Re-train Your Brain With Self-Care: Dima Abou Chaaban (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of Dima Abou Chaaban’s talk titled “Re-train Your Brain With Self-Care” at TEDxUNBSaintJohn 2019 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

The Reality of Burnout in Modern Society

I see many posts on social media about people being tired from work or from school, so let me share one of those posts with you today. Your friends who work 40 plus hours a week aren’t just avoiding you, they’re just tired. Does this look familiar to some of you? Did you know that the World Health Organization recently recognized burnout as an occupational phenomenon?

My best friend goes to the gym every morning as part of her self-care routine, until one day she suddenly stopped going. And she definitely seemed off, there was something about her energy levels, she wasn’t like she used to be. So I asked her, “Are you okay?” We all know what happens to somebody when you ask them, “Are you okay?”

They will either burst into tears, or they’ll say, “I’m fine.” Well, she said “I’m fine.” And we all know that when someone says “I’m fine,” they’re really not. “I’m fine” means I’m frustrated, I’m upset, I want to quit my job, I want to drop out of school, I’m tired.

The Root Causes of Fatigue

So why is it that we are so tired? Is it because we’re drained from working too much? Is it because we’re overwhelmed with stress? Or is it because we spend too much time working and little to no time doing what makes us feel good?

We’ve all had our fair share of bad days. But the most important question to ask yourself is, is it actually a bad day? Or is it more than that? We can prevent burnout from exposure to chronic stress by practicing self-care.

But just remember that self-care is not a one size fits all. For example, self-care for my husband is candles and bubble baths. For me, well, let’s just say it’s not that. It’s easy to wake up every day and show up to work because you have to, it’s your job, it’s mandatory.

The Importance of Self-Care

Yet, it’s just as easy to convince ourselves that we don’t need self-care, “I don’t have the time for it, it’s ineffective.” Or because we think that going on vacation for a few weeks to a nice place is enough of a self-care. That’s like charging your phone for five minutes, it reaches 20%, you’re like, “Yeah, I’m set for the whole day,” but it’s not going to last long. So what happens when we keep coming up with excuses to delay self-care?

What happens when we postpone self-care? Well, first of all, self-care increases resilience, motivation, and our ability to cope with stress. It also produces neurotransmitters that are responsible for making us feel good. Without self-care, we may experience burnout and compassion fatigue.

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Burnout has been described as the state of psychological, emotional, mental, physical, and even spiritual exhaustion from chronic involvement in your work. Compassion fatigue is simply the cost you pay for being too caring. It’s psychological and physical fatigue from showing too much empathy to others and not enough for yourself. A Canadian psychologist named Donald Hebb once said, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”

The Science of Brain Plasticity

Our brains are constantly changing because neurons in our brain are constantly being fired and because certain parts of our brains are more activated than others. Our brains are constantly changing simply from caffeine consumption to stress to practicing meditation. Our brains are constantly changing simply because of learning new things and forming new habits. And due to the brain’s ability to change, we can shape it to a healthier one by rewiring it.

And we can rewire our brain by practicing self-care. So to start with, neuroscience is a study of the nervous system. So that includes the different regions of your brain, the neurons, and the neural connections throughout the nervous system. Neuroscience helps us understand human thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.

The Effects of Caffeine on the Brain

It also helps us understand how our brain operates under certain circumstances, what happens when we’re under stress, and how the brain can change itself. Let’s take a look at what happens to our brains when we drink coffee. When you drink a cup of coffee, suddenly your surroundings are clear. Your attention is at its best. It couldn’t get any better than that.

You drink your first cup of coffee on a Monday morning and you’re like, “Yes, let’s do this Monday. I’m going to conquer the world. Nothing can bring me down.”

But don’t you realize that as the day goes by, your energy levels start to decrease, you get really tired, and you find yourself running for that second cup of coffee or even third cup of coffee for you coffee addicts out there? Well, that’s because of a molecule called adenosine. Adenosine is a molecule that is naturally produced by your brain, which makes you tired. So when you drink a cup of coffee, the caffeine blocks adenosine’s production, making you more alert.

The Process of Brain Wiring

This entire process is basically changing your brain temporarily. So when you practice self-care, you’re actually wiring your brain. You’re making it better. You think we have the ability to memorize the lyrics to our favorite songs. That’s because of two things. First is repeated practice, and second, it’s the pathway in your brain and the neurons wiring together.

The brain is made up of ample neurons, and neurons are a billion of nerve cells. The neurons consist of axons, dendrites, and the cell body. The cells are very talkative, and they communicate with one another. The axon will first send a message from one neuron onto another, and then the listening neuron, known as the dendrite, receives the signal and passes it along to the next neuron, and so on.

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So cells will keep firing messages in our brain, and the firing of cells and its activity is known as neural connections. Think of neural connections as best friends with a very strong bond.

The Power of Repetition in Learning

The closer you are to your best friend, the more supported and loved you will feel. So when you’re learning the lyrics to your favorite song, the cells that send and receive information about that song become very efficient, and the more efficient they become, the less effort it takes them to send a message to the next cell about what’s happening, making it easier for you to sing the song.

So when you practice self-care to include it in your routine, it’s as if you’re learning something new. It becomes a habit, and this habit is the result of learning a new task. You can learn to practice self-care the same way that you learn anything else, through repeated practice.

As we now know, your brain fires neurons all the time, which causes some changes in your brain, such as the pathway that you just created to learn the lyrics to your favorite song. Your brain is constantly trying to remodel itself based on the experiences that you go through in life, and when you stimulate the same circuit over and over again, you strengthen it. You learn to practice self-care the same way you learn anything else, through repeated practice.

The Journey of Self-Care

You may be familiar with the saying, “Practice makes perfect,” but just keep in mind that self-care doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, patience, and perseverance, but don’t give up. Lots of little efforts add up over time. You have to work your brain the same way that you would work your muscles when you’re exercising at the gym.

As humans, we are more prone to being affected by negative views instead of positive ones. Somehow, our brain is wired to pay attention to the bad side of things instead of the good. This is because of something known as the negativity bias. The same way that your brain was able to create that negativity pathway, you can create a positivity pathway, and the first step is to practice self-care.

The Neurotransmitters of Happiness

The more you practice self-care, the more neurons your brain will fire in order to create that positivity pathway that will help you cope with stress. There are four neurotransmitters responsible for making us feel good, according to Loretta Breuning: Serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin. She calls them the happy chemicals.

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When you do something that you love, when you practice something that makes you feel good, these neurotransmitters will be released by your brain. But when you’re always under stress and you’re always feeling overwhelmed, these neurotransmitters are not present.

Let’s talk a little bit about the role of the amygdala. The amygdala is an almond-shaped region in your brain that is responsible for detecting stress.

The Amygdala and Stress Management

It’s literally your stress radar, so when you’re under stress, your amygdala is active. When your heart starts racing, your cortisol levels increase, which is a normal response to the situation that you’re in. Stressing out from time to time is normal, but when your amygdala is always active, you’re wiring your brain to think that you’re always in a stressful situation and that there’s always danger around you, even when there’s none. But practicing self-care helps you manage your stress levels, which keeps your amygdala well balanced.

Treat your brain the same way that you would treat your body. Why would you take care of your physical health but neglect your mental well-being? Think of it this way. Your brain is like the remote control, and your body is like a television.

Conclusion: The Importance of Self-Care

As long as you have charged batteries, you can flip through life’s challenges with resilience. In order to charge yourself, practicing self-care is essential, but just remember to be patient with yourself. When you create a self-care plan, when you’re not in crisis, you’re creating a toolkit that you can turn to in times of distress. Nobody knows you more than you know yourself.

You know how stressed out you get. Use that as the guide to help you create the best self-care plan for you to prevent making stressful situations even more stressful. So to answer the question I posed earlier, what happens when we postpone self-care? We simply don’t feel good.

Our energy levels decrease, we feel less motivated, we don’t want to do anything. We may even feel depressed, and it could be hard to get out of. Self-care enhances your energy levels, boosts your mood, increases resilience, and most importantly, reduces stress, because stress is inevitable. A healthy brain is a healthy you.

Thank you.