Stress and the Brain

• hippocampus
• neuroplasticity
• Stress

I have continued to read many of the articles published by Dr. Robert Sapolsky because I continue to find so much of his work very relevant to EBT.  His research into the brain has been incredibly helpful in broadening my understanding of the importance of so many pieces of the EBT method in effectively changing the brain.

In 2003, Dr. Sapolsky wrote a wonderful review article entitled “Stress and Plasticity in the Limbic Brain”.  He focused on three key points about how stress effects our emotional brain.  I would like to review those points here and emphasize why I think they are so relevant to EBT.  Click here if you would like to be taken to the article.
 
Dr. Sapolsky’s first point in his article is that stress impairs the hippocampal dependent explicit learning and the plasticity that is associated with that.  I wrote briefly about the hippocampus a couple of postings ago “Sleep and the Brain”.  The hippocampus is critically important in not only feeling the feelings but also in understanding and rewiring the expectations. This makes perfect sense in regards to EBT work.  The more stressed you are, the more difficult it is to do this work and the more difficult it is to make effective change.  Most participants have had the experience where they do a cycle, find an expectation and create a new expectation, only to immediately forget the expectations.  Under stress memory and plasticity are impaired.
 
However, Dr. Sapolsky’s second point is that mild stress actually helps facilitate hippocampal learning and plasticity.  No surprise there…doing a cycle is stressful and uncomfortable.  However, experiencing that mild stress while doing the work, makes it effective.  His third point is that there is a very wide range of stressors that feed into our implicit (unconscious) fear learning.  I think that has been made clear to me during my personal EBT work.  So many times, in so many different situations, the same survival circuit is being triggered. 
 
I continue to be amazed by the power of EBT and how effective it truly is especially as we relate the method to cutting edge neuroscience research.  Keep up the hard work…you are changing your brain.