, we can see you move on the floor and say, oh, you're at 20% development, 327 00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:27,320 50%, 90%, right? 328 00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:30,600 But if you're right now curious, by the way, if you want to know kind of like what you're 329 00:19:30,600 --> 00:19:35,520 developing is, you can always get an assessment with us or you can take our brain organization 330 00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:37,600 quiz, which is linked in the show notes. 331 00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:41,120 And that goes more off of like the behaviors that are associated with different parts of 332 00:19:41,120 --> 00:19:43,280 the brain that can be underdeveloped. 333 00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:47,200 But it's always a fun thing to see and see if it resonates with you, by the way. 334 00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:52,160 And so what about if people can't get onto the floor right now and start doing our program? 335 00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:53,840 Let's give them a little tip, Danny. 336 00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:54,840 Yeah. 337 00:19:54,840 --> 00:19:58,520 So taking the quiz is a really good step because you're going to have, you're going to associate 338 00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:01,080 all the behaviors there and you'll be able to see it. 339 00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:05,880 But then there's always the actual movement that comes on and people go, oh my gosh, this 340 00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:07,440 totally makes sense. 341 00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:11,680 And just so you can experience a little taste of what we do here at ITC, we really want 342 00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:15,400 you to feel in your body how to calm yourself immediately. 343 00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:18,680 Now this is hard to do if you're in survival mode because you're not, you don't actually 344 00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:19,680 have access to this. 345 00:20:19,680 --> 00:20:22,400 So it's a good thing to try now while you're in your cortex. 346 00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:26,600 And the more you times you try it, like Paloma mentioned earlier, the more that you will 347 00:20:26,600 --> 00:20:30,640 then be wired to go to this movement when the time comes. 348 00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:32,800 So it's just a reminder. 349 00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:34,600 So it's called a brain hookup. 350 00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:36,240 It is from Brain Gym. 351 00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:39,320 We always like to make sure we give credit where credit is due. 352 00:20:39,320 --> 00:20:42,400 And what you're going to do is if you're sitting or you're standing, doesn't matter what position 353 00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:45,520 you're in or lying down, you're going to cross your ankles. 354 00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:49,680 So notice if you put right on top of left or left on top of right for your ankles, you 355 00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:50,680 can also sit crisscross. 356 00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:54,080 You can also just take your whole leg and cross it over. 357 00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:57,520 And then you're going to take your hands out in front of you and your palms are facing 358 00:20:57,520 --> 00:21:01,720 each other as your palms or your thumbs are straight up in the, to the ceiling. 359 00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:04,920 You're going to turn your thumbs down. 360 00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,360 Now your thumbs are pointing down to the ground. 361 00:21:07,360 --> 00:21:11,280 And now remember whatever ankle went on top is the same hand that goes on top. 362 00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:16,680 So you're going to cross your arm over the other hand and you're going to interlace 363 00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:18,320 your fingers. 364 00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:22,680 And then once you're in this position, it's going to feel natural just to pull your fist 365 00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,120 under and into your chest. 366 00:21:26,120 --> 00:21:30,560 And then from here, you're going to take your tongue and put it up to the roof of your mouth. 367 00:21:30,560 --> 00:21:34,720 If you're having a hard time walking through that, you can always check out the video that's 368 00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:36,480 in our show notes. 369 00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:38,580 And it's a lot easier to see that visually. 370 00:21:38,580 --> 00:21:42,160 So holding the tongue to the roof of your mouth is actually where your tongue should 371 00:21:42,160 --> 00:21:47,000 always naturally rest, but it's also really good for helping calm down that limbic system, 372 00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:49,280 which is in charge of your emotions. 373 00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:53,000 Holding yourself into this position is calming all your energy. 374 00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,280 And if you think about it, if you've ever been in an argument, which I'm sure not a 375 00:21:56,280 --> 00:22:04,080 lot of you have been, just kidding, wink, wink, you're going to naturally cross your 376 00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:09,360 arms over your chest or in a lot of times our culture and society think, oh, that person's 377 00:22:09,360 --> 00:22:14,300 body language is so turned off the way they have their bodies just closed off like that. 378 00:22:14,300 --> 00:22:16,600 We see it so different here at ITC. 379 00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:21,560 We see it as you are now controlling and calming your system because you're bringing all that 380 00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:25,120 energy and bringing it in to calm itself down. 381 00:22:25,120 --> 00:22:28,760 And also when your tongue is on the roof of your mouth, it's also activating the vagus 382 00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:33,400 nerve, which is a big, big piece in helping you calm all that emotional sensation that 383 00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:34,880 you've got going on. 384 00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:36,520 So try that brain hookup. 385 00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:37,800 Try calming yourself. 386 00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:42,000 Try to hold yourself in this position while maybe if you have a child in the home who's 387 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:47,440 going into their survival state, you hold this position and say nothing because boredom 388 00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:53,840 is the best way out of survival mode and into the cortex and just help calm your energy 389 00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:56,560 so that way you can calm the energy of people around you. 390 00:22:56,560 --> 00:23:02,640 This is our go to move whenever we have like a presentation to do or we need to help somebody 391 00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:03,720 else stay calm. 392 00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:06,280 We just control our energy and calm ourselves down. 393 00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:10,560 And then it has this amazing effect of carrying over to everybody else in the room. 394 00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:11,880 Absolutely. 395 00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:16,480 And that's a once you try it, you'll see the difference that you feel and that you notice 396 00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:20,080 in everybody else in the room, but we will say this is not addressing the root. 397 00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:23,760 This is just kind of like some a tool for you to use when you're feeling like you're about 398 00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:29,520 to go into that mode, into that anxious feeling, into that stressed out feeling. 399 00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:32,040 But this will help you in the moment. 400 00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:34,080 It's not going to help you in the long term. 401 00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:40,200 In the long term, what you want to do is get your brain organized and get that solid neurological 402 00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:42,560 foundation you need, hopefully with us. 403 00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:46,720 If not, you can do it on your own, but by doing the creeping, the crawling and integrating 404 00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:50,680 those primitive reflexes that are still getting in the way and really keeping you in that 405 00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:51,680 primitive brain. 406 00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:53,320 So that was our episode for today. 407 00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:54,320 We'll see you next time. 408 00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:56,280 Thank you so much for joining us. 409 00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:58,120 Make sure to follow us on Instagram. 410 00:23:58,120 --> 00:24:00,440 Make sure to share this podcast with everybody. 411 00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:03,800 We really, really are grateful for you to listening and listening and helping us spread 412 00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:09,360 the word that the brain can change and life can get easier when you live in your cortex. 413 00:24:09,360 --> 00:24:11,600 Make sure to follow us at inthecortex.com. 414 00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:13,480 That's our Instagram. 415 00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:17,280 Our TikTok is in underscore the underscore cortex. 416 00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:24,240 Our Facebook is also in the cortex underscore us, our website, www.inthecortex.com. 417 00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:29,600 And last but not least, because you've listened to our podcast, you can use promo code Brainiac 418 00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:32,840 for $10 off your first ITC payment. 419 00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:35,600 So thank you so much and we will see you next time. 420 00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:42,600 Bye.