Practical

NeuroWisdom
Achieving
NeuroHarmony

8
Essential Strategies
to Balance Your
Brain Networks

Mark Waldman
 Achieving
NeuroHarmony
8 Essential Strategies
to Balance Your
Brain Networks

Mark Waldman

This book is copyright © 2023 by Mark Waldman and Van Buren

Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Version 1.0 (First Edition)

Design: Van Buren Publishing

Cover: Van Buren Publishing

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Los Angeles, CA 90035

Get the entire Practical NeuroWisdom series at:

www.VanBurenPublishing.com
Contents
Introduction to Network Neuroscience ....................................................4
The D.I.M.E.S. in Your Brain ................................................................. 6
Can You Consciously Exercise Your Key Brain Networks? ..................9
Shifting Consciousness .......................................................................13
Reflecting on Inner Values ..................................................................18
Stimulating Your Curiosity Network .....................................................20
Building Playful, Empathetic Rapport ..................................................23
Practicing Acceptance .........................................................................25
Streaming With a Caring Friend ......................................................... 25
The Neuroscience of NeuroCoaching ................................................. 29
About the Author ..................................................................................26
The NeuroCoach Pro Program .............................................................27

3
Introduction to
Network Neuroscience

If you want to balance your life,

you must learn how to balance the
key networks in your brain.

In 2006, when I was conducting brain scan studies with Andrew Newberg at the University of
Pennsylvania, we discovered that two tiny structures of the brain – the insula and anterior
cingulate (which would later be identified as the Salience Network) – could be stimulated by
practicing mindful awareness and other forms of contemplative meditation. When activated, a
person’s stress and anxiety would be greatly reduced, improving their sense of serenity,
happiness, and well-being.

Around the same time, a young physicist named Danielle Bassett combined graph theory with
Diffusion Tensor Imaging to create the first human connectome map of the brain. Instead of
viewing vague black-and-white images of different structures, this new technology could take
colorful pictures of the tiny axons (some as thin as one-thousandth of an inch) that formed
specific networks which carried out our most important cognitive activities.

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In the images below, each color represents a different network that is involved with a different
brain function such as vision, emotion, motivation, learning, decision-making, social awareness,
motor coordination, and many other processes that are essential for navigating the world:

The field of Network Neuroscience was born, and suddenly a whole new language of
neuroscience emerged. Researchers began to focus on how three of the 200+ small-world and
large-scale brain networks (“giant hairballs” of interconnecting axons, as Bassett likes to call
them) interacted with each other: The Default, Salience, and Executive Networks. When
communication between these key areas malfunctioned, a wide range of emotional, cognitive,
and psychiatric problems would surface.

The Default Network was the first area to be identified (the yellow area in the picture on right,
above) which – quite surprisingly – becomes very active when we’re not doing anything at all.
This is the daydream-like state that we are all familiar with, and it is filled with hundreds –
maybe thousands – of imaginative fantasies, thoughts, and feelings that are involved with
creative problem-solving and predicting what may or may not happen in the future. If you put
your hand on the top your head, that huge area of your prefrontal lobe is where your
unconscious “mind” actually resides, and it has been processing your emotions and desires
even before you left the womb.

Other groups of researchers began to identify and map out a “Central Executive Network”
which shapes the way we make decisions and plans, and to then implement them to carry out
specific goal-related tasks. I like to call it our “Doing Something” center, and it’s one of the
tiniest networks in our brain. If you put your two forefingers about an inch above your eyebrows,
that’s your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the main region of your Central Executive Network. It’s
about the size of your thumbnails, it gives you the power to consciously focus your attention on
what you want to do, and it turns your imagination into action. It’s barely functional at birth, and
it will take most people nearly twenty years before it fully develops.

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Your Salience Network plays a key role in helping a person to become socially aware of others
and for the development of empathy, compassion, and intuitive problem-solving. It’s the slowest
part of your brain to develop, taking more than 30 years before a person has the ability to fully
understand and respond to the needs of others, but you can speed up its development through
the practices I’ll be sharing with you in this eBook.

In 2017, the journal Network Neuroscience was launched to bring academic attention to this
paradigm-shifting model. Dr. Newberg and I were the first researchers to describe these key
brain networks to the general public, and this is the very first publication in the world to show
you how you can quickly and easily create an optimal balance between them by using a unique
set of tools called “Relaxed Mindful Awareness.” And for those who would like to take a deeper
dive into this wonderful new field – one that can transform the entire field of psychology,
medicine, and education – I invite you to take my “Balance Your Brain Network” Challenge and
enroll in my NeuroCoach training programs and courses (details at the end of this eBook).

Mindfully Yours,
Mark Robert Waldman
Faculty, Holmes Institute (2011-2023)
Executive MBA Faculty, Loyola Marymount University (2009-2019)

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The D.I.M.E.S. in Your Brain
The language used in academic papers can be very convoluted, and there are few illustrations
that accurately portray them in a “user friendly” way. To address this problem, I created this
drawing to give you a visual representation of the 5 key networks that govern our emotional and
cognitive processes. All of the colors overlap to represent how interconnected all of our
networks are. The drawing was originally constructed with the help of a group of adolescents
who suffer from traumatic brain injuries, and together we found simpler words to replace the
technical neuroscientific terms and which helped to capture the primary function of each brain
network. Here’s a brief summary, and I encourage you to share this drawing and description so
that others can learn about this exciting new field of network neuroscience.

D is for DOING: The Central Executive

Network (the purple area) is where we
consciously choose what to DO to
achieve our desired goals. Researchers
often refer to it as our task-oriented
behavior. When active, it turns off the
activity in your Imagination/Default
Network.

I is for IMAGINATION: The Default

Network is represented by the “I” which
stands for imagination and it’s the
largest network in the brain. When
active, your Executive/Doing Network
turns off, allowing your mind to wander
through a maze of thinking and feeling
processes as it dreams up potential
solutions to problems that are occurring
in the present moment. It’s the “what if”
part of our brain, but if we get lost in it
by ruminating on all the things that may
or may not go wrong, we’ll feel overly anxious and uncertain about what to do. In fact, most of
our psychological problems involve excessive activity in this giant imagination center in your
brain.

The Default Network plays another crucial role by being the repository for most of our
autobiographical memories, which it uses to predict potential positive and negative outcomes.
7
Optimal psychological health requires us to rapidly shift back and forth between our Default and
Executive Networks throughout the entire workday, a process that is regulated by the Salience
Network.

M is for MOTIVATION: The part of our brain that drives us to explore the world is what
researchers often refer to our motivation-reward system (the “M” in the drawing) which is driven
by the release of dopamine from the nucleus accumbens and other deep regions of our ancient
limbic system. If too much dopamine is released, it can lead to excessive impulsivity and
addictions. If too little is released, we’ll feel lethargic, unmotivated, and depressed.

E is for EMOTION: Whereas feelings are constantly changing impressions created in our
Imagination/Default Network, “emotions” are the actual experiences that are occurring in the
present moment. These instinctual functions – which include rage, fear, lust, grief, and caring –
can be found in all mammals and the neurological circuits have been mapped out by Jaak
Panksepp. He also discovered two other core emotions that have been overlooked by most
psychological models: Curiosity (our desire to seek out new, rewarding and pleasurable
experiences) and Play, which is the way our brain builds positive and joyful social experiences
with others.

S is for SALIENCE: The Salience Network literally sits in the center of the other four networks
described above, and its primary function it to identify which stimuli (feelings, thoughts,
sensations, etc.) are most valuable and important to pay attention to. It is deeply
interconnected with virtually every other region in your brain and is essential for regulating all of
our emotional states. It also gives us the ability to intuitively solve problems, and it is
responsible for monitoring all of our social interactions, including the ability feel empathy and
compassion toward others. The Salience Network plays a key role in maintaining an optimal
balance between the four networks described above and can be stimulated through intentional
self-reflective processes like mindfulness, contemplative meditation, and through specific meta-
awareness exercises. Here is an excerpt from the 2017 book Salience Network of the Human
Brain:

The salience network is a collection of regions of the brain that select

which stimuli are deserving of our attention … is critical for detecting
behaviorally relevant stimuli and for coordinating the brain’s neural
resources in response to these stimuli … and the failure of this network to
function properly can lead to numerous neuropsychiatric disorders,
including autism spectrum disorder, psychosis, and dementia.

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When you enter into a self-reflective state of “Relaxed Mindful Awareness” you can stimulate
the Salience Network in a way that allows you to intuitively seek out meaningful insights and
creatively solve a wide range of problems. Even brief moments of Relaxed Mindful Awareness
can briefly rebalance brain networks in a way that rapidly reduces neurological stress and
facilitates optimal psychological health.

There is one other network that is just beginning to be explored, and I’ve identified it with the
large star in the center of the drawing where all of the networks overlap. This is our Learning
Network which includes the amygdala and hippocampus, and every time we learn something
new, it stimulates our Motivation/Curiosity Network, driving us to seek out new rewarding and
pleasurable experiences. And every time we learn something new, many older memory traces
(including those associated with past traumas) are extinguished.

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1
Can You Consciously Exercise
Your Key Brain Networks for
Improved Performance?
The answer is yes, and you can easily experience it by simply opening and closing your eyes.
For example, your eyes are open and engaged in the specific task of reading. This requires
highly focused attention which means that your Executive Network is very active and your
Default Network is inactive.

But the moment you close your eyes and relax, your imaginative Default Network becomes
more active and your Executive Network becomes less active because you aren’t “doing”
anything. Your attention wanders away from whatever you were doing (reading these words, for
example) and your semi-conscious mind begins to wander all over the place. You might be
thinking about what you read, or you might suddenly be thinking about something entirely
unrelated. In fact, your Default Network is actually, generating hundreds of seemingly
disconnected thoughts and feelings per minute. That’s one of the reasons that you can’t easily
put a dream into words – too many thoughts, feelings, images, sounds, and sensations are
occurring too fast.

Your imagination turns on when your eyes are closed, when you are deeply relaxed, or when
you are overly tired. In that semi-conscious state of daydreaming, your brain is giving your task-
oriented Executive Network a rest. If you refuse to take daydreaming breaks throughout the
day, you’ll quickly experience work burnout. But if you deliberately take brief moments of mind-
wandering throughout the day – even 10 seconds several times an hour – your work
performance will improve.

10
Exercise
Some people have problems focusing their attention on important tasks
and spend too much time mind-wandering, but there’s a very easy
solution to this problem: You learn how to deliberately watch how your
mind wanders! Try it right now. Close your eyes and see how long you
can go without having any meandering thoughts. For most people, it’s
hard to go longer than 10 seconds before some random thought floats
into consciousness.

Now do something different: Don’t try to be thought-free. Instead,

encourage your mind to wander and count how many different thoughts
you have in the next 30 seconds. Write the number down, close your
eyes again, and see how many thoughts you can identify in the next 30
seconds. Most people will be surprised that there are fewer thoughts or
feelings. You are, in essence, practicing mindfulness, and the simple act
of observing your thinking slows down the activity in your Default
Network.

Now try this: Write down all of the rambling thoughts you’ve had in the
past 5-10 minutes. Notice that when you are writing, there are no
distracting thoughts, but the minute you stop writing your mind will start
speeding through all kinds of thoughts as you think about the next thing
to write down on your list. Spend a few minutes every day going back
and forth between consciously doing a simple task for a few seconds and
then pausing to watch how your mind wanders. The act of doing writing
turns on your Executive Network slows down excessive activity in your
Default Network.

Here’s what I’d like you to do for the next few days when working.
Download a mindfulness clock onto your phone and computer, setting it
to ring three times an hour. The moment you hear the bell, pause and
deliberately let your mind wander for 10 seconds. Then throw yourself
back into work. You’ll find that the quality and quantity of your work
increases, and if you toss in a few mindful yawns and super-slow
stretches, you’ll feel even more refreshed at the end of the day. You are
learning how to consciously shift between key brain networks and that
will immediately improve your emotional and psychological health. If you
have trouble doing this alone, practice with a friend or colleague,
describing out loud how your mind is wandering.
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2
Shifting Consciousness
Between Imagination, Attention,
Alertness & Awareness
The moment you wake up, an extraordinary transformation takes place in your brain as it shifts
from a sleepy mind-wandering, imaginative daydreaming state into a more focused attentive
state that is needed for planning, decision-making, and taking action to achieve your desired
goals.

But if you begin to worry about the future – or you focus too much on all of the painful things
currently happening in the world, your brain may shift into another state: alertness. You can
easily get lost in the imaginary realm of your Default Network where negative thoughts and
feelings reside. And the longer you ruminate on them, other networks in your brain can begin to
respond as if a real threat was happening in the present moment.

A vicious neurological cycle begins. Your Emotion Networks stimulates the Motivation Network
to try to avoid the imaginary unpleasant experience Then your Default Network uses its creative
power to solve that imaginary problem, but that’s impossible to do! This causes your Salience
Network to become overly active as it tries to evaluate the importance or unimportance of the
imaginary problem, and this disrupts the functional connectivity between all of the networks.

Sometimes a person can get so trapped in their imaginary fears of what could happen the
future, they become hyper-alert, causing too much activity in the attention-driven Executive
Network. Such a person might start looking for danger everywhere, even though none exists,
and this is what can happen as a result of severe traumatic stress. The brain actually loses its
ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

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The latest research in the field of network neuroscience has found a powerful solution: The
more you practice the meta-awareness skills of observing how your mind wanders, and then
focusing your awareness on present-moment experiences, the stronger the connections
become between your Salience Network and the other key areas in your brain. Instead of
paying close attention to what you are doing (Executive Network), or getting lost in your
negative feelings and fantasies (Default Network), you are learning how to become aware of
those different cognitive functions. Then you learn how to focus your awareness on present-
moment experiences. You can even become aware of the experience of awareness!

In most societies, there’s an over-emphasis on staying highly focused, and few educators
realize that it is essential to alternate between attentiveness, awareness, and deliberate
daydreaming in order to maintain a healthy functioning brain. Awareness is the only known
activity that we can use to consciously stimulate the Salience Network, and this is the key for
maintaining a healthy brain.

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3
Reflecting on Inner Values
Your Salience Network has two main functions: 1) To evaluate all of the present-moment
experiences that are flowing through your Emotional Networks and to identify which ones your
brain needs to pay attention to and 2) to then select from your imagination-and-prediction
Default Network the ideas that that are the most valuable to use for overcoming any obstacles
that stand in your way of achieving desired goals. It slows down the mind-wandering processes
of the Default Network and activates your Executive Network to carry out a task based on the
information supplied by the Salience Network. Your Salience Network then shifts the neural
activity back to the Default Network so that you – your unconscious mind – can ponder the next
best task or action to take. This “see-saw” activity of shifting between thinking about something
to doing something takes place every 10-20 seconds whenever you are working on a project or
carrying out any task such as speaking or listening or moving your body in a specific way.

Your thinking processes are wordless and largely unconscious, flowing through your
consciousness 20-30 times faster than you could ever put into words. That’s why it’s so hard to
describe what you are feeling to someone else, and why most people will ramble on for several
minutes before they pause to let the other person respond. But if you choose to become aware
of this daydreaming process known as mind-wandering – simply by observing those rapidly
changing thoughts and feelings – activity in your Default Network slows down. For example: If
you simply observe your anxiety, allowing it to be there without judgment, your anxiety level will
usually decrease! You don’t have to “do” anything because your state of awareness will
stimulate your Salience Network which automatically reduces activity in your Default Network.
In fact, any form of mindful awareness will improve the connection and communication between
all of your key networks.

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You can also stimulate the Salience Network by focusing one of your deepest inner values and
then asking your intuition (not your busy mind and imagination) for an insight on how to proceed
with whatever you are currently working on or struggling with. If you remain in a state of
“Relaxed Mindful Awareness” you will often “hear” a whisper of inner wisdom that is usually far
more valuable than any outside advice you get. Sometimes your intuitive insights can even
trigger an “aha” experience – a mini-form of neurological enlightenment– that has the power to
change your entire worldview.

Exercise
Take a moment, right now, and close your eyes as you do a series of
mindful yawns (which also slows down your Imagination/Default
Network), followed by 60 seconds of super-slow stretches done in the
most pleasurable way possible. When you feel deeply relaxed and
calmer, open your eyes, and meditate on this question:

“What is your deepest innermost value?”

Close your eyes, sit quietly, and allow your intuition (not your busy mind)
to find a single word or phrase that captures that inner essence. If
nothing comes to mind, that’s fine. Simply ask again, and see if your
Salience Network whispers something to you. Or use your creative
imagination to find a quality that has deep meaning for you. It could be a
word like peace, or compassion, or God, or stillness, or even a sound like
OM. Write your value on a piece of paper and gaze at it, and then repeat
it aloud three or four times. How does that value make you feel?

Yawn and stretch, and again ask yourself: “What is my deepest

innermost value” and look for another word or phrase or quality that feels
important to your life. Write it down, repeat it out loud, and then look for
one more inner value.

15
Now gaze at all three words and select the one that feels the most
salient. Take a full 60 seconds to savor the experience of that word.
Whenever you are feeling tired or irritated, you can repeat savor your
inner value, which has the power to turn on 1200 stress-reducing genes
and 1000 immune-enhancing genes.

Now close your eyes and deeply relax by doing three mindful yawns and
one super-slow stretch, bringing yourself into the present moment where
your mind is quiet. Find that state of calmness that comes from most
forms of contemplative meditation and then ask your “intuition” – the
inner wisdom that resides in a specific area of your brain called the
Salience Network – for three more deep personal inner value words that
are different from the first ones you wrote down. Add them to your list,
mindfully gaze at each word and repeat it to yourself, noticing how each
word makes you feel. Circle the one that feels the most essential to your
life right now.

Now here’s where the real magic happens. Think about a current
problem you are wrestling with. Yawn, stretch, and focus on your value,
then ask your intuition for a new creative solution or insight. You’ll often
find that your Salience Network will answer you because it has the ability
to sort through all of the creative notions generated by your Imagination/
Default Network and to select the one that is most valuable and useful for
you.

When you share your inner values with colleagues, friends, and family,
can often deepen your bonds of intimacy and trust.

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4
Stimulating Your Curiosity Network
By practicing the exercises described in the previous sections, you will be able to experience
the present moment more fully. Now you can begin to explore the world using one of your core
emotions that was identified by the late neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp: Curiosity.

Curiosity is a key principle that propels every living creature on this planet and, as Nobel
Laureate Eric Kandel discovered, even a single neuron taken from a sea slug is naturally
inclined to explore its environment, seeking out anything that is pleasurable and rewarding. Put
a mouse in a maze that is filled with objects it has never encountered (a cork, screw, eraser,
paper clip, etc.) and it will take it and store it away in a corner. Why? Because it might be useful
in the future.

Anything that is new, different, or especially shiny will attract the attention of children mammals
and birds, and it is our innate curiosity that gives us clues about what we are really passionate
about. Curiosity is driven by the dopamine released from our Motivation Network which travels
up to the Default Network. There, our imagination kicks in to dream up all kinds of ways to seek
out new adventures, new experiences, and new people who can provide us with the
pleasurable interactions.

But our educational system, along with most societies and religions, have a bias against
curiosity, which can lead a child to explore all kinds of things that others consider to be
inappropriate or immoral, nor are we are not encouraged to experiment with new ideas or
beliefs. Instead, we are told what we must study in school and how we should behave and
think. What, then, can we do to reconnect with the brain’s desire to seek out novel situations
and experiences?

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One simple solution is to revisit the times in your past where your curiosity was strongest, and
curiosity shares the same neural pathways as pleasure and passion. Research conducted at
Stanford University shows that maintaining passion for a long-term goal is one of the best ways
to achieve psychological well-being. But how do you find that deep passion that is driven by the
curiosity neurochemicals in your brain? One way is to make a list of everything you have been
intensely curious and passionate about in the past, and it can point you in the directions to take
in the future.

Exercise
Take a sheet of paper and ask yourself, “What activities did I feel most
passionate about prior to the age of 10? What drove my curiosity?” Write
down as many things as you can recall. Continue with each decade:
What were your passions and interests between the ages 11–20? 21–
30? 31–40? And so on. When you have finished, look at your list and
circle those passions that would bring you pleasure today.

Now close your eyes and relax. Think about the next 10 years of your life
and ask your intuition: “What kind of work would I feel passionate about
pursuing?” If you have difficulty imagining a passionate future, think
about this question: What would you do if you were the wealthiest person
in the world? Passion is driven by curiosity, and curiosity stimulates your
Imagination/Default Network to dream up possibilities that will lead to
more pleasure, so immerse yourself in your inner realms of fantasy and
then use your intuition – your value-oriented Salience Network – what it
would like to explore.

Now let your curiosity guide you by taking on this daily challenge for a
week. Begin by day by asking yourself “What do I really want to do
today? What would be the most interesting thing to do that I haven’t done
before? What simple activity can I do today that will bring me pleasure
and joy?”

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Write them down and set your mindfulness clock to ring once an hour,
and take 5 minutes to do something new and different. And then, when
you interact with someone you care about, ask them what they are most
curious and passionate about, and explore that activity with them.
Curiosity, combined with perseverance, is the foundation for long-term
happiness and success.

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5
Building Playful
Empathic Rapport
According to extensive research conducted by John Norcross, mutual trust and enjoyment is
one of the greatest predictors for both therapeutic and relationship success – at home and in
the workplace, and it is achieved through another Emotional Network identified by Panksepp:
Playfulness – the brain’s main way to form cooperative and caring relationships with others.
Rough and tumble play is the most important emotional experience that all young children and
mammals use to develop the “rules” of social engagement, which is another key function of
your Salience Network.

Sadly, most educational, religious, and societal systems suppress a child’s playfulness
(Salience Network), curiosity (Motivation Network), and imagination (Default Network) in the
belief that one should “seriously” pursue higher virtues, values, ideals, and goals, none of which
helps to build mutual empathic and caring rapport with others.

The solution is simple: Deliberately spend 30 minutes a day doing something fun, enjoyable,
and playful with your partner, colleague, or friend. But both of you must remain in a relaxed
state of mindful awareness to fully savor the experiences that are occurring in the present
moment. This is one of the most powerful ways to balance those brain networks that regulate
your emotional and psychological health.

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Exercise
Think about some of the most playful activities you did growing up and
the people you liked to play with in elementary school. Take out a pen
and write down at least 20 ways that brought you the most enjoyment
engaging with other children, doing your best to visualize or recall what
you did and who you did it with. For example: Can you remember the fun
activities you did on the playground? What were your favorite games?
What sports did you like to do? Think about a time when you had fun with
one of your parents or siblings and see if you can reconstruct the
pleasurable feelings you had.

Now think about all of the playful activities you have done in the past
year with some of your friends, and see if you can immerse yourself in
the positive experiences you had. Write them down, and then make a list
of all of the playful activities you can commit to doing this next week and
for the rest of the month.

If your list is shorter than the number of playful activities you did as a
child, you have deprived yourself of one of the most brain-enhancing
activities you can do. According to a study by Yarnal and Qian,
playfulness in later life improves cognitive, emotional, social, and
psychological functioning, in addition to enhancing healthy aging. Another
study, published in 2023 showed that the more a person engages in adult
playfulness, the happier they felt about their life. In yet another study
playfulness “boosted adaptive outcomes in stressful situations such as
the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Here’s my question for you: Are you spending enough time playing?
Playfulness stimulates your Salience Network in a way that promotes
psychological and emotional health, and it is your brain’s fundamental
strategy for building healthy relationships with others!

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6
Practicing Acceptance
Sometimes it seems that nothing we do brings us the happiness and success we desire. This
where another brain enhancing strategy needs to be used: Accept whatever problem you are
wrestling with. Don’t try to change your thoughts, feelings, or behaver. Accept them, observe
them without blaming yourself or others, and use your curiosity and playfulness to explore
them. The very act of conscious acceptance stimulates your Salience Network in a way that
alleviates emotional and neurological stress.

The research is definitive: When awareness and mindful acceptance is added to any
therapeutic, coaching, or healing modality, its effectiveness is greatly improved. For example,
as many research studies have shown, accepting the physical pain you are in actually reduces
the pain response in your brain. And if you accept your current state of anxiety, your anxiety
decreases, making it easier to recognize that many of the problems we think we have are
merely products of an overly-active Imagination/Default Network.

Exercise
Here is a simple mindful acceptance exercise that you can try right now:
Find a quiet and comfortable place to sit or lie down, and close your eyes
as you focus your attention on your breathing. Don’t try to breathe
deeply; just notice how you are naturally breathing and become aware of
different body sensations. Begin to move slowly and when you feel a
mild ache or pain, pause and allow the discomfort to be there. Accept it
instead of trying to get rid of it. Now repeat the word “ACCEPT” several
times. Notice that your pain has decreased. A recent brain-scan study
showed that simply choosing to accept a painful stimulus neurologically
reduced the pain response circuits in the brain.
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You can do the same thing with any emotional or psychological problem
you are experiencing. Try it right now by repeating the following phrase
to yourself: “I accept myself just as I am” and bring your awareness back
to your natural breathing. In just a few minutes, you’ll notice that any
negative thoughts or feelings have faded away. This exercise is based
on the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which
is a type of cognitive-behavioral therapy that emphasizes mindfulness
and acceptance of one’s thoughts and feelings. Numerous research
studies have shown that ACT is effective in treating many mental health
conditions, including anxiety, depression, and chronic pain.

Conscious acceptance and awareness are two sides of the same coin,
and awareness is the single most powerful strategy for balancing your
brain networks and maintaining an ongoing state of wellness.

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7
Streaming With a Caring Friend
There is one more essential ingredient needed for balancing your brain networks and achieving
optimal psychological health, which I call “Streaming.” It is a unique communication process
that integrates all of the previous NeuroCoaching strategies. It’s deceptively simple, but you’ll
need to follow a number of special steps that I’ve described in many of my online courses and
which we extensively practice in my lifetime NeuroCoach Training and Certification program.

Streaming is a form of “dialogue meditation” that you do out loud with a trusted friend, and it
only takes about 30 minutes to do. Our research has proven that solitary meditation and self-
reflection, even when done in a coaching or therapeutic environment, is far less effective than
sharing your mind-wandering processes with trusted individual who remains in a state of
Relaxed Mindful Awareness.

The general guideline is simple: Each person speaks briefly – just a few sentences – saying
whatever comes to mind without censorship, then returning to “Present-Moment Awareness”
(using yawning, stretching, inner values, and other NeuroCoaching techniques) as you listen
deeply, without judgement, to a few sentences from your partner. You go back and forth for 10
or 20 minutes, and then you spend 5 minutes asking for intuitive insights. It’s a profoundly
intimate experience and one that you can do with a trustworthy friend, and it often eliminates
the need to seek counseling from a professional.

This process interrupts the propensity to get lost in the Imagination/Default Network by keeping
your Salience Network – also known as your social brain – highly active and fine-tuned to the
needs of the other person. Try doing this with a caring partner for 3-4 weeks and I promise that
you’ll briefly enter into profound states of serenity and bliss that few people have ever

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experienced in their entire lives. You’ll also be able to solve problems – personal, relational, or
work-related – in a fraction of time than with any other communication strategy.

Exercise
In closing, let’s do one more experiential exercise. Close your eyes and
deeply relax using any of the NeuroCoaching strategies described
above, and keep your eyes closed for at least 60 seconds, or longer if
you find the experience pleasurable. Now ask your Salience Network for
three intuitive insights:

1. What did you find to be the most interesting, valuable, and

potentially useful discovery by going through these eight stages
that help to balance the five key networks in your brain? Write
down whatever comes to mind, and then savor that insight for a
full 30 seconds. Then ask your intuition for another insight, write
it down as well, and savor it fully.

2. Now ask your intuition if “it” would like to share these strategies
with another person or group (yes, you can give them this
eBook!). Sharing these strategies with others and guiding them
into deep states of Relaxed Mindful Awareness can be a
transformative experience, one that will make them far more
powerful for your own personal development.

3. Finally, ask your intuition if “it” is “curious” to try the Our

suggestion: Make a commitment, right now, to experiment with
these life-changing strategies with a mutually caring partner or
friend. You’ll be able to rapidly enter deeper states of meditation
than you’ve ever experienced before, and that is the
neurological definition of optimal psychological health!

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8
The Neuroscience
of NeuroCoaching
Here is a brief summary of some of the mind-
blowing discoveries that form the foundation of
network neuroscience and which have the power
to transform the entire field of psychology,
coaching, and therapy.

1. Neuroscientists no longer look at the

structure and parts of the brain like the
frontal lobes. Instead, we are looking at
“functional connectivity”, showing how
axons (the brain’s white matter)
communicate with other networks to help
us achieve desired goals.

2. We can use specific meta-awareness exercises (you’ll master them in my

course) to consciously influence three key brain networks (shown in the
diagram here): The Imagination/Default Network (medial prefrontal cortex),
the Central Executive Network (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) which
orchestrates what we are consciously doing in the present moment, and the
Awareness/ Salience Network (anterior cingulate & insula) which is
responsible for emotional regulation and achieving an optimal balance
between the Default and Executive Networks.

3. Nearly every cognitive, emotional, and psychological problem is caused by

excessive activity in the Default Network.

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4. Through a combination of mindful yawning (a thermoregulatory
mechanism), and present-moment awareness which stimulates the
Salience Network, Default activity is reduced, which stops you from
ruminating on negative thoughts and feelings.

5. Most forms of therapy and coaching involve metacognition strategies –

thinking about how you are thinking, and then changing the way you think –
actually increase activity in the Default Network, causing as many problems
as it creates. This explains why current strategies are only slightly effective,
barely beating the placebo effect. But the newest research shows that the
meta-awareness strategies I’ve developed show a moderate to robust
improvement (terms you rarely see in psychology studies) in emotional and
cognitive health.

6. Two decades of neuroscience research has proven that there is no such

thing as a traumatic memory, just traces of past painful experiences that are
constantly being rewritten by new experiences (your Learning Network) and
revised by the creative problem-solving processes of the Default Network. If
your autobiographical memories, and the feelings associated with them, are
not revised or consciously recalled, they decay and disappear.

7. The newest research in Network Neuroscience shows that consciously

recalling and talking about past painful experiences actually strengthens
them, making them feel more real and more difficult to get rid of! Strategies
involving “active forgetting” turn out to be far more effective than many
current approaches to post-traumatic stress. But when unwanted thoughts,
feelings, and memory intrude and interfere with work, sleep, and
relationships (the clinical definition of PTSD) it is essential to follow the
unique Trauma-Centered NeuroCoaching protocol that I’ll walk you through
in our course.

8. When you pair up with a trusted friend, and both enter into a state of
“Relaxed Mindful Awareness” a unique intuitive dialogue spontaneously
unfolds, eliminating any propensity to pulled into the emotional reactions to
past painful experiences. By sharing only a few minutes of a disturbing
“remembrance”, and then returning to “present-moment awareness” the
emotional reactivity is extinguished.

9. An entire module in my course is devoted to teaching you the principles and

strategies of Compassionate Communication, which has been taught to
university students, therapists, coaches, and corporate executives

27
 throughout the world. You’ll be given all of my interactive slides that you can
share with others and teach the principles of Trauma-Centered
NeuroCoaching. That is my special gift for you and to help educate others
about Network Neuroscience and these powerful new strategies to achieve
optimal psychological health.

10. Did you know that your intuition – a key function of your Salience Network –
can provide you with insights that are more profound than the best advice
anyone else can give you? You can easily stimulate the Salience Network
by focusing on a deep inner value.

Example Slide

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To summarize:
Network Neuroscience provides a simpler way to understand how your brain works and how
you can improve its functioning by stimulating the Salience network through the exercises
provided in this Trauma-Centered NeuroCoaching course. These “Relaxed Mindful Awareness”
strategies will slow down excessive activity in the Imagination/Default Network which is the
cause for most of our psychological problems.

And when it comes to working with post-traumatic stress, the newest discoveries in Network
Neuroscience show that we do not need to delve deeply into past experiences. Instead, all we
need to do is to describe, to a trusted friend or NeuroCoach using the Compassionate
Communication strategies in this course, how our creative imagination can be used to revise
and extinguish unwanted memory traces that are causing emotional distress. Then, we can use
our intuition and inner values to rapidly find insights that bring more purpose and meaning into
our life.

Here's your homework assignment to try out over the next 7 days: Once
each hour, take sixty seconds to mindfully yawn and stretch and allow
your mind to wander through the creative realms of your imagination.
Then bring yourself back into the present moment to savor the hidden
beauties of this wonderful mysterious world.

Be Curious. Be Playful. Become Aware. And take my 7-Day “Balance-

Your-Brain-Network” Challenge by clicking below…

7-Day
Balance Your Brain Challenge!
An Experiential Series
With Mark Waldman

Learn & experience how Network Neuroscience

can lead to a balanced brain, happiness and
psychological wellbeing.

Get Mark’s seven steps

toward a happier, more productive life
with calm, mindful focus and awareness…

Balance Your Brain

Challenge
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About the Author
Mark Waldman began his coaching career 1987, under the
psychoanalytic supervision of Bruno Bettelheim and the
Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute. He was actively
involved with the Association for Transpersonal Psychology
and was the founding editor of the Transpersonal Review. As
an Associate Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s
Center for Spirituality and the Mind, Mark and Andrew
Newberg used their brain-scan research to develop new ways
to improve cognitive and emotional performance. Their
national bestseller, How God Changes Your Brain, was
chosen by Oprah as one of the “Must Read” books for 2012.

The author of 14 books, Mark’s in-depth research has been published in neuroscience and
psychology journals throughout the world and his work has been featured in Time Magazine, the
Washington Post, the New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and many others. He has appeared
on hundreds of radio and television programs, including PBS and NPR, and his TEDx Talk has been
viewed by more than 100,000 people.

He created the world’s first NeuroLeadership course that he taught for the Executive MBA program
at Loyola Marymount University, and he has traveled throughout the world introducing new brain-
enhancing strategies to schools and professional organizations throughout the world including the
Los Angeles County Psychological Association, the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of Stress, the
Texas Council of Community Centers, Pepperdine School of Psychology, Southern Louisiana
University, University of California Irvine, Centers for Spiritual Living and many religious/spiritual
groups.

About the Series

The Practical NeuroWisdom series provides brain-based, evidence-
based neuroscience to help solve real-world problems and improve
lives. It provides proven steps and strategies based on the latest
neuroscience.

Check out the entire series at:

https://vanburenpublishing.com/practical-neurowisdom

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The World’s Leading Brain-Based, Mindfulness-Based and
Evidence-Driven Coach Training Program…

NeuroCoach Pro
The Complete Course
With Mark Waldman

Enrollment is now open. You will receive access to all the

preliminary materials as soon as you enroll. A series of
live conference calls, demonstration sessions, and
special presentations will be held at least twice a month

Complete Details Here

“I’ve been a supervisor of therapists, psychologists, and spiritual counselors for many
decades and I strongly encourage you to enroll Mark Waldman’s training program.
The techniques you’ll learn will greatly help your clients – especially those who are
struggling with traumatic experiences – and they will help you to feel deeper
satisfaction in your professional life.”

– Dr. Neil Schuitevoerder, PhD, MFT, Clinical Psychologist

“Merci! You helped me to develop the necessary skills – and internal peace – to take
a new direction in my work life. Having lived through wars growing up in Lebanon, I
now have the confidence to help others, especially those who have experienced
trauma. Now, as a Certified NeuroCoach, I know I can do a lot to help many people
find deeper meaning and passion in life .”

– Rima Chatila, Optician, France

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“The information that I am learning in the Trauma Centered NeuroCoaching course
has been utilized with my clients with amazing breakthroughs and results. I have
never attended a class that equipped me from the very first class to implement the
protocol with others.”

-- Eryn Fryer, MSW

Total Health and Wellness Family Medical Clinic, Tennessee

“I was having panic attacks. One session using Mark Waldman’s trauma strategies
and they are gone. Now I’m a certified coach helping others. I had this crazy phobia
for years. It was debilitating. At one point in my 20's I became agoraphobic and
didn't leave my house for a whole year. I got sick of living that way and forced myself
to get past it but this crazy fear would rear its ugly head suddenly in different
situations. I learned how to push it down and lived with it.”
– Marilyn Agee, Tennessee

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