21 Day Brain Detox

What is Oxytocin?
Oxytocin is a powerful hormone. When we hug or kiss a loved one, oxytocin levels drive up. It also acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain. In fact, the hormone plays a huge role in pair bonding. Prairie voles, one of nature's most monogamous species, produce oxytocin in spades. This hormone is also greatly stimulated during sex, birth, breast feeding—the list goes on.
*The first bit of evidence that points to oxytocin as nature’s love glue comes from researchers who measured the hormone in couples. Psychology professor Ruth Feldman at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, spent years studying oxytocin’s role in the mother–child bond and recently decided to dive into the uncharted waters of romantic bonds by comparing oxytocin levels in new lovers and singles. “The increase in oxytocin during the period of falling in love was the highest that we ever found,” she says of a study she and her colleagues published in Psychoneuroendocrinology. New lovers had double the amount Feldman usually sees in pregnant women. *CLICK

What is Serotonin?
Serotonin, also known as 5-hydroxytryptamine is a hormone in the pineal gland, the digestive tract, the central nervous system, and blood platelets. A hormone is a substance our body produces that regulates and controls the activity of certain cells or organs. CLICK

What is Endocrine?
The foundations of the endocrine system are the hormones and glands. As the body's chemical messengers, hormones transfer information and instructions from one set of cells to another. Although many different hormones circulate throughout the bloodstream, each one affects only the cells that are genetically programmed to receive and respond to its message. Hormone levels can be influenced by factors such as stress, infection, and changes in the balance of fluid and minerals in blood. CLICK

Instructions: Work through these before starting

The first day will take approximately 30 - 60 minutes as you practice and learn the routine. You may feel you need a couple of days to practice getting into the routine, which is fine as well.
From day two your time can be reduced to 7 -10 minutes in total of dedicated time.
Don’t be tempted to try to fix everything on the first day…it’s baby steps, so you make small changes each day.
There are 5 steps that I have developed based on how the brain builds thoughts (based on my research on the science of thought) - I call these the Switch on Your Brain 5-step Process® . This is what you do each day for 7-10 minutes.
For more information on the science, my theory and the research behind my 5-step Switch on your brain technique® and the 21-day Brain Detox™, please refer to my other books and my web page www.drleaf.com.
The overall idea of the 21-day Brain Detox™ Plan is to do the Switch on Your Brain 5-step Process® each day in 7-10 minutes for 21 days. This will wipe out the toxic thought and build in the healthy new thought.
After 21 days, the new healthy thought is small and needs to grow. Whatever you think about grows. In order to stabilize the new way of thinking and to keep from reverting back to the old way, you needs to consciously practice using the new thought you have built for at least 2 more cycles of 21 days. This will total about 63-66 days of conscious practice and will result in the new thought being “automatized. This means, the thought moves into your non-conscious mind and drives your conscious thoughts, words and actions without you consciously thinking about it. It becomes implanted (James 1:21).
This means at any one time, you will be working on automatizing the new healthy thought you worked on the previous 21 days, as well as working on detoxing the next toxic thought the Holy Spirit has guided you to work on. We are very good at working on 2-4 things at a time, so you will manage this really well.
When I refer to a “thought”, I am referring to a ‘memory”…these are one and the same.
The first few days have a lot of explanation to coach you into mastering the technique, thereafter the explanations are shorter, and so you can navigate back and forth between days if you need to.
You will be doing a double process each day: breaking down a toxic thought and building up a healthy replacement thought. For example, if you are detoxing ‘worrying about meeting the bills every month”, your replacement healthy thought could be something like using the scripture “my God shall meet all my need according to his riches in glory” (Philippians 4:19) and apply to the specifics of your worry.
In the Active reach, decide what you want to do in one to two minutes based on the input from steps 1-4, then for the rest of the day you actually do the active reach 7 times.
Be aware throughout the day of what you working on and try to focus on doing your selected ‘active reach’ (see step 5) up to 7x times a day, if you can, as you go about your daily affairs. You don't have to stop what you are doing. You can just focus on observing yourself and see how you are doing. This is how you really make the change happen quicker.
There is a downloadable active reach log, which you can print out to record how many times you have done your active reaches.
There is also a downloadable journal that you can print out and use for step 3 where you have to write. Keep this journal as a record of your growth and look back after year and amaze yourself at how much you have grown!
In this 21-day Brain Detox™, you will be learning how to think deeply and to be aware of your thoughts running through your mind. You will be learning about deep meditation as distinct from new age forms of meditation. In Christian meditation – which is what you will be doing in this program of renewing your mind - your mind will be actively engaged and focusing on God and His Word. You are always conscious and consciously aware, practicing the presence of God, not seeking some mystical experience of God. New agers attempt to empty their mind; you will be using your mind to train your mind to listen to your spirit and your spirit to listen to the Holy Spirit.
For example, maybe you are working on not worrying about your finances because the worry has as been incapacitating you and your faith and health are suffering. As you work through this “worry” over your 21 days, be your own watchdog talking with and practicing the presence of God as much as you can and catching yourself as soon as you slip…see Him standing next to you, sitting with you, talk to him in your mind about everything. This does take practice and will be hard at first, but after 21 days, it will become a great habit and you will find yourself being ‘…led by the Spirit…’ (Roman 8:14).

TERMS YOU WILL BE USING:

ASK/ANSWER/DISCUSS: thinking strategy you apply in step two each day
Active reach: actions and exercises you do during the day. You decide what these are in step 4 and 5 each day and you monitor/evaluate and change them each subsequent day of the 21-day detox.
· The Decision - which is creation of the specific active reach, and which is based on the input from steps 1-4.
· The Action - this is the specific one active reach that you practice doing at least 7 x during the day. The practice must be deep and meaningful, but not time consuming.
An active reach IS NOT simply repeating a statement 7 times. It is NOT positive affirmation. An active reach IS responding in a specific way each time the situation or thought rises up in your mind. It is heartfelt and sincere. The active reach is either an action and/or a verbal statement - for example, a statement you say to yourself; an action; quoting something; doing something; responding in a certain way each time the situation arises. See the resource section for ideas of toxic thoughts and active reach examples.
MPA: Multiple perspective advantage is a fun way of describing the ability God has given us to stand outside of ourselves and observe and change our thoughts, actions and behaviors.
DFM: Default mode network is a series of complex networks in the depth of your brain that become activated when meditate deeply by introspection and deep intellectual thinking.
Switch on your Brain 5-step Learning Process® - Gather: Becoming aware of what’s going on inside your head and what you are watching, listening to, touching, smelling and tasting – your five senses.
Switch on your Brain 5-step Learning Process® - Focused Reflection: Self-reflection about the specific toxic thought.
Switch on your Brain 5-step Learning Process® - Journal: Record what the focused reflection reveals. In this way you are making the thought very visual, almost like a taking a photo. It’s an eye-opening process. Pour your thoughts on paper.
Switch on your Brain 5-step Learning Process® - Revisit: Recheck redesign reorganize the specific thought pattern.
Switch on your Brain 5-step Learning Process® - Active Reach: Doing something specific to destroy the toxic thought.

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