Empowering Women in Chiropractic - Turning Baby Talk into Tech Talk

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Hello everybody and happy December! Dr. B and Elizabeth here to share some techno savvy knowledge for y'all, something like that. Anyway, ChiroSecure, thank you for giving us this time and this opportunity. We are super excited.

Share some, what we think are some great pearls of wisdom for you to help with your community and your practice patients and so forth to let them let them know the ins and outs about technology and the developing brain and the older brain too. So we're going to have some fun and we're going to give you some little a ha things to think about, but We're going to put Elizabeth to bed for a nap for just a minute or two as we hang out.

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So let's talk technology. First of all, one thing that I want you to get from this is how you can frame this for your parents, caregivers, teachers, counselors, whatever. You can use the analogy of good food versus bad food, right? There's junk food and there's jerk food. Just eat real food, healthy food.

And both of those affect the brain and the body in different trajectories, right? Junk food we know is not going to give us the nutrients we need, is not going to be healthy for the body and the brain, etc. And a good wholesome food is what we want to try to advocate. Technology is the same thing. Look, it's not going to go away.

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Okay, it's here. It's here to stay. It's forever. We know that. There are actually some good benefits for technology. and the developing brain and the older brain and the aging brain. Okay. But it's understanding and knowing what might be healthy and what is not healthy. And that's changing all the time because technology is changing all the time and new programs and new games and everything's coming out.

So it's, it is very, it's, It can be very stressful and cumbersome for parents. So number one rule is we do want to get parents engaged in what their fiddle farts, their children, their teens, what they have access to. Okay. So that's one thing. And again, it's takes a little time and a little research for parents, but they should be seeing.

Mindful. The other thing, number two, is parents really need to be they need to be demonstrating good technology habits as well. Okay, so that's gonna be really important. So let's dive into a few things about how it can change and alter our brain function and how that can translate into things like learning attention behavior test taking.

First of all, attention and focus, one of the things we're having trouble with is with these fast paced games their attention and focus is being so distracted and constantly being, squirrel here, squirrel there. So when they get into an environment where they have to have prolonged attention spans like school and test taking, their brains cannot switch over anymore.

It's boring. How many kids is there saying Oh, school's boring. That, we probably said it too, right? But school, that's boring. I don't like it. It's boring. Because literally, the average American has the attention span of a goldfish. No lie. It is that bad. It's just a few seconds. So we have to understand how if these little fiddle farts are on these, and it's not just games and Gameboys and those gaming systems.

It's actually television and programming movies and such too, because they've learned how to change the pixelation and so forth to make, even on a subconscious level, our brain flicker between attention. This also changes cognition. One of the things we're seeing is lack of better term, accumulative memory.

Okay, where we're reducing learning and memory efficiency and bundling information together to take that information and make it usable in future scenarios and relatable in future scenarios. So learning, attention cognition, okay. Lack of movement. Of course, we know if we're sitting all day and they're at these devices, lack of movement.

Movement is needed for brain function. It's brain health. Not just body health, but brain health, movement, lack of being outside. There's actually a thing called nature deficit disorder, because being outside in the sunshine and moving and, um, getting dopamine and serotonin hits from the sunshine and from moving is extremely important.

And motor movement is extremely important, especially for the developing brain and to sustain the brain in our adulthood adult years as well. Thank you. Now social engagement is becoming even more challenging. Let's take the preteen, teen years. We know that social challenges are a big thing with social media and TikTok and all those different things that I don't even know all of them.

So we want, we were worried about body imaging and cyberbullying and all that, that comes along feeling less than, left out, all those things. But one of the big emerging things about the social emotional part of technology is these upcoming bots. They're called, I think Google's is called Character AI, but basically there's these, you can build a bot companion.

So you can build an avatar and as a friend, and you can text with this bot or I get audit. I don't have one, so I don't know, but you can speak with the bot, on your phone or whatever. And this becomes your bot advisor, friend, client. kind of person, which is very scary because A, we're worried about more social isolation less social engagement skills.

A survey that came out earlier in this year looked at new college graduates when they went for an interview and about 53 percent of new college graduates do not have, could not sustain eye contact during an interview. That is very alarming because what that means is if we don't have social engagement skills with others and within our environment, that means the executive functioning part of our brain that helps us be reasonable, rational, impulse control, socially engaged is not where we need it to be.

So these statistics are very alarming, but going back to these bots. There are currently now that I know of two lawsuits going on. One is of a nine year old and I don't know how they were allowed to get access to building one of these bots. And unfortunately there was some sexually explicit innuendos and so forth that this bot was translating to this nine year old.

The other case is a 17 year old where the 17 year old was. with this bot and talking about how frustrated he was or mad or angry, whatever that his parents set a limitation on his technology time. And apparently this bot becomes your friend and relayed to the 17 year old that they felt it was okay, they could understand why teens would harm their parents for limiting them from these things.

from their social media or technology time. So these are two lawsuits that are out there right now. So we need to be savvy. I am not tech savvy. I try to keep up on things because of the kiddos and families that I see in my practice. So I have some semblance of. Knowledge of what's going on, but also to help educate my parents.

'cause a lot of parents don't know this either their kids are in their rooms and they're building these bots or whatever. And this is underlying things that can be going on. So we can be a good vehicle for knowledge and education within our practices. And we're gonna talk about some fun things that you can do as a campaign in your office.

in the coming year. But hold on, we'll get there. So that's the older child in regards to some social concerns that we're talking about. For the little fiddle farts, especially in the first couple years of life this being on tech devices, it takes away from their own social engagement time with humans.

And especially their caregivers, and we need babies, kiddos, need this social engagement time. Those first two years postnatally are absolutely critical for this. In order to build social engagement skills, in order to bond with others, especially their caregivers, what we call co regulate and bond. And that translate into self regulation.

So when I get older now, I can self regulate. I can self calm. I have a self sense of identity. And that is called introception, which is so critically huge for, learning attention behavior but emotional and mental health. So again, and it also, we're seeing the little kiddos, if they're on tech time, their language skills are delayed.

There's a delayed or absence of language development because we need this social engagement context and time for good language development. All right, so we're going to talk about some rules of thumbs of how much different age groups should or should not get of tech time. But these are really hardcore things we need to think about.

Sleep. Sleep disturbances, not just from the blue light, but if they've got this overstimulation and overactivity, going on and all this sensory stuff bouncing around on the brain. They're going to be hard to get to sleep. Sleep is our repair time. It's a repair mechanism. There's a lot of fun stuff coming out in sleep now.

And if you want to translate this to the older generation and to parents a lot of especially with the GLP ones and weight loss and so forth being a big hit these days. A lot of information is coming about sleep and that's our time to repair and to set our metabolism and set brain chemicals.

So this is going to foster optimal development and metabolic control for your little fiddle farts so technology can mess with sleep. And what else do we want to talk about? We want to talk about different brain building regions, all right? What I, where I phrase this with. With the older population, it's like going to the gym and let's say the only thing I'm going to do at the gym is work out my biceps or triceps.

I'm just gonna work out my arms. That's it. So I'm gonna have these big arms and nothing else. It's the same thing with technology, depending on what their, what program they're involved in, but definitely these overstimulating ones, a lot of these games and so forth, they're going to build different areas of the brain.

You're going to build different areas of the brain that are going to be exercised. and get bigger because of the stimulation they're getting from these games. And these areas happen to be commonly related with our defense our anger and defense area. And our mood disorders, the amygdala and our award addiction areas.

So you can talk to parents about that's the same thing as being addicted to drugs or alcohol or sex or gambling. Those are the areas of the brain you're building up in these kiddos. So it stands to reason that you take that away. Video game rage is a real thing. They take the tech devices away, especially in those pre teen years and so forth.

And they go berserk o brain because they're not getting their hit, their addiction. And that area of the brain is literally growing. Now the worrisome thing about this with regards to neuroscience is they say that particularly Especially on the early days of using these devices, a new video game, Fortnite, whatever they are, the brain will initially adapt.

So that area of the brain gets bigger, more solid is used more. It's got more territory in the brain. And so it builds up bigger, but then after a while it stops quote unquote growing or gaining ground, gaining real estate in the brain. The worrisome thing about that, it's like. alcohol addiction or gambling or any other addictive disorder.

The individual wants more and more. And so that's why a lot of times they can't get enough of these games and you take them away and you're in big trouble. So that, which we feed the brain gets bigger in those areas. So those are some things to think about. And all of this, of course, plays a big role in emotional stability.

And social engagement. So those are some things that we want to think about. And yes, technology is also shown to thin different brain regions out like the hippocampus, our memory center. All right. And that's across all ages and all stages, including adults as well. So there are some good pearls that you should understand about what technology is doing in the brain.

Now, again, it's like good food and bad food. There are some programs out there that are actually seen to help foster good brain connectivity and good cognitive cognitive skills and so forth. Okay. But we've got to be savvy and understand what these kiddos are being exposed to. Time, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, kiddos 18 months and younger should have zero, zero time on technology.

Where's my hand? There we go. Zero time on technology. That includes TV. All right. Between the ages of two and five. Ready for this? One hour a day. Good. Technology experiences, healthy techno technological experiences, only one hour a day between the ages of two and five. So these are, these are, and this concludes again, any screen time, TV time, you name it.

All right. So those are big challenges to take aboard. There's been a couple fun studies. I think they're fun, but where they looked at. School age kiddos and learning, one was reading on a technological device versus reading from an old fashioned book like old farts have done, okay? And they found better reading comprehension and so forth from a textbook from black and white print on a book than reading on a screen device.

So we need to keep those things in the context because we're having a lot more kiddos struggling with reading and reading comprehension skills. The other one that was quite fun was typing versus writing. And actually guess which one won out is the old fashioned writing on a piece of paper. Because the brain, these motor movements and these interactive motor activities that we're doing, it has much more of a bigger imprint than on the brain for long term memory and usage.

And the reading one, by the way, they saw that if the caregivers, if the parents were engaged in reading with the kiddos when in the younger years, that was even better for learning. So some good things to think about there. So what I want to give you is a potential fun challenge. You can use this in your practices.

With regard to reactivation, a lot of times people during the holidays, patients, they drop off for a little bit because they're like, Oh my God, I'm so busy. I can't get in. I've got all these Christmas parties and this parties and we're traveling to Aunt Martha's and we're flying here and we're, and then they forget to reschedule come the new year and get back in a routine and get back on track.

So we can use this little campaign that I'm going to lay out for you to reactivate patients and get them engaged. You can use it for yourself. to have a, what I call a January thaw. So you can do this in January, you can do it in February, you can do it in the spring, but I'm just calling it the January thaw because it is nice to try to do a booster campaign at the beginning of the year when things are a lull, people are after the holidays, that's the biggest time for depression and so forth.

The hit is after the holidays. Used to be during the holidays. Now it's right after the holidays. And then if you have seasonal affective disorder or anything like that. So good time to use it as January thaw. Thaw from technology. And yes, docs, that means you and your staff as well. What you can do is, again, you can do this in many different ways.

Those of you that are part of our Academy of Neurodevelopmental Practices on our foundations level, we have a whole campaign on your dashboard for this. What you can do is you can do a challenge. All right. Whether you do it a week, you do it the whole month of January or February or whatever, two weeks, whatever you guys determine.

Okay. And you can say, okay, we're going to either try for zero screen time, or that's sometimes, it's most time unfeasible, not feasible, because A lot of parents that their, this, their phone is their only phone and they need it to get in contact with. So we can say, okay, an hour of screen time, a fun time a day, whatever that is, social media, whatever you want.

And then of course have your phone in case you need to make phone calls or text your kiddos or whatever. All right. Those are some usage parameters, but the rest of the time we're going to try to do a January thought. And that means that when we're at home as a family, and you can, again, make this a competition or a challenge within your practice, let's see what families, how many families can get through a month or a week doing this.

When you guys come home, you're going to all put your devices in a phone booth. And the little fiddle farts, the younger fiddle farts, they can get some boxes or an old refrigerator box, go to the appliance store and ask them if you can get a RefrigeratorBox and decorate it like an old phone booth, show them what an old phone booth looked like, what it was, yeah, how you had to have a dime to put in to make a phone call.

Have a little bit of fun with it. So when you're at home, the devices go in the phone booth, except for an hour a day. And instead of being on devices, we're going to have family time. We're going to have one night a week as we're going to read. A book together. Okay. We're going to play games. We're going to draw, we're going to do, we're going to do crafts, whatever it is that's in lieu of your separate room, not gathering together, family time.

And you can suggest different activities that they go out there on, on an order or buy and get these things all prepared. You can have a book lending library in your office where patients come and. One family read that book one week and the other family read that book and you can have a little book box in your offices and families can draw books from there.

You can have a game box. Okay, different patients, you guys can all donate different games and families can rotate games. You can have a game challenge. We have multiple families are playing one particular game and what family can gain the most points or whatever. Just have fun with this. You can, if they're going on a ski vacation.

A, they're getting out, they're moving around, they're having ski time. They put their phones away. They take pictures. Make sure you're HIPAA compliant HIPAA. If they take pictures of their vacation, you might want to get like a string, a piece of string or something and through the hallway and they can put their pictures on there.

Get a signed release. For every person in that picture and have it on file that you're allowed to put that up in your office. Okay. And they can write a blurb about their family vacation together. You can have a contest, right? You can have this and have pieces of paper of day one, day two, day three, four, five, whatever of your tech, And every time they come in, they get a star and they can put it on.

Okay, I'm on day three without technology. And you can, and then all the patients in your practice can see. Oh my gosh, there's people that made it to day 7 and there's 16 stars on there. Dang, I missed out. I only made it to day 2. But give them a challenge. Have some fun with it. Send out an email whatever to reactivate your patience.

Be part of our community. TechThaw campaign, come in because the other thing I'm going to do is we know these areas of the brain that technology short circuits in our brain. So come in to get your chiropractic adjustment because we know from neuroscience, from chiropractic neuroscience, we know that there's, we can help reorganize these neural circuits in our brain.

Not only are we going to help you dethaw from technology, we're going to help you reignite family time and come back in and get on a schedule so that you can get your brain changing chiropractic adjustment at the same time and use that as a re entry kind of tool right there. Hopefully that gives you some ideas for mull it around with your staff, get your staff involved too.

How long can they be without technology? Especially, and you might want to lay the parameters, okay, tech, okay, zero screen time when it comes to social media, playing games, and all that type of thing. But just use it for those daily skilled things that you need to accomplish. So hopefully that helps.

And again, we're wishing you all the merriest of Christmas, the best holidays. Let's roll the tide in 25 and let's change some lives. And on behalf of me, Elizabeth and ChiroSecure, have an amazing holiday and we will see you in January. during your January Thaw.

The children was brought to you by ChiroSecure.

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