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There are two sides to our autonomic nervous system – the sympathetic (fight or flight) system whose purpose is to protect, and the parasympathetic (rest and digest) system whose purpose is to restore health.
These systems are never fully in balance – one is always stronger than the other, but they can be in harmony with each other, where each system quietly goes about its work.
When out of balance, it is usually because the sympathetic system is reacting to either a real or perceived danger. Perceived danger can show up as worry, anxiety, or simply reliving past events. Hormones like epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol are released to sharpen the reflexes, and to provide a short term boost to strength and stamina. When repeatedly triggered, this flood of hormones can cause real harm, like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancers, and more.
According to an international poll, only 31% of employees in Canada and the United States are engaged in their work. 51% are not engaged, and 18% are actively disengaged – they actually sabotage the efforts of others.
There are as many reasons for this as there are employees. For some, the job is simply not a fit. For others, stress both from the workplace and at home have made the job untenable. Workplace culture also has an impact.
When your employees are engaged, when they are having fun, when they are recognized and appreciated for their contribution, they will be engaged, their passion will shine, and their performance will be strengthened.
This is the power of an Emergent WorkForce™.
The sympathetic system activates when facing real danger, or when it perceives a threat, which could be real or imagined. The amygdala immediately takes control. Its role is to trigger the stress response, shutting off the thinking brain and reverting to the emotional brain and memory to react quickly. When in danger, there is no time to waste in a debate with yourself. This process is intended to activate, and then to dissipate when the danger passes. It should be gone in under 90 seconds.
However perceived stress can reactivate the stress response, or even keep it from dissipating. When that happens, the thinking brain is literally hijacked by the amygdala; it is difficult to think clearly and creativity evaporates. One of our clients likened his project management team to being frozen like ‘deer caught in the headlights’.
The role of the Emergent WorkForce™ is to provide powerful tools (using sound and music, emotional intelligence, perceptual intelligence, and mindfulness and more) to break the cycle, restoring your employees to the brilliance that was present when they first joined your organization.
Happiness is a state of being that human beings naturally strive for. Until recently, being happy at work has not been a major business goal. This perspective is changing. Research shows
This session will explore the following topics to provide a framework upon which to build a plan for personal and workplace happiness:
Hearing is not listening. Hearing is the act of perception by our auditory system. It just happens, unless you are hearing impaired. Active listening is a learned skill that requires attention, interpretation and understanding. It is an essential skill in communication. People that excel have honed their ability to listen.
We listen with more than our ears. We listen with our entire being. The body listens through receptors in the skin, bone conduction, endocrine response and so much more. The heart is an indomitable ‘tone of voice’ detector as it listens for emotional resonance. All of this and more, contributes to how we ‘listen’.
By expanding our experience of listening, we hone this essential skill. The Sound Wellness Triple-I System™ will be introduced, and participants will use this tool to evaluate their experience throughout the program, and beyond. The Triple-I System stands for Investigate, Implement, and Integrate.
This module will enable participants to practice applying emotional intelligence techniques towards creating a collaborative environment. Participants will expand their emotional literacy, enhancing their resilience and adaptability.
They will learn how to ‘attune’ to others and create conditions for collaborative change.
This segment is highly experiential. Concepts are entrenched through the use of Emotional Intelligence Level 1 Card Decks (provided in the course materials).
Learning Outcomes:
Note: This module is required in the ‘Breakdown to Breakthrough’ program. It is available in our 3 / 4 / 5 day programs for an additional fee of $150, which covers the cost of the materials and instructor. It is not available in our other one day programs.
The interactive game presented in this segment effectively illuminates the need for clear, concise communication. Engagement in the game illustrates the frustration and breakdown that quickly occur with lack of information and clarity of purpose. Discussion after the game reveals the unseen barriers that can exist between levels of management and promotes a team approach to improving communication within your organization.
Note: This module is included in the ‘Breakdown to Breakthrough’ program. It is available in our 3 / 4 / 5 day programs for an additional fee of $25, which covers the cost of the materials and instructor. It is not available in our other one day programs.
We begin with a brief introduction to the program. This will include the format of the learning experiences, simple ground rules, and expectations.
Allotted Time: ½ hour per day
Each day (after the first) begins with a 30 minute review of the prior session, as well as a sharing of the outcomes and learning from the exercises that participants complete between sessions.
Presentation of certificates of Achievement, completion of evaluation forms, closing.
You deserve radiant health!
Nancy Addison’s focus is on an optimal diet that will supply the basic needs of the body and fortify the body’s defenses, thereby improving health, increasing vitality, delivering greater longevity and preventing diseases associated with aging. These include heart disease, age-related muscle loss and fat gain, memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, and the physical effects of aging.
Her message to audiences is simple:” We can’t control getting older, but if we learn how to take care of our bodies with proper nutrition and exercise, they will take care of us with great health and vitality”.
This module builds on “Optimum Health”.
When you know what to do, recovery from heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other diseases can be supported naturally, with some easy lifestyle and diet shifts.
Nancy Addison’s easy style guides you through some basic steps that can help your body on the road to health and well-being.
If you struggle with your weight and constantly seem to be on a diet, Nancy will discuss some proven and effective ways for you to lose weight and keep it off, as well as have more energy and good health, by simply adjusting your lifestyle and eating habits with her easy, inexpensive strategy!
h3>OPTIMUM HEALTH
When you give your body the right tools, it can do miraculous things!
Nancy Addison will join us from Dallas to guide you in fun and captivating ways, as you discover simple and easy-to-implement ways to shift your life into a healthy way of living. She will expand on proper hydration, optimum fats, sugar and carbohydrates. Nancy will show you how to have radiant health from the inside out.
What are your health goals? Do you want to run a marathon, achieve your ideal weight, improve your flexibility, or to stay fit and healthy throughjout your life? This module looks at life goals, and through exercise, breathing techniques, appropriate rest, and available resources, we explore how to achieve those goals.
Building on the ‘Office Fitness’ module, we look at ways to bring fitness home. There are many ways to incorporate an easy to follow fitness program, from walks to swimming, to shoveling the driveway. They all come with the benefit of supporting a healthy body, one that is more resistant to disease, one that has the energy to do things with friends and family, and one that strengthens performance.
This is a simple movement exercise designed to enhance the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain.
While the two hemispheres act largely independently, there is a great deal of communication between the two halves. Much of the interpretation of our environment, and even of speech depends on this, but exercises such as ‘Brain Dance’ strengthen the communication between the two hemispheres, significantly increasing brain function.
The mind then becomes more awakened, focused, and more powerful yet more peaceful. By integrating both hemispheres of your brain and allowing them to work in sync, there is an increase in overall mental health, enhancing cognitive performance, improved memory and intellectual functioning.
** As exercises last only a few minutes, and are interspersed throughout the program, no time is allotted for this module.
Keeping the mind and body well oxygenated is essential for peak performance, yet sitting for extended periods reduces blood flow in the upper body, with the corresponding drop in oxygen to the brain. Using deep breathing techniques, coupled with simple movement that can be done in the office, oxygen levels can be restored, invigorating the body and mind.
This module builds on the learning and experiences of the ‘Discovering Mindfulness” module as we delve deeper into mindfulness practices that help us understand how we can improve communications by being mindful in our interactions with others.
Learn simple tips that make a big difference… and create a more peaceful, co-operative environment in your workplace.
Mindfulness has a significant impact on communication and safety. It is a proven way to reduce stress and improve health (physical, emotional and mental), thereby reducing absenteeism.
In this interactive session you’ll discover what mindfulness is and how it works. You’ll also learn simple, effective mindfulness tools – such as meditative and breathing techniques to increase Presence, Calm, Focus and Performance – and have some fun! Thirty+ years of research show Mindfulness benefits to also include Reduced Anxiety and Depression, Improved Attitudes and Strengthened Relationships.
The Mindfulness module of our Sound Wellness training provides effective tools and techniques to help you incorporate Mindfulness (defined as being fully present to the moment in non-judgmental awareness) into all aspects of your personal and professional life to feel calmer, more relaxed, yet focused, and enrich your interpersonal relations.
This module builds on the learning and experiences of the ‘Building Resilience’ module with understanding the connection between the stress response and hormone production and the link between emotions and ‘personal magnetism’.
Practical techniques are explored to create personal breakthroughs in managing relationships, improving personal outlook in life and improving individual performance.
Based on the principals of HeartMath®, participants will explore how the autonomic nervous system behaves under stress, and understanding that, they will develop the ability to tune into their body to head-off the stress response.
Most of us are unaware of when we are stressed. Others wear stress as a “badge of honour”. Neither of these support us. This module will focus on two coherence building techniques that arrest the stress response and improve the ability to maintain composure under stress.
This module explores the most powerful community builder humanity has – playing music together. (Absolutely no musical experience is required for this exercise, and often the less musical knowledge – the better!) 
When we play music together, there is a battery of hormones released by the nervous system, including Oxytocin, the bonding hormone, Dopamine, the ‘feel good’ hormone, Immunoglobulin A (IgA) an important immune system antibody, Serotonin, which regulates the sleep/waking cycle, and Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), Growth hormone (GH), and B-endorphin (B-EP), all helpful in supporting our immune function.
Working with a variety of simple rhythm instruments, participants will first play simple songs as a group, and will then split into smaller groups where they will explore music with their team. This is an excellent team-building exercise, that comes with impressive health benefits.
It’s not always possible to release strong emotions when they come up, and so we tend to carry the remnants of the emotional trauma within us – each of us to a greater or lesser degree.
The challenge emerges when we fail to deal with them. The emotional trauma often manifests itself as an ache that won’t go away, as muscle tension, as digestive concerns, or lethargy among others. Over time, we tend to get comfortable with them.
Comfortable with being Uncomfortable!
An emotional release is completed simply and easily, without the need of a “story” or excuses.
One of the most powerful tools you have to navigate through everyday life is your voice. It is one of those things that, like air, is always there, but we pay little attention to it. Your voice is your communication center. And it communicates both verbally and non-verbally. Your voice communicates from many different aspects of who you are.
Some of these ways are:
In this module we will explore understanding tone of voice and how it shows up in communication. We will experience how the voice of the body stimulates the natural healing response. We will explore the critical voice of the mind and how to use it as the learning tool it is designed for. And we will explore how to listen to the soul’s voice.
There is a growing body of research that documents the benefits of gratitude. Experiments have confirmed an immediate increase in happiness, reduction in depressive symptoms, and increased wellbeing. These benefits have lasting effects on the brain and the individual.
Much of our angst, our negativity, depression, and even much of our own self esteem, comes from our perceptions. This module is about observing and understanding those perceptions through the eyes of perceptual intelligence. It’s very easy to cling to the negative, while setting aside all the positives that influence us every day. In this segment, participants investigate the power of gratitude to shift perception resulting in a complete shift of emotional state.
We all have our own perceptions. It has been said that there is no one truth for our individual truths have been coloured by our perceptions and beliefs, our upbringing and past experience – just as our vision is coloured when wearing a pair of sunglasses.
This module is an awakening to our perceptual filters, and explores ways to understand how perceptual filters affect communication – opening the door to kindness, wisdom and compassion.
This is the foundation for those working with others, as it opens an individual to recognizing, and even expecting different points of view.
Sometimes when your computer is running slow, when it feels like it’s getting bogged down, all that it needs is a reset. Often, we’re no different. When we are feeling bogged down with a problem, creative solutions can be hard to come by.
Tibetan Singing bowls were traditionally used as an aid for a meditation practice, but they do much more. The slow repetitive movement of the playing stick creates an instant physical relaxation response, while calming emotions and focusing the mind, so there is greater access to creative solutions and inspiration. The Tibetan Singing Bowl can act like the restart button on the computer. They are natural stress-busters that can stimulate the natural healing ability of the body.
This module explores the origin of the Tibetan singing bowls, how they were used, and how we can use them today to achieve calm, centeredness, inspiration and improved wellbeing.
The Nitric Oxide cycle is one of the most important natural cycles in our bodies, supporting our immune system, the digestive tract, and the cardiovascular system. The Nitric Oxide molecule is involved in almost every function of the body. 
However, it can be easily suppressed by stress, by fatigue, or illness, with short term and long term consequences.
Scientific study has validated that specific frequencies of sound can stimulate this vital process in our cells, supporting overall health and well-being. One of the most powerful of these frequencies is reproduced by the Perfect 5th tuning forks which can stimulate the nitric oxide cycle, in less than 30 seconds.
This module will explore the science and the use of this simple tool. Because it is so important, each person will be provided with a set of the Perfect 5th tuning forks for their own use.
Guided Imagery has been used by top performers like Dennis Rodman and Tiger Woods with amazing results. Guided Imagery can also be used to enhance performance, support wellness, reduce blood pressure, and more. This module explores how Guided Imagery can support and reinforce individual goals.
Integration Benefits:
There are always distractions in an office environment. From the sound of a phone ringing, conversations in the hall, or a photocopier, or printer working away to name but a few. The distractions are compounded as more businesses shift to cubicles, which have been shown to reduce productivity by up to 60%.
This module explores the options to counter the noise and regain some of the lost productivity.
Brainwave entrainment is a thousands of years old practice.
The left hemisphere of the brain is associated with logic and speech, while the right hemisphere is associated with emotions and creativity. Research has demonstrated that using entrainment frequencies enhances the capacity of the brain by synchronizing the hemispheres. This expands a person’s abilities and talents, and supports physical well-being, while reducing the body’s response to stress.
Coupled with the right sounds and music, brainwave entrainment can be a great tool to improve focus and concentration, enhance creativity, and more.
This module delves into the use of Applied Psychoacoustic Music.
Psychoacoustics is simply the study of the effect that sound and music has on us.
Applied Psychoacoustic Music is the application of that knowledge in designing music to create specific results. This is done by slowing the beat of music to slow the heartbeat, creating relaxation. The resonance of certain instruments can help enhance concentration and focus. And more.
This is essentially engineered music, designed to aid sleep, increase focus and concentration, heighten creativity, and more.
The Science of Sound is an explanation of how sound works, and why it is such a powerful tool to support your health and well-being.
Because many of our participants already understand most of the theory, and because it’s not critical to the learning during the program, this will be a summary only.
Participants in the program will have access to a video discussing the Science of Sound in greater detail.