As the new year approaches many of us set resolutions to accomplish in the new year, attending the gym to build up your muscles is one idea, however you can build up another muscle in the body without having to pay a dime to a facility.
The muscle you can build and strengthen is your brain! Our brains have what is called neuroplasticity and we can rewire our anxious brains If you have thoughts that impede your functioning such as fear. For example, you are now a sixteen year old person who in childhood had experienced a car accident and currently you are of age to take drivers ed to obtain your drivers license. The thought of driving a car has developed into a fear to the point that the teen will not take the drivers ed course. This teen is able to rewire their brain in order to accomplish this driving feat but, it will require several steps. It takes time to rewire one’s brain. On the one hand the teen must have a desire to re-wire their fear response and practice the new experience over and over by getting in and out of the car. Essentially the teen is creating a new neural path in the brain, overlaying the old fear response with positive experiences by being in the car and practicing driving.
In addition to “rewiring” an anxious brain, scientists have found that the brain has the capability to heal pain without the use of opioids. The study I am referring to is sited in the book The Brain’s way of healing by Norman Doidge. The prescription of Opioids in pain management made pain problems worse as the physicians did not take into account the neuroplasticity of the pain centers in the brain. Even on opioids, patients became tolerant of the medicine to the point that it no longer worked. Natural pain management requires strong determination. To begin with the patient must believe in the possibility of the brain releasing its own “pain medication”. Physicians trained in this natural method of pain management can verbally talk the patient through the process…
The natural treatment of emotional pain resulting from trauma and other situations has had great advances in the past few decades. Treatments such s EMDR(Eye movement and Desensitization and Reprocessing)Francine Shapiro, involving lights and eye movements have demonstrated success. Another treatment called “Brainspotting, David Grand, where only a pointer is used, activating the optic nerve which connects to the memory centers of the brain and by reprocessing upsetting events, while staring at a point activate the inner pain-relieving centers of the brain bringing relief.
A person can also heal themselves by what David Grand has coined as “Gazespotting”. Sitting comfortably and pick a point to stare at and think about the upsetting incidents you want to overcome. After a while the brain will heal your upset. You must relive the upset for it to be released.
In addition, Learning how the brain works and how to work with our brains and our emotions and anxious brains, we can help ourselves instead of lengthy therapy sessions. There are benefits to long term therapy, being able to fully process through difficult situations. However when simply alleviation of anxiety is the goal shorter brain focused sessions is all that is truly needed. This is not to say that medication is not helpful, it certainly can be and in some situations medication is essential. If we can learn how to manage our emotional pain and physical pain, medication may not be as needed.