Intensive Workshop: Enhancing Executive Function: Going Beyond the Prefrontal Cortex

CPD

Handouts

Faculty

Lorelei Woerner-Eisner, OTR/L, C-IAYT, E-RYT500 Related seminars and products

Owner/Therapist

Integrative Wellness Therapy

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Lorelei Woerner- Eisner, OTR/L, C-IAYT, RYT500, a registered and licensed Occupational Therapist, Certified Yoga Therapist and a Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Teacher has over 20 years of practice in working with infants to seniors from a whole-person perspective. Lorelei is a recognized international lecturer and author. She has spoken across the country on a wide variety of topics related to therapy from a holistic perspective. Throughout her career, she has been driven by a passion to research, discover and create the most highly effective therapy techniques and tools to support lasting change with her broad range of clients’ needs. She has worked in pediatrics/sensory integration, rehabilitation, psychiatrics, acute care, home health, and skilled nursing settings. Lorelei is certified in: the Sensory Integration and Praxis Test, Yoga Therapy, Yoga Ed sm (a school-based yoga program), Hippotherapy, and Myofascial Release. She and her specially trained therapy dog Toma, work in a variety of settings including her private practice, Integrative Wellness Therapy. Born and raised in the Los Angeles area, Lorelei received a B.A. in Occupational Therapy from USC in 1993, a B.A. in Communications from Pepperdine University in 1986 and her 2-year Yoga Therapy certificate from Loyola Marymount University in 2007.

Speaker Disclosure:

Financial: Lorelei Woerner-Eisner is the owner of Integrative Wellness Therapy. She has an employment relationship with Therapy in Action and the University of California Los Angeles. She is a compensated lecturer for the Bureau of Education and Research. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.

Non-financial: Lorelei Woerner-Eisner is a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

Additional Info

Program Information

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Objectives

1. Explore challenges in executive function through integrative techniques and a whole person perspective.
2. Explain the significance of brain development and the autonomic nervous system on executive functioning.
3. Apply effective yoga poses that create alertness and those that calm and facilitate focus.
4. Explore the mindfulness – meditation continuum and how to use these techniques to enhance executive functioning.
5. Identify breath-related strategies that support self-regulation.
6. Describe the gut-brain connection and how it can affect executive functioning.
7. Explain the emotion-motivation-attention-memory connection and how to facilitate toward learning and recall.
8. List strategies to develop healthy habits and self-discipline.
9. Explore strategies to get around the “shut-down” effect that stress and anxiety play on EF.
10. Describe 2 new techniques that diminish impulsive behaviors and facilitate delayed gratification.
11. Describe a new perspective of therapeutic use of self and the environment to help promote healthy social connections.
12. Identify strategies to help your client learn to take more ownership of their own well-being.

Outline

Principles of Executive Function

• Attention and sustained focus
• Engagement and initiation
• Optimization and monitoring
• Efficiency and sequencing
• Memory storage and retrieval
• Inquiry and analyzing
• Solution and organization
• Holarchical Model of EF

Levels of the Whole Person

• Physical – movement, posture and anatomy
• Breath and physiological systems
• Intellect – cognition, self-expression and sensory
• Personality – preferences, values and behaviors
• Emotional tone and the subjective
• Brain development & autonomic nervous system (ANS)
• Pruning and the use it or lose it principle
• Vagus nerve’s relation to physical and emotional effects

Effects of Stress on EF

• The effect on neural networks
• Cortisol and fight/flight effect on the brain
• The differences between fear and anxiety
• Getting to the basis of anger and frustration

The Gut Brain

• Enteric nervous system: the “second brain”
• Neurotransmitters in the gut that affect mood
• The ADHD-gut connection
• Enhance mood and memory through nutrition

Sensory Processing

• 3 developmental levels of regulation
• Swings effect on the Reticular Activating System
• Adjustments in sensory input to create balance
• Calm the sympathetic nervous system thru sensory input

Strategies to Develop Healthy Habits

• Using your mind to change your brain
• The power of thought and visualization
• Routines and steps to build habits
• Method of enhancing neurogenesis and neuroplasticity

Yoga, Mindfulness and Meditation Principles

• Mind-body-breath connection
• Yoga poses for self-regulation
• Interoception to build deeper self-awareness
• The power of the pause

Breath and Regulation Techniques

• Using breath to affect arousal levels
• Increasing and decreasing heart rate and blood pressure
• Supports movement and posture
• Techniques for focus, delayed gratification and processing in the pause

Sensory Processing Strategies

• Using the sensory systems to promote self-regulation and calm the sympathetic nervous system
• A look at rhythmicity and touch as factors in enhancing EF

Attention-Memory Connection

• Learning requirements for memory
• Emotion-motivation connection
• Intrinsic motivation to enhance processing
• The driving force of optimism and hope
• How multi-tasking is counter-productive
• Strategies that support focus and recall

Putting the pause on Impulsivity

• Marshmallows: the importance of learning to wait
• Anti-rush therapy to promote waiting
• Do-overs to teach healthy alternatives

Self-Generation and Self-Determination

• Promote delayed gratification, self-monitoring, task initiation, emotional control
• Supporting persistence to stick with dull and challenging activities
• Allowing time for processing, planning and self-correction

Strategies for Healthy Social Connections:

• Using the whole self as a therapeutic tool: emotion, modeling and positioning
• The power of relationship in therapeutic effectiveness
• Cuing and facilitation to promote participation, engagement and increased independence
• Teaching tolerance and other awareness

Treatment Strategies for Challenging Emotions

• Decreasing stress to facilitate EF
• Understanding fear, as the basis for many challenging emotions
• Using the teachable-moment “failures”

Target Audience