In 2019 my only daughter, Masha, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer; she was only 19 at the time. Our happy world shattered and the fear that followed us for the next two years and three months is beyond something I could ever have imagined. Masha and I have always been best friends and our relationship is far beyond your typical mother-daughter dynamic, we’re absolute soulmates. I knew that while living through every parent’s nightmare, I had to pull myself together to help her get through the ordeal she was facing. It was down to me to create a balanced and healthy environment at home and at the hospitals.
As I have always been interested in neuroscience, keen to understand how our brains work, and now it was imperative to learn how best help us deal with anxiety, stress and fear and regain some sense of normalcy. I went neck deep in research and focused specifically on emotional wellbeing and elimination of anxiety. It occurred to me that all human suffering stems from some kind of fear or lack – not being good enough, not being smart enough, not having enough experience, knowledge, education, time etc. I thought that if only we could find a way to remove those fears, help people discover their true power, imagine how different human experience would be, what an entirely different world we would create if more people allowed themselves to explore and live their full potential.
In 2021 I became a certified neurocoach, studying under researcher Mark R. Waldman and neuroscientist Andrew Newberg.
So what exactly is neurocoaching and how can it help everyone? It is an emerging field that combines principles of neuroscience, psychology and coaching to enhance performance and well-being. It grew out of the past 20 years of brain scan research and looks for the simplest and most effective ways to reduce emotional stress and find creative solutions that lead to happiness and success. These mindfulness-based strategies have been shown to be far more effective than the current psychological models because they help balance out three key brain networks in a way that promotes optimal psychological health.
These experiential exercises are easy to learn and to pass on to others. The beauty of neurocoaching is that you don’t need to be a trained therapist because these evidence-based strategies can be practiced alone or between friends and can be easily brought into the classroom or the board room. Let me share these techniques, so you can help yourself whenever you need to centre, calm, slow down.
“Not to spoil the ending but everything is going to be OK”.
One of my all-time favourite techniques is a super slow mindful yawn combined with an equally slow stretch. The slower you go, the better. It’s a thermo-regulator for the brain, it increases blood flow, it can reduce migraines, hypertension and chronic pain, and we use it mostly to decrease anxiety and to balance ourselves throughout the day. Give it a try, you’ll be amazed at how effective those yawns are!
Want to reduce anxiety with just one word? I promise it’s not too good to be true! Another stress-reducing technique backed by neuroscience is now available to everyone. While applying the stretch and yawn technique, ask your intuition for your deepest inner value. What’s the first word that comes up for you? Breathe in your value word, breathe out your value word.
Connecting with your deepest inner-most values on an hourly basis will help you feel grounded and secure. This technique is a perfect way to reduce anxiety quickly and regain balance.
Gentle hand rubbing is a neuroscience-based technique that can calm you down, and soothe your mind and body. It’s been clinically proven that anxiety and pleasure cannot coexist, and pleasure always overrides pain. It’s super easy to do - just a minute at any time - and it can be practised anywhere. Start by gently rubbing one hand with the other and notice how your brain begins to relax.
Practice this whenever you start feeling anxious or overwhelmed, or if you need to calm down before making an important decision, taking an exam or going into an important meeting.
A great way to end the day, gratitude journaling has been proven to enhance our positive emotions and happiness. Each night, before bed, write down 3 things you're grateful for. Only the good stuff. Nothing too long - it's just a quick awareness to bring yourself back to what's important.
This is my personal favourite and I’ve been writing for the past 5 or 6 years. I’ve never felt the urge to journal, but this is so different, just 3-5 bullet points before I go to bed and I love reading what happened that day a year ago. The key is to really feel the emotion, rather than just say I’m grateful for my mum’s pancakes this morning. The idea is to feel what you felt when you just experienced it.
“The active neurons related to gratitude reflections have longer axons than other neurons sometimes by a factor of three. In my clinical experience, writing out lists daily in a gratitude journal appears to embrace the capacities of the salience network in some way and the outcomes in terms of life satisfaction, happiness and emotional balance far outweigh the effort and time expended," says Michael Kirton, clinical psychologist, Sydney, who has been supporting our neurocoaching programme for young people.
On the 13th of March 2022, Masha earned her place out of the physical plane of this earth after more than two years of treatment for cancer. Thanks to her I have found my calling. I know that as I go through life and make my way back to her, I’m on a mission to help people find themselves, giving them the confidence and the tools early on to make life worthwhile. Now, more than a year since her passing, I am building YungMash Collective, the foundation aimed at providing peer-to-peer support to young people by offering free neurocoaching around the world. Everyone who joins Yungmash collective starts off as a mentee, which gives you a group session every Wednesday and access to a mentor. Following a 25-week course you have a chance to become a mentor. This means you still have a group session on Wednesdays but now you’re also given an hour a week with a ‘yungmaster’, our certified neurocoaches who are based in various parts of the world and speak English, German, French, Hebrew, Russian and Norwegian.
The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent isolation requirements have dramatically impacted the lives of people of all ages, but adolescents and young adults have been particularly effected. Survey after survey demonstrates the magnitude of the problem and its complexity, effecting all aspects of life and social demographics. We’re seeing an increase in eating disorders, higher rates of depression, anxiety, loneliness and suicide globally. Yet, the pandemic only highlighted what most of us already knew – levels of anxiety among young people worldwide have been steadily on the rise for the past 60 years, hitting an all-time high during Covid.
Our slogan - “We rise by lifting others” - embodies everything we stand for. By building yourself up through our mentoring, you empower yourself to discover your strengths, your creativity, your drive and your ability to help others empower themselves too. Research shows that strong community ties play a tremendous role in improving outlook on life, higher levels of life satisfaction and wellbeing. Humans thrive in groups where members feel they can rely and trust one another and those bonds allow people to maintain healthy emotional states.
And the collective seems to be changing the lives of some of its young mentees. As Cameron McBride, 23, says: “I was always inspired by Masha’s drive to be there for anyone she could and poured effort into those that just needed someone to talk to. She isn’t just someone who would listen either, she made you feel heard and would be the only person to be brave enough to say what you needed to hear. Having the Collective carry that ethos of spreading ceaseless love and support with a goal of self-development is truly unique. From the Collective I have gained a mental wellness toolkit to use at any time of the day that allows me to inject positive change and mindfulness into my daily life. I can use the techniques in any situation, choosing the best one with a given context to keep myself calm, such as slow hand rubbing instead of yawning at an interview.”
And Aya Guamaz, 23, says when she thinks about what the collective has done for her, she thinks of these three words: ‘growth, confidence and community’, whilst Yeva Kebabdjian, 17, adds: “As a young person who faces life’s uncertainties and is only just discovering who I am, a community such as this one, has brought people together who all have one common goal, and that is to spread love. Masha, our founder and boss, has brought us together and unified us, her determination to make this world a better place, lives on in the collective.”
