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All of us have experienced anxiety at one point or another. Sometimes it seems like we’re at the whim of our thoughts and emotions—stuck in a negative spiral we can’t control.
The good news is, there is something we can do about it.
Today on the podcast, Dr. Loretta Breuning talks about how we all have the power to control our brain chemicals—so we can tame anxiety and actively move towards happier thoughts and feelings.
In this episode, Dr. Breuning shares her 3-step “taming tool” for reducing anxiety when it rears its ugly head. We also dive into the essential brain chemicals that govern our emotions and how they evolved to help us survive as mammals; why anxiety and emotional ups and downs are perfectly natural, how the brain wiring we created in childhood legitimately does affect our thinking patterns as adults, how to break those patterns, and much more.
When you’re stuck in an old mindset, you can’t really imagine the new mindset. So how do you activate that pathway in your brain?”
Loretta Breuning
Dr. Loretta Breuning is Founder of the Inner Mammal Institute and author of Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. As Professor of Management at California State University, and as a mom, she lost faith in prevailing views of human motivation. Her search for new answers led to studies of the brain chemistry we share with earlier mammals. Then everything made sense, and she began creating resources to help people manage their inner mammal. Her latest book is Tame Your Anxiety: Rewiring Your Brain for Happiness. The Inner Mammal Institute offers videos, books, podcasts, multimedia, and a training program, to help you make peace with your inner mammal.
This is how people create their own misery, because they’re always focusing on their weaknesses in themselves and the strengths of others.”
Episode Highlights
- We have two brains, and most of our issues come from the way they communicate with each other
- Many of your neural pathways are responsible for your default behaviors have been created from a “random crapshoot” of your experiences
- The key brain chemicals that control your negative and positive emotions
- Cortisol is nature’s alarm system
- Your happy brain chemicals aren’t designed to be on all the time
- How your brain evolved to constantly assess your “place in the herd”
- The biological survival benefits of being a self-serving narcissist
- How our anxiety-coping mechanisms are often based on whatever worked when we were younger
- The 3-step taming tool you can use to combat anxiety
- How to retrain your brain to focus on the positive rather than the habit of looking for the negative
- How stimulating dopamine can help you find and “approach” rewards
Resources Mentioned
- Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin
- I, Mammal: How to Make Peace With the Animal Urge for Social Power
- Tame Your Anxiety: Rewiring Your Brain for Happiness.
- The Science of Positivity: Stop Negative Thought Patterns by Changing Your Brain
Connect With Loretta
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Ross says
Hey Kyle,
I really enjoyed this conversation with Dr. Loretta. I wasn’t expecting it to be so rich. I will be purchasing her book “Tame your anxiety.” I see she offers a class and that’s something I would be interested in just for myself. As I listened, I thought, I would love her as my therapist!!!! I have struggled with anxiety my whole damn life and listening to this gave me a lot of perspective on how the brain functions in anxious moments.
I have so many follow up questions/comments. I wonder what Dr. Loretta thinks about cannabis’ effect on the brain and its ability to aid the alleviation of anxiety temporarily AND which chemicals are released in the brain during the use of cannabis. I also wonder what Dr. Loretta thinks about minorities whose social/collective identity is anxiety/hate based…I feel like society programs and aids anxiety in dating, etc. and also the self-talk that some minorities engage in when dealing with the outer world. Does she think the same rules can be applied on a “racial identity” level? I wonder bc there is so much pressure to identify with “the pain” of the group…which seems counterproductive for the individual’s experience.
Great stuff!
Thanks!
Kyle Ingham says
Hey Ross,
Thanks so much for the kind words, and great questions! Perhaps Dr. Breuning will be able to weigh in on these points.
Cheers,
K
Loretta Graziano Breuning says
Hi Ross,
I completely agree with what you say, but this thought loop is pretty universal. Mammals bond when there’s a common enemy– otherwise, they’d rather seek greener pasture than be stuck with the herd competing for the same patch of grass. People are the same. They bond around common enemies. There’s that annoying pressure to identify with “the pain” of the group. As you go through your day, each group you are with has the common enemy, and resulting pain, which binds the group despite the annoyance of all those competing horns and hooves when you stick with the herd.
Regarding canabis and other happy habits: Your brain habituates to these externals so you need more and more. If you rely on externals without fixing the internal, you are in a bad loop. Very short answer but more in all my books.
I’d be happy to talk more Ross. Click “contact” at my website: InnerMammalInstitute.org. It all goes to me.