Fuel the Brain, Not Anxiety

Having the same conversations over and over.

Stalled progress.

A distinct lack of clarity, engagement, and energy.

These are hallmarks of therapy when a client’s body is in survival mode.

More and more, the scientific community is finding that the nervous system is key to understanding our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.

When our nervous system is dysregulated, our neurobiology is accessing survival systems like the amygdala, limbic system, and dorsal vagal system. 

We feel unsafe, anxious, fearful, and scatterbrained. We lack mental clarity, physical energy, and the ability to learn effectively — all of which are necessary for meaningful change to occur in therapy.

So when a client is chronically dysregulated, they might have a firm grasp of cognitive and behavioral strategies… 

But still, therapy goes nowhere.

On the other hand, having tools that downregulate the nervous system gives us access to our pre-frontal cortex and ventral vagal system and increased feelings of safety, connectedness, and curiosity.

This creates a stable environment that fuels mental clarity, energy, and learning.

Therapeutic frames such as ACT, polyvagal theory, and somatic therapies are effective, in part, because they help people understand and influence their nervous systems as they become more embodied. 

But at the most basic level, creating this stable environment requires taking care of the body with a few simple components:

Food, sleep, exercise, and breath.

These are the fundamental building blocks of a regulated nervous system. 

For example, if a client is frequently skipping meals or rarely eats protein-rich foods…

Or if they’re always operating on a few hours of sleep due to a wildly irregular schedule…

Or they avoid moving their body and breathe primarily through their nose…

It could be keeping their body and mind in a state of distress.

As surprising as it may seem, any of these situations can severely impact a person’s mental and emotional state, their energy levels, and their ability to participate in your work together. 

So while psychological and emotional barriers can certainly slow therapeutic progress, even the most effective interventions will have little impact with a person whose body is deprived of these basic building blocks.

It’s imperative that clinicians have an understanding of how these elements impact the nervous system — and in turn the mind — so they can identify when they are contributing to a client’s struggles and address them directly.

Fortunately, this doesn’t require an advanced understanding of neuroscience, nutrition, sleep science, or breath work. 

In fact, there are numerous simple practices and tools that can make both immediate and long-term differences for your clients and their ability to participate fully in therapy.

That is precisely what you’ll learn in this live online course.

Join us and Dr. Kristen Allott for a fascinating and actionable exploration of how caring for the body through food, sleep, movement, and breath impacts the nervous system’s polyvagal state. 

By providing tools to shift your clients from a dysregulated and disembodied state to one that is regulated, embodied, and engaged, you’ll be better able to boost their resilience, energy, and clarity and help guide them toward their goals. 

Inside the Course

In Fuel the Brain, Not Anxiety, you’ll explore the impact of nutrition, sleep, movement, and breathing on anxiety, depression, and mood disorders. And you’ll learn simple, approachable strategies and teachable skills to help clients reduce emotional dysregulation, improve energy and mental clarity, and give them greater access to their creativity, resiliency, and compassion.

Through 4 live online sessions anchored in polyvagal theory, Dr. Kristen Allott will show you how to help clients meet the needs of their bodies and brains, opening the door for even more impactful work. She will guide you through the science of how these strategies can literally change the brain’s state from fearful and reactive to engaged and curious, leading to deeper healing.

You’ll gain techniques and resources you can bring into the therapy room right away, giving you the opportunity to practice between each course session. Then you can share questions, as well as discoveries and insights, in the following session.

In addition, you’ll look at case studies where clinicians have seen improvements in their clients — some over time and some almost instantly — as a direct result of caring for the body through food, sleep, movement, and breathing. And you’ll see how even minor improvements in these areas can enhance trust and rapport with the therapist and create the possibility of deeper, more effective work.

Throughout the course, you’ll also explore:

• Assessment tools for knowing if and when nutrition, sleep, movement, and breathing patterns are contributing to mental health issues
• How self-care connects to polyvagal theory and neuroscience 
• How food can immediately impact feelings, thoughts, and behaviors 
• What happens neurologically when your client is in “survival mode,” and achievable interventions to help them reengage in minutes 
• What to look for on food labels so you can teach clients to fuel their bodies more effectively
• How to differentiate between depression and fatigue
• The vital importance of sleep regulation and tools for improving sleep
• How to start a movement plan that has been shown to be effective with depression and anxiety 
• How breath affects the polyvagal nervous system

By exploring the why and how behind these skills and practices, this course will give you the tools to help clients support their bodies so they can more fully engage in therapeutic work — and their lives.

In addition, you’ll see how you can integrate these techniques into your own life, giving yourself tools for self-care that can help reduce burnout, allow you to stay more present, and increase your own capacity for resilience and compassion both in and out of the therapy room.

We invite you to join this exciting new course and discover how you can help clients — and yourself — increase energy and mental clarity and unlock new realms of growth and healing.

This training offers 8 CE hours if attended live. We can only provide CE to those who are present via Zoom for the live sessions. However, the sessions will be recorded and available to watch later. Registrants may access these recordings at any time for up to nine months after the live training ends.

Before enrolling, please review conflict of interest disclosures and complete CE information here.