Brain Fact Friday on ”Exploring Consciousness: Using Neuroscience to Expand Our Awareness”

Welcome back to The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast where we bridge the gap between theory and practice, with strategies, tools and ideas we can all use immediately, applied to the most current brain research to heighten productivity in our schools, sports environments and modern workplaces. I’m Andrea Samadi and launched this podcast to share how important an understanding of our brain is for our everyday life and results. Like you, I’m interested in learning and applying the research, to our everyday life. On this episode we will cover: How can being “mindfully aware in the present moment” benefit us? An overview of the Levels of Consciousness that take us from coma, unaware, to full wakefulness and awareness. How to expand our level of awareness through effective study (using the most current neuroscience research). Break down this complex idea of consciousness, so we can all improve an area on the map, moving us towards full awareness. Use this understanding to better understand ourselves and others. This week’s Brain Fact Friday came to me this week while on a training call with Mark Waldman, in his neurocoaching program, that consists of all of the students he has worked with over the years[i] all over the world. Some students have been certified, and share their knowledge with others, like Michael Kirton, an Australian clinical psychologist and author who specializes in child development, mental health issues and trauma, and he often joins the calls to share how he is making an impact in his community with the understanding of mindfulness based coaching, training or therapy. I tune into these calls as I’m always looking for something new to share on the podcast, that we could all use to improve our results. This week, were talking about what it means to be “mindfully aware in the present moment” that Jon Kabat-Zinn coined in his definition of mindfulness to be the “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally”[ii] which Waldman says is a key secret for experiencing optimal health and wellbeing.  We covered an overview of Brain Network theory on EP #48 and the importance of being able to mindfully shift between our imagination, (DMN) awareness (SN) and thinking (EN) to increase our creativity and results, while reducing stress.  The funny thing I’ve noticed with writing these episodes, and implementing what I’m writing, I’ve got to say that when I’m in a high stress situation, the last thing I’m thinking about is being “mindfully aware” in the present moment. But with time, small things like learning to breathe properly while experiencing stress, that we learned from Rohan Dixit, on EP #228[iii] is putting me miles ahead of where I used to be without a mindfulness-based stress reduction strategy. While I wish I had the opportunity to study and learn directly with monks deep in the Himalayas, like Rohan Dixit did before he founded Lief Therapeutics, and invented a wearable device that tracks HRV in real-time to help us to learn how to breathe when we are stressed, interviewing those who’ve taken the time to do the research, and then sharing this research on the podcast, is my next best option. We’ve all heard of the research that backs up how important these brief moments of mindfulness can be, whether it’s in our everyday life, or even in the classroom, during learning, as Professor Kimberly Shonert-Reichl’s research (from The University of British Columbia) shows that these brief moments “promote curiosity, creativity and pro social behavior.”[iv] The key to being mindfully aware is to focus on the present moment, instead of what’s happened in the past, or what we think might happen in the future, and learn to breathe, or focus on our breath, which brings our mind into this present moment. While on this training call with Mark Waldman, a new student asked “what about when I’m dreaming” where’s my level of awareness here?” and w