Podcast appearances and mentions of lisa shulman

Jennifer Bain, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor of neurology and pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center.  Dr. Bain completed both an M.D. and PhD. as well as general pediatrics residency at Rutgers – New Jersey Medical School in New Jersey.  She then trained in Child Neurology at New York Presbyterian – Columbia University Medical Center in New York City and is a board-certified neurologist with special certification in Child Neurology seeing both inpatient and outpatient pediatric neurology patients. Her clinic focuses on diagnosis and management of autism, cerebral palsy and neurodevelopmental disorders in addition to genetic disorders associated with such conditions. Her early research career focused on spinal cord and brain development after injuries such as spinal cord injury and perinatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy.  During her residency training, her clinical research focused on studying autonomic dysfunction in children with autism spectrum disorders and neurological complications during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. She currently works as a physician scientist at Columbia University specializing in general pediatric neurology with expertise in development, behavioral neurology, autism and cerebral palsy.  Her clinical research has focused on studying the genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and cerebral palsy. The genes she has worked closely on include HNRNPH2 and related disorders, GRIN disorders, KIF1A. She is interested in understanding clinically meaningful measures in families affected by neurodevelopmental disorders and measuring longitudinal trajectories in such disorders. She has been working closely with several patient advocacy groups, researchers, and Simons Searchlight to continuously move forward in the understanding of the developing and aging brain. JOWMA Podcast | Learn The Signs, Act Early: Dr. Lisa Shulman on the Early Identification and Treatment of Autism https://anchor.fm/jowma/episodes/Learn-The-Signs--Act-Early-Dr--Lisa-Shulman-on-the-Early-Identification-and-Treatment-of-Autism-e22noo5 JOWMA Podcast | All Brains Belong with Dr. Mel Houser, MD https://anchor.fm/jowma/episodes/All-Brains-Belong-with-Dr--Mel-Houser--MD-e1t1rjn JOWMA Podcast | Uniquely Human with Dr. Barry Prizant, PhD, CCC-SLP https://anchor.fm/jowma/episodes/Uniquely-Human-with-Dr--Barry-Prizant--PhD--CCC-SLP-e1ogbg2 JOWMA Podcast | It Takes A Village- Advocating for Inclusion with Esti Schiffmiller https://anchor.fm/jowma/episodes/It-Takes-A-Village--Advocating-for-Inclusion-with-Esti-Schiffmiller-e1klr32 JOWMA Podcast | On The Spectrum: All About Autism With Dr. Devorah Segal https://anchor.fm/jowma/episodes/On-The-Spectrum-All-About-Autism-With-Dr--Devorah-Segal-e1eqv4u JOWMA Podcast | "If you've met one individual with autism, you've met one individual with autism." The Journey of Dr. Stephen Shore, Autistic Professor of Special Education https://anchor.fm/jowma/episodes/If-youve-met-one-individual-with-autism--youve-met-one-individual-with-autism--The-Journey-of-Dr--Stephen-Shore--Autistic-Professor-of-Special-Education-e1eqv4k_______________________________________________________ ⁠⁠⁠Become a JOWMA Member!⁠⁠⁠ www.jowma.org  ⁠⁠⁠Follow us on Instagram!⁠⁠⁠ www.instagram.com/JOWMA_org  ⁠⁠⁠Follow us on Twitter!⁠⁠⁠ www.twitter.com/JOWMA_med  ⁠⁠⁠Follow us on Facebook! ⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/JOWMAorg/ ⁠⁠⁠Stay up-to-date with JOWMA news! Sign up for the JOWMA newsletter! ⁠⁠⁠https://jowma.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9b4e9beb287874f9dc7f80289&id=ea3ef44644&mc_cid=dfb442d2a7&mc_eid=e9eee6e41e

https://youtu.be/4KPO7R5VObs At the 44th annual conference for the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) Lisa Shulman talk about how the brain is effected by emotional trauma and loss

Dr. Lisa Heidi Shulman M.D. is a Professor Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore. A Developmental Pediatrician with over 30 years at the institution, Dr. Shulman is the Director of Autism Services, and interim Director of the Rose F. Kennedy Children's Evaluation & Rehabilitation Center at Montefiore. She also directs the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities grant through Maternal and Child Health Bureau.Dr. Shulman currently serves on the Autism Sub-committee of the National AAP Council on Children with Disabilities, serving on the Education, Learn the Signs Act Early, and Payer Advocacy Committees. From 2016-2019 she served as the Centers for Disease Control Act Early Ambassador to New York State.A graduate of Brown University and University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She is board-certified in Pediatrics and Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. Her clinical and research interests include: early identification of autism, overcoming healthcare disparities in autism diagnosis, and follow up of children with an early diagnosis of Autism. _______________________________________________________ Related Episodes: On the Spectrum: All About Autism with Dr. Devorah Segal | JOWMA Podcast https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jowma/episodes/On-The-Spectrum-All-About-Autism-With-Dr--Devorah-Segal-e1eqv4u Uniquely Human with Dr. Barry Prizant, PhD, CCC-SLP | JOWMA Podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/2micH8mmCnbAffltumUVUS?si=bf8695c683444b56 "If you've met one individual with autism, you've met one individual with autism." The Journey of Dr. Stephen Shore, Autistic Professor of Special Education | JOWMA Podcast https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/w6iz8ynG9yb Ask The Expert: ADHD and Autism, Q &A with Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrician Dr. Amir Miodovnik | JOWMA Podcast https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/CTzR1UxG9yb _______________________________________________________ Become a JOWMA Member! www.jowma.org  Follow us on Instagram! www.instagram.com/JOWMA_org  Follow us on Twitter! www.twitter.com/JOWMA_med  Follow us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/JOWMAorg/ Stay up-to-date with JOWMA news! Sign up for the JOWMA newsletter! https://jowma.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9b4e9beb287874f9dc7f80289&id=ea3ef44644&mc_cid=dfb442d2a7&mc_eid=e9eee6e41e

Although each and every Executive Function skill is essential for success in today's world, one that's too often-overlooked (if not forgotten entirely) is cognitive flexibility. Whether you've heard about this skill or not, cognitive flexibility is critical for adapting to difficult situations and just overall feeling like we have control over our lives. I really wanted to explore it in its own episode, so here we are! I'm going to show you why it's so important for us, talk about how it fits into our lives, and share some tips for helping to develop cognitive flexibility skills of our own and of the kids in our lives. If you're dying for more information about this after you're done listening, check out the show notes below:Learn More About Cognitive FlexibilityDemystifying cognitive flexibility: Implications for clinical and developmental neuroscienceFlexible Thinking Problems in Kids | UnderstoodKids Use Flexible Thinking to Learn | Executive Functioning Skills | UnderstoodImprove your Cognitive Flexibility SkillsWhat is Flexible Thinking? How to Become a Flexible ThinkerCircle of concern v Circle of control – Discovery in ActionThe Importance of Taking the Perspective of OthersMeditation, mindfulness and cognitive flexibility3 Ways to Improve Your Cognitive FlexibilityCognitive Flexibility Resources from the Beyond BookSmart Blog2 Executive Function Skills to Help Parents Beat Back to School StressGrit + Executive Function skills = Academic SuccessContact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHannah Choi 00:00Have you heard of cognitive flexibility? Hannah's Daughter 00:02Oh, yeah.Hannah Choi 00:03Why?? Hannah's Daughter 00:04Every day! Cuz I have you as a mom!Hannah Choi 00:08So what's cognitive flexibility?Hannah's Daughter 00:09It's when you have to change the way you're thinking to get something to work.Hannah Choi 00:14Hi, everyone, and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life by working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. As you may have gathered from what you just heard, I'm tackling the topic of cognitive flexibility, or flexible thinking in today's episode. That was my daughter, giving you a little insight into what it's like having an executive function coach for a mom. In Episode 19, Dr. Lisa Shulman, and I talked about the impact of grief and emotional trauma on our executive functioning. And she and I agreed that the often overlooked executive function skill of cognitive flexibility is critical for feeling like we have control over our lives and being successful in making positive changes for ourselves. I really wanted to explore it in its own episode. So here we are, I'm going to show you why it's so important for us, talk about how it fits into our lives, and share some tips for helping to develop cognitive flexibility skills of our own, and of the kids in our lives. If you're dying for more information about this, after you're done listening, check out the show notes. Hannah Choi 00:17All right, so let's get into this. What is this cognitive flexibility? It is the ability of your brain to switch from one task to another, one situation to another, and to be able to think about things in a new way, by switching from one set of ideas to another. Being able to think flexibly comes in handy in many, many aspects of our daily lives. You heard my daughter say that it can be used to help you problem solve. And here are some other ways we might use it. Okay, so you know, when you find out there's a new and pretty major update to an app you've always used, you now need to use a different set of steps to complete the same task as before. That's cognitive flexibility. If you are a kindergarten teacher, and you're talking with your students about kindergarten, new things, and then your school principal comes into the classroom, you use cognitive flexibility to talk with the principal in a different way than you are just talking with your students. If the way that you studied in high school, or kept track of your homework assignments does not seem to be working as well in college, you'll need to use cognitive flexibility to figure out a new system. And one more because I'm not kidding, cognitive flexibility really does come in handy in all aspects of our lives. Okay, so you're sitting at the dinner table for Thanksgiving and your uncle who has completely opposite political views than you is praising a politician you dislike, Being able to defend and explain your point of view, while also seeing and at least trying to understand how he could believe what he believes, that requires cognitive flexibility. And some patience. My son, who plays the violin in a fifth grade townwide orchestra shared how he used cognitive flexibility the other day. Hannah Choi 03:28Can you think of an example of how you use cognitive flexibility today?Hannah's Son 03:33Well, today after school, I had orchestra practice, when I had realized that my music which is in my backpack, we had dropped it off at home, so I didn't have my music. So I was like, oh, no, I don't have my music. But then I realized that I could easily use my stand partners music, and everything would be okay.Hannah Choi 03:53Yeah, so your flexible thinking cognitive flexibility helps you relax and realize it's gonna be fine. Hannah's Son 03:58Yeah. Hannah Choi 03:59Great. I'm so glad that you thought of that. Did you feel better after you thought of it? Hannah's Son 04:03Yeah. Hannah Choi 04:04Oh, good. Okay, so we can see that cognitive flexibility is helpful in our day to day lives. But are there long-term benefits to being cognitively flexible? Studies have found that greater cognitive flexibility is associated with favorable outcomes throughout our lives, such as better reading abilities and childhood, higher resilience to negative life events and stress in adulthood, higher levels of creativity in adulthood, and better quality of life in older individuals. Hannah Choi 04:37Cognitive flexibility does not work on its own. It happens in our brains with the help of some other partner ie if skills, attention, we need to pay attention to what we're doing and also notice what has changed what you were doing before, what you need to do now and how they're different. Working memory, we need to remember the new rules or the new actions that have been created for whatever task needs to be completed. And this could be in school, at work or in our homes. Self-regulation, we need to be able to inhibit or stop doing what we used to do, and now do the new thing. And also being able to regulate our emotions when we're switching to a new way is helpful. Planning and prioritizing skills can help too, we can use them to figure out the best order of the new steps that we'll have to take and see the value in prioritizing the new way of doing things over the old way. And our good old friend metacognition plays a big part in it to being able to understand our own thinking can really help us change it. Cognitive flexibility becomes largely mature by the age of 10. But these skills continue to improve throughout adolescence and into adulthood. And like all the other executive function skills, they reached their peak between the ages of 21 and 30. But as we know, everyone varies and where their strengths and challenges are. Hannah Choi 06:06We hear idioms and phrases in everyday language that reference cognitive flexibility. People may say they used mental gymnastics to figure something out, or that they need to wrap their head around something. We also hear references to the idea of cognitive inflexibility or rigid thinking. The idea is that you can't teach an old dog new tricks and describing someone as stuck in the mud. You might be familiar with this rigid thinking as showing up as stubbornness or strong willpower, no anybody like that. If you or your child struggle with cognitive flexibility, you might see or experience things like having trouble understanding others perspectives, arguing the same point over and over, getting anxious when plans change, struggling to take on new and more complicated tasks, or maybe having trouble switching from one activity to another, or getting upset when others don't follow the rules. At times, even as adults we struggle with thinking flexibly. And this doesn't mean that we haven't matured into our fully flexible prefrontal cortexes. Sometimes we just don't want to be flexible, sometimes it feels easier to keep things as they were, because it requires effort, a new way of thinking, changing the way we've done something or admitting that maybe the way that we've done something is not necessarily the best for us, or the situation. It requires us to use all those related EF skills that I mentioned earlier. And this is a lot of work. And it also requires some level of risk taking. If we take the risk of thinking about doing something another way, we might accidentally come up with a new idea that could possibly work, which we'll then have to try to see if it does. And for some people trying new things. And taking those risks thinking differently, can be a little uncomfortable. I notice for me sometimes, especially when I think it's going to be hard. Hannah Choi 08:03One thing that can make it a little easier is having someone along for the ride. If cognitive flexibility is difficult for you, I suggest finding someone who can support you, meeting you exactly where you are, I believe it can really, really helped to make those uncomfortable new decisions a little easier. And sometimes give you that gentle push, you need to get out of your own way. This person could be a friend, a colleague, a teacher, a sibling, or parent, or an executive function coach or a life coach. We can ask for advice or hear shared experiences, run our new ideas by them or brainstorm some when we're having trouble thinking of any. We can also ask them to provide feedback and some accountability. This makes me think about something that my former client Andrew shared with me, you might remember him from our ADHD Awareness Month episode,Hannah's Son 08:53What you said about having somebody on your side, the value of that in and of itself cannot be overstated. That was one of the most meaningful parts of coaching was just knowing that I could show up as I am. And you met me exactly where I was. There was no expectation that I was supposed to be anything other than what I was at that moment in time. And we were going to meet there. And then we were going to figure out where we wanted to go. And then we would make some plans to get there.Hannah Choi 09:30So basically, I'm saying that making positive changes to our habits and in our lives often is hard. So having some confidence to do this, to take these risks can really help. In order to find that confidence. We must find things that truly work for us. To find these things. We must be able to use our cognitive flexibility access it to imagine that things can even be done differently than we're currently doing them. And we don't have to do this hard work alone. Let's all make sure we've got got someone to support us. Hannah Choi 10:01In addition to making changes to how we do things, cognitive flexibility can help us in other major areas of our lives. It helps with resolving conflict by helping us be able to see other people's perspectives, remember the uncle at the Thanksgiving table, and figure out how to compromise by imagining a solution to a common goal. This compromised solution may require giving up some of our own desires. But cognitive flexibility helps us to see how even without the desires that we had to sacrifice, we can still reach some kind of agreement. Cognitive flexibility also helps us cope with major changes and stressors by giving us the powerful tool of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the ability to feel like we have control over our lives and our choices. When we're in the middle of a major life change, such as a divorce, or the loss of a spouse or a major cross country move, feeling like we have some control makes a huge difference. When thinking flexibly comes easily to you, it can make all of these changes much easier to handle. Dr. Shulman shared some great ideas about this. So if you haven't listened to the conversation yet, highly recommend checking it out. Hannah Choi 11:20Okay, so we now know what cognitive flexibility is, we know what the related EF skills are that support our ability to think flexibly. And we've learned how cognitive flexibility can support us in various aspects of our lives. But how do we get better at it? How can we reinforce the development of those skills in ourselves, and if we have kids in our lives, in them, too. I think the first thing we can do is try to make sure that we're taking care of ourselves. It's much easier to access our own flexible thinking when our own needs have been met as much as possible. And I know that this is asking a lot. We have a billion daily challenges, frustrations, limitations, that can make it difficult for us to put on our own oxygen masks, nevermind the masks of those in our care. But at least thinking about this and attempting to address some or even just one of our own self care needs first can help. Hannah Choi 12:22Also, learning about cognitive flexibility is super important. So yay for you for listening to this episode. It can really help to understand that all people, including ourselves, are at their own personal level of ability to think flexibly and make change. As Andrew said, it truly is helpful having someone supporting you through who understands how you feel about making changes, and how much flexibility you are able to access at the time. By understanding the differences in people's abilities, it is easier to meet them where they are in their readiness to think flexibly. And working on our own cognitive flexibility can help ease friction between ourselves and other people in our lives. Whatever age they are, and whatever relationship we have with them. Even as an EF coach, I find that I still need to practice this. I have a client who's a freshman in college, and I was having trouble understanding why he did not want to put specific times to study on his calendar. When I asked him to explain his thinking to me, he shared that he's learned that if he does schedule it, and then let it slide even just once. It's like a slippery slope, and then he'll start letting the other things slide too. For me, this is not the way I work. I love scheduling work time, I had to think flexibly to understand his perspective. This kind of stuff happens all the time with my own kids too. But by having that conversation, figuring out the difference and thinking and working together to understand each other's perspectives, it can make a big difference. And in and also reduce some of that friction and frustration that we feel when we butt heads with our kids. You might argue back that my client should use cognitive flexibility to try out my way of scheduling his study times. But he knows himself, he knows that it won't work. So I needed to give him the autonomy and the space to make that decision to do it his way. If he did not know himself so well and just didn't want to try it. I might have encouraged him to at least just try it once and see how it felt. But ultimately, it would be up to him. His own flexible thinking will develop on his own timeline. Hannah Choi 14:38There are a lot of activities and tools that are helpful for practicing flexible thinking. I'll share some here but check out the show notes for more ideas. As we coaches always say to our clients, when you're trying something new, start small. Maybe if you always cook the same few meals, you could try a new recipe. You could try driving it Different way to work or a new route on your morning run. This reminds me of the conversation I had with Rachel Holstein low in Episode 12. We talked about how you can practice mindfulness by doing something in a different way than you usually and automatically do. So you could brush your teeth with your other hand, or dry yourself off with a towel in a different order than you normally do. The practice of mindfulness has been shown in studies to help in many ways, including improving your attention and your ability to think flexibly. Hannah Choi 15:32A tool that I really like to use is called zooming out, or the 30,000 foot view. This tool works by challenging yourself to look at a situation from different perspectives. For example, my daughter was feeling really stressed out by an upcoming math midterm exam. Because she was in it and feeling completely overwhelmed. I tried to support her cognitive flexibility by encouraging her to zoom out to the day of the test and imagine how she'll feel. Then I asked her to consider how she'd feel if she zoomed out even more to the week after the test. And then to this coming summer, and then even more to when she's graduating from high school. This exercise helped her get out of her current state of thinking, and helped her see that yes, in this moment, it feels like everything. But truly, it's just a blip a fraction of her life. Hannah Choi 16:31Another thing that can be helpful for supporting cognitive flexibility is the concept of a growth mindset. A growth mindset is a belief that intelligence and our abilities are not fixed, that we can change, we can learn we can grow as humans, especially when we learn to think flexibly and find out what areas we are strong in and what areas might need some extra support, and what areas maybe we should completely avoid. I may have wanted to be a doctor growing up, but memory and word recall are not my strong points. So being a doctor would probably not have been the best career choice for me. Hannah Choi 17:11There is a great activity that supports the development of cognitive flexibility from Stephen Covey called the Circles of Concern, Influence and Control. Okay, so if you can imagine a target with three concentric circles, the outer circle represents things you are concerned about. The middle circle are the things you have some influence over. And the small center circle represents the things you actually have control over. thinking flexibly here helps you figure out where the various aspects of your life fit into this target. During the lockdowns or the pandemic, you might have placed the spread of COVID 19 as something that concerned you, but you had no true influence or control over it at all. If you worked from home, you would have had some influence over your workspace by setting up a nice desk in a separate area of the house. But you would not have been able to control any potential interruptions completely. Washing your hands frequently. And wearing a mask when you went out for groceries could go in the middle circle as something that you could control. Learning to be flexible in your thinking here can ease some of the anxiety and pressure we may feel when we're trying to control things that we actually only have influence on or perhaps cannot control at all. Hannah Choi 18:38For younger kids, you could play a divergent thinking game, find objects around the house and think of things that the objects could be other than what they truly are. This cup is not a cup. It's a swimming pool for a fairy. This pencil is not a pencil. It's a balance beam for the caterpillar Olympics. And that tree is not a tree. It's a portal to another world.Hannah Choi 19:04And that's our show for today. I hope you are able to find your portal to a new world of possibilities using your newfound or more developed cognitive flexibility skills. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen. Help us help others to learn about executive function skills such as cognitive flexibility. By sharing our podcast with your colleagues, your family and your friends. You can subscribe to focus forward on Apple and Google podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts. If you listen on Apple or Spotify give us a boost by giving us a five star rating. Sign up for our newsletter at beyond booksmart.com/podcast. We'll let you know when new episodes drop and we'll share information related to the topic. Thanks for listening

On this episode, I'm taking a look at how grief and emotional trauma impact our Executive Functioning. Grief and emotional trauma are really hard to talk about. Even though grief and emotional trauma are part of being human, they're both really hard to talk about as we all have experienced or will experience some form of each within our lives. However, not only is everyone's reaction to grief different, but everyone's reaction to other people's grief is different, too. I thought that maybe by learning more about it, we can find it a little easier to talk about. Most of all, hopefully finding some answers to why we react the ways we do when we experience loss can help us discover strategies that work to orient ourselves to this new normal. After all, things won't be the same after loss, so how can we navigate that? I reached out to Dr. Lisa Shulman who is a neurologist and a professor of Neurology at University of Maryland in Baltimore. Lisa is also a published author and wrote a book called Before and After Loss: A Neurologist's Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain. Her focus on the brain's reaction to grief and, as you'll hear her explain, emotional trauma, was exactly what I needed to answer the many questions I had. Lisa's personal experience with grief and her professional experience led her to research the topic. Her extensive knowledge of the brain helped me understand it all so much more and her calming presence somehow made it easier to talk about. I hope you enjoy and learn from this conversation as much as I did and that this episode helps you in your life before or after you experience loss. Show NotesLearn more about Dr. Lisa ShulmanRead Lisa's book Before and After Loss: A Neurologist's Perspective on Loss, Grief, and our BrainLearn More about Jody LaVoieWatch Hannah's conversation with Jody on our YouTube ChannelResources on Grief, Loss, and EmotionsGrief Board of Directors Template by Jody LaVoieHow to Feel Your Feelings by @emilyonlife (on Instagram)Contact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscript from Hannah's Conversation with Jody LaVoie (continue scrolling to find the transcript of Hannah's conversation with Dr. Lisa Shulman)Hannah Choi 00:00So hi, Jody, thank you so much for joining me on my podcast today.Jody LaVoie 00:27Hi Hannah, thanks for having me. I love talking about this with you.Hannah Choi 00:31Great. So I spoke with Dr. Lisa Shulman earlier in the at the end of last year, and she and I had a great conversation about grief and emotional trauma and how that impacts executive functioning. And I wanted to talk with you because I know that you work with widows who are getting back to...Or maybe you can explain it to me, why don't you explain to me who you work with and how you support them?Jody LaVoie 01:04Yes, no, absolutely. So I am a grief and loss expert. I'm also a widow, myself. I'm a mom, and I've run a business. And I help widows learn to fall in love with their life again. And you brought up an excellent point, Hannah about when when would somebody kind of start being able to feel like they're ready to figure out how to fall in their love with their life again, and it's generally when kind of that overwhelm of grief happens, and you're just trying to check off tasks. And you wake up one day, and you're like, you know, there's got to be more I'm doing it. I'm doing the day to day stuff I'm functioning, but I'm just functioning, how can I find more?Hannah Choi 01:54So at what point would someone reach out for someone, for some support with someone like you?Jody LaVoie 02:28You know, Hannah, it's different for everyone. And I'll give a couple of examples. So when someone receives a terminal diagnosis for their spouse, they start grieving right away, even though they're hopeful. And they're working hard with experimental treatments to, you know, try to not have this person pass away, their grief starts then. So they could come work with me, you know, right. When their spouse dies, I worked with a client even before her spouse had passed away, because she had started grieving a year and a half prior. So for other widows that lose their spouse, suddenly, that's they're in shock. And it takes a little bit of time for them to get to that place of okay, I'm functioning. But I know there's gotta be more.Hannah Choi 03:22Yeah. And after talking with, with Lisa Schulman and learning about how, how loss and emotional trauma impacts our executive functioning, it, it completely makes sense that someone would have might have to wait and not be able to just start to tackle life again, when it has been what has been traumatic and sudden, imagine it. Yes. Do you have to wait? So what are some, what do you recommend to your to the people that you work with? What are some strategies that people can try?Jody LaVoie 04:00You know, and I know we're keeping to executive functioning strategies, which is so important, because obviously, we all need to be able to function our day to day lives and thrive in our day to day lives. And how can we do that better? So the really, the first and foremost thing that we work on is our thoughts, and working on where those thoughts come from. And that doesn't mean that we're ignoring grief. We're pushing the pain away. We're not feeling it just means our thoughts trigger our behaviors, which trigger emotions and it's this endless cycle. And so if you can, there's a couple strategies with your thoughts. One, one, that thought happens if you can pause, just take a breath and actually try to think about, okay, what is this thought really, and where is it coming from and what, what is my action that I'm taking guessing, based on this thought, and what should I be doing differently? So that's one way to do it. And the second thing, there's a series of four questions that I love, there is a coach, an author named Byron Katie, and she helps people really with self-inquiry. And she believes that if you ask yourself these four questions, it, it really promotes thinking and changing. And the first one is ask yourself, if that thought is really true. Is it really true? Second, Can you absolutely know, it's true? Is the second question. Third question. How do you react? And what happens when you believe that thought? And fourth question is, who would you be with out that thought, and that's really releasing and breathing. And, and you as, as the widow and as any person, or now take, taking control of your thought process. And that takes a while. And it takes practice. But just that act of recognizing, so important?Hannah Choi 06:12Yeah, I love that. I remember, one strategy that I learned for grief, that that that I that really helped me was to recognize that you're feeling it and then label the feelings that you're having or label what is happening. Instead of instead of just feeling it also just sort of identify what you're going through, and then and let it happen. And then acknowledge that it happened and sounds like a similar process.Jody LaVoie 06:47Very, very much so and it is so important to label your feelings, feel your feelings. But it's also important to put some parameters around that too, if you are able, I mean, not everybody is able. Everybody is in a different stage. But if you are in the process of okay, feeling sad, it is okay to acknowledge that I'm feeling sad, and I'm missing my person. But I'm going to sit in it for five minutes, 10 minutes, and then I'm going to get off the couch or out of my bed and go do something to move to a different place. So that's, that's, that's helpful as well.Hannah Choi 07:28Yeah. And setting parameters. And that, that requires a lot of a lot of perseverance and, and discipline, but but also, then, I imagine opens up a lot of opportunities for you once you're able to set those parameters.Jody LaVoie 07:45Absolutely. Yeah.Hannah Choi 07:47What's something else that you recommend for your?Jody LaVoie 07:51Well as a widow, and I know with Dr. Shulman, you talked a lot about that early stage grief, it's hard to just get stuff done. And all of a sudden, you've have an overwhelming amount of tasks that were just dumped on your plate, not only going through, you know all the paperwork and all of the different things that one must do after you lose a spouse, but that spouse helped around the house help do the errands, help take care of the kids, you now are doing that all on your own. So pick one thing and create a SMART goal around it. Because it's one thing to say, Okay, I am going to get to the gym five days this week. Great. Did you put it on the calendar? Do you know exactly what you're going to do with your what is your outcome you want to have until you actually take action? And put it on your calendar? Like we're not going to happen?Hannah Choi 08:48Yeah, yeah, we love those smart goals at Beyond BookSmart. And we use, we use them a lot. And I know that they really help make those goals more meaningful. So it makes sense that that that would be a really useful, useful strategy to use. Yeah. That's great. Glad to hear you use those as well.Jody LaVoie 09:07Absolutely.Hannah Choi 09:08Yeah. Do you have any other tips?Jody LaVoie 09:12You know, I do. And I love this one. And this helped me a lot. It's creating, I call it your Widow Board of Directors. And I was running a business. So therefore this board of directors concept really, really resonates with me, but these are your people that have your back. These are your people that are going to help you. This is your best friend who's going to run cover for you. If you're if you're like going out today's not a great day. And I need help getting my kids to soccer. You can reach out to this one person and have them get it done. You can have another person that's helping you with your business decisions or your career decisions or just work decisions in general because I As a grieving person, we're not firing on all cylinders, we've got a lot in our brain, and that can cause distractions. But yet, we still want to exceed at our jobs, we still want to get those things done, but have your person that you can call on to help with with that. So designate people to be active in various aspects of your life and, and tell them, here's what I need from you, I need you to check in on me weekly, or I NEED you, but be specific about their role, and the action they need to take.Hannah Choi 10:36And I imagine that can be a difficult thing for people to do. I know, I know, a lot of the clients that I work with, and just people that I've talked to in my life have do have a hard time asking for help. And that's a time when you really need to be able to do that. Do you have any ideas for people who struggle asking for help?Jody LaVoie 10:54You know, I think it's about giving yourself permission. So many of us are perfectionist out there. And you know, prior to losing our spouses, we can keep it all together, and then it all falls apart. And then one can feel embarrassed, shame. Why can't I do all of this? No, no, no, no, no, I'm giving you permission to not be perfect. And to ask for help you need it. And people want to genuinely help you and do things for you.Hannah Choi 11:29Yeah, I love that. And but without asking, they might be afraid. They might not know how to help. So if you're able to ask, then you're gonna, then they're gonna be so happy to help.Jody LaVoie 11:39It's so true. And I coach people that are trying to support grieving people. Just that, be specific, in your ask, because it's a people come to Grievers and say, How can I help and, you know, I, the needs are vast. But to be very specific of, I'd like to bring you dinner this week is Wednesday, or Thursday better. But just be specific, it's helpful.Hannah Choi 12:06 And I love that. That's great. What else you got?Jody LaVoie 12:11You know, it's very easy to forget about yourself, especially as women, we take care of everyone else first. And when we're grieving, our kids are grieving. The other people, relatives, family members are grieving. It's okay to take care of yourself. And you need to because you can't support other people, if you're not putting your oxygen mask on first. And so step one with that is just move your body, whatever that looks like for you. If you can get outside and take a walk, great. Even if you live someplace cold bundle up, just seeing sunlight and breathing in fresh air. So important starts about five minutes, just walk around the block.Hannah Choi 13:03I love that. That's great.Jody LaVoie 13:07Yeah, and one more thing that I do, Hannah. And I know Dr. Shulman talked about this a lot about journaling. And the importance of journaling, which I do what I've also tied into my journaling, gratitude. And so every day, when I get up, my very first thing after I brush my teeth is I, I journal for the day. And I probably spend 5 - 10 minutes, really just writing my thoughts. But at the end of that day's entry, I do two things. One, I write something that I'm really proud of that I did the day before, because celebrating your wins, even the small wins, yeah, are so important. It's so easy. And our brains automatically go to the negative. And there's data that that shows this, Hannah, we have about 60,000 thoughts a day. 80% of them are negative eight, zero. That's crazy. So celebrating a win is important. And then the other thing I put on my journal are three things that I'm grateful for, and getting yourself back to gratitude. Especially when you're you're sad, and you're grieving and you're, you have all of this emotion, but to focus on what is good. And it really helps your brain move to a different space.Hannah Choi 14:35I do the same thing, although I don't do what I'm proud of. And I love that I think we're gonna add that into my journaling. But I do gratitude and I actually just finished up I do it in a line a day journal, one of those like small just has a small entry for every day. And I just finished my fifth year of doing it. Thanks. And I was looking back over I was just reading out loud, my sister and brother in law were over recently and I was reading through it just to see what, you know, what I've been thankful for over the years. And during the pandemic, I noticed that I was many, many days, I was just thankful for sunshine. And, and, and I just looking back on that, I think wow, like, even in those dark days of so challenging for everybody, I was still forced myself to find something that I was thankful for. And some days it was just sunshine. But it's, it's it is possible to find something to be grateful for every day. So true.Jody LaVoie 15:35And I live in gloomy Chicago, and it's winter and the sun is out today. And yeah, just like brought a smile to my face. And that is certainly picked up my spirits. Hannah Choi 15:48Yeah, good. Great. Do you have anything else you'd like to add before we finish?Jody LaVoie 15:52You know, those are going to be my top five. I don't want to give people too many to, you know, chunk off. So if you can tackle those five listeners out there, you will be well on your way to success. Hannah Choi 16:05Yeah, that's great. And where can people find you if they're interested in learning more?Jody LaVoie 16:10Yeah, so I am very active on LinkedIn, under my business Widows in the Workplace. I have an Instagram Widows in the Workplace. And I certainly have a website widows in the workplace.com. Hannah Choi 16:26That's great. I love it. All right. Well, thank you so much, Jodi, it's been really interesting talking with you and I really appreciate everything you shared.Jody LaVoie 16:35Thanks, Hannah. I've I've enjoyed our time together as well.Transcript of Hannah's conversation with Dr. Lisa ShulmanHannah Choi 00:04Hi everyone and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life by working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. Hannah Choi 00:19Today I'm taking a look at how grief and emotional trauma impact our executive functioning. I really struggled to write the intro for this episode, I kept finding myself putting it off. And if you've listened to my procrastination episode, you'll know that the same thing happened with that one. So I did some reflection to figure out why. And I realized it's because of the same reason. I'm afraid I won't get it right. Grief and emotional trauma are really hard to talk about. And even though they're part of being human, we have all experienced or will experience some form of it in our lives. And everyone experiences it differently. Everyone's reaction to grief is different. Everyone's reaction to other people's grief is different. It's a big part of these beautiful and difficult lives we're living, and yet it is still so hard to talk about. I thought that maybe by learning more about it, we can find it a little easier to talk about, and maybe finding answers to why we react the ways we do when we experience loss can help us discover strategies that work to orient ourselves to this new normal. Things won't be the same after loss. So how can we navigate that? Hannah Choi 01:37I reached out to Dr. Lisa Schulman who is a neurologist and a Professor of Neurology at University of Maryland in Baltimore. Lisa is also a published author and wrote a book called before and after loss, a neurologist perspective on loss, grief and our brain. Her focus on the brain's reaction to grief, and as you'll hear her explain, emotional trauma was exactly what I needed to answer the many questions I had. Lisa's personal experience with grief and her professional experience led her to research the topic, her extensive knowledge of the brain helped me understand it all so much more. And her calming presence somehow made it easier to talk about. I hope you enjoy and learn from this conversation as much as I did, and that this episode helps you in your life before or after you experience loss. When you're done listening, please check out the show notes for more resources, including a link to Dr. Shulman's book, which I highly recommend reading and a conversation I had with Jody LaVoie, a grief coach who supports widows who are returning to work after loss. Okay, let's dive in and learn about grief, emotional trauma and the brain. Hannah Choi 02:56Hi, Lisa, thank you for joining me, could you introduce yourself to our listeners for anyone who doesn't know who you are?Dr. Lisa Shulman 03:02Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here, Hannah, thank you for inviting me. I'm a neurologist and author. I'm a Professor of Neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. And I got involved in the area of emotional trauma, traumatic loss and grief through my own personal experiences. And it really has ended up being something very important to me, close to my heart. And I really looking forward to discussing it with you today.Hannah Choi 03:42Are you comfortable sharing your personal experience and telling your story about how you got to where you are today?Dr. Lisa Shulman 03:50Yeah, certainly. You know, I, I mean, I really, I think the place to start is that, you know, I I'm a sub specialist in neurology, I'm what's known as a movement disorder specialist. And most of the patients that I see have Parkinson's disease or Parkinson's related disorders, various forms of what we call neuro degenerative disorders. And I've been doing this for about 30 years now. And so, you know, I have followed many, many, many people through serious illness, you know, to points where they are quite disabled and of life. And, you know, and for those reasons, you know, I thought to myself when I confronted serious illness in my life when my husband was diagnosed with cancer, I thought that I was more prepared than the average person as somebody who counseled others going through hard times. I should vivid, my husband Bill is a neurologist too, and we work closely together. And I think that in over the experience of his illness and his decline and ultimately, his death, you know, I was taken aback or unprepared for the fact that I, you know, like so many things in life that you don't know really know what it is until you're in somebody's shoes. And, and the fact of the matter was that when he was seemingly suddenly gone, I was ill prepared, and was had a really tough time of it. As for a while I floundered, you know, because I hadn't expected to feel the way I felt all of the new precautions. And at some point, many months, many months later, well, actually, I started spontaneously to write a journal and just to get my feelings on a paper piece of paper, although I'd never done anything like that before. And then many months later, I made the connection, which wasn't as obvious as it seems to me now, between my own experience, and a personal experience I was having of loss, and my professional world, of understanding how the brain works, and the brain responds. Which really, you know, it's like one of these things where you think afterwards, you know, I, you know, because I, in my, I'm a researcher, I not only see patients, but I do research, and I write, manuscripts, and a lot of the papers I've published are about the behavioral responses, adjustment, quality of life, managing difficulty in one's life. And yeah, it took me months to, you know, Link, obvious similarities between what I was going through in my professional life. And that ultimately led me to quite a bit of research into brain function, about how the brain responds to emotional trauma and loss. And ultimately, I began to find that is a path forward for me. And then I wrote the book based on that information.Hannah Choi 07:46Yeah, I really, I really, really, really enjoyed your book, I, I be what you said just a little bit ago about you feeling like you were prepared. My personal interest in learning about grief and, and emotional trauma, and the impact on the brain comes from experience that I had in my family, and with some friends, I had a period of five years in a row, where we had some pretty traumatic and unexpected losses. And, and I now looking back on it, I feel like when that happens, again, because it is a part of life, I want to be more prepared. And that is my that's, that's kind of like the motivator for me. And but it's interesting what you said, like you don't, when it's yourself, and it's you feeling it, it's, I imagine it is harder to make that connection and realize, like, oh, wait a second.Dr. Lisa Shulman 08:50Like one of the one of the things that I often start off with when I'm giving a talk on this topic, is how Psychiatry and Neurology are the same thing. And even though as a neurologist, I will understand the brain function that governs our behavior, our mental health, our personality. But when even even though I understand that, I can't wrap my arms around it to be honest, it's like something I have to sort of intellectualize because you the texture of our lives, our experiences are so rich, and so compelling, that to think that this is related to neurotransmitters and neurons, nerve cells, you know, it boggles the mind. Yeah, even for a neurologist who studies it.Hannah Choi 09:55Yeah, and I am, I am far from that and but the little that I do know about the brain, it both helps to understand, okay, this is my brain, but then the same time, like what? It doesn't feel like it's just my brain? Yeah. So when we first when we first communicated, we and you mentioned it a little bit, just just a bit ago, I had asked to talk with you about grief and the connection between the brain and executive function skills. And you suggested that we also include emotional trauma. And I was just wondering if you could explain that in diseases? Are they different from each other? Are they the same? Does the brain react differently?Dr. Lisa Shulman 10:45Yeah, you know, I'm gonna challenge you even in the way you asked that question us, from the conventional physician, that grief has this special position and emotional trauma is different, and that I'm trying to push them together. But I would push back and say that, that is a notion about grief, having a unique position in the spectrum of emotional trauma, but that the more you understand about the way the brain behaves, what parts of the brain respond to serious traumatic loss of all types. The more you see that grief is just in the spectrum of emotional trauma, right. And that, you know, we have one of the most intriguing parts and these things will be eternally intriguing to me, is that how different we all are, in terms of the impact of different events in our lives, and you cannot pinpoint or a map, you can't predict what for one person will be emotionally traumatic, and what will not. We certainly all know people who have had significant, say, losses of loved ones in their life, but they don't go through a terrible period, not everybody does. And by the same token, we see people who suffer other losses in their life, it may be a loss of a job, it could be a breakup with some relationship, it could be the loss of a pet, it could be a, you know, a physical assault, you could go on and on. Certainly COVID, the pandemic has been a source of trauma, emotional trauma and loss in our lives. So you can't pinpoint it. And so I would just say that for every individual, imagine a spectrum or range where you have a unique range of for you what is most would be the greatest and most of your causes of emotional trauma. And that is, I think, the, for me, it's the most appropriate and accurate way to think about it. You know, I think the most important thing is to think of this is a very important point I'd like to leave with your listeners, which is that the brain is agnostic to the type of trauma, the isn't there isn't any unique area of the brain to respond to one of those forms of emotional trauma that I mentioned or another. You know, it might be that you're planning on going to graduate school, and you really, like totally crash when you're taking a test, you need it to ace and that for you is you walk out in a state of utter shock, how it's going to affect your life that you know for you is triggering the same responses as the person in fact, who might find themselves sadly, losing a loved one, it's just a matter of severity for each individual. So it's not the cause it's not the triggering event or the type of event. It's the individual personal meaning of the event that ends up triggering the same cascade of responses.Hannah Choi 14:39And, and that the actual response within the brain. It's like not necess not necessarily there, like how it looks, how it looks externally but what's going on inside of their brain. Is that right? Dr. Lisa Shulman 14:52Right. Right. Exactly. So you know all the consequences, the symptoms, the consequences, this equality It all would be the same based on the severity of the loss.Hannah Choi 15:05Yeah, you know, I was I lost my dog about four years ago. And, and that hit me harder way harder than I ever thought it would. And I found myself sometimes thinking, Oh, this is horrible, just like judging myself, like, you shouldn't, you know, she was just a dog. You know, it's but, but what you're seeing now is making me feel a lot better. I mean, and I caught myself when I said that I, you know, I said, No, she wasn't the, because if experience for me if that loss was so great, so it must have been more than she was just a dog. So it's good to hear that, that, that,Dr. Lisa Shulman 15:47You know, I would I thought a lot and done, you know, reading about why certain things are so personally, individually emotionally traumatic, and that one cannot predict that necessarily, you know, I, I believe that there is it relates to the topic of identity and the story that we have constructed for ourselves about our lives about where we fit in the world. What makes sense to us, the infrastructure of how we get up every day interact with people do our jobs are potentially a partner or parent, all the roles we take, we have a conception, the conceptual framework, and that is related to our identity. And when some piece of that is lost, or injured or at risk, that is jumping to the idea of brain function here perceived by the brain, as an actual assault on or threat to our survival. And this is another very key concept here. And it's a matter of it may sound jarring, and I think the first time I saw that, in the literature, I I thought, wow, you know, could that possibly be? But you have to think of this from an evolutionary standpoint. And from an evolutionary standpoint, I mean, this is how our brain ended up being wired, based on evolution. And our and our brains are all incredibly similar to each other, actually, we think of ourselves as individuals, but who we have the same hardwiring. So the fact is that over evolution, we all know that we were being changed by what would allow enable us to survive. And those who were poorly prepared and unable to move to vulnerable would not have survived with evolutionarily. So we the most hardwired, the most high priority, from the perspective of your brain, not your mind your brand, yes, is keeping us alive, keeping us functional, right. And that is what ends up ruling the day in terms of this of the brain to be triggered by some loss. If it's perceived as something that could be a threat to our function to our survival, then, you know, potentially even all hell could break loose as the brain kicks in with all sorts of reflexes to help us go through bad times.Hannah Choi 19:17Yeah, that's so interesting. So, I was just thinking, Oh, maybe I come from a long line of the first people who domesticated dogs. That's why I felt it so strongly. So how, how, how does the brain react to emotional trauma. What's going on in there? And, and then I don't know if you can bring anything in about executive function since that's my particular interest. But I mean, executive functioning affects all areas of our lives. So it's kind of in just naturally part of that I'm, I'm sure.19:59Yeah, well, I can certainly bring that in. So I think that when we think about how the brain reacts to emotional trauma, it's helpful to organize it from the standpoint of acute responses and chronic responses. And how acute our responses are the immediate short term responses to things in our lives in our environment to triggers. And the there are chronic effects of these acute accumulation of acute responses over and over. You know, from the standpoint of the acute responses, it's easy, because everybody understands, I think, the basic concept of fight or flight. And, you know, if we are in the crosshairs of a bear, a gun, a car, you know, the same response again, you know, there isn't a different response for a bear or the car, it is the same response, which is a survival response of fight or flight. And it is a massive brain and systemic response. That immediately jolts our mind to be vigilant and alert, as alert as we possibly can be blocks out anything extraneous, gets our heart, our lungs, our muscles, prepared to run, to fight to breathe hard, and so forth, we are totally focused on you know, somehow surviving. So that is the acute response. And the fact is that after, we want to talk about grief itself, after the loss of a loved one, our world is filled with daily triggers, that each time we are exposed to these things, sometimes it's somewhat anticipated, but sometimes it is absolutely not. We find ourselves going through that over and over and over. Now, the chronic effects of it are very interesting because it's related to something called neuroplasticity, which is not as complicated as it may sound. Because neuroplasticity is simply that the brain is continually rewiring itself, based on our experiences. You know, right at this moment, we've met each other, we're chatting together, we're going to remember this, and our brain is establishing new, great connections for us to go back to in the future. And that's neuroplasticity. So, but the neuroplastic changes that occur, based on what I just talked about the continual or petitive triggering of the alarm of trouble for the fight or flight mechanism results in the part of the brain that colloquially is called the fear center, but from a neurologic standpoint is called the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system. So the fear center is constantly being strengthened while the cortical functions which are like all of our thinking, our memory, our executive functions, our judgment, all that is being weakened. And it's very important because actually, there are scientific many, many studies, this is not speculation, it shows that the brain pathways that connect the fear center to the our intellect, are being weakened. Because the fear center is being strengthened, the effects of the judgment are being weakened, we can also see that the volume of the different parts of the brain are being altered, in that the fear center is being gets larger, literally. While the the parts of the brain we need to calm ourselves that down and why some compose ourselves are being getting smaller. And this also affects on the brain activity between the two, which is very unhealthy. Everything we do in life is some interaction between the emotional side of the brain which is very primitive, right, you know, and the cerebral cortex, which is our advanced friend, so you know, like, I don't know about you, but I'm not too crazy about roaches or spiders. You know, I like I can if I see a bad spider or roach, I could get triggered. I don't want you eat us Oh, but you know, but then like, you know, your seat of wisdom, like kicks in and goes, you know, I'm living alone now. And I don't have anybody to go. And then I just say, you know, I calm down if you're just gonna have to deal with this, because not gonna get into bed with a spider in my room, you know? So, you know, you can see that interplay between the fear center and the intellect. Yeah, it has to be a healthy balance, right. And unfortunately, based on the set of circumstances, I've described, it imbalance occurs, and you end up being, you know, like, this raw, primitive brain that's autonomously setting off the alarm. And then you know, and then what do we see amongst the people who are going through emotional trauma and or having difficulties? You know, we hear them describe feelings of anxiety, difficulty with their sleep. Flashbacks. And from your perspective, the issues of executive function are being weakened, because they're the the fear center, the primitive responses of fear are predominating.Hannah Choi 26:35Yeah, and I was I was, I remembered, in part of your book, you said that one of the strongest predictors for I'm not sure how to describe it, but for feeling, for lack of better words, feeling like, Okay, after emotional trauma is the idea of self-efficacy. And, and I imagine that feeling that cognitive self efficacy comes a lot from being able to access your executive function, and being able to use that that part of your brain.27:15Yeah, I think I'm really glad you brought that up. Because a lot of my love of my research and work has focused on self-efficacy for managing chronic illness. And, you know, in my own crazy journey, figuring out things at some point, it was another kind of like epiphany, where I went, Oh, wow, that's another? Why didn't I ever think about that, you know, this, that grief, or emotional trauma can be seen as a chronic condition? Yeah, a chronic condition, just like the chronic medical conditions I had, you know, been studying for a long time. And so from that standpoint, you're right, what we're seeking is to develop self efficacy to manage this condition, emotional trauma, traumatic loss or grief. And self-efficacy, that phrase may not be common, commonly known to some people, it simply means that you have a level of confidence, or belief in yourself that you can manage your situation. And importantly, I think of it as that you are developing a sense of control over your life. We all you know, we all seek in our daily life, a sense of control, when you don't when you're not feeling a sense of control. It's very distressing. Yeah, very.Hannah Choi 28:48So, so many of the clients and pretty much all of the clients I've ever worked with, and all of my colleagues to it comes up that that after after figuring out what strategies and tools work best for them to support the areas of executive function that challenge them, once they figure that out, and they're able to have some control over that area. They all say they feel more confident. And and that is that self efficacy right there.Dr. Lisa Shulman 29:15Right, you know, the, the kind of the pathway is that one needs to develop basic font of knowledge about your situation, and then develop skills of self management, which it sounds like you're counseling people about, and then by practicing those new skills, that every time you do it, that you start to have increasing confidence and increasing sense of control. So you sort of build on it until you reverse the cycle of feeling helpless.Hannah Choi 29:58So if you have an end unbalance in the fear center like the limbic system is kind of taking over and inhibiting the part of the brain that we're using for executive functions. What are some things that people can do to write that balance? And, and I'm sure, like right after this, that whatever traumatic incident happens, it's really difficult to get out of that. What are some things that people can can try?30:24You know, I think that that was one of the most encouraging parts of what I learned over time, because I realized that it certainly is calming and reassuring to understand the way in which the brain is responding and how it explains your experience that in and of itself is comforting to know that, you know, you're not as many people say, going crazy, that you're not having this, you know, breakdown, so to speak, but that this is a common, we're all in it together. We're all going through it together. And I think that's very reassuring. But the epiphany was when I realized that it leads to obvious interventions, I thought this is this is exciting. You know, it actually I want to start go back for a moment to what I referred to before about neuroplasticity. So what I was describing before, is a spiraling down into bad neuroplasticity, the brain has been rewired in this unhealthy Well, way. And the important part of understanding neuroplastic changes is that we can thoughtfully and deliberately rewire and create connections, brain connections, neuro connections, but those that are healthier to move the needle in reverse good neuroplasticity, you know, neurologists have a cool phrase that we use, that when things fire together, they wire together. I've heard that, yeah, great. And that is actually a great description of neuroplasticity. That, you know, it's nothing more complicated than practice makes perfect. You know, if you, if you sit down to learn a musical instrument, you can can't do a thing if you get on a bicycle for the first time. Forget it, you know, but, you know, you keep on doing it. And you know, Eureka, suddenly you're have a new skill, and oftentimes you never lose it. So what is that, it's things that fire together, wire together. And so we can use that understanding and knowledge to think about how what steps we can take to reverse the process, which is causing everything I said before the fear center to be this crazy alarm in our head. That is domineering our life over time for some of us. So what what can we do? Well, you know, actually, in my book, I just want to mention that, you know, I actually wrote my book with people, for people who are going through very difficult times, and I will never forget how disorganized my thoughts were, during that period of time. So I wrote in the book, what I called three steps, which were to organize a strategy because I felt that I needed it. I personally needed things, you know, spoon fed and so forth at the time. And so I thought, I don't want people to feel overwhelmed by what I'm saying here, and that they have to figure it out. So the three steps that I described in the book was the first one was, and I'll describe the three in a moment. The first one I called subconscious, conscious integration. And the second one is immersion and distraction. The third one is gradually opening the mind to new possibilities. So I'll briefly describe each. Subconscious conscious integration is one way to describe that what I described before that there has been a disconnect between the emotional parts of the brain and the cognitive parts of the brain. And from that standpoint, a lot of the disturbing emotions and memories from a time of trauma It ended up being suppressed in our subconscious. They're not accessible to us. Part of the reason they're not, the main reason they're not accessible to us is because it sets an alarm off every time we even go in that direction. Right? So but it's a big part, it is key to healing, to reconnect with that, because when you have a lot of disturbing stuff in your subconscious, this results in flashbacks, nightmares, or panic attacks. Well, that. So that's what that first step is, we'll talk come back and talk about how to accomplish it in a moment to is immersion and distraction. And what that refers to is that, you know, one can't do go through the angst of what some people might call grief work constantly, you have to be very aware that you need to give your mind and yourself and your brain space to chill out and have some enjoyable times. So that's what immersion and distraction means. Sometimes you're going to have to do the hard work of immersing immersing immersing immersing yourself in these difficult memories, which for me was when I was doing the journaling. But that I would plan in my day, also other times where I was going to distract myself from it. And the third ends up being after you've gone through those two steps I just mentioned, the third step is that of time will come when there's enough healing, well, you can begin to open yourself up to new possibilities, because, you know, life will not return to what it was before, after many serious losses. And so, you know, we do have to find a way to make a pivot and start to think of well, how are we going to build this new life, which, you know, take some time.Hannah Choi 37:15So, if someone has a set a sudden traumatic loss, and they haven't read your book, and they have and they, and they, you know, don't you know, know, these steps, or they don't know even where to start, where is a good place to start for people.37:32You know, in the book, I do have a chapter or more where I talk about the nuts and bolts of what you can do. And I think you know, it's really important to know that there isn't one shoe that fits everybody here, we are all very different. And we are looking for some vehicle that allows us to relax enough to get back in touch with disturbing thoughts and emotions, disturbing emotions and memories. Now, you know, for me, it was journaling and journaling. Writing is uniquely well suited to this. But there is mentioned in a moment, many other options. The reason why journaling and writing is uniquely suited is because you are, it's very personal. You can write in a more raw way, when you're writing, knowing nobody else will see this. Because in the end, I wrote a book and put it all in there. That wasn't what I was thinking when I was writing. So they never still doesn't make me comfortable. But you know, when you are writing that you're writing only for yourself and think about it. You can go to a counselor or therapist, you can speak to a dear friend, you can speak to an important clergyman in your church or synagogue or mosque you can you can do all those things. But in every one of those cases, you are sharing something deeply personal with others. And you know what? We all censor ourselves. Yeah, it's only natural and we not you know, who would lay it all out there for somebody to hear we are all censor ourselves. So when you write, you can write just for yourself. You can. It's very difficult to be honest with yourself that you can try your best to be honest with yourself that you can get it on paper, as imperfect as it is. And again, another unique part of writing is that you couldn't go back a week later a day You later a year later and read what you wrote, and annotated and continue to improve it, you know, I find that most people find you go back and read your own words and go, you know, I was, that's only part of the story. And because it teases out more Yeah. And then you can annotate now more. So that's why I think writing is really super. But there are many, many others, you know, there are so many creative outlook outlets. And I think we can think about those creative outlets that people have, whether it's music, or art, dance, all of these outlets are ways that people are expressing themselves and could find it. And it's a way it's kind of a portal into your deepest thoughts. So, all of that, and of course, faith based practices, meditation and other contemplative practices. It goes on and on. Another important source that we shouldn't overlook is getting out in the natural environment. You know, we tend to understate that, but we can all I think, relate to time how often you find yourself if you take a simple walk, or you know, you're you're seeing some beautiful mountains, you're sitting by a lake, you're at the beach, and how it how transforming it is to your thoughts. Yeah. And when you're going through a terrible time, after emotional trauma, that's a ripe moment for you to not only feel like you can exhale, but that you can relax enough to connect with thoughts that otherwise would be inaccessible. The hardest part really is looking in the mirror and understanding ourselves enough to know how to proceed. You know, I'd be the first one to tell you that when I was going through a terrible time, I was not resourceful. Again, getting back to executive function. Now. I was not resourceful. You know, it was like, years later, when I wrote the book, and people are then contacting me from different organizations and podcasts and web, web websites, and so forth. And I went, Oh, my God, there's like an endless array of resources. And I felt totally isolated. And you know, here I am a researcher, I have no difficulty looking things up. But at the time, it was not accessible to me. And I know that's true of others, because everyone has told me.Hannah Choi 42:59Yeah, yeah. I heard I heard, I listened to a podcast that you were on. With a woman who has a podcast about grief, and my working memory is my biggest executive function challenge. So I can't remember the name of it. But anyway, on that you were talking about how how the brain can actually make it so that you don't see objects that are maybe related to the to the person that you lost, or the trauma that you went through. And I thought that was so fascinating, and how that real fat right there for me really shows you that it is your brain. Your your brain. Oh, Dear Life, maybe? Sorry, just came to me, then. Yeah.Dr. Lisa Shulman 43:50Yeah, yeah, I think we should review some of the specific cognitive responses, or effects on cognition. And one of them is what you're talking about, you know, the, you can picture the we're talking before about how the brain is perceiving. This is a threat to our survival. So there are a vast number of protective reflexes and responses that are being activated. And we talked I talked already about many of the physical ones. But from a psychological or emotional standpoint, the brain is in an emotional, protective crouch all the time, which is going to serve to shield us from disturbing triggers disturbing things in our environment. And we have a whole host of psychological defense mechanisms that we all learn long ago, like dissociation, repression, denial and so forth, that are kicked into high gear. It's a subconscious reef. So we're not, we're not deciding we're going to behave that way we don't know that those reflexes are in, I've been kicked off. And this can, as you say, result in literal holes in your perspective or your your vision. And the one that you described to occurred in my life, which was that something as, obviously concrete, as my husband's cell phone, his iPhone, was sitting on our desk. And I mean, not just months, it could have been years, a long time went by, where I just didn't even know, I never saw it. Or I didn't. There was a proper word, I didn't allow myself to see it. You know, but someone actually, in the house, saw it and pointed it out. I had, like, I was shocking to me, it was shocking. I thought, My gosh, it's specific all along. And I chose to ignore it, such that it was a literal hole in my visual field. Yeah. That was just your how, how incredibly strong and powerful these things are, you know, somebody who originally described a dissociation dissociate, described dissociation is fundamental to emotional trauma. And so dissociation is a really important part of this. And my book goes into this in some depth. Resulting in that when you are confronting disturbing stressors in your environment, that your mind has this incredible protective response of just kind of turning off, or shielding you from recognizing what you saw just getting, you know, it might put you in a place for a few seconds or moments where you are, you're basically detached from your environment. Or it might be more mild than that. There can be these interruptions of awareness, it fragments, your memory, because you're having periods of the day where this is occurring, it's causing flashbacks, you can become increasingly emotionally numb, because you're not being open to everything that's really in your environment all the time. So it's a very big part of why many of us feel like something has changed fundamentally, after loss.Hannah Choi 47:53Yeah. It's, and and it's interesting that how you said it, it really just comes back to survival and protecting ourselves.48:05Right! I mean, it's a, it's actually we have to think about it as a very effective strategy that the brain is employing. In other words, if, when, when we have, if we have, you know, horribly, a terrible tragedy or catastrophe occur, we remain able to function and survive. Yeah, it would be possible that we were wired in such a way that we were not able to survive, that, you know, we that you could not function, you could not make a meal, you could not dress yourself, you could not you'd be in such a way, but he said no, the truth is, and I really want to get to this, which is that we're talking about executive function and cognition after trauma. And number one, you can remain extremely high functioning in the face of cognitive change, we are not talking about somebody developing the dementia and being unable to perform their daily activities. Speaking for myself, even in the worst of this, I was seeing patients, writing papers, writing grants, doing everything Yeah. So it just shows you how these things can be quite segregated. Another important point is that the cognitive changes are not across all domains and not across all parts of executive function that you know, as well as I that executive function has many different components. You know, what I'd like to really point to that I think is not discussed enough. And I'm really interested in your thoughts on this, Hannah. You I believe that something that's overlooked a lot is cognitive flexibility.Hannah Choi 50:08I am right there with you.Dr. Lisa Shulman 50:12So, you know, I think that during, after trauma, trauma after emotional trauma, cognitive flexibility takes a big hit for a long time, I imagine. And I just wonder, you know, how do you come across that in your own work?Hannah Choi 50:29I mean, I, I think I really believe that cognitive flexibility is that and metacognition, just understanding how we think and why we think and why we do what we do, and don't do what we don't do, I think those two together are, for me, what I see in my clients and in myself and in others are the most of the two most important, because without that cognitive flexibility, especially I imagine with when you when your life experiences such a great shift, and such a great change. And like you said before, life is not going to go back to how it was before, that cognitive flexibility is probably going to be the answer to finding new ways of doing your life now. And finding happiness and success. I mean, I can't think of another executive function that is going to be more helpful than that. 51:31And really, at the heart of, you know, being able to be successful, because, you know, it runs from the sublime to the ridiculous, you know, if somebody does, for example, reach out for or tries, I was talking before about all the kinds of methods that one strategies one could try, if someone does begin on say, Okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go to find a counselor, I'm going to go to a support group. And, and that doesn't have the proper chemistry, or it just doesn't feel like it's being helpful to you for some reason, you know, if you don't have cognitive flexibility and resourcefulness, you know, that it's pretty much a dead end for somebody, rather than saying, Oh, well, you know, there's 10 other ways to do this. The so I mean, that's the sublime, the ridiculous part of it can be that you can literally find yourself doing things in incredibly robotic ways. When you are in a going through a period of terrible emotional trauma, where things are being done the way they were always done very automatically, and you get kind of fixed in the spot. And then when hopefully, you do become more healed and have more insight and cognitive flexibility, you know, like, it's like, one day you think, we're gonna say, you know, I'm doing these three steps, and there's a way to do this one step, why don't I see that all? You know, and, you know, I mean, for those who have experienced the loss of a loved one, I mean, there are some of these things that are so common. The simple example I've spoken to many people, is, if you if it's somebody that you know, a partner, that you find yourself going to the supermarket and buying all the same foods, even though that person is no longer home, you are in thinking I want to buy this in honor of the memory of the lost loved one, you just automatically are buying in and you're stocking your pantry and the things that you don't ordinarily use takes actually a fair amount of time to you wake up to the fact that you're doing that. Another one I talked about on a BBC broadcast is that people oftentimes describe preparing foods that their loved ones preferred, not what they prefer, they prefer it right, right. Again, it's not something that you plan out, you're just automatically doing it. And it takes it sometimes you then in a robotic, you're doing it and you're doing it and you're doing it and you don't have the cognitive flexibility to go this is what's happening and maybe I don't need, you know, five boxes of that.Hannah Choi 54:33Yeah. And it just it really shows you that we are our habits. We are the that like you said, you know, like that, that our brains have been wired that way. So we think that way,54:45You know, one of the things I'll I'll pointed to other examples in the cognitive sphere or to other issues. One is the inattention And we talked about the dissociation and how we results in this loss of awareness and so forth. And, you know, people who have suffered serious emotional trauma are have been found to be quite vulnerable to accidents. And this is a very, it's a significant problem, you know, more falling, more car accidents, just accidents. And, you know, I read about that, but you know, I will just say, again, from pointing to my personal experience, you know, in the year following my husband's death, I fell and broke my ankle. And I was in three car accidents, fortunately, fender benders. And then since then none of that this is almost the 10th year anniversary of his death. I mean, it shows you that there is some cognitive change that you are not as alert to your environment.Hannah Choi 56:07Yeah, yeah, well, it makes sense. And I just did an episode on ADHD. And in my research, I found that people with ADHD, who struggle with attention are also more prone to accidents, car accidents and injuries.Dr. Lisa Shulman 56:23So that also also totally makes sense. Yeah. And like, the final point I don't want to overlook is the impact of our bio rhythms. And, you know, many of us know that we are either you know, morning larks or night owls. And that's just a very fixed part of our genetics. That's not something you can change. And so when you are, you know, you don't you have minimal or no reserve after emotional trauma. So therefore, from the standpoint of cognition, think about if you are, are you a morning Lark or a night owl?Hannah Choi 57:05Well, I am a night owl, I am fighting fighting that right now. I'm trying really hard to become a morning Lark. I'm a little better, but I'm trying to fake it till I make it but it's not happening.57:21So, you know, if you have are in a bad way, with minimal to no cognitive reserve, and you're you should just be aware, well, you know, if you are that morning for you, Hannah, is not going to be the optimum time for you to try to do a serious cognitive task. Right, right. Because you have to two things that are going on. And so why you why even fight it.Hannah Choi 57:53And that's so much of what what I do in my coaching is help helping people figure out when is the best time of day for you to do different things. And you know, when when are you going to be most successful, when is not a great time to try something new or even to try something challenging? Yeah, just becoming aware, learning that learning about ourselves and, and knowing that,58:16I mean, I think it has a lot to do with something important that my husband taught me, which is about being forgiving to yourself. And, you know, I think that all of us, and maybe women even more than men, you know, are, you know, filled with angst and second thoughts and remorse, recrimination, and you know, like, especially for people who are going through terrible times, after traumatic losses, it's very important to know, go gentle with yourself and think, you know, I'm doing my best. And I'm I going to keep on working on this. And sometimes, I'm going to have a longing to regress, sometimes I'm going to really handle something poorly, I'm going to make a poor decision. And that we should go well, I'm going to be forgiving to myself, because I'm going through a hard time and I'm going to learn from this and try again. I think that that's a very important part of it. And on the small side of it in terms of what you were just saying the day to day side of it. You know, you might sit down and think okay, I've set aside this time to do what I called before the subconscious conscious integration, the grief work, the inner work, and you might sit down and it might be very unsuccessful. You just simply can't find you can't find your rhythm like you had on another day? Well, I mean, it's good to acknowledge that it just go well, no, for some reason. For whatever reason, this is not the right time for me. Yeah, I'm gonna do something else. And tomorrow's another day.Hannah Choi 1:00:15yeah. We always talk about how you can't listen to those shoulds. You have to, you know, be gentle with yourself and, and do what's right in the moment. Is there anything else that you can think of? Did you want to go back to your three steps? Was there anything that you wanted to expand on there?Dr. Lisa Shulman 1:00:32You know, I think that, you know, one thing that I would say that can be quite confusing, is when we talk about this idea of subconscious conscious integration, the work to integrate, and reconnect the emotional response to the cognitive functions. And then we refer to that second step of immersion and distraction, I think one of the things that can be confusing, and is to me about exactly how to talk about it, is that the balance between the kinds of things that calm us down, and will be a source of distraction. And the kinds of things that will calm us down and enable us to do the hard work of Yeah, of reconnection of subconscious conscious integration. And that I think, can be a source of confusion. And we sort of all have to find our own balance there. And maybe identify times that are ripe, to even even if it's for a short moment, you know, say for example, in the ways we were talking before, that you might be out in a natural environment, and you feel a sense of relief, and you feel like you can think more clearly. And in that moment, a memory might drift back to you. That is maybe a sad, a sad memory. It's a sad memory. But you see, it just became accessible to you, because you had relaxed enough for that purpose. Yeah. And now, you know, one doesn't have to feel compelled to do some work around that, because you've already accomplished something, like doing that, or feeling feeling sad about it isn't necessarily enough to feel like that's a regression. It's instead, as you go through that, and you in the way we talked about self efficacy, developing confidence in yourself, that you go through, you have that moment, and you might reflect and feel sorrow. And then you go back to maybe what you were doing, and you have just had an experience where you succeeded in the face of you didn't have, you know, a break and emotional breakdown, you didn't weren't triggered, the fight or flight mechanism wasn't triggered to its nth degree, you instead had a moment of sorrow and you went through it, which is different than what would have happened before. That's, that's a success.Hannah Choi 1:03:43Yeah. And that that makes me think back to when you were talking about journaling and how, how when you when you like say, you wrote that down that you find that you this used to happen before and now this now this happens. You can look and see that that evidence that evidence of growth and progress and how that must be really empowering and and give you and bolster that self efficacy that is so helpful in getting through.Dr. Lisa Shulman 1:04:14Yes, and you know, that you're able to acknowledge is that it's a healthy mind to be able to acknowledge that that was a beautiful important part of me. It's not here anymore, you're honoring it. I mean, you you'd give anything to go back and have that person back or undo that traumatic event. But this really refers to the important field of post traumatic growth and how you achieve that. There you with time, you know, we have well, another favorite phrase is Time heals all wounds. isn't enough for most people, not everybody, but for most people, time will result in a lot of healing after traumatic loss. But if one doesn't go through the steps that we're talking about here, to reverse those bad neuroplastic changes in the brain access suppressed memories and emotions, excuse me, access suppressed memories and emotions. If you don't go through those steps, you are blocked from ever growing as fully for your to potential as you could write, you will improve, but you will be blocked from the full potential that you have,Hannah Choi 1:05:50because of the way that your brain is responding.Dr. Lisa Shulman 1:05:54Because you have never you continue to have suppressed memories and emotions that your brain has to continually protect you from. Yeah, right. No, another way we can refer to this, in terms of cognition, and it's important is that when when the when the brain is functioning in that protective mode, the fight or flight, the acute responses, the chronic effects, everything we talked about, it uses up a lot of brain power, a lot of real estate in the brain is being used up to, to shield me from seeing that iPhone, that's not just happening on its own, some portion of the brain is keeps on going, you know, alert to say no to that thing. You know, there's a part of the brain that keeps on doing that over and over. And how can that ever be compatible with full healing and optimum cognitive function? Yeah, it's not possible. No. And it's, it's a lifelong process. It's a lifelong process. It's not as if anybody is ever going to be at the end of that process. We keep on identifying things that are disturbing, and then you have to work through it again.Hannah Choi 1:07:38Which gives you that what gives you the ability to move out of what you said before that the feeling of hopelessness, and there's concrete things that you can do. Yeah. That's great. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your talking with me. And it's fascinating and difficult to talk about at the same time.Dr. Lisa Shulman 1:08:05No, it's like anything else. So like we just said, it was very difficult to talk about it in the beginning. And now I've talked about it a lot. No longer difficult,

In today's episode, we dive into the science behind how grief impacts the brain with a world-renowned neurologist, author, and widow, Dr. Lisa Shulman. Lisa is the Director of the University of Maryland's Movement Centre and the author of Healing Your Brain After Loss: A Neurologist's Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain. We talk about how losing her husband Bill led her to research how our brains respond to loss and trauma, as well as:Why ‘grief brain' happensDissociation and anxiety as a response to lossThe role of dreams in processing griefHow to help your brain healThanks to today's sponsor, Griefline. For more information or to access their support programs and services, visit griefline.org.au. Connect with usShop our affirmation cards for grief and loss at www.goodmourning.com.auFollow us on Instagram at @goodmourningpodcastJoin our private Facebook support group here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Grief impacts so much of our life- including the way our brain functions.  Today, Lori and Trish talk about the changes in executive functioning they have experienced, its impact on their work, and how they are adapting and using tools to continue building the lives they want with the flux in executive functioning.Are you or your loved ones experiencing changes in flexible thinkingworking memoryself-monitoringplanning and prioritizingtask initiationorganizationimpulse controlemotional controlConsider your energy levels and how your mind and body are changing because of trauma/loss.  Talking through the effects of grief on our lives and making intentional choices to move forward every day has given both co-hosts a sense of calm and peace - and increased their compassion for self.To read more about grief's impact on neurology, read Before and After Loss by Dr. Lisa Shulman.Did you like this episode? Be sure to give us a five star rating! If you have a topic you'd like to hear about, you're looking for a resource, or you'd just like to connect, email us: community@embracinggrief.life .

Dr. Taryn Liu, Pediatric Neurology Resident at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital interviews Dr. Lisa Shulman of the Rose F. Kennedy Center Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore in Bronx, NY about her March 2019 article published in the Journal of Child Neurology: “When an Early Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder Resolves, What Remains?” This podcast was originally recorded in the summer of 2019.

Dr. Lisa Shulman is an award winning neuroscientist and prolific author including of the truly singular book:"Before and After Loss: A Neurologist's Perspective on Loss, Grief and Our Brain." In her conversation with Meghan, Dr. Shulman talks about how the brain cannot distinguish between the emotional trauma of bear attack versus the emotional trauma of a sudden attachment loss, discusses her husband's death from cancer and how it gave her work a much more personal perspective, and frames traumatic loss as a chronic condition we will need to treat for the rest of our lives. This is a PACKED episode you do NOT want to miss. "In Before and After Loss, neurologist Dr. Lisa M. Shulman describes a personal story of loss and her journey to understand the science behind the mind-altering experience of grief. Part memoir, part creative nonfiction, part account of scientific discovery, this moving book combines Shulman's perspectives as an expert in brain science and a keen observer of behavior with her experience as a clinician, a caregiver, and a widow. Drawing on the latest studies about grief and its effects, she explains what scientists know about how the mind, brain, and body respond and heal following traumatic loss. She also traces the interface between the experience of profound loss and the search for emotional restoration. Combining the science of emotional trauma with concrete psychological techniques— including dream interpretation, journaling, mindfulness exercises, and meditation—Shulman's frank and empathetic account will help readers regain their emotional balance by navigating the passage from profound sorrow to healing and growth." https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/and-after-loss

I’m so happy to introduce you to today’s guest, Dr. Lisa Shulman. As I told her at the beginning of our conversation, had I found her work when I experienced the loss of my husband in 2006, I may not be doing the work that I am doing now. I thanked her for doing her work and for writing her book Before and After Loss because the way she describes the impact of loss and grief on the brain is truly life-changing for all of us. When I first found her book I thought, how come I didn’t know about this before and how come my community doesn’t know about her? Dr. Shulman and I have a wide reaching conversation about her own experience of grief when her husband died to her research and need to understand, as a neurologist, just what was happening to her brain as she experienced grief or as she calls it, emotional trauma.  Like me, she had much professional experience with grief before her own experience, so she anticipated that she would have an easier time than others because she had been close to the experience, but as she learned you don’t really know how it actually feels until you are walking in those shoes. Dr. Shulman explains why our Survivor self kicks in after emotional trauma to keep us moving through the world, and in many cases, high-functioning. It’s how we continue to go to work, take care of our children, maybe even make big life changes and take risks. It’s in this mode that we start to believe that we’re “ok” and so do the others around us. I had chills when she talked about the depression that comes with grief wasn’t the problem. The real problem as she understood and experienced it was the utter disorientation and loss of self-identity, one of the big invisible losses that I talk about in my book Second Firsts and in my Life Reentry classes. It took a long time for her to unpack and understand that was what was going on. Because, as you know if you’ve experienced the death of a loved one, you’re not only grieving the person that you lost but also the person that you were in relation to them.   “When you understand how the emotional trauma of loss impacts the brain, it normalizes the experience and you feel less alone. We are all having very similar experiences, right down to the kinds of dreams that we have.” ~ Dr. Lisa Shulman   Dr. Shulman explains that it’s the same brain pathways whether you are experiencing the death of a loved one, losing your job, or go through a divorce. No matter the loss, it’s alll tied up in the brain’s evolutionary patterns for our survival in the face of threat. Grief is felt in the same place of the brain no matter what loss you are experiencing. She approached her grief as a neurologist and wants to normalize the experience of grief for everyone. As she explains, when you understand how emotional trauma impacts the brain, it normalizes the experiences and helps us to feel less alone. While of course everyone’s experience is different, it’s also true that we are having very similar experiences, right down to the kind of dreams that we have.  Dr. Shulman wants everyone to know that the experience of loss is a normal response of the brain and that there are extremely powerful, tangible things that we can do for ourselves to promote our healing.  She believes that the more we understand that we can promote positive neuroplasticity for ourselves we can truly being to heal.  I hope that you’ll listen and let me know what you think of this conversation. Please comment below or share with me on social media. Please share it with your friends and family, and be sure to tag me if you share it on social media so that I can say thank you. I’m @christinarasmussen7 on Instagram and @ChristinaRasmussen2014 on Facebook.  More About Dr. Lisa Shulman Lisa M. Shulman MD is a neurologist specializing in Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. In addition to neurology, her diverse background includes training in health policy, nursing, and education. She is the Eugenia Brin Professor of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders and the Rosalyn Newman Distinguished Scholar in Parkinson’s Disease.  Dr. Shulman serves as Treasurer of the American Academy of Neurology and Director of the University of Maryland Movement Disorders Center. She serves on the Board of Directors of both the American Academy of Neurology and the American Brain Foundation. Dr. Shulman is Editor-in-Chief of Neurology Now Books and co-author of the reference book Parkinson’s Disease: A Complete Guide for Patients and Families, now in its third edition and translated in 3 languages.  She is the author or editor of 16 books, 30 chapters, 140 peer-reviewed publications, and 170 abstracts. Things We Mention In This Episode Book: Before and After Loss, A Neurologist’s Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain, by Dr. Lisa Shulman Website: Dr. Shulman at The University of Maryland Book: Where Did You Go? by Christina Rasmussen Book: Second Firsts by Christina Rasmussen Newsletter - Message In a Bottle: Sign up for Christina’s weekly letter Apple podcast reviews and ratings are really important to help get the podcast in front of more people to uplift and inspire them too, which is the ultimate goal. Thank you!

Transkripsjon: Sorg er noe alle vil oppleve, og sorg vil defineres forskjellig fra person til person. De fleste vil forbinde det med en form for tristhet, men professor Katherine Shear beskriver det som en respons på tap, med en kjerne av savn og lengting. Helsekonsekvensene er alvorlige. Personer over 60 år som mister en partner har de neste 30 dagene mer enn en dobling av risikoen for hjerteinfarkt eller slag. Særlig er de første 24 timene kritiske. Ellers er sorg forbundet med søvnvansker, immunsykdommer og blodpropper. Nevrologen og professor Lisa Shulman har sett på hva som skjer når noen sørger. Hjernen oppfatter det som en ytre, eksistensiell trussel, og aktiverer stressystemene i det som kaller fight or flight. Resultatet er økt puls og blodtrykk, overfladisk respirasjon og svette. Hjernen går i forsvarsmodus, og kroppen følger etter. Reaksjonen kan bli langvarig, men også utløses på nytt av steder og situasjoner som kan skape minner, uten at folk ofte ser sammenhengene. Da kan det ende i engstelse og noen ganger panikkanfall. Et annet vanlig fenomen er at hjernen liksom blir tåkete og ikke fungerer som vanlig, og at en føler seg isolert og alene. Slik forsøker hjernen å forsvare seg mot vonde emosjoner. Men når folk begynner å snakke om sine sorgopplevelser viser de seg å være nokså like, helt ned til de samme drømmene. Professor Shear sier at det er viktig å bryte stressrekasjonene slik at de ikke på et vis setter seg i hjernen. De kan skje gjennom å snakke med andre, eller ved hjelp av kreative utfoldelse, kontemplasjon som f.eks. meditasjon, og gjennom religiøse aktiviteter. For noen hjelper det å skrive ned tankene og opplevelsene, og på den måten bli bevisst på det som skjer. I følge Shear går sorgen aldri egentlig over dersom tapet har vært stort, men sorgen skifter ansikt og vil fremstå på måter som gjør det lettere å leve med den. Det vil vanligvis bli mulig å minnes uten sorgens smerte. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/viten-paa-kort-tid/message

Dr. Shulman is a professor in the Pediatrics Department at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is also a leading developmental pediatrician who specializes in diagnosing and treating children with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental and learning disabilities. More recently, she is a principal investigator for SPARK (Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research) which is a landmark autism research project. Tune in to learn more about Dr. Shulman and her SPARK research.

Kevin Warwick of Coventry University on cyborgs. Lisa Shulman of the University of Maryland on traumatic loss. Laura Verdun of Voicetrainer on how to have a better speaking voice. Author James McGrath on the Chicago defender and Ethel Payne.

There is often the belief that Doctors are either more than human or less than human. Today's guest shares her very human experience of loss with a healthy and informative dash of scientific 

Lisa Shulman is a professor of neurology at the University of Maryland and the author or editor of numerous books on neurologic disorders, including Parkinson’s disease: A Complete Guide for Patients and Families. Her specialism is Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, for which she has undertaken major research on how such disorders effect daily…Read More

The sorrow, heartache and suffering connected with loss can leave a person paralyzed with grief.In “Before and after Loss: A Neurologist’s Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain” Dr. Lisa Shulman channels her personal encounters with bereavement into exploration of what takes place in the brain when we’re grieving. Shulman discusses interpreting dreams … journaling … and introspection. She raises questions and draws conclusions about the cognitive effects of loss, and how to recover.

In the first half Tiffany Masters, was born a gifted, sensitive child and has continued to be that way all her life. She has always had the heighten sensibilities of sight, hearing, feeling and knowing. As a Intuitive-Medium, she has the ability to speak to loved ones that have crossed to give messages to those still in the physical. She will be discussing and giving advice on how to celebrate love and bring more love into your life around the holiday season. In the second half, Dr. Lisa Shulman, a professor of neurology at The University of Maryland and author of Before and After Loss: A Neurologist's Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain. She will explore the effects of losing and grieving a loved one on the mind, brain, and body. She will discuss tools to build confidence in managing grief and to rebuild life after loss - at our own pace and without preconceptions about the right way to grieve.

In the first half Tiffany Masters, was born a gifted, sensitive child and has continued to be that way all her life. She has always had the heighten sensibilities of sight, hearing, feeling and knowing. As a Intuitive-Medium, she has the ability to speak to loved ones that have crossed to give messages to those still in the physical. She will be discussing and giving advice on how to celebrate love and bring more love into your life around the holiday season. In the second half, Dr. Lisa Shulman, a professor of neurology at The University of Maryland and author of Before and After Loss: A Neurologist's Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain. She will explore the effects of losing and grieving a loved one on the mind, brain, and body. She will discuss tools to build confidence in managing grief and to rebuild life after loss - at our own pace and without preconceptions about the right way to grieve.

In the first half Tiffany Masters, was born a gifted, sensitive child and has continued to be that way all her life. She has always had the heighten sensibilities of sight, hearing, feeling and knowing. As a Intuitive-Medium, she has the ability to speak to loved ones that have crossed to give messages to those still in the physical. She will be discussing and giving advice on how to celebrate love and bring more love into your life around the holiday season. In the second half, Dr. Lisa Shulman, a professor of neurology at The University of Maryland and author of Before and After Loss: A Neurologist's Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain. She will explore the effects of losing and grieving a loved one on the mind, brain, and body. She will discuss tools to build confidence in managing grief and to rebuild life after loss - at our own pace and without preconceptions about the right way to grieve.

In the first half Tiffany Masters, was born a gifted, sensitive child and has continued to be that way all her life. She has always had the heighten sensibilities of sight, hearing, feeling and knowing. As a Intuitive-Medium, she has the ability to speak to loved ones that have crossed to give messages to those still in the physical. She will be discussing and giving advice on how to celebrate love and bring more love into your life around the holiday season. In the second half, Dr. Lisa Shulman, a professor of neurology at The University of Maryland and author of Before and After Loss: A Neurologist's Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain. She will explore the effects of losing and grieving a loved one on the mind, brain, and body. She will discuss tools to build confidence in managing grief and to rebuild life after loss - at our own pace and without preconceptions about the right way to grieve.

Host Cyrus Webb welcomes Dr. Lisa Shulman to #ConversationsLIVE to discuss her new book BEFORE AND AFTER LOSS.

Dr. Michelle interviews, Dr. Lisa Shulman, author of, "Before and After Loss: A Neurologist’s Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain." Hear about the fascinating science behind grief, which can give insight into the mystery of why we react to grief in certain ways. Dr. Shulman helps those experiencing loss to feel less overwhelmed, less anxious, and less alone. Hear about Dr. Shulman's shocking experience and describe why our experience of grief is unfamiliar and surreal, and how comfort can be found in understanding how our brain responds and heals following traumatic loss. Get her book on Amazon or follow the direct link: amazon.com/Before-After-Loss-Neurologists-Perspective to get her amazing book

Charles Hankla of Georgia State University on french yellow vest protests. Douglas Brugge of Tufts University School of Medicine on tiny air particles cause big health risk. Sara Nelson of BYU Broadcasting on internet pop culture. Kimberly Gudzune of Johns Hopkins University on weight bias in the doctor's office. Lisa Shulman of the University of Maryland on traumatic loss. Rachel Wadham of World's Awaiting on why Seuss' Grinch endures.

Dr. Lisa Shulman from the University of Maryland discusses how exercise may help manage Parkinson's motor and non-motor symptoms in our latest podcast.

https://www.einstein.yu.edu/cerc - Pediatrician Lisa Shulman shows the motor milestones expected in typically developing babies, from head control to walking and what pediatricians look for during a well-baby visit. She also explains the specific types of motor control a baby must master before the next milestone can be achieved. Dr. Shulman is associate professor of clinical pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and an attending physician in pediatrics at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore. She is also director of the RELATE program for the diagnosis and treatment of autism and related disorders at Einstein's Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation (CERC).

Host: Anthony Alessi, MD Guest: Lisa Shulman Would it be better for Parkinson's patients to meet with their doctor in a group setting? Group visits are among the the novel approaches being studied for Parkinson's patients. Dr. Lisa Shulman, professor of neurology and co-director of the Maryland Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center in Baltimore, joins host Dr. Anthony Alessi to discuss who might benefit from group visits, how it compares to traditional care, and the practical billing issues involved. They also discuss new research on treadmill walking in the treatment of patients with Parkinson's disease. Produced in cooperation with: