Virtual Sips & Science Spring/Summer Series 2021

Habit Loops: Harnessing Our Brain Power to Break Free From Anxiety and Stress

Our brains are under siege. Challenges like chronic stress, uncertainty and an overabundance of information (and misinformation) are endemic to modern day living, and our minds sometimes create harmful habits as we struggle to keep up.

Learn effective strategies to break toxic habit loops from Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, an addiction psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for treating addictions.

Dr. Brewer is director of research and innovation at the Mindfulness Center and associate professor in psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University, as well as a research affiliate at MIT. He has trained Olympic athletes and coaches, foreign government ministers and corporate leaders. He is the author of The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love, Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits, as well as the soon-to-be-published book, Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind.

Enable and Expand Your Creativity

Dr. Andy Walshe is a founding member, partner and chief performance officer of Liminal Collective. A globally recognized leader and expert in the field of elite human performance, his experience runs the gamut of human performance - the research and training of all aspects of human performance for individuals, teams and large organizations in sport, culture, military and business settings. His work to demystify talent has led him on a mission to hack human performance, and to share his learnings for the betterment of society. Andy’s passion is anything ocean, in particular surfing. That, and chasing his twin girls about. Preferably in and around the sea.

Ben Potvin is a former Canadian national gymnastics champion. He joined Cirque du Soleil as an artist during the creation of O in 1997. After performing on stage in over 3000 shows, he changed his role within Cirque du Soleil as a head coach on the show Viva ELVIS and later transferred to Head of Acrobatics during the creation of Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL World Tour and AMALUNA. After being promoted in the role of AcrobaticChoreography Designer, Ben jumped on many new productions including Michael Jackson ONE, KURIOS, the opening ceremony of the PanAm Games in Toronto 2015, and many more. Since then, he has opened many new shows like MESSI TEN, R.U.N and VITORI. With over 15 years involved with the Cirque Du Soleil Group, as well as being Director of Creative Development for the past four years, Ben’s knowledge and drive on merging acrobatic & artistic, his passion for creativity and human performance has made him a top consultant for designing events, shows, creative retreats and performance camps for partners like RedBull and Logitech.With his network of connections in the entertainment field, and his vision of helping pushing limits to new levels, Ben’s main focus is to collaborate with other experts in different fields to help elevate everyone’s full potential in human performance and creativity.

Angel Collinson studied environmental law at the University of Utah on a full-ride academic scholarship, while competing on the Freeskiing World Tour. Her rookie year she won the overall title, and again the next year, paving the way to a career in professional film skiing where her skiing's technical skills shine the most in the big mountains of Alaska. The same tenacity she used to excel in school and skiing she applies to her other passions, including writing, music, art, health, and climate change. Her childhood dream of working in policy has morphed into affecting change through using her platform in a meaningful way. She regularly advocates with organizations like Protect Our Winters and Citizens' Climate Lobby, doing things like speaking at schools, writing op-ed’s, and lobbying in DC. Angel's introspective, playful, curious and adventurous nature fuels her desire to explore and push boundaries, both personally and collectively. Her lifetime in the mountains and passion for exploration lead her to follow her calling to explore new frontiers: the open ocean and other parts of the globe. She is now working on a sailboat to sail around the world visiting small island communities and nations, telling stories of human resilience and adaptability, inspiring hope while documenting and showcasing the effects of environmental and social change across the globe.

Positive character traits and moral virtues are prerequisite to living a robust, engaged, and meaningful life. In this session, Dr. Matthews and General Caslen review the science of positive character and virtue as the basis for personal achievement and resilience and well-being. The critical role of character in fostering organizational success is discussed. In the general discussion, the essential role of brain health in optimizing character and virtue is explored.

Key Takeaways:

- An increased understanding of character strengths and virtues
- How your character toolbox can be leveraged to optimize achievement and resilience
- What leaders should know about character, trust, and organizational excellence

Dr. Michael Matthews is a psychologist focused on character assessment and development who has advised West Point cadets for the past 15 years. He is a founding member of the Military Child Education Coalition’s Science Advisory Board.

General Robert Caslen has led more than 200,000 soldiers, under nine commanders in chief, deploying six times; and headed West Point, the institution from which he graduated, for five years.
They are co-authors of the recently published book, The Character Edge, which explores the link between strong character and strong leadership.

What is left of boom? It’s a military term to prevent and protect from explosions – making proactive decisions ahead of time. When it comes to brain health, most people don’t think about it until something goes wrong – boom! By strengthening the brain’s health and function NOW – getting “left of boom” – we are giving ourselves protection to mitigate, overcome or even avoid some of the tough challenges that may lie ahead.

Learn key insights on how to be a forward-thinker with Geoff Ling, MD, PhD, professor and physician with Johns Hopkins, a co-leader of The BrainHealth^® Project, retired United States Army colonel, and former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office.

We are currently experiencing the uncharted transition to doing things in person again and starting to have more social interaction. How does social connection (or lack thereof) affect the brain? Dr. Fratantoni will explain the neuroscience underlying our deep-rooted need for human connection. Bonnie Pitman will engage you with creative ways to view our experiences and hone compassion as a way to move forward.

Bonnie Pitman is the Director of Art - Brain Innovations at the UT Center for BrainHealth. Pitman expands her research and teaching of the art of observation, meditation, and compassion. The Power of Observation initiative connects neurological research with the experience and process of seeing, looking and observing. Through her daily practice to “Do Something New” [link to http://www.dosomethingnew.org], she invites the exploration and celebration of making an ordinary day extraordinary while dealing with chronic illness.

Dr. Julie Fratantoni is a cognitive neuroscientist at the Center for BrainHealth. She leads the center’s Kindness Enterprise, a research and translational program supported by the HERO Foundation and the Beneficient Company. This initiative seeks to uncover and harness the brain’s capacity for kindness, empathy and compassion as critical components of overall brain health and well-being. Dr. Fratantoni received her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from The University of Texas at Dallas. She is also a licensed Speech Language Pathologist, board certified in biofeedback, and trained in mindfulness and meditation techniques.

The magic of the brain is not found in its parts, but in the way those parts constantly reweave themselves in an electric, living fabric. To help us understand the nature and changing texture of the fabric, Eagleman will speak to the myriad ways that the brain absorbs experience: developing, redeploying, organizing, and arranging the data it receives from the body’s own absorption of external stimuli, which enables us to gain the skills, facilities, and practices that make us who we are.

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University and an internationally bestselling author. He is co-founder of two venture-backed companies, Neosensory and BrainCheck, and he also directs the Center for Science and Law, a national non-profit institute. He is best known for his work on sensory substitution, time perception, brain plasticity, synesthesia, and neurolaw. Eagleman is a TED speaker, a Guggenheim Fellow, and serves on several boards, including the American Brain Foundation and the The Long Now Foundation.  He is the Chief Scientific Advisor for the Mind Science Foundation, and the winner of Claude Shannon Luminary Award from Bell Labs and the McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Communication.

He serves as the academic editor for the Journal of Science and Law, was named Science Educator of the Year by the Society for Neuroscience, and was featured as one of the Brightest Idea Guys by Italy’s Style magazine. He has served as the scientific advisor to several television shows (including Westworld and Perception), and has been profiled on the Colbert Report, NOVA Science Now, the New Yorker, CNN’s Next List, and many other venues. He appears regularly on radio and television to discuss literature and science.