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Healing and our Brains

brain healing – context

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  • copyright Robert S. Vibert 2019

A year ago I was subjected to a sudden and violent brain injury when my car was crashed into from the rear on a highway. As a result of the car rolling over several times, I sustained a concussion and am still in the process of healing. This post will cover some of the things I have learned over the course of the past year, with a focus on the contexts which are helpful for healing a brain injury. Other posts will focus on specific foods, substances and approaches.

What one needs to heal

A brain injury is often invisible but can affect us in many ways. There are a lot of articles to read about this and research is ongoing but unfortunately most people (including many doctors) have no idea about how serious these injuries can be or what needs to be done.

The context or environment we live in can have a substantial affect on a healing journey – it can make healing possible or it can hinder it or even make things worse.

Some things which make it easier to heal include:

  • peace and quiet
  • supportive people
  • therapeutic ambience

Peace and quiet

An injured brain has a finite amount of energy which must be allocated to the various activities engaged in on a daily basis – storing memories, recalling memories, understanding new data, repairing or replacing damaged areas, etc.

Every stimulus the brain is exposed to will require some level of engagement from it and use up some of those finite resources. Spending time in a quiet, peaceful, low stimulus environment will enable the brain to devote more resources to healing.

Spending time in a noisy environment, or one with sudden movements will have the opposite effect, draining valuable healing resources to deal with the stimuli.

One of the best ways to reduce symptoms of brain injury is to spend time in a dark, quiet restful place. Lying or sitting still, gently breathing and relaxing as much as possible can greatly reduce sensory overload and associated symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and fatigue.

Other environmental pollutants to avoid include WIFI signals as well as other EMF (ElectroMagnetic Fields) signals and polluted air (often from car traffic, industrial emissions, and spewed from airplanes). Just spending time away from cities in quiet woodlands can be beneficial.

Supportive people

Just like with the environment, the stimuli we are exposed to from people can aid or impair a healing process.

Supportive people can contribute to a successful healing process via their actions and attitudes. They will try to understand the situation and make the life of the injured person easier. They help reduce the stress load on the person healing by taking over some daily activities thereby freeing up brain resources for healing. When someone only has 100 units of brain resource available each day, not having to spend units on things like figuring out what to cook or handle an administrative task means they could heal faster and have more enjoyable days.

Supportive people will also work to ensure that the healing happens in an environment conducive to this process. They will intercept distractions and proactively deal with issues which might impact the injured person. They will speak calmly and gently, and ensure that their message is understood, even if that means they need to repeat themselves.

Supportive people will also recognize that when a person has a brain injury they might not behave in the same way as someone who is healthy. They might be easily confused or get frustrated and this is not intentional but a result of the injury. Forgetfulness is another common symptom of brain injury, as is not being able to figure out some things quickly. They will be patient with the injured person and invest time and energy in understanding and accepting the new reality.

Non-supportive people will engage in activities which stall the healing process or in some cases even cause more problems. For example, engaging in an argument with an injured person will not only divert limited brain resources to deal with the situation, but might also induce extra stress on the injured and trigger a headache. Then the injured person needs to deal with the headache in addition to the argument.

Other ways that people can be non-supportive include

  • making demands on the injured to perform tasks or activities as this induces stress
  • lecturing the injured on how they should behave or be
  • being inconsiderate of the brain processing challenges faced by the injured
  • criticizing the actions and ideas of the injured
  • expecting the injured to contribute in the same manner as a healthy person.

All of these actions and attitudes produce stress on the injured and show or hinder the healing process.

Therapeutic ambience

To heal from a brain injury it is often helpful to have exposure to healing and therapeutic stimuli. For example, the music of Mozart and Bach are considered to be helpful for the brain as it reorganizes damaged neural circuits.

Gentle touch and caresses from another person can be soothing and reduce the frustration experienced with the lowered cognitive ability.

Encouraging words of support backed with actions and attitudes can ease the life of the injured.

This is a work in progress and will be enhanced as new data is encountered. Please feel free to contribute to the development of this resource – emails with suggestions for improvement or additional input can be sent to me via the contact form.


Healing and our Brains, Moving to a stress-free reality

A Recipe you may find tasty

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I was recently talking with someone about how to have a better life, one in which returning past issues did not get in the way of being productive and happy, generally speaking. In the course of our conversations, a rough recipe for progressing in this direction developed. While I don’t consider the recipe definitive and welcome feedback so I can refine it, a good starting point it certainly will be.

Figuring out how to begin when we want to move from where we are to where we want to be is often a challenge.  When we have not dealt with certain events in our lives and our feelings related to those events, these feelings and thoughts tend to accumulate within us and start to have an impact on our thought processes and behaviours.  We’ll be puttering along in our everyday life, something will happen that triggers an exaggerated emotional response and eventually we’ll realize that we are feeling just as awful as we felt ages ago in a similar situation. “What the…??” we might ask ourselves, having thought  that issue X had been long gone and yet here it was popping up into our lives, uninvited and disruptive. Regardless of how much we try to fool ourselves, any unresolved issue from the past can be triggered back into our lives at any moment. All it takes is the right trigger. What follows below is a recipe for consciously dealing with those past issues in a systematic and caring way so that they get resolved and lose their potential to cause more problems.

Know where you are going

A journey without destination is fine so long as you don’t mind the wandering. In our case, this journey is more like baking a cake, hence the recipe analogy and the need to define some sort of desired result or outcome. A destination/outcome for this journey could be something as simple as “I want to spend much less time feeling sad and much more time feeling peaceful.” Or it could be something along the lines of “I want to remain calm and centered when someone does or says something which today would trigger anger in me.” The destination is important, but there is no need to spend a lot of time on defining the “perfect” or most important destination. Pick any destination/result which will enhance your life and then follow the recipe below until you get there or reasonably close. You can always pick another destination in the future, and repeat this process/recipe as many times as you like. Each time you consciously release stored feelings, you will lighten your load and there will be a cumulative effect.

Ingredients Needed

Like any recipe, it helps to have some basic understanding of what is involved before beginning. You’re going to need some ingredients and some will have to be prepared in advance of the recipe itself so you don’t get bogged down in the middle. Each of these ingredients will help the other, so they are all important and interdependent. At the same time, being human, you are allowed to cultivate these ingredients as you go along, so there is no need to have them all “perfect” before starting.

Patience –  All personal growth/change takes some time. Sorry, no magic instant cures here. And, truth be told, most of the instant cures you’ve heard about don’t work that well, if at all. There might be one that truly does exist, but it has yet to become a panacea, so in the meantime, let’s just accept that we’re going to have to take some time to get to our destination. After all, we have spent most of our life until the moment we start to effect change establishing patterns and habits and world-views and beliefs which are so ingrained that we hardly notice them. Be patient, and don’t try to become someone new in a few days – life does not work that way. Think of how a ship turns at sea – it takes some time, but it turns, gently and steadily, until it is in the right direction. Sudden change = disruption, water splashing all about, and struggle against what is there. Change is also not about abruptly stopping what we have committed to in our life, but about evolving toward a balance between our existing commitments and our envisioned future.

Awareness – If we are not aware of where we are, it is next to impossible to get anywhere new, except by accident or happenstance. When we embark on a journey of change, we need to notice where we are, notice what is happening inside us, and notice our progress.   Becoming aware of the need to make changes in our life is the first step, and  once one does this, one becomes more self-aware all the time. The main things that we will be paying attention to on this journey are what I call the BETIS: Body Sensations, Emotions/Feelings, Thoughts, Images in our minds, Sounds or words we hear in our heads. Each of these is a form of inner communication and once we start paying attention to them, we are on our journey.

Persistence – If you seriously want to get to a better place, then you must do the work involved, as often as it takes. It can be hard to move on from a habit or reaction to which we have an established connection.  But, as the saying goes, when you wake up in the morning, you are faced with the same swamp as yesterday, filled with the alligators of life to fend off. One of these days, you will start to drain the swamp and that will aid in the alligators disappearing. Draining the swamp is key to being alligator free or at least reducing dramatically their presence in your life.

Acceptance – Accept that it is human to feel anger or any other feeling. You are human and we humans have emotions.  Do not try to control your feelings or resist them. Just feel them, notice them, feel them, notice them. Eventually, if you accept and allow those feelings & thoughts, they will dissipate, on their own. If you try to suppress them, control them, or make them go away, you will only delay this process and will be fighting with yourself, which usually results in frustration and feeling drained.  Yes, we live in a world in which we are taught to fight with our emotions, and look how well that is working… not!   Acceptance also means that you do not try to make sense of anything that happens at this time. Whenever you have strong emotions your brain is designed to help you survive and there will be more confusion than clarity.  Once the feeling has been released, you’ll have plenty of time to think clearly, so give yourself a break and just accept the feeling as it is, without analyzing prematurely. You can stop trying to figure it all out – the answers you seek will come in due course, as any confusing mess will disappear once you release the stored emotions.

Allowing – Your journey is not about trying. It is not about effort, but about allowing.  Feelings which are uncomfortable are normal and human. Allowing them to arise and then flow through you and out of you is the only way for them to pass, even if that takes a while. Do not try to stop yourself from feeling or thinking. Fighting your experience only delays the resolution you desire.   Allow yourself to feel anger and other feelings that you might normally avoid because they are uncomfortable. Allow yourself to feel them for as long as it takes for the feeling to flow through and out. There are techniques such as AER which can speed up the release process around a feeling, but you can also simply sit with the feeling. It is human and natural to feel anger, sadness, guilt, etc.  If you often feel guilty when you say NO, well that is just being human. What is also human and needed is to allow yourself to feel any emotion and then move on without judgment of having had that feeling.

Focus –  Concentrate, as best you can, on just one feeling at a time. Feelings are often interlinked, but if we pay attention to just one at a time it is easier to notice it fluctuating and eventually dissipating. Notice what is arising in you emotionally when you pay attention to your inner world. Those emotions are what will keep you in the old. Releasing them, will enable you to move a little bit ahead on your journey.   When you have released a feeling, you can take a break or allow the next to arise. But do not worry if feelings jump around, seeming to increase and diminish. They are like bundles of energy in flux, and when you allow them to flow, they will discover that you are OK with them being and OK with them leaving, and they will go on their way.

Time and space – Setting aside some time and having a space in which you can take this journey is very important. You want to be able to be relaxed and to be undisturbed for at least 30 minutes each time. Invest in yourself by putting aside the time and finding a private secluded place to relax and notice.

Commitment – When you start paying attention to what is happening inside, a lot of buried feelings will probably want to come to the surface. They want to escape, to be free and your role is to allow that to happen. Starting on a journey of self-healing is often like opening the door to the basement – you never know what you might find down there, and it is often more than we remember having put down there. For many people, feeling something that has been buried for years can be scary or uncomfortable at first and there will be a tendency to stuff those feelings back down. Stuffing feelings down inside us only results in more pain, as the pressure will build until it suddenly explodes. Staying committed to the journey is critical, even when it feels hard to do. The reward is freedom from each of the stored feelings that you will release and their reduced impact on your life.

Impartiality – Judging our feelings as good or bad and reacting to them only causes us to have relationships with them which keep them stuck inside. Being impartial or neutral or non-attached to these feelings will greatly facilitate the release of them. So, just notice them. “I am feeling sad”, for example. You are not your feelings, so it is not correct to say “I am angry” as that suggests a permanent condition rather than the temporary experience you are really having.

Emotional support – As anyone who has seriously tried to do anything new has discovered, most of the people around you will find it hard to accept your attempts at change. They will resist them overtly and covertly, all under the guise of wanting “the best” for you. They can’t help themselves – they want things to stay  in the “devil-known” zone. You will find it much easier to effect the change(s) you desire if you have an ally, someone who will be on your side and encourage you to stick with it when the going is not so smooth.

Environmental support – If you live in the middle of a whirlwind of activity, or eat junk food too often, or have any other elements of your life that are constantly disruptive, then this journey will be harder. Diet, for example, has been shown to have a direct effect on your mental state, so eating foods which give you a mental boost, both for mood and for concentration, will be an essential part of the support you create around you. For some interesting reporting on the diet connection, see the film Super Size Me in which the author finds himself feeling lousy after eating a lot of fast food.

How to bake your new life

Now that you have a notion of the ingredients needed, you can bake your cake, embark on your journey. Here is the recipe, and it is very simple and straightforward:

All you have to do is pay attention to your inner world and allow whatever feelings come up to be just as they are and then  flow out of you. That is it. The “tricky” part is that the normal human approach to life is to avoid discomfort, and so we normally do not willingly sit with our uncomfortable feelings, allowing them to be and to flow out of us. We run away from them, distract ourselves, medicate ourselves, stuff them down and out of sight in our inner basement. For this journey, it is crucial to pay attention and stay in the feeling, no matter how counter-intuitive that may seem at first. Eventually, like riding a bicycle, you’ll be doing this naturally.

To begin, write on a piece of paper (or copy this to a word processor and print it):

ALL FEELINGS ARE NORMAL AND HUMAN.

IT IS OK TO FEEL WHAT I AM FEELING.

JUST FEEL ONE THING AT A TIME.

ACCEPT WHAT COMES UP  – IT IS ALL PART OF BEING HUMAN.

ALLOW THE FEELING TO BE.

ALLOW THE FEELING TO LEAVE.

STICK WITH IT UNTIL IT LEAVES, AS BEST I CAN.

WHATEVER I AM ABLE TO FEEL TODAY IS OK

Have this paper in front of you when you are in the process of being fully aware, to remind you that it is OK to feel whatever you are feeling, as millions of other humans have felt before you today and millions will feel tomorrow.

Now go and bake

Go to your secluded place, get comfortable and if you want, listen to the guided relaxation meditation found on this page:

http://www.vibert.ca/mp3/

Here is a direct link that you can use to download it directly:
http://www.vibert.ca/mp3/relaxation-meditation-with-Robert-Vibert.mp3

As you listen, you will notice the BETIS I mentioned above. Just notice them. If you find yourself getting distracted, just notice that. If you don;t want to listen to that recording, then sit in silence or listen to some instrumental music.

To track your progress, start a journal and note down what feelings come up during an awareness session, giving each feeling a subjective intensity rating on a scale of 0-10 when you start to pay attention to it, and then when you finish noticing it for that session. Perhaps it will be 6/10 when you start and 4/10 when you finish. That’s OK. Perhaps it will be 4/10 when start and 6/10 when you finish, and that’s OK, too. There is no right or wrong, there is only noticing what is there. Just the act of conscious noticing is enough to facilitate the natural human process of release of those long stored emotions.

Do this noticing each day if you can. Notice what comes up for you and allow it to flow through and out. Just do your best, whatever that is for you each time. No judgment, no analysis, just notice and just be.

After a while of doing this awareness exercise, you will start to notice that some feelings that used to pop up don’t do that so much anymore or not so intensely. Others will arise for their turn at being released. You’ll get a bit closer to your destination each time.

Copyright 2010 Robert S. Vibert, all rights reserved. Constructive feedback and suggestions welcomed.

Healing and our Brains

Don’t you understand?

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The human quest for “understanding” is so prevalent that most of us take it completely for granted and organize much of our lives around it. What hardly ever gets questioned is what is causing this quest in the first place and what are the consequences of such constant questing.

To properly set the context, let’s consider some examples of quests for understanding that we can run across any day of the week. One good example is what we see from the Relationship Obtaining, Improvement, and Repair (ROIR) industry. The ROIR produces dozens of new books, and hundreds (if not thousands) of magazine and online articles each year purporting to help us understand potential and existing partners and relationships. This same industry organizes conferences and workshops by the hundreds and provides for steady employment for countless therapists who help their clients “understand” why things are not working as they want in relationships. In addition to the specialized providers of ROIR products and services, much of the content of TV programs and films includes this material, and people worldwide watch these for hours on end, all in our quest to better “understand” relationships and be entertained. On a more private level, people spend hours each day discussing, mulling over, revisiting, examining, and dissecting relationships, all in that quest to understand what is happening, what happened and what will happen next. If one could harness the electrical energy of all the brain activity involved in just this one questing process, it is likely we would never need to drill for any more oil! Shades of The Matrix… 🙂

Another example of questing for understanding is when we try to figure out what is our purpose in life.  We examine our likes and dislikes, investigate income potential and job opportunities, consider future growth prospects, meditate on spiritual inclinations, study purported laws of attraction and distraction, attend workshops and classes, etc., etc. all with the goal of helping us “understand” better our life purpose. Many religions advise us on this topic as well, in an effort to increase our “understanding” and some philosophies devote entire volumes to this quest.

A third and final example (and there are many more once you start looking) is the quest for understanding how the human mind works. Scientists and philosophers the world over diligently study this topic. They put people in fMRI machines to scan their brain activity, attach EEG electrodes to the scalps of volunteers to pick up electrical signals, sit in contemplation or debate vigorously with colleagues about the functioning of the human mind/brain. The number of books and articles on this subject has grown by leaps and bounds over the past years as technology promises to help us “understand” ourselves better.

Despite the enormous investments of time, effort and money in the pursuit of understanding in these and many other fields, our “understanding” seems to be a constantly moving target, with yesterday’s best advice and theories often contradicted or colored by today’s latest discovery. But this moving target is not the crux of my discussion here.

Why do we “need” to understand?

This essay is just my current conclusion on why we humans need to quest constantly for understanding. It might be right, and it might just as well be wrong. And, more than likely, I will not quest much more for understanding why we quest for understanding once I have finished writing it. Phew! What a convoluted path – did you keep up? Did you “understand” what I am trying to do here? 😉

Without further ado, in a nutshell, this is my idea for why we need so desperately to “understand” and why even when we do “understand” we still seek out more and more details and explore alternative explanations, to supposedly further our “understanding”:

Our brain forces us to seek out “understanding”. Simple as that. OK, bye now.

What’s that you are saying? You don’t fully understand?  Oh bother, well I guess I’ll try to explain this notion of mine, but there are some ground rules. First, I might be completely wrong about all this. I may not “understand” this at all, and you reading what I write here may generate more confusion than understanding. If you are OK with that, read on. If not, best you save yourself now, before it is too late! And, even if you do eventually “understand” what I am saying here, just “understanding” it is not going to make an iota  of difference to you.  You’d actually have to do something with this new knowledge and comprehension, or else you’ll just be adding to your storehouse of data, thoughts and ideas, and it is probably pretty full already.

Our brain needs to “understand”

As best I can figure it, over time our brains evolved some special capabilities which have served us well, but like an athlete who only exercises one set of muscles, we can get out of balance when we dedicate too much time to one of our possible activities. The special capability that I am talking about is problem solving. We humans are great at problem solving, really superb when you consider it all. Just look at the marvels of technology that we have created as a result of this ability, which we have in abundance. Why are we such good problem solvers? It is because we have a powerful Problem Processing Engine (PPE) inside us, mainly in our head. This PPE detects problems, analyses the data related to the problem at hand, studies it and starts generating potential solutions which are eventually used to solve the problem.  At least, that is how it works when things are working well.

What goes wrong

If our PPE was always working just fine, we’d have no reason to pay much attention to it, like the engine of a car – it would efficiently take us from here to there, from problem to solution. Alas, our PPE is subject to interference from a number of elements, and this interference can cause it to malfunction, to our detriment.

Stress can wreak havoc on the smooth functioning of our PPE – instead of producing good solutions, it often just processes the same problems over and over, lacking enough peace and quiet to properly digest the details and arrive at a workable solution. You are probably familiar with this – once you’ve reached the point of being tired and over-worked or over-stressed, your ability to solve problems and make good decisions declines. This is part of the reason why humans need a break from work on a regular basis, and that includes domestic engineering (AKA housework and child-rearing). Without those regular breaks, we cannot function well, and we tend to either delay making decisions or we make ones that are not optimal.

Another very common problem for our PPE is the effect of LoveDrugs. LoveDrugs is a term I use for the chemicals that our bodies produce in large quantities when we “fall in love”. They include dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin and when we are flooded by them, it is like being on cocaine according to the researchers who study this sort of thing. Now LoveDrugs do serve a vital purpose – they cause us to see another human through incredibly rosy filters, masking all the stuff about them that would normally trigger us to consider seriously if it is really such a good idea to mate with them. This diminished judgment is necessary for the survival of the species – we could not be too overly selective about mates for much of our history, and so LoveDrugs helped ease the way for babies to be conceived and thus we are all here today.  The fly in this ointment is that when we are on LoveDrugs, our PPE is very impaired. It does not process problems well, reaches conclusions we can only wonder about later, and generally diverts most of its focus from life to what’s happening or not with The Other. This also explains a lot about why the RIOR industry is so active – people under the influence of LoveDrugs are trying to figure out their relationships with others who may or not be on LoveDrugs. And, here’s a secret that may save you a lot of concern and effort (if you can remember it when you are on LoveDrugs): when you are trying to “understand” why someone on LoveDrugs did X or Y, the answer is simple – they are literally drugged and their Problem Processing Engines are not working well. They are making decisions while under the influence and no amount of analysis or rationalizing with them will have any real effect, just like arguing with a drunk is a waste of time. Maybe you did not want to hear that…

Another common issue that arises is that when no real problem is in sight, our PPE will go into Problem Seeking Mode, looking for problems to work on, including where they do not actually exist. Think of your PPE as an engine that is almost always revving, ready to process a problem. This Problem Seeking Mode is especially common when one does not have any productive activity to occupy one’s time and PPE. When the PPE does not have real problems to work on, it looks for them in the innocuous events of life, imagining that they must exist somewhere.  Once it has invented a “problem”, it then seeks out “evidence” and “proof” of the existence of this “problem”, even if that means it has to negatively interpret just about everything that appears in front of the person.  Trying to deal rationally with someone who has had their PPE invent a problem is another major waste of time. The human mind does not distinguish well between dreams and reality, and this dreamt up problem seems perfectly “real” to this person. You may now consider differently the expression “It’s all in their head”…

A final potential issue is that our PPE is influenced by emotions, including all the stored emotional energy from our past. Present day emotions and memories and the emotions associated with them influence how your PPE will work. Strong painful emotions will prompt the PPE to generate solutions that will not be objective but ones designed to prevent you from being exposed to further pain and suffering. Unfortunately, these defensive solutions are often rather simplistic and self-defeating, as they are happening at a subconscious level and we are not aware of the influence of our past pain on our present decision-making processes. People will walk away from perfectly good jobs, for example, because some buried pain has been triggered in them by something at the job. Most of the time, they are not even aware of the pain or the triggering of a defensive reaction, and will rationalize their decision to leave after the fact or call it a gut instinct. Often, the “cure” is worse than the “disease” being avoided. As before, trying to “understand” why someone makes a decision is often a waste of time and effort, as there are so many hidden factors at play and most people make emotional decisions and then backwards rationalize them.

Treat your engine well

If you’ve read this far, you may think that things are pretty bleak. We’re saddled with a PPE that can become hijacked by stress, LoveDrugs, idleness and strong emotions and then work against us instead of for us, causing us grief instead of helping us. Unfortunately, there is no real way to turn off our PPE – it is hard wired in our head, and when it works well, it really is useful to us. So, what can we do? Well, the first suggestion I have is to pay attention and get to know your PPE – watch it working. Every time you find yourself trying to “understand” you’ll know your PPE is at work, diligently plugging away. Just notice that happening.

Hard as it may sound, the next step is to see if you can start to relinquish the constant need to “understand” everything around you. Realize that we’ll never really understand everything in life anyway, and that some things will never be understandable. Why did the chicken cross the road? Who knows?  Does it matter?  It is possible to gradually shift from a place of needing to understand to accepting a lot of what happens as “what happens”. Meditation on the breath or a flower or anything that is rather removed from being a “problem” is often helpful.

Make sure you treat your PPE well, getting needed breaks from work and worries. Finally, healing emotional wounds so they no longer mess up your PPE’s working will enable it to do its job well and serve you like the good servant it wants to be.

Copyright 2010 Robert S. Vibert, all rights reserved.

– Comments and feedback are welcome, as long as you don’t expect me to understand you. My PPE is offline for an oil change. 😉