by Kay Spare Login | Mar 5, 2025 | be well, calm, kids, mental health, mind-body, neurology, next generation, NLP, parenting, parents, strategy, work well, workingwithkids
This month’s focus is more on the neurotransmitter Serotonin, with an anecdote is about a 12-year-old client who set up his own empirical study of the effects of boosting serotonin.
Having taught Balloon Breathing to 12-year-old Jake, he still wasn’t convinced that he could reproduce the ‘in the moment relaxation’ I had induced in him.
You see his daily stress around homework and revision was grinding him down and generalising in other areas of life.
So, we made a plan for him to set up his own trial of the effects of both ‘preparing’ and ‘not preparing’ his body and mind for the tasks of homework and revision.
He was blown away with the results of Balloon Breathing and Body Balance (two techniques from our Calm Confidence Kit). Not only did he feel more relaxed while on task, but his grades improved AND he chose to practice these techniques during school tests. What impressed me most was his use of an Excel sheet to plot his own evidence!
Because that’s the secret to happy living – setting up your own bio-feedback system for self-improvement success. After that, it doesn’t take long for the mind to start trusting the positive direction of thrive sensations.
Jake boosted his serotonin levels. And to me that’s literally Sunshine Thinking because he learned to make a better decision about ways to brighten his days!
You probably know that serotonin is often referred to as the happiness molecule and is a neurotransmitter that can be boosted by relaxation, exercise, diaphragm breathing, and many other things, including diet. Did you know that 90% of your body’s serotonin is created and stored in your gut, reinforcing the importance of good gut health!
Here’s a short exercise that helps your neuro-bio-physiology relax. Do your own calibration and feel the effects of doing this and remember that it is easily teachable to young ones (e.g. preparing their brains for doing homework or tests).
- Hold up your non-dominant hand (NDH) palm facing you.
- Point to it with the other hand.
- Place your pointing finger on the base of your NDH wrist.
- Slowly trace up and down each of your fingers, noticing the sensations of skin on skin, in both directions.
- Swap hands and calibrate any difference.
- Tune into the physical sensations that your nervous system is providing you with.
- Continue very slowly until you feel more relaxed.
To deepen the practice, you can bring awareness to your breath and keep doing the finger slide while coordinating a slow in-breath as you ascend each finger and a long out-breath with each descent. Hopefully you have now mindfully engaged your Parasympathetic Nervous System!
Note: this exercise activates both right and left brain hemispheres, boosts THRIVE neuro-chemicals like serotonin and oxytocin, and helps bring brain waves into Alpha wave coherence.
by Kay Spare Login | Jan 3, 2025 | be well, calm, mental health, mind-body, neurology, next generation, parenting, resilience, Transforming, workingwithkids
Happy New Year! And while many people shift gears into their new year resolutions for a brighter year ahead, some of us in the northern hemisphere can feel a little low as vitamin D levels drop and the days are long, and dark.
Around 2 million people in the UK experience the January Blues, also known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). General recommendations for self-help include:
- Staying active with whole body movements (walk, swim, yoga)
- Making the most of natural light and being in nature
- Doing something creative (draw, paint, write)
- Taking time for self-nurture (bath, massage, reading)
- Keeping in contact with family and friends (shared experiences)
- Eating a healthy, balanced diet and staying hydrated
- Trying something new, novel and building new brain patterns
- Seeking professional help if symptoms are severe
Let’s deeper dive into ways you can help yourself and your loved ones, by focussing on a specific neuro-transmitters that is key to a happier brain:
SEROTONIN
Often referred to as the ‘happiness molecule’, serotonin is essential for self-esteem and feeling calm. You can boost serotonin through deep breathing, meditation, relaxing bath soaks and diet: chocolate (+85% cacao) , oats, dates, dairy products, eggs, fish, poultry, sesame, chickpeas, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds…
NOTE: Serotonin is depleted by sugar, smoking and alcohol.
Read on for six tips that will support your family’s serotonin levels:
- Lighten Up!
As your eyes perceive light, serotonin levels naturally rise, and mood is boosted. The benefits of being immersed in nature are well documented but in the depths of winter, chasing light can feel impossible. However, you can pay attention to sunlight reflections that bounce from rivers, lakes, the ocean, waxy leaves or other reflective surfaces.
Can’t get outside? Take a glass of water and place it near a window or any reflective surface (many people suspend ‘light catchers’ in their windows and watch the mesmerizing ‘fairies’ dance across the room). Please be careful and wise about placing anything that magnifies the sun’s power as a source of fire starting!
- Move!
Physical movement fires up serotonin neurons. Any movement – it doesn’t have to be classed as exercise. Routine housework chores move these signals through your body, and novel chores, e.g., clearing out a cupboard, will boost dopamine reward circuits too.
- Visualise!
Switch out of your worry-brain by engaging your creative right hemisphere. For example, imagine serotonin as a trillion golden stars bathing each and every cell of your whole anatomy while glistening, shimmering and shining.
- Star Breath!
Combining right hemisphere imagination with breathwork, allows you to imagine yourself breathing in (so deep it feels like your belly is expanding) ALL the shimmers into that space just below your diaphragm. Then with a slow and full outbreath, visualise photons of light flowing into the space around you. Repeat this breathing exercise until it becomes effortless, and you feel the sensations of calm.
- Sharing Stars!
Have the family form a circle around one person. That person is called the Super Star. Once Super Star is ready to whoosh out their star breath into the space around them (using a long sustained out-breath), the others close their eyes, open their hands and visualise receiving the ‘shared stars’. Kids love to tune into sensations of sharing stars. This also boosts connection and cooperation (oxytocin), imagination (needed for problem solving), and attention training.
- Get Creative!
Staying with the creative brain centres, why not make an indoor garden or help your kids to do this? All you need is:
• A large plate to contain the ‘garden’
• A small mirror or tin foil to represent reflections from water
• Some soil, stones or sand to represent the terrain (or use something out of date from the pantry, like lentils, coffee etc.)
• Either real plant cuttings, or artificial vegetation – Play Doh, plasticine, cardboard, pipe cleaners are starting points, but you are only limited by your imagination!
PS. Measuring the shadow and light would be a cool science experiment.
Or draw freestyle, paint while holding the brush with your non-dominant hand, or colour golden sunshine patterns on stones. All of the above helps align your sub-conscious mind with self-managed wellbeing. And this theme involves the power of the light. No wonder the ancients worshipped the sun!
PS…
- FACT! Your body and mind make up one amazing system that communicates within itself and also with the outside world.
- FACT! imagination stimulates electro-chemical signals that cascade throughout your nervous system.
- FACT! Your body and mind in stress (real or imagined) depletes nourishing brain chemistry.
- FACT! Your body and mind’s THRIVE DRIVE is something you can influence.
Do practice these simple skills to boost your Happy Brain, on purpose, with purpose and for a purpose! Make your purpose to shine!
by Kay Spare Login | Oct 12, 2024 | kids, mental health, mind-body, next generation, parenting, parents, resilience, workingwithkids
Trick for Treat
Witches, wizards and pumpkins as well
Preparing October’s most sinister spell.
Jolly the Ghost with his floating routines
Weirdest this Spook School has ever seen.
“Who can be scary, spooky and mean?
Who can make children’s mothers turn green?
Go gather the loudest screams, moans and cries,
To win Spook School’s Ultimate Halloween prize.”
But as the All Hallows adventures began
Jolly the Ghost kept carefully to plan.
“No, I will not frighten in this competition
For I am Jolly, the great mind magician!”
Yet whispers abound ‘A ghost – Jolly’s not’
Resounded through Spook School and echoed a lot.
His techniques to feel happy, creative, ecstatic
Surely were not real examples of magic.
“Well,” Jolly explained, “a thought can bring terror
It can also bring laughter, so you see there’s an error!
Today, I’ll teach you real magic inside,
Preparing your most exciting Halloween ride.”
An apparition was conjured within Jolly’s belly
A calm orange pumpkin, fresh, vibrant, not smelly!
Jolly deeply inhaled October’s crisp air
Exhaling long, soft breath, relaxing all cares.
Jolly imagined the pumpkin was breathing
Expanding, contracting, a rhythm most pleasing.
While focusing more on the long outward breath
Jolly’s relaxation helped him to stress-less.
His ghost-mind relaxed more, drifting away
Feelings of floating above all today.
Over Spook City and all who he knows
Jolly feels freedom as his mind magic grows.
Imagineering a floating, relaxing sensation
Brings excitement of calmness into any occasion
In the Halloween spirit, this trick is a treat,
Pumpkin belly breathing is a spell to repeat
Belly Breathing pumpkins have more gifts for you,
Calm-on-demand – empowerment to do.
Jolly notices something while surfing through clouds
Sad Little Witch all alone, crying out loud.
Jolly breathes deeply, imagination stays calm
A sparkle magical wand appears in his ghostly palm
“The others from Spook School; gremlins and ghouls,
Are simply not following all our spook rules.”
I’m feeling so upset, what am I to do?”
“Let’s start by calming those sad feelings in you.
Use magical eyes to find feeling inside
And spin them around until sad feelings subside.”
“If feelings tumble one way or another to feel bad
Try reversing their direction til you are no longer sad”
Little Witch began describing her actual sensations
Intending a new spell for their evaporation.
Jolly’s ghost-wand spun sparkles into her pain
And From Little Witch’s cloud it started to rain!
Jolly the Ghost smiled “we are not done quite yet
We need to rebalance, so you no longer fret.”
Shifting and shuffling until Witch was sat straight
Jolly helped her adjust, until she felt great.
Little Witch started grinning and cackled with glee
“Can I adventure with you for mind-magic to see?”
And so this contagious thinking arrived into Spook School
As Jolly and Witch shared their mind magic tools.
Terror and calm are both possible now
Both magical thought forms when ghouls, know how.
A new competition is planned for next year
“We’ll teach calmness and fun-shine to balance each fear”
Imagineering can bring both terror or fun
So, let’s learn mind tricks for treats – easily done!
By Emily Elliott and Kay Cooke
All copyrights belong to The Happy Brain Co Ltd
by Kay Spare Login | Oct 1, 2024 | be well, brain aim, calm, Consciousness, focus, kids, mental health, mind-body, neurology, next generation, NLP, parenting, Personal growth, resilience, strategy, work well, workingwithkids
Every word, every utterance, carries an electro-chemical charge that affects your nervous system.
Words have power.
I can say the word ‘spider’ to 10 people and each person will build a unique image inside their minds. One that fits their personalised mental mapping/interpretation of that word.
I can say ‘vicious spider’ and some people will laugh; others will recoil in terror.
Some will imagine a cartoon spider, perhaps wielding a sword, others may see death jaws and claws.
The interpretation of any word is subjective. Yet that meaning will instigate a floodgate of FEELINGS i.e. neuro-chemicals.
Words are spells.
Many people are careless with words. Many people are wounded by words.
People are also strengthened by words.
Words carry powerful energies.
Tune into the intensity of your response to the following phrases.
- You should know better.
- You should have known better.
- You might know better next time.
If you don’t feel the shift in your brain’s processing of these word combinations, call me. You should. You should know the great power of word-smithing. Because you are being bombarded by wordsmiths.
Every. Single. Day. Be they cunning and manipulative OR sloppy and ignorant.
To know is to reclaim your brain.
TAKE AN EVERY DAY CONVERSATION ABOUT A NEWS ITEM:
“They were REALLY AWFULL. They are such ignorant bigots who deserve what they get.”
= Fact-less opinions with a poisoned arrow of invitation into heavy emotional entanglement.
“I didn’t enjoy that. I found myself willing them to open their hearts, but it didn’t happen.”
= Personal opinion with a tangle-free opportunity to respond.
“Well, that’s not for me!”
= Honest statement as a platform to move the conversation onward.
Know the difference between facts, feelings, opinion, and imagination.
FACTS
Verifiable by the outside world.
FEELINGS
The meaning that your brain interprets with positive or negative emotions.
OPINION
How you see the situation.
IMAGINATION
How the situation could become better or worse.
GET CLARITY! And help your young ones to know these differences!
But those words and phrases don’t just happen out loud. No! The most toxic words can happen inside your mind.
So you really should start listening to your everyday vocabulary. Make sure you include:
Owning your opinion (I think)
Owning your emotion (I feel)
Empower Yourself!
In week one of Happy Brain training, we include an exercise to wake up your word-smart filters. It’s called The Fun-Shine Alphabet. Try it!
Take each letter of the alphabet and find fabulous words that make your brain, mind and body feel shiny, happy and joyful. It’s a Mini Mind Spa. Flush some happy chemicals through your system each day and format some positive language into your auto-pilot.
The magic starts inside your mind.
In which direction you choose to utilise your word power is between you and your morality. But I wish for a more kind, compassionate, tolerant, peace-seeking, curious, explorative, loving, fun, happy, intelligent, and healthy society. And I hope you’ll join me in the intention and practice of positive transformation through word power.
Wouldn’t it be Amazing if we Aimed our brains in Beautiful, Creative, Displays of Energised, Feelings, Growing, Hopeful, Imaginations, Joyfully, Kind and Loving, with Marvellous, Nourishment, of Opulent Playfulness, Quirky Resilience, with Shiny,Terrific Understanding and Violet-light Wonderment that leads to X-cellent, Yummy, Zinging!!!
You’re welcome …
by Kay Spare Login | Feb 13, 2024 | be well, heart, mental health, mind-body, neurology, resilience, strategy, workingwithkids
The fierce Dinosaur was trapped inside his cage of ice. Although it was cold, he was happy in there. It was, after all, his cage.
Then along came the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
The Lovely Other Dinosaur melted the Dinosaur’s cage with kind words and loving thoughts.
“I like this Dinosaur,” thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur. “Although he is fierce he is also tender and he is funny. He is also quite clever though I will not tell him this for now.”
“I like this Lovely Other Dinosaur,” thought the Dinosaur. “She is beautiful and she is different and she smells so nice. She is also a free spirit which is a quality I much admire in a dinosaur.”
“But he can be so distant and so peculiar at times,” thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur. “He is also overly fond of things. Are all Dinosaurs so overly fond of things?”
“But her mind skips from here to there so quickly,” thought the Dinosaur. “She is also uncommonly keen on shopping. Are all Lovely Other Dinosaurs so uncommonly keen on shopping?”
“I will forgive his peculiarity and his concern for things,” thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur, “for they are part of what makes him a richly charactered individual.”
“I will forgive her skipping mind and her fondness for shopping,” thought the Dinosaur, “for she fills our life with beautiful thoughts and wonderful surprises. Besides, I am not unkeen on shopping either.”
Now the Dinosaur and the Lovely Other Dinosaur are old. Look at them. Together they stand on the hill telling each other stories and feeling the warmth of the sun on their backs.
And that, my friends, is how it is with love.
Let us all be Dinosaurs and Lovely Other Dinosaurs together. For the sun is warm. And the world is a beautiful place.
by Kay Spare Login | Nov 2, 2023 | be well, brain aim, mental health, next generation, NLP, parenting, psychology, resilience, work well, workingwithkids
Engineering The Mind
Working with young people (and their parents) means helping them understand the basics of designing a future self who is calm, confident, enjoying successful relationships, and is thankful for learning some basic secrets of happiness.
This process applies to any age!
“It is impossible to control any goal that requires other people to change.”
Case study: Lonely Lana
Moving schools had been a good decision for 14-year-old Lana but had left her yearning for her old group of pals. But her mind had played tricks on her, recalling the past in a kinder light, yet in truth, she had been quite unhappy with them. The NEW friendship group felt impermeable, and she came to see me asking for help with ‘social exclusion’.
We established that a couple of girls in the group were being really kind and friendly towards her, but this didn’t satisfy Lana and she found herself:
- Dismissive of easily available friendships.
- Keeping her sights fixed on getting attention from the big personalities.
- Negatively mind-reading the new group’s intentions.
- Negatively interpreting the body language of certain group members.
- Feeling awkward and self-conscious
- Fantasising that the old school friendship group was perfect.
We summarised our initial discussion in terms of her:
THOUGHTS – the group was unsure about her and viewed her with suspicion.
FEELINGS – self-conscious, unhappy, and awkward.
BEHAVIOUR – wanting to withdraw from the group.
Delving deeper into her thinking patterns she soon revealed some fundamental beliefs that were triggering her own unhappiness.
Trigger thoughts included:
“Making new friends is hard work and tiring”
“Why don’t they? …. (act the way I want them to act)”
“I have lost my perfect old friends”
These thoughts triggered her ‘feel-bad’ strategy.
She ran this strategy in her mind ‘on-repeat’.
Neural plasticity meant that those self-harming thoughts became automatic – because she had practiced paying attention to them.
Soon into our session, Lana realised that her true (unconscious) friendship goal had been to be the popular one amongst a large group of girls. But she didn’t yet realise that goal was impossible to achieve since it required:
- Exhausting effort to try to change the opinions and behaviours of others.
- The others to prioritise her needs above their natural ordering.
I invited her to understand that it is impossible to control any goal that requires other people to change. Trying to do that had been exhausting and frustrating, wasting energy and leading to disappointment in others and (self) generating feelings of unhappiness.
EXPLORING SOLUTIONS
I wondered if Lana could amend her friendship goal to “I want to feel relaxed and authentic around new people”. That would require her to expect nothing back from them, just to be curious and interested in the evolving relationships.
After all, a goal like this means being in charge of a goal you can actually control!
EXPERIMENT
We worked hypnotically to visualise Lana pitching up at school, looking for fun people to get to know while feeling relaxed, interested, humorous and happy. This imprinted a new neurological template which she could practise (through neural plasticity) until it became her autopilot.
FEEDBACK
We reframed her thinking so that SHE could reflect on, and positively adjust, her personal thoughts, feelings, and behaviours – it’s an inside job!
SKILLS
I taught her techniques for self-regulating wayward feelings.
FEED FORWARD
We looked through time to visit her future-self. The person who is calm, confident, enjoying a range of successful relationships, and thankful for learning some basic secrets of owning next-generation happiness.
Think this is just about children? Think again!
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