Charlotte Moore - CM Training

Your beautiful brain and your horse's, is made up of billions of nerve cells called neurons (humans do have a little more than horses 🤭)

The neuron's job is to communicate with other neurons by sending chemical and electrical signals. These signals when activated in certain regions of the brain result in a functional output (eg. seeing, hearing, talking, problem solving, moving, emotions, etc).

Sounds simple right?

I want to say yes, BUT, neuroscience is never simple 🤭

The thing is, for a neuron to communicate with another neuron, it first needs to find the right one to connect with and then it needs to build a solid relationship with it.

Think of it like this...

You're looking for the perfect person to spend the rest of your life with.

One day you bump shoulders with that person in a cafe. You are immediately drawn to them.
They're the most attractive person you've ever laid eyes on!
Unfortunately, you don't get the chance to talk for longer than 15 seconds before you both have to go your separate ways.

Not looking promising is it?

But what if the next day, you went to the same cafe, and saw the same person, and bumped shoulders with them again?
What if this time both of you lock eyes and commit to talking to each other for longer?
The feelings become more intense.
The attraction get stronger.
You both develop a deep desire to connect and as a result, you both commit to each other on an unimaginable level.

You are now a rock solid couple that can overcome any obstacle!

This is a little how neurons work.

In their original state, neurons are individual loner cells that, unless prompted, don't and can't go out looking for their respective partners.
If/when they get that prompting, they also need repetitious exposure to strengthen their bond.

When certain regions of the brain are activated, the neurons that live there are prompted to find connections with other compatible neurons to enhance the function of these regions.

This can be both beneficial and problematic when certain regions have higher volumes of neuronal connections compared with others.

An example of when this may be problematic is when the limbic system (survival/emotional part of the brain) is overactivated due to trauma or chronic stress. This overstimulation results in an overdevelopmentment of neuronal connections in the survival/emotional part of the brain and reduces the ability to form connections in the problem solving part of the brain.

This chronic imbalance ultimately results in a lot of reactive behaviour, a decline in the ability to carry out problem solving, reasoning, decision making and risk assessment, as well as poor emotional regulation.

Most of you can see that high reactivity and low emotional regulation are common complaints in horse behaviour. Hopefully this information helps you a little more to understand the neurobiology of why this happens 😊

Just another VERY important reason to practice building your stress lowering and neuroregulation skills in yourself AND your horse. 😉😉

This video is a 14 second clip showing you how neurons grow to form connections over a short period of time.

Happy brain training 🧠💪
Charlotte Moore - CM Training 😊

Neurite outgrowth Neurite outgrowth monitored 7days in primary hippocampal neurons

Dedicating your attention and time to something you want to learn or a skill you want to build is what creates the feeling of success.

Education itself means nothing if the individual learning it doesn't:
1. Repeat the exposure.
2. Put the new knowledge into action so it has a purpose or a meaning.

If you don't dedicate and invest your attention into what you want to learn, it becomes difficult to consolidate the learning into memory. The quality of the result you get out of something will be directly proportionate to the dedication and effort you put in.

Learning something new can be challenging and uncomfortable. The fear of the unknown can hijack the learning process and shut down the ability to concentrate on the incoming information. This is why repetitive exposure is an important part of learning new information.

When you repeat the same exposure, your brain stops focusing on the discomfort it feels about the new knowledge and starts to focus on building an understanding around the new knowledge. When you feel like you understand, the by-product is feeling successful.

The hardest part of all is allowing yourself to feel vulnerable about feeling uncomfortable.
If you can do this, you can do ANYTHING!

Happy brain training 🧠 💪
Charlotte 😊

This primal need applies to humans, horses and dogs. This is a primal need for ALL social mammals.

The brain is such a beautifully complex place.

One thing your brain is constantly hard-wired to look for when it comes to any and all relationships, is FEELING understood.

When you feel understood, you automatically feel physically and socially safe.

When you feel understood, it implies that the individual you want to feel understood by is curious and invested in your emotional and intellectual perspective. They have made a space to learn how you see and feel about the world.

When you feel understood, you often become motivated to learn and understand more around you.

So what is happening when you don't feel understood?

Your limbic brain (emotional brain) gets activated because one of your primal needs is not being met. This often results in some level of defensive communication and behaviour (flight or fight based).

How can you change this?

The most important thing you can do is ask yourself in the moment you catch your defensive communication/behaviour "do I feel understood?"

If the answer is no, then you can try communicating with this dialogue.

First, you need to ask this VERY important question to the other individual:
"Do you 'want' to understand my perspective?"
Notice the word 'want' not 'need'?
Notice how it is a question and not a statement?

When someone 'wants' something, it is motivated by curiosity and choice. This results in the product being valued.

When you ASK someone if they want to understand your perspective, you highlight their motivation and help their mindset shift from a "me brain" to a "we brain". This is partnership and team work. As a social mammal, we are hard-wired to look for "we brain" communication to feel socially safe.

"Telling" someone has a tendency to shut the brain down, "asking" someone opens the brain up.

When someone asks you a question, notice if you feel more understood than when someone tells you.
When you are asked a question, someone is giving you a space to express your perspective. This is what helps us feel understood. When someone is curious about your intellectual and/or emotional perspective.

Happy brain training 🧠 💪
Charlotte 😊

Happy Wednesday everyone. I hope you're having a BRILLIANT week so far!

Don't forget to give back to yourself and do at least one thing per day that fills up your love cup.
Here's my favourite love cup and it is completely filled with love (coffee) 😁😉
Charlotte 😊 🧠

What you allow, you teach!

This applies to everyone: horses, dogs and people.

Let's take a quick moment to dissect this statement because it can be interpreted differently according to each individual.

If you are someone who struggles to set or express your boundaries, this statement may help you understand why building and advocating for yourself is so important.

If you are someone who has strong boundaries but struggle in the delivery department, this statement may help you understand why your delivery is so important.

If you are struggling with your horse's behaviour, this statement may help you understand how your horse finds the solution that isn't the most ideal.

Part of being a social mammal (that includes all humans, horses and dogs) means that one of our innate tendencies is to find a communucation system that allows us to find and build relationships with compatible individuals to connect, bond, build trust, work together and manage conflict resolution with. This allows us to increase our chances of survival, reproduce and live a balanced life.

When these things can't be fulfilled, as in MANY MANY current intra and interspecies, the relationship becomes more based on transaction rather than social compatibility.
When transactional relationships are formed, they're often developed in a one way delivery style "if you do this, then this will happen". This doesn't take in to account how the other individual feels about it and places a heavy focus on result (these types of relationships have their place in some contexts).

Fully fulfilled relationships rely 100% on how someone communicates to both themselves and others (internal and external communication/dialogue).

If you allow something, you essentially say that is ok with me or "I accept this" (with or without words).
If you want to express that this is not ok with you or that you don't accept this context, and are not mindful in the delivery, then you can cross the boundaries of the other individual in doing so.

So how do we manage this?

It is more important to consider HOW you communicate than WHAT you are communicating.

It's VERY easy to get focused on what WE want out of an interaction without considering that we aren't the only one who has a feeling or a thought about it.

Here's a communication style you can try that may help:

1. Identify what outcome you would like to achieve
2. Notice any emotions you have about the context (here's the internal communication part)
3. Allow yourself to have those emotions, acknowledge them and process them yourself before you begin any external communication with the other party (don't ignore or suppress them).
4. Be open to the other individual's emotional perspective about the context (including horses and dogs)
5. Explain or be conscious about WHY this result is important to you.
6. Offer support (extra processing time or more information) to the other individual (horse, dog or human) if they express an orange light about the context.

Defensive communication breaks down relationships. It creates either avoidance or attack based communciation. Trust gets knocked down or out in the process.

All humans, horses and dogs ultimate NEED, seek and want to feel UNDERSTOOD. If you help someone feel understood, they will take the time to want to understand you (humans, horses and dogs alike).

THIS IS WHERE ADVANCED RELATIONSHIPS LIVE!

Happy brain training 🧠💪
Charlotte 😊

✨️✨️✨️ANNOUNCEMENT ✨️✨️✨️

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to announce the collaboration of CM Training and Calm Cognition's:

3 - day Horse - Human Neuroregulation Course.

Running over 3 days, 16th - 18th August, this course will be covering everything from brain anatomy, nervous system, neurobiology, brain-body relationship, stress management, communication skills, leadership skills, confidence building, relaxation skills and SO MUCH MORE!

This is a comprehensive course, and one you won't want to miss if you are looking to advance your understanding in yourself and your horse more.

This course will be held at CMT's brain training centre here in Toodyay, WA over 3 glorious days.

There are a limited amount of places available for this course.
The cost for this course: $860
Early bird price (before the August 1st): $790

I will be releasing the full details for this course within the next 2 days, so watch this space and check in on my events 😁

Happy brain training 🧠 💪
Charlotte 😊

HELLLOOOOO 👋👋👋 to all of you amazing horse lovers!

I am sorry I have been so absent, it has been a VERRRRRY busy year this year and I don't expect it to slow down for the rest of it unfortunately, BUT, I would like to give you a heads up that shortly I will be running:

1. Two online workshops:
- Understanding and helping the unconfident horse and human
- Understanding and helping anxious horses and people

2. Two in person workshops:
- Understanding and helping stressed horses and humans
- Understanding and helping unconfident horses and humans

I will give out more details for dates, times and venues soon!
😁😁😁

Charlotte 😊😊

Your horse has millions of neurons (nerve cells) in their brain. Each neuron has projections at the top and bottom (the yellow spikes in the picture) which allows them to connect to the next neuron. This is where the neurons communicate with each other and send signals from one neuron to the next.

Here's the interesting part!

Neurons can be present and live close to each other but that doesn't necessarily mean they are connected. Without connection they can't communicate with each other.

What does this look like on a functional/behavioural scale?

Well, there may be regions in your horse's brain that have got the neurons available and ready to be used, but they aren't communicating or activated until they are connected. Doing an activity that is carried out by certain regions of the brain will increase neural connections in those areas.

This neuroplasticity in a nut shell.

Causing neurons to connect in certain regions of the brain requires access and usage.

For example, the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the front region of the brain plays a role in impulse control and problem solving. If the neural connections are not densely connected in this area, your horse may struggle with these tasks, and continuously not accessing or using this area may give the impression that horses don't have a prefrontal cortex. Horses do in fact have a prefrontal cortex, as do all mammals, interestingly so do birds, rats, and mice. We use the PFC of birds, rats and mice to do a lot of our neuroscientific research.

Young children, and even some young teenagers, may display varying low levels of problem solving skills and lack of impulse control because the PFC is underdeveloped and underaccessed and is also the last area of the brain to mature and build neurons.

Unless it is accessed and used and you are specifically asking for tasks that involve problem solving or impulse control, the connections may be compromised in that region if the brain.

So, slowing your horse down, giving them processing time and tasks that employ low level problem solving and impulse control is a great place to start when building connections in the PFC of your horse.

As the saying goes: if you don't use it, you lose it!

Help your horse's brain stay active and healthy by fairly and safely challenging it periodically, but make sure that you balance that out with things that help them relax.

Happy brain training 💪🧠
Charlotte 😊

For anyone who is interested ❤️

This little A5 journal is the starting point for lowering your stress response hormones, building neuroplasticity and retraining your brain.

It is uniquely designed to help you de-stress, de-clutter and re-boot.

If you struggle with:
- Chronic stress
- Burnout
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Panic attacks
- Sleep disturbance
- Trauma (including PTSD)
- Overwhelm
- ADHD
- BPD
- Bi polar disorder
- High blood pressure
this journal will help you tremendously!

It teaches you a little about your beautiful brain and how it responds biologically to internal and external stress and stimulus, and provides you with a guided template to restore your emotional and cognitive balance over 21 days.

This little journal is small enough to carry around in your bag or car, so you can take it anywhere and use it at anytime.

It also gives you a protocol for when big stressors and traumas arise. It will teach you how to overcome stress and trauma and prevent it from reoccurring.

This journal is an ESSENTIAL tool to help you feel in control and build resilience.

You can get your brain training journal directly from my website under the "brain training journal" tab.
www.calmcognition.com

Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions or concerns.

Happy brain balance training 🧠
Charlotte 😊

The stressed horse...

The higher your horse's poll, the higher the cortisol!

Cortisol is a hormone that is produced to keep the brain conscious and alert and when released in higher amounts, it acts as a stress response hormone.

Cortisol plays many roles, but when it is being employed as a stress response hormone, some of it's hallmark characteristics in the body include:

- increased heart rate
- increased respiratory rate
- constricts blood vessels around the heart
- depression of immune response
- increase blood sugar levels
- competes with s*x hormones
- increases acid production

Less commonly known about is the effects it has on the brain when elevated.
- competes with the sleep hormone melatonin
- shuts down certain regions of the brain
- employs neurotransmitters such as noradrenaline, dopamine ans serotonin
- in prolonged elevated states it is neurotoxic and kills neurons

These are only some of the effects that high cortisol levels have on the brain and body.

Cortisol produced at higher levels is designed to prepare and fuel the body for flight/fight and enhance the chances of that individual's survival, but it's not designed to be elevated for prolonged periods of time.

Hopefully, this highlights the link between stress and health related problems in horses such as:
- Gastrointestinal problems
- Metabolic syndromes
- Anxiety
- Sleep dysfunction
- Learning difficulties
Etc.

There is a simple way you can help your horse lower their stress response hormone, which is to lower their poll.

Poll elevation is a motor response to elevated cortisol. You can reverse engineer the cortisol production by lowering the head to the height of the wither (not lower).

The NATURAL physical posture of horse with healthy cortisol levels and not experiencing elevated stress is when the poll sits at the same height as the wither.
When you lower your horse's poll to their wither you send a message to their brain saying that there is no threat. This in turn downregulates the stress response.

Simple but VERY effective and profound.

So whenever you see a poll above the wither, help support and relax that horse by lowering their head. Get so good at this that it becomes automatic. Learn to become persistent in the cue "lower your head please". Remember to apply the cue slowly so as to not increase stress and to give the brain a chance to process the information.

With time, you'll be surprised the effect this has on your horse's mental, emotional and physical health.

Happy brain training 🧠
Charlotte 😊

All too often people will say to themselves "I can't", then, when the option to walk away is removed, they forcefully learn "Wow, I actually can!".

Challenge yourself to give the hard stuff a go by choice. Get in before the force 💪

You actually can, you just have to tell yourself you can!

Happy brain balance training 🧠 💪
Charlotte 😊

Sometimes the decisions we need to make to protect our physical and psychological safety is hard.

Sometimes you may need to say "no" to someone in order to say "yes" to yourself.

If the one you say "no" to can't accept that your boundaries are part of your self love language, then you may need to consider that this person is not capable of playing a partnership role in your life at this time. This can be confrontational and hard to accept when you hope for a different outcome.

It's often the hope that keeps us in the cycle of dysfunctional relationships. Hoping they'll wake up one day and remember how to value you. Hoping one day they'll remember how to acknowledge you in the way they once did. This requires a lot of inward reflection, self growth and vulnerability. Someone must be ready to choose to take that path, it can't be forced, coerced, demanded or bribed.

It can be tricky and painful.

The day you start saying yes to you, is the day you start to attract the people who respect, acknowledge, value and support you and your boundaries the way you need and deserve.

You start to attract the people who have the same values and self love.

You start to attract the people with the same mindset.

You start to live a life that you CHOOSE, not a life that is chosen for you.

You get to be the CEO of your own life 😉

Happy brain balance training 🧠 💪
Charlotte 😊

www.calmcognition.com

For anyone who needs to hear this today ❤️

With all the fear based motivation that is driving a lot of the world's activity these days, don't forget to stop and notice how you feel about yourself and your life situation.

Without doing this, you won't recognise IF something needs changing or what it is that needs to change to build your happiness and inner peace.

Happy brain balance training 🧠💪
Charlotte 😊

Reward and punishment tools...

The word "reward" is defined as "something given or received in return or recompense for service, merit, hardship, etc."
Reward is often associated with "positive" or "pleasurable" emotions.

The word "punishment" is defined as "to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault." or "to inflict a penalty for an offense, fault, etc." or "to mistreat, abuse, or hurt".
Punishment is often associated with "negative" or "undesirable" emotions.

Naturally, whether we view something as positive or negative comes down to our individual perspective. Our opinions are subjective and are based on our own prior experiences, belief systems and perspective.

What one individual views as pain, another views as pleasure.
So when we really break this down, reward and punishment is subjective and is shaped by perspective.

This leads me to the question, are the aversive or rewarding tools we use actually that?

Does aversion not depend on the perspective of the individual receiving the information?
Same with rewarding tools?

I may not find a knife aversive, but based on your perspective, belief system and experience, you may view it as highly offensive, unsafe and aversive.

Why would that be?
Why do you feel different about the knife than I do?

Because of HOW the tool has been used and HOW we felt about it when it was used that way!

Some "kind" tools can be perceived as life threatening and horribly aversive when not used in a sensitive supportive way. The exact opposite can happen with declared "aversive" tools. When used in a way that helps the individual "feel" supported and not threatened, the tool can then be perceived as a helpful tool.

The real key here is being highly aware of how that individual FEELS about the tool when you use it.
Have they been exposed to it in a way that helps them feel safe?
Have they been exposed to it in a way that helps them understand what it means?

Your role as the team leader is to be LOOKING for how your animal feels as you introduce them to the tool. Help them understand that it is there to support them by USING it in a supportive way, not an abusive way. Help your animal feel safe with it, whatever the tool is.

The truth is, you could use a piece of barbed wire to communicate and create the same result as cotton wool IF you are sensitive to HOW you deliver the communication and MAINTAIN awareness 100% of the time about how your animal FEELS when you communicate.

Partner up and communicate with emotional awareness, support and guidance. Give your partner the same emotional support that you would need and want if you felt the same.

Happy brain training 🧠 💪
Charlotte 😊

Today is the last day to get your tickets 🎟 for this workshop.

** REMINDER **
this is a human workshop, but it is 100% relevant to how we feel and communicate with ourselves, other humans our horses and our dogs.
Remember that everything we do with our horses STARTS AND STOPS with US and that every animal we interact with will just mirror what feel!
That's the beauty of animals, they show up in the world in a raw, present, aware state, just waiting and watching the information we express non verbally.

Tomorrow we get to put our nerd hats on and learn some juicy stuff about the brain and how it works with trauma, stress, su***de and overwhelm and get the chance to meet like minded people.

There are only a couple of spots left

I hope to see you there! 🧠😁

For more information, please click on the link.
For questions or concerns, feel free to PM me 😊

Understanding trauma, stress, su***de and overwhelm through a neuroscientific lens | Humanitix Understanding trauma, stress, su***de and overwhelm through a neuroscientific lens

Your horse's beautiful brain and neuroplasticity.

Your horse's brain is made up of billions of neurons (nerve cells) that communicate to each other both electrically and chemically.

Not all connections are made equally.

Some are weak.
Some are strong.
Some are non existent despite having a collection of neurons neighbouring each other.

Neuroplasticity occurs when neurons talk to each other repetitively and loudly. This can happen in a space of hours to days.
Neuroplasticity is what causes new circuits and pathways to form, eventually leading to a structural remodelling of the brain.

Food for thought...

If a horse is experiencing feelings of concern, worry, fear, frustration, anxiety or shutdown there will be high levels of neural activity (communication) in the fear centres of the brain and not alot of neural activity happening in the "regulation" part of the brain.
Over a few hours to a few days of feeling like this, the brain is already starting to strengthen its neural connections in this area.

Weeks to months of feeling like this regularly leads to structural remodelling, where the fear centres of the brain become enlarged from over usage and the "reasoning/regulation" areas become atrophied (unused, weakened and connections disappear).

This results in the horse's behaviour predominantly being driven from the areas that are the most strongest and enlarged, in this case the fear centre areas.

Now we have a horse that is:
- hypervigilant
- reactive
- flighty
- aggressive
- anxious
- shutdown
To name a few

Now anything in that horse's environment is most likely going to reinforce the neural activity in the fear centres. The brain and nervous system are now conditioned to look for threat and reasons to feel threatened OR if there is a special human or horse that notices how this horse feels, they'll hopefully offer safety and emotional support.

When emotional recognition and support is offered regularly, the same neural plasticity will occur but in the "regulation" part of the brain. Receiving emotional support over weeks to months will allow the horse's brain to begin it's new structural remodelling.

This is why trauma and hyperaroused nervous systems take time to repair. Retraining the brain and the rest of the central nervous system takes time and understanding.

Offering emotional support is a "no brainer". You need it, I need it, EVERY mammal needs it.

When you get emotional support, you feel safe!

Happy brain training 🧠 💪

Charlotte 😊