Guide to CPR for the Amygdala: Understanding, Application, and Benefits for Managing Emotional Reactivity and Stress

CPR for the Amygdala Origins

Developed by Kate Truitt PhD, and is detailed in her excellent book Healing in Your Hands.

What is CPR for the Amygdala?

CPR for the Amygdala is a program designed to help individuals manage their emotional reactions and stress responses when the survival brain begins to take over. The program combines mindful touch with “brain games” to redirect focus from emotionally activating experiences. It’s based on the understanding that when the amygdala becomes activated, it uses working memory to compare the current stressor to past distressing experiences. By using mindful touch to calm the amygdala and cognitive distraction to occupy working memory, the stress reaction can be interrupted.

How CPR for the Amygdala Works: The SNAP Protocol

CPR for the Amygdala uses the acronym SNAP to outline its four foundational steps:

• Sense into the experience of emotional activation, distress, or disturbance. This involves checking in with yourself and noticing what’s happening in your mind and body.
• Notice the intensity of the experience and rank it on a scale from 0-10. This step helps bring awareness to the level of distress being experienced.
• Apply self-havening touch. This is a form of mindful touch, used to create a calming effect.
• Preoccupy your brain with brain games to redirect your attention and focus.

Brain Games for Cognitive Distraction

Brain games are any form of cognitive distraction that occupies working memory resources. They are designed to redirect attention away from the distress, providing an alternative focus. There are four primary types of brain games:

• Movement exercises
• Category or narrative activities
• Numbers tasks
• Songs or word games

The key is to choose games that are interesting and not too difficult, to avoid adding more stress. Examples include:

• Listing onomatopoeias.
• Listing rhyming words.
• Creating words from the letters of your name.
• Simple counting.

Where Can CPR for the Amygdala be Used?

CPR for the Amygdala can be used in a variety of situations, both reactively and proactively. It’s designed to help manage stress in the moment, and also to build resilience against future stressors.

Immediate Support During Emotional Hijack

CPR for the Amygdala is effective when you find yourself in a moment of emotional intensity. It helps regain balance when the survival brain is taking over, bringing you back into a resilient zone quickly.

Soothing After Unpleasant Events

It can be used to diffuse or soothe unpleasant emotions or sensations that are lingering after an experience has passed. By focusing on past experiences, the techniques can help process the residual distress.

Relationship Support

CPR for the Amygdala can be adapted for use in relationships to offer mutual support during emotional moments. This can include:

• Facilitated havening, where one person applies touch to the other.
• Establishing a shared plan for using the tool during times of emotional intensity.
• Creating signals to indicate the urgency of needing support.

Managing Difficult Feedback

The technique can be used to prepare for difficult feedback by calming the mind and body prior to the interaction. It can also be used in the moment if feedback is unexpected.

Proactive Resilience Building

Regular use of CPR for the Amygdala can change the electrochemical experience in the brain, proactively building resilience and protecting the brain against future stressors. This technique can reverse the effects of neurons that pull the brain into fear responses.

Benefits of CPR for the Amygdala

The use of CPR for the Amygdala can lead to a range of benefits, both in the short and long term:

• Immediate Stress Reduction: It provides a quick way to calm the nervous system during stressful situations.
• Increased Internal Control: It reinforces internal locus of control, putting individuals back in the driver’s seat of their brain.
• Neuroplasticity and Resilience: The practice changes the brain in ways that increase resilience and protect against future stressors.
• Improved Relationship with Self: CPR for the Amygdala deepens the relationship people have with themselves, and it allows them to show up in a loving, proactive way.
• Reduced Emotional Reactivity: Regular practice can lead to less reactivity to stressors.
• Better Management of Unpleasant Sensations: The practice can help to manage physical sensations by creating a new narrative, rather than reacting to old patterns.

Summary

CPR for the Amygdala is a tool that helps individuals manage their emotional reactivity and stress by using the SNAP protocol: Sense, Notice, Apply and Preoccupy. It combines mindful self-touch with cognitive distractions or “brain games” to redirect attention and calm the amygdala. It can be used both reactively in moments of distress and proactively to build resilience and can be adapted for relationship support and managing difficult feedback. CPR for the Amygdala can reduce stress, increase internal control, develop neuroplasticity, improve the relationship with self, and provide a better ability to manage physical and emotional sensations.

Tags: CPR for the Amygdala, amygdala, emotional regulation, stress management, resilience, mindful touch, brain games, cognitive distraction, self-havening, emotional reactivity, neuroplasticity.