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Thrive Course Curriculum
Thrive Coach Training
What You'll Learn
The course teaches you how to thrive and beat stress over 23 classes, consisting of 38 videos, gradually building your knowledge as you progress. Learn what each class will teach you by selecting the numbered 'Class' tabs below.
1. Introduction & Overview of Stress
In this introductory class, I’ll first share with you the story of why I’ve dedicated my life to help people like you to beat stress, anxiety and depression. Then, I’ll provide you with an overview of the course, including how Thrive works. Finally, because it’s often misunderstood, I’ll provide an introductory overview of what stress really is. This will set you up nicely to dive into the first section of the course, which teaches you the science of stress.
2. The Science of Stress - Part One
In the first of three classes about the science of stress, I'll bring to life how stress challenges your equilibrium and how that affects your mental health and overall wellbeing. You'll learn the specifics of what kinds of stress you're battling in your everyday life and the science of how you can beat it. Don't worry if science isn't your thing, I bring it to life with the use of props and the most important points are titled on screen, as well as reinforced in the downloadable class summary.
3. The Science of Stress - Part Two
In this next science class, you'll learn the difference between good stress and bad stress (yes, there is such as thing as good stress!), plus how they affect your mind, brain and body differently. Using a well researched model of how we respond to stress, I'll bring to life how your body can adapt to stress, rather than being beaten by it. This will provide the springboard for you understanding why adapting to stress is the key to achieving good mental health.
4. The Science of Stress - Part Three
In this 3rd class about the science of stress, we get deep into the really good stuff. You'll learn how we in the Western world treat stress in a disembodied manner and why this is stopping you from achieving good mental health. I'll demonstrate to you how our mind, brain and body are connected and what this means for how you can positively adapt to stress. I'll also teach you specifically how stress impacts upon your physiology, which will demystify why stress makes you ill.
5. Your Mind, Brain & Stress
By this stage, we're really motoring and this class will transform your understanding of stress and why you react to it in the way that you do. You'll learn how and why we're wired to react the way that we do and what's going on in your brain and body when you're under stress. When I teach you about a special part of the brain which I call your 'Black Box', you'll have a real 'Aha!' moment. I'll reveal how you can change your neurology, so that you have a positive response to stress.
6. Understanding the Link between Stress & Depression
Depression is a crippling illness and affecting more and more people, so I think it's important for you to understand why a stressful lifestyle can lead to depression. You'll learn how stress physically manifests in us and why it affects the functioning of our mind and brain. That might sound depressing in itself, but don't worry, the class ends by teaching you how you can develop resilience to depression through the subsequent practical classes in the course.
7. Attention Training
Now that you’ve completed the science section of the course, we’ll now turn our focus towards practical tools for beating stress and anxiety. Attention training is the foundation for adapting your response to stress.
This class explains how it works and how often you need to do it to get results, which will set you up for the attention training practical class which follows this one. Each practice class has an introduction, followed by the practice itself.
8. Anchor Breathing
The majority of the practical classes in the Thrive course have an introductory video, followed by a practical video, teaching you the practice itself. So Class 8a begins by teaching you the role of the breath in achieving good mental wellbeing. Over the years and because of stressful lifestyles, many of us have learned to breathe incorrectly, so you'll first learn how to breathe properly, then in Class 8b, you'll learn how to use your breath as a vital tool in your journey for adapting to stress.
9. Reconnecting the Mind and the Body
By class 9, you'll have already learned how we live in a disembodied manner, so in this class, we go about reversing that. I'll teach you how your body holds many insights into what's going on in your mind, then show you how to begin the process of developing resilience to stress by reconnecting your mind and body. Together, we'll conduct a contemplative practice, which will teach you to recognise the signals your body is telling you, so that you can positively respond.
10. Waking Up to Sensations in the Body
In class 10, you'll deepen your awareness of the signals that your body is sending you. The way in which you react to body signals is vital to adapting to stress, so you'll learn how best to respond to them. You'll also learn how to deal with uncomfortable sensations in your body and what this means for living with difficult emotions. Class 10 begins to change your experience with sensations in your body, so that you can later learn to respond more wisely to your thoughts and emotions.
11. Recognising your Emotions
Thrive works by building your knowledge as you progress through the course and in class 11, you'll build upon your understanding of working with sensations in your body, to recognising your emotions. You'll learn why this is so important in developing resilience to stress, then learn how to best respond to your emotions, so that you respond positively to stress, rather than it having ill effects on your brain and body.
12. Naming our Emotions
Once you've learned to recognise your emotions in the previous class, in class 12, you'll learn why naming emotions is an important part of developing resilience to stress. Then, you'll learn how to alternate between two different kinds of mind training, so that you become practiced in knowing what to do when emotions arise within you during your everyday life. Through this practice, you'll learn how to become less reactive and able to make better decisions.
13. Working with Thoughts
How we deal with our thoughts has a huge impact upon how well we cope with and adapt to stressful situations. Which is why Thrive has a series of classes dedicated to dealing our thoughts. The series begins with class 13, which first teaches you what thoughts are and how you can better work with them to prevent stress from extending throughout your brain and body. You'll build upon what you learned in the science classes by learning practical tools for dealing with your thoughts.
14. Waking Up from our Thoughts
Research shows that half of the time, in our minds, we are either living in the past or the future. The practice in class 14 teaches you how to wake up from your thoughts, so that you live in the present, which has a huge positive impact on your mental health. Of course, you'll have already learned why this is the case in the science section of the course, but here in class 14, you'll learn the practice of how to go about doing it in your everyday life.
15. Dealing with Difficult Thoughts
When we're stressed, anxious or depressed, we can have thoughts which are difficult to live with. So in class 15, I'll teach you how to deal with them, which will help you to break the cycle of negative thoughts which can otherwise be so damaging to your mental health. I'll teach you tools in class 15 which will make a real difference and which you can use for the rest of your life. You can trust them to help you to beat stress and develop resilience.
16. Recoding our Beliefs
We carry around with us narratives about who we think we are, which are regularly engrained in us from years ago. Often, these narratives are unhelpful, negatively affect our wellbeing as well as hold us back from where we want to be in life. So in class 16, I'll teach you how to work with the narrative in your head, so that you can live with more freedom and feel less stressed. Once you change the narrative of what you're identifying with, you can change the story of who you are.
17. Using Self-Compassion to Develop Resilience
Self-Compassion is extremely important in the fight against depression. Depression lies to you and urges you to blame yourself, which further exacerbates the illness, keeping you stuck in a cycle of negative thinking. The antidote to self blame is self-compassion and in class 17, I'll teach you how to practice it, so that you can develop resilience to depression. Research shows that self-compassion is one of the fastest acting practices in the course, which is great news for sufferers of depression.
18. Self-Compassion to Help our Mental Wellbeing
In class 18, we extend the practice of self-compassion to stop negative thoughts and resentment towards ourselves or other people. By stopping judgement and blame, we prevent stress from extending throughout our brain and body. I'll teach you how to practice forgiveness and self-forgiveness to stop the negative effects of stress on our physiology. This practice is also proven to boost positive feelings in as little as 7 minutes of practice. Another weapon in our armoury against stress and depression.
19. Exercises in Relieving Symptoms of Anxiety & Depression
In class 19, I teach you three practical exercises which you can use to calm your mind and relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression. They utilise the knowledge of our physiology, which you'll also learn in the science section of the course, and can be used anywhere at any time. You'll begin to understand how we can balance our mental health through the balancing of our physiology.
20. Collapsing the Ego to Develop Resilience to Depression
In the formative years of your life, you learned to develop an ego boundary. It was a necessary stage in life, to help you to relate to the world, but your ego can represent a huge barrier to mental wellbeing. In class 20, I'll teach you what your ego is and specifically how it can be problematic in achieving mental health. I'll then demonstrate to you how you can collapse your ego, so that you can regain balance and develop resilience to depression.
21. Setting an Intention
Thrive not only teaches you the science and practice of how to beat stress, but it also provides you with a framework for how you can live your life so that you don't get knocked off course by stress. So in class 21, I'll provide you with tools for making sure that you end up where you want to be in life. With busy and stressful lifestyles, it can be all too easy to just live day to day, without ever thinking about what you want from your life. Class 21 gives you the tools you need to live a wholehearted life.
22. Neuro-Linguistic Programming to Improve our Mental Health
In class 22, I'll teach you insights from neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) which will provide you with practical tools to help maintain your mental health. You can use the techniques when you're out and about, at home or at work, to help you to reduce the impact of stress on your mind, brain and body. Since you'll have already learned the importance of this in the science section, you'll be motivated to adopt the techniques.
23. Moving Forward
In this final class, I'll summarise what you've learned during the Thrive course, reinforcing the most important points and providing you with a springboard for the rest of your life. The journey from the beginning to the end of the course is a significant one and will transform your relationship with stress and your ability to manage your mental health. Once you've finished the course, you can go back and retake as many of the classes as you like. You'll have access to Thrive for life.
Whatever your Stress
Whether you want to beat the stress of juggling your work and home life, raising children, looking after elderly parents, a stressful job, studying for exams, financial pressures or you simply want to develop resilience to future stress, Thrive can help you.
Thrive will teach you why and how these different kinds of stress affect you, then show you how to deal with them. With practical tools and training, you'll learn how to beat stress and develop resilience to anxiety and depression. If you haven't already done so, watch the preview video at the top of the page, which will give you a taster of how Thrive works.
Frequently Asked Questions
If, after browsing our FAQs, you still have unanswered questions about the course, please contact Matt using this link.
Thrive is an online video course, consisting of 38 videos over 23 classes, which teaches you how you transform your wellbeing. It has been very carefully designed, using expert knowledge of neuroscience, psychology and mind training, to help you to beat stress and develop resilience to anxiety and depression.
Thrive teaches you both the science and practice of how to beat stress, so first you'll learn what stress really is and how it affects you, then you'll learn the practical tools to beat stress and develop resilience to anxiety and depression. Don't let stress hold you back in life, learn how to be happy and healthy even with a stressful lifestyle.
Firstly, Thrive teaches you what stress really is, plus why and how it affects your mind, brain and body. Once you understand the science of stress and how stress affects you, you'll be firmly in control. Whilst it would be nice if we could eliminate all the stress from our lives, that's not practical. Thrive teaches you the practical tools you need to develop resilience to stress, so that you can lead a happy and healthy life, even with a stressful lifestyle. Thrive achieves this by teaching you how to make positive adaptations so that your mind, brain and body can develop resilience to stress, anxiety and depression. Thrive also gives you a framework for how to live your life, so that you don't get knocked off course by stress and instead lead a happy, healthy and purposeful life.
You'll learn many different practical techniques for adapting to stress and research shows that positive benefits can be experienced after just 7 to 8 minutes of practice for some of the techniques. Other techniques take longer, for example 30 minutes of practice a day for 2 weeks. Research also shows that the more you practice, the more you will benefit. At first, you'll experience the benefits during the practical classes themselves, then as you continue to practice, you'll experience the benefits in your life as a whole. Thrive is designed to change your mind, brain and body's reaction to stress and this happens progressively over time. In later classes, Thrive provides you with a framework for how to live your life, so that you don't get knocked off course by stress and you can begin to use this framework straight away.
Yes, Matt offers online consultations (link), to help people with mental or physical health challenges.
If you are in any way unsure about the suitability of this course for your individual circumstances, please consult your doctor before you enrol in the course. This course is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Full details of our terms and conditions of use can be found via the link at the bottom of the page, 'Terms of Use'.
