By Mary O’KEEFE

As stated last week, Kristen Gilliland, Ph.D. and a Crescenta Valley High School Falcon alumna, returned to the school to speak to students in an assembly titled, “The Impact of Stress and Substance Use on the Developing Brain.” In the April 4 edition of the CVW, we covered the emotional reason why Gilliland began her journey of speaking out about the issue of the developing brain. Her son had died of an overdose in 2019. She decided to use her knowledge in chemistry, neurochemistry and the chemistry of drugs and poisons to get information as to why the adolescent brain responds the way it does to certain stimuli.

“I [wanted to] create a program where I teach kids about their brain,” she said. “I want to teach them the impact that stress has on the brain.”

She shared that her son began smoking marijuana because he felt anxious. He thought the anxiety he felt would be lessened if he smoked marijuana; however, that feeling of relief was only temporary.

“Sometimes [anxiety] would come back worse. So I thought, ‘How can we do this to try and teach kids about their brain, how magnificent their brain is, and what you can do at this age,’” she said.

There has been so much learned about the brain in the last few years.

In her PowerPoint presentation at CV High School, she began by talking about the limbic system, which is thought to be the part of the brain involved in behavioral and emotional responses.

“We call this the emotional brain and when you are developing, right now [as an adolescent] your emotional brain is heightened,” she said. “It’s like turning up the volume.”

She explained how information comes directly into the thalamus, which acts as a “kind of filter” that then sends information to the rest of the brain, “what’s called the amygdala.”

“The amygdala is constantly reading the room and looking for signs of danger,” she said. “It is trying to keep you safe.”

She gave an example of someone, a friend, jumping out at a person. The person may startle but then recover quickly.

“It’s because [the experience] goes through the amygdala and to the prefrontal cortex,” she said. “The prefrontal cortex is your plan and decision-making impulse control.” According to some studies, the connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala is believed to be critical for the regulation of emotion.

“So when you may jump [startle] after a friend scares you, your prefrontal cortex takes it in and then decides, ‘This is just my friend. I’m all good,’” she said.

She explained that if there is real danger the brain goes through a different process to tell a person to run away.

Gilliland then spoke about the hippocampus, which is involved in turning a short-term memory into a long-term memory.

“[For example], let’s say you’re studying for a test. You are ready for it, you get in the [classroom] and all of a sudden you read a question that may be phrased a little differently than [you are used to],” she said.

This causes the student to think s/he doesn’t know the subject and s/he may start worrying s/he is going to fail the test, fail the class and that would affect college options.

“And all of a sudden you start going down this road and you’re in the middle of a test,” she said.

Gilliland said at this point the brain sees this as unfamiliar territory.

“Your amygdala says, ‘Danger, danger!’ It is always looking for familiarity because that is associated with being safe,” she said. “Are you in danger of losing everything? No.”

She advised students to tell themselves they are not in danger and are fine.

“Take a couple of breaths,” she said. Tell your amygdala to access your hippocampus so you can answer the questions, she added.

She said it is important for students to find a way to ground themselves.

“Look around and [remind yourself], ‘I’m in my classroom, that is my teacher, there’s a [familiar] poster on the wall’ … anything to try and ground yourself,” she said. “The beautiful thing about the stress response is that you have 90 seconds. So from the time something stresses you out, something makes you anxious, from that one time you have 90 seconds until those chemicals are released [into your brain]. That stress response, that adrenaline, that’s cortisol.”

However, if the stress response is only 90 seconds, why does that feeling of anxiety last so long?

“The reason why is because you keep thinking the thought over and over and over,” Gilliland said.

She shared statistics on how many teens feel stress and depression, and that the adolescent brain is not fully “online yet” but as adolescents grow older their brains are maturing.

Gilliland gave the students some techniques on how to stop stress and anxiety from continuing in their brains by focusing on how they speak to themselves.

“You make the choice to think about [the stressful situation] over and over,” she said. Although it may not be easy, the best way to combat the stress is not to go over it repeatedly but to stop it.

“You have the power to stop it,” she added.

She explained these thoughts of stress/anxiety can continue or they can be stopped.

“You have the power to change the connection in your brain based upon your thoughts, your lifestyle and your actions,” she said.

Adding that after 25 years of age changes are more difficult to make, so now is the time for adolescents to make changes for the better.

She added a good thing to remember is how to speak to yourself.

“We all speak to ourselves, more than we talk to anyone. Be kind to yourselves because you don’t want that unkind message to keep going through your brain,” she said.

She explained there is a part of the brain that is linked with addiction. The minute someone starts to do something, like using a drug or even taking part in an activity like playing video games, from that first time it affects the brain and the brain starts to change.

“You cannot become addicted to an activity or [anything] if you have never tried it before,” Gilliland said.

She spoke about dopamine and how it is linked to motivation, pursuit, drive and reward.

“I love ice cream. So I know that if I’m sitting on the couch and I think about ice cream I’ll get a dopamine release,” she said. “But I also have to get off the couch to go get the ice cream, so I need dopamine to drive me to go get it from the freezer.”

The brain always wants to keep things in balance, so if a person finds immense pleasure from being on the phone, being on social media, playing video games, drinking alcohol, using nicotine or other drugs – anything where a huge release of dopamine occurs – then the brain must be balanced. The other side of pleasure is pain – not specifically physical pain – but to balance the brain the pain might be mental, like a craving, a wanting or a feeling of anxiety.

The brain will continually try to balance itself after dopamine is released. She used an example of someone taking a selfie and posting it. The selfie then gets a lot of likes; that increases dopamine: pleasure. Then people want more, so they post again and again and again. The dopamine continues to pump in and even if they may want to step away they start feeling more craving for that original feeling when they first posted.

Gilliland said her son’s drug use started with marijuana, and she felt if he never smoked “weed” he would never have developed schizophrenia. She then showed her son’s artwork prior to being diagnosed with schizophrenia and after. The art done prior to the diagnosis was of two people hugging each other; the other was dark and disoriented.

“He [thought] aliens were telling him he had to draw this,” she said of the artwork.

She then asked the students if they knew what was the leading cause of overdoses. Many of them replied “fentanyl.” The PowerPoint presentation showed a photo of a sharpened pencil and at the end of the pencil point was a tiny bit of powder. That small amount is all it takes to overdose on fentanyl.

Fentanyl deaths have risen sharply since 2013 and fentanyl is found in every drug, including street Xanax, cocaine, street Adderall, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana. It can also be sold as a counterfeit drug, like oxycodone or Adderall.

“And you may ask, ‘Why would a drug dealer ever put fentanyl in anything? Why would they do that? Why would they want to kill people who they want to get their money from?’ Well, if they put a little bit of fentanyl in [the drug], you’ll become addicted. And they will get their money that way,” she said. “Fentanyl is highly addictive. Second, [fentanyl] is cheap to make.”

She warned students that if they were going to take pills only take those that come from a pharmacy because so many fake pills are laced with fentanyl. At times they are difficult to distinguish from real medication.

“Just don’t do it,” she advised.

She reminded students how to retrain their brains, how to deal with stress and anxiety and how to speak kindly to themselves. And to stay SANE, get plenty of Sleep, have a positive Attitude, practice good Nutrition and Exercise.

Gilliland showed them how to do deep breathing and to use this technique when they feel stressed. She told the students to have a plan when they go out with friends so if they get into a situation that is uncomfortable they can call their parent or friend to help them step away. She advised having a code word with parents so when students text it, their parents can come and pick them up.

“Be kind to your mind. It really will make a difference. Every time you stop yourself when you say something mean to yourself, if you catch it in the moment … what you are doing is rewiring your [brain],” she said.