In teaching EBT to medical students at UCSF with my collaborators Igor Mitrovic, MD, Lynda Frassetto, MD, and several esteemed “guest faculty” from the university, I learned a lot about the challenges physicians face. They treat problems that are largely symptoms of dysregulation and trauma, yet until recently, they had no neuroscientific, scalable way to help patients rewire the circuits that were hampering the effectiveness of their treatments.
EBT coupled with technology is trying to support physicians, as well as psychologists and other health professionals, with ways to rewire those circuits and make medical care safer and more effective.
From spiraling up to rewiring trauma
At EBT, our research over the last 10 years has focused on simplifying the rewiring process and making the EBT Physiologic Resilience Algorithm (what EBT Providers use to coach clinical sessions) supported by our mobile app. Thanks to our amazing team, our latest upgrade brought these rewiring practices into the app.
How does it work? Continue using Spiral Up #1 Instant Boost for self-regulation in a minute or so. Also, when you have two to three minutes and want to access all five tools of the EBT 5-Point System of Emotional and Behavioral Regulation, touch on Spiral Up #2 Quick & Easy. Want to do some real damage to the wires that are causing health problems? Touch on Spiral Up #3 Deep Work.
The 3 Steps of Reconsolidation
Deep work will have the most impact on your health problems. Our books on EBT (The Stress Overload Solution, The Stress Eating Solution, and our latest and more scientific, 1-2-3 Joy) describe all of this. However, in everyday life, rewiring is a top priority.
Here’s how it works: First, you discover a circuit, preferably one deep in the brain (a “5 Circuit”), as rewiring these trauma circuits has the most impact on health. Unlike circuits encoded at lower levels of stress (“4 Circuits” and “3 Circuits”), they often require more emotional processing. Positive plasticity occurs when stress activates a wire, and we stay present to the emotions.
Staying present to emotions requires being in Brain State 1 or 2. That’s only possible if we rewire the circuit in small steps, as too much stress compromises the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, and the individual does not have the self-regulatory strength to stay present to the contents of the emotional experience.
Rewiring in small steps – or POOF!
The EBT mobile app now breaks the process down into the three steps, including discovery of the circuit, followed by negating the expectation embedded in the circuit (e.g., “I get my safety from eating sweets” and other false associations, or “I have no power” and other false generalizations) and finally transforming the circuit into a new health-promoting wire.
If the circuit was encoded during a traumatic episode, rewiring will require grieving losses and healing from fear memories, so it takes more time and more uses of the tools to rewire. It takes as long as it takes! However, neuroplasticity takes intensity and passion, so one of the components of our group programs is access to a Certified EBT Provider to guide the process and arrange for support and accountability to keep up the intensity and rewire faster and more completely.
That said, the emotional brain cooperates in clearing these circuits, so if our EBT skills are strong and we “strike” the circuit with them just right, the circuit will reward us with reconsolidation in one session. Psychologists often report such occurrences in their sessions using a range of methods, but our goal with EBT is to make those rewiring experiences much more common and, at times, even available to members when using the app solo.
As the stress pandemic impacts all of us, the more we can share EBT within the healthcare system, the better for physicians, patients, and our world. Special thanks to Dev Singh for programming this entire app, Frannie Wilson for proofing and editing it, and our family of providers, trainers, and participants who have given feedback and helped us bring these tools to you.
