How Can We Help Our Brains To Deal With Strong Emotions Brain Basics Our amazing brains are constantly at work thinking feeling sensing sending and receiving messages from our bodies planning creating ID: 914299
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Slide1
Lesson 10Our Brains and Strong Emotions - N.A.B.B.
How Can We Help Our Brains
To Deal With Strong Emotions?
Slide2Brain Basics!
Our
amazing
brains are constantly at work, thinking,
feeling, sensing, sending and receiving messages from our bodies, planning, creating, learning……
Different parts of the brains do different things.
The two parts of the brain we will be learning about today are the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala.
The human brain has evolved and changed over millions
of years. Some parts are older than others!
Slide3What is the job of the Amygdala?
The job of the amygdala is to
keep us safe
.
It switches on when we feel that we are
in danger orunder threat. It gets our bodies ready for fight
or flight by sending chemicals into our bloodstream . These chemicals make our hearts pump faster,sending oxygen to our arms and legs- so we are ready to run away or defend ourselves!
That’s great if we are being chased by a tiger!
We actually have two amygdalae, one on each side of our
brains. They are small and almond shaped.
It was part of the brains of the very earliest humans.
Slide4What is the job of the Prefrontal Cortex?
The prefrontal cortex is at the front of the brain,
just behind the forehead
.
It does lots of important jobs like:
clear and reasonable thinking,
deciding, planning, logical thinking and controlling our impulses.Pretty important, wouldn’t you agree?
Slide5Strong Emotions
We all feel strong emotions sometimes,
which is a
normal
part of life.
Sometimes we can get very overwhelmed and upset by certain strong emotions. Can you name any?
Anger, rage, fury, stress, panic, anxiety, loneliness, disappointment, emptiness, sadness,frustration, embarrassment, terror, guilt, powerlessness, hurt, rejection….
Can you tell about a time when you felt like this?
Slide6Let’s see what’s happening in our brains when we feel overwhelmed by a strong emotion
When we feel a strong overwhelming emotion,
it means that the amygdala has become very active.
Sometimes it becomes
too active
because it thinks we are in real, immediate danger. It makes us act quickly without giving
ourselves much time to think!Perfect….. if we have to run for our lives!!!
Slide7Amygdala Hijack!
When the amygdala becomes too active,
it takes control of the rest our brain.
This means that we
CANNOT USE
our prefrontal cortex!
What do you think the consequences of this are ?It means that we can’t use that amazing part of our brains which helps us to respond calmly and reasonably to whatever is happening.
As a result, we often end up
losing control
of ourselves,
and doing and saying things which we are sorry about later!
Has this ever happened to you?
Slide8The Good News – The 90 second rule!
The good news is that it only takes
90 seconds
for all
of the chemicals which are rushing through your body
when your amygdala starts to become active, to completelydrain out of your body!
Of course, our overwhelming emotion usually lastsa lot longer than that! Can you think of why? It’s because we can’t stop
thinking
about what
happened, so our amygdala doesn’t get turned back down!
We get all sorts of
negative thoughts
which keep us feeling overwhelmed!
Slide9How can we use the 90 second ruleto help us feel calmer?
We can take
4 steps
to give our brains 90 seconds
to allow our amygdala to turn off, and get our
Prefrontal Cortex to turn back on.
These steps are called N. A. B. B.Let’s find out what they stand for…….
Slide10N.A.B.B.
N.:
NAME
the strong emotion. By naming it, you start to
switch the prefrontal cortex back on!
A.: ACCEPT the strong emotion. It’s happened so don’t fight it now. Just ride the waves of the emotion!
B.: BREATHE! Bring your attention to your breath and try to take some deep breaths. Your prefrontal cortex needs oxygen to get going!
B.:
BODY!
Connect to your body as you breathe.
This will help you to keep your attention
away from negative thoughts which keep your amygdala turned on.
Slide11Over to you…..
Slide12Have a look!Let’s see other children talking about how they use N.A.B.B. (click image)
Slide13Tools of Resilience
End of Lesson 10