Insights from Grant 'Upbeat' Bosnick "Emotion Regulation: The Neuroscience Behind Staying Strong and Clear-Headed" Chapter 9

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning

Welcome back to Season 11 of the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast! In episode 335, we delve into the neuroscience of emotion regulation, a crucial skill for personal and professional success. Host Andrea Samadi continues the 18-week self-leadership series inspired by Grant Bosnick’s book, focusing on strategies to enhance our ability to manage emotions effectively.

We explore practical tips from Bosnick, such as labeling emotions, creating distance from them, and reframing situations to view them more positively. Additionally, we highlight the importance of sleep for emotion regulation, drawing insights from experts like Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Matthew Walker. Discover how improving your sleep quality can lead to better emotional control and overall well-being.

Join us as we connect the dots between neuroscience, sleep, and emotional intelligence to help you achieve greater heights in 2024 and beyond.

On today's episode #335 we continue with our 18-Week Self-Leadership Series based on Grant Bosnick’s “Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership: A Bite Size Approach Using Psychology and Neuroscience” that we first dove into with our interview on EP #321[i] the end of January. The goal was that each week, we focused on learning something new, (from Grant’s book) that builds off the prior week, to help take us to greater heights in 2024.

For Today, EPISODE #335, we are moving on to Chapter 9, covering “The Neuroscience of Emotion Regulation” which showed up on my leadership self-assessment as a low, RED score, of 20%, but again, not because it’s not something I don’t need to pay attention to, this is something I pay attention to daily, right up there with physical health that is listed in Pathway Four of Grant’s Self-Leadership Map.

If you’ve taken the leadership self-assessment[ii], look to see if Emotion Regulation is of a low, medium or high priority for you to focus on this year.

Before looking at what Grant Bosnick has to say about Emotion Regulation in Chapter 9 of his book, I looked around to see what else I could find on this topic.

We actually have already covered this topic as one of the six social emotional learning competencies that we launched this podcast with, back in August, 2019[iii] and we called that episode “Self-Regulation: The Foundational Learning Skill for Future Success.” In this early episode, we defined self-regulation as “the ability to manage your emotions and behavior in accordance of the situation. It includes being able to resist highly emotional reactions to upsetting stimuli, to calm yourself down when you get upset, adjust to a change in expectations and (the ability) to handle frustration”[iv] In other words, it’s the ability to bounce back after a setback or disappointment, and the ability to stay in congruence with your inner value system.

HOW TO HELP OUR CHILDREN WITH EMOTION REGULATION:

We covered some tips on this early episode to help our children to practice this skill, and strengthen their “self-regulation” muscles, beginning with:

Naming the emotion they are experiencing at a given moment, with a strategy (like stopping to take some deep breaths when something frustrates or overwhelms them) so they can keep working, and move forward. Uncovering what motivates each of us to develop intrinsic motivation that can help propel us forward. Taking brain breaks, or “unfocused moments” that allow for the brain to solve problems during these resting states.

WHAT GRANT BOSNICK SUGGESTS FOR EMOTION REGULATION:

Then we covered some tips to help us to continue to strengthen these self-regulation skills in the workplace, and I wondered what Grant Bosnick had to say in chapter 9 of his book on this topic. Within the second paragraph of this chapter, he explains the science behind emotion regulation when he outlines that “neuroscience has shown us that the exact same feelings we get from a physical threat also occur as social and emotional threats.” (Page 91, Chapter 9, Emotional Regulation, Bosnick). This took me back to working with children with this foundational learning skill, that determines future success, and the whole idea that “social and emotional threats” can impact us (stop us in our tracks) exactly as if there was a actual physical threat (like coming face to face with a bear in the forest).

In Chapter 9, Grant explains some different ways to regulate our emotions, and he uses a graphic to demonstrate how to move forward, while regulating our emotions, instead of spiraling out of control, downwards, and it begins with where we focus our attention. If we focus on the emotional aspects, he tells us “it will drive us into a downward spiral” but if we learn to “focus on the nonemotional aspects, or distance ourselves (from whatever it is that is bothering us) this is the start to creating an upward spiral.” (Page 94, Chapter 9, Emotional Regulation, Bosnick).

IMAGE CREDIT: Image 9.2 from Grant Bosnick's Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership

TIP 1: LEARN TO LABEL OUR EMOTIONS:

Bosnick agrees with the steps we created to build emotion regulation in our children, as he also mentions the importance of being able to name or label the emotion that you are having first.

TIP 2: DISTANCE YOURSELF FROM EMOTIONS THAT ARE BOTHERING YOU TO PROVIDE TEMPORARY RELIEF: Then he suggests to find ways to distance yourself from the emotion (he calls this attentional deployment) to give you temporary relief from the situation. He mentions seeing the issue through someone else’s eyes, and I remember Dr. Maiysha Clairborne sharing this strategy back on EP 289[v] when she explained the importance of stepping into someone else’s shoes when you are in conflict with them, to feel what they feel, and even stepping back and looking at the entire problem from above (outside of anyone’s shoes) to gain a new perspective.

TIP 3: REFRAME THE CONFLICT: Next Bosnick suggests “reappraisal or reframing” the conflict, by looking at it in a more positive way. He mentions that mindfulness can help us to “take a step back, lower anxiety, bring attention to the moment, become less judgmental about what is happening, help the brain to not attach meaning to the emotions and be open to new meaning and new connections.” (Page 97, Chapter 9, Emotional Regulation, Bosnick). He suggests looking at the situation from someone else’s point of view to reframe it.

TIP 4: LEARN TO REGULATE OUR EMOTIONS BY FINDING STRATEGIES THAT KEEP US STRONG, AND CLEAR HEADED: It’s his last technique of “response modulation” that caught my attention the most, because we’ve all experienced this. Once we are hit with an emotion about something, he asks “is it better to suppress it, or acknowledge it?” (Page 99, Chapter 9, Emotional Regulation, Bosnick). He says “when we feel strong, clear-headed and have executive control, it is better to acknowledge the emotion so we can regulate it.” (Page 100, Chapter 9, Emotional Regulation, Bosnick).

EMOTION REGULATION AND SLEEP:

So in a world where we are hit daily by external stimuli, how on the earth can we be proactive to stay mentally strong and clear-headed so we have improved executive control to manage our emotions and regulate them? This took me straight to the work of Dr. Andrew Huberman, and Dr. Matthew Walker who recently recorded an episode called “Improve Sleep to Boost Mood and Emotion Regulation.” [vi] It was here where I learned just how important sleep is for keeping a strong, clear mind, so we can use this strength to acknowledge and regulate our emotions, like Bosnick suggested.

Dr. Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and the host of The Matt Walker Podcast, gave example after example that proved that when you’ve NOT had a good night’s sleep, things that wouldn’t bother you (when you’ve slept well), begin to aggravate, or grate on you more.

Here’s what I found to be remarkable on this topic, something I had not ever heard before.

DID YOU KNOW that "The greater amount of REM sleep you are getting (where our dreams occur), the greater amount of emotional detox you will get the next day?" (Dr. Matthew Walker).

Dr. Walker went on to explain that “the brain chemical noradrenaline (that’s responsible for our stress reaction) completely shuts off during REM sleep, and serotonin (that plays a role with our mood) decreases, while acetyl choline (that carries messages from our brain to our body through nerve cells) increases by up to 30% in some parts of the brain (and can be even more active than when we were awake). Dr. Walker concluded that the decrease of stress related brain chemicals is what makes “REM sleep was the perfect condition for overnight therapy.”

If we want to improve our emotion regulation, the science is pointing directly to improving our sleep.

Diving deep into the 4 stages of sleep and suggestions to improve our sleep is something I’ve been working on for the past 5 years. There is a lot to this, and I’m still working on improving ALL the macroingredients of a good sleep (suggested by Dr. Walker), that include QQRT, or knowing the quantity (amount of sleep), quality (fragmented vs continuous), regularity (sleeping/waking around the same time) and timing (sleeping in alignment with my chronotype). Dr. Walker dives deep into all these areas with Dr. Huberman, and if you do wonder where you can improve, I highly suggest their 6-part series on sleep.

TIPS FOR IMPROVING EMOTION REGULATION BY IMPROVING OUR SLEEP:

Here are three tips that I took away from the neuroscience of self-regulation, that I’ve been working on, to see if improving my sleep in these areas, could possibly improve emotion regulation.

KNOW HOW MUCH DEEP SLEEP WE ARE GETTING EACH NIGHT: We all know the importance of knowing how much sleep we are getting to be well-rested the next day, (how many hours or the quantity) but it’s also important to keep an eye on the QUALITY or amount of DEEP RESTORATIVE sleep we are getting each night.

Most of us could all sleep a bit longer (or I’ll speak for myself here) because this is one area that’s hard to do living in Arizona. If I want to beat the summer heat, we need to wake up early to exercise before the heat advisory warnings go off around 8am, and this means that to get one benefit, (daily exercise) it comes at the cost of losing some sleep.

In addition to knowing I need to improve how long I’m sleeping, (and ways to offset waking up early for exercise) it’s also being sure that I’m getting quality sleep each night. This is my current area of focus that I’ve been tracking the past few months. You can see from the diagram in the show notes that there are some nights I went above my average of 2 hours 22 minutes of restorative sleep, measuring this using the Whoop wearable tracker, and other nights I was far below. When I looked at what was happening in my life on those days where restorative sleep was low, there wasn’t anything that stood out, other than when I began to pay attention to ALL areas of sleep (QQRT-quality, quantity, regularity and timing), restorative sleep improved. There are many type of trackers you can use to track restorative sleep. The tracker I use tells me how much deep sleep I’m getting (that’s physically restorative) and how much REM sleep (that’s mentally restorative).

KNOW HOW MUCH REM SLEEP WE ARE GETTING:

Keeping an eye on how much REM sleep we getting, is my next tip, since we know it’s important for consolidating new memories, learning and motor skills. We also just learned that the more REM sleep we are getting, we can say we are getting some good overnight therapy, restoring ourselves mentally. You can find sleep trackers that can help you to measure and track these important ingredients of a good sleep for yourself, and see how much REM sleep you are getting each night, while keeping in mind that “the greater amount of REM sleep you are getting, the greater amount of emotional detox you will get the next day.” (Dr. Walker)

I noticed this number improved just by forcing myself to stay in bed a little bit longer, even if it was only waking up, and saying “try to go back to sleep for another 15 or 20 minutes” and this improved REM sleep, since the REM sleep rich phase is at the end of the night. You can see the purple areas on the graph of my REM sleep in the show notes, right at the end of my sleep. If I had not pushed to stay asleep till after 5:00am (my internal clock would have me getting up at 4am) then I would have missed out on some valuable REM sleep here. If you can measure this for yourself, you can find ways to increase this valuable sleep stage for yourself. I’ll also add that if you can remember your dreams, especially the ones just before you wake up, you can learn a lot about yourself, increasing your self-awareness.

Remember, we are working on ways to help with our emotion regulation, and it seems to me, that an easy way to do this, would be to see how we can improve our REM sleep.

APPLY THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP TO IMPROVE EMOTION REGULATION: Since “during REM sleep the stress chemicals are turned off” helping us to “strip away the emotion from the memory” we can take this understanding a step further, and see if we are able to solve any of our problems during sleep.

Dr. Huberman and Dr. Walker went into great detail about this concept[vii] that I’ve actually witnessed it first-hand. They described what happens in REM sleep to be like “Behavior-Desensitization” and I had the opportunity to see the stages of this process, done by someone skilled and trained in trauma and the brain, working with someone I know well, who has experiences significant trauma in their life, starting at an early age. Using a series of techniques, the trained therapist took the client safely from talking about a traumatic memory from their childhood, (with exteme emotion attached) to where they could say out loud that the memory had lost its emotional load and no longer gave them an emotional reaction. This is exactly what happens to our brain during REM sleep and why it’s mentally restorative.

Putting these tips all together, and knowing that improving the quality, and quantity of sleep is linked to improving emotion regulation, I’m working hard to improve restorative sleep and REM sleep, each month. I hope these tips have given you some insight on NEW ways that sleep can improve our emotion regulation.

REVIEW AND CONCLUSION

To review and conclude this week’s episode #335 on Chapter 9 on “The Neuroscience of Emotion Regulation”

We looked at where we covered self-regulation in our early days of this podcast back in August of 2019, with some tips for teaching this skill to our children or students. This skill is one of 6 social and emotional skills that are finally being taught in our schools today. This is a foundational skill for future success.

We looked at Grant Bosnick’s suggestion to regulate emotions in his book, Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership with his chart that suggests:

TIP 1: Labelling our emotions, and looking for a way to distract/create distance from them to provide temporary relief. If we focus on the emotional aspects, he tells us “it will drive us into a downward spiral”

TIP 2: If we learn to “focus on the non-emotional aspects, or distance ourselves (from whatever it is that is bothering us) this is the start to creating an upward spiral.”

TIP 3: Reframing the emotion, or changing the way we think about it, by looking at the problem from a different perspective, can help to see it in a more positive way.

TIP 4: In Bosnick’s last technique of “response modulation” he mentioned that once we are hit with an emotion about something, he asks “is it better to suppress it, or acknowledge it?” (Page 99, Chapter 9, Emotional Regulation, Bosnick). He says “when we feel strong, clear-headed and have executive control, it is better to acknowledge the emotion so we can regulate it.” (Page 100, Chapter 9, Emotional Regulation, Bosnick).

CONNECTING THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP TO IMPROVE EMOTION REGULATION:

This led us to dive deeper into the neuroscience of emotion regulation with the work of Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Matthew Walker, known as The Sleep Diplomat.

“Sleep moves the needle on almost every aspect of brain and body health” Matt Walker

Before listening to Dr. Walker’s most recent episode with Dr. Huberman, I had no idea that the research would point to a direct correlation with a good night’s sleep and our emotion regulation.

DID YOU KNOW that “The greater amount of REM sleep we are getting, the greater amount of emotional detox we will get the next day?” (Dr. Matthew Walker).

Grant Bosnick said that “when we feel strong, clear-headed and have executive control, it is better to acknowledge the emotion so we can regulate it.” (Page 100, Chapter 9, Emotional Regulation, Bosnick).

It therefore makes sense to me that in order to strengthen emotion regulation, then we must therefore strengthen our sleep.

3 TIPS FOR IMPROVING EMOTION REGULATION BY MEASURING OUR SLEEP:

KNOW HOW MUCH DEEP SLEEP WE ARE GETTING EACH NIGHT KNOW HOW MUCH REM SLEEP WE ARE GETTING KNOW THAT INCREASING REM SLEEP= OVERNIGHT THERAPY

Finally, how will we know if we are improving our emotion regulation by improving our sleep? Ask yourself how well you are doing with this. Remember: When we feel strong, clear-headed and have executive control, (it is better to acknowledge the emotion so) we will be able to better manage our emotions. (Page 100, Chapter 9, Emotional Regulation, Bosnick).

This is a work in progress for me, but without asking anyone else, I know that the research is accurate when it shows that

“sleep deprivation increases reactivity in the amygdala by 60%.”[viii]

To best way to improve reactivity in the amygdala, is by getting sufficient sleep. Improving all the ingredients of sleep (quality, quantity, regularity and timing).

I also know that when I’m getting a good night sleep, my senses are more activated, and I can see more beauty in the world, especially with others around me.

I’m more accepting of myself, and know that I’m stronger and more peaceful, which is what Grant Bosnick suggested for being able to improve this foundational success skill.

This translates to the work I’m doing, looking at the world through a different lens where life becomes more joyful, creating hope that anything is possible (for myself and others).

And all of this came from connecting the science behind a good night’s sleep to emotion regulation.

I hope this episode has given you some helpful ideas, and we will see you next time, as we move to chapter 10 of Grant Boswick’s book on the Science Behind Persuading and Influencing.

REVIEW

In this 18-week Series that we began in the beginning of February, (after I was inspired to cover Grant’s book after our interview the end of January) we are covering:

✔ Powerful tactics from this Grant Bosnick’s award-winning book that illustrates how change and achievement are truly achievable both from internal ('inside out') and external ('outside in') perspectives.

✔Listeners will grasp the immense power of self-leadership and its transformative effect on personal growth and success by applying the neuroscience Grant has uncovered in each chapter.

✔Explore practical strategies for habit formation and the impact of a self-assessment system.

✔Gain insights from Grant's expert advice on maintaining a balance between strengths and weaknesses while chasing after your goals.

✔Embark on an intellectual journey that has the power to elevate personal achievement and self-awareness to uncharted levels while we map out our journey over this 18-week course.

REFERENCES:

[i]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #321 with Grant ‘Upbeat’ Bosnick https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/insights-from-grant-upbeat-bosnick/

[ii] Self-Assessment for Grant Bosnick’s book https://www.selfleadershipassessment.com/

[iii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #14 “Self-Regulation: The Foundational Skill for Future Success” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/self-regulation-the-foundational-learning-skill-for-future-success/

[iv] How Can We Help Our Kids with Self-Regulation https://childmind.org/article/can-help-kids-self-regulation/amp/

[v]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #289 with Dr. Maiysha Clairborne on “What Hold Us Back: Getting to the Roots of Our Doubts, Fears and Beliefs” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/maiysha-clairborne-md-on-what-holds-us-back-getting-to-the-root-of-our-doubts-fears-and-beliefs/

[vi] Dr. Matt Walker: Improve Sleep to Boost Mood & Emotional Regulation | Huberman Lab Guest Series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_SrHS8FvMM

[vii] Dr. Matt Walker: Improve Sleep to Boost Mood & Emotional Regulation | Huberman Lab Guest Series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_SrHS8FvMM

[viii] IBID