Attention & Neuroplasticity

The ART of Tracking

A key component of the Social Resiliency Model

Margarita O'Neill-Arana

Stephanie Davies

Agenda

• Social Resiliency Model

• Attention and neuroplasticity -get your devices ready

• The Art of Tracking

• Tracking practice exercise

Social Resiliency Model- SRM

is based on scientific brain research and teaches us skills that can be used (by anyone) to self-regulate – control how we respond to people and events rather than automatically react to them.

These skills can help us remain in our Resilient Zone or bounce back to it.

Your brain helps you stay alive!

Staying alive!

• Your brain is constantly working to help you survive.

• It is automatic and you are typically not aware of it (your heart beats, you breathe, your blood rushes to where it is needed in your body, you blink, etc.)

• Your brain is surveilling & monitoring information from your senses & noticing any threats to your survival. Then adjusts your system by-automatically fluctuating between Activation & Calm.

SRM

Each one of us has the capacity to train our brains to respond to stressful events in our present, memories of traumatic events in our past & anticipatory thoughts of stressful events in our future in ways that keep us in control, thinking clearly & creatively.

The RESILIENT ZONE - the RZone

Resilient Zone

• Typically we go up & down from activation to calm and remain in what is called the Resilient Zone

• Sometimes we are exposed to events that either over activate or under activate us & get us out of the Resilient Zone & get us stuck on high or low.

ATTENTION & Neuroplasticity

When we focus our ATTENTION on healthy things we can strengthen those pathways in our brain. Likewise, when we stop traveling down unhealthy pathways they can be pruned away. We have the POWER to change our brains by deciding where to put our attention.

By deciding WHERE your attention goes, you have the power to build a "better brain".

Like deleting apps on our phone that we no longer need...

we have the ability to reduce the pathways in our brain that are connected to negative outcomes.

“It takes approx. 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain– unless it’s done with play, in which case it takes between 10 and 20 repetitions.”

– Dr. Karyn Purvis

Our brains are pliable and can adapt.

Can yours read this passage?

Important to note about ATTENTION:

• Neuroplasticity is the process by which pathways in the brain can be changed.

• Strengthening or pruning neurons happens through attention.

• Practicing SRM skills can help grow hardier self-regulation neurons & a more robust RZone.

• Attention to your RZone can boost your immune system.

joinmyquiz.com

game code:

tba

TRACKING means noticing what is happening in and around you, paying attention and making changes.

Tracking others

• Noticing changes in another person’s body: movements, breathing, paying close attention to changes.

• Sharing those observations with the person & gently asking them what they notice inside.

Tracking oneself:

• Tracking means noticing what’s happening inside our bodies, noticing things that we are typically not aware of. 

• Paying attention to changes that are happening in our breathing, our heart rate, our muscle tension, our body temperature, etc.

• Noticing what feels comfortable or uncomfortable inside & becoming aware of what feels good or not good inside.

And now for your viewing pleasure...

Thank YOU for your attention-

Margarita & Stephanie