Susannah Muller, MA

Brain spotting is a neuro experiential method that processes memories held in the conscious and unconscious brain. It works through neuroplasticity and has been researched using fMRIs. It was developed by Dr. David Grant, and is based on the work of Dr. Peter Levine and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. People report changes in their symptoms after going through brain spotting sessions.
 
Transcript: "Brain spotting is a neuro experiential method that processes memories held in the conscious and the unconscious brain. It was developed by Dr. David Grant. It seems to work on neuroplasticity that is rewriting the neural pathways around the event. So when people come in with anxiety or panic attacks, phobias, depression, OCD, or addiction, we're able to find brain spots or neural networks around those targets, and process through the unconscious brain whatever it is that it is the root of those issues, which is often experiences that were stressful, overwhelming, painful physically or mentally, distressing in some way. And we process those memories until they go down to a neutral emotional charge. So if they were rated at a 9 out of 10, we keep going until we get down to a 0 or 1. And once we do that, the brain seems to no longer pay attention to those experiences, and the symptoms go away. This seems to be working through neuroplasticity. As you probably know, neuroscience has been exploding the last 20, 30 years. And we're always learning new things and revising our theories. But currently, our theory is based on the work of Dr. Peter Levine and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, among others, as well as on fMRIs, which are MRIs that track the blood flow in the brain during, before, and after brain spotting, and from the descriptions people give us of what they experience during brain spotting, and how their life changes after brain spotting. This is a really simplified version of brain spotting because I have a limited time here. So please let me know if you have other questions. Thanks."

To build confidence, create a log of your workouts and write down one to three positives from each session. Visualize success using all five senses and make it as real as possible. Take something that you feel is a weakness and focus on it until it becomes a strength. Lastly, do brainspotting to strengthen neural networks around confidence.
 
Transcript: "This question in how to build confidence is a great one, and I get asked it by almost every athlete I work with. So I have a few things I recommend you can do to build your confidence. The first one is to create a log. Write down all your workouts, and after each workout, write down one to three positive things from the workout-- things that you did well, things that you succeeded at. And even if you had a bad practice, go ahead and try to find some things you can do well, whether it's staying positive mentally or working on the details. The second thing you can do is to visualize your success and make it as vivid and real as possible. Use all five of your senses and include the aftermath-- the hugs, the high fives, the congratulations you get from teammates and friends. The more you see yourself succeeding, the more real it will feel, because the brain can't tell the difference between a vividly imagined scene and something that actually happened. So the more you see yourself succeeding, the more you'll believe it. Third, take something that you feel is a weakness and really focus on it. Take extra time before or after practice. Get your coach's help and work on it until it becomes a strength. This is a great way to build confidence. So find one or two small weaknesses and work on them throughout the season so that by the time you get to your big competition, it's a strength. The last thing I would recommend is brainspotting. Brainspotting is something I talk about in other videos. But brainspotting works on the neural networks in the brain, and it strengthens those around confidence. It can also connect to different areas of confidence together to build a stronger sense of confidence. So those are my recommendations for building confidence. I hope you found that helpful."

To stop overthinking before performance, use mindfulness, breathing exercises, mental rehearsal/visualization, questions, and brain spotting.
 
Transcript: "The question is, how to stop overthinking before performance? This is a great question because we do tend to get into our heads before our performance. We think that somehow thinking hard about it is going to help us do better but it doesn't we know that Peak athletic performance comes from the hindbrain unconscious brain rather than the analytical brain up here. So we do want to turn off that overthinking. One of the things you can do is get out of your head by getting into your body. And that means basically using mindfulness something like the Senses meditation where you take a moment to appreciate everything, you can see, then everything you can hear everything you could feel and everything you can smell and taste and that will bring you right into the present moment in your body and out of the analytical brain. You can also use breathing exercises noticing, how the breath feels going in and out of the body. Another thing you can do is use Mental rehearsal or visualization to imagine the performance. You want. The key here is not to get caught up in the details. Details and worrying about how it's going to go. But rather just to feel and imagine that perfect performance that will also get you out of the analytical brain. Another thing you can do, if that analytical brain won't shut up is ask some questions of yourself, for example, what evidence do I have for my beliefs and then what evidence contradicts my beliefs? What would I ask or tell to my best friend to help them if they were doing this? Is there an alternate way of thinking about this? If you need help you can always ask a trusted teammate or coach or someone else who can help you see the other side because our fears are often exaggerated in our own mind and we have a hard time seeing the other side. Lastly, you can also use something called brain spotting brain. Spotting goes into the fears and processes them deep in the neural networks of the unconscious brain. Once those fears are down to neutral, then the brain no longer brings them up and so they don't occur to us right before our performance. I hope that's helpful."

Brain spotting is a cutting-edge neuro experiential process used to increase access to confidence and Flow State, as well as to eliminate performance problems. It is done by locating the neural networks and unconscious brain that cause issues, as discovered by Dr. David Grant, and can not only improve performance but also mental health.
 
Transcript: "Brain spotting is a powerful cutting-edge neuro experiential process that allows an athlete to optimize their nervous system. We use it in two ways. On the one hand, we use it to increase access to confidence and to build confidence. Also, to increase access to Flow State, which is at Peak Performance state where it flows so naturally and also to increase access to relaxation. We also use it to eliminate performance problems. So that might be a slump. And that might be something called The Yips where you have a kind of Hiccup in your movement. It might be that you're able to train really well when you get to competition your performance is subpar, or it might be. That you have a lot of anxiety and overthinking going on before you perform at a competition. Those are all things we can treat through brain spotting. We're able to locate the neural networks and the unconscious brain that cause those issues the roots of those issues and process them out. It's important to realize that those problems are not within the conscious control of the athlete. That's it. A mistake that athletes coaches parents and everyone make thinking that somehow that's within the conscious control of the athlete. Dr. David Grant who develop Trainspotting discovered that this is in fact wrong and that it is the unconscious that is controlling these issues. So that's the way we use brain spotting to assist athletes in their performance. We often also see that not only does their performance get a lot better. They enjoy the sport, a lot more and their mental health is better. This is just a simple explanation, it's actually a little bit. Bit more complex than that, as you can imagine. So please let me know if you have any other questions."

In order to stop a food addiction, you need to get to the underlying issues which is usually emotional. Brain spotting and EFT (tapping) can be used to go deep into the unconscious brain and help process the emotions that are driving the addictive behavior. Studies have shown that EFT is effective in reducing cravings and the emotions that drive those behaviors.
 
Transcript: "In order to stop a food addiction, you need to get to the underlying issues, which is usually emotional. Most plans that you'll see out there are more Behavioral or maybe cognitive meaning the thoughts and they don't go deep enough. They don't get to the roots of why the addictive behavior is happening under any addictive behavior is usually some kind of distressing emotion that the person is trying to escape or trying to seek comfort from in the substance or the activity. So, you need a That's going to go deep and I would recommend two things. One is brain spotting which has particular protocols, we use for addiction and also can be used on the urges to eat certain foods and we'll go very deep into the unconscious brain and help you process. Whatever that is that's driving that behavior. The other one is EFT or tapping where you tap on certain acupressure points in the body. Dr. Pita Stapleton. Out of Bond University. Australia has done several. Studies showing that EFT is very effective and reducing cravings for certain food. And in reducing the emotions that drive those behaviors,"

Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) is a form of depression that occurs mainly in the fall and winter when there is less daylight. Lightbox therapy, psychotherapy, and medication are effective treatments for SAD.
 
Transcript: "Seasonal affect disorder or sad is a form of depression that occurs primarily in the fall and winter months when there is less daylight. It also occurs more often in climates that get less Sun during the fall and winter. It is not just a few days of having the blues. It is persistent pervasive symptoms of depression. Luckily, there are several very effective treatments including lightbox therapy, which uses a broad-spectrum? Ultraviolet light to mimic. Daylight. And using that for about 30 minutes a day can be very effective Psychotherapy and medication can also be very effective."