Understanding the Mind-Body Connection: The Interaction Between Neurotransmitters, Thoughts & Emotions

Happiness Isn’t Brain Surgery
The Mind-Body Connection
AllCEUs.com Unlimited CEUs for Counselors $59 DocSnipes.com Tools & Worksheets for Recovery
Presented by: Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes Executive Director, AllCEUs
Podcast Host: Counselor Toolbox & Happiness isn’t Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes
President: Recovery and Resilience International

Objectives
 Learn about your central control center, the brain
 What role does it play in
 Emotions
 Thoughts
 Physical Reactions/Sensations
 How things can go wrong
 How to fix those things

The Brain
 Your central control center
 Takes in information
 Compares it to what it already knows (or thinks it
knows) from prior experiences
 Makes a decision about what to do.
 Based on that decision it activates action
centers which excrete neurotransmitters in
order to produce the desired reaction.

Neurotransmitters and Mood Creation
 Chemical messengers take “orders” to and
from the brain through the nervous system
 The Big 5 fall into 2 main categories
 Excitatory:
Dopamine = Pleasure
Norepinepherine & Glutamate: Motivation
and stimulation (get-up-and-go)
 Inhibitory:
GABA - Relax
Serotonin – Calming, contentment

Neurotransmitters Function
 Emotional
 Happiness
 Sadness
 Anger & Fear
 Mental
 Concentration
 Learning
 Decision Making
 Physical
 Sleep behavior
 Eating behavior
 Libido
 Gastrointestinal
Functioning/motility
 Pain perception

Think About It
 What is your body’s response when you are
 “Afraid”
 “Angry”
 “Depressed”

Mood Disorders
 An imbalance in neurotransmitters will cause
emotional, mental, or physical “distress”
 What causes imbalances
 Reduced Flow & Insufficiency
Too much “stress” for too long
Addictive behaviors
Medications
Poor nutrition
Insufficient sleep

Neurotransmitters, Addiction & Black Friday
 Normal day
 Normal store capacity is 750 people.
 The store needs a constant 500 to stay open
 The store has 8 doors to allows for people to easily enter
and exit without getting “bunched”
 Black Friday
 1500 people push through the door as soon as it opens
 Store is destroyed
 Staff is exhausted
 Takes time to restock and refresh staff
 Management closes all but two doors and adds security
guards to manage flow

Where Does the Information Come From
 Your Stress Sensor: Peripheral Nervous
System
 Your nervous system continues to feed the brain
information about whether the threat is:
 Continuing and something else needs to be done
 Subsiding and your brain can tell your body to
relax.

 How does all this happen?
 How does the brain “know” what is threatening?
Lets find out…

The Brain
 When you were born, there were very few things
that were “meaningful”
 You assigned meaning to things through
observation and experience
 When something happens you compare it to prior
experiences to decide what to do

The Brain
 Unfortunately until about age 7 children’s
interpretation of behavior is:
 Centric—Based on one thing at a time
 Concrete
 All-or-nothing
 Egocentric
 Things you learned as a child may be:
 Inaccurate
 No longer applicable

The Brain
 Interpretations are only as good as:
The information coming in
The prior knowledge
 Things that are learned in early childhood need to be
re-examined as we grow
 Once you were in middle school you could be taught
to start
 Considering multiple aspects of a situation
 Using abstract reasoning (Looking for other interpretations
of events)

Example 1
 Child brings home report card
 Child hears negative messages from a parent
Why did you get a C, I know you are not that stupid.
Why can’t you do anything right?
 Child interprets
All-or-Nothing: I cannot do anything to make my parent proud.
Egocentric: I am not lovable.
 Future behaviors
Desperately seeking approval
Fears of abandonment

Example 1 Alternative
 Child brings home report card
 Child hears neutral or positive messages from a parent
 Why did you get a C in math? It seems like you might need some
help in that subject.
 You are really smart and a good student, what is causing you
difficulty?
 Child Interpretation
 All-or-nothing needs to be refocused to specifics
 Egocentric & Single focused needs to be broadened to the big picture
 Child starts learning to examine specific behaviors
 Child is able to identify strengths and weaknesses

Example 2
 Parent abandons the family
My parent has to love me.
My parent left.
My parent must hate me.
I am unlovable.
 Future Behaviors:
Feelings of inadequacy
Seeking external validation that was not received from
parent

Example 2
 Parents separate but both parents are still
actively involved in the child’s life
My parent has to love me.
My parent is still in my life.
My parent will always be there for me.
 Result:
Adult feeling adequate and able to provide internal
validation
Adult feeling secure in relationships (even if someone
goes away they will be back)

Example 3
 Child witnesses domestic violence
 Child sees mom get hurt and “make” Daddy drink and
hit her because she “makes” him mad.
 Child hears father criticizing mother and telling her
how useless she is
 Child interprets: If I do not do absolutely everything
right I will be unlovable and useless.

Example 3
Shrouded in fear of failure either causing the person to
refuse to try, or to be a perfectionist.
 Nothing I do is good enough and it will “make” other
people unhappy
Need for external validation
Child has learned that he or she is responsible for other’s
feelings and behaviors

What’s the Point
 Much of your anxiety and distress may come from
 Faulty interpretations of prior experiences creating faulty
interpretations of present experiences
 The brain using outdated experiences
 Negative Messages = Threat  Stress Reaction
 When you constantly bombard yourself with negative
messages
 Your body constantly perceives a threat
 You are on “high alert” all the time  Exhaustion,
depression, hopelessness & helplessness
 Your brain turns down the sensitivity of the threat response
system  Apathy and lack of pleasure and motivation

But That’s Not All…
 Simply reducing your “stress” often will not fix it.
 When you were overly stressed you may have
 Had poor quality sleep
 Eaten poorly
 Carried tension in your muscles causing pain
 To rebalance itself, the body needs to have
 Times when it is not on high-alert
 Sufficient QUALITY sleep
 Decent nutrition to fuel the system

Summary
 The brain is your central control center
 Neurotransmitters are sent out to produce a reaction to help you
 Survive a threat
 Repeat a reward
 Through observation and experience it “learns” what is okay and what is
threatening
 Things that were threatening or misinterpreted in the past may now need
to be re-examined
 Too much stress or “excitement” for too long means the brain is sending
out far more “excitatory neurotransmitters” changing the balance
 After a hard day, you often want to relax and “veg” This is the brain
sending out the “all clear” message and “inhibitory” or calming
chemicals to balance out the stress of the day.

Summary
 After a hard day, you often want to relax and “veg” This is the brain
sending out the “all clear” message and “inhibitory” or calming
chemicals to balance out the stress of the day.
 When the brain does not get the “all clear” it recognizes that it needs
to conserve the “excitatory” chemicals for a true emergency so it
turns down the sensitivity of the threat response system (basically
saying if you wont conserve energy, I will force you to)
 By addressing those old, unhelpful thoughts and interpretations you
can reduce physical and mental stress and anxiety.
 This in turn helps your body have some “down time” to recovery
between stressors.
 Recovery involves not only helping your mind and thoughts become
healthy, but also your body

NEW PODCAST
Happiness Isn’t Brain Surgery
with Doc Snipes
Launch Date: March 1, 2017
A podcast designed for the average person who wants to be happier or is
dealing with issues of anxiety, depression and/or addiction.

Understanding the Mind-Body Connection: The Interaction Between Neurotransmitters, Thoughts & Emotions

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