KATHRYN BERKETT

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A Sandpapered Brain
Learning to Reset Our Over-stressed Brain

H
ave you ever reflected on something
you did, that you now think, “Why
on earth did I react like that?”
Maybe you lost your temper with one of
your students or perhaps it was something in
your personal world. Whatever it was, later,
when you have time to reflect and consider
your behaviour, you realise you totally
over-reacted. By the way, I am totally there
with you on this. Knowing the neuroscience
behind why this happens, doesn’t mean you
are immune to regretful moments in your
life, believe me!
However, when you think back over the day
or week preceding that moment, sometimes
you can’t find a clear reason for your
behaviour. There isn’t one big thing that
has sent you into a negative space. You
think and think, but can’t come up with why
you reacted that way.

I propose it was a case of the sandpapered

brain. This is a concept I have been
introducing to my talks around the country.
My job is to train and support hundreds of
people around Aotearoa who are working
with children, youth and adults who have
experienced trauma. I have worked for
over fifteen years around how we can best
identify and intervene when trauma has
been part of someone’s life. It is therefore
quite astounding to me, that it was only
about 12 months ago that I developed a
training around the concept of self-carer and
looking after yourself!

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Obviously, a half or full day training is going

to allow more scope to explain the concept.
This article will just introduce the idea, and
hopefully get you thinking about yourself,
and how to reset yourself more purposefully,
and maybe a bit earlier. This will help you
avoid several of those moments where you
react inappropriately. It will also increase
your health, energy levels and will allow you
to be more future thinking and innovative in Another important factor to understand
your work. is that the brain and body react to every
stressor as if it is going to kill us. We activate
Firstly, we need to unpack a little bit of
the fight or flight response when we see
information around the stress response,
a dangerous lion approaching, which is
which is effectively the fight or flight
obvious and useful. However, this exact
response.
same stress response is activated when we
The stress response is all-important and observe (or even just imagine) a threat
aimed at continuing our survival on this such as an angry boss, an overdue project,
planet. It is present from birth such as when an upcoming exam or a bill we are unsure
a baby cries, kicks their legs or their little we can pay. The brain does not categorise
heart races. It is one of the main reasons we threats into those that can kill us and
still exist as a human race. However, what those that can’t. Any threat activates the
we need to understand is that it was formed response in our body aimed at keeping us
to activate for very short periods of time. alive! So that bill sitting on the kitchen
The stress response would be activated, table can activate our survival, fight/flight
we would escape the threat, and then we response the same way as if we felt an
would calm back down again. Short, sharp earthquake approaching.
bursts of activation of the system that would
When we activate the stress response, the
keep us alive in reaction to that specific
body is mobilizing those systems that will
threat. What happens now, in our modern
keep us alive. Some of the observable
environment, is that we can be surrounded
changes may include eyes dilating (in order
by ‘threats’ for hours, days, months or
to allow us to better see the predator coming
even years. The stress response has not yet
from our peripheral areas); dry mouth
adapted to cope with activation for longer
and nausea (associated with the body
periods of time. This is a large part of why
recruiting the energy from these systems
we now face so many adverse effects from
into the more essential ‘survival’ response);
stress, due to the over-activation of the stress
energy transfer to the major muscles in legs
response. It is important to keep in mind
and arms (to facilitate the fight or flight
that short, tolerable levels of activation of
behaviour); heart racing; bowel & bladder
the stress response are not bad for us. It is
release and temperature changes amongst
the long-term activation that is having the
many other alterations in the body.
negative effect.
In the brain, the very generalised summary
of what is happening, is that the energy
is being utilised by the lower parts of the
brain, the survival areas. These survival
areas identify and react to threats, and they
control heart rate, breathing, etc. So as
these lower areas require more energy, the
higher areas lose the energy to operate. As a
reminder: This is a simplified overview. It is
essentially correct, but there is a lot more to
it than just simple energy transfer.

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The higher, cognitive areas of our brain

are the areas that allow us to be logical,
abstract, empathetic, etc. They are the areas
that mean we can consider, decide and over-
ride any inappropriate impulses, such as
the ones we talked about at the beginning
of the article. As these lose energy, they
The important thing about learning about
are unable to operate effectively. A good
the sandpapered brain, is to be aware of
example of this is when you are a bit
these small sandpapers. Be kind to yourself.
nervous (activating the stress response) and
Help yourself reset by something that
you can’t remember some simple piece of
makes you feel relaxed such as a cup of
information like someone’s name, or the
tea, a quick walk, listening to some music,
item you came to buy in the supermarket!
talking to a colleague. Resetting yourself
Are you starting to get the picture? The after a few sandpapers could protect you
more our body utilises energy for survival, from continuing down that negative spiral
the less energy we have available for the towards that inappropriate response you
non-survival tasks. Both the brain and the identified at the beginning of the article.
body alter. However, the most important
As I said, this is such a brief summary of
aspect for this article, is to understand how
this topic. But hopefully it will help you
incredibly negative this affect can have
consider yourself a bit: be kind to yourself
on the cortical areas of the brain. Small
and identify sandpapers for what they are.
activations of stress can limit our ability to
On the flip side, with your new knowledge,
hold a list in our heads, remember a fact
is to increase forgiveness and understanding
from the past, predict toward the future, or it
of those around you too!
may simply mean we can’t remember where
we left our keys yesterday!

So, what is this sandpapered brain? Those

threats I was talking about, they can be
tiny and almost unnoticeable. Each one,
Each small activation of the stress response
however, is like a sandpaper. Imagine works like a sandpaper, increasing the
touching the back of your hand. It wouldn’t
hurt currently. But if you sandpapered the reactivity in the brain to the next event.
back of your hand, each touch, even of the
same pressure, would hurt more and more,
the more sandpapering you administered.
This is what we need to understand happens
for us as humans living in a complicated,
busy world. Each small activation of the
stress response works like a sandpaper,
increasing the reactivity in the brain to the
next event. Kids running late for school,
people cutting you off on the drive to work,
too many emails in your inbox, no coffee in
the staffroom. All of these can accumulate
Kathryn is an expert in using
to mean you are in quite a high state of neuroscience and physiology to assist
stress without you really noticing. So then, us to better regulate ourselves. She
when that smaller event happens (like that is committed to helping teachers and
pressure on your hand that would not have parents to work better with children,
hurt initially), you now lose the plot because
youth, colleagues and clients. Kathryn
you have a sandpapered brain. That is why,
when you think back over to the reason you runs sessions around this subject,
reacted so crazily, you often can’t think of supporting teachers to understand
why. The reason is because there were lots different ways to assist children to get
of smaller activations, some you might not better at staying calm.
have even considered threats. But your
brain did, and so it reacted, just slightly, but www.KBKonsulting.co.nz
the culmination resulted in the behaviour
you displayed.

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