“My life is too ridiculously engaging and pleasurable to spend time overeating. Emotional Brain Training allowed me to move from a life of fear, stress, highs and lows, overeating, and smoking to a life of joy, ease, abundance, health, strength, security, and intimacy. I am so grateful.”
— Phoebe, Santa Cruz, CA
EBT is a program designed to give you the power to rewire your own emotional brain. This “self-directed positive emotional plasticity” is directed at the powerhouse of the emotional brain.
The emotional brain is made up of the lower two areas of the brain, the mammalian brain and the reptilian brain. It is the center of our emotional connections and our pleasure drives and manages how we process daily life. When the emotional brain is in balance, everything improves – thoughts, feelings, relationships, behavior and health.
The emotional brain is highly plastic by necessity allowing us to adapt to an ever changing world – the basis for the survival of the species. However, rather than changing by insight or knowledge (thinking brain processing), it changes most effectively in response to emotional experience in real time. EBT provides those experiences in the form of carefully designed courses (“EBT Kits”) that have been developed through 30 years of testing.
The emotional brain responds to whatever environment we’re in and over time establishes a mood set point based on that way of living. If we’ve had a lot of stress, it assumes that more stress is on the way, so it prepares itself by establishing a set point in stress. A set point in stress spawns problems in nearly every aspect of life. A set point in balance promotes health and happiness.
The goal of EBT is to improve the brain’s set point – The goal of EBT is to train the brain to switch from stressed states to states of well-being so that the brain’s set point begins to move out of stress and return to its natural default state of balance and well-being. As the set point improves, stress symptoms tend to fade and the rewards of a life in balance become more abundant.
EBT integrates the power of mindfulness with tools that mirror the brain’s “best pathways” from stress to balance. These tools also mirror the secure attachment between parent and child. The EBT practice involves being present to your emotional states throughout the day and using each moment of stress as an opportunity to switch up your brain state and rewire your emotional brain to favor optimal well being – what we call joy.
Most problems are symptoms of the brain’s set point in stress, and EBT addresses the root cause – the brain’s wiring. The program integrates these powerful brain fitness tools with a healthy lifestyle and effective health care. Since the brain craves meaningful rewards, the tools don’t simply result in an absence of stress and downstream health problems – which is not a solution – but lead to states of intensity pleasure and the rewards of a purposeful life.
You start right where you are and begin learning the tools to be present and aware of your brain state, and how to switch it to a state of balance and well-being. Our Intro to EBT course, you will teach you how to do that.
As you begin, you can also take our self-test to customize your goals and anticipate what the practice of emotional brain fitness will be like for you. If you like, you can find a professional coach for individual sessions or a small group in your community or via telephone.
After the Intro to EBT course, you’ll be effective at using the basic tools of the method and have a clear vision of what you most want from EBT training. The next step is to begin training your emotional brain for optimal fitness and reward over the long term.
You begin training your emotional brain based on six courses or kits. Each one includes a journal (workbook), and corresponding videos, audio programs and web-based support. Each course builds on the tools and rewiring accomplished in the previous kit, with a special concentration in one of the rewards that have a powerful chemical impact on the brain.
For best results, you access community and support. The emotional brain is the social brain, and it changes most easily and quickly with a small group of people working in community. The EBT Kits are the fitness workouts for the emotional brain, and the weekly 90-minute small group sessions provide the inspiration, know-how, connection and fun to move through the courses effectively.
You will have the guidance of a certified EBT Professional Coach, a health professional who has completed extensive personal and professional training in the method. Our groups are so powerful that those who enroll in groups have 10 times higher success rate (completing the program) that those who use the method on their own.
What’s an EBT group like? The class meets weekly, usually for 90 minutes, with 6 to 12 people in each group – plus the EBT Coach. Each session starts with brief meditation and relaxation. Then several people who feel stressed are coached through using the tools in real time – switching up their brain to the optimal state as others observe.
With each use of the tools, the brain moves to the optimal state of joy, and that joy is catching. So by being present in the group, not only do participants learn how to use the tools more effectively, but they experience moments of joy. In addition, there is plenty of time for sharing accomplishments and challenges and setting goals for the coming week.
EBT groups are scheduled in 8- or 12-week. Most people re-enroll in the same group and stay with their small community. They deepen relationships and have the thrill of watching one and other transform. The enthusiasm and shared experience of the EBT community adds to program effectiveness and the pleasure of the training.
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