Hello, everyone. Welcome to our talk and this is also Zeradex. Can hackers launch a Zeradex attack on populars of wear only with Chromium in this talk? I will introduce how we use Chromium in this pop-up computer in many populars of wear, hoping to draw attention to browser security and applications of wear. This is our first DevCon presentation. Let's introduce ourselves first. We are all security researchers at TASID Security I'm Bo Hanliu, made engaged in browser security. I'm also a Google Chrome bug hunter. And Zhong Wang is our co-speaker. He made engaged in browser security and kernel security. He found several bugs in Apple Safari, Linux kernel, and VirtualBox. Another co-speaker is Guan Zhongli. He is co-founder and former captain of RecaPig CTM team. He previously focused on system and software security. Currently focused on LLM with security. There are six sections in this talk. Let's begin. First is introduction. As a browser security researcher, I researched the Chromium bugs for wear and wrote many end-day exploits. And I can do a little reversing, but I know little about web security. Given those skills, Kevin zeroed the RCE bugs in public software. And if so, what can I do to make this work easier? Now let's take a look at how Chromium has been integrated into public software. Firstly, there is Chromium-based development, which includes default mobile browsers. Second, there are browser component for various programming language. For example, the Electro framework is primarily used for a software development of Node.js, for C++, Java, and Dolphin language. CEF is also a commonly used library. Additionally, the QT web engine plugins is commonly used in QT. And the Chromium may also be present in other popular sublaying chains. So Chromium is an error-variant software. Based on data from CV and Google Project Zero, Chromium may be found around 3,300 vulnerabilities with CV ID each year. Of those, around 10 vulnerabilities each year are from in-the-world attacks. And also many of those vulnerabilities can be transferred into random RSEs through detailed analysis. Those vulnerabilities can also be introduced into popular software through the sublaying chain mentioned above. Google has an old ITU 12 vulnerability explorer. And the bug tail will be made public after being fixed 40 weeks with the bug tail. And you need to test the impact. Attackers can quickly make its private code. Sometimes it's even a zero debug for the stable version of Chrome itself. We strongly oppose the disclosure of vulnerability details before they are fixed. But it has to see, hackers has a lot of prior knowledge for Chromium-based software attacks. Therefore, we conducted the experiment on some popular software to see how long the introduction of those vulnerabilities can have an impact. Let's start with the definition of RCE window period. RCE windows period equals the time the vulnerabilities was fixed in the software. Minus the time the vulnerability was exploitable. This is hard to precisely determine the T exploitable. We use a new calculation method to roughly describe software's RCE windows period. The method is called active gate, which is the time difference between the software's update type and its Chromium component update type. The larger the difference, the higher the likelihood of the software being exploitable during the period. In our experiment, we select some popular software on the market, including Slack, Skype, Discord, and others. The experiment was divided into three styles. The first step, we download the software's old version through mirror state. The second step was to identify the browser component in the software, their version, and the release dates. In the second step, we calculated the active gate to describe the software's RCE windows period. We use our database, which concludes over 200 POCs to assess in testing. Those POCs were used to search for high risk exploitable vulnerabilities during the period. The final results are varied greatly, with difference of software having update gate, ranging from nine to 800 days. Wavebox's Chromium component was relatively independent and updated more frequently on the other hand, Dropbox hardly updated its Chromium component. The rest of the software mainly used the Electron or LabCF component, which most update periods over 90 days. Some software has a longer update period. This code has an average update time of 305 days. The shortest update period is over 70 days. As a result, 90 versions has a long RCE period, which was demonstrated at Black Hat USA in 2022. Other software such as Slack has more frequent updates with a path period of 30 days. However, when it hit a zero-day disclosure, they didn't deal with it in time. For example, Chromium zero-day bug was public disclosed on GitHub on April 2021, and Slack just released its new version the day before that day. However, it wasn't until June that the bug was patched. It has an RCE window period of almost two months. After analyzing updates, we have come to several conclusions. Firstly, RCE window period exists in most software, leaving attackers periods to find the bugs for exploring. Second, a software built on the Electron framework tend to have a shorter RCE window period due to the lower code company, which make updates easier to implement. Finally, we have observed that many companies has increased their update frequency at specific times. However, even with those effect, RCE window period still exists. Let's come to attack surface and vulnerability discovery. For desktop software, developers use browser components to display specific pages and trigger certain glance site behavior in specific scenarios, making glance site development more convenient and universal. However, for hackers, during the RCE window period, it's easy to launch zero-day RCE attacks when they can control the load in the page. This kind of attack has many advantages for hackers, such as having many exploits with end-day vulnerabilities and no domain-specific requirements. Therefore, our hackers need to find is a situation where they can control the loading page. So what's the scenarios that developers tend to overlook? The question is, what is the function of browser components? What code runs in the browser component? Let's start with how they are developed. For Electro, all codes are developed by Node.js. It's divided into main process and the render process, or communicate through IPC. All codes is stored in a resource filter and there are less modification to Electro framework code. So it's easy to locate the source code. If we can press, we can also recover them from the ASAR format. As for debugging, since there are less modification to Electro framework code, most of the time we can just use command blank to open internal development tools like ESPECT or remote debugging ports, just like this flag. Debugtron is a universal Electro framework debugging tools because C here is also competitive in this method. CEF is another popular component. Here we use libcfc++ library as an example. From the perspective of development, the code implanted by developers is divided into two parts. The private API function implanted by in C or C++ is used to impact the client behaviors that can't be implanted by browser components. The other part is the local resource code implanted by the HTML, which is the code running in the browser component and used it to display the interface. In the development logic, it initialized first and then registered a parsing and the processing logic of the privileged domain and then registered the privileged API function to form a jazz object for the local resource code to call. And finally, not the local resource from the perspective of the CEF library is actually a series of calls to exploit the function. For CEF, its feature exists in the form of a dynamic link library. And the use of CEF is more flexible and more check before use. A privileged API is implanted by C or C++ and the local resource code is implanted by HTML. And the location of the local resource file is uncertain and the file may be encrypted. So are there any common debugging method? Yes, you can hook the API in libcf and then get and modify what we want. For example, the developer will use the CEF stream reader create for file, CEF for zip reader create or other function to load the resource. We can get a field location and the encrypted password will hook in the info transfer between API functions as shown here. As for debugging, although developers call CEF initialize with static call pre-mentors, we can still dynamically modify the remote debugging port, a parameter to generate developed capabilities by hook. And we can also build more powerful debug tools as a development mode. Let's take a look at some cases that develops into our look. First is what list of loaded load. Developers are only allowed to use the browser components to open specific pages such as the official homepage. Other pages will be opened by default system browser maybe completed by calling shell is queued open. For example, SCAP has the same logic here. The first way to bypass check is the page directory direction. Here are three main ways. Have link navigation, three OX reduction, a JavaScript navigation. Its principle is that this kind of check is the handling click and then the page was loaded in Chromium component. And the subsequent jump in Chromium will no longer trigger the check logic again. So SSO is a good path to use as shown in the figure on the right. The following is a demo that use page redirection to imply RCE attack and software. For security region, all the software mentioned in this topic will not disclose the product information. Okay, after click, calculator is here. Another point is the check itself. Like incorrect regular expression or incorrect triple tech. This is another real world case. The check user a long regular expression. They ask check GPT and run here. It told me that there are many domain easily requested by hackers can pass the check. For example, ABCD JD.hk. This is the demo mentioned before. It's also an AM software. After bypassing the URL check, we can easily load our HTML code. We can easily pop up the calculator. In addition, another point is the special URL handler. There are two main aspects. One is the scheme adjusted in the system registry and the other is the custom domain adjusted in the browser component. This is the provided domain. It is easy to miss some check while operating in them. To follow is the demo use this method. We can see that AM software is a vulnerable area in this development case. Okay. The next is paid code injection. It's a class key pop, but let's focus on the unique aspects of XSS in Chromium based software. Here are three key differences. Firstly, XSS type. In Web Security, XSS typically includes reflective stored and DOM-based XSS. In Chromium based software, resources are often stored locally, so XSS in this context is typically DOM-based. Secondly, this vulnerability discovery method in Web Security, the code that handle a user input is typically located on the server side. So the bug discovered mainly through black box testing. However, with the code location tools, we previously developed with it. We can, Web Box code review in Chromium based software. Thirdly, the input source. In Web Security input, you really come from URL parameters or the database in Chromium based software. There may be fewer URL parameters, but more unique code input sources, which we will discuss in the next section. Based on those features, as a researcher, no little Web Security, I mainly use the following method to discover access to your local resources. Firstly, I use the tools we developed to decrypt local resources. Then I identified and protected the resources that result CSP. And filter out the input point that can be controlled. Finally, I trace wider, this input can trigger for the injection. This image is a real one case at all. I have abstracted the key code. And you can see that the get URL param function precise the parameters in the URL and put them into the page using inner HTML in two. Finally, leading to XSS. Another thing to notice that XSS vulnerability can also be introduced to the subline chain. For example, the ECU 2959 of TEPRO. A TEPRO can execute the JS code in TEPRO by exploring access to vulnerability in the mermaid library. And then use the provided API to achieve RCE. You can also use the Chrome and the vulnerabilities from two years ago, such as CVE, to 770 file or sellable to achieve RCE too. Here is a demo of the exploit for this case, which shows that a Chromium and a bug can also do the same things as a provided API bug. The app frame feature is often used in not taking all document applications to make a page display more convenient. However, when the scope of the app frame executes the limit, it can also cause security questions. This is more dangerous than in web security because it can be exploited without a provided API or specific domain need. We also find a RCE bug in a popular not taking software using this trick. We would have liked to release it here as an example, but it's being fixed, so we can't disclose it here. For desktop software, it may face much more complex situations than a website, such as no network or speed requirements. This requires some local cache to store this problem. We're reading or writing data. The cache is modified first and then updated with the server through communications. In this logic, the developer usually trusted the cache and don't check it again when updating or loading it. Cache data can exist locally in various format, both, such as database JSON or custom format. So how do we find them? The easy way is to monitor the program's fail read under write operations. The image on the right shows the applications that use SQLite to store cache data. You can see that when the database content is modified, there are no valid checks on the data when it's loaded, allowing any FRIM to be insert. Here is another interesting example. In a certain application, I found that the three-party components were added, the APE insert an FRIM here into the page. But the SRC attribute is strictly displayed here. But in the local cache, I found a custom property called HF. I modified it to access code and reopened the program. The page was modified to any HTML code here, which means that we bypassed the check by modifying the local cache. And another, when I assessed the web version of this APE, I found that the web page also changed to any HTML code here. This means that the server didn't check the update of the local cache and the vulnerabilities become stored XSS. Therefore, by using the code injection, we bypass the validation and achieve the RCE. And further, we polluted the server, which can lead to more remote attacks. Okay, some applications also allow developers to develop plugins and update them to the store. Use providing more convenient extension functions. Software gave plugins developers more functionality, but plugins usually need to be actually reviewed before put on the store. With the browser components, hackers may use it to bypass plugin reviews. For example, where plugin is reviewed, the page in the plugin is a normal page. But when it put on the market, the website is redirected to a page with expired code, thereby realizing a waterhole attack. The following is an example of entirely G IDEA software. The molecularest plugin is loaded and attacker can use the browser component to achieve RCE. So, where a plugin is reviewed is necessary by paying attention to the URL in it. Now in the video, we load the plugin. Okay, some functions may have a arbitrary page loading process such as a pre-rending of crawlers or nodes. For example, the pursuit was found in the RCE bug passive scanning function in 2021. Now our co-speaker, Wang Zhong, will give the other part of this talk. Thank you. Hello, everyone. I'm Wang Zhong, the co-speaker of this topic. I will finish the last part. Given the short duration of RCE window period, it is crucial to develop exploits quickly. When it comes to type vulnerabilities, a common technique is to use optimized functions to create the consistency that actually lead to type confusion. However, for use of free bugs, there doesn't seem to be a publicly universal exploit method. Here, we propose a universal exploit method for V8. 32-bit use that for free bugs, which will be demonstrated in Chromium Warden 91. Let's start by discussing some relevant background knowledge. V8's minimal garbage collection recycles objects from the young generation, which divides memory into two spaces. The newly located objects are put into the front space, and when the first garbage collection is called, it identifies surviving objects and copies them from the front space to the two space, updating object pointers. Then the front space and the two space are swapped and the next round of garbage collection is performed. During scavenging, there is also an additional set of root objects, which are pointers from old space to new space objects. V8 uses red barriers to track these references. When the garbage collection identifies relevant references in the old space, it does not reclaim the objects in the new space. Here is a Chrome issue <IP_ADDRESS>.0, same says 1.0. This was caused by a missing red barrier when generating the last index object for red expression object. When last index act as the SMI range and the red expression is in the old space, well, the last index object is in the new space. The garbage collection mistakenly identifies object as reclaimable due to the lack of reference information, resulting in a used after free vulnerability. In V8, there is a type of a string called one byte internalized string. Its memory layout is as follows. From front to back, they are the objects, myp, hash, string length and the string's content. The core idea we used was to forge a string with an extremely large length and place the target object after the string in memory. Then we can use the search method of the string to find the address of the target object after the mark. Thus, we can construct the address of primitive. Using the same technique, we can place a JS array after the fixed string. By using the string's auto bounce right, we can modify the elements member of the JS array to point to arbitrary address and achieve arbitrary memory read and write. To fix such a string, we need to create a fixed string map. We use this map to identify object types so our core technique is hip-spring. We can hip-spring a large number of array buffer objects to obtain a stable address and then forge the necessary members of the string map at this address. Finally, we place the fixed string in a JS array and allocate a large number of JS array objects to occupy the last index placeholder. The fixed string is placed on the left of the JS array and forge the string object is on the right. Here is a demonstration video of our successful exploration in Chrome Morgan 91. So as for Chromium-based where we found firstly, a little bug or feature can lead to RCE attack. Secondly, there is lack of attention to the attack path of browser vulnerabilities now. So the attack surface is relatively rudimentary and hackers also can bypass mitigation directly using powerful Chromium bugs. This section is about how to achieve RCE attack without sandbox escape bug. The sandbox is a security protection mechanism of Chromium. Even if a hacker gets the render RCE, it still cannot get the full execution permission. This includes mandatory SS controlled environment, isolated process when HTML rendering and JavaScript execution. And finally, the limited resource access and limited IPC or kernel interaction access. The end day of sandbox escape is much less than the end day of render RCE. So how can we achieve RCE in sandbox enabled software without a Chromium sandbox escape bug? First, let's see what's the difference between Chromium-based software and Chrome browser? One is privileged API. It is used to implement some client side behavior in specific cases such as uploading files and downloading files. For renderer, it is a series of JavaScript objects. For browser, it is a series of handler code. Different frameworks have different implementations. The principle is to register some JavaScript objects in the context of the render process. And when the objects are called, we can execute the implemented handler in the browser process through IPC call. Based on this idea, there are usually two implementation logic for the privileged API. The first one checks the URL loaded by the browser components when it is initialized. If it is a specific domain, register the privileged API in the loaded context. At runtime, only the privileged domain can obtain the JavaScript object. So when we calling some function from this API, the browser processes calls it without checking the source domain. The second logic is to register the privileged API object, no matter what domain it is at initialization. And then the developer can check the domain when the privileged API is called. There are some problems with both methods For the first one, whatever LAN privileged web view gets a privileged context. For the second one, how to properly check the IPC access is from privileged domain. The research on elapsed point has become relatively natural. In August 2018, master shared research on context isolation, which is used to isolate the context between the renderer process and preload. If this configuration is disabled, even with sandbox protection enabled, the renderer process can also call privileged functions exported from preload, such as shell.open external function. At Black Hat Asia in 2019, Luca shared his research on preload. He discovered that even with sandbox protection enabled, preload.js may still access certain native node classes and some electron modules. Attackers can use prototype solution to execute arbitrary IPC calls. At Black Hat USA in 2022, a sandbox bypass method was demonstrated when the renderer process could load the preload.js fell in a child frame by overwriting the node integration in subframe members of the web preference of the context. We can also overwrite the context preference context isolation and disable CISO in new renderer process. Then we can send an unauthorized IPC call with prototype solution. We also found some interesting and wide ranging issues with the second model, but since the renderers are working on a fix, we will share the details when it's fixed. We will make some security recommendations for Chromium-based software in two aspects. Firstly, it is necessary to update the latest version of the Chromium. Secondly, for software with high coupling, it's better to use a stable development version and introduce security patches with software updates. Thirdly, we should enable the Chromium sandbox and last, we need to disable and use the software functional realities or enable internal mitigations. For developers, we can add back-end validation and a front-end rendering validation follow the principle of latest privilege, both privileged domain range and privileged API function. We enable universal mitigation such as CSP and be wacky about input from unexpected sources. Here is the conclusion and take a waste of this topic. In this topic, we verify that a large number of Chromium-based software have RCE window period and then we summarize some software attack surfaces that cooperate with the RCE window period which makes the hackers can launch their own attack with Chromium end days and give real-world examples. And we share a general way it's use of a free exploit method in 32-bit which may help make exploit faster. At last, we provide some security recommendations to help strengthen the security of Chromium-based software.  Here is the list. Okay, thanks for your listening. Here is the references of this topic. If you have any problem, you can contact us with email or on Twitter.


Welgynt y toffee tífi, mae'r F warnio Ddweud oedd ymgyrch gyda'r ffaint gael yng Nghymru, Jessi Lingard. Y 28-year-old yn fawr datblygiadol yn fawr 20 miliwn pwn. Lingard oedd ydy'r gwaith yn lle'r beth ymlaen o'r wahanol. Rydw i'n bod yn cael ei ysgol yng Nghymru, ac mae'r gael gwaith yng Nghymru ar y cael ei ddechrau i ysgol yn fawr o'r fawr o'r fawr o'r Felly mae'n dweud o'r 20 miliwn, ac mae'n gweithio gyd yn ymddangos o'r 20 miliwn mewn ffordd yng ngyfrindig. Mae'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n 20 miliwn, ac mae'n gweithio'n gallu gweithio'n gweithio ar gyfer 28 yr ysgol, a mae'n gweithio'n 100 graff o gwybod fel y ffordd. Mae'n ddweud o'r ffordd y gweithio, mae'n gweithio'n gweithio, ac mae'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. Everton will apparently move for Latio forward Wachim Korea if James Rodriguez leaves Everton. The 30-year-old Columbian seems to be available to go, once to go, whichever part of the side of the story you come down on. He's currently in isolation due to COVID protocols and will be out of the lead game it looks like this weekend as well. He has been linked very strongly to Athletic Home Madrid whether there's anything in that I'm not sure. Also linked of course to Milan and Sevilla as well this summer but apparently according to Italian sources if Hamers leaves then Everton will move for the Latio forward so we'll see how that goes as well. Stan Collymor has aged Alan St. Maxim to leave Newcastle United and join an upwardly mobile club like Everton or Westham apparently. That's what Stan said. St. Maxim who created Newcastle's first goal in the 4-2 home of the feed by Westham on Sunday is an exciting player but I think for the money Newcastle had won I don't think Everton or Westham could afford them. So yeah so that's what's doing the round as well today. And finally Raphael Benitez will face the press tomorrow ahead of Everton's trip to Elin Road on Saturday. Benitez will be questioned about whether or not he's got players back available who missed the win over Southampton last week. John Philippe Goebbamann is available and training Moise Keen is expected to be available for the weekend as well. The other two Rodríguez and Goffrey look doubtful at this moment in time but Benitez will be able to tell us more tomorrow. And Javelinia should complete his move to sport in that announcement should be any time now joining on loan with a possible view to a permanent deal at the end of the season. Don't forget to download the Ultima fan app. It's a fantasy football meet fee for Ultima team kind of game. It's free. There is subscription packages as well to 99 a month or for 99 a month but you can just play it for free and still be in with a chance of winning the £8,500 prize pot this week. So check that out. The link is in the description. More merchandise is available as well. Tops like this. Cups like these. The link to the shop is in the description below as well so make sure you check that out. Give the video a thumbs up. Subscribe if you're Everton if you want more videos. Join us over on Patreon. See you later.


All right, welcome everyone. Today we're going to be discussing triggers and cravings and how to deal with them. Over the next little while we're going to define a trigger, define a craving, explore the concept of stimulus generalization, and discuss the functions of triggers, and then explore triggers in terms of mental health symptoms as well as addiction. We'll then move on to explore how cravings can lead to obsessive thinking. I mean, craving is really the thought that follows once a trigger is actually encountered. So they kind of go together like peanut butter and jelly. And we have to really remember that and not try to differentiate too much from one from the other. When we're treating one, we're kind of treating the other. Review stages of the recovery process and identify potential relapse triggers at each phase and appropriate interventions.  So if we have someone who we're treating for major depressive disorder, they can relapse, they can go back in and have another episode. And that is just as frustrating for them as somebody who has an addiction, who goes back into an addictive set of behaviors. So what is a trigger? A trigger is a physical or a cognitive stimulus. So basically, it's something in the environment, something that we see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or something that we think about. So a trigger can be just about anything that causes a physical or cognitive reaction. So if we see something and we have a positive thought, what was our first reaction? We're going to be happy, we're going to smile, we're going to do something like that. If we see something and it makes us scared, we're going to do something else. We'll have a different cognitive reaction. If you're thinking of the ABCs, we know that the thoughts and the actions kind of go hand in hand. We'll have those automatic thoughts, beliefs, and then we will have an action that kind of corresponds. Now, once that trigger is encountered, we have those automatic thoughts, and then we do whatever the behavior is, and it's either going to be rewarded, which will trigger the reward system, the dopamine, you know, all that stuff, or it's going to be punished. And if it's rewarded, we're probably going to do it again. If it's punished, we're probably not going to. Now, that is really overly simplistic, because, you know, sometimes you have the lesser of two evils or the more rewarding of two rewarding options. So we'll talk about that as we go along. It's important to remember that any pleasurable activity is associated with elevated dopamine levels and elevated reward pathway activity. So whether it's eating a brownie or taking methamphetamine, you're still going to enact those chemicals. So triggers can be auditory, things that you hear. If you hear a siren, a trigger for, we have two cockatiels at home, and I don't know what their malfunction is. I don't know if they think it's a cockatiel is talking to them or what's going on. But if they hear a siren, whether it be outside or on TV, they will start shrieking. Nothing else causes them to do this. But that is a trigger for them to shriek. And, you know, we start to think, okay, well, what's the reward for this behavior? It's got to be something internal to them. It's got to be some sort of ingrained protective mechanism, because I certainly don't reward that behavior. So that's an auditory stimulus. When a baby cries, we react, okay? We've kind of got animal house going on at our place, but whatever. One of our foster dogs, whenever she hears a baby crying, whether it's on TV or in real life, she starts barking. She's very upset that the baby is upset. And as soon as the baby calms down, she quits barking, or if you can tell her it's okay. But that is a trigger for her. Something in her past told her that when the baby cries, you need to let somebody know. There are a lot of other auditory cues.  It will tell you this is something that you need to do now. Negative or triggers for negative behaviors, if you will. It can also be auditory. Certain songs, if you listen to songs that glorify or romanticize drug use. There's just a whole variety of things. So I want you to remember, it can be sounds in the environment. It can be things like I volunteered at the Crisis Center, Suicide Hotline when I was an undergrad. And I always did the overnight shift. And I worked there a little too long to the point I got kind of burned out. And every time I would hear that phone ring, I would have this automatic stress reaction. Well, okay, so I took some time off and I wasn't thinking about it too much. I was walking through the mall and that same telephone ring was on the phones in the mall. The phone rang. I had an automatic stress reaction that fight-or-flight reaction kicked right in as soon as I heard that phone. It was like, okay, jump into high gear. We want our clients to understand that sometimes triggers are very innocuous. And they need to be aware that if they feel something, that there was probably some sort of trigger. You may not be able to identify every single trigger, which is why we're going to talk about what to do once you experience a trigger in order to deal with the cravings, in order to deal with whatever your body's telling you to do because you can't possibly plan for everything all the time. Visual triggers. I mean, these are simple things, things that you see in the environment, whether it's a poster of Bob Barley, or I can tell you a visual trigger for me on the bad note, and it's also an auditory one. Those awful, awful Humane Society commercials that have Sarah McLaughlin singing. If I hear her singing or if I see the beginning of those commercials, it's just devastating. I can't stand to see it. It drives me nuts. And that sort of throws me into high gear. So I know as soon as I see that, I need to, you know, quit watching the TV, change the channel, do something else. Olfactory, smell. Smell is one of our most enduring memory triggers. So if you have someone, we'll talk about the happy ones first, I guess, when you think about a happy time, maybe it was birthdays or maybe it was, you know, for me going to my grandmother's house, it always smelled like pine saw at my grandma's house. So whenever I smell pine saw, I have a happy feeling. I'm like, oh, this reminds me of grandma. Now there can also be negative associations. If you smell something for someone who was abused, for someone who was attacked, for someone who was, you know, there are a variety of negative associations. And if there's a smell associated with that, especially a unique smell, cigar smoke, a certain type of pipe tobacco, there can damp sort of mildewy, you know what old houses smell like. Anything like that. Patients need to identify if there are certain things that will trigger them. Does it mean they can avoid them all the time? No. But it does mean if they encounter that trigger in the environment and they start feeling wonky for lack of a better term, then you know what they can do? They can say, I am here. I am now. I am in the present and they can work on mindfulness and reminding themselves that they're not back in that unpleasant situation from the past. Tactile triggers. And this can be just being touched. This can be anything that involves touch. People being too close. People hugging you a certain way. Tactile triggers are kind of different, but they do exist sometimes. And then cognitive triggers. These are those automatic beliefs. These are those thoughts we have that tell us it's going to be a bad day or something bad is happening. And cognitive triggers can happen because of transference issues or a variety of a combination of other triggers can combine to trigger a negative cognition. So that's triggers kind of in a nutshell. My name's not, not, ah, my name's Jeffrey. This is one of my favorite memes. I don't know what, well, yes, I do know why. It's got a cute little kitty on it. But when you first see this, your first reaction is, ah, that's a trigger. Cute little kitty makes us go, ah, I have a, on the screensaver of my phone, I have a picture of a hamster and a sweater. Because who can be upset when they see a hamster and a sweater? It's a visual stimulus. It triggers sort of a happy thought or a happy reaction in people. So where do triggers come from? The important thing to remember is that triggers can be innate, like with my cockatiels. It's something in bread. They hear that sound. It reminds them of a danger sign and they do what they need to do. My chickens are the same way. When they hear a certain bird's call, they will scatter. When they hear one another talk in certain ways. Those are innate triggers. They don't have to be conditioned when the animal or organism is born. It's there. When we're born, put your hand on a hot stove. Guess what? That's going to be a trigger to say, ouch, and pull your hand away. We don't have to be taught that.  Learned triggers can come from experience. If I do this, I'm going to get in trouble or there's going to be a punishment. I remember my son when he was little would test things out. He was always a little scientist and actually this foster dog that I have right now is kind of the same way. He'll grab something and he'll run up to me with it in his mouth. If I say Brewster, that's not yours. He'll drop it. But if I tell him it's okay, then he'll go play with it. He figures out through trial and error what he's allowed to play with if he gets bored with his other toys. But we learn through experience. We learn through observation. If we see someone else do something and get punished for it, maybe they lose their life savings. Maybe they go to jail. Maybe their relationships break up. They get sick. They get HIV. There's a whole host of different ways someone can experience punishment. But if we see someone else do it, then it might lessen the chance that we will do it again. The same is true for reinforcement, though. If we see someone get away with something or if we see someone benefit from playing the lottery, intellectually, we know that playing the lottery is like a 1 in 10 million chance or something. But we watch and we see people win the lottery. So we go, oh, maybe I could win the lottery if I play. It's that connection that we make. Education. You might just educate someone. The DARE program, HIV prevention, a lot of our prevention programs are geared to letting people know what the consequences are or the punishments are of certain activities. So unconditioned triggers generally serve a survival purpose.   That's your first reaction is to either squint, block your eyes, duck, do something like that. You're not taught to do that.   Sound. Loud noises. We cover our ears because it's loud. It hurts. We want it to stop. On the upside, you know, I try to give some positive examples for each one. A heartbeat. When children are in the NICU, when I have foster animals that are orphaned, they have little things that make, simulate a heartbeat sound and that's calming to infants, whether it's, you know, four-legged critters or two-legged critters. The heartbeat is one of those unconditioned stimuli because the, both, you know, kittens, dogs and humans kind of grew up in their mother's womb hearing the heartbeat. Smell.   Touch. If something causes pain, you're probably not going to do it again. If something is pleasant, then you may do it again. You know, think about when you have a stiff neck, putting a heating pad on your back or your neck may help loosen that up. So that's a rewarding thing. And taste. Pleasant or noxious. Most of the time, I mean, there are some things that you can say you have an acquired taste for.  This is why a lot of animals in the wild, they're exposed to poisonous stuff everywhere. But you know what, they have this innate ability to either taste it or smell it and say, yeah, that's not, oh, that's not something I'm going to eat because their body knows that it's poisonous, which I think is kind of cool. Condition triggers also can be a survival thing. Generally provide rewards, avoid punishment and are survival. So sight. When a baby sees a bottle, you know, initially a baby has no idea what a bottle is. By the time a baby is three or six months old or whatever it is, shortly after they begin using a bottle, they figure out what it is and they will calm down upon the side of it. They will, once they get to the point where they can willfully smile, they will smile, they will reach for it. Snow. This is another one of those triggers. It either makes you happy or it makes you go, oh, I've got to shovel that driveway again. But either way, it does trigger a reaction. Sound, you know, music can make you happy, can make you sad, can make you melancholy, can make you reminiscent. Music is great in therapy as well as, you know, just being aware of what it triggers. Sirens, it's another one of those things it can, it puts you on alert to things that are going on. I grew up in a family full of first responders, so I hear a siren and my response is completely different than maybe someone who has a history of being in and out of jail, in and out of the system. Smell. If you smell smoke, what are you going to do? Well, around my house, usually go check the oven, but oops, means I got distracted. But smoke triggers a certain behavior in our house. That's, you know, checking to see what mommy forgot on the stove. But in a lot of other houses, it's often a trigger to get out. When you smell brownies, some people get hungry. Some people have a craving. Some people remember a good time in the past when they used to have brownies. Touch. Touch a hot stove. It's, you know, it's going to hurt. And you eventually learn, you know, hot we get. That's it, unconditioned. Stove is a little bit different because until you figure out what a stove is, you don't really know. My son's cat will be the first to tell you that he didn't know that a stove was hot until he stepped on a hot burner at one time. Poor kitty. Wool sweaters. When you first see a wool sweater, you're just like, okay, it's a sweater. But as soon as you put it on, you're like, okay, this is a really hot itchy sweater. Not all wool is hot and itchy, but you know, for the majority of your wool, it is a bit scratchier. That is something you learn by experience, by exposure. Taste.  If you taste coffee and you like it, you're probably going to drink it again. If you taste it and you hate it, you may still drink it again, but put a lot more sugar in it. Thoughts. I love this condition trigger, lice. You know, when your kids come home from school and I'm itching right now, just thinking about it.   It's one of those triggers that as soon as you learn about it, and you learn about the creepy crawlies, and some of you are probably going, okay, just move past it, you get my point. Other things like holidays. Holidays mean different things to different people. So if someone starts thinking about Thanksgiving, and it's a stressful time for them, it may trigger stress related feelings. My mother's current husband, his family was killed in a fire on Christmas Eve. So Christmas is not a happy time for him. When he thinks about Christmas, that's what he thinks about.  So stimuli triggers in generalization. Okay, we know what triggers are, we kind of got that now. Why, what's the function of them? When we engage in a behavior that produces dopamine, it produces a reward in your brain. So you're likely to do it again. So this is how our body learns, you know, we learn through exploring our environment. Think about children when they're, you know, first they learn how to put across their hands in front of their body and learn how to like, move their body. But then they go through that period when they're like one and a half to three, where everything goes in their mouth, and they have to touch everything. They're exploring, they're learning their trial and error, figuring out what they can touch, what they can't, what they like, what they don't like. And then the body is, the brain is rewarding, the good stuff. And if they get in trouble or they get admonished about it, then they're learning from that too. Generalization occurs when a reminder for the behavior occurs in different settings. Now let's talk about behaviors, let's let's talk about eating. What sorts of settings remind us to eat? Obviously, the kitchen, the dining room. But there's also holidays. There's also going to grandma's house. There's also, you know, when I was growing up, we would go to the movies every Friday night. And my mother would always get popcorn. So when I go into a movie theater, my first thought is got to get popcorn. And then I see how much it is. And I'm like, okay, that'll control that craving. But generalization occurs when there are a lot of things in the environment that start to say you need to do this, whether it's use, whether it's be afraid, eat, you know, there's a whole host of behaviors. So let's think about triggers for eating as an infant birth the three months, hunger, you know, the child wants to eat when it's hungry. There are other internal states, sleepy, fussy, sick, that if the baby is given a bottle every time it cries, it may start saying, Oh, when I feel this way, I'm supposed to eat. Not I'm supposed to go to sleep. Or I need to have somebody hold me because I'm fussy, or I need something else because I'm sick. As the baby matures three months to a year, you know, hunger, still we want it to learn that when you're hungry, you eat. But there are also certain times that the baby will start to get hungry. It learns, you know, over a period of time that this is the time of day we eat and your body sort of gets hungry. Ars does that. You know, I know that when it comes to about 1130, I'm looking at my watch going, I'm hungry. So our circadian rhythms, and there's a whole lot more to it than just learning because there are neurotransmitters, your serotonin levels, your melatonin levels, all that stuff that cues your body that it's time to eat. So circadian rhythms are important to keep in alignment, if you will. But other things can trigger the baby to think about eating, seeing a bottle, even if it's not dinnertime or lunchtime, seeing others eating. How many times have you been, you know, not hungry, but other people have been eating, so you've just eaten anyway? And then these internal states, if they haven't been counter conditioned, are still going to trigger eating, sleepy, fussy and sick. So now you've got a child who eats when it's hungry, but it also eats at 1130 just because it's 1130 and that's when you're supposed to eat lunch. And it eats when it sees a bottle. It wants to eat when it sees other people eating. You know, with children, sometimes you'll see a baby who's been given its meal, but then it's given Cheerios to eat while the grownups eat to keep it pacified, if you will. So it's learning through experience that all these different things are times to eat, which is not necessarily accurate. As it becomes a toddler, we still have hunger, circadian rhythms, bottles, other people eating, but now the toddler has started to put smells with it. And it's like, I smell that. That's good. I know what that is. I want to eat that. Even if they're not hungry, the smell may trigger the desire to eat. Places, again, if kids are put in the back seat and they're given a sippy cup and a snack to keep them quiet, guess what? When they get in the car, that's going to trigger them to want to eat, even if they're not hungry. If they're at the store or watching television, how many kids do we know that sit on the couch, watch television or play video games and just eat mindlessly? They're not hungry necessarily. It's something to do with their hands. So these are all ways we can generalize different triggers in someone's environment to trigger a particular behavior in a way that we may not necessarily want to do this, because this person has developed some very, very unhealthy eating habits at this point. The generalization just kind of continues as people get older.  So in treatment, we need to help people become more mindful instead of mindless about their behaviors. They need to eat when they're hungry, certainly. They need to pay attention to what they're hungry for. Our body will crave certain things if it needs certain nutrients. We need to help them establish some good circadian rhythms.  But then all that other stuff that triggers the desire to eat even when one is not hungry, that needs to be counter conditioned. They need to pay attention and learn to eat only when they're hungry, which is a big task. And most of us actually don't do that. But we can strive toward eating to live, not living to eat. So let's talk about alcohol. Eating is one of those that we can't say abstinence. But alcohol, we kind of can. We want to ask, what is the benefit of alcohol to somebody? Well, some people think it relaxes them. Some people think it makes them more sociable. Some people think it helps them deal with stress. And depending on what stage of intoxication someone's in, all of those can be true. So there is a short term benefit. So what are the associated stimuli with drinking? Sites, beer commercials, football games, beer in the fridge, going to the grocery store, they sell beer and wine in the grocery store. There are a lot of different sites that say, hey, have something to drink. Sounds could be the opening of a top. It could be a Coke can, but it'll trigger someone who likes to drink beer, maybe to think about drinking a beer. Maybe the sound of being at their kids' football game. Go through these with your clients and go, you know, what kinds of things make you think about using. And they may not have a list for everything. Have them keep a log. Just pay attention to when they have thoughts about using. Touch, taste, thought, setting, you know, like I said, the kids' game, maybe carrying a cooler, going fishing. You can just kind of brainstorm. This is a fun activity to do in groups sometimes. So people can see how many stimuli there really are in the environment that say, hey, you want to have a beer? Okay, so let's switch gears a little bit and let's talk about mental health triggers. Types of triggers for PTSD. Well, what are the benefits? Let's think about those PTSD symptoms. Flashbacks, hypervigilance. Those are some of the big ones. Emotional numbing. Okay, so let's think about that. When the person experienced this situation, it was one in which there was the threat of death or significant bodily injury. So yeah, I mean, it makes sense that the body is going to go, we don't want to do that again. So let's kind of up our guard and be aware of these things. So we don't ever get ourselves in that situation again. Emotional numbing. That amount of stress, that amount of threat is overwhelming to anyone. That amount of grief, if you saw somebody get killed or were in a situation where there was grief or helplessness is almost too much for some people to handle, for most people to handle. So one of the reactions in acute stress as well as PTSD is that emotional numbing is like, I can't, I need to wall this off. I cannot feel anything right now because it just hurts too much to feel anything. So when you think about the symptoms that we have, and you can do this for anxiety or depression or bipolar or borderline or any of those, it makes sense from a functional survival perspective. Now, is it over generalized? Yeah, that's when it becomes a problem. You know, I would expect someone to be hyper vigilant on the battlefield. I would not expect someone to be hyper vigilant in their own bathroom. You know, there's big difference. So when you have someone who is hyper vigilant in other situations where it's the stimuli have been over generalized, they don't feel safe anywhere. Then we need to start looking at what things remind you of that event that are being translated into, you know, right now. You know, maybe at home, one of the things that people report hearing a lot is loud noises like banging of a cabinet. If they've been exposed to a car accident or gunfire or something where there was a loud banging sound. So we can say, okay, there's a similar sound in your environment now. How can you reground yourself to remind yourself that you're safe, you're not on the battlefield anymore, or you're not in the middle of that car wreck anymore? What can you do to get back into the here and now and be mindful of where you are? One of the things I have a lot of my clients do is stop, take a breath, because their heart rate's gone up. We need to get that heart rate down. We do something called combat breathing. They breathe in, hold it for three, and then slowly exhale for three. And they do that once or twice, you know. They do it too many times. They start getting dizzy. But when the respiration slows, the heart rate slows and it sends a signal to the brain going, there's not a threat. So that's the first thing. But while they're doing that, I want them to look around and be aware of where they are. Notice, you know, if they're in the bathroom, notice the sink. Notice the mirror and maybe the spots on the mirror. And focus on things to get outside of their own head and into the current present moment. Generalized anxiety. When somebody is anxious a lot, they're fearful. That tells me that there was a time in their life where they didn't feel safe. So their anxiety is there to protect them from feeling unsafe again. First thing, establish safety. Seems like a very basic concept. All right, let's find a place where you feel safe. When you're at work, how can you create an environment or a situation where you feel safe? When you're at home, when you're in the car, you know, you want to hit those big places where people usually are. You can't hit everywhere. But there are generally some common places where people hang out and you can say, okay, how can you make that place feel safe to you? For some people, it may be not having people walking behind them.  You know, I just kind of grew up knowing that I was always going to have my back to the door because everybody else needed to see the door. That's how they feel safer. That's kind of ingrained in their personality. What else can they do to make it feel safe? When you're home, lock the doors, lock the windows. I was home the other day and I heard, you know, a weird bump upstairs.  And I'm like, Brewster, come on, let's go clear the house. That made me feel safe. We walked around the house and I knew if anybody saw him, they'd pee their pants before they do anything to me. So, you know, it was good. People need to know how to feel safe in their own environment. They also need to take a realistic look at all of these places and go, is it realistic or what things about this could be unsafe? You know, obviously, when you're driving, there are certain situations that could be unsafe. How can you make those safer? When you're at the office, hopefully, you're in a situation where that's not an unsafe place to be. So, let's counter those cognitive distortions and say, you know, this really isn't all that dangerous.  So, we need to challenge cognitive distortions, create a sense of safety and help the person figure out where eventually where that initial fear came from and maybe address that issue. Depression. Now, this is the one that people are like, it doesn't make a survival sense, but it does. It so, so does when people are depressed, you know, especially if they become depressed. It's not something, you know, they've been depressed since they were knee-high to a grasshopper or there was a traumatic brain injury and there's some depression or there was a, well, even if there's an incident where they're maybe in a car accident and they come out of a coma and realize that they're paralyzed, you know, let's just take this, put a put a hundred on 10 as my daughter would say. Yeah, you're going to be depressed, but what is the survival benefit of this? What is the function of this depression? Depression slows you down. Depression, you know, it's a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Your body's telling you, we need to change the way we're thinking about things a little bit. Sometimes depression is your body's way of saying, I'm out of gas. I can't do this by myself. I need help. So, when we look at depression and we look at people's symptoms, we need to ask ourselves, what's the function of each symptom? If they are having difficulty sleeping, you know, they're sleeping too much. Their circadian rhythms are getting out of whack. The neurochemicals that, you know, tell them when it's time to sleep and when it's time to be awake are out of whack. So their body is, doesn't know when it's time to be awake, when it's time to be asleep. That's easy. Easy peasy.  I tell them, try 15. That's sort of our slogan. Try 15. I want you to get up at a reasonable time and whatever that is for that person. For some people, it's 6 a.m. For some people, it's 8.30 or 9. But I want you to get up at a reasonable time and I want you to get dressed and I want you to sit by either go outside or sit by an open window, you know, a window with the blinds open so you can get some natural light in and try staying up and out of bed for 15 minutes. I mean, ideally, you'd stay up and out of bed until it's bedtime. But let's try 15 because for a lot of my clients, the thought of getting up and staying out of bed all day long and not being allowed to go back is just too overwhelming. Try 15. If you still can't stand it after 15 minutes, let's talk about what are some other options that you can do. Most of the time after 15 minutes, if somebody's gotten up and gotten their blood moving, they realize it's not so bad. Now, after two or three hours, they may be tired again. You know, their body is telling them, I've got something going on. I've been burning the candle at both ends for too long and there needs to be some changes. I'm burnt out. I'm overwhelmed. I am exhausted. I am physically getting sick. You know, it takes a lot of energy to stay healthy. So when people experience a depressive episode, we want to identify their symptoms and look at what those symptoms are doing for them. We want to look at what triggers their depression. There are certain sight, sound smells that they can eliminate. But there are also certain sight, sound smells, you know, go on that they can add to their environment to make it a happier place. And the same thing is true with PTSD and with anxiety. We don't want to just eliminate the negative. We need to add the positive. One of the things that my professor, when I first took behavior modification, first semester, I remember him saying, if all you ever do is punish a behavior, then you're left with an organism that doesn't behave. It just sits there, catatonic. You have to provide alternatives. The same thing is true with stimuli and the environment or triggers. We want to trigger people to be happy. So what makes them happy and what can remind them to do that? Maybe it's the sound of children laughing. Maybe it's certain YouTube videos. Maybe it's their pets.  What kind of reminders can you put in your environment? Okay, borderline. And you see I'm just randomly, not randomly, but I'm going through each different type, if you will, of mental health and addictive issues. So you can see where triggers are there for everything. Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment and they vacillate between valuation, you know, thinking you're all that in a bag of chips to devaluation.  And there is no middle ground when you're working with someone who has borderline personality tendencies. And you see a lot of these same tendencies in people with addictions. So I do want to, you know, point out that we want to look at the symptoms more than focus on the labels, because the labels don't mean a whole lot. What is the survival benefit of this reaction? Well, if they're trying to avoid abandonment, that tells me they've guess what, been abandoned. If they go between valuation and devaluation, maybe they haven't learned to look at the gray areas. So there's lots of different treatment issues that are there. But we want to say what things trigger this fear. Because when they go from valuation thinking you're all that to thinking you're, you know, not, what's the function that pushes the person away that gives the person with the borderline tendencies more power. If I'm saying that you are lower than me, you're beneath me, you're worse than me, then I feel better about myself. So both of these come back to abandonment and fear, loss of control. So what things in the environment or in their own head might trigger this fear of abandonment or loss of control. A lot of times it's stuff from their past, but stuff in the present reminds them of stuff from their past, which then becomes a thought in the present. What sights, what smells, sounds, if there are things, if they came from a very dysfunctional household and there are things that remind them of their family of origin, guess what?  When people are under a lot of stress, they may tend to be more polar in their reactions and more extreme in their reactions and become more fearful of abandonment, fearing that they can't be alone, they can't handle life on their own. So taste is not probably one that's going to be here, but sight, sound, smell, touch, and thoughts are definitely present when we're talking about people with borderline personality disorder or borderline tendencies. What is it that makes this person feel like a scared child that is going to be dumped? And what is it that makes this person feel inadequate, so much so that they need to put others down to feel okay? Again, on the positive side, help them put things in their environment to remind them and to build their self-esteem, remind them of how awesome they are, remind them to look at the grays, look for the exceptions. It's rare that someone does something all the time, always. There are usually exceptions to things. I've said before, math is not my strong suit, but I didn't always fail at math. There were some things I got. There were just some things once they started putting in Greek letters that made my head spin. So have them look for exceptions and identify what is good about this person and maybe examine their behavior in terms of whatever they did to make you mad or whatever they did that makes you want to push them away. Is this a situational thing or does this more represent them as a person? Did they make a bad choice or do you feel like they are a bad person? And have them start looking at their relationships in that sort of gray area of respect. But they also need to look at themselves that way because they do the same thing with themselves. If they do something right, they're all that in a bag of chips. If they do something wrong, they're the scum of the earth. And so we want to help them address those cognitive distortions. What things do they see? What things do they experience? What things do they hear that make them question whether or not they're good enough? Gratitude journals, self-esteem journals, having them really work on their relationships and develop some relationship skills, those are all things that they can sort of include in their repertoire and look at putting some triggers in the environment to remind them to reach out to people. So what are the takeaways? It is impossible to address every trigger. Triggers represent a desire for a reward to avoid punishment or survive. These are things in the environment that go, you got to do something. And sometimes it's not survival. Sometimes it's like, oh, I want that. Or, oh, I don't want that. But the triggers are those things that can be good or can be bad. The cool thing is you can also have competing triggers. So when you have somebody getting ready to go into a situation, you know, a job interview, for example, they've got competing triggers going on. They are probably stressed about the job interview. They're anxious. They're afraid they're going to say the wrong thing, yada, yada, yada. But they're also, there's a desire for the reward, desire to have that job. So there's this push and pull of which is going to win the anxiety of going into the interview or the reward of getting the job. What kind of visualizations can you have people do before they go into a job interview that can serve as positive triggers for them? Triggers always serve a function. And once we break it down to its, you know, barest components, then we can figure out alternate ways to meet that need. When somebody, you know, eating is one of those things that we've generalized and overgeneralized in a lot of different ways. So when we look at our triggers for eating, we have to ask ourselves, what is the function of this behavior? What is the function of mindlessly eating while you're watching TV? Well, for me, I can't sit still.  My hands are constantly moving. What could I do alternatively? Well, in my living room, I have my iPad so I can either surf on the internet or play words with friends or something that occupies my fingers or I can crochet or there's always a dog on my lap too. So there's always something to do with my hands as opposed to eating. But you want to ask, you know, smoking is the same way. For a lot of people, they don't know what to do with their hands if they're not smoking. So we have to say, what is it, you know, in a social situation, some people is not that they're stressed about the social situation. They just don't know what to do with their hands when they're talking to somebody. So have them say, figure out what they could do differently with their hands when they're talking to someone. I'm one of those people that's terribly guilty of it. Don't give me a business card and then stand there and talk to me for 15 minutes because I will have folded the business card into like 16ths. That fidgety thing and that is, you know, I'm not saying that's a good thing. But I know that's one thing I do just because I have to have something to do with my hands.   You know, we want the sound of a bell to be the sound of a bell. Remember when you were in high school, and the sound of the bell meant put your books in your bag, get up and go to your next class. So now when you hear that bell, for most of us, even when I went to visit my kids when they were in public school, when I would hear that bell, my automatic reaction was, oh, time to get up and, you know, get moving. We need to make sure that the triggers in our client's environment are triggering the positive behaviors. When they get triggered, mindfulness and riding the wave are two crucial skills that clients need to deal with the triggers and cravings. If they want to drink, if they want to self-injure, if they want to run away, if they want to, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is, or, you know, with PTSD, if they start feeling really, really anxious, mindfulness will help bring them back into the present moment. And riding the wave reminds them that urges and cravings crest and then fall just like a wave coming in and out. So after about 10 minutes, and the same thing's true with a panic attack, after about 10 minutes, it's going to start to subside. So you have to get through that 10 minutes. What can you do? Stay focused on the present. Have an emergency plan written down. When people are craving, when they're having urges, they're not thinking, okay, what was it that we talked about in therapy? They're in crisis. They need to have a written plan that they can pull out and go, okay, what am I supposed to do right now? So cravings are a desire for something and can become obsessive. You know, when I was pregnant in the evening, there was always this commercial for something from Hardee's and I don't even remember what it was now. But I wasn't hungry, but it was one of those like super ultra processed fried, you know, a bazillion calories per bite, sort of sandwiches. And I would see that and I was like, oh, I need it. I want it.  But commercials, part of what their job is, is to basically trigger people to go out and purchase a service or a product. People need to ask themselves, what is it that I'm craving? What is it that I'm wanting? And why do I crave it and want it? And that's really getting down to the nitty gritty. Am I craving the sandwich or am I just, you know, I need to go to sleep? And that looked really, really good. Is this whatever this is healthy and beneficial? Is it getting me towards my final goal? If it isn't, how else could I meet this need or deal with this craving? You know, in the case of the sandwich at 9 30 at night, when I wasn't even hungry, go to sleep. You know, when I'm sleeping, I'm not eating. So go to sleep and the craving goes away. When we're talking about drugs, when we're talking about alcohol, when we're talking about, you know, other things, people need to recognize whether they're bored, they're scared, they're angry, they're stressed, you know, all those cognitive emotional things. Or if there is something that their body is telling them they need, like sleep, and then figure out what the next step is from there. Our body's main goal is to protect us and it will do that kind of at all costs and is not necessarily the smartest thing in the world. So we've got to pay attention to what those cravings are telling us and then use our higher order thinking processes to figure out whether that's accurate or not. When we do something that aids in our survival, the limbic system rewards us by releasing dopamine, the more rewarding the behavior, the more dopamine and other pleasure chemicals that are released. Prolonged engagement and an addiction can lead the brain to stop producing as much dopamine as it naturally does. Eventually, because your brain wants homeostasis, it says I'm only supposed to have two ounces of dopamine a day and you're giving me six ounces and those are completely the wrong numbers, but I'm just giving you an example. So if you're giving it way too much, it's going to start shutting down some of the receptors because it's like only two ounces can go through. You can't keep, you know, overwhelming me with this. So then it slows down the dopamine secretion or production, which means the person is going to need more to feel normal. So stages of recovery and I'm going to whiz through the last part of this because I'm going a little long, but withdrawal, the first one to two weeks. Now, you know, this is early recovery when we're talking about depression or anxiety. The first one to two weeks, the brain is still kind of restabilizing from whatever neurochemical imbalances were going on. Anxiety, PTSD, depression, alcoholism, methamphetamine, whatever. Honeymoon is the first four weeks after that. You know, the initial stages of ickiness are gone and you're starting to feel kind of okay. Um, 12 to 16 weeks is that reorganization period where the brain is really normalizing, the body's normalizing. If somebody started on antidepressants, they're really kicking in now. And then the readjustment phase is when they're learning the new cognitions, the new behaviors, all that stuff. So the first part is dedicated to getting them feeling a little bit better and getting the energy and focus to do what they need to do for recovery. And then we work in the readjustment phase. We start really focusing on turning the new coping skills and things into regular behaviors. In the early phase, depression, we want to address low energy. Remind people they don't have to do everything. They need to delegate. They need to do what has to be done and leave the rest for later. You know, there's a lot of things that I want to do that they don't have to do. Watch those circadian rhythms. Get them on some sort of good sleep hygiene schedule for them. And it's going to be different for each person. Changes in appetite often represents, you know, either anxiety wanting to eat because you're not engaging in other things or your body saying, I need some healthy building blocks, you know, Cheetos and pizza are not quite cutting it. And then difficulty concentrating. As the neurochemicals balance out, a lot of people report they have difficulty concentrating. And this is true with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction recovery. You know, people go through this initial period where sometimes it's just hard to get out of the fog. Dealing with anxiety and irritability, have clients identify how they've dealt with that in the past, and then build upon it. Don't reinvent the wheel. Level the playing field. Next week, we're going to talk about vulnerabilities. These are situations that make it more difficult to remain optimistic, enthusiastic, and do the next right thing. So take care of themselves. Remember, Maslow's hierarchy, proper nutrition, enough sleep, preferably some exercise, taking care of themselves will go a huge long way to helping them feel better, and being able to focus on doing the cognitive work. This feeling, you know, that things are getting better.  People who are coming out of their depression are like, oh, this feels pretty good. They may feel like they're cured. They're starting to feel better. And but family members often see this as a good thing to do. But family members often see this as the beginning of a relapse because they start getting complacent in doing what they need to do in order to feel better. It's like, okay, you know, I went to therapy for three weeks. I'm feeling better. I'm cured. I'm done. I can quit taking the meds and go back to my old way of life. And that's not it. Some people need to be on meds for a while, if not, you know, for an enduring period. But the behaviors are things that generally need to change. And the cognitions generally are things that need to change in perpetuity, if you will. So family members are often right when they see a person thinking, you know, I, I got a little taste of what it feels like to feel better. I got it moving on. So the wall lasts about 12 to 16 weeks. It's the hardest stage of recovery because this is when people are learning the new skills. They feel okay. So there's not this big jump into, oh, I feel wonderful now. That already happened. So maintaining motivation in this stage is really challenging. People can experience depression, irritability, low energy, loss of enthusiasm. If we're talking about drug addiction recovery, obviously, we're still talking about physical recovery, as well as this is the period where people start working on their stuff. You know, whatever that stuff is, which can trigger depression, irritability, low energy and loss of enthusiasm. Prepare people. Remind them that therapy is not a picnic. It's hard work. This is a 40 hour job.  So this is a full-time job and you need to be good to yourself. People can get easily overwhelmed while they're dealing with their stuff. I mean, they're emotionally exhausted. They are learning new skills, which is also exhausting. Remind them to give themselves a break. Relapse issues, people, places, things, times, activities, feelings, and lack of self-care.  So let's figure out what your relapse triggers are, what could trigger you to want to go back to those old behaviors, trigger your depression again, and write out a plan to deal with them. So triggers prompt a response. Cravings are the thoughts that come after a trigger happens. It's that desire to achieve whatever it is. Triggers and cravings can be good or bad, you know. Most people with addiction and or mental health issues have multiple triggers that need to be reconditioned. Football games should not necessarily represent a negative trigger. You know, football games can be fun, clean, sober activities. Addiction does cause changes in the brain, so the brain needs time to recover. Using produces feelings of escape or euphoria, which become associated with people, places, and things. So if I'm used to feeling good, or every time I hang out with Jim Bob, we would get high. Then whenever I'm around Jim Bob, I'm going to want to get high in order to feel good again. So exposure to these people, places, and things can cause cravings. When faced with unpleasant emotions or situations, people may also have cravings, they want to escape. So we need to help them figure out how to escape healthfully. So recovery involves becoming aware of triggers in their function, eliminating or minimizing vulnerabilities, creating new positive triggers or associations, and developing new ways to feel good and deal with stress. And you can put these all on a piece of paper and have your clients write out little essays about how they figure out how they think they could do these things and share them in group. So the presentation is now finished. If you have watched and participated and want CEUs, you can go in and take your CEUs quiz right now. 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Now you've probably seen recently I've started making a load of binaural beats videos Okay, now I just wanted to very quickly explain how you can use those to lose your dream Because especially if you don't really if you're not familiar with binaural beats or brainwave entrainment It can be a little bit difficult to know what to do and how to use them. So Essentially when I upload a track if it's an hour long or less, okay, so if it's zero to two hours long The way you should use that is you should set your alarm for two hours before you'd normally wake up Turn on the binaural beats in stereo headphones It has to be stereo because binaural beats work by having a different frequency in each year and your mind sort of compensates and Perceives the additional frequency or the difference. It perceives the difference in your mind. So you need to have stereo headphones If you need some headphones that are comfortable to sleep in There'll be some in the description because you know if you have if you try and use these type of headphones The in ear ones, it's gonna be uncomfortable, right? Especially if you sleep on your side like most people do so you need to have some flat headphones It will sort of be flat to your to your head like that So I'll put some of those in the description. But basically what you need to do is Listen to the track through these headphones and then fall asleep while listening to it Okay, so say if you would normally wake up at eight in the morning You need to set your alarm for about five half five six o'clock in the morning. Wake up Put the headphones in listen to the track and fall back asleep while listening to it Okay, now I know that is gonna be a bit difficult to do but that's essentially how you do it It's like the wake back to bed technique Okay, so you're gonna put the headphones in listen to the track and while you're falling asleep You need to tell yourself over and over again You know, I will become lucid or I'm going to control my dreams And that's what will make you lucid. The binaural beats will work in sort of guiding your brainway of state and your Frequency down slowly into the theta stage And that's it, you know after 45 minutes or so not even that actually if you're doing it early in the morning It will happen almost instantly so within the first five ten minutes. You'll have a lucid dream and Yeah, that's it really and when I upload longer tracks. So that was for the two hour or less duration tracks and We know when I upload longer ones sort of six seven eight hours Obviously the idea is you just play them as you go to sleep at night and then they play all throughout the night So they would start by relaxing you moving you into a sleep state and then sort of keeping your sleep state throughout the night And then at a certain time after about six and a half seven hours or even less the track will be made so that it starts to slowly wake up your Your dreaming mind and make you become lucid. That's the idea at least anyway So yeah, as I said, it's all very new if you have any suggestions for these for these Binaural beats tracks that I'm doing please leave a comment because this is very new to me You know, hopefully the sound quality is okay, but I'm literally custom making these myself for you guys So there will be available for download. There'll be a downloads page on the site And yeah, that's it guys leave a comment subscribe


Okay, my name is Dave McKill. I'm the program leader for ERIES Program 1. And Program 1 stands for Rainfit Environments. In Rainfit Environments, as you might expect from the name, we deal with situations where there is no irrigation and hence no water control. And the major problems in these areas are either lack of water or too much water. In the case of lack of water, you have drought stress and this is a major problem for rice production, particularly in the great rain-fed areas of south and southeast Asia. And then of course, in the case of excess water or submergence, that's also a problem and seems to be an increasing problem in many rice producing areas in the tropics of Asia. So we are dealing with both drought tolerance and submergence tolerance in our program. In addition to drought and submergence, there are associated problems usually related to infertile soils. These could be shortage of nutrients or in some cases toxicities and salinity. And so another area of our program looks at developing varieties and management practices to address the adverse soil problems. So for drought, we've had some very good success in drought, mainly in terms of identifying varieties that have tolerance to drought stress that can be used by breeders to improve drought tolerance of the popular varieties. We've also identified improved varieties that combine drought tolerance with high yields and these varieties can produce yields that are in some cases double the yields of intolerant varieties under drought stress. In addition, we've identified some genes that confer quite high levels of drought tolerance and we're now analyzing these genes trying to transfer them into improved varieties. In the case of submergence, we've identified new management practices that greatly improve the recovery from submergence and when we combine these with tolerant varieties, they can result in dramatically higher yields. In the area of upland rice, we might quite some progress in terms of identifying fellow management options and also in identifying varieties that are more productive under upland conditions and this work is being done mostly in Laos and in Vietnam. In the Laos output on intensification and diversification, we've been doing an analysis to identify where the opportunities are for introducing new crops in rain-fed systems. As an example of that, one of the very promising technologies is introducing earlier maturing varieties into rain-fed systems where that allows the farmer to harvest the crop earlier than with the traditional crop. I think because of some of the advances we've made in stress tolerance, we've attracted some new important funding for our research program. As an example, we have a new project on stress-tolerant rice which is being funded primarily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is a fairly large project which addresses the problem of abiotic stresses. Well, just in summary, I think we've had a very successful year for program one and it's been very impressive to see the kind of impact we can actually have in these unfavorable environments. This is where poverty tends to be higher and I think that one of the major objectives of ERI is addressing the problem of poverty in the rice-growing environments.