Decision Making Stress: A Simple Solution That Works
Decision making can be super stressful. We make thousands of decisions each day. Being distracted and anxious only adds to decision making fatigue and worry. Today, we learn a bit of brain anatomy to help us along in making the decision-making part of our brain more developed, calmer and a better decision maker without added stress, procrastination or excuses.
In this episode we will learn:
~A handy brain model to assist us in understanding how the brain works
~Why decision making in particular in the brain is delayed until our mid-twenties
~How meditation helps in making our brains more advanced
~Vipassana Meditation
Quotes:
“Meditation is practicing on focusing…hanging in there, begin tough and resiliency. And that is the name of the game! There really is nothing better for you. Meditation is about as good for you as water and you deserve a good long drink.” -Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW
Books, ideas, people, websites mentioned in this episode:
Dan Siegel’s Handy Brain Model via YouTube
The Whole Brain Child: The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive by Dan Siegel, MD https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10353369-the-whole-brain-child?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=GzIDNaUqXg&rank=1
The Host for this podcast:
Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW
The Stress Therapist and Author
Twitter: @stresstherapy
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cheriaugustineflake
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheri-augustine-flake-719b044
Website: https://thestresstherapist.com/
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A word from your host, Cheri Flake, LCSW:
Feeling good after our Stress Therapy session? Awesome. Check out the show notes to connect with me, The Stress Therapist on social media and you can always go to iLoveTherapy.com to find out about meditation and yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there. Do you live in Georgia? Are you ready to be one of my clients? Go to my website to find out how you can sign up for a free consultation with me. But at the very least, go to my website and jump on my mailer so, you don’t stress or miss one thing!
Time Stamps/Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to brain anatomy
01:41 Dan Siegel’s Handy Brain Model
05:15 Pre-frontal cortex in decision making
07:50 How to strengthen the decision-making part of your brain
08:23 How meditation helps
10:31 Decision-Making help for kids
11:15 Practicing focus vs. distraction
14:55 Introduction to Vipassana Meditation
18:27 Binaural Beats (alpha)
26:43 Guided Meditation Out
28:05 Closing Remarks
28:49 Outro
Hey beautiful people decision-making fatigue is real and decision making stress is off can we offer camera she was actually going on in your brain and how to change your brains anatomy quite simply make better decisions and feel good about your decision to be able to do them super calmly if you have kids or work with kids you’re deathly gonna wanna listen to this one because they need help with decision making more than anyone let’s do this it’s season for stress therapy episode 50 lay back and listen up is your stress there if he session is about to begin right now hey beautiful people it’s time for some stress therapy a podcast about how to meditate and get better and stressed for people living in the real world finally a place to park by 25+ years of experience of working as a psychotherapist and the mental health field and now your house it’s the stress therapist Cheri Flake handful people OK e-learning a little bit of anatomy because when you understand the anatomy of your brain you can understand what is going on when you’re making decisions when you’re super stressed out when you flip your lid whatever and I’m going to be using Dan Siegel’s handy brain model is very handy when abusing her hand but I’m going to be giving it to you of course visually in this podcast is that visual right so you’re just listing which you know it does require a little bit of extra effort but it’s really good for your brain to listen up and I’m Magine and look at your own hand while I describe this brain anatomy and it’s a great idea to go to the showing out I just simply go to YouTube and search Dan Siegel handy brain model it’s right there he’s got some great videos there that explains however here goes ready you don’t need to do that I can do it for you here we go take your hand and put your thumb inside of it a game make the number four and then curl your fingers over it again so now you’ve made a fist again and then turn your palm down so you’re not girls are facing up OK and your fingers if you opened them they would shoot to the side right so kind of imagine that your wrist and all the way down to your elbow would be like your spinal cord right this is your brain a Raber looking at your brain the very top you’re not goals are and where your fingers are bent that is weird been on the front of your brain would be right got this OK so if you open up your hand and now when you go to the pond where the deep down in the room we will talk about the downstairs being versus the upstairs brain this is your downstairs brain right this is what we first started out with this is the lizard brain to be a Tilian brain behind a brain the brain stem the downstairs brain all of the parts of your brain dinner automatic when you think of things that you don’t have to think about in order to do them right like digest food or breathing or all of that fight flight freeze all of that action is automatic OK that is is very focused on survival is here in the palm of your hand now when we became a couple hundred thousand years later when we became mammals I am you can put your thumb now and press it up against your palm so you’re making the number for a kid this little farm is your limbic system if we could learn we cared about our offspring you know we have a motions now that type of thing I am those are some of the commands and that’s the downstairs bring that makes the whole downstairs right now keep in mind that because your thumb is crunched up again all of your you know your anatomy your actual automatic things like fighting off diseases and jumping out of the way of a trade I think all that on mixed up your limbic system which does have your emotions there right is pressed up against it and therefore that’s why emotions feel very physical right because it’s right there up against it and we can get kind of caught in this emotional looper were upset feeling physically bad when you bring your fingers down around your thumb OK and you’re back to your little handy brain Madeline out looks like a brain again this is your upstairs brain this is your Neil cortex OK and this is what we got only be can primates OK so now we can make plans you know we’re looking more advance and up here in the front room I think your nails are this is where your pre-frontal cortex is and this is what makes you human you can make decisions you can have compassion you can do advanced planning in reasoning you can empathize with someone else this is very advance in at those little finger nails OK are these the red come down from your upstairs brain Magine a little thread attached every little single now comes down and Susie are downstairs brain without you having to do anything OK so what happens is these little thread helping away so that if you get cut off say on the road you don’t go ahead make the four flip your lid and act like an animal or a crazy person without a prefrontal cortex you’re able to be like oh well maybe this person had a bad day maybe they’re in a hurry you know you can have some compassion you don’t just like physically attack them like a zebrawood or any other error ma’am or whatever OK what this means is that when you’re prefrontal cortex is fully developed you’re pretty good decision maker OK you you have advanced reasoning skills right it’s OK might not surprise you that this part of your brain is not fully developed until about 825 right yes right this explains teenagers I’m sorry if you’re a teenager but this explains a lot right and furthermore there are some studies there that for girls versus boys boys prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until 29 or 30 which also explains all the things I’m just not I’m just gonna leave that here OK I’m gonna given gonna touch that but you know somethings up something to think about and what I always say is there’s really only two industries on this or is that recognize this anatomy reality certainly it’s not high schools and middle schools that are getting kids up way way way way way too early and not understanding that kids brains actually need more sleep in order to develop this part of the brain certainly not but rental car companies you must be 25 to rent a car you have to be 25 in some places to rent a hotel room and these places are using data and statistics in order to figure out the rates or whatever and this is what they’re fighting the people over 25 or better drivers which one you think of the Hindi brain model this makes perfect sense so let’s get into this for a second he’s a little threads come down and Susie are downstairs brain without you having to do anything can be strengthened what does this mean what this means that your prefrontal cortex is more developed so everybody wants to be a better decision maker everybody wants to be calmer more compassionate more empathetic kinder able to pause before they act these are all the things that these little threads provide and nobody wants to be all riled up and stuck in some sort of emotional physical loop right so how can we get those threads stronger and more developed one way meditation meditation OK there are differences in peoples prefrontal cortex those little thread is coming down after just three weeks of meditation now you can imagine if you look at the extreme this is why monster chill right there meditating all the time they’re also spending so much time in that state that it has become a trait that’s why monks hotel right and you don’t need to meditate eight hours a day in order to do this I’m talking five 1015 minutes a day after three weeks you’re gonna notice a huge difference OK I make all of my clients meditate I make you meditate every podcast will be way easier for me to just talk and leave OK but I want you to understand that the extra effort makes a huge difference I’m gonna give you some benefits a meditation next week they are going to downed you absolutely boy your mind however I talk to people all the time Hotel me they would do anything to stop procrastinating to be healthier to be happier, less anxious to not have this medical problem to have the blood pressure go down whatever and often yeah I’m not much of a pessimist as you know I’m pretty positive person often that means not that I will do anything to change it but then I really just want to take a pill and I will tell you that if meditation what’s up Hill it would be $1 trillion industry it would be every single person on this earth would be taking that pill three times a day because it is so good for you OK but let’s just roll it back to strengthening he’s little threads so it’s kind of like you you put a little bit of money in your piggy bank put a little bit of money in your piggy bank you put a little bit of money in your piggy bank each day and little by little you feel a lot better if we only talk about the better decision making OK my kids know that meditation have some perform better in sports makes it so music is more enjoyable that they will have a decreased need for sleep and that they will learn faster and easier and more thoroughly if they have a meditation practice and all of this relates to better decision making and they know that if they make better decisions they get more privileges and that’s why they meditate so rather than sit around and look at your phone and look at this device and that device and scroll down scroll down scroll down and feel bad and get all these kind of exposure and spend your time learning how to be distracted teaching your brain how to be distracted because what virus together wires together man if you are spending all kinds of time practicing how to make an 8 quart and a guitar it’s gonna get better and if you are practicing all kinds of time learning how to be distracted it’s going to get worse and this is not surprising OK this is why it’s gonna be really interesting to see what happens here with the phone situation we don’t have our grandparents and forefathers to ask what limits we should put on her kids or ourselves even and I’m all these little tips and tricks how to try to avoid the phone trap and not get stuck in the scrolling over and over and the next thing you know 20 minutes have gone by and you’re looking at someone’s cousins from New Jersey’s pictures from the wedding that you don’t even know and UNI how are you got there when you could be spending past that time meditating and making your brain a better decision maker making your brain smarter and making your brain more Vance to more human even better even before your time if you’re before 25 maybe your prefrontal cortex will be Super Duper advance by then that’s what I tell my kids what is available to you if you actually practiced Fien focused because that’s what meditation is it’s not a focus on nothing no Thang it’s a focus on one thing and you are practicing concentration you are practicing focus which is the name of the game and hanging in there been tough resiliency right that’s why we meditate every single time we come together for because there really is nothing better for you I always say meditation is about as good for you as water and you deserve a good long drink so a lot of these podcasts or focus on making meditation habitual because I want you to have this I want you to have this next week we gonna talk about the benefits of meditation and I mean it’s gonna be crazy I want you to choose a couple and here’s the thing I’m not even gonna be able to tell you all the benefits of meditation because the benefit that you were going to be bragging about in your future your story about meditation I can’t even predicting because it’s always something I could’ve never imagined with my clients for me I probably mentioned hear that it’s sunset I never noticed or even saw a sentence I was so busy busy busy busy busy all the time so living in the future all the time I never even saw one I cannot believe the beauty that I’ve missed and at the beauty I get to enjoy it now I’m noticing nature by being outside I didn’t even notice any of it I didn’t even care about it I was so obsessed with what was coming next I couldn’t even be in the moment that I was in and sunsets are that simple for me and now I try to see every single one that I can because it’s such a gift it’s such a beautiful gift and I want you to have yours and that’s why we meditate so next week we gonna talk about that I want you to have it so right now we’re gonna meditate together right now because we don’t wanna miss a thing we don’t want to miss one Sunset do this right now find a comfortable sitting iMessage allow your spine to be strange shoulders down to level to the ground can put your hands on your knees facing down or up today were going to be doing the past and I meditation it is of the Buddhist tradition it is to focus on exactly what is this what happening right now until we use Pratt as an anchor your point of focus your concentration is the breath so with your eyes comfortably closed and your body is settled in Bring all of your attention to the broth if we are honing what is if I awareness is on what is can you don’t need to change the press you are a witness to it do you watch it so point to focus can be helpful in the nostrils in the throat the heart center in the valley I’m one place to watch your breath Count to make it any different not to judge it if it’s right or wrong you’re some thing watching it and when your attention filters and it will because your brain was created to think he just simply come back to the branch over and over again hundreds of times thousands of times which is keep coming back to the ground that is the practice the cutting back to it coming back home noticing the inbred they are graph is it passes through your point of awareness stay with it I watch the time I’m gonna leave you with your previous this is all you’re supposed to be doing this is all the practices remains still watch the graph and keep coming back to it enjoy your grass i’ll eat you out and if he minions gently yourself to come away from the ground back into this moment and this time in this body before jumping up and moving on take a long slow deep breath in your notes and let it all go out of your mouth it’s repeat that in your Nana letting it all go out of your mouth on my time in your nose good morning egg awakening centering coming back to right now and when you’re ready you can open your beautiful eyes OK so I hope that was helpful for you gives you a good idea of what kind of practice you can painter life every day because believe me I promise you decision making and being better at it and less stressed interest now I’m just living your life better each day I mean think about all the decision to make each day what to eat whether not to work out where to go who to hang out with what to do it’s constant right decision making is incessant and this is only one Little teensy tiny benefit of meditation next week we’re gonna really delve into it and you’re not gonna believe it’s gonna be awesome OK until next time are y’all feeling after that stress therapy session good check out the show notes to connect with me is there a piss on social media at distress therapist on Instagram and asked rest therapy and what are you can always go to Ilovetherapy.com to find out about meditation and yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there if you live in Georgia and you’re ready to be one of my clients go to my website to find out how you can sign up for a free face-to-face consultation with me at the very least jump on my mailer so you don’t stress I’m missing one thing until next time have a lovely lovely day
