So today I want to talk to you about our different emotion regulation systems. I decided to put this in with a view to texturing some of the CBT audios we've done so far. But also, because I'm considering doing a series of audios related to this, or to get a guest speaker in to do so for us. So the model we're using to explain this to you is taken from the compassion focus therapy model, which was devised originally by Paul Gilbert. And the model is steeped in the latest neuroscience research and understanding and also evolutionary theory, which some of you may have already worked out, it's quite close to my heart.So Paul Gilbert understood that we have these three different emotion regulation systems. If we start at the bottom there, we'll start looking at this red system, which is the threat system. The threat system's purpose is to create a sense of threat, to provide threat detection and vigilance, and with a view to obviously trying to prevent harm in some way, and often associated with feelings of anxiety, disgust, anger, shame, and other strong emotion connected to the threat system. When activated, we release a stress hormone called cortisol, which is quite often quite an unpleasant sensation in the body, and not terribly good for us long term. And so we tend to find different ways in which we try to reduce that feeling of threat or that cortisol in our body, and that's when I want to point you towards the drive system up there, the blue circle. Now, the drive system is a reward based system and its purpose is to motivate us towards resources, often associated with achievement, focus, progress, wanting, etc. And when activated, we release a hormone called dopamine, which feels very pleasant, but is quite short lived often. I always ask the question, you know, when you bought yourself a new jumper, how long did that nice feeling last, how quickly did it wear off, so we tend to then search for more of it.Now, I wanted to do this audio in this series, because there are many, many people with ADHD who I come across who are engaging in a whole number of drive system behaviours, which can actually cause lots of difficulties. And that search for dopamine. So some might overexercise. Some might overwork. Those are absolutely two drive behaviours that I'm commonly guilty of and have to try and regulate and moderate. But if you're overworking you're going to feel stress. So it starts to feed back into the threat system, and the generation of cortisol. If you're over exercising, you may be exhausting yourself. If you're spending too much, you're putting yourself under pressure. We might see more maladaptive behaviours in there such as gambling, or any kind of addictive behaviour, sex, pornography, drugs, alcohol, or overeating. All of them are likely to feed back into the threat system, you start to see this unhelpful oscillation between the two systems. You know, the higher the threat, the bigger the threat system, and the more one needs to do the drive behaviours. But if you're doing drive behaviours which feed back into threat, you've got a bit of a problem.Obviously, as you can see, there's a third system there. And that's our soothe system. That's safeness contentment, bonding, and protection. Its purpose is to manage distress and promote bonding. Obviously, the more we bond, the more we connect the safer we are, and the more protected we are. So its a very, very important function in connecting us with the outside world. And we all know that one of the biggest killers is isolation and loneliness. So it's a very, very important system. But many many clients who I meet and come across will talk about feeling disconnected perhaps or their soothe system is quite small. So I might get them to think about what their soothe, threat and drive system looks like. So I'd encourage you to draw your own actually, on a piece of paper, how big is your threat system? How big is your drive system? And how big is your soothe system? Many of my clients who come into therapy or want support, will draw a sort of an unbalanced system where one system is much bigger than the others. Commonly for people, the soothe system is often very small. And that's not always the case, of course.But if you think about that, and you've got an imbalanced system, you think about that in relation to if it were let's say, a three-legged chair, and you sat down on it, what would happen? If it's too imbalanced, obviously, you're going to fall over. Now, what I want you to think about in relation to the soothe system, is what it's driving us to do. What's, what's it promoting. And there was a very famous study where they got people to go into some MRI scanners, and they generated threat based cognitions. And they were able to measure the influx in cortisol. and they thought wow, that makes sense, okay. And then they brought strangers into the room to hold their hand and say soothing things. And they noticed that the oxytocin increased, and the cortisol decreased. They thought, well, that makes sense, the system is promoting connectivity for safety in numbers, for improved survival options and threat detection, I guess. And they thought, wow, that's pretty interesting, though. And they did a second study, where they got the person to go in the MRI scanner to generate threat based cognitions. They measured the increase in cortisol. And instead of bringing strangers in, they got the people in the MRI scanners to generate self-soothing thoughts. And guess what they noticed, an increase in oxytocin decrease in cortisol.Now, CBT therapists everywhere, we're very excited about this, because we've been trying to teach people for decades to be kinder to themselves, to challenge negative thinking. So it's a pretty interesting study, really. And that led to a lot of thinking around this model, and the increased development in this model. And what they've since discovered is that when the soothe system comes online, the brain produces something called amny-patrisic acid, otherwise known in the business as gabagoo, which essentially leaks over the amygdala, our alarm system, and puts the feeling of threat out. I liken it to pouring Gaviscon on heartburn. And so that's pretty interesting, isn't it that, you know, think about a time maybe where you fell in love? What happened to your level of threat there, and I'm willing to bet that it diminished greatly.So yeah, it the system pushes us towards connectivity, which I think is really, really important. And I just wanted to get you thinking about that, especially about what can be done to reduce your threat, ie techniques, self-compassion, and maybe some acceptance of your condition. And what does ADHD make you do in your drive system, which might be considered to be unhelpful? What could you cut out of that process to reduce it feeding back into a threat? And what could you change in your drive system to move you towards connectivity? So I'm thinking about activities, communities, hobbies and what could be healthy drive behaviour as opposed to unhealthy and what can you do to increase your soothe system, whether that's through connectivity with others or self connectivity and self-compassion, hence, compassion Focused Therapy.