Caroline Leaf, PhD

I'm Dr. Caroline Leaf. 38 years ago, I developed a process in desperation to help my patients. And the process I developed is called the neuro cycle. And the neuro cycle is a way that you can use your mind to actually change and rewire your brain. You can rewire the thoughts in your brain. It's literally that scientific process of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity means that you can change your brain. You can rewire the networks of your brain. And why is that important? Well, the networks of your mind, brain and body drive how you function. So if you've gone through something, whether it is a bad habit you build, whether it is a it's a trauma that you've been through, whether it is a day to day struggle that's affecting you daily. All of those things are affecting your mental health and affecting your mental fitness. Now all of us battle with this. We all battle with day to day struggles and the unexpected challenges of life. We all have bad habits that we've developed that affect our mental fitness, and we've worked to a certain extent, but it's various different traumas that have happened to us over the course of our life that are affecting us in some way. If they are dealt with and we can learn to manage those, we can learn to manage our mind. We can learn to self-regulate. We can be empowered to do that if we don't feel helpless and get even more mental health and mental health, even more challenged. When our mental health is challenged and when our mental fitness is challenged, our physical health is also challenged. And then that just kind of disrupts our life. Like we have to deal with physical fitness and eating healthy food. We have to manage our mental fitness. In fact, mental fitness is so important that without your mind, what you do with your body and eat isn't going to matter anyway because it makes your mind is a messy brain, a messy body, and a messy life. And the news cycle helps you identify the messiness and helps you identify those toxic thoughts that are driving you and affecting your mental fitness and your mental health, causing that anxiety and depression helps you identify others. It helps you find the thoughts that they're attached to. The experience helps you to deconstruct those and recall. Instruct them into healthy new ways of functioning. And doing that in a way that they become a habit, which means that they will be sustainable and will show up in your life. It's no good just knowing what causes something and then going around and around in circles. You can't change what's happened to you. We can't change the stories of our life. What's happened to us has happened to us. But what we can do is identify those how those are affecting us and affecting our mental health. How we showing up in life. We can then find what those those thoughts are attached to, those thoughts of those days. The way you showing up is attached to break them down and broken up into healthy new ways of functioning, and then turn those into a sustainable habit that will then help you change how it plays out into your future. So just knowing what's going on and just, you know, putting a few little habit formed little mini habits is not going to create sustainable change in your life. What I've shown in my research is that you have to do a plan to guide a daily process daily. That little mini habits for many years cycles daily over at least 63 days. I did some of the first neuroplasticity research in the world back in the late 80s, early 90s, and I showed that in order for you to have behavior change in your life, in order for you to improve your mental health, your mental fitness, your cognitive functioning, your social functioning, you need to rewire our experiences that are blocking you and that rewiring, which is changing its direction. The neuroplasticity doesn't just happen in a couple of days or even 21 days. It has to happen daily in these little mini habits, building into the big sustainable habit that shows up as change in your life. So continue to research that and do lots of research and publish in journals. And I've shown with my clinical trials that you can reduce anxiety and depression by up to 81% by working daily on your mental fitness using the neuro cycle. Now the exciting thing is I've put this neurosurgical into an interactive neuroscience app. So I have a neurosurgical app that you that is available at iTunes and Google Play, and there's also web version at neuropsychological. And when you've got that app, download that in your phone and you're just going to give 15 to 20 minutes of your day to work through this app. It starts with a little meditation and breathing exercise, which is great for your neurophysiology and your mindset and set you up for the day. And then you work through the five steps of the neuro cycle, the neuro cycles, a five step kind of guided process. And I'm going to explain that in a moment. And I'm going to give you an example. So just to come back to summarize what I've been saying, the neuro cycle is a process, a scientific process that helps you to rewire the networks of your brain, helps you to find the toxic suit, break it down and build it up again so you can rewire your brain with your mind. You can direct the neuroplasticity of your brain within your cycle, and that's something that you need to do all day long, every day. So once you know how to use in your cycle and you do it in this and you do it daily in the 63 day, it's 60. Over the 63 days, not only are you doing this plan guide program, but this carry over into daily life because the the discipline of using those five steps every day helps to organize your mind so that you find yourself using it in the moment. So maybe you're in a meeting and this is a side effect, a great side effect of the neuro cycle. You're in a meeting and someone say something that completely throws you, and you feel yourself getting worked up where you can quickly do in your cycle to get yourself back on track. You can do that looking at the people in the meeting like, I'm looking at you, you can go through the five steps such as redirects, the networks of your brain and the energy of your brain, and helps you build up both calming oxygen and neurochemicals to flow through your brain, and helps you to build an immediate network that you can draw on to help diffuse the situation and help you to cope in that situation. So it has great side effects to by doing the disciplined every day, each working on a on one issue over the 63 days flat practice. You can then carry over into daily life and once you finish that one thought, you don't stop because we've all got a bunch of stuff. We've got a bunch of traumas that we're dealing with. You got a bunch of bad habits and we need to work on, and we've got new ones that we built, so there's always something that you're working on. You don't stop eating, you don't stop breathing, you don't stop using your mind. So the neuro cycle is helping you to continually use your mind in the best way. You see you always having multiple experiences a day, and each of those experiences is changing the networks of your brain. The mind processes that experience into your brain, in your body. So your brain is changing regardless of whether you're directing it or not. But if it's if it's chaotic, if you are responding in, in an, in a, in a bad way when toxic, well, you just start dealing with your stuff and suppressing it. That is creating chaos in the mind, brain, body network, and that will affect your mental fitness and affect your mental health. And that's where the neuro cycle steps in the new cycle is, is a simple process that you can, you can that works in a very complementary way to traditional talk therapies. If you encounter single therapy, if you're using any other meditative apps, if it complements it, it's basically the vehicle within which you then put all those different techniques. So these are some special visualization techniques that you level CBT, cognitive behavior therapy techniques, or great techniques. A you therapist has told you you can still use those within that framework. The neural cycle is the process of how we make change. Things like CBT and talk therapy or techniques that you fit into that order. Because the key to making sustainable change in your life and getting that mental mental fitness going in that mental health going, is for you to actually follow the principles of neuroplasticity. Otherwise, it's just going to be a lot of knowledge that you accumulate and you don't really apply it. The neuro cycle helps you to wire the networks in so that you can apply all these amazing things that you're learning. So I encourage you, whatever techniques that you've gained from reading, from self-help books, from other apps, from talk therapy, counseling, whatever you can build into this app, you can use all of those in the In the News Cycle app. The other thing is if you computer therapist 24 seven but you with your self 24 seven you the one in their day to day struggle, you're the one dealing with that toxic trauma. You're the one dealing with your thoughts. When you wake up at night, your mind is going crazy. So the news cycle helps you to reorder that. I mean, you can reorder that, reorganize, capture that and do something about that. So if you wake up at three in the morning with a panic attack and those intrusive thoughts are overwhelming you, you can live in your cycle. You can sit up and do in your cycle. And that'll help you get that brain mind body connection back under control and help you to feel like you have autonomy over the situation. So how does it work then? Your cycle is five steps. The first step is to get awareness. The second step is to reflect. The third step is to write. The fourth step is to recheck. The first step is to do an activity. Those are the that's the name of each of the steps. And obviously each of those steps are done in sequence. You do them in that order. That's the order of neuroplasticity, the sequence of neuroplasticity. And as you do them in that order, you changing the network of your brain that doesn't change in one day or 2 or 21. It changes in 63. Phase one, your you use those five steps daily to identify the toxic issue and how showing up in your life, and to deconstruct and reconstruct one little mini neuro cycle, one little part of the head. The when little mini habit at a time. By day 21, you've reconstructed a new beautiful habit. You still remember how you were. You can't change what's happened to you, but you changing what it looks like. So it's got really small and been replaced by this beautiful new habit. And now you want to practice making that habit strong. You want to add energy to that habit and grow big enough to be sustainable. You want to you want to make it strong, and that's why you require the next 42 days. So you spend you the same five steps within your cycle. Slightly different. I guide you through this in the in detail, and you're going to practice growing the youth thought that you formed over the first 21 days. You're going to practice. Practice making it stronger so that it shows up automatically in your life, directing you to you just to nudge, oh, I'm doing this new thing. It's become what we call automatic. It's intelligently helping drive how you function. But unless you do the full 63 days and unless you do it in that order, that neuroplasticity effect won't happen. The neuroplasticity effect is sustainable change in your life. The neuroplasticity effect is building these habits that create sustainable change in your life. So it's did we do a little example with you to help you? So let's talk about this. An example of poor self-esteem that's affecting how you function at work. So just as an example so poor self-esteem they could that it could incorporate. That could mean that you're having a lot of intrusive thoughts at all. I can't do this unless are people please I'm not going to be accepted. I just don't have confidence in myself. I just don't feel good enough, that kind of thing. And it's affecting how you function at work, and it's potentially affecting how you function on a day to day basis in your relationships and just how you have a relationship with yourself. So it needs attention. That's a big thing. It's got a cause. It's a self-esteem is a big issue, and you may need multiple neuro cycles because as you do the work of the neuro cycle, you may find that the root cause is something that's from childhood or adolescence or early adulthood. That was pretty traumatic. And that affected your self-esteem, which could be an accumulation of different events of your life that you just never quite dealt with. And each one just made it worse. So as you work through the first 21 days of deconstructing and reconstructing, these things start coming up. And that's why I have in the app. I have decompression activities as well, so that if you kind of feel worked up from working on the app on on a particular day, then I give you decompression activities to help to calm you down, which is really important to you. Never push yourself if things start getting a little overwhelming, you stop the decompression activity, pick it up the next day. Okay, so let's say for example, working on the self-esteem issue. And so the first thing first step is to gather awareness. So you're very focused. You are gathering. You're in control. You're standing back. You're observing yourself and you're gathering awareness of how you are showing up. And you do this by asking yourself four questions. How am I? How am I feeling? What am I emotions and unsure of? I am feeling depressed and frustrated, whatever. Or I'm feeling sadness and self-hate. Then you say waiting. Feel this in your body. Why am I feeling this in my body? It feels like headaches. Then you ask yourself, how is this showing up in my behaviors, what I'm saying and doing, and people pleasing? Then you ask yourself first question put together witness is has this affecting my perspective, my attitude, how I'm viewing the day? And it could be the answer to that. I'm not good enough. My perspective is I'm just not good enough. So that's the first step is get that awareness. If asked for questions and you've answered four questions for statements, so you become variable, focused in a way what am I emotions with my body? How's it affecting my behaviors? How's it affecting my perspective? Then you move on. It's an all kinds of amazing things on a neuroscientific level that stick, then you move on. Reflect. Reflect is why when you shine a light through prism, it comes out as a rainbow on the other side is deep. So you asking, why are you shining this full step for answers to get awareness through the prism? And you're saying why? Why do I feel the sadness and self-hate? Why does why does why I'm feeling a dark headaches in my body when people pleasing? Why am I feeling not good enough? And you start trying to answer that. You spend limited time. You don't spend hours just 2 or 3 minutes on the get awareness, 2 or 3 minutes on this reflect. Then you go to step three. So in terms of the reflect, maybe your answer is why am I struggling to find to with a self-esteem? I feel like I have and answer, so I feel like I have no value as a person. Why? I don't know, but that's the first way. It's day one, so maybe they want you don't know. But you know, I see you've identified, you started asking the why and you go to step three. I try to make a quick side note. You're not trying to solve it all in one day. Okay? You're not trying to solve everything in one day. You put one little habit each one little tiny part of the habit each day. So that's why it's okay to say for the why. If you don't know, you don't know. If you know something, it may just be one sentence for one word. Or I think each day tomorrow you'll do more, and the next day, and the next day each little habit builds into the big habit. You deconstruct eating and reconstructing tiny bit at a time. Using the neuro cycle. One mini neurosurgical daily, one little mini part of the habit daily that you're breaking down and building up. And over time, over the 63 days you build it into the sustainable change. Okay, so then you go to the third step, which is writing, and you basically going to take a big piece of paper to circle in the middle, write down the issue. Self-esteem, low self-image, self talk, and then draw a line coming out like two spoke of a wheel, and write on the emotions and write down emotions that you had, which were sadness and self-hate. To another line, write the root. What sensations out of that do another line. Rotate to another third line, coming from the middle central bubble and on the right behaviors. And then out of that, people pleasing everything on lines coming from the center like a, a wheel and the spokes of a wheel. And then you just building onto the wheel kind of like a tree has branches growing, you growing the lines out of the headings, sitting subheadings and so on. And the words and all the words are on lines, and you can put little phrases on the lines as well. And then, then you can write down, then you can, then you can write down deeply. But sorry. It's the emotions, the behaviors, the bodily sensations and the perspective. Right. They're all done. Then look at that and see what else is coming up when it comes up. Maybe there's something that comes up like it could be I feel like I have no value. I don't like myself and my appearance and write it down. I feel like I have no value. Maybe do a little cloud coming out of the central, but draw a line and like a little cloud, I feel like I have no value to another little cloud coming out, or little block, or a bunch of just a line and write a little phrase on it. So you could write things like, I feel like I have no value and I don't like myself in my appearance, and people don't seem to like me, and that's why I have to people, please, what ever pops up, just write a time limit. 1 or 2 minutes each of these steps get awareness, reflect writing three minutes max okay that you spend on each of these. That's the most effective to train trainings. You don't want to go too long. Then you go to the recheck step and the recheck is pull it all together. Look at what you've written on the piece of paper and you ask yourself, okay, this has happened. This is the data I have. What can I do about this? How can I look at this differently today? How can I summarize what I've learned today? So you may things you may see things like, oh, there's a trigger. I was triggered today by something someone said at work. And then that triggered this whole self-esteem issue. And this seems to happen daily. This seems to happen almost every single day. So it's kind of like a and this, this seems to remind me of my childhood. I think this reminds me of my childhood. And how can I see this differently? What could I say to myself today? How can you summarize? It's reminding myself to have compassion, kindness towards myself and realize I'm not saving this, solving this all in one day. So typical re check here could be summary of of looking at of what we've just evaluated that you've written down. Could be something like what that person say to me was the perception which was based on their assumptions and not the truth. The truth is that I do have value. I don't always have to. People, please, I don't believe it yet, but I'm beginning to work on it. Today is day one, and then you could visualize something like a beautiful rainbow or a flower playing with your puppies or something that is the visualization of yourself smiling or something where you could look in the mirror and smile at yourself or give yourself a high five. So some kind of visualization action thing to help you. Now in my app you can enter this a little a guide to all these steps. And through audio driven and then this a little in step five you can actually type in your active reach. And you can set it to pop up seven times. And what the research shows is that if you could read as it pops up, you read it, visualize, read the little statement that then brings it to the forefront of your consciousness and helps to start rewiring that that infinite network. This is part of the rewiring process. So these five steps have built have made you wave how you showing up to the four signals bought the toxic tone that it's that it's attached to made it weak and breaking it down. And as you go through the third step in the fourth step, in the first step, you weakening those, those, those branches on that network and you are rebuilding it one tiny bit at a time. Tomorrow you pick up and you start again. You pick up where you end that, you look at you, you get awareness of your risk and then you work out, how do I feel today? And so you repeat the whole cycle and you do this for 21 days around a back 15 to 20 minutes each day, and by 21 days you would have a very good idea of the root cause and you would have reconstructed. So you've found the toxic thought, and with your mind you've broken it down and you've rewired it. You changed your brain with your mind, but now it's only small. You need to stabilize that. You need to automate that. That's a fancy word for making it into a useful habit. So you need to get the neuroplasticity effect happening which is habit formation. So then you're going to do the same five steps for the next 42 days are the five minutes even three minutes. Listen a minute per step. And I guide you through this in the app. And that's it. Active energy today, making it stronger and stronger and stronger. You hit the two bumps along the way, and some days are up and some days are down. Is a little bit of a healing journey involved, but I guide you through that process. And then by day 63, the thing is automatic. First, morally, sir, on day 63, which shows up in your life and you suddenly turn on, say, hey, geez, I'm doing the same thing that bad habit anymore. I'm a people pleaser. Oh, my self-esteem is so much better. You also have insight at that point about, hey, I need to do some more work. I need to do another 63 days on something else. So you want to know more, go to my app. Join me daily. I do this daily. It helps me so much. I just went through a personal tragedy recently and this app was my lifeline. This app is not just an app, it's a lifeline. It's a lifestyle. It's how you build mental fitness, how you are empowered to manage your mind and your mind drives everything. Messy, marred, messy brain, messy body, messy life. We can direct that neuroplasticity. So join me in developing your mental fitness and you can find my app at Google Play at the Action Store. And there's a web version at your cycle.

5 Steps To Break Free From Anxiety

Caroline Leaf, PhD

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Caroline Leaf, PhD