Programming Your Reticular Activating System (RAS)

I’m John Glanvill, author of The Calmness in Mind Process for overcoming Anxiety, OCD and Depression.

Welcome to video number 18 in the calmness in mind series where we are going to further explore the “why and the how” of reprogramming your brain.

Let’s start this process by teaching you a new anxiety interrupt, which was one of my favourites, and one I still use occasionally, if I am presented with scary situations – out of my control.

I call it the “Bring it On” technique.

Where quite simply, you consciously ask your unconscious, for MORE anxiety, you ask it to release more adrenalin, you consciously request to have more intrusive thoughts.

Now, I know this may seem counter-intuitive, however, let me explain further.

I’ve shown you that in the beginning, tapping can calm you down, then you can proceed to just sitting with anxiety and letting it just be.

Then we progressed to digging around in your past looking for landmines to purposefully make you release trauma – so you can just sit with it, let it release from you, whilst you stay out of the stories that go with it.

Now, in this phase, we are turning the tables on anxiety – whereby, we are not running from it, we are actually encouraging it, welcoming it to us and becoming accepting of it – because although you don’t want anxiety all the time, there are times where it is appropriate.

So, here’s what you do. As anxiety starts arising, you sit down, sag your body and place your attention on wherever you feel the discomfort.

Let’s say your heart is racing, so that is where you place your awareness, stay out of the stories, because if your attention is on what he mind is saying, then it’s not on your what your heart is doing.

Remember, you are honing the skill of being able to consciously keep your awareness in one place – regardless of what your unconscious is saying or doing.

So, your attention is on your heart racing, and what you do, with gentleness, love and care, is say… (and out loud is best.)

“Come on anxiety, is that the best you can do? Feels like about 120 beats per minute, I’d like more please, perhaps take me up to 140?”

“Come on, you started this, at least do a good job, I want more, I demand more!”

Now a couple of things to be aware of as you do this. Firstly, don’t be angry at yourself or aggressive, be calm and playful, gently tease your unconscious self.

“Come on, is that best you can do, really, you expect that to scare me? Sweaty hands, these are not sweaty enough, come on I want more. Trembling, I laugh at your attempts to make me tremble. Come on really make me tremble.

Call that an intrusive thought – come on get creative, what sort of thoughts would Stephen King come up with?

See what I am doing? Lovingly, playfully, goading and challenging, but always done with a soft, calm and gentle voice.

Now, the second thing to bear in mind is… Your unconscious will probably increase the sensations or the intrusive thoughts – because that is what you asked it to do.

And this is OK.

You say “Excellent, thanks for listening, but I still need more, is that the best you can do? Come on, I still want more, I can handle anything you can throw at me, come on, bring it on!”

And you just sit there – sagged, letting it happen, being the Observer of what THE body does.

As the Observer, it’s not your problem! It’s the bodies problem!

Eventually, the anxiety gets bored of not being listened too and begins to subside (it always does.) Panic attacks and bouts of anxiety ALWAYS end, they always pass.

And as it retreats you (lovingly) say, “Where are you going, I haven’t finished, come back, I still want more!”

Then you might add “Come back anytime, you are always welcome, my door is always open, you are part of me, and I love you.”

If it does come back on, you say “Welcome back, is that the best you can do? I would love you to ramp it up a little more please….”

Can you see the concept I would like you to use?

With repetition, you get comfortable as the Observer watching THE body run its old programs – and of course, this is another form of exposure therapy.

But, cleverly, in this one, the power switches – from one where anxiety happens to you, where you are the victim of it – to one where you are in control, you can ask for more, you lead, and it follows.

Thereby breaking those old stories. So, if THE body now gets anxious, it’s OK, it’s not a problem, which means you can go out into the world and do those things that used to scare you – because what’s the worst thing that can happen, you’ll feel a little anxiety – BUT, THAT’S NOT A PROBLEM ANYMORE!

When you are ready to try this, you’ll see that it’s a real game-changer.

And remember too, there is nothing wrong with feeling anxious, when you kiss a person for the first time, start a new job, stand up for yourself, ask for something, saying no, when you are allowing yourself to become more vulnerable and when being more playful.

It’s natural, and with repetition, it no longer becomes a problem – so you can step boldly out into your life, knowing that – we’ll never know what’s coming next and that is fine too! Who said we should know? How will we know until we try it?

Doing this will challenge some of your old belief systems too? If the old story was “I can’t ask that girl out on a date because it makes me feel too anxious.” The new story can become; “Although I feel anxious, I can now handle those emotions; therefore, I can ask her out!”

While we are on the subject of beliefs, let us dig around in there too. In later videos, I want to show you how to recognise and change your belief systems, but for now, I want to show you a simple model of how they work.

All-day long, a record of everything that happens to us is held in our brain – and that which is consciously important to us is stored in our short term memory.

At night, as we go to sleep, the conscious part of our brain and the part that holds the short-term memory, shut down to rest and to form new neural networks based on what we have learned.

The older part of the brain slows down and rests but still keeps and ‘ear’ open to keep us safe, which is why we wake up if a child cries or there is a noise outside the window.

As we sleep – all the information from our short term memory is passed through a filter, and an unconscious decision is made, on whether to keep that knowledge and store it away as long term memory for use again sometime – or whether to just delete it, because it was labelled as serving no useful purpose.

So, a useful question becomes – what is it that decides what information we keep and that which we discard? And it turns out to be our belief system that seems to regulates this decision.

Any information in line with your beliefs is kept, and anything to the contrary is deleted.

So, if you believe people don’t like you – then any evidence of people not liking you from the day before, will be kept, and any examples of people being nice to you will be sent to the trash bin.

If you believe you are not good enough, any example of you falling short will be kept and stored as a record in your longterm memory, and every time you did a great job will be relegated to the dustbin.

Week after week, month after month, year after year, until you have a brain full of evidence that supports the beliefs you have about yourself – regardless of their overall truth.

Let me give you a example; What if a man believed that he was unlovable – he might say to his wife “You never tell me you love me!”

And she might reply, “That’s not true, I tell you at least five times a day that I love you!”

He replies “No, you don’t.”
She says “Yes, I do.”
He says “No, you don’t.”
And she frustratingly replies “You’re so stupid!”

She might well have had told him five times a day that she loved him, but each night as he slept – his unconscious mind used his old belief system to choose what to keep and what to throw out – and he will be keeping any evidence to support

his unlovableness – so the time she said “You’re so stupid” gets saved, and the five times she said “I love you” go straight in the trash can.

And that is just one belief – “I am unlovable.” Potentially we may have dozens like this.

I’m not good enough, funny enough, clever enough, strong enough – all the enough stories…

As a therapist, if I was working with him, I would be saying we need to work on your belief that you are unlovable and your behaviours driven by that belief.

And if I was working with his wife, I would be saying, don’t just tell him you love him, write it down, send him cards, leave a trail that he can see each day until his belief changes.

Correspondingly, it works in the other way too, if a person thinks they are brilliant – all the good stories about them are saved and the bad ones rejected.

We’ve all seen people on talent shows who truly think they are great, but in reality, don’t perform well, and when this is pointed out to them, they are truly shocked.

Yes, because their brain kept all the times Mum said: “that was wonderful son” and deleted anything to the contrary – because their belief system was that they were good at singing.

So, what I am saying is that somewhere in the middle is probably a sensible balance.

So, beliefs are fundamental – and we need to be aware of how they may be limiting us beyond our conscious awareness.

On the whole, our unconscious mind seems to do what we ask it do for us – if we tell it, the world is a scary place, it tries to protect us, and if we tell it the world is fun it takes us out into it.

But one thing you should be aware of is that if our conscious thoughts are stated in the negative, they struggle to be actioned by our unconscious mind.

Let me give you an example; if you went to the railway station ticket office and said: “I don’t want to go to London.” The ticket master would say “OK sir, just

wait over there, and when you do know where you want to go, tell me – then I can take action to serve you.”

So many people with anxiety and OCD, know what they don’t want, but don’t know what they do want.

Therefore, we need to be more precise in the conscious language we use with others and within our own internal dialogue.

“I don’t want to feel anxious” which means nothing to the unconscious mind – might become “calmness is important to me.”

“I don’t want intrusive thoughts” might become “I want to be able to ignore my thoughts.”

“I can’t get anything right” might become “I am good at writing but seem to need to focus more on my verbal communication.”

Once, what you are actually looking to do, is positively stated as an understandable command – it then, at least it is possible for the unconscious mind to take some sort of action.

The statement “I’m bored” to the unconscious mind, means nothing, but to say “I need to get more friends” is a command that the unconscious can respond to.

So, because our unconscious mind seems to align with, and take us towards what we focus on – it benefits us to focus on what is good for us, rather than all the fear- based negativity that anxiety and OCD tend to encourage us to focus on – as part of their childlike intention to keep us trapped by doubt and “what if” fears.

This is important – that’s why I want to spend a bit of time explaining why this happens, and the positive consequences of harnessing this inherent capability in new ways.

Deep within the old part of our brain is a region called the Reticular Activating System, the RAS.

Its function is key in controlling three things;

• Our attention,
• Goal achievement
• And keeping us alive.

So, this is a crucial part of the brain to retrain – especially if you have anxiety and OCD – because;

• Your attention is in the wrong place
• You are not achieving your goals,
• And although it is keeping you alive, it does it by imprisoning you rather
  than helping you to safely step out into the world!

Now, you can do your own research on the RAS, but I want to give you the headlines and show you how to effectively harness its incredible power to your advantage.

Put simply, the RAS is what monitors every single one of the hundreds of millions of inputs, received through your senses, from the external world every second.

It then, decides (for you) what IT thinks is important to you – and feeds that particular information to your conscious mind – where you think YOU had that thought.

Now, to help me – convey the power and relevance of this unconscious part of your brain – let me remind you that the unconscious brain is a million times faster and a million times more powerful than the conscious brain.

And to add even more perspective – consciously, we can only process about one hundred pieces of information each second.

In contrast, unconsciously, we receive ten million bits of information per second just from our eyes! Then, huge volumes of information from our hearing, and the plentiful data from the million or so nerve endings in our skin, which capture data on pressure, temperature and location every second.

That is a monstrous shed load of data easily being handled by our unconscious brain – and we can only consciously handle, a feeble, one hundred bits per second! And yet we are so addicted to it!

So, the role of the RAS – is to drastically reduce all that data, into something relevant to you – in line with controlling your attention, your goal achievement and your safety.

It’s a rapid, harsh and laser-focused, paring down of data (done completely unconsciously) and then fed to your conscious mind, in a fraction of a second.

And this is “tiny piece of data” you use, to consciously make decisions and live your life from!

So, a good question to ask at this point might be;

How does the unconscious RAS, know what is good for you, or what goals you want to achieve?

Well, some of it is from learned programs, core animal responses, like responding to your name being called out, reacting to a loud noise or becoming aware of a sexual opportunity.

However, for the majority of the time, it takes its cue, of where to place ITS focus, from where YOU are consciously placing your focus, your attention, your awareness, what’s on your mind.

It ‘assumes,’ that what you are consciously focusing on is important, therefore will filter accordingly, all the reams of incoming data, down into that which aligns with – what you are consciously focusing on.

Let me put this another way; If you are consciously focused on all the things that could go wrong, like worrying about being liked, or being perfect.

Then you RAS will filter for that, and present you with evidence of all the things that are going wrong in and around your life.

This then – is the world you “virtually’ see and will form the beliefs you have about yourself and the world, and those beliefs will influence what actions you take (or don’t) which of course, affects what goals you achieve (or don’t achieve.)

So, where you place your attention – drives what the RAS serves up for you, it’s like when you buy a new car, suddenly you see them everywhere, or when you

learn a new word, you hear it used the same day, you learn about a new artist, then see his work everywhere.

It’s really quite simple – and it’s just how the brain works.

So, it would make a lot of sense to get your RAS consciously working for you, rather than unknowingly have it working against you.

Let me give you a couple of exaggerated examples – Person one – Thinks the world is a scary place, doesn’t have any clear goals (or the goals are stated in the negative like; “I DON’T want to be anxious.” which of course is not saying what they DO want – and perhaps they spend lots of time each day contemplating the all the bad thoughts they have.

The RAS will have a field day, just blindly responding to that person’s unknowing requests from it. He will be flooded with examples of the world being a scary place, his goals won’t be achieved as they are not known, and he will be shown every example of his worst thoughts that his RAS can find each day.

Contrast that to person number two – who is a glass half full optimist, so good events are filtered and passed up from the RAS into her consciousness.

She has a clear goal held in mind about changing jobs and becoming self- employed – so the RAS makes aware, consciously, any opportunities it sees.

And because this person likes themselves, any evidence of others liking her too is passed up from the unconscious RAS into her conscious awareness, which further confirms her self-worth and increases the chances of her taking action.

This is life-changing information I am giving you here……

Can you see why I have been asking you to placebo yourself for more positive statements?

Can you see why I have been asking you to consider what you want from life?

Can you see why I have been asking you speak nicer to yourself?

Like I have been saying from the beginning – if left unchecked, your unconscious brain will just do whatever it has been programmed to do.

Therefore, we need to consciously reprogram the unconscious, in the best way that the unconscious responds to being programmed – which is NOT through logic or reason (that’s just how the conscious mind works!)

I hope I’m explaining this clearly enough, but it’s hard, and it’s almost unbelievable that we’re not taught this in school!

So, let’s get more practical. What can we do now, to make changes that could bear fruit within a month or two?

Well, here’s what I would suggest…..

Consciously, keep talking yourself into what it is you want from life, stated in the positive, with the outcomes you desire and the mindset you want to use.

Then, if any thought arises in your mind, that is not in line with those goals, ignore them, by consciously talking over the top of them, with – what it is you want from

life, stated in the positive, with the outcomes you desire and the mindset you want to use.

Basically, you keep talking yourself positively into what you want and disregard any thought or belief that opposes it.

It’s actually quite simple, just very hard to do – in the beginning.

So, let me give you some examples of what this type of inner dialogue might sound like.

The old story – Moving house is so stressful.

The new story – I am so excited about the next phase of my life and the project of creating a wonderful new home for my family.

The old story – I have the bother of clearing out my garage and going to the waste tip

New story – So looking forward to my garage being orderly.

The old story – There are no jobs around due to the recession.

The new story – There is always an opportunity when change happens, how can I let people know I am available?

The old story – My goal is to not have anxiety

The new story – My goal is to retrain my brain, and use life as a form of exposure therapy, this will allow me to get back to work, within three months, with an optimistic mindset and a kind, playful inner dialogue.

The old story – Oh no, I spilt the wine, that stain with never come out.
The new story – That was lucky, it was just a glass and not the whole bottle.

The old story – Why do I have so much inner conflict?

The new story – My Settler, Nomad and Warrior are slowly becoming friends, they are starting to realise they are on the same team and beginning to support each other’s skills and differences – how can I remember to only be one at a time to reduce conflict?

Now, it really doesn’t matter, whether you consciously believe these things to be true or not. We are just running the new inputs that will reprogram how our brain works for more positivity, calmness and creative action.

Can you see now, why knowing what you want from life – is so powerful?

And even if you don’t ultimately know what you want, you can use intermediate smaller goals – until you do.

That’s why I made my vision board video, and I watch it every morning and evening, not because I consciously forgot what I wanted, but because I want my unconscious mind to be focusing on where I want to go, not where it wants to take me!

If you haven’t seen that video yet, I will put the link in the notes below this video. In fact, I need to make a new one as I have completed most of the goals in this current one!

This stuff works – but you have to put the effort in. You have to spend the time and the repetition, reprogramming and telling your unconscious mind what you want.

Repetition retrains the unconscious mind – here is a picture of the home screen on my phone… (insert picture)

Each time I turn on my phone – I am greeted with the top three or four things I know I need to do, I keep reminding myself consciously and unconsciously, where I am going and what I want – Why? Because it works!

So, a quick summary.

The “Bring it On” technique is your next challenge, sit with your anxiety or intrusive thoughts – and gently, softly and lovingly – ask for more!

“Is that the best you can do?”
And just surrender to and accept what happens.

Our unconscious mind seems to want to take us towards that which we consciously think about – but can only do it – if what we think, is stated as a positive and clear statement.

Saying what you don’t want, at best means nothing to the unconscious brain, and at worst will influence you towards the very thing you don’t want.

Like a hypochondriac always worry about being ill and always having some sort of physical complaint on the go.

Realise that our beliefs seem to be the leading arbiter of what information the brain keeps each night and what information it discards.

Therefore, start talking to yourself more nicely and optimistically – regardless of you actually believing what you say.

Say to yourself “I love you – you are smart – well done – that was good – you can do this – wow, you have come so far.”

Go online and research the Reticular Activating System the RAS. Then get to work reprogramming it. Remember, its function is key in controlling three things;

• Our attention,
• Goal achievement
• And keeping us alive

You need to tell it what you want.

And finally, your homework.

Watch my video vision board – a link is in the notes below – see that, I am not just asking you to do this, I’ve been doing this for years – I take this very seriously, why? Because it works.

Then sit down and start asking yourself what you want from life – if you can’t find big goals yet, pick a few small ones, making your relationship better, spending more time with the children, clearing out the garage.

Remember, if you don’t tell the RAS what you want, it will just run the same old programs that got you into anxiety in the first place.

And finally, play around with your internal dialogue – make it positive, make it the inner dialogue of an optimistic, calm and active person (regardless of the current truth).

Perhaps you can say “Video 16, and this video 17, have opened my eyes to a whole new way of seeing the world, I am really looking forward to rewatching them, writing down my goals, and speaking to myself with love and kindness, to get that RAS positively working for me. I’ll even take a photo of my action list and put it on my phone to remind myself each day!”

Repetition, repetition, repetition.