Whole-Brain Living and Learning: Brain Gym

I was delighted to be invited by Green Living Arizona, a magazine based here in Phoenix, to contribute a "brain health" article for their May, 2017 publication.

I wondered, "What single aspect of Brain Gym® could their readers put to use immediately, and notice a difference?" And further: "What can I share, simply and clearly, in just 500 words?"

The perfect answer emerged: the Brain Buttons! I modified a portion of what I'd written about this wonderful activity for my book Educate Your Brain - and the magazine publisher loved it.

Now, I'm imagining each magazine reader pausing, bringing her hand up to find and massage her Brain Buttons, noticing that she's more relaxed and comfortable, breathing more deeply, and even reading more easily!

I invite you to find out what your own response is to the Brain Buttons!

The "Brain Buttons"

Acupressure Points for Releasing Stress

Imagine having one simple movement that you could do almost anytime to bring more clarity to your vision and the feeling of energy and coordination to your whole body. You do—and it’s right at your fingertips!

Take a moment and notice how you’re feeling right now. Is your body tense, or relaxed? Are your thoughts troubled, or calm? Is your breath shallow, or slow and deep?

Now I invite you to experience what comes of massaging your "Brain Buttons" - one of 26 movements from the Brain Gym® program.

The Brain Buttons

At the top of your ribcage are your collarbones. Find these horizontal bones and then let your fingers slip downward about an inch or so, until they’re resting over your uppermost ribs, just on either side of your sternum, or breastbone. These spots may feel like slight indentations, or softer than the surrounding area.

Make a large “U” with your hand and place the thumb on one of the spots, and the fingertips on the other. Massage these points gently but firmly as you rest your other hand over your navel, and allow your eyes to track gently side to side. Do this for perhaps twenty to thirty seconds. (If you experience tenderness, rub gently until it is released or reduced.) Then switch hands for another twenty to thirty seconds.

What do you notice now in your body – your thoughts – your breathing?

The Brain Buttons are potent spots in the world of acupressure. They’re the “K-27s” – the 27^th points on the Kidney Meridian; massaging them can help to correct imbalances in the entire meridian system.

When I rub my Brain Buttons on a stressful day, I often find myself exhaling deeply as I feel my body relax. I may notice my shoulders dropping and my posture straightening. Sometimes I feel a release of tension at the back of my neck. Then even my eyes relax, and it’s easier to scan lines of print, or more fully see the world around me. Typically, I feel more awake and focused.

One evening, after a very demanding day, I was sitting in a theater with my husband, listening to a classical chorale performance. It was wonderful—and long. And the room was dark. Before long, my head was nodding and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Then I thought about Brain Buttons. I quietly brought my hand up and gave those spots a bit of a rub and instantly found myself wide awake! I felt completely alert and refreshed throughout the rest of the evening.

Brain Buttons Article in Green Living AZ Magazine

While a truly remarkable occurrence like this may not happen every day, I continue to experience smaller, helpful shifts all the time. I often use this movement (sometimes nonchalantly) during long meetings, and in a wide variety of similar situations, to maintain a clear focus and remain at my best.

This article is a modified version of a portion of Educate Your Brain, Kathy Brown’s book about the basics of the Brain Gym® program.

Kathy Brown, M.Ed., is a Licensed Brain Gym® Instructor/Consultant. She teaches courses, consults with school districts, writes books and articles, and sees clients in her office in Phoenix, Arizona.

Click here to see the entire May, 2017 issue of Green Living Arizona.

Enjoy coming back into physical comfort and postural alignment, with the Brain Buttons!

With warmest regards,

Kathy

Kathy Brown, M.Ed.
Educational Kinesiologist
Licensed Brain Gym® Instructor/Consultant
Author of Educate Your Brain
WEB: www.CenterEdge.com
BLOG: www:WholeBrainLiving.com
BOOK: www.EducateYourBrain.com

Brain Gym® movement photograph Copyright© Laird Brown Photography. All rights reserved

©Copyright 2017 Kathy Brown. All rights reserved.
Original article from Educate Your Brain. Phoenix: Balance Point Publishing LLC. 2012. 17-20.

Brain Gym® is a registered trademark of the Educational Kinesiology Foundation • Ventura, CA • www.braingym.org

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I’m sharing this excerpt from my book, Educate Your Brain. This piece is the conclusion to Chapter 14, “Brain Gym in the Workplace.” However, as you read, please keep in mind that groups are found everywhere: sports teams, dance ensembles, study groups, neighborhood associations – even families! Wherever there’s a group that would like to function more effectively as a coordinated team, Edu-K balancing can be a valued resource.

I conclude this posting with an addition: thoughts about what it is that makes the group balancing process so powerful. What might it have to do with the power of coherence? I warmly invite you to share this exploration with me.

Edu-K balancing and group goals

While the balance process is used most often with individuals, remarkable shifts may also occur when those individuals come together to address a common goal. Following a balance, office staff or management teams may find themselves communicating more effectively, feeling more aligned as a group, and cooperatively solving challenges that arise.

I was invited to work with a business that was having serious cooperation issues. It was a small, recently merged office. The two owners (now partners) brought with them distinctly different personality styles and sets of office systems, and employees steeped in those disparate systems. As one of the owners stated, “The challenges for our newly merged support staff are considerable and lead to conflicts that drain our time and energy.”

The Total Team Effectiveness^TM program I’ve developed uses the Edu-K model to specifically address challenges within groups. It consists of a workshop covering the basics of the Brain Gym process, followed by individual balances with each team member, and then at least one more session with the entire group, focused on a collective goal.

In the case of this company, each participant chose to use his or her private session to address a specific personal issue, with the overall understanding that balanced team members create a more balanced team. When they got together a few days later for their group session, they chose to focus on improving their ability to communicate and generate harmonious solutions.

The owners later wrote to say that their office was now more productive and focused on accomplishing their business goals. One of the office staff members commented, “It isn’t that conflict went away. We just seem to find solutions so cooperatively and easily now.”

Not all businesses have a need—or the time—for such in-depth work. Sometimes just a quick balance-boost can resolve a specific situation.

I facilitated a short workshop for the executive committee of a small private college at the beginning of a day dedicated to creating a three-year strategic plan. This school was facing a real challenge: each department’s program was growing, and the building wasn’t. There had been some very heated “discussions” among department directors about the usage of classrooms and whose program “deserved” what space. All the directors attended this meeting.

In the workshop, I briefly explained the basics of Edu-K balancing and introduced the PACE warm-up. Then we discussed what they wanted to accomplish together. The participants all knew they needed to improve their teamwork and blend the interests of the various departments of the school. To develop a group goal, I asked them to list the qualities that would help their team be more effective, which I scribed on the board. They mentioned such things as respect, flexibility, open communication, and willingness to hold a team view. Once all these words were contributed, I had everyone look at them and notice their reaction. Their comments ranged from “I can’t even look at the word cooperation” to “Making this change seems totally impossible.”

The Calf Pump

I suggested they each put a hand over any place where they noticed discomfort in their body, and soon they were covering stomachs, heads, necks, jaws, and lower backs. One man said, “I need more hands!” Then I pointed to a poster of all the Brain Gym movements (our learning menu), and invited members of the group to simply notice which movements they were drawn to. One person said, “I can’t take my eyes off the words ‘The Calf Pump.’ What is it?” I replied, “I’ll show you,” and then led the group in that movement. After a few movements done this way, I noticed everyone sitting back in their chairs, seeming quite content. When they looked again at the words on the board describing their goal, they had various comments: “My stomach feels fine and my headache is gone.” “I can do that now.” “I can look at our goal and breathe now—and even smile.” “I’m ready—let’s get to work.”

The director of public relations for this school later wrote to describe what happened during the meeting that followed their Brain Gym workshop:

We found that we were able to complete our tasks in record time with great camaraderie. Starting with concerns of “turf wars” between members of the team, we found we spent the day enjoying and respecting one another more than we could have anticipated. In fact, we accomplished the outline of our Three-Year Strategic Plan by 5:00 p.m. that same day!

Even though several weeks have passed since our retreat, members of the Executive Committee are openly using the techniques in front of our employees and discussing the benefits of the processes with their staff. Many of our employees have sought out the Brain Gym® for Business books that we brought back with us so that they, too, can benefit from the exercises.

We hope to include you in a future all-school meeting. In the meantime, we are all ambassadors for “Brain Gym” techniques!

Whether it’s a quick productivity boost or in-depth balancing, Brain Gym and Edu-K can help to transform the atmosphere of your work setting. It’s amazing what can happen when individuals really prepare themselves for success, and teams balance to hold a shared vision.

How to explain such profound changes in camaraderie and teamwork?

Over the last twenty years using Brain Gym, I’ve found that when people do these movements together, and especially when they engage in the balance process together toward a shared goal, positive shifts take place in group dynamics.

Teachers have shared that their classroom environments have been transformed once they began introducing the Brain Gym movements and making them a regular part of their day. This email from a special-education teacher is a good example:

“My students (many of whom I knew well, as they had been in this special class last year also) were suddenly shifting their attitude and getting along so well together. They cooperated in ways I’d never seen before, and the typical nagging and teasing almost vanished. They really became a learning team and seemed to enjoy the victories and gains of their classmates as much as they enjoyed their own.”[1]

And balancing is effective if your group is just two people! One of my Brain Gym students remarked that she and her husband were getting along remarkably better, ever since they came to me for a “partners” balance around the topic of communication. She said, “We seem to respect each other’s communication styles so much more; we’re more patient and understanding with each other. Our marriage is much more harmonious now.”

What’s the source of this kind of change?

Many of you who follow the Brain Gym work may know neurobiologist Carla Hannaford, Ph.D., from her book Smart Moves – Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head, in which she explains the biology of the learning process, and why physical movements like the Brain Gym activities are so vital for developing our capacity to learn.

She followed this book with Playing in the Unified Field – Raising & Becoming Conscious, Creative Human Beings. In this volume she takes a much more profound look at the forces (now verified by physicists) within us, and around us, as we experience our everyday lives. One topic she turns to again and again in this volume is coherence, which she describes as “an ordered, consistent, congruent, harmonious functioning within any system.”[2]

In essence, when we are in a state of coherence, we feel comfortable, connected, and happy; when we are in a state of in-coherence, we feel stressed, separate, and distressed.

Given these definitions, it’s not a stretch to suggest that the outcome of any individual’s Edu-K balancing session is a state of internal coherence, in regard to the goal they were addressing. (In the Edu-K/Brain Gym work, this is called a state of “integration.”)

I believe that what is happening during a group balancing session is that the group members are coming into a state of coherence – individually and together – around a topic in which they all have an emotional investment. When an entire group is in a coherent state, the need for defensive stances and chronic oppositional thinking simply falls away, and cooperation becomes spontaneous and natural.

What’s creating this state of coherence, and how is it that it carries on as a lasting pattern? The balance process itself is a potent medium for change: preparing ourselves for new learning (the PACE warm-up) and setting a focused intention for change (setting a goal); noticing how and where we feel stuck (so the mind-body system knows what patterns to re-educate), and then doing Brain Gym movements, each of which has its own manner of releasing the effects of stress in the body and returning us to a more balanced (coherent) state; following this with noticing again (Wow – I feel different now!). Celebrating our change is the final step.

A powerful combination:
• The Brain Gym movements themselves help us shift into a more integrated, coherent mind-body state.
• The Edu-K balance process harnesses the power of focused intention for making a specific change, so those changes are deep and long-lasting.
Carla Hannaford describes the balance process this way: “elegantly simple.”

Is this exactly what’s happening when we balance? Is this all there is to it? Actually, I don’t know. It’s one way of looking at possibilities.

For me, what’s sufficient is to know that it works. Edu-K balancing works – for individuals and for groups, as well.

What opportunities are there in your own life, for exploring the possibilities?

With all best wishes,

Kathy

[1] Brown, Kathy. Educate Your Brain. Phoenix: Balance Point Publishing LLC, 2012. p.180

[2] Hannaford, Carla. Playing in the Unified Field. Salt Lake City: Great River Publishing, 2010. p.22.

Brain Gym® is a registered trademark of the Educational Kinesiology Foundation • Ventura, CA • www.braingym.org

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Monday, May 15, 2017

The “Brain Buttons” – Acupressure points for releasing stress

Friday, December 2, 2016

Balancing for Group Goals: The Power of Coherence