Red Brain, Green Brain

Download or read book Red Brain, Green Brain written by Melissa Ferrier and published by . This book was released on 2017-10 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cracking the code to wellbeing and resilience is a topic of relevance for individuals across the lifespan and preventative and early intervention is the key. This is best placed to occur during childhood where the dynamics of neural plasticity can be harnessed for extraordinary outcomes. In building a smart 'Green' brain, we need an approach that makes it fun. This book is for educators and clinicians interested in the neuroscience of mental health, but it is valuable for anyone operating within any kind of social network. This book outlines the story of Red2Green®, a clinical approach to mental health that is based on evolutionary neuroscience - over 90 million years of fine-tuning a primitive and highly visual fast 'Red' brain that is shared with our mammalian ancestors. All mammals are 'wired' to survive in the non-verbal right hemisphere and the training ground for this begins in utero and unfolds over the course of the first 18 months of life. Indeed, this training ground is centred around reciprocal eye contact between the parent and infant where the infant learns information relating to surviving and thriving. Reciprocal eye contact paves the way for learning language and achieving a range of cognitive milestones (long before the first words and phrases are even spoken!), but importantly, it lays the foundation for skills in the regulation of stress that are used across the lifespan. When skills in the regulation of stress go awry, wellbeing and resilience are compromised. Red2Green® is an inherently visual approach that uses the remarkable power of the visual system for understanding how to build a smart 'Green' brain and outsmart the ancient parts of our 'Red' brain that, overall, we still actually need.