Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Neuroplasticity Tools to Change Your (and your kid’s) Brain with Dr. Caroline Leaf

Aug 7, 2023

48:20

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Episode guests

Caroline Leaf

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Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Dr. Caroline Leaf introduces the five-step Neurocycle method for managing thoughts and emotions, emphasizing the importance of reflection, writing, and reconstructing thought patterns.

The Neurocycle method can be applied to parenting and teaching children, using metaphors like trees in the brain to help children understand their mental states and emphasizing the role of modeling and empowering children to take control of their mental health.

Writing is a fundamental aspect of the Neurocycle method, helping capture and process thoughts and emotions effectively, bringing order to chaos, and fostering self-reflection, insight, and personal growth.

Deep dives

Using the Neurocycle to Empower Mental Health

Dr. Caroline Leif introduces her Neurocycle method, a five-step process for managing our thoughts and emotions. She explains that gathering awareness and reflecting on our experiences are the first steps. The next step involves writing down our thoughts and emotions to process them more effectively. In the fourth step, we recheck our patterns and triggers, considering new perspectives on our thoughts and emotions. Finally, in the fifth step, we actively reach by reconstructing our thought patterns and replacing them with healthier ones. Dr. Leif emphasizes the importance of empowering ourselves to create lasting change in our mental health.

How to Brain Preparation but Go Beyond Mindfulness

01:26

The Role of Empowerment in Helping Children Understand and Manage their Emotions

01:26

How to Form a Habit

01:51

Introduction

4min

The Neurocycle: How to Take Off the Plane, Fly, and Land

3min

Cleaning Up the Mental Mass

3min

How to Be a Better Person

5min

The Neuro Cycle and Empowerment

4min

How to Model Mental Health for Your Kids

5min

How to Deal With Stuff in Your Life

5min

The Active Reaching Step

5min

The Power of Reaching Your Goals

3min

10.

Neuroplasticity and the Neuro Cycle Technique

4min

11.

The Neuro Cycle: How It Works

2min

12.

The Neuro Cycle: Rebuilding Your Thought Patterns

4min

13.

How to Clean Up Your Mental Mass

3min

Our thoughts, emotions, and experiences can reshape the very structure of our brains, allowing it to adapt and change over time. This is known as neuroplasticity, and while it’s present throughout our lives the younger we are the more powerful it is.

On today’s episode, Dr. Caroline Leaf joins Rick and Forrest to explore how we can harness the power of neuroplasticity to clean up our mental mess…and teach our children to do the same. They detail Dr. Leaf’s five-step Neurocycle process, walk through a practical example, and explain how we can use mind-management tools to reshape our relationship with difficult thoughts and feelings. Dr. Leaf then shares how we can introduce these tools to young people, the importance of nurturing a child's sense of agency, and the power of teaching through modeling.

About our Guest: Dr. Caroline Leaf is a clinical and cognitive neuroscientist who has been researching the mind-brain connection, the nature of mental health, and the formation of memory for over 40 years. She’s the host of the top mental health podcast Cleaning Up The Mental Mess, and her newest book How to Help Your Child Clean Up Their Mental Mess.

You can watch this episode on YouTube.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

1:00: The five steps of Dr. Leaf’s NeuroCycle

6:30: A walkthrough of the process using an example from Rick

13:50: Helping kids have a sense of agency in difficult environments

20:35: Teaching children through modeling, and building connection with different age groups

26:55: What motivates us to take action and reckon with our past

33:20: Empowering kids to have thoughts and feelings without ‘being’ them

35:20: Recap

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Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Neuroplasticity Tools to Change Your (and your kid’s) Brain with Dr. Caroline Leaf

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Using the Neurocycle to Empower Mental Health

Applying the Neurocycle to Parenting

The Power of Writing in the Neurocycle

Changing Thought Patterns Over Time

Empowering Mental Health Through the Neurocycle

How to Brain Preparation but Go Beyond Mindfulness

The Role of Empowerment in Helping Children Understand and Manage their Emotions

How to Form a Habit

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts