Stressed (2019) - full transcript

If we can get
back to our essence,

I think that's where
we belong, that's home.

You've had all these
experiences in life

and yet, there's one part of you

that was there the whole time.

That same essence,
your same awareness,

your same consciousness has
been with you this whole time

and it's with you now.

We're still struggling
and stumbling.

Some people are
dying in the process,

some people are
sick unnecessarily



but eventually,
we've gotta get there

and we can change the paradigm.

We can do it.

Stress, it's a word
we hear every day.

People are stressed
out, work is stressful,

but what do we really
know about stress?

Before we can figure that
out, let's take a quick travel

back in time starting
around 70,000 BC.

Hunter-gatherers had to
be on high alert in order

to survive from other
predators in their environment.

Even though this seems like
an extremely long time ago,

we actually react to
stress in the environment

just like these early people.

Let's fast forward to
early in the 17th century



to see French philosopher
Rene Descartes

who famously said, "I
think, therefore I am."

He is also responsible for
the idea of mind-body dualism

which some call the
mind-body problem.

He theorized that if the
mind was a thinking thing

and the body was a
non-thinking thing,

that the mind could
exist without the body

but the body could not
exist without the mind,

which essentially
declared them as separate.

This paved the way for
many schools of thought

addressing this mind-body split.

Several decades later,
we hear the word stress

used by English natural
philosopher Robert Hooke

in engineering terms.

He was interested in
how man-made structures
such as bridges

could be made to withstand
heavy loads without collapsing.

He created what he called
the Law of Elasticity

which demonstrated how
something like a spring

could withstand a
certain amount of stress

before it reached
a breaking point.

This machine-like analogy
proved to be fertile ground

for future explanations of
how humans experience stress.

His rival at the time,
Sir Isaac Newton,

would soon introduce
his three Laws of Motion

which would continue
to point toward

a mechanistic view of the body.

He also held a grudge
against Robert Hooke

and is responsible for
why you've probably

never heard of him.

And now to jump ahead
to the mid-1800s.

French physician Claude Bernard

introduced the idea that
the internal environment

of living organisms must
remain fairly constant

in response to changes in
the external environment.

Based on this work,
in the early 1900s,

American physiologist
Walter Bradford Cannon

coined the term Homeostasis
to describe this neutral,

stable state that needed to
exist for the body to survive.

He also coined the
term fight or flight,

but we'll get back
to that later.

When it comes to our current
understanding of stress,

the man responsible
is Hungarian-Canadian
endocrinologist

Hans Selye, he is known for his
work studying what he called

General Adaptation Syndrome.

He would later coin the term
stress which is still used

to explain aspects of
the stress response.

This response is
directly responsible

for helping the body
return to homeostasis.

Which brings us to today.

Most people, when
they think of stress,

they think it's like they're
stressed out in their mind,

they're worrying about things,

they're obsessing about things.

The response part of
the stress response

is your body's response
to that stress.

So most of us walking around,

we don't put two
and two together.

When they layperson hears
something like stress response,

they know that stress,
they think that stress

is the cause of their problem.

But we teach them that stress
is actually an aggravating

factor over whatever
existing weakness they have.

'Cause we're all
stressed all the time.

One of the things we
wanna take a look at

is that people have
physical stress,

biochemical/nutritional stress

and mental/emotional stress.

People think, when
they think of stress,

it's whatever they're stressed
out about at their job

or their career or their family

or whatever's going on
in their life personally

but stress takes
many different forms.

So our goal is to make
sure that they know is that

all of these things
are equally important,

your mind and your body
are the same thing.

It's not some new age-y
kind of statement.

If you alter your mind,
it's gonna alter your body.

If you can address a
person's stress in their life,

I feel like that
should be number one

because we know that mental
stress will affect the body

in a physical way.

So many American's have
gastro-intestinal issues,

they have stomach issues,
their digestion's not great,

they bloat after
they eat and yeah,

there's a good portion
of that that's from food

but we also know that
so much of our stress

goes right to our
digestive tract.

And so I've found
with many patients

as I'm addressing their
food but more importantly,

it's also looking at what else
is going on in their life.

And it's amazing how when
they're able to digest more

of what's going on in their life

they're able to digest
their food better

and everything else in the
whole system starts clearing up.

The person who has
a heart attack today,

were they healthy yesterday?

Of course not, where they
healthy last week or last month?

Most likely not.

But there was something
that was going on

that led to that crisis,
that heart attack.

The emotions work they
same way, they accumulate,

they accumulate and then
something goes wrong.

When somebody's
under a lot of stress,

at least emotional stress,
a whole cascade of things

can be going on, from neck
problems to low back problems

to stomach problems
to anxiety to,

I've seen people go
through cyclical infections

to you name it.

Stress causes almost
every condition out there.

And if we can just take some
of that emotional pressure

off their system, at least
the chemistry of that emotion,

their body has a
better chance to heal.

When we're struck
by a stressor on a day

that our system is already
somewhat compromised,

it's just like, it's really
like adding, you know,

one more little, teeny,
tiny hair to the pile

and it just, everything just
crumbles in that moment.

And we're very adaptable
and we're very, you know,

our nervous systems
are very intelligent.

And it figures out a way to
kind of cope and get through

but what we often
end up doing is

developing coping
mechanisms that don't work

when we get a little bit older.

I often have patients
come in and say,

"Oh, I'm sabotaging myself,

"I don't know why I'm
doing this to myself."

And they are beating
themselves up

because these patterns
are coming into play

but what they don't
realize is that

these patterns saved
them as children.

These patterns are survival
skills that have just

gone a little wonky.

Where I find stress
is a really big deal

for a lot of people are
their own internal thoughts.

They beat themselves up.

They don't think
they're good enough.

They feel like they
have to be perfect.

And every time they
fail at something,

they stress themselves out.

And those are the
stressors which oftentimes

people don't think
they're stressed about.

So ask yourself this, if every
time you do something wrong,

do you beat yourself up?

If you do that, you're
stressing yourself out.

So what we try and do is
we help people recognize

those things so that
they can deal with them

a little bit more effectively
so that they don't

actually stress
themselves out internally.

Some people understand
that there's something

called a fight or
flight syndrome.

And in the fight
or flight syndrome,

that's looking at a part
of the nervous system

called the autonomic
nervous system.

The autonomic nervous system is

a science-y way of
talking about the

part of the nervous system

that isn't the central
nervous system.

So the central nervous
system is the brain

and the nerves
that connect down.

The autonomic nervous system
has two major branches,

so to speak, sympathetic
which we call fight or flight

and the parasympathetic
which we could call

relaxation and restoration.

When we're in that latter mode,

the relaxation/restoration
mode of our nervous system,

that's when healing occurs,

that's when the body
rejuvenates itself.

When we're in the
fight or flight mode,

we're actually getting
ready to ward off

something threatening so

we need that but we can't
be in it all the time

or it has negative
health effects.

You might be driving
in traffic and someone

cuts in front of you,
your life's not in danger

but your body gives
the same response.

And that ties back into
the stress response

because when you go into
that fight or flight

state of being,
your parasympathetic
calming nervous system

is turned off, that also
turns off all your healing

and resting and digesting
portion of your body.

And if we don't
find ways of breaking

that fight or
flight response then

the symptoms you see
of too much stress,

poor digestion, can't
sleep at night, make sense

because you have this activated
sympathetic nervous system

that, that's what
it's all about.

So it's kinda like, you know,

if you have a Ferrari and
you're going 140 miles per hour,

I mean, that's what
it's built for.

But if it goes 140 miles
per hour all day long,

24/7 and you never stop
and you never get a chance

for it to be garaged and
parked for it to rest,

that can be damaging to the car.

So that's much like
our body as well

if it's constantly in fight
or flight and stress mode

all the time then it can
lead to early breakdown.

We need to remember that
stress is not up here.

It's whole body.

And that stress is a
physiological phenomenon.

And I often will use, with
patients, the example of,

okay, you know, stress is
a physiological phenomenon

that is not necessarily
in your control.

It's not about the
rational response.

So it's kind of like when
you're driving down the road,

okay, I look at my
speedometer, my rational brain

is in front of me and it
says, "Okay, I'm going 55."

And then all of the
sudden you see sirens

in your rear-view mirror.

And what happens?

Patients always know,
they say, "Oh, well, yeah,

"I grip the steering wheel,
my heart starts to pound.

"Sometimes I sweat, my
tummy gets butterflies."

And with that it's like exactly.

That is the physiology of stress

because your rational brain
looks at your speedometer

and says, "Oh, I'm going 55."

But you still see
those sirens and think

I'm in trouble, it's a threat.

And it's a perceived threat,
it's not necessarily real,

it's the emotional reality.

And then the police
car goes right by you

and you go okay.

But you still feel the
physiological effects of stress.

The other part of
that is that people

are so used to that
nowadays that it's normal.

Neuroscientist and
pharmacologist, Dr. Candace Pert

made a breakthrough
discovery in 1972

when she discovered
the opiate receptor.

It was thought for any drug
to work in your system,

it had to first bind to
receptors in your cells.

But what made this
discovery so exciting

was that it meant that
the receptor must be used

for something
created by the body,

not just for external
things like drugs.

This led to the
discovery of endorphins,

our body's very own morphine.

These discoveries led
to what she called

the molecules of emotion.

That when you have an emotion,

it is the result of
physical molecules

known as neuropeptides being
released into your body

and attaching
themselves to receptors

in every cell of your body,
which means that emotions

are actually a
physiological phenomenon,

not a mental construct
as we had thought.

Candace Pert, the famous
researcher actually found

that there were
neuro-transmitter
receptors in our gut.

In fact, there's more
neuro-transmitter receptors

in our gut than there
are in our brain.

She taught us that the mind
is not just above the neck,

it's throughout the whole body.

And that's true,
there's intelligence

in every cell of the body.

Emotions, really, as it
turns out, are physiological

phenomenon not necessarily
psychological phenomenon.

So kind of how we say it is that

we use these words to
explain how we feel,

that we're stressed, that
is going on in my life,

to try and communicate
to our conscious mind

what we're experiencing.

The reality is is
that we all have these

what we would call
conditioned responses.

The concept of conditioning
came from the observations

of Ivan Pavlov, he was
a Russian Physiologist

who conducted the famous dog
studies in the late 1800s.

While they weren't the most
ethical of experiments,

at least we were able
to learn from them.

Every time he
would feed the dog,

he would ring a bell.

After doing this several
times, he simply rang the bell

without feeding the dog.

Even though there
wasn't any food,

the dog still salivated
as if food was coming.

This unconscious,
physiological response

is the result of conditioning.

Humans, we drool our
whole life away, right?

We have these different
metaphors that people use

like he really
pushed my buttons,

she really knows how
to pull my strings,

they did it to me, all
of this kind of stuff

to really explain our
experience of what's going on.

But it's really just a
conditioned response, you know?

And what we like to leave
everybody with knowing is that

how it works is what you
don't express in life

you'll repress until
it expresses as
disease or dysfunction.

It's kinda like Woody
Allen used to say,

"I never get angry,
I just grow a tumor."

Meaning, if I don't
get my stuff out,

it stays in until it comes
out as something ugly,

either a behavior or
a health condition.

Symptoms can show up in
the form of like anxiety

or depression and in
modern days I think people

are quick to try to take a pill.

And maybe the drug helps, it's
not to say that medication

isn't good once in a while,
but often it's just masking

or covering up a symptom.

And maybe it helps a
person through a crisis,

so it can be good,
but if we can get to

what is the underlying cause

that keeps getting
re-triggered, lives can change.

In Philadelphia,
exciting new research

is being done at the Marcus
Institute of Integrative Health

at Jefferson University, one
of the leaders in this field.

One of the critical
pieces of what we were doing

with our initial imaging
study is to expose people to

the various traumas
and stressors that
have really created

a problem for the person.

So they actually
listen to an audio file

of these very traumatic
moments in their life

and in particular we were
looking at cancer patients

who have struggled with
cancer and usually have

very traumatic part of
either the diagnosis

or the treatment that they
just can't get rid of.

All of these people
physiologically reacted

to thinking about
that stressful event.

Heart rate went up or galvanic
skin response changed.

And so what we had
were people who were

physiologically reactive
and subjectively distressed

by this event and it's been
going on for a long time.

So what exactly was this study?

Dr. Monti and his
team created it as

a randomized controlled trial.

All of the participants
had a distressing

cancer-related memory
that was associated

with symptoms of
traumatic stress.

These symptoms had been
intruding in their lives

for at least six months, and
for many of the participants,

it had been years.

Each one of them made a script

explaining the traumatic
events in their own words.

That script was then
read back to them

while they were given
a functional MRI

to measure the levels of
distress they were experiencing.

Since this was a randomized
controlled trial,

the participants had been
split up into two groups,

one group received Neuro
Emotional Technique, or NET,

and the others were assigned

to the Waitlist
Control Condition.

The results of those
who received NET

were dramatic, to say the least.

But before we can go any
further, we have to head over

to Encinitas, California
to meet Dr. Scott Walker.

Some of my patients
weren't getting well.

Some of 'em get well over time,

some of 'em wouldn't get well.

The people that
didn't get results

had a look of tension
in their eyes.

This is just something,
I came from a town

of 500 people and I'm so happy
I came from a a small town

because I can see people
in different ways.

And the people that seemed
to be burdened, I think,

were emotionally burdened.

And they were the ones
that had less results.

And so I made up in my mind that

maybe they were having
emotional trouble,

that's not a new thought,

people have been
thinking that people,

emotional stress has effected
the body for some time.

But I didn't know
how to solve it.

But as it turned out, Dr.
Walker went to a seminar

where he met a
chiropractor by the name of

Dr. Jennifer Lamonica.

He learned that she would give
certain people an adjustment

and soon after, when they
would think about work,

that their spine
would be out of place

before they even
left the office.

Hearing this reaffirmed
his suspicion

that there had to be
something else going on.

The first patient on the
next day that I was home,

she had gone to work and gotten
in an automobile accident.

Now I'm still, my mind is not
in my compassionate heart,

my mind is in my mind
and I'm thinking,

maybe she had fear
in this accident.

This is a chance I can
work this hypothesis.

And I said, "Oh, you
were in an accident."

I said, "Did you fear when
you were in the accident?"

And she said, "Yes."

I said, "Oh!"

I'm sure I didn't do that but
that's the way I was thinking.

One of Dr. Scott's mentors,
Dr. George Goodheart,

correlated the primary
muscles of the body with the

major meridians used in
traditional Chinese medicine.

So you have these meridians,
they're kinda like channels

or what I like to describe
them as like freeways systems.

So they run from different
areas of the body,

from your head to your toe,

to your toes back to your trunk,

to your trunk to the face.

So they all travel
across the body

and they go even through the
deeper layers of the organs.

You know, the philosophy is
that if there is a traffic jam

or a blockage in any
of those meridians,

there's a disruption of
the vital force of the body

which is the chi, or the blood.

Even though traditional
Chinese medicine

has been using meridians
for thousands of years,

a recent discovery by
Auburn University Professor

Vitaly Vodyanoy is bringing
more scientific attention

to this system.

I didn't know all the
meridians and all the emotions,

but I knew fear
and I knew kidneys.

I said, "What I want you to do
is I want you to think about

"the fear that you had when
you were in that accident."

And she said, "Oh, okay."

And so she did and I
adjusted the sequences for

the kidney, which
is T1, T5 and T8.

And then I said to her, I
said, "How does that feel?"

I wanted to see if I
could get rid of fear.

And she thought I meant
how does her neck feel?

Well, of course, you know.

And she says, "Oh,
how do I feel?"

She goes...

"Yeah, that feels better."

And then I was ashamed because

I wasn't thinking
about her poor neck,

I was thinking about
this idea that I had

and maybe I could
get rid of the fear.

And so I said, "Oh, oh, okay."

"And how does the
fear feel now?"

She says, "Yeah, I don't feel
any fear about it at all now."

I said, "Yes."

Yes.

Any symptom that we have,

really, could have
a stress component.

And I think that's how
we came to develop NET,

Dr. Scott figured out
that, as a chiropractor,

he would help certain problems

and help spinal conditions
or painful situations

but there were those
certain cases that didn't

resolve all the way, so it
could be a knee or a shoulder,

a TMJ or a backache or a
stomachache or anything

and, what, 80% would get fixed

but what about those
20 that didn't?

It's really a
brilliant intervention.

I don't know how Dr.
Walker put it together,

given that there was
nothing like it at the time

and he just somehow put together
these different concepts.

It makes sense in hindsight
how he put them together

but it really required a
special brain to do that.

I knew I was onto something,
I knew, this is good.

There is the placebo effect,
you've gotta watch that.

I do not want to encourage
the placebo effect,

I want to discourage
the placebo effect.

So I made a pact with myself.

No more Mr. Nice Guy.

And I had this patient
come in one day, she said,

"You did that emotional thing
about this miscarried baby

"that I had, I feel so relieved,

"it was such a cloud over my
head that I lost this baby."

And I said,

"Well," I was trying
to write my notes

and she reached over and I
don't know what kind of shirt

I had on but she grabbed me.

And she put her face in
mine, "I said you helped me!"

And there I was,

I couldn't write, I was
nose-to-nose with her.

And she said very
forcefully, she said,

"I said you helped me!"

And I thought, my God,
what have I become?

That I can't celebrate
my patient's win?

That I can't celebrate
her joy with her?

What's happened to me?

I said, I'm gonna
leave the research

for the researchers, that's it.

Later, with the help
of fellow practitioners,

Dr. Scott created The
ONE Research Foundation,

they have privately funded over
30 research studies to date

which brings us
back to the present.

Meet one of the
participants in this study,

Dr. Jim Buckley.

And in 2014, I got a diagnosis

of non-Hodgkin's
B-cell lymphoma.

And it really took me by
surprise, I was shocked

that I had come down
with something like this.

I mean, I'm a
healthcare practitioner,

I'm not supposed to get sick.

But I did and...

I think I was spending
so much time taking care

of everybody else that I kinda

let myself fall by the wayside.

Conventional cancer
therapy was not anything

that I ever thought I
would use just because I

had strong feelings that
that was not the way to go

in terms of getting
healthy again.

But as it turned out, the
tumor that I had in my abdomen

was about as big as a football

and it was pushing on my
kidney and my intestines

and it was really
starting to cause me

an awful lot of
trouble so I ended up

doing what I said
I would never do

and getting chemotherapy.

And

during the process of
that I found out that

The ONE Foundation was
doing a research project on

the emotional effect of
hearing that you have cancer

and I was in that boat now.

First they kinda
questioned me about

what was the biggest impact of
hearing that you had cancer?

How did that impact your life

and what was the
hardest thing about it?

And I had to go down and list

what was the most
difficult for me.

What came up was the hardest
to leave my wife and daughters,

feeling like I hadn't
finished the work

that I was here to
do and felt as though

I was leaving them in the lurch

and felt a lot of responsibility

in terms of how I kinda had
fallen down on my self care

and was, as a result, you know,

potentially could lose my
life and closeness with them.

One of the things that I
heard over and over again

from participants in the study

was that these distressing
memories and experiences

would intrude or impact
on positive experiences

in the present day when
they least expected it.

So they might be chopping
lettuce in their kitchen

and be suddenly reminded
or flooded with feelings of

how stressful it was to be sick

or what it was like to be
retching over the garbage can

in their kitchen
all those years ago.

So just being in
the kitchen again

reminded them of
that earlier stress.

The passage of time
wasn't making it go away.

By the way, that's kind
of an old conception that

we found is incorrect, you know,

time really doesn't
heal all wounds

because emotional wounds
are in the part of the brain

where there is no sense of time.

Sometimes things
happen early in life

where we are in a
dangerous situation

or something is perceived
to be awful happening.

And the body is unable to
extinguish that response

on an unconscious level.

Years later, we find out
that that buried stress,

those buried feelings
that have never gone away

are still being triggered
in any situation

that looks the same,
sounds the same,

smells the same, feels
the same can trigger that

on an unconscious level
and bring the feelings back

even though it's a
different situation.

So whatever happened
to you at seven,

your subconscious still thinks
it's happening right now.

And even as a practitioner,
once I learned that,

it took me a long time to
wrap my mind around that

but it's the truth.

It's not gee, now it feels
like I was then, it is then.

There is no linear
time in that place

so it is exactly that
moment that they're feeling

and it's replicated just as
if it's happening right now.

What we were able to
observe in the brain

is where the distress was
being registered in the brain

when they listened to a
script of the traumatic event.

And that script has been
going on for a long time.

Again, I emphasize that because

it isn't a matter of time
healing this particular wound,

the time has been going by
and going by and going by

and the period of time of
the study was quite short.

All of the
participants in the study

who received NET were given
treatment over several weeks

and some of them had their
sessions all in one day.

The findings were then published

in the Journal of
Cancer Survivorship.

The main finding
that we really had

was that these areas
of the limbic system,

particularly the, what's
called the parahippocampus,

which is very involved in our
sort of traumatic memories

and emotional, our negative
emotional responses,

this was an area that was
far more active initially

and then after undergoing
the NET program,

suddenly didn't really
react very much.

It just wasn't there anymore
for most of those patients.

In fact, everybody
had some response

where there was far
less to no activation

of those areas in
the limbic brain,

particularly the
parahippocampal area

which is where
distressing memories sit.

The activation was
virtually gone.

So there was a 50% increase
in the neuron density

between the amygdala
and the frontal lobe.

Now the frontal lobe is
the front part of the brain

and that's responsible
for long-term planning,

thinking, complex reasoning.

That's the part of
the brain that says,

"Everything's gonna be okay,
I shouldn't be stressed

"about this, this is
nothing to worry about."

And my clients in and the
participants in the study

will say all the time, "I say
all the right things to myself

"but it just doesn't matter."

And that's exactly true
because the message

isn't getting through
to the emotional brain.

And we also know from this study

that every time a
really distressing event

gets reactivated or
there's a reminder of it,

that your nervous system reacts.

So when we looked
at the biofeedback,

we know that the autonomic
nervous system gets involved.

And when the autonomic nervous
systems gets hyper activated,

that has a negative
effect on health outcomes,

quality of life
across the board,

creates too much inflammation
in the system and so on.

We talk about sort of the
brain normalizing itself

and in many ways
that is reflected

in what these scans looked at,

that instead of having
this overreaction

in these limbic
areas of the brain,

the brain basically
said, "Okay, you know,

"it's just one of my
memories now and it's not

"a traumatic memory,
I don't have these

"horrible feelings
that come up."

And it's reflected in what
the brain looked like.

I was even surprised
that base-line mood,

base-line anxiety, all
of those things changed.

Like when you think about
it, the person's overall

quality of life was changed.

From three to five sessions
of an intervention.

That's pretty dramatic.

I can tell you that I felt

physically different after

receiving the treatment.

I had had a bunch of
different treatments

during my attempts
to treat the disease

but I really felt as though
after that treatment,

I really took a
turn towards healing

and it was physically evident.

That's just an example of how...

All the work that I'd been
doing for all those years...

To help other people
could actually

help me too.

It just, it reached
me in another way that

it had never reached me before.

Like how impactful and how
important this work is.

I know in my heart that this
treatment really helped to

shift how I healed.

It just felt like
I can heal this now

where before I didn't,

I may have thought that,

but I didn't feel
that in my body.

You can have all the positive
affirmations you want

and intend for different
things to happen

and that's all cognitive,
that's all your brain talking.

But this was distinctly
different in that

it was in my gut that
I felt different,

it wasn't just a thought,

it was I feel like
I can heal this.

There is an emotional
component that happens

from being sick for
long periods of time

or struggling with
physical illness.

Or watching someone you love
face a physical illness.

We're not floating heads,
there is a combination

that happens where the mind
and the body work together

and so when you have
a physical illness,

there is emotional component.

And when you're facing
emotional stress like depression

or anxiety, there's a
physical component to it

and that both of those
need to be treated.

Sometimes people don't know
and they need that tool of NET

that utilizes not just
what's in the conscious brain

but what physiology is
doing that actually helps us

to get at what's a little
bit less than conscious.

But because NET uses
several unique components,

first being the muscle
testing which allows the body

to become its own
biofeedback instrument.

The body then
guides the treatment

by using the muscle testing,
it precisely and correctly

identifies what these
periods of distress are.

And what we're really
doing with the muscle test

is we're posing a concept and
then seeing if their body,

the patient's body, has
a physiological response.

We're not measuring
true and false,

we're only measuring
the person's personal

reaction to it.

So it's kind of like,
I over-simplified,

would be the amoeba moving
toward a bit of food

or away from a bit of poison
that's in the Petri dish.

And that's what we're
measuring with the muscle test.

The experience of
NET is far different

than what somebody
observing it can know.

We're run so much
by our subconscious,

at least 80%, probably 99.9%,

we're run by our
subconscious minds.

And therefore we're
kind of victim

to those subconscious minds.

Because our subconscious
mind is running

so much of the show,
it can be difficult

to break out of
our conditioning.

Dr. Scott explains that a
Neuro Emotional Complex,

or NEC, is when an emotion
gets stuck in the body.

In the NEC, we're shedding
the old perceptions,

we're shedding the feelings
that went with them.

And usually the NEC, of
course, has something

that is perceived by us to
be non-survival oriented,

it's counter survival, that's
the way we perceive it.

And so we're shedding that.

So most of the time what
happens is when people

come into my office, they've
had this issue for so long

that they start to
mistake the problem

that they're having as

it actually being them.

So instead of them
having anxiety,

they feel anxious and then
they start to attribute that

to them just being
an anxious person,

it becomes part
of their identity.

It's that feeling
of hopelessness

that's so corrosive, I think.

And the idea

for people,

the idea that there's
some hope out there

that they could actually
get to the heart

of why this is
actually happening

over and over
again in their life

and even return to the place
where it becomes something,

a condition that they have
rather than who they are,

that's a great start, okay?

And then move on from there.

People often ask me, "Well,
that event doesn't seem

"like it was so traumatic
or anything like that,

"so why did that come up?"

But I think that we are
just so bombarded with

processed foods and sugar and,

you know, lack of
sleep and the news

and everything that
we're exposed to

that our brain gets overloaded,

our nervous system
gets overloaded

with the emotions
it's trying to process

so something that seems
somewhat insignificant

may have hit us on a day
that our system was weak

and it just didn't know
what to do with it.

When one person,
years and years later,

is still suffering from
the death of a parent.

And then another person,
years and years later,

is suffering because
they didn't get ice cream

at a birthday party,
it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

The person who lost
a parent might've

actually adapted
better than the kid

who didn't get ice cream
at a birthday party.

Emotions have no logic,
they're just emotions.

If they were logical, we'd
all figure our stuff out

and no one would ever
have a health issue

or need to see a doctor or
therapist for any reason

'cause we would just
think about it, go huh,

and then we'd be fine.

Doesn't really work like that.

The memory stores
things, often inaccurately

as to what really happened,
'cause it's not about that.

And what it can do is it
can put associated memories

together so that when
you recount something

or retell a story, you
had pieces that really

didn't even happen just by the
way our memory stores stuff.

And it doesn't matter that
it's logically correct

or that they're overly
emotional or underly emotional.

If the body's having a
physiological reaction,

we can help connect the
different piece parts

and let the body come to
closure with that thing.

When we do muscle testing
we get the body's feedback

and we use that to
help the body heal.

So logic and reason
oftentimes are not involved

when we're doing NET,
we're just finding out

where the body is stuck.

And sometimes there's no
way that we would logically

ever figure it out unless
we use muscle testing.

Upon further
analysis of the data,

the team at Jefferson noticed
some very interesting changes

regarding the cerebellum.

This led to the publishing of
their second paper in 2017.

It's kind of
traditionally been taught

that the cerebellum
is primarily involved

in the coordination of our
motor activity so when it comes

to emotions, it's
not that relevant,

it's not really helping
us with anything.

It's really just helping
us to move our hands

and to move our legs and to do
that in a coordinated fashion

but a growing number
of research studies,

as we came to find as we
started to look at it,

we started to see well, gee,

there's some interesting
studies that show

that when the cerebellum is
activated that has something

to do with the laying down
of traumatic memories.

According to a scientific
paper published in 2015

titled "The Emotional
Cerebellum", imaging
experts revealed,

"The cerebellum is activated
during mental recall

"of emotional personal episodes

"and during the learning
of a conditioned

"or unconditioned association
involving emotions."

Even though the cerebellum
is relatively small,

it's just kind of
these little balls

in the back of the
brain, it has five times

the number of neurons as the
rest of the brain combined.

And then we started
to realize, well,

you know, this is all
starting to make some sense.

If this part of the brain
normally is involved

in the coordination of motor
function, maybe it's also

involved in the coordination
of emotional function.

And if that's the case, then
perhaps what we're seeing

is that as a result
of going through the

Neuro Emotional Technique
and the various elements

that are involved in
it, that we are having

a direct impact on
how that cerebellum

is able to regulate
the emotional, or
help in the regulation

of these emotional
centers of the brain.

This is one of the reasons
to get up and go to work

as a medical researcher because

you don't get to see these
kinds of results every day.

But it also opens
up the door even more

in terms of the field of
cognitive neuroscience

and emotions and
psychiatry and psychology

because it helps us to
understand that the cerebellum

may be a very critical
area of our brain

that is very much related
to our emotional selves

and not just how our body moves

but how our body is
moved emotionally.

Even the people on my team
who knew nothing about NET,

they're just
analyzing, you know,

doing the quantitative analysis
of the MRIs pre and post

are like, "What is this?

"What was this intervention,
what's going on here?"

Everybody was just really

thrilled and so happy
for the patients.

And of course, that's
what it's really about.

Even though the study
was focused on people

with traumatic stress from
cancer, the traumatic stress

of going to war is an
equally important issue.

On his third deployment
to Afghanistan,

United States Marine
Corps Corporal

Rory Hamill sustained
serious injuries.

It was February 13th, 2011,
it's almost seven years now.

Took the minesweeper
off my point man's back

after he received
some information

that there was an
improvised explosive device

on a compound by our location.

And

we got about three quarters
of the compound swept

and as I was nearing
the end of my search,

I stepped on a little
metallic pressure plate

which detonated homemade
explosives five feet behind me

to the right and the
explosion and the blast force

came from my right side,

sheared my right
leg off instantly,

clipped the back of my left leg.

Flew 10 feet in the air,

hit the ground on
the back of my head.

My Marines saved my life, they
instantly rushed right in.

There could have been a
secondary IED in there

but they didn't care.

They dragged me out
of the blast zone,

worked on me, stopped the
bleeding, stabilized me.

Unfortunately, on the helicopter
to the shock trauma unit,

I flat lined for two minutes

and I was
resuscitated, worked on

and began the long journey home.

Took about a week
for me to get home

'cause they need to keep
you stable when they put you

on a plane and I wasn't
quite stable enough

but eventually I made it
back to Washington, D.C.

where I began my rehab.

It's very common with amputees,
we get phantom limb pain.

That's where your body is
firing of synapses and trying

to remap, you know, where the
nerves are and it realized

that there was a huge
chunk of nerves missing.

But that can translate into
phantom pain, phantom sensation.

And one of the things that we
worked on at the office was

we tried using a mirror,
it helped out a lot.

In a sense, it kind
of tricked my brain.

I'm looking at this,
I have my left leg

and I'm looking at it and
in my brain it made sense

and it helped, you know,

with a combination of
the actual treatment

it helped get a lot of that
stress away from my body.

And the phantom pains
and sensations became,

you know, very less frequent.

Obviously I still have
challenges every single day.

It's very, very hard and over
the past almost seven years

I have a gotten a lot mentally
and physically stronger

but NET has been an
integral part of that.

What I feel, what I've
seen with NET is it's,

it really is a mind/body
type of therapy.

And I can personally attest
to normally, you know,

if you have a physical thing,
go to a physical doctor.

You have a mental thing,
you go to a mental doctor.

With NET, it hits both of
those at the same time.

And I really, really feel that's
why there was such a huge,

you know, wave of emotion
released initially

and all the subsequent
appointments afterwards.

The doctor didn't tell me
that I was going to be cured

of my ailments or anything
like that, it wasn't,

but he did tell me that it
would help stabilize my body

and help me get back
to a sense of normalcy

in my everyday life, which it
did, hands down, immediately.

And it only got better
with the next few sessions

and, you know,
subsequently after.

It helped me a lot.

It helped me out
of a dark place.

You know, that with the help
of family and friends as well,

it's just, it was an
amazing supplement to,

to my regimen, to
everything that I needed.

When the doctor's ego is there,

it reduces the capacity
for healing in the patient.

Too often we get an idea,
a preconceived idea about

what's going on
with the patient.

And how could we
possibly do that?

Because we've only
lived our own life.

We haven't lived
that person's life.

We don't know what's
going on with them at all.

And so, well known by
the psychologist is

people project,

people project their
loves and their hatreds.

As a practitioner, you can't
allow your stuff to interfere

and as humans, it's very
easy for that to happen.

We even have seminars
that they're designed

to address the
practitioner's needs

so that we don't have those
needs getting in the way

of the therapeutic relationship.

There are
numerous seminars every year

allowing practitioners to learn
and improve their technique.

As of 2018, there are more
than 10,000 practitioners

in over 30 countries.

Whether they're small
distressing events

that just aren't
resolving themselves well

or the big, big ones,
they all affect us.

And they affect our
quality of life,

they affect how we're
functioning, how we're feeling

and whether or not we're
thriving in the world

the way we want to be.

And where, 30 years ago,
it was different thinking,

I think the whole face
of healthcare is changing

and people are more open now

that what you think could
affect how you heal.

What you eat, how you exercise,

meditation,

yoga, all that kind of stuff.

And NET's just a tool but I
think it's a perfect time for it

because I think the
consciousness of
people in general

is real open that
maybe I have something

to do with my health condition.

And if we can help unlock
what was stuck in there

then all those other things
they're doing as well

work better too.

It pays it forward in
so many different ways

because if one person
can be less stressed

when they go home
to their family,

when they, you know, go
into work, when they are

on the phone as a customer
service representative,

then all of the sudden
we have a better world

cascading, cascading, cascading.

This is a really good
time in history to be there.

It was so wonderful
in the very beginning

because we didn't know
where we were going

or what we were doing
or if it was gonna work

or if it wasn't gonna
work but right now we feel

very confident that every
single research study

that we done, every
single condition

that we've thrown this
as has been improved.

We haven't found anything
that it hasn't improved.

We don't know where
the limits are.

It would be nice if it
was a mechanistic world

and we just tightened
a bolt here and there

and then it worked but that's
not, we're way more than

a piece of machinery and
I don't think we've begun

to touch on the energy
of what runs the body

or even, dare I say,
the spiritual piece.

I never wanted it to go
into a spiritual direction

but really, I don't
know how you can stop it

when you start analyzing
what's going on in this world.

I think the other
interesting piece about this is

healing, healing is so
interesting to me in that

we put on these layers and
layers and layers of protection

of things that happened to us.

And then a person will
come in with a problem

and we'll start
peeling off the layers

but what's totally
interesting to me is the issue

won't come up until the
body's ready to deal with it.

And I know, personally,
I lost my mother

when I was six years old.

And, I'm sure, you
know, I've had issues

and over the years we've
done a bunch of NET

and would often go back to
me being a six year old,

of course, which is
when my mother died

and we would check the
concept of my mother dying,

committing suicide,

and it wasn't there,
for almost five years,

it would be something else.

It'd be that I had to
go stay with my aunt

or that it was my
father was so upset

or this or that.

And then, interestingly,
five years into it,

on a Mother's Day,
believe it or not,

I had an issue come up,
goes back to age six

and this time I was ready
to deal with the death

and suicide of my mother.

So I think that is so wonderful

and it gives a level

of safety to realize an
issue's not gonna come up

until you're ready
to deal with it.

Probably the most
interesting thing that happens,

that has happened for me
as a practitioner is that,

person comes in,
maybe for migraines

and you start doing NET
on them for the migraines

and then they start to
tell you the other things

that are getting
better in their life,

their relationships are better,

they're happier,
they're sleeping better.

And you didn't even take
care of those things.

Which, again, just illustrates
the amazing healing power

of the body if you
give it a chance.

If you take some of
these stress factors,

you reduce that load that
the body is carrying,

the sky is the limit
as to what it can heal.

The one thing that we really
are hoping people become

is to become more
comfortable in their own skin

because if we're
comfortable in our own skin,

things are a little bit
less stressful in life.

We're able to handle
things better,

we love ourself more.

And with that, there's nothing
that money or anything else

can buy except that peace
of mind with yourself.

Imagine how the world could be

if we could actually become
more aware of our stress

and its impact on not only
our own body and ourselves

but those around us.

And be able to hold
a space of acceptance

and allow each of us to
reach our full potential

and be true, authentic selves.

I wish that more people
were aware of this work.

Because the miracles that we
as practitioners get to see

every day...

Are amazing and people
don't even realize,

there's so many people
out there in this world

that don't even realize
it's a possibility.

As a result, as a side
effect, a wonderful side effect

from doing NET, I
started to practice yoga

and meditation
understanding and teaching

this idea that your mind

is very powerful and it
can help you or harm you

and it's always your choice.

I mean, I would probably
be, I would probably be

an emotional wreck.

If I never had NET, I would
probably be a mess, honestly.

And I used to be,
I used to be like,

my emotions would
just go up and down

and a lot of that stuff also
correlates with your diet.

So just learning about that
stuff was a game changer for me.

But

it's helped so
much in every way.

Comments through your life
are stored up in your body

and it's bringing
that emotion out

and to attack that emotion,
almost, and release it

and diffuse it
from your body is,

it's the biggest freedom.

We want people to prosper,
we want them to be better,

we want them to be healed and
we can change the paradigm.

We can do it.

I thought,

just 20 years ago,
I thought that

those of us that
believed in the power

that made the body, that's in
the body can heal the body,

and that the body
was natural healing

and that's what works and
nobody was listening to us,

again, you know, what's new?

And I just thought, yeah, I'll
just be one of the dinosaurs,

I'm gonna die off, but what
I'm gonna do while I'm alive,

I'm gonna keep this principle

that natural healthcare works.

So much of
our cultural narrative

revolves around the
stresses of life

and it can make
us feel powerless.

Struggles with anxiety,
depression and chronic

health problems are becoming
more and more common.

Every one of us has been through

traumatic events in our life

and it's something that
should bring us together more

instead of disconnecting us.

There are little to
no treatment options

for people suffering
from traumatic stress.

If you're not
diagnosed with PTSD

or any other major
traumatic condition,

it can seem confusing
on how to get help.

These findings are
about more than NET,

it's about helping our
society to become more aware

of our emotions and how much
they actually affect our life

and the people around us.

The mind and the body
are intimately connected

and the more we
can embrace that,

the more we can take
control of our health

and ultimately take
control of our lives.

Part of why brain
imaging is so valuable

is that it shows the
physiological basis of things

and we always sort
of joke about how,

you know, you could
parade 100 people

in front of a
group of scientists

and they all say, "This
made me feel a lot better."

But if you throw up one brain
scan picture and you say,

well, this is what their
brain looked like initially

and this is what their brain
looked like afterwards,

they say, "Oh, okay,
something happened.

"I get it, I understand it."

Because the subjective
experiences that
people describe,

you never really
know and, of course,

in a very cynical world,
every advertisement,

every group is trying
to make their product,

their approach, their
ideas sound great

so of course there's
a million testimonials

and every testimonial
always says this was great,

it changed my life,
I feel fabulous.

So that's one thing
but to have actual data

and to be able to do
in a controlled trial,

a randomized controlled
trial, and to be able

to sort of see what's happening

and then more specifically to
show the physiological effect,

that shows that there's
something else that's going on.

I mean, a person
could say to me,

"I'm not having a
response to it."

But you don't know exactly
what they're feeling

on the inside and I'm not
in the scanner with them

so they could still be in
tears and just fighting it

back better and saying,
"No, I feel fine."

But they wouldn't be able to
change the brain that way.

Even though it's obvious that,

you know, mind and body are one.

We used to talk about
a mind/body connection

like, I don't know,
maybe there was a rope

or a chain connecting
them or something.

And, you know, there
was even a debate about

whether or not there was a
connection prior to that.

We now know that they're the
flip side of the same coin,

that there is a physiology

and a biology to things
that we experience mentally

and emotionally and this
study elucidates that,

you know, beautifully
between both papers

and the effects that a
distressing event has

on the brain and the
rest of physiology

including the autonomic
nervous system

as well as subjective
ways that people feel.

And that when that
distressing event

gets neutralized
to a large extent,

that all of those things change.

That the brain changes, that
the rest of physiology changes,

that subjective feelings of
stress and distress all change,

quality of life change.

So it's, mind and body
in that regard are one.

I think that this
data is very important

in providing more knowledge
about the mechanism

of action of the Neuro
Emotional Technique.

It helps us to understand
better what it's doing,

how it has an impact on
different parts of the brain

and how it helps the person

to regulate their
emotional responses.

Now, you know, there could be
some other very interesting

aspects because the
cerebellum is involved

in our body's movement
and our motor function.

It appears that it
also helps to regulate

our autonomic nervous system
which was another part

of this study that showed
that not only do we change

the way a person's brain is
reacting to the emotional trauma

but we change the way
the body reacts as well.

And the cerebellum,
apparently, is able to regulate

the autonomic nervous
system in terms of

regulating heart rate and
blood pressure which were also

measures that we were
looking at in this study.

And, again, what
we were showing was

was that after the Neuro
Emotional Technique,

people's heart rate responses
to the traumatic stimuli

were much more normalized,
they didn't have that kind of

over reactivity that we had seen

before going through the
Neuro Emotional Technique.

So I think that this
really opens up an ability

to understand more and more
what the mechanism of action is

of the Neuro
Emotional Technique.

It tells us a lot about
what we may be able to learn

in terms of just
traumatic memories and

strong negative emotions, how
they play out in the brain,

what areas of the brain
seem to be involved in them

and provides us a target
for future studies.

Initially I do not like the
term alternative healthcare.

Bugs me, because this is
not alternative healthcare,

in fact, this is
almost more traditional

than any other type of
healthcare that we have.

Because really,
it's saying, okay,

you've got what
it takes to heal,

let's unleash, let's unlock,
let's help your body to heal.

If we start looking at
the body as mind as well,

it's not just the mind
that's in your head,

it's also the mind that's
down here in your gut

that is just as much at play

in terms of creating your health
as the brain in your head.

We look at the body
as perfect the way it is

and if there is a symptom
that's expressing,

it's because the
body needs something,

it needs attention in that area.

And emotions definitely
are not logical,

they're not rational,
emotions are non rational,

they're not irrational
but they're non rational,

they just are what they are.

Most of the universe
is non rational,

most of the universe is not
working on a rational plane.

Most of the universe
is just what it is.

Human beings, apparently,
have been given reason

and we can work with our reason

to make life better
for ourselves.

But we can't rely
100% on reason,

we have to understand that
we're more than reason.

The body heals itself.

And NET kinda
facilitates that and

kind of makes it

easier to do.

And it's just a process.

Through virtue of this process,

it allows that which
heals to come forth

and get the healing done.

You know, they say, "Oh,
you helped me so much."

And yeah, I tried to
help you all right but

your body healed itself.

I just want to
remind you of that.

So that we can get that
consciousness going out there

and start making that
part of the conversation.