The Root of The Matter
Welcome to the world of biologic dentistry! Meet your host, Dr. Rachaele Carver, who presents a comprehensive overview of biologic dentistry and interviews amazing holistic, functional medicine doctors and health practitioners. Dr. Rachaele Carver, D.M.D. is a Board-Certified, Biologic, Naturopathic Dentist & Certified Health Coach.
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The Root of The Matter
Transforming Stress and Overeating Through Emotional Brain Training with Dr. Laurel Mellin
What if the key to overcoming overeating and managing stress lies not in sheer willpower but in understanding and reshaping our emotional circuits? Join us as we uncover the groundbreaking approach of Emotional Brain Training (EBT) with our special guest, Dr. Laurel Mellin, PhD, a health psychologist and founder of EBT.
Dr. Laurel takes us through her own experience of battling overeating from a young age, leading her to develop EBT as a tool to address the root causes of stress-related health issues. We explore how early childhood experiences shape emotional circuits that influence lifelong habits and behaviors, and how EBT offers practical tools to manage these stresses effectively.
Discover how Emotional Brain Training can transform your ability to handle the overwhelming stress of modern life, from personal health to relationships. Traditional methods often fall short, but EBT stands out by providing actionable tools to switch off stress responses and move beyond mere calm to a state of joy. We discuss the evolution of these tools, including the development of an app that makes EBT more accessible, and how these advancements can help individuals, couples, and families navigate stress and achieve a healthier mental state. This episode is packed with insights for anyone looking for efficient, science-based solutions for stress management.
The conversation doesn't stop there; we also delve into the potential of EBT to reprogram the emotional brain. Laurel shares personal anecdotes and professional experiences illustrating the real-world impact of stress on mental and physical health. From teaching emotional resilience to children and teenagers to transforming relationships and personal well-being, we highlight the importance of recognizing and addressing stress to lead a happier, healthier life. Tune in to learn how Emotional Brain Training can be a game-changer in managing stress and fostering emotional resilience.
Find out more about Dr. Laurel and her work, check out her website here: https://www.ebtconnect.net/
To learn more about holistic dentistry, check out Dr. Carver's website:
http://carverfamilydentistry.com
To contact Dr. Carver directly, email her at drcarver@carverfamilydentistry.com.
Want to talk with someone at Dr. Carver's office? Call her practice: 413-663-7372
Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. Before using any products mentioned or attempting methods discussed, please speak with a licensed healthcare provider. This podcast disclaims responsibility from any possible adverse reactions associated with products or methods discussed. Opinions from guests are their own, and this podcast does not condone or endorse opinions made by guests. We do not provide guarantees about the guests' qualifications or credibility. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.
Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Root of the Matter. I am your host, dr Rachel Carver. Today we have Laurel Mellon, phd, a health psychologist and founder of Emotional Brain Training, and I'm very excited to have her on. Those of you who've been listening for a while know how much I believe that our emotions really impact our stress response, how it impacts our overall health. The exciting thing is some of us maybe we aren't great meditators and maybe we can't do all this Vegas nerve training, so I'm always looking for what. Are there other ways? We're all different humans. How can we, all you know, create our best health? So here we have another amazing tool that we're going to learn about today. Laurel, thank you for being on. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got into developing emotional brain training.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. I'm such a joy to be here. You know you always start with your own pain, right? Because your own pain is actually the best teacher, because you don't really understand how other people feel when they feel bad, unless until you feel that way.
Speaker 2:And for me, it was overeating when I was 11 and I was binge eating and I became a nutritionist and I thought, well, it's important to know about nutrition. If I could just know what to eat, I would stop this sugar attacks that I have. And so what I found out is that I got lucky. I was a nutritionist and I got a job at the University of California, san Francisco, as a faculty member and I was on a grant where they really didn't know exactly what to do with me. So I got to do with what I wanted, which I got to go to the root cause of why people overeat, and what I found was that way back in 1940, a study had been done this was child and adolescent obesity, but the same for adults that a woman named Hilda Brooke was a psychiatrist. She was probably 90 pounds, sopping wet, and she was studying eating disorders and obesity and she did a study that showed that it was a connection between parent and child or the connection in general that actually predicted whether there would be that drive to overeat.
Speaker 2:And I was a young faculty member and I thought I'll just teach those emotional tools. Lo and behold, they not only worked, but the data showed that they caused lasting weight loss. And at that point a mother who had been in this program that I had developed came in and said you know, my child has stopped overeating. I'm still overeating. I want what she has. How can I get it?
Speaker 2:And so I began. I moved from pediatrics to family medicine and I started essentially what's become a worldwide effort with emotional brain training to go to the root cause, which is when the emotional brain is in stress, people naturally not only overeat and tend to gain weight, but all the other mental health and and health problems and chronic diseases cause because of the stress chemical cascade that flows for all people. So if you're vulnerable to eating and weight, you're going to gain weight. If those stress chemicals cause you to be depressed or anxious, or you have a few really challenging experiences early in life and have some trauma circuits in there, you're going to have mental health issues, and so the list goes on. So it's really a way of using simple emotional tools that can be used whether you're six or 106, to switch off the stress response.
Speaker 1:I found this fascinating through my own research. You know I've seen this too that what's really interesting is that these circuits get kind of wired in at such an early age, right so before really we're conscious of what we're doing. You know, we make these stories about these situations which aren't really real, but they become real by with these little circuits. You know, I've seen it and I've seen this time to time and I totally believe this. You know, when we struggle with overweight, I absolutely think that at the root of that is little circuits. I've seen it and I've seen this time and time again. I totally believe this. When we struggle with overweight, I absolutely think that at the root of that is some emotional circuit gone awry. So people who are always struggling. Yes, if you can't address this emotional piece, you're just constantly doing the yo-yo, dieting without really making real headway. So maybe talk to us a little bit about how these circuits are formed in early childhood.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a couple of things which you've just said is so important, because when you say to someone, well, you've got to struggle with your emotional problems, it sounds like you've got to go to a therapist for the rest of your life. And the current therapy is not based on brain science and I really hate to say that, but it is true in that, ultimately, it is about self-regulation. If you don't have the skills to process your emotions, you will start encoding circuits that take you on wild goose chases. They're called survival circuits. So you get, for example, with me.
Speaker 2:I came home from school when I was age 11. I had just been teased at school. I didn't know how to deal with my emotions, and so what my brain does is says I'm out of here, you've got to find a way to be safe and be rewarded. And there were cinnamon rolls on the counter. I reached for the cinnamon rolls and I ate them. Now that sounds like it was like a bad habit or a bad response, but actually it was much more than that. In that moment I was running a fight or flight circuit Okay, fight or flight circuit, a big old gargantuan circuit, and my relationship with food at the time was just normal. I had a little tiny food circuit that was better to eat sugar than it was to eat broccoli. Well, in the same moment when I reached for that cinnamon roll actually, there were three of them at that moment when I was in fight or flight the brain makes a survival circuit to repeat that response. And so what happens is I wake up the next morning and I no longer am the same person. I now have an emotional brain, an unconscious mind that is sporting a survival circuit to get my safety or love from sugar, and I had no idea why I started to have this unusual appetite.
Speaker 2:So what's going on here is we experience several things in childhood. Number one if we don't get the emotional connection we need and our parents don't have the emotional tools to process stress and remember, we now know from New York University studies that in fact, thinking or being mindful or being aware or analyzing are not effective at today's stress levels, you cannot think your way out of an eating binge. And so what happens is if we don't get those emotional skills to process our anger and fears and upsets back to a state of connection and joy and well-being, if you use the emotional brain in the way we use it. With emotional brain training, it takes one to three minutes to turn off the stress response and turn stress into joy. This was a major discovery at the University of California, san Francisco, this changing health care, because people can't process the level of stress with the speed of change, the overwhelming temptations and just the overload right now. And so the old way of even processing emotions, of saying how do I feel and what do I need, is like spitting in the wind.
Speaker 2:Because when the brain is in a stress response which most people we have a five point system. One is low stress, all the way to five is stress overload. If you're at one or two, you can say how do I feel, what do I need? In fact, the emotional brain training tool for that is how do I feel, what do I need?
Speaker 2:But once you hit a little more stress and you get out of what's called homeostasis or that health promoting chemical milieu, into allostasis, which is stress overload, careening out of control, these circuits are stuck on. So you can't just stop them in a moment, unless one thing you know how to effectively process your emotions with this formula that we discovered in ebt. It was really a major discovery, because if you don't do that, if you don't switch off that stress response, the circuit, the cause, it gets stronger and these circuits get stuck on and then you have chronic stress, which is the root cause of most health problems mental, physical or metabolic. So, whatever that is, we want to be out of that stress ditch and get back to the opposite state, which is joy, and that should be a skill that every family has, every couple has, every individual has.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I know, you know, in my practice again, I've been in my practice now 15 years and I'll have somebody come in and they have a you know toothache and there's nothing. There's not an obvious cavity, there's not an obvious infection. And so, as over the years now I've learned you know what's going on in your life. Right, as you said, stress impacts every single aspect of our health, including dental health. Right, we're all one body, everything is connected and it's just fascinating. Sometimes we're going to feel that pain in our teeth, sometimes we're going to feel it in our elbow or our knees or where else it may be.
Speaker 1:You know, understanding that stress response and I think what you're saying is so important that we are in a completely new era. And, as you said, the information this is what my dad was saying to me not too long ago. So I'm like you know, I'm trying to raise two teenage kids and I'm just that in and of itself. Forget having to run a practice and all that. Just being a parent these days is incredibly stressful Because, like you said, information overload. There is so much coming at us like never before in the history of time have we had all of these. You know, external stresses. And now we have all these stresses. We can't see, we can't feel, you know, and it's just, it's, it's crazy impactful. So all of us feel like we're in fight or flight all the time.
Speaker 1:So, now more than ever, we need these tools and, and you know, some of us, like I said, I just I'm not a meditator. I always feel like I don't have time to meditate where, you know, right, I could prioritize, but for me it doesn't really work. You know, I need something a little bit more active, something that I can, you know, really do and understand. You know I'm excited to learn about this emotional brain training. You know I was excited to learn about this emotional brain training. You know I was researching a little before we got on, and you talk about there are certain rules that we have in emotional brain training. Maybe we can kind of unpack those rules a little bit. And how do we get started? Yeah, sure, Great.
Speaker 2:Well, the rules are essentially that you need to make your first priority when you get up in the morning. Remember that the opposite of stress is not calm. All of this is based on neurophysiology. It's just science, and what I'm saying is, right now, mental health care is not based on this physiology. They've been looking for a way and of course we know that EBT is that way, because it gives people the skills to get out of the stress ditch whenever they want to, in one to three minutes. But the same tools would use with precision with our app, actually break up the circuits from the past, like my food circuit or a mood circuit or something that triggers you those overreactions, so they reconsolidate, they rewire those circuits that are getting us really triggered. But we do know that when you use the tools, you get out of stress, but it's not enough to get to calm, and I must say that I'm not a meditator either, because my stress is too high. I was born in a family that was very loving, but there was a lot going on, so I got a lot of circuits from the past. I moved into, I went through college in three years. I've always been a really busy, active person and I want results now. I want to get a biochemical shift in my body in one to three minutes, not 30 minutes or an hour. I just don't have it Okay, and it's just not efficient. So what what we know from neurobiology is that the opposite of stress is not calm, because the what the stress response, the HPA axis, does not shut off effectively until you're in positive, strong, positive emotions, which neuroscience is labeled as joy. So those joyous feelings, it doesn't mean happy, happy, happy it means connected in flow state, trying to do the best you can in a difficult situation to be a good person and get stuff done. And so what I mean by that is you don't set your sights on calmness because you're probably going to be suppressing your emotions, and so instead you start off your day and say what am I doing with my day? Remember, optimal physiology is based on being in that connected flow joy state, even for little moments here and there, throughout every hour. And you can do that when you wake up in the morning. The first rule is you say what am I doing with my day? I'm taking care of my physiology, my chemicals in every cell of my body and making them optimal and being the best person I can be, which means I am creating joy in my life. I'm not waiting for joy to happen. I am using brain-based tools because my brain knows how to create joy. I've just got to just activate that natural joy response by using these emotional tools.
Speaker 2:And then, whenever you're not in that connected state, you say and let's say that you, you do something where you say why did I have that judgment? Or why, why couldn't I have been nicer there, or why whatever? Whenever you start to judge yourself that you have an issue or you're not feeling great, you stop all judgments and you know that truthfully, based on neurophysiology, everything we experience is the activation of a circuit. And so you say to yourself that's really a crummy circuit, I don't want that circuit activated. You reach for your EBT app and you process the emotions. And what happens with processing the emotions is it actually dismantles the old circuit emotionally and then constructs an optimal circuit where you're back to that glow state again in one to three minutes. And so that's what you do throughout your day and that's all you need to do. And so that's what you do throughout your day and that's all you need to do, Because what happens is every after people get used to we call this spiraling up.
Speaker 2:If I'm not in that joy state, I'm just not going to judge myself, I'm going to use the EBT tools. There are actually five levels of stress in the brain, based on how stressed you are. Because when you're not stressed, the thinking brain is in charge and the emotions are just, you know, kind of positive. They're all like love and compassion and whatever. When you're at brain state two, you're feeling pretty good, but not great. Those emotions. You can just say how do I feel and what do I need? And then, once you go to brain state three that's right, where the middle of your cheekbone is, that's where the dominant area is and that's the limbic brain you have a problem at that point.
Speaker 2:So at three, four or five, the old school way of saying how do I feel, what do I need Makes you just crazy tunes, because what you're going to say is I don't know how I feel. What's wrong with me? Anyway, I don't know. I know there's something wrong if I just figure it out, so you go into this disconnected state. There's something wrong if I just figure it out, so you go into this disconnected state. This is the beauty of this, dr Carver.
Speaker 2:The beauty of this is that for all people, even though we're very different in our thinking brain, our resiliency pathways are all the same. So what happens when you're in stress is the resiliency pathways are unlocked and all you need to do is use the tool for that state. But in general, you express a complaint, you say what's bothering you. In about three sentences you express, you use something called the anger procedure, which takes about 10 seconds to 15 seconds, and it completely clears the stress the anger procedure. And then you have one sadness that you feel, one fear and one statement of hey, I could do something different. At that point, the old circuit this is how simple it is the old circuit is now dismantled. You're not at three, four or five, you're about at two and from that point you either rewire a circuit if the circuit's bothering you, or if there's no circuit, you just express your positive emotions and you are back to optimal physiology. So this is the big news.
Speaker 2:In therapy right now, in psychology right now, people identify well, I have an anger problem, or I'm depressed, or I'm depressed, or I'm anxious, or whatever. That stuck state is that we get into shame, anxiety, depression, hostility, false highs. Even though we have different names for them, the process of dismantling the circuit that's causing them is one and the same, so we don't even have to say what our mental health problem is. We just have to say what brain state am I in, apply the tool, the circuit that's offensive, that's causing us to feel this way or do these things, shuts off and it always replaces it with a healthy circuit, because our brain wants us to get back to being kind and being generous and being able to have the health and well-being to take care of our elderly and our children and make the world a better place. That's how the brain's set up.
Speaker 1:Well, I think this is great because, you know, probably when we get to that three, four or five stage, we don't even know why we're feeling, you know. So that's why people go to therapy because they don't know why they're anxious, they don't know why they have anger. So this seems like such an easy, great tool you can do by yourself. Just you just have to acknowledge the emotion, right, and then work on that way instead of understanding every little thing that has led to that emotion. This is great, and I think this one thing I love like when on your website talks about rule number one is you do not have a problem or an issue. And I think this is so important and I want everybody to really hear what I'm saying here that there's so often people play the victim, right, you get this diagnosis.
Speaker 1:And now, for example, my own daughter she was really struggling with anxiety, really had a hard time like test taking. Just she, literally when she would go in for a test, she'd be so anxious her brain would shut off, like the biophysical problem in her brain, that thinking brain would completely shut down. And so she wanted to be tested for ADHD and all these things. And you know, I was just kind of putting it off. She's my very sensitive kid, she's empathic, like, she absorbs a lot of stuff and you know I was trying to get her some of the energy work, some of the deeper work right. And so I relented and I had one patient tell me, you know, once I actually acknowledged my child wanting that and got him tested. He did great because I said okay, thank you for that. Again, I love it when patients teach me something and help me out, you know. And so I took her to this fancy clinic in New York City, did all this, you know, brain scanning, and da, da, da, da, da.
Speaker 1:And then when we had the review, the first thing that the psychologist, psychiatrist said to her was you have major depression and generalized anxiety disorder. And I was furious, I was like this was supposed to be a holistic. I mean, I spent tons of time and money taking this because I wanted the holistic view. I wanted them to talk about her behaviors and her thoughts and her diet and all these kinds of things, and so now that's that's.
Speaker 1:And recently she had a physical and you know, in teenagers now they make them fill out this form about your mental health, basically. And she marked things about being anxious and feeling sad and and the doctor said, oh well, it looks like you know you have some feelings of this. And she said oh yes, I have both anxiety and depression. And again I'm like my head like no, please, like. And I said to her afterwards I was like, I know that you feel sad, sometimes, you feel anxious, but it's a feeling. And I said I want you to know that you have the power to create the life that you want. You know, and of course, she's a teen, she rolls her eyes and but we've been doing some more like emotional training with her and I'm seeing it make a really big difference. So now I'm really excited about this tool that you have, that, again, kids don't have much of an attention span these days and so, like you said, in three minutes flat we can teach.
Speaker 1:And I think it's so, so important that the teenagers today, especially girls, the increase in mental health, it's astronomical and if we can help people, especially these young kids, understand this at a younger age, their adulthood is going to be so much better.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm always trying to tell my patients this that we've got to be our own best doctor and in today's day and age, like we have the power to create the lives we want. We just need to have the tools. You know so many of us, and myself too, for the first decade of my eczema, I was looking for the person or the thing, the tool that was going to fix me. When I had all the tools already within me and I think that's the most powerful. There are so many. You know, health care is getting out of control, dentistry, too, with the expenses it's costing so much money. So how can we you know, my last interview was all about breath work all these great tools that we have within us to be able to heal anything that's troubling us. So I'm really excited. I think this is an absolutely you know, amazing, amazing tool for us to to help ourselves. So thank you so much for bringing this to all of our awareness. I don't think enough people know about this stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, what's wonderful is that there's more and more interest right now in emotional brain training. In fact, it's going like lightning quick. We had a donation of $500,000 from a grateful patient who, by using the method, they saved their marriage and they saved their mental health and their weight, and they gave us this big gift which enabled us to make EBT, for the first month, $1. And what we want is for children, adolescents, adults, octogenarians to come and once people experience it. I was doing an interview on EBT and this woman who does a lot of work for a major television program said Laurel, I don't know what to do with EBT. She says I've got my apps for mindfulness, and I've got my apps for mindfulness and I've got my apps for cognitive CBT, but when I just spiraled up using these tools, I'm tingling all over my body. I've never had that experience before. And what I want to say to you is that all the methods that we have right now, other than emotional brain training, are not designed to rewire the emotional brain and to deal with stress at these levels. In the past and I'm just saying now as a medical professor up until about 1980, cognitive control that means mindfulness, awareness, changing your thoughts, making adaptations. They were enough, based on disease rates, and what happened is right around 1980, everything, anything that's sensitive to stress, which is almost everything. But you know, obesity, anxiety, depression all of the rates started going up and now they're off the charts. So this is a way of thinking about it Use all of these methods. There's nothing wrong with breath work or whatever. But the fact is we are in the age of the emotional brain. If our emotional brain is in stress, it takes the thinking brain offline. So all of the requirements, all of the methods that have us thinking our way through it, being mindfully aware, choosing to do those deep breaths, they're fine. But if our thinking brain's offline, it's not gonna do that. It's gonna be ruminating, obsessing and whatever. So we're now not in the age of the thinking brain. That cognitive control is enough. We've shifted now big time, starting about 15 years ago, but now it's just completely off the charts. We're in the age of the emotional brain.
Speaker 2:When you have a child, when you have a loved one, when you have someone who's having a hard time with relationships, relationships are also super sensitive to stress. If you're in stress, you're going to have relationship problems. Your brain is going to distance or merge. You say to them sweetheart, we're in the age of the emotional brain.
Speaker 2:There are five levels of stress in the emotional brain. Emotions are very different at each of the five levels, so the resiliency tool has to be adjusted to your stress level. You know it's not resiliency or stress management is one size fits all, but there are only five different tools. What you need is to shift from saying how do I feel or what's wrong with me or what other diagnosis do I have, to saying physiologically, if I'm not at one, I'm not at my best and if I'm getting stuck down at three, four or five, I'm going to develop one health problem or another.
Speaker 2:My spouse is going to look like a monster, I'm going to feel I must be mentally ill, and really all mental illness and chronic diseases are caused by stress, physiology, by being in a stress state, because in stress eight major chemicals that control our health and our weight are activated, that make us unhealthy.
Speaker 2:So all you have to say is what's my number and apply that tool and then what happens is your biochemistry changes and you're back to that state where that stomach ache's gone or that bad thought is gone. So we're in the age of the emotional branding. We want everyone to update how they process stress. And if we do that one thing as a nation, if we adopt embracing the emotional brain there are five levels of stress, five tools, that's all there are If we do that one thing, we will turn around our mental health crisis, our chronic disease crisis, our over-medication crisis. That's what we'll do. But if we don't go to the root cause and deal with our stress, you can't give someone enough medications to put them into joy and to give them any true health safety.
Speaker 1:This is so phenomenal and I hope that part of the reason I love doing this podcast is just creating this awareness because, again, this simple thing, five simple tools and, like you said, we can change the whole global phenomenon of this, the stress and health decline, because it is growing like leaps and bounds. I mean it is as you said, it's completely overwhelming now and there are not enough medications or procedures or whatnot to create that. If we you talked about relationships, right, I mean the divorce rates, over 50% in our country and many developed, you know, nations, and that is, you know, we always want to blame the other person, right, when, when things aren't going well. But you know, I would get so frustrated, even in my parenting and my kids acting out and I was, I did you know a lot of that therapy and was it really realized? Wow, they're just responding to my stress, like we all. We live in a world of frequencies and energies and when I'm not at my best, how am I going to be at my best for my kids or even my patients? Like I noticed when I was going through the whole COVID was just crazy, you know, for us, our businesses were shut down, everybody was going and I couldn't show up. You know we went through a lot of changes in the team, members and everything.
Speaker 1:I reflect back now and I say you know I was so stressed I wasn't at my best, I wasn't creating as much of that family connectedness that we all really needed, right, and you know I see that now at the time I was just, you know, probably in a four or five all the time.
Speaker 1:So that that did make have an impact on, you know, my team, on my, my family. What I've learned, I think the best part about being as a parent is how much I've learned about myself, because I don't think I was that emotionally aware, connected, that when I was raising my kids from young thing I wasn't. I didn't know how to give them that emotional support and support that they really needed. You know my daughter developing these kinds of anxious feelings as part of me, not knowing how to deal with that either. So I'm just glad I am, I've become aware of these things. So the week I can, you know, try to help them and I keep trying to tell them. You know I'm trying to. I said I know I don't always do it right, but you know I'm trying to change the trajectory here.
Speaker 1:So you're going to be an even better mom, you know, because you're going to be aware of these things and you're going to know how to, you know, create that joy. So I think that's really exciting. And again, when you the way you talk about having this, maybe talk to us a little bit about this app. Let's say I'm in a.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you my sob story. Okay, yeah, my sob story is that I started this when I'm 75. I started it when I was 28 and, of course, I'm surrounded by brilliant people because I'm at the University of California, san Francisco, and so I'm learning about physiology, I'm learning about physiology. I'm learning about that. There is no real psychology that doesn't come from physiology and all this kind of stuff. So, finally, in 2007, we discovered that the method was very popular. I was on Oprah three times and I had two bestselling books and what happened was, with all of that issue of so much popularity of EBT, we had much more data about how to make this even more effective and the stress levels were off the roof.
Speaker 2:Right around 2008, there was a whole bunch of problems with stress and my mother was in the hospital and she was dying. And at the same time, that night before, when she really started going to the hospital and I was aware that she was not going to make it, I was teaching medical students at the University of California, san Francisco EBT. My colleague and I, igor Mitrovich, who's a professor of physiology and a neuroscientist were teaching it to the medical school students and we were giving a lecture on the reward center in the brain. And so the reward center in the brain? Because with EBT you get out of stress. And to reward, if you don't have rewards in your life, you're going to be stressed out. So we're talking about this. In the meantime, I'm in bed four o'clock in the morning, worried about my mother, the backfield of my mind, thinking about the reward system.
Speaker 2:We had three levels of stress in the method at that point and all of a sudden I realized that the method was wrong, that there was actually a level of stress that was in stress overload that you couldn't process with emotions. You just needed to calm it down by saying do not judge, minimize. So there was another level at the very bottom, and also my mind was thinking about the fact that you have to be hugely rewarded, which means joy and love and compassion, and I thought the method has to be completely dissembled because it's five levels of stress, not three. So I have three children by that time and for me to change my whole method, which was now used all over the country, I was very unpopular, but I knew that the most important thing is when you're in stress overload, when you're traumatized. If this method doesn't work for trauma, which it does it rewires trauma. People add it onto their mental health care and they really change much faster. And if the real ideal physiological state is joy and you're not bringing people to joy, you're out to lunch. So at that point I stopped. Everything, dismantled the whole method. It became now we're rewiring the emotional brain because we basically are tracking it and codifying it and it became emotional brain training.
Speaker 2:So what happened was I was so happy with the fact that we finally got five skills and I want to mention that I had a book contract at that point I ended up writing this book called Wired for Joy, and I couldn't write the book. I was completely blocked because, it's sad to say, but I couldn't get my mind about the fact that there was two different kinds of circuits in the brain A homeostatic circuit that works well, that brings you to good chemistry, or an allostatic circuit that gets stuck on, causes most problems and is the root cause of all the biochemical problems we're seeing. And so there's two kinds of circuits, there are five different stress levels and my brain went into stress and I could not write that book. And so my kids came to me and said maybe you're just too old to write the book, maybe you just need to stop. So I did quit.
Speaker 2:But the reason I'm telling you this about the app is I was so happy with the five-point system because it's a different skill and it just works. It went one to three minutes flat and then I realized that people don't want to get into their feelings unless they feel in control. We had already done the studies to show that 92% of the time that the app works and we have so many people who've come to us and says it's so reliable All I have to do is reach for the app. But that doesn't speak to the needs of the individual using it, because some people want to use it for one minute and then if they use it for one minute really quickly just one skill for one minute they are all done in one minute. They can be in a difficult social encounter and they can go into the bathroom and use it. They can be at work again, go into the bathroom and use it Literally in one minute. It changes you biochemically, so you're back in a connected, and use it Literally in one minute. It changes you biochemically, so you're back in a connected good state. So we turned out there's three different uses, so we changed the app.
Speaker 2:So all you have to decide is what you want to get out of using it. You can either do an instant boost and you just push on the number one and it'll take you straight through that and in 45 seconds to a minute and 15 seconds you will be back to a state of connection. If you have two or three minutes, you push on the number two, and that's called quick and easy. It feels better to kind of feel your feelings more a little bit. And also in that particular button, that spiral up button we call it, you have all five of the tools and you might want to use one of them. Maybe you'll use the five tool, which is damage control, and then you'll use the one tool, which is the compassion tool. So you can, you've got. You really have the brain right in your hand right then, because there are only five resiliency pathways, there are only five tools. So you've got it knocked right there. However, there's a third option and that's called deep work.
Speaker 2:Keep in mind that, physiologically, everything's about resilience. If you can get out of three, four and five, two, one in the moment, biochemically and in terms of emotions, thoughts, behaviors. You won't be anxious, you won't be depressed, you'll feel great. That's self-regulation, right. But the fact is that there are also circuits at the bottom of your brain that have been encoded during trauma, during times of difficulty, during times where you're so overloaded that the brain wants to over-remember that response. So all of our addictions are essentially these survival circuits that you can push on.
Speaker 2:Number three, and it's called deep work, and it takes you into the deeper parts of your brain using the same exact skills. It's all about resilience, and you can't be resilient when you're in stress unless you know how to dismantle those stuck emotions, which EBT does and spirals you up. And just to be clear on this, this method is the new psychotherapy Because when you use it for self-regulation, you're preventing a survival circuit from being encoded. That's going to cause you a problem. And secondly, if you want to dismantle that survival circuit, the method is actually used. It's a method that's been developed over time so you can actually use this as a course. It's a one-year course to dismantle all the past that you've had, one by one. Just take on those circuits of fear, memories and different unreasonable expectations like I'm not worthy or I have no power. All of that's in the emotional brain, and the emotional brain is really plastic. All we have to do is dismantle it. So the deep work really is satisfying, because when you use it and rewire a circuit, it's gone.
Speaker 2:For example, when someone has a food circuit like I had a food circuit, and our big emphasis now is on anxiety, depression, trauma and, of course, food. Because right now people are going out buying all these weight loss drugs, and it's so sad because what happens is the reason that we have this problem is that when you're in stress, the stress chemicals cause eight. Pardon me, the stress response causes eight chemicals and you know them by name. They're cortisol, dopamine, insulin, GLP-1, the one that's used in those weight loss drugs PYY, serotonin, leptin and ghrelin. Those eight chemicals start shooting through your brain and body and you're going to be hungry, you're going to overeat or you're going to put all of your effort into not doing so. Unfortunately, that is the natural way.
Speaker 2:The natural way to stop overeating is to use EBT. It's evidence-based. It's the only method that's caused lasting weight loss. You know those drugs cannot do that unless you stay on the drugs, and so the issue is if you do it the natural way and switch off the stress response that makes us overeat and retain extra weight, you can have a lasting change in your life and your relationship with food. You're not going to white knuckle it or be dependent upon medication. If you go for the weight loss drugs, you're going to get one chemical that's GLP-1. That's one out of eight Not really good, and so you will have side effects and dependency. And the worst part is you're missing the opportunity to train your brain to do this naturally. So you don't need the drugs and so you have lasting peace inside about food and weight.
Speaker 1:So that I mean that's amazing because, yes, this whole thing about Ozempic is going out of control here and and a lot of these people who want to do this, you know they really, really want to lose weight and they feel like they've tried everything.
Speaker 1:But this is the important thing to know. You know we've got to get out of that victimhood and know that this is the key the emotional, the brain training. I like what you said, like a lot of the overweight has to do with a mother, father, child type of relationship. So, you know, maybe people have been in therapy forever and they've been talking about that, but that doesn't change the circuit, right, and so and I, I see this, I 100%, you know, believe this, I think people, you know my husband has struggled with a little bit of weight issues and you know he tries to do everything right with the exercising and he doesn't overeat and it's so frustrating to him and I was like, okay, you know there is this component to it. Does it also work for people, let's say, who under eat, right, who have an eating disorder, that they're it's kind of the other spectrum, but it could be the same kind of brain chemicals too, right, the anorexia?
Speaker 2:and bulimia, no-transcript, if you are not securely connected to the deepest part of yourself, processing your emotions effectively, so that you're in stress. And some people don't even know they're in stress. Because there's three different stress styles. Some people like me. I go low, I get either anxious or depressed. I know that there's something wrong with me at that moment and that the state I'm in. But the other two styles, it's really blind. In other words, the other style is to go numb, just to essentially be on autopilot and have no feelings. If you have no feelings, you're not going to know whether you're hungry or not hungry or whatever, because you have to have the feelings from your body that give you those messages. Or, on a false high, where you're detached from your stress, everything is fine, even though it's really not. Essentially, if it's all about this stress response and these wires, it doesn't matter whether you're overeating or undereating, whether you're anxious or depressed, whatever that is. When you're not in that state of joy, what happens biochemically is you develop problems. So, yes, I started teaching disordered eating. I treated a lot of bulimics and anorexics. It's so sad, and the same skills work for them.
Speaker 2:But the one thing you mentioned about relationships is particularly important to me because, you know, I've been through divorce. I'm now married. I've been married to my husband, for you know I've been through divorce. I'm now married. I've been married to my husband for you know with him for about 11 years. I have three children from that have gone through divorce. He has two children. We have five together. We are delightfully happy.
Speaker 2:And what I do know is that that in relationships, whenever you're having a difficulty with a relationship, assume that the problem is stress. We have a program for couples and assume the problem is stress because think of it this way we have five different levels of stress. As I mentioned, there's five different tools to clear that stress, but this is the key there's also five different sets of memories. So think of the brain as essentially a file cabinet and you have five drawers in your brain and when you are at brain state five, every rotten thing you've ever done, every time you've merged and distance and people pleased and judge and all that. Those circuits are right there and that's who. That's really who you are. And then as you go up, all of a sudden you're at three, you're the pretty nice person and then at one you're just the most loving human being on earth.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what people don't know, unfortunately, is that the issue is when you have a relationship, assume that on the day you committed to each other, on the day you fell in love, there was something beautiful going on there, or you wouldn't have done this. And then what happened is, every time you interacted with each other when you weren't at brain state one, but you're down there at five, they're contagious. Those states are contagious, so you bring out the fifth drawer of the other person's brains. You're in the fifth drawer, you're your worst self, not your best self, and what happens is what the brain does is, if you're at five, you're going to bring out the five state in the other person and then you have a mess, right. So what? Even basic EBT we want anyone in a relationship Go to EBTorg, get the basic tools down, and that's what saved my marriage. I mean, I'm sure I fell in love with this man. He was wonderful and our relationship, through the adversity, through all the things that have gone on, you know, like in anybody's life, we love each other more, and one of the reasons is I know basic EBT two things. I know that if I'm in brain state five, I'm going to say hey, sweetheart, I can't talk now. It's not because I think you're the worst person on earth or that I'm the worst person on earth, I'm just at brain state five. So essentially you can commute. You know, people don't want to talk about their feelings. You don't have to always talk about your feelings, just say your number and so they get to know what's going on with you.
Speaker 2:Secondly, with the people where you have a committed relationship, get them into EBT so that when you you are feeling bad, what happens is you say I said to him would you listen to me? Spiral up. We have a rule it takes five minutes. He would rather listen to me, do EBT. Because when we do a lot of this work in groups, because it's much more effective when someone's listening to you. So he sits down, he listens to me for five minutes and I turned in. Sometimes it takes 10, you know, sometimes I'm really down there and it goes, goes to joy, and all of a sudden I'm happy, I'm loving toward him, I'm affectionate toward him, I'm a happy person. Otherwise he's going to have to listen to me for 30 minutes, go on and on and on.
Speaker 2:So any couple get ABT and what will happen is you'll find this beautiful other person comes out. And one other thing is, if your partner will not do that with you, or if you have something difficult, like adolescent children in the family and they are resistant to doing EBT because they're not going to do anything you want them to do, what you do is you get EBT yourself and you get to brain state one. Now, this is what's so powerful. In fact, we have a director of relational health, bill Morey, and he just did a series, and if you have a mental health professional, be sure to ask them if they're EBT certified. We make certification very easy for people. They've got to do the personal work. They can't just do it, teach other people, they've got to learn it. We make it very accessible. We want all health professionals, particularly mental health professionals, to be to be certified in EBT.
Speaker 2:But what? What he says is you know, all you have to do is you as an individual, because really the most important relationship we have is to ourselves, to our emotional and spiritual core. We're accountable, to the deepest part of ourselves for how we live our lives. And so when you're in a situation that feels out of control, maybe it's addiction, maybe it's a relationship situation. Like I say, I remember when my daughter was in 14, 15, I thought I wasn't going to make it through it and I had three kids.
Speaker 2:I was a single parent at the time. So what you want to do is you get EBT, you stay at one, and this is the deal when you stay at one, even when they're at five, the old pattern is gone, because the old pattern was a dance. They were able to get you down to that five. And when you're at one, all of a sudden, without any effort, that one state is so powerful that in fact, what will happen is she'll say what's wrong with you, mom, or their game is over. So the ultimate control we have through other people to change them is for us to get into EBT, learn the tools and actually stay with it until the set point of your brain is at one, not just your momentary state, but the habit of your brain is in one, and that relationship will change.
Speaker 1:I completely attest to that and I 100% agree because I know a lot of the time that there's resistance is because you know I'm walking into her room already annoyed, right, that her room is a mess and all like, and you know I'm walking into her room already annoyed, right, that her room is a mess and all like, and you know she feels that. So like she's instantly, you know, on on the defense, whereas when I'm coming, like we had a wonderful conversation the other day, we were alone together and I was feeling really great and really happy and we had, and like she really was listening and intent to what I was saying and agree, and so I, that's a hundred percent when you're not coming in all defensive and I have to catch myself. Sometimes I come in after a long day at work and I come home and house they've been home all afternoon, the house is a mess, the dog hasn't been fed, and I have to, like, bring my level down, right, because if I go in there and start screaming, then you know instantly we're already, we're all already at the three or four, right. So, but it's true, those, those breakthrough moments when I have with my kid is is when I am in that one state. And so I think and I knew, you know, and other therapists have told me, like we can't treat your daughter unless you treat yourself first. And I'm like it makes perfect sense, right, because I'm the one who's around them all the time. And if my you know, my stress is high, then everybody's stress is really high. So you know, has to kind of come from the beginning.
Speaker 1:I also just want to go back a little bit. I really love what you said about the stress styles and I think this is important because some of us, you know, we're just so used to being in a level of stress all the time. We don't think of it as being stressed, you know, and I think I'm kind of like you where I will start to feel low and I kind of know something isn't right. But then other times I think, sometimes I can just go numb where I'm like I'm just I'm not going to feel anything, just so I can, you know, make it through the day.
Speaker 1:Or, yes, that false high where everything, you have this outward appearance and everything is fine. So it may be just that question of am I feeling joy? Like. So how do you know how stressed you are? Am I feeling joy? Am I at the place that I want to be? And I think, as we know if not 100% of us are in some kind of stress just because of the world we live in right now that this is a tool for every human being, from age zero to, like you said, 106. Because it's not possible for us to feel joy all the time.
Speaker 2:Let me clarify that that's a very important point. Number one first, you're straight on Now that we have EBT. Before EBT, you couldn't get to joy because you have to work through your feelings and thoughts and whatever. Now that we have a presto method of doing it, we can say wake up in the morning, what am I doing with my day? I'm creating joy in my life, and if I do that, everything else is going to go fine. But you don't want to be super glued at one, and let me tell you why. You want a brain that's flexible and resilient, and so what you want to do is be able to go in all brain states.
Speaker 2:Now, the major problem, as you well know, with mental health and physical health is chronic stress. When we're chronically stressed, when our set point is at three, four or five, we're in big trouble. Okay. So what we want to do is have a brain that is emotionally fluid. Instead of being stuck in stress, we can go down in stress and it goes, bounces right back. It bounces right back. Now, in order to have that kind of a brain, you've got to use EBT over time until the resiliency pathways instead of being little tiny, you know little trails, they're super highways, which is fine and that's part of it. But it's variable, because some of us have more trauma than others, some of us have sensitive temperaments, some of us have unusually stressful environments and what happens is, if that's the case, we're going to have more of those circuits that cause us to get really stressed and stuck in stress at the bottom of our brain. So it means that we want to be able to go in all five brain states in any given day. A day not at five a little bit is probably a wasted day. You're probably not really trying hard. You know, if you're out in the world trying to make the world a better place, you're gonna come up against stress. And if you come up against stress and you have EBT, you're in great shape. Because this is what's so amazing Even a brain scan, even an fMRI, cannot tell you why. What circuit made you get ticked off at someone or made you feel overwhelmed or out of control, or made you overeat or overdrink or whatever it is. But EBT can, your brain can do it.
Speaker 2:And what happens is, let's say that I go out and then I decide I'm just sort of stressed or whatever, I don't do anything about it, and all of a sudden I see that I really need ice cream, okay, or I really need candy or something. And I say to myself holy moly, that is a circuit in my brain because I'm EBT trained, I know neurophysiology. And so I say I'm going to reach for my app and I'm going to actually use one of the tools to complain. I'll say something like situation is I really want that ice cream, or it could be. I'm really ticked at this person. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter, it's just a circuit.
Speaker 2:And then I express anger, sadness, fear and guilt. And this is the beauty of it. In my unconscious mind, there is an unreasonable expectation, like I get my survival from judging people, or I get my safety from overeating, or I get my love from drinking too much, or I get my security from always being perfect all the time. Whatever that terrible message is, these are called survival circuits. In that moment that I'm actually experiencing it, or later, when I bring up the thought of it and use the tools, the exact message from the unconscious mind will bubble up into my conscious mind and I'll have a revelation. I'll say my gosh, the drive is that I get my love from sugar. My gosh.
Speaker 2:First of all, it feels really good to know yourself. But, more important, in order to change a circuit, you have to know exactly what that circuit says and then hit it with the opposite one while the circuit is unlocked, which means when you're in stress. So if you don't really know, if you have an insight as to why you eat, that's useless, because that's in your thinking brain. By using EBT in that moment, not only will you not want the ice cream, but you'll find out who you really are, what that message is. So you know why you're doing it and the circuit that's causing it is unlocked. The neurons, the synaptic connections between the neurons, are fluid and if, in that moment, you use EBT, you will weaken that circuit. So next time the drive won't be so hard and over time you will erase the circuit and you won't even care about the extra ice cream. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1:I love what you talk about resilient. The goal is not to be in one all the time. It's just like we talk about heart rate variability, right, and the immune system. You know, it's not about never being sick, it's about when we get sick, we're able to bounce back relatively quickly, and so same thing with the brain. This is not about being happy all the time, and just. You know they talk about that toxic positivity, right, just talk your way out of it. If you just think yourself happy, you know it works.
Speaker 1:So that's an important point to understand that we're still, even if we're well-trained, like you said, you've been doing this for how many decades?
Speaker 1:And you know you can still hit a five, and that's okay because you know how to bring yourself back up to one. So that's what's fascinating and, like you said, as we continue to practice. So this is something I imagine that we're using on a daily basis, right? Especially when we're new to it. I can't wait to go download and, you know, be using this all the time so that we can create that resiliency, because you know I feel like I've done, you know, a lot of work, but I know, you know, my husband was still struggling and I said well, you know, let's do some of this other emotional work. And he's like you know, I've done emotional work and I'm like no, no, no, it's like it doesn't count that if you did it five, 10 years ago, like there's still. We're still living in this world, and so it's something that is a continual practice. You know, just like we're breathing until we go to our next you know thing, and so we're constantly having to train that brain until the end right.
Speaker 2:Well, actually what we do is we have a one-year program where you don't have to. In other words, it's a job just like mowing the grass If there's grass out there that needs mowing, you've got to take the lawnmower out. Well, everybody's got some circuits down there in the bottom of their brain that they need to train, and so it's a one-year program. You come in and the first thing you do is every single day because the brain changes so much faster when you're with other people every single day, as part of their membership, there's a half-hour program where there's a dedicated EBT certified provider there to show you how to get started with the method so that you really get support. So being around other people doing it is and you just call in. But once you get used to spiraling up and you say I can create joy, your interest is going to change and you're going to want more. You're going to want to do the deep work because it's more fun. You get a better pop to joy when you get that circuit. And so everybody has four major circuits in the bottom of their brain, usually a mood they get stuck in, a relationship pattern, a habit they get stuck in. Or sometimes people have work circuits and sometimes people have body judgments, but everyone has four major circuits.
Speaker 2:Now what you do is you decide what circuits you want to rewire. You pick four big ones, whatever bothers you, it works the same for everyone. What happens is you replace a circuit that's taking you into stress overload and those biochemicals that are dangerous, you not only turn it off, but when you rewire it and what happens is you replace a circuit that's taking you into stress overload and those biochemicals that are dangerous, you not only turn it off, but when you rewire it you activate positive chemicals. So you get rid of the negative, you get to the positive. And it's almost miraculous because, like, for example, a woman in my telegroup, we do telephone groups so that we people, their results, are much better when you do it with other people. So telegroups, and she rewired her food circuit and she comes in and she says I can't even remember having a drive to overeat or why I was so upset about food. I mean, it's just not an issue because the circuit has been erased, okay.
Speaker 2:Secondly, other common with relationships people are just being mad in love with someone, or that is really not healthy for them, or someone rejects them and they can never get over it. They rewire their relationship circuit. What happens is what did I even see in that person? So our goal is not that you do this the rest of your life. Our goal is to take one year First.
Speaker 2:Come in and just try it, see how much you love it. You will love it, you'll be surprised, and then have the fun of rewiring four major circuits. It actually raises your set point because now you're getting all those good chemicals. You finish it off by training your brain for the seven higher rewards of life, which are sanctuary, authenticity, vibrancy, integrity, intimacy, spiritual and freedom. When we have all those rewards, you have this big circuit around, this big glow around you of you're here for purpose and what happens is life goes very, very well. So you get in and you actually raise your set point until you're wired for joy, and then that new set point is so powerful that whatever comes your way and stuff will come your way that you spiral back up again. And that's what we want. We want a true solution based on the emotional brain circuitry.
Speaker 1:Just so exciting. As we're wrapping up, let's tell us a little bit more how we get this with the website and the app and all this good stuff. You talked about that $1 a month, so tell us how we can get started right away.
Speaker 2:So you go to ebtorg. It's the same as food stamps, except it's emotionalbraintrainingorg $1 and you get the app and all the support. We're kind of a nonprofit organization in a way, because we came out of academia. We don't sell anything. That doesn't work. If you get the app and you don't learn how to use it, and you don't learn how to use it with other people, you will miss your opportunity to really transform your life. So the app is not available except through ebtorg, our website, and you go there and you get full service, you get drop-in groups, you get the app, you get all the videos. If you like to do it alone, you can do it with the videos alone, but you learn exactly how to take charge of the most important organ you have, which is the emotional brain, because the circuits in the emotional brain determine everything important in life.
Speaker 2:There's also we really have a big movement on because all these people are taking these drugs and it's expensive and there's problems with them. But also you don't get to the root cause. So you never get that freedom from the drive to overeat. So we have a new book out called One, two, three, joy. It's on Amazon. It tells you exactly how to use EPT. It goes into a lot of the science too, and we have a new book that'll be out this fall which is called Three Minutes Flat, because you can change your circuits to change your life in any time, anywhere, in three minutes flat. But you don't need that book because when you go to ebtorg, everything you need to change the circuit and change your life in three minutes flat is right there for you.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I don't know about you guys, but as soon as I'm done with the interview I'm hooking up on the website and I'm checking that out because I love this idea and you guys, but as soon as I'm done with the interview I'm hooking up on the website and I'm I'm checking that out Cause I love this idea and you know the whole point of this podcast, right? We call it the root of the matter because we're trying to get at the root cause of all disease and again, we see stress across the board. Whether you manifest it in other body parts or in your mouth, it's, you know, all stems from kind of the same thing. So when we get all the way at that root of that emotional brain, we focus too much on the thinking brain and really that emotional brain is really what is controlling so much of our unconscious habits and thoughts. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:This has been a very exciting interview and I'm super excited for everybody listening. So please share this with everybody, go to the website, check out the books and let's get us all thinking and feeling joy. Thank you so much, laura. Everybody, have a wonderful day and we'll see you on the next episode.