The Coping Brain

Our Amazing Adaptable Brain

The Coping Brain

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The human brain, weighing just three pounds, is packed with billionsa number followed by 9 zeroes of flexible, changing cells (neuronsbrain cells so small 30,000 could fit on the head of a pin) capable of forming trillionsa number followed by 12 zeroes of connections. Throughout our life, human brain cells die and new ones grow. The result is that our brain is never the same from moment to moment. Because our brain is always changing, this is the how we can grow up and learn better ways to cope with new challenges. Microscopic neurons, our brain cells, send messages to each other at the incredible speed of one thousand times per second. All of these features make our amazing brain the most powerful, quick and adaptablecapable of changing to meet new situations learning tool in the universe!

What does the term "coping brain" mean?

Every time we are challenged by new or upsetting experiences our brain must come up with ways to deal with our stress or worry.

• Sometimes our brain needs to find better ways to deal with our upsets because the old ways don't work anymore.
• We need all three coping brain functions, thinking, feeling and self-protection, to get over experiences that make us stressed, worried, angry or upset
• Training our brain to use health coping methods means we can heal our own emotional woundsa pain we feel inside when our feelings are hurt so we also feel better about ourselves.

Look at all the things our coping brain does:

Our brain can instantly change from thinking up new ideas, to telling us what we are feeling, and protecting us from danger -- all from moment to moment

• learning and storing memories
• telling parts of our body what to do
• figuring out how to come up with safe ways to keep us alive and free from danger.

How does our amazing adaptable brain do all of these things at once? To successfully cope and adapt all humans have three powerful coping brain functions. You may be surprised to know that “thinking” is just one of these functions. We also are also born with several instinctivean ability we are born with, that means this coping brain comes equipped with automatic responses we don't need to learn coping brain functions that begin to operate the moment we come into the world.