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SITE : “Domains & Strategies for Self-Regulation” re. students

Self-Regulation includes being aware of the people-places-things in our daily life (PPT) that upset us & how they impact our ability to develop ways to cope. Dr. Stuart Shanker identified 5 areas of behavior as reactions to stressors :

Biological:  physical factors : general health & sensory issues
Cognitive: attention, concentration, perseverance, thinking
Emotion: re. strong & uncomfortable feelings
Social: social interaction, relationships, friends
Prosocial: our empathy, moral judgments & behavior, effects of other people’s stress

Why look at these areas ?
☆ Stress in one domain can cause or worsen stress in another
☆ It helps us see beyond the most obvious stressors
⭐︎ See children’s (& our own stress) more holistically
☆ Opens our eyes to more possibilities for reducing stress

Pupil dilation predicts self-regulation success across domains, in response to emotionally relevant stimuli, with excellent test–retest reliability. Core aspects of daily life include being able to experience different emotional states & if necessary, adaptively regulate our reactions. The eyes are one way to measure this.
The Sympathetic System controls pupil dilation in response to emotional arousal, & the Parasympathetic controls constriction in response to brightness changes.

➡️  CHART : Results of self-regulation tasks & behavior = Each block shows the emotion reappraisal success of testing. Black solid line indicates group average & the white box its standard error. Each grey dot – in the center – is the average ratings for one participant.

RESEARCH conclusion: Pupil dilation is a proxy used to infer the person’s central arousal state. The difference between – reappraising tests & viewing of emotional stimuli – predicted the degree participants were able to balance their feelings to make them more neutral. Results were tied to each person’s level of regulation-related arousal, itemized by pupil dilation, & independent of the estimated effects of task difficulty. (MORE….)
1.  BIOLOGICAL Domain
This category involves general physical health = sleep, nutrition, exercise, & various ways to consciously maintain energy, as well as the role our nervous system plays in regulating energy levels.

It’s grounded in ‘Arousal Regulation’, which is the energized state of readiness to perform any action. This is made up of competing forces between Activation vs. Fight-or-Flight responses of the Sympathetic Nervous System’s (SNS), and the inhibition, feed-&-breed ** responses of the Para-sympathetic Nervous System.

** Involuntary activities that occur when the body is at rest, especially after eating, including : sexual arousal, salivation, lacrimation (tears), urination, digestion, and defecation.

How much activation or recovery is needed for any particular task will vary for each child & adult, situation by situation.
As the Loving Parent ego state in Recovery, it’s important to recognize states of arousal in oneself, so we can adjust emotions through up-regulating (energizing) or down-regulating (calming) our behavior & activities, to maintain optimal equilibrium.  See: “Sensory Diet for Adults“.
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« Biological influences on S-R
Molecular genetics & Behavioral research have shown a definite genetic component to Self-Regulation. Most brain regions are inherited regulatory structures, such as the dorsal prefrontal cortex, orbital frontal cortex, superior parietal cortex & temporal lobe.
These studies suggest that some differences in children’s abilities to self-regulate are related to individual distinctions in their genetics. Naturally, there are other factors & influences such as environment, therefore self-regulation can be modified & is responsive to intervention.

4 Neural Mechanisms used to deal with stress, in descending order, are:
(1) social engagement
(2) fight-or-flight  (3) freeze
(4) dissociation.
If one strategy is inadequate to deal with the present stress, the brain’s ranking procedure for responding to threat will shift to the next option. The most beneficial is ‘social engagement’.

Biological stressors contribute to the quality of our day & our overall physical condition.  EXP : if you’re sick, or didn’t sleep well – it makes sense why you can’t concentrate on a report you have to write.
The brain-body has to respond to & recover from a current (or cumulative) stressor which depletes our energy.

Other energy zappers not always considered to cause a physical imbalance : daylight-savings time changes, dense written text with too little white space in presentations or books, smog in the air, strong smells, sudden weather changes…..
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