• • In part 1 of this course learners will:

    • Explore how our thinking about stress has evolved from a mechanical concept and how that left us attempting to manage stress with self-control.

    • Learn how scientists are transforming our understanding of stress by showing that it is a force acting on our whole body and central nervous system.

    • Consider how excessive stress triggers our homeostatic systems to self-regulate while at the same time causing reactions deep in our Gray Brain, which lower our awareness of our need  to self-regulate.  

    • Discover how to self-regulate through:

      • Reframing the stress response as a valuable sign of homeostatic
        imbalance and the need to reduce stress load.
      • Understanding that homeostatic imbalance happens involuntarily
        but that we can all come to know our own personal signs of stress
        and learn how work to reduce our stress load.
      • An awareness that the Interbrain—connection and interaction with
        a calm and caring person—both restores social engagement
        connection and triggers stress-reducing oxytocin.

• • In part 2 of this course learners will:
    • Consider the links between activity in the brain’s subcortical areas and our apparent need for instant gratification.
    • Learn when wanting is not a choice.  When dopamine triggers the mesolimbic pathway our SEEKING System kicks in, impeding self awareness and self-control.
    • Recognize that when the need for instant gratification is a stress-behaviour and fulfilling it is a  maladaptive mode of self-regulation. 
    • Explore the role of dopamine in providing energy and sparking pleasure seeking and how chronic stress overrides this system leaving us constantly craving dopamine.
    • Become aware that the SEEKING System is vital but we must ensure that it is not driving us and learn to recognize when excess stress is driving it! 
    • Consider that the path to satisfaction is not suppressing the wants and needs, but one that reduces stress, and enables us to shut down the SEEKING System through self-awareness.

• • In part 3 of this course learners will:
    • Understand the importance of shifting from describing to explaining it through exploring the history of the concept of resilience and the role systems in the midbrain and the cerebellum play in shifting states of resilience.
    • Explore connections between three scientific approaches to resilience: Psychological, Sociological, and Biological.
    • Learn about the importance of Primitive emotion circuits such as Fear and Panic/Grief; e.g. how Fear leaves a person in a constant state of alarm and the relationship between Panic/Grief and pain and inflammation.
    • Understand the connection between the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) and the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and how in the face of excessive stress they can lose their elasticity, causing them to fail to regulate each other.
    • Explore how measuring Vagal Tone provides a new biological measure for resilience
    • Recognize the three States of Resilience:
    • High: Aware of homeostatic imbalance and need for self-regulation.
    • Poor: Signs of homeostatic imbalance. Maladaptive self-regulation
    • Displaying surface resilience: Person appears resilient but is really relying on the secretion of dopamine and other catecholamines, which inevitably leads to a crash.
    • Understand that Shanker Self-Reg Steps bring restoration on every level by considering why the child is in allostatic overload and cultivating healthy modes of self-regulation.

You can check out detailed module descriptors here.

• • Apply the learning from part 1-3 of this course to create a next steps plan for your context that will include:
  • • A summary of the key takeaways from the course 
    • Opportunities to apply the learning to scenarios and case examples
    • A personalized Self-Reg toolkit, adapted from the tools and strategies providing within the course