The Connecting and Changing Brain: Stefanie Faye
We keep learning more and more about the brain and how it can change with us and create new pathways. Kara got to totally geek out talking with Stefanie Faye about her favorite subject, the brain. They discuss how the brain chemically bonds us, the way we can hijack our own brain, how mistakes can help us grow with intention, and ways to regulate ourselves. Stefanie shares a wealth of information — this episode is not one to miss.
Stefanie Faye is a neuroscience specialist with expertise in optimizing learning, performance, attentional control, cognitive flexibility, neurodiverse challenges and emotion regulation using biofeedback, cognitive training and frameworks that integrate childhood experiences and family systems. Her graduate degree from New York University and fieldwork at the NYU Institute for Prevention Science focused on neuroplasticity, empathy and emotion regulation. She has worked as a school and family counselor, cognitive trainer, reading therapist, research analyst, coordinator of learning programs, and has analyzed many physiological aspects of nervous system states and brain functioning including electric conductance of the skin (GSR), facial electromyography (EMG), heart rate variability and quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG). She integrates all of this with her experience training in monasteries with meditation masters from Vietnam, India and West Africa. She currently runs the Neuro-Coach program, helping coaches and consultants integrate neuroscience into their programs.
stefaniefaye.com
instagram.com/stefanieffaye
youtube.com/watch?v=Ix8o9EiDD3E
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Kara Haug: Welcome to reframing our stories. The podcast. This podcast is about provocative conversations with beautiful thinkers about topics that matter and the stories that have helped them reframe their lives. Grab something cozy or put on your walking shoes and let's reframe. M welcome back to reframing our stories. This is Kara Haug. Today, I'm really excited with who I'm going to speak with today because I am a big nerd, and it turns out that I love, love, love studying the brain. If I actually could do it all over again and if I had some confidence, because I really didn't have confidence in high school or high school, college, I would become a neuroscientist. The brain has always fascinated me. Today we're going to be learning so much more about the brain and how trauma affects it. This is so important to understand in terms of sexuality because of how trauma affects our sexual functioning and our ability to enter into relationships. I had the luxury of getting to hear Stephanie Fay speak to a bunch of us sex educators one afternoon, and I was amazed, and I wrote so many notes, and I'm really sad because I currently can't find any of them. But that's what happens when you have adhd. I knew I had to have her on my show. So you thought you could all hear her, too.
Stephanie Fay is a neuroscience specialist with expertise in optimizing learning
Stephanie Fay is a neuroscience specialist with expertise in optimizing learning performance, intentional control, cognitive flexibility, neurodiverse challenges, and emotion regulation using biofeedback cognitive training and frameworks that integrate childhood experiences and family systems. Her graduate degree from New York University and field work at the NYU Institute for Prevention Science focused on neuroplasticity, empathy, and emotion regulation. She currently runs the Neuro Coach program, helping coaches and consultants integrate neuroscience into their programs. I'm very excited to speak with her today about the brain and its impact on our sexuality. And I just really know that you're going to love this conversation. She's fascinating and she just has a wealth of knowledge. And I'm so grateful that I get to bring it to you today. So enjoy. Stephanie, I'm so glad that you were able to join me today.
Speaker B: Yes, thank you. It's an honor to be here.
Why is it important to understand the brain in relation to sex
Kara Haug: So, when you talk to us sex educators, as I said in the intro, I was just, like floored and so excited, and I was like, what? I love the brain so much, I didn't have the confidence to go study it. And so I love that you did, and I love just what you brought into that space. I think it's important for me, as a sex educator, to pay attention to the brain and the research behind it. So would you explain to my listeners why it is important for us to understand the brain in relation to sex?
Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, I love this question. to me, the idea of sex as an activity, really a behavior, means that decision making gets involved and within that realm, within the realm of decision making and choices, we have to talk about how the brain makes choices and makes decisions, why it approaches some behaviors and avoids others, and within the life span, also how the brain has access to very different things depending on the age and stage of life a person's at. and also what their experiences have been until. Until now. I think it's really powerful to understand that the brain has inhibitory types of activity and then also more approach kinds of activity. And we are a, lot of it has to do with algorithms that have been built up over time. So I think the two things that stand out for me in terms of sex educators is that, first of all, if you are talking to young people or parents of young people, it's really important to understand that the brain develops in very specific ways in humans that are fairly universal across the board in terms of, we lack access to some systems of the brain that can help us project into the future, really weigh decisions out, and have some form of inhibitory or impulse control. Very early on in life, if you're dealing with young people, you have to understand that their brain is different than someone who's past the age of 30. So that's the recent developments in neuroscience, is that we understand that the frontal regions of the brain in particular, they develop through experience, only through modeling and what we're surrounded by. And those continue to develop, and we get more access to some of those more sophisticated networks more into our late twenties and into our thirties. I think that's just really important for people to think about in terms of the lifespan aspect and then in terms of our past experiences, depending on trauma that we may have experienced or also having a lack of models of people who have very good impulse control or different kinds of regulating types of systems and approaches. If that has been lacking in our environment up until now, there's a very good chance that could be lacking in terms of the actual networks that have been built physically inside our brain. So I think that's what's important to think about. And then just one third aspect of that is to know that the beautiful part of the human brain is that those frontal areas, because they are so dependent on our experiences, we can add new experiences now. We can have new information, new wisdom, new models and teachers and whatever that is that can help build up and strengthen those really great networks in our brain that help us make better choices, decisions that line up with the future we really want and the present experiences we really want.
The more mistakes you make, the more you learn, right
Kara Haug: So, yeah, so I have a question. This is a question I have for later, but we're going to just bring that up because I feel like it kind of falls in line with what you're saying, because one of the newest things that I was reading is something along the line of making mistakes that it was saying, that the more mistakes you make, the more you learn. Is that correct? If I'm saying that correct?
Speaker B: yeah, to a certain degree, yeah.
Kara Haug: Yeah. So I'm curious then, how does that, does that aid, then, in those experiential learnings that build up that part of the frontal loop? Or am I getting that completely?
Speaker B: No, that's good. It's good. It's funny because the, the world of mistakes has some complexity to it, right? So from the research, a lot of the research they use to look at that are things like where it's a fairly straightforward incorrect or correct answer. So math problem solving, for example. So there is something that lights up when, there is what is perceived as a mistake. And so the cool part is, first of all, already the brain is lighting up new activity as it is making mistakes. And part of the reason for that is because, just in contrast, if we're doing something we've mastered, if we're doing something that is quite well established inside our brain because it's all algorithms and resources that it has learned to use, if that is already well established, we will do it well. And I'm putting well in air quotes because, I mean efficiently. So there's a lot of things we do very efficiently that are not actually good for us necessarily, but we do them well in that sense.
Kara Haug: Right, right. Okay.
Speaker B: so in terms of making mistakes. Yes. When we are making mistakes, what it means is we have entered what I call neural territory, neural and behavioral territory we have not yet mastered and we haven't generally entered before. Because of that, new networks are lighting up that didn't necessarily light up before in that way. So as we make a mistake, we can be assured that what's cool, what's happening is our brain is having to fire up in new ways. It's having to activate electrochemical and blood flow activity in new ways. And there is growth involved simply in that.
Kara Haug: Okay?
Speaker B: So that's why it's. Yes, mistakes grow your brain in that sense. And there's research from Stanford. They have a, math teaching called u cubed. And they. They go in depth into that. the part where I can kind of see some confusion happening.
Speaker B: Is people, they will have made a mistake in the sense of they made a bad choice, they picked a partner that was kind of a mistake, or they made a decision about an activity that actually really didn't serve them well.
Kara Haug: Right.
Speaker B: What's tricky with that is there's opportunity to learn, but because of the, like, there's some complexity to that in terms of the emotions and the past histories and all of that, that we do need to have a moment of reflection and some understanding that it didn't serve us, right in order to actually have the learning, if that makes sense. And so another example, even from math, is, you know, they were kind of going on this. This movement of, like, celebrate mistakes. Mistakes are awesome. It means we're growing our brain, and that's true. But if somebody is adding one and one and getting three over and over and over again, we don't want to keep just celebrating. We need to help them understand that they actually have to pivot, they have to adjust. Something is not giving them the answer. That actually is what they should be getting. So, yes, it's. It grows our brain, but we need some awareness and reflection of that. It's an opportunity for us to make a little pivot or shift or adjust what we're doing.
Kara Haug: Right. So that kind of thing goes back to the Maya Angelou quote, is once you, you know better than you do better.
Speaker B: Right? Yes, yes.
Kara Haug: Right. So, like, can we make mistakes in everyday life? But I feel like there's an aspect to it that if we can, we could take that into, because I think so much of what we expect, we have lots of expectations for kids in general, in terms of why did you make that choice? And I can't believe you did that, you know, forgetting that they are figuring it out, forget that this is like, because they don't have everything fully hiring or functioning at the level, that we do. But even adults make mistakes. So I feel like maybe, and you can tell me if I'm wrong here, maybe it does give us a slight permission to. To recognize that perfection. It's okay to not achieve that, because there is always growth in an element of when we do make mistakes, but our hope is that we learn from them and we grow for them.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: Right.
Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. There's different flavors of that mistake kind of territory. But, yes, when it comes to. I, think it's really helpful for us to understand that when people are making choices that we can't understand, like that are so obviously unhealthy for us.
Kara Haug: Right.
Speaker B: There are very deep forces involved in so much of our behavior, and a lot of it is neurochemically driven to. And those neurochemicals, some of them have to do with our social value, how we may feel accepted or rejected. And then that gets very influenced by all the inputs we are getting around us. So what people. I'm speaking specifically to young people, about young people, in terms of what they might be surrounded by, in terms of pressures or expectations of, what it means to connect with somebody, what it means to feel a sense of intimacy. Those are things that are driven. They're drivers inside of us, neurochemically. And there are very strong forces at play that are there in terms of our evolutionary, profile. So we live in a much more socially complex time now where we have an economy and we need to get jobs in order to function as an independent person, or whatever that is. But our body, the primal architecture that's there, is still functioning from a long time ago when lifespans were very short, 27, 30 years, where it didn't. It wasn't so much about making choices that were gonna last for a really long time. So we have those two forces at play as well. and so it's important for people to just understand that those neurochemicals are really powerful, and they will get us to desire things and kind of yearn for certain things, like connection with somebody. And if we don't have a better understanding of all the different forms that that can happen, which some people don't, they might go towards, you know, immediate physical kind of connection, and not think about other forms, because that's just not in their awareness. M so, yeah, so it could look like a mistake to some people, and. But it's. A lot of it has to do with these urges and drives that are there. And the way that the mistake can be a platform for learning is that it really is this opportunity to explore what are the deeper reasons behind that behavior. Where did it come from? What were you really yearning for? potentially in. In a certain moment where you made a choice?
Kara Haug: Yeah.
What can you tell us about the way that trauma affects us in that way
And some of that. Then we're starting to realize, right, with trauma, of how those can affect the neurochemicals in our brain and the way that we also make those decisions. And so how. What can you tell us about the way that trauma affects us in that way.
Speaker B: Yeah, there. So there's a lot of different levels to trauma. first of all, there, there can be a traumatic event which is, you know, something happens or violation of boundaries or anything that can really drastically affect the nervous system. So there's that kind of trauma, but there's other, degrees or flavors of trauma as well, which is attachment based, in particular. And so that can look like either neglect or, abuse in some way during the childhood years. it can look like intrusion as well. Intrusive caregiving, what they call high risk parenting, which can be both intrusive or neglected. and then there's other levels that are not maybe what people would label as trauma, but they're adverse experiences or they're experiences that we had, particularly in our younger years. That's where a lot of these internal working models and all these algorithms are getting built. Where there was misattunement from the people around us, meaning they weren't attuned and they were potentially not capable of self regulating themselves to a degree that, ah, could handle and tolerate our distress or our needs for independence, for example. So a lot of these things can happen, and they embed themselves in many ways into the body and the nervous system. So whatever. Certain things can happen where, let's say if there was a lot of intrusion, there can be different effects on the nervous system where a person is much more vigilant towards intrusion and violation. And so huge barriers will come up and not wanting to be intimate on certain levels, but they can maybe bypass that on another level and that kind of thing. so these are all things that, where trauma, however we look at it, it's not one single event necessarily. The other thing that's really important for us to understand about trauma is that it's not really the situation or the event that makes it traumatic. It's what the person has as their neurological and behavioral resources at the time to handle and recover or deal with and navigate whatever that situation is. So you can't take two people and expect them to have the same response to anything. It's, they have whatever they have already going on in their brain and nervous system, and that will deal with it. So that's, I think, helpful for people to hear too, that one person's experiences might not even sound as big of a deal to someone, but actually because of what was underlying in terms of their neurology and their what was already there, it might have a severe impact on their decision making and their behaviors later and. Yeah, go ahead.
Kara Haug: I was just going to say, I think the key, like, that triggered it for me. What you just said is, like, at that time, like how a person is able to respond to something at that time. Right. Like how we might, you know, I think of the fact of we moved when my daughter was quite young, and that was a big deal for her.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: And a lot of people seem to think like, oh, kids are resilient, they can get over it. But at that time. Right. That was a really big deal for her.
Speaker B: Yes.
Kara Haug: You know, and that impacted her greatly.
Speaker B: Yeah. That's a really important point to make because what we see, what could potentially be, in a sense life threatening also is based on that. So when we are in a. When we're more vulnerable, when we are dependent on others to help us regulate, and as humans, we are simply until we're quite a bit older, partly because the complexity of the brain and how it develops quite gradually over time, what will feel, what could potentially feel very devastating or traumatic to, for example, a vulnerable person's nervous, system and to what they're dealing with. You're right, there's only a certain amount of resources they might have at a certain moment. And because the impact, because they may not have access to more maturity or complex thought or whatever that is, or strategies for getting out of situations or dealing with them, then it kind of anchors into the body and nervous system as this is a really big deal and we don't know how to handle it. So we're going to come up with a strategy to do that based on that version of you at that time. And so that could look like really high levels of self protection, but it can also look like something where you repetitively repeat, or repetitively, you repeat a choice over and over again in order to try to solve it. So that's actually something Freud called repetition compulsion, and it's come up in other trauma frameworks, but there's going to be these different strategies or responses that we have that were based potentially on that much younger, vulnerable version of us.
Speaker B: That doesn't make sense now because we're older. So obviously we have more insights. Obviously we have more ability to control our choices and stuff like that. But if it's very deeply embedded and it comes from before, until we are able to make that connection, it's very likely. It's very common for people to default and repeat behaviors that were learned a long time ago and were adaptive at that time. It was adaptive to do whatever it was you did, if you shut down, if you dissociated, if you became extremely violent and aggressive because you were young and you were trying to, whatever that was may have been extremely adaptive for what you had going on then, but it doesn't necessarily translate to now when you are potentially in a decently healthy relationship or you just have potential for that. those strategies might not be the right choice, but you have it so embedded in your nervous system that that will become the default because there wasn't, there hasn't been a connection made yet. And that's where coaching and teaching and learning about this is really important.
How do you help rewire that nervous system in which you can do differently
Kara Haug: Well, so then my next question would be, how do you help rewire that nervous system in which you can do differently?
Speaker B: Yeah, so awareness, like, it sounds cliche, but awareness really is the first step. And that will generally come from another source of information than what you are usually surrounded by. just because if there is no new, generally we are around very similar kind of information day in and day out, there's not really anything that novel that happens to. So in order to update an algorithm, we need new inputs, we need new information, and that can come in any, the form of any kind of learning or any kind of support or whatever it is. but just simply awareness that we might have patterns of behavior that were formed a long time ago that no longer serve us and we do have the potential to update those. But the other piece that, so the awareness of that then the awareness that we, it's very difficult to change behavior. we are, our brain body system is an energy conserving creature. That's what it is. So it doesn't really do it willy nilly. It's not going to just spontaneously change its behavior. It needs to see that there's a reason behind it, a benefit, and also that there's some consistency behind it. So this is where different strategies in terms of like what we call emotion regulation can be really important. And so the reason why I'm going to call it, there's a couple of things. I'm going to talk about self regulation, which is going to include emotion regulation to a certain degree and developing our executive functioning networks. Having that strengthened is going to be what helps us get out of our default patterns and explore the possibility of new pathways, new, just new possibilities. And it's going to be experimental. There's never one golden ticket. That is the thing you do for the rest of your life that works perfectly. It's going to be about increased flexibility and increased ability to kind of suppress one thing that comes up really fast and potentially open up to, I'm going to try something new and then keep trying it. Keep trying more of a, with a curious mindset of, I'm going to try a slightly different behavior. So I'll give you some concrete things about that. To strengthen the emotion regulation, these executive functioning networks, there's five things that we can pay attention to. the first is our eyes. And so I like to bring in the body in terms of what people pay attention to and notice because it gives them instant feedback. You don't have to read a magazine article about which brain areas, activating, because you will never know that in lifetime.
Kara Haug: Right.
Speaker B: But you can pay attention to, for example, what your eyes are doing. So our eyes, you know, the muscles of our eyes are activated by our motor system, and we have choice over that. We default to what we normally do, but we actually can bring more attention to what our eyes do in a given moment. And there's two aspects of our eyes that we can think about. One is the direction of our gaze. So as we, for example, ruminate. So this is something a lot of people do. It generally involves something called the default mode network, which is what our brain does when it's not actively engaged in a task. And it's generally very autobiographical. It's very much related to how does this affect me? How did this person respond to me? What was my past? What was my future? How does my past predict my future? All of that, that's like a sense of rumination. And you will notice that people's eye movement, where their eyes gaze, is very different when they're in that network than when they're actively present and engaged. So it's something to notice about yourself and others that just notice, like you're walking down the street or you're brushing your teeth or you're on the couch. If you feel there's going to be a sense of even what your eyelids, like, they're going to go down a little bit. Generally, people are slightly down or kind of forward as they're doing, as they're in that rumination, pick up your eyes, look up, change what your eyes do and do it as many times during the day as you can. Be intentional about what your eyes do. What do they look at? Can you hold your gaze a little longer on when you go for a walk, on that leaf, on that patch of grass on the sky? Do something new with your eyes. because even, like, trauma, when this doesn't even have to be about trauma, but default Unhealthy, repetitive patterns in our life generally means we're on autopilot. So what I'm encouraging with these five things I'm going to talk about is get out of autopilot, because that is going to be what activates these new networks. Right. So get out of that autopilot. use your eyes in new ways. That also includes the wrinkles around your eyes, so we indicate safety when they're nice and crinkly, like a genuine smile.
Speaker B: So try to have moments where you really feel that. Feel that. The cheeks go up a little bit. Those are crinkling. See how much you can engage in that. And that generally requires us to feel very spontaneously enjoying of a moment. It's actually the only way that we can get to that little crinkling of the eyes. It's called the duchenne smile. It was discovered by a neurologist in the 1880s, I think. So, do things that you really, truly enjoy, and you will see that activation. The second is. So that's the eyes, your hands, again, moving out of autopilot. Notice what your hands are doing at different moments. What do they grasp for? our limbs. Grasping for something is our first mode of self soothing. When we're very, very young, we grasp for something outside of us to take in, whether it's a person or food, or putting something in our mouth, whatever it is. But it's generally using our hands to grasp something. So just notice again, when you're on autopilot, if you notice that you're going for your phone again to scroll, have, a small moment of pause. Right?
Kara Haug: I was like, shoot. Yeah, we all do it, right? I do.
Speaker B: So just, like, try to have a moment of. Oh, hang on, let me just. Let me put my hand on my heart just for a second before I do that. Maybe let me just get in touch. Right? Like, let me just. How do I really want to feel in this moment? And it doesn't mean you won't go for your phone, but maybe having that small momentum moment of intention might help you use your phone in a new way. I want to feel. I want to feel, like, just good right now. Okay, I'm going to text that friend I love, or I'm going to go to that website that inspires me.
Kara Haug: Yeah.
Speaker B: So just having that one moment, just put your hand on your heart before you grab whatever it is. And it could be grabbing a bottle, food, you know, whatever that is. Just put your hand on your heart and have that moment of intention kind of breaking these autopilot cycles.
Pay attention to your breath and slowing down your exhale is important
the third is your breath. So that's a pretty common one a lot of people have heard about. But paying attention to our breath and very intentionally adding some pauses at the top of an inhale or exhale, and slowing and quieting down our exhale actually activates the vagal break, which is part of the vagus nerve, and that slows down our heart. Heart beats our heart rate, which actually also puts us more in a parasympathetic nervous system mode, which means we are not being mobilized to go away or fight something. So that, can be tricky for some people, though, because if you have some trauma in your past, slowing down can make people feel very anxious. So, just having the mindfulness of the breath is. Is important. Trying to slow it down, and then if it feels overwhelming, you know, let it go and even distract for a second and maybe come back. So the breath, is definitely a beautiful way. It's always there with us, and we can put our hands on our belly. That's probably the best way to really feel. If you are. If you can expand your belly in an inhale, you are actually activating stretch muscle receptors inside that. Then cue your brain that, oh, we must be kind of okay in this moment, because I would not expose my belly. I wouldn't inflate my belly in a time of actual threat. So it's putting your hands on your belly and feeling that.
Kara Haug: Okay, I'm going to expand. I'm going to ask, because this. I have, like, a million questions.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: Okay. So even. And I feel like that what you just said with the belly is fascinating because we, too, are also told multiple times, right, to suck in that gut.
Speaker B: No.
Kara Haug: Holding that gut. Right. Hold those muscles in tight. And, like, I was a dancer, and so I would always be walking around with a, very tight, you know, abs and things like that. Not so much anymore, but it was like that. Yep. And what I found to be interesting, and this is a little going into pelvic floor conversation, is that, you know, as we get older, we might experience that coughing, and then, you know, a little pee comes out and things like that, which is not normal. it is, as we say, it is, ah, common, but not normal. And so I got all these kegel muscle things checked out and everything. I thought I needed to do more kegels and all of this. And my pelvic floor therapist said, you need to relax.
Speaker B: Oh, fascinating.
Kara Haug: She said to me, the reason why you keep having issues where you leak urine on occasion. Right. Maybe more like too much information. Who knows? anyway, it was because I was overactive because I have always been tight.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: And so they, I am supposed to. And clearly I haven't been doing a good job because I've not taken the moment to relax. M but like, I need to lay down and I need to belly breathe.
Speaker B: Yes.
Kara Haug: I need to do those breaths.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: And so I find it fascinating that you are saying this, that our big belly, when we allow our belly to expand, also allows us to feel safe. And I find it fascinating that most of us walk around trying to restrict that.
Speaker B: Yes. Such a great point. I really appreciate, what you just shared because I think that's going to resonate with so many people, not even like just anatomically about that, but just this idea that, oh, I might think that what I've been doing is fine, but actually I may need to surrender and relax a little bit more. And the key word to me is always intentionality.
Kara Haug: Yeah.
Speaker B: It's great to have awareness for tightening our core for sure. Like, you know, my posture, I want to have, I can feel that I need to have some engagement there.
Kara Haug: Right.
Speaker B: But I also need to have intentionality behind it because if I'm always doing that and I'm doing it because I'm tense, that's ah, very different than when I'm doing it intentionally because I want to have some good posture right now and strengthen my core or also the intentionality coming in with, I need to be able to shift gears sometimes. And that means having some mastery over these commands that I send to my body. And that's the incredible part about humans is that we, unlike any other species, we can actually, with our mind, control our skeletal system and our breathing, we're literally taking a flexible part of our skeletal system, like part of these ribs where and also then the muscles, all those muscles we can literally kind of hack our brain to say, hang on a sec.
Kara Haug: Yeah.
Speaker B: If I expand right now, I am reassuring my whole nervous system that it's okay.
Speaker B: Right. And it's a great place to do it when we are in the living room, when we're in bed, where we know we're not in a life threatening situation to take that time to have that intentionality. Yeah.
So you talked about the executive functioning aspect, right? So as, uh, someone with ADHD
Kara Haug: Okay, so now I'm going to ask another one.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: So you talked about the executive functioning aspect, right? So as, someone who just, I was diagnosed like two years ago with ADHD, where we struggle with executive functioning.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: What are ways in which those of us who struggle naturally with those things, because forming habits is hard for me. Very hard. So how do we. Then how would I hijack that part and help myself? Those who are neuro spicy or diverse, how do we do that? M. What kind of. I don't know if you have the answer to that, but yeah.
Speaker B: Well, to a certain degree, yes. I mean, so attention, there are different aspects related to attention. But one thing I'm going to return back to the eyes. So even in the clinic that I work at, a lot of what we do for treating ADHD is eye training.
Kara Haug: Oh, really?
Speaker B: Yeah. So, you can even, there's exams you can take where you can watch. Like it's recording the movement of people's eyes. And if it's like giant clouds everywhere, we know. Oh, okay. They likely have some attention issues because they can't even track the line of text in a smooth way. It's going up here, it's going down there. So there could be reading issues, but there's often attention issues with that. Yes.
Kara Haug: And that would be me. Yes.
Speaker B: Yeah. So again, having this intention with our eye movement, literally strengthening, strengthening the muscles of our eyes is part of helping attention, which a lot of people don't make that connection.
Kara Haug: How do you do that? Yeah. I'm like, what?
Speaker B: Yes. Well, there's so like, there's definitely some fun stuff you could look up online, like eye training, you know, eye movement training. So there's definitely that. to do it yourself is 1st first to have like, I like to have a global, approach to it. So one thing would be to just do literally any kind of exercise you can think of where you are purposely like you have a keyboard in front of you and you take it so that you do every second letter and you look at it and make sure. And every time you miss, you come right back and you got to start again. Something like that. Or you know, a, drawing and even taking a pen and just drawing it, but making sure you are focusing your eyes, your eye using your eye muscles to keep watching the point of the pen as it goes across the page. What you'll find for a lot of people, even for a second, they're already thinking about something else. So they're. Yeah, watch them. And you could even have a recording of yourself. So take a selfie and watch like how often? Because you might not even. It might be so default that you might not realize that even after a couple seconds, I already started thinking about something else.
Kara Haug: Oh, yeah.
Speaker B: Your eyes will have changed. You will notice a change in your eye direction.
Kara Haug: That's really fascinating. So, yeah, so many connections. Okay, so then welcome to my brain. Yeah. Okay, so then in terms of eyes. Right. And then I'm thinking about focusing. How does that then, with the intentionality relate to our connections with other humans?
Speaker B: Yes. Eyes are so important. Yeah. And just for the readers who need the book, I've been nicknamed the bookmark. I'm really good at putting little. I'm coming back to. I still have two more.
Kara Haug: Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker B: So I'm coming back to that. No, that's good, because we're fleshing out eyes more.
Kara Haug: Like, this is great.
Much of what we are talking about is related to improving executive functioning
Speaker B: So, And all of this ties into if there are attention issues, if there's anxiety. Like, so much of what we are talking about right now in this segment of improving executive functioning is going to tie to almost any aspect of life that you can possibly think of. Because what people don't realize is if you have severe anxiety, if you have obsessive compulsive kind of thinking, if you're ruminating, if your tension's all over the place, if you are really depressed, even, there is a very good likelihood that you are having a hard time reining in what I call your beam of awareness, which is like your attentional circus or your beam of awareness. You're having a hard time, you are going into your negative self, talk like, oh, look at that, you lazy piece of blah blah. Like you're doing whatever. And what that is, you are not focusing your attention on things that are going to serve you. So that can be in all of these different challenges we all have as humans. So by what we're talking about now, as we're strengthening these executive function networks, we are going to improve all of those things because we are proving our mastery over that beam of awareness, of that ability to choose, suppress some thoughts and enhance some.
Eye gaze has an excitatory effect on the nervous system
To notice one thing, to notice this storyline that actually motivates me instead of going down the path that demotivates me, for example. So we were talking about eyes. What was your question again?
Kara Haug: So in terms of connecting.
Speaker B: Yes.
Kara Haug: With humans. Yes.
Speaker B: And so, again, it's another, Connecting our eyes with humans is another avenue, another platform to keep strengthening these attentional circuits, these executive functioning networks. So I gaze is so powerful. A lot of the research comes from early childhood. but basically, when eyes are mutually gazing at each other, when there's a pupil to pupil connection, there is an activation of endogenous opioids, of arousal systems that happen, generally speaking, eye gaze. Pupil to pupil, eye gaze has an excitatory effect on the nervous system. There's an arousal for, young infants. So it feels good because it's arousing. Right. It's exciting for young infants who don't yet have the capacity to, they actually cannot yet. They don't have the circuitry in their brain to kind of slow down when they get overexcited. They need the environment and the caretakers to help them with that. That's called attunement. So let's say with, with children, there's an excited heart. That's what they love it. They love eye gaze. Feels really good. Like, what's this?
Kara Haug: Yeah.
Speaker B: you're getting opioids, like, release. That's nice, right?
Kara Haug: Hm.
Speaker B: but with children, for example, there is a limit to how aroused they can get before it feels over arousing. And then you'll see actually in research as you watch the videos, that as they're getting to the place where it's a little, okay, I'm at the level that I can handle now. I can't go any further. They will avert, they will do something with their eyes. Look down, they look away. They do a little something to like, okay, let's take a little break.
Kara Haug: Yeah, feel.
Speaker B: So, and that's where it's important for the caretaker to be attuned, because if they keep pushing and they keep trying to have the eye contact, it actually can get it. So the child gets a little bit agitated. there's even longer term research that it can change a little bit how they approach relationships. So that's how powerful it is, though. I'm bringing that up because it's like your eye gaze is the, this thing, this like, amazing tool we have. So translate that into as we get older and older, we can use eye gaze as a form of really feeling, a sense of intimacy and connection because there's kind of a mutual feeling of arousal that can happen. But we also have to be very mindful because if someone does not have great self regulating abilities, there's a very good chance they are not, they're not going to be able to tolerate long amounts of that at all. So it's important for us, as if we're leaders or teachers, coaches, parents, not to take it personally either and not force it if you see a person not being able to do it because it kind of means that their nervous system can't handle it. Yeah, we can do little doses of it. And it is important because I think that eye gaze actually is missing for a lot of people.
Kara Haug: Yes.
Speaker B: Right. So if we're on the phone, it's not mutual eye gaze. Even a Zoom video is never really mutual eye gaze. People are flitting from their own image to that, and even, like, to get it perfectly on is going to be really hard. So it's generally missing for a lot of people, which means that for a lot of people, it's going to be dysregulating because they don't know how to deal with it.
Kara Haug: This is what I see in the classroom, and oftentimes, too, when I used to, I've learned because of just observing, you know, because I, you know, just as you said, eye gaze can take on many forms, and there's times where I would try to do different forms of, like, intentional conversation or a moment where we would look at each other and things like that. But then I quickly realized, oh, this is super uncomfortable for some people, this is dysregulating them. And a lot of it is because we don't have it as much. A lot of it is because of those feelings and because of neurodiversity, you know, like, for some people, it's just completely overwhelming.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: And so it's just fascinating to also know, though, that it is a space for many when we're. When I think it's invited and when people are at a space where they can handle it, that it is a place where we form those deep connections and bonds chemically with one another.
Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
Voice is a beautiful, beautiful connector of humans as well
Kara Haug: So I have one more question about the eyes. I'm so intrigued.
Speaker B: I know.
Kara Haug: So how do we then, for those who are blind, how does that work? Or does it not work then? Do you give them different.
Speaker B: Yeah, you do. The beauty of us as humans and the brain is that whatever inputs it's not getting in a certain cortex, you call it, or region, it will just use what it has, the inputs it's getting to strengthen whatever it has. And so voice is a beautiful, beautiful connector of humans as well. The frequency of our voice actually has effects on even the middle ear muscles, which tighten or relax the eardrum. And that also is what sends messages to our nervous system to breathe a little more deeply or stay put and connect rather than try to run away. So if someone doesn't, is not using their eyes for whatever reason. it could also be just from discomfort from doing that. Voice is another tool that humans have, too. So proximity is our first. It's our first one. And then as we become independent beings, then we move away from each other in space, then we have other tools for creating a connection instead of the proximity if we don't have it. So that is the facial gestures and the eye gaze and then the voice. Okay, so voice is a really. And actually, that was one. Look at that. That was my fourth key.
Kara Haug: There we go.
Speaker B: Is pay attention to your voice. So your voice, to me, is one of the most absolutely fascinating, what am I going to call it? Avenues, I guess, to think about. And I record, you know, I edit my own podcast as well, and I watch the frequencies and, have done a fair amount of work with this too. So, our voice is a very accurate reflection of our internal state. So what. And it can't be faked. Like, there's nothing fake about our voice frequencies. It is what, it is what we're transmitting. So when we, if we want to think about how to really connect very genuinely with people, how to make them feel safe with us, how to trust us, we that we have to, number one, get in touch with our internal state. It doesn't matter what words we use, doesn't matter what we're told about the voice that we should use. If our internal state doesn't have the intention of creating safety and authenticity and isn't there is not feeling safe for whatever reason that will get transmitted. As, the very specific frequencies are, the laryngeal and pharyngeal muscles tighten in very specific configurations. The way the breath gets kind of pushed out in different rhythms, changes, and then even the way our lips person, the tongue, all of it is, it's muscular movement that is affected by our internal state and our intention. Yeah. So if we want to create more safety and connection in our life, we can really look to our voice as a big part of that and practice in a moment. One of the key things we can do, which also ties in with improving executive functioning, is slow down our speech, not always, but just as a practice, and intentionality just as a practice. Like, we can get really excited, and that's very genuine. When I'm excited, I'm talking fast, and that's a beautiful way to make connection. But if we want to just have a little more practice in. Okay, I want to, let me just play with this. Let me experiment with my voice. Get in touch again with how you really, what you want out of, out of an interaction, what is, what is the feeling? What is the experience you want to create, get in touch with that, and then see what happens to your voice as you're intentional with that. So it might mean before you enter that difficult conversation, take that pause, feel what your face is doing, your eyes, your breath, feel your belly. And then get in touch with the feeling you want and let yourself notice a little bit your voice. Even as you're starting, obviously, in the middle of talking, you can't have all this awareness on your voice because then you're not talking genuinely.
Kara Haug: Right, right.
Speaker B: But to have a small moment just at the beginning where maybe you just slow it down just for a little bit or you pause before you say the next thing. Things like that.
Kara Haug: I think about how much actually energy this takes in the sense of, you know, like, I recognize, let's be real, I get elevated when I'm talking about screen time with my kids. Yeah, let's go to that example. And I quickly recognize when it's, like, in my chest, you know, and I'm like. And I say to myself, you are totally dysregulated. Don't say the words that are going to come out of your mouth. Oh, they came out. And then it's like. So the amount I feel of, I think, I mean, just using the word intention and, deliberate action towards that is a lot. And I feel like needs to be taught.
Speaker B: Yes.
Kara Haug: From a very young age, because I think we have to practice. Like, we need practice in that.
Speaker B: Yes. It won't be the default.
Kara Haug: Right.
Speaker B: And it's not to shame, like when we, when we yell or when we have very abrupt sounds which are kind of like barks in a sense. There's a purpose behind that, too. And sometimes, like, for, let's say, whoever it is we're working, we're with interacting with, for example, boundary violation. We want. We want them to get into a mode of like, whoa, what just happened? M. We don't want to be in. Oh, that's totally fine.
Kara Haug: Yeah.
Speaker B: Not when they're annihilating our boundaries. Nope. Yeah. Like a. Like a mean animal.
Speaker B: Potentially. Right. But it kind of depends. It's very context dependent. That's what's so important about all this.
Kara Haug: Yes.
Speaker B: And when it comes to, let's say, helping our kids have different choices in their behavior, there are times and places, too for the abrupt sound that needs to happen. The question is often, is there a pattern that keeps repeating? If a pattern keeps repeating and we don't like the pattern, then okay, that means that the tone of voice and the words I have been using clearly aren't working. Therefore, let me experiment with a new version just to see happens. Let's try a joke. Let's try a weird song. Let's try whispering whatever it is. Right.
Sometimes novelty is what gets humans to when something is ordinary
So it's always about experimentation.
Speaker B: With something new. If a pattern is repeating that we don't like. Yeah. So great for you to bring that up because, yeah, there might be some parents who are really sweetly talking every time their kids are on screen, and maybe that pattern is repeating and they don't like it. So you know what? We might need to try something very different next time.
Kara Haug: Yeah, maybe I should go to the.
Speaker B: Sweet talk just, just to try, like, because sometimes the novelty is actually what gets humans to when something is ordinary. That's actually literally our brain. There's a whole special wave, the n 400, that kind of perks it like, oh, wait a minute. This is absolute normal pattern.
Kara Haug: Yeah.
Speaker B: That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think we need more models of self regulation to help kids
Kara Haug: So did you have one last one to touch upon?
Speaker B: Yes.
Kara Haug: Get them.
Speaker B: Which is the body. Yeah. So we talked about, eyes, breath, voice, hands, and then just body posture. So having, having some awareness of that too, of potentially when we're feeling very self defeated and negative, we might notice that our body is kind of slumping over or doing whatever that is, if we are. But again, this is about patterns that serve us or whatever. If there's a certain stance we're taking that maybe, feels too rigid, then maybe we want to soften as well. So it's kind of just playing with the body, noticing what our body is doing. And if it feels like it's conveying the signals we want as well. So openness of body is conveying that. I'm welcoming connection. Closeness of body is saying that I don't welcome it. So tuning in from others, but noticing it in ourselves as well. Yeah.
Kara Haug: So quickly because apparently it's time is already.
Speaker B: I knew it. I knew we were going to go on so many tracks.
Kara Haug: Because I'm obsessed. just quickly because I feel, again, like, I just think all of this should be taught at such a young age. And I feel like it's imperative for us as adults to recognize and to learn. You know, I just read the book, what happened to you? by doctor Bruce Perry. And I'm just like, everyone needs to read this book. and so I feel like we would have such a more a deeper understanding of each other. And I believe, like, our entire educational system would be different if we recognized all of this. you know, what we have learned now about neuroscience and things like that and trauma, I just feel like so many things would be different. So what is it quickly that you would think that we would need to start implementing at a younger age to start this process.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: To become a healthier society.
Speaker B: Really the first thing that comes to mind, which is really why I started the work I do, is we need more models of self regulation.
Speaker B: Kids need people in their life that have a level of intentionality, that have an ability to be flexible and adjust in a moment, if something's not working, try something new, see how it goes, not collapse if it doesn't work well. and it doesn't mean calm and collected all the time, it doesn't mean kids need adults who are calm and collected all the time. It means kids have adults who first of all, are willing to try new perspectives and new ideas, and also who may fall down, may have eruptions, may have dysregulation, but they recover and they figure out how to repair after that, how to build up after that, get back up after a fall. That's what I think we need the most of, is models of that, of this kind of this flexibility, this ability to regulate ourselves, but very flexibly, again, very context dependent in terms of that. And then involved with that is more having more understanding and information and just awareness of the import of how brains develop, how our nervous systems are interacting with each other. And it is going to need to be the adults first, because I always say it's the most self aware person that has to go first always. There's no other way around it. So having more adults in the world who get this and who understand the importance of it, that it's not a theory, there's actually, it's a molecular, chemical, physical, kinetic, sensory thing that we do, which is how we breathe, how we talk, how we look at each other, all of that, it's constantly transmitting and receiving signals with each other. And the more adults that understand how to do that a little more intentionally, even if they make lots of mistakes along the way, they're compassionate with themselves about the mistakes they make. And modeling that, that self compassion as well, with these learning journeys, is going to be what helps regulate the nervous systems of the kids, but also develops that circuitry that's going to make them better human being in general.
Kara Haug: Yeah, and that's great. that's, you know, when people ask me about how to teach, you know, kids about sex and different things like this and what do we need to do first? And they want to bring me in to talk to the youth and do different things, I always say, first of all, we're going to start with the adults.
Speaker B: Yep.
Kara Haug: Before I go and talk to the youth, we will start and talk to the adults. Yes, because it's almost, in my opinion, sometimes a little pointless to talk to the youth when we're not having the conversation with adults whom they're with all the time. Yes, because they need to hear the things too. Right.
Speaker B: That's exactly my experience. Like, I was a school counselor for a while and was, you know, doing a lot with the kids. And then I realized, because I was trying to also promote the idea of mistakes, friendly classrooms and things like that. Getting the kids felt great about it, but I knew the teachers they were going back to or I knew the home they were going home to. And so it became more important to me to start doing workshops for the parents and the teachers because exactly that reason. The kids can learn it, but if they don't have, they don't have the brain capacity to build up all those networks on their own. It is. It's serve and return and it's about the relationships that are around them. So, completely agree with you.
Kara Haug: Yeah, for sure.
It's okay for things to take time and we can enjoy that
my last question for you is, what story are you reframing today?
Speaker B: Yeah, I thought about that.
Speaker B: I think the main one that I'm reframing is that it's okay for things to take time and that it's possible to enjoy the process along the way, to watch it unfold, to actually even be grateful things don't happen all at once.
Kara Haug: Yeah.
Speaker B: Because we think we may want that and then actually it's not in the rhythm that might even serve us. So, Yeah, that it's okay for. For things to roll out slowly sometimes and take time and we can enjoy that.
Kara Haug: Yeah, I agree. I feel like I'm hearing that same.
Speaker B: Story, and that goes with everything I'm saying as well. For all the listeners out there, that this is not a one and done deal. you don't see giant changes, you know, overnight or even in short periods of time. Like, the brain develops slowly. It takes a consistency, it takes that intention, it takes effort as well. And feeling a sense of effort and even feeling like things aren't quite clicking, there's so much space in that to keep extracting information and wisdom from it. So it takes time, and that's okay.
Kara Haug: And I think that's the part, too, that we all clearly struggle with because we're used to, we live in a fastenitive paced society and we want instant gratification, and it's getting worse as we continue on. And so, yeah, they. I, feel like my word been, like, intentionality. Like, I just hear it from so many people of, like, this is what they're trying to get to. This is where they're needing to go. This is what they want for their life.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: And sometimes it's like our life doesn't offer that to us, and so we have to make that happen, you know?
Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, totally.
Stephanie's passion is helping coaches infuse neuroscience into their work
Kara Haug: Well, Stephanie, I just love talking to you.
Speaker B: So good.
Kara Haug: So thank you so much for joining me today, and I know that you also do this as a coach for people.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Kara Haug: So do you want to speak briefly about that?
Speaker B: Yeah, sure. so my passion is helping coaches and, consultants, infuse what they do with all of this kind of neuroscience and a very specific kind of neuroscience, which is embodied social neuroscience, which you can see from today's talk, really bringing the body and our social systems influences. so, yeah, that's called the neurocoach program, and it's my passion project. So I have more. I do have more spots opening in the fall. it's full right now, but, and all my stuff on my website, I have free mini books and courses, and it's all my passion to share so people can check out lots for free as well. Stuff like facebook.com.
Kara Haug: Yeah. And that'll be in the show notes. Well, thank you so much again. I appreciate it.
Speaker B: Yes. You're welcome.