The Best Brain

This Blog Has Moved to http://www.thebestbrainpossible.com/

2010-10-07T20:55:00.001-04:00

I am big time now. Check out my new, very spiffy website at

http://www.thebestbrainpossible.com/

Visit and "like" me on facebook also at The Best Brain Possible.

See ya there!

Carrot on a Stick

2010-10-01T06:57:00.002-04:00

As every manager or parent knows, if you want to motivate someone to be more productive, you dangle a prize, a reward, a bonus or something else which you think will make them salivate in front of them. That is what bonuses and allowances are for, right?! Hold on! Not so fast.

In their book, The Winner’s Brain, Jeff Brown and Mark Fenske tell of studies done at Harvard that actually show that productivity and external rewards are inversely related after a certain threshold. Yes, inversely!

External rewards, such as money and other material things, encourage people to focus narrowly on a task, to do it as quickly as possible, and to take fewer risks. The focus becomes the prize, not the process, and, people begin to feel as if they are being controlled by the reward. This causes them to become less invested and less determined which, in turn, causes the creative juices to dry up. Focus on extrinsic rewards erodes intrinsic interest and motivation.

Motivation is the second strategy outlined in their book that anybody’s brain can develop and use to achieve success in life. They define motivation as the ability to translate potential and intention into action.

The research shows that, while external incentives do work to get people moving and give them an extra push to get them over the initial, short term hump, they do not motivate long term. For someone to stay motivated over the long haul, personal meaning and intrinsic value have to kick in.

Surprisingly, staying motivated and achieving long term goals boil down to the kinda new age-ish concept of staying in the present moment and celebrating the small victories. Framing everyday, ordinary tasks positively towards an outcome and finding inspiration in them causes the amygdala in your brain to stay active and gives your brain a dopamine bath as a reward which helps keep you going in the right direction. Achieving in the here and now allows you to succeed later.

I remember in the first winter of my recovery from a brain injury, I went to a “jump and pump” aerobics class where you work out with jump ropes. I could not jump rope to save my life. It was sad. I ended up just having to hold the rope and jump up and down in place. I could do that. I bought myself a jump rope soon thereafter and vowed that I would jump rope again like a third grader, dammit! – minus the pigtails. What a goal. I remember how happy and proud I was when I could jump 20 times without getting all tangled up. Imagine that!? A grown woman feeling good about being able to jump rope. Now, I still can’t do the double dutch bus, mind you, but I wouldn’t get laughed off the playground either.

You can develop motivation and reinforce this trait in your brain by celebrating the minor accomplishments and by practicing finding the positive in the mundane situations. There really is some scientific basis for this “feely good” stuff. Plus, when you approach the small, every day events with optimism and appreciation, it makes the journey so much more enjoyable along the way.

Love ya. Mean it. Miss ya already.

2010-09-30T06:28:00.002-04:00

This is a special post. Today is my brother's birthday, Chris. He would have been 48. He died 15 years ago of AIDS at the age of 33. Yes, he was gay...and fun, and hilarious and lived full out while here. He was also my best friend.

The below was written by a good friend of his, Mike Mason. It perfectly captures Chris' spirit and energy which I wanted to share with you today.

Chris Hampton was a man with a genius for living. He knew what clubs to go to, what CD's to buy, which thrift stores were cool, which gym everyone was at, where to get a custom 50's swimsuit, who to call, who to insult, when to arrive, when to leave, how to go all weekend without sleep, how to keep the boss from suspecting on Monday morning.

Over the years, I saw him on a hundred dance floors, a small whirlwind pulling friends into a joyous orbit, and today I cannot bring myself to understand that the center of so much has collapsed.

Here's the first thing I learned about Chris: He was not a guy to shrink from battle. Ten years ago, he worked as a waiter at a restaurant on Peachtree Street called Cafe Society. It went bankrupt suddenly, and one of the first conversations I had with Chris concerned his determination to sue the owners for back wages. This was not to be an exceptional conversation.

For as long as I knew him, there were disputes - dramatic, almost Shakespearean - involving car accidents and rent deposits and breakups and jobs. Chris was quick to draw his sword, sing a war whoop, and charge the enemy. I loved that about him.

He was restless. I suspect that he hated silence and emptiness, that he cherished noise and furor and friends and a full Filofax. For the last few years, he insisted to me that he'd become a homebody. I never believed it. This was the guy who dragged me to a Christmas party where a leather-clad woman with a bloody nose let her Doberman eat his way through the buffet. This was the man who showed up at a Halloween party looking like a cross between Peter Fonda in Easy Rider and Liza Minelli in Cabaret, with just a dash of Pee Wee Herman.

To this day, there is a ball of crumpled metal underneath the front bumper of my car because Chris said something, I can't recall what, that made me laugh so hard I drove over a parking curb at 4am at the Cove.

I remember Chris rising out of the Chattahoochee River, a laughing tangle of love beads and algae, yelling as our raft sailed past: "love ya, mean it, miss ya already!" Somehow he was waiting for us at the end of the race. That much was typical: I often felt he was waiting patiently for the rest of his friends to catch up.

Here is what AIDS wants: It wants us to stop living as fully as Chris lived. AIDS is a dark angel passing overhead, and it reaches for the brightest of us, like Chris, because it hopes that by extinguishing their stars, it may also snuff the spirit of an entire community. It hopes that those who are left behind will lead compromised lives, perhaps lives not even worth living, because of the losses we have suffered.

Today, I think the dark angel has lost a battle and Chris has won. The sicker he got, the more we learned from him about living fully, and drawing our swords, and refusing to compromise. Imagine the mortification above. The dark angel of AIDS looks down upon us now and instead of seeing a light extinguished it sees scores more burning brighter.

Occasionally, I have a dream about the day a cure is found. On that day the dark angel comes crashing to earth and I am there when it lands, miraculously, in Piedmont Park, among rows of gay men lying on the grassy hillside. We are not pleased. I find I am holding the love beads Chris Hampton used to wear. So, I walk over and wrap the necklaces tight around the monster's greasy neck. Before long, the fallen angel is flapping angrily along the ground, toward the sewer, unable to fly again because the crowd has ensnared it in love beads.

Goodbye Chris. Love ya. Mean it. Miss ya already,

If you like where you are, you can't complain about how you got there.....

2010-09-24T06:04:00.000-04:00

It was a whimpering sound like a wounded animal would make. It was something in between a wail and a moan. It came from way down deep. I couldn’t not do it or suppress it. It was like an involuntary gag reflex. You don’t want to throw up and you try really hard not to, but it just comes rushing up to the top of your throat anyway.

I sat outside the courtroom on a wooden bench. The air became very thin. I couldn’t breathe and gasped as the pitiful sound continued to heave up from somewhere inside me. They told me to put my head between my knees. There was a very real, visceral sensation of pain somewhere in the depths of my gut. It was like the queasy, hollow feeling you have when you have drank too much the night before and you just feel all empty and inside out the morning after, but much more immediate and intense.

The judge had just announced his decision to take custody of my two sons away from me and give it to their father. Not only that, he had also decided that he was allowing my ex-husband, who lived in the same city at the time, to move out of state with them.

I had tried to commit suicide three months earlier and was brain damaged and still emotionally unstable even though I tried very hard, not at all convincingly unbeknownst to me at the time, to put on a charade of being neither. While I definitely did not think so then, it was absolutely best for the kids and myself.

I could not and would not have devoted the energy needed to heal from my brain injury or focused on my emotional healing had the kids stayed here…even living with their Dad. Being without the kids has allowed me to mature emotionally (about time), determine who I am and what I am about other than being a mother, find and develop strength I did not even know I had, and, among other things, learn to be comfortable with solitude. I even prefer it now. Go figure.

The children, on the other hand, have gained an invaluable opportunity they would not have had otherwise to get to know their Dad. Teenage boys need their Dad. I cannot teach them how to be a man. He has also modeled for them a whole different way of life than I would have and exposed them to a vast array of things. Great for them. They have even had the experience of gaining a younger brother. So, my youngest, has gotten to be both the youngest and the middle child. Interesting. I think he kinda likes being the older one now.

Funny, how what scares us the most and what we try to flee from like a bat out of hell, oftentimes, proves to be the most beneficial with the most growth and wisdom for us if we relax and allow ourselves to move through the experience, let things just unfold, and not tense up and resist.

Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, in her book When Things Fall Apart writes:

We regard discomfort in any form as bad news. ….feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy and fear instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we are stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s wherever we are.

When something “bad” happens, don’t be so quick to judge the situation. Nothing is good or bad in and of itself. “Good” and “bad” exist in your thoughts, in your perspective, in your brain, and you have the power to change and control this.

Without a Word

2010-09-17T07:23:00.003-04:00

Years ago, I had a blind date set up by one of those expensive, exclusive match making agencies where rich men turn to find arm candy. It was not a good match on any level. This guy showed up looking like some gangster straight out of a cheesy movie with pounds of gold around his neck, a bad suit, and his shirt unbuttoned way too far. In North Carolina?? I could not stop staring at the hair plugs half way down his forehead even though I kept telling myself not to. While my mouth was saying cordial things, I am sure my body language was saying something very different.

It takes your brain mere seconds to interpret what someone is saying, but the brain takes about only 200 milliseconds to gather information from facial expressions. Quick, huh!? The amygdala responded vigorously in test subjects even when researchers flashed photos so fast that people couldn’t tell at what the heck they were looking. The amygdala is the reptilian region of the brain associated with sounding the danger alarm. Assessing stimuli here really quickly would be a good thing in order to not be something’s lunch.

According to Jeff Brown and Mark Fenske, in their book The Winner’s Brain, a person constantly, unconsciously makes “micro-expressions” which are so fast that they don’t even register them and cannot control them.

These nonverbal cues convey emotions and ideas, oftentimes, more powerfully than words. This is the first form of communication learned and used by infants. There are about half a dozen facial expressions that are recognized universally across all cultures. I mean, we all know what pissed off looks like, right? There is no mistaking it.

Even after we learn to speak and understand language, the brain’s right hemisphere reads these nonverbal cues. Being able to accurately interpret this information and respond authentically and appropriately is crucial to a good sense of self awareness which is one of the key ingredients to a winner’s brain according to Brown and Fenske.

In their book, they cover eight traits great minds use to achieve success. “Win factors.” Rather than just recite the usual, positive thinking fluff, these attributes are backed up by neuroscience. They are traits anyone can develop to create a “failure-resistant” brain. This is my kind of stuff. I know, I am such a dork.

Possessing a highly evolved sense of self-awareness allows someone to assess interactions with others more accurately and to be perceived as more confident and authentic. It also allows a person to take advantage of their talent and honestly understand their limitations. They define self-awareness as the ability to “know thyself.”

All of us maintain a public persona to a certain extent. It is absolutely necessary. An example would be putting on a happy face at work when you feel anything but happy or being nice to a blind date when you really want to run the other way. In a winning sense of self-awareness these two selves are pretty similar most of the time or, at the least, there is a conscious understanding of how, why, and when they are different. Also, a winner’s brain tends to have a very stable sense of self regardless of the present circumstances.

These two selves used to be quite different in me. I used to have one self I showed to my significant other, to my parents, and the public. She was the people pleaser and did not make waves. However, the other me was always fuming because she never was authentic. It was so tiring keeping that mask on all the time. Now, what you see is what you get…like it or not.

Nothing To Hold On To

2010-09-10T06:45:00.000-04:00

There is an anonymous saying that, in order to live the life that is waiting for you, you have to let go of the life you have. Three years ago, when I swallowed handful after handful of pills and tried to commit suicide, my life as I knew it ceased to exist from that moment on. OK. That is taking it a little too literally.

In the months that followed, I lost custody of my children as they moved with their Dad to a different state. In the following year, I gradually lost all friends and became isolated as I did not return phone calls or socialize. I couldn’t. All I could do was take care of me and exist.

The things which had been so important like the latest, killer clothes, a flawless appearance at all times (even did the Botox thing), and having a house which looked like it came right out of some magazine complete with the sparkle and fresh smell, were not a consideration anymore. Not even on the radar. I used to pride myself on my yard never hinting at the fact that a single woman lived here. It was all I could do just to keep it from looking run down and unkept. I think I even saw a few tumbleweeds blow through.

After an initial period of shock and anger, came a profound stage of sadness and grief. In truth, the Debbie that had existed did die. Slowly, gradually, came acceptance and taking responsibility for the life I had lived thus far, the big mess I had created and the life I was going to live from that point on.

At this time, I started putting my energy into me and improving myself and my life. I knew I did not want to stay in the condition I was in, and I was the only one who was going to make it better. I have not stopped since. I have only gained momentum. You know what? It has worked. Yipee!

If a fortune teller had looked into their crystal ball and told me that I would be living without my kids, without a significant other, without a career, with a speech impediment, and basically with the same issues as when I tried to kill myself, but I would be happier than ever and be very optimistic about the future, I would have told them their ball must have a huge smudge. Yet, it is true.

Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, in her book Comfortable With Uncertainty says that:

Wanting to find a place where everything’s OK is just what keeps us miserable. Always looking for a way to have pleasure and avoid pain is how we keep ourselves in samsara. (the vicious cycle of suffering) As long as we believe there is something that will permanently satisfy our hunger for security, suffering is inevitable. The truth is that things are always in transition. ‘Nothing to hold on to’ is the root of all happiness.

Things may not be perfect, but I am OK…great even. I have come to know that in uncertainty lies all possibility. Peace and joy are not found in having no wrinkles, a spotless house, or yard of the month. It is in my brain.

From Here to There

2010-09-03T07:13:00.000-04:00

There is a sport called orienteering where participants receive nothing but a map and a compass and then have to find their way to locations on the map and back to the starting point. They are not limited as to how they can find the target locations except by their thinking. They can hike, ski, swim, or get creative. (I think using a vehicle of any kind is cheating.) They just have to get there. I have decided that life is a lot like this sport and, recovering from a brain injury has made me really good at it. Who would have thought?

In his book The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge tells of Paul Bach-y-Rita, a scientist and rehabilitation specialist, who has developed a “tactile vision device” which allows cognitively blind people to “see” by their brains interpreting sensations from their skin. He has also developed a glove for NASA astronauts with sensors on the outside allowing them to “feel” and perform delicate movements. He has even developed a condom that allows males with spinal cord injuries to have orgasms. No lie! It is all based on the premise that these experiences occur “in the brain” and are just the brain’s interpretation of stimuli. If one way doesn’t work, the brain can reroute the signals - from the skin to the visual cortex for example.

He was inspired to develop these because his father, Pedro Bach-y-Rita, had stroke at 65 which left him paralyzed in his face, and in half of his body and unable to speak. He was given no hope of recovery by his doctors and was advised to be institutionalized. Instead, he was brought home and Paul and his brother, George, worked to rehabilitate him.

As is often the case I have found, not knowing anything and not listening to the “experts” was a good thing. They used the way a baby learns as their model for rehabilitation. Pedro first learned to crawl, then stood, and then walked. They played on the floor with him with coins and marbles. They turned everyday experiences into exercises. Washing the dishes became rehabilitation. He relearned to speak and to write and to do everything – even mountain climbing. He made a full recovery and went on to resume teaching at a college and even remarried. Go, old Geezer! He died at 72 of a heart attack.

This recovery and all Bach-y-Rita’s devices are possible because of neuroplasticity which is the ability of the brain to reorganize itself based on the input it receives. If one route is damaged or blocked in some way, the brain can actually grow new pathways based on consistent, repeated incoming stimuli.

Life is exactly like this. We have to develop a nueroplastic attitude towards living. A reader, Dr. Mark Langer, suggested the idea of this in a comment. I love it. Never thought of it that way before. He is exactly right.

Like the orienteering sport, we have to use what tools we have on hand right here, right now, and our creativity, our ingenuity, our guts, our determination, and our heart to get to the next checkpoint location or goal in life or just to the next day sometimes…whatever the case may be.

If the easiest path is not feasible, find a different way. Make it work. Even an inch is progress. It doesn’t happen nearly quick enough for most of us, (me included!) but it will happen. You can and will get from here to there.

Tell people where they are going and they may get there; inspire them with why they are going there and they will move mountains.”
~Christopher Novak

What Color Is Your ... Cantaloupe?

2010-08-27T06:48:00.000-04:00

If someone were to give you a magic wand, and to tell you it really had the power to instantly transform your world, you would use it, right? You would have to be crazy not to. Well, you do have one, but it is shaped more like a cantaloupe than a sparkly long stick. It is your brain.

Since our interpretation of all experiences in life emerges from the brain, any change in our brain, in turn, changes our reality. Reality, after all, is your brain’s unique way of making sense of what happens around you.

Merely by changing your thinking, you can change your world. It is that simple. Through neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to change its’ physical form and function in response to actions, perceptions and even thinking and imagining) whatever you do repeatedly becomes the default pathway in your brain. Any situation, any person, can be seen from many perspectives. You can choose your view and, with enough consistent practice, this becomes the norm in your brain. Ta da!

Take, for instance, someone in your life who is a royal pain in the ass. I can think of a couple really quick with no problem. Yes, this person may provide lots of situations inviting grief and aggravation. You can see them only from that point of view or you can back up, broaden the view, and look at them more objectively. Acknowledge the attached emotions, but do not let them color your thoughts. This person can also be seen as a teacher. Yep. You read that right.

I am used to living by myself. Recently, I not only had my two sons here, but also another 19 year old male. Boy, I thought I was this serene, centered, enlightened being…until then. I found myself getting agitated at stupid, petty things. I found I am really sensitive to the sweaty boy smell in a not so good way. Instead of pointing the finger at them, I had to look at what this activated in me and what this experience had to teach me. Patience. Tolerance. Compassion. Working on it.

On a much bigger scale, while I have been divorced for around 6 years, my ex-husband finds far too many reasons to continue to disagree. Stupid me! I thought divorce was supposed to put an end to all the bickering. It just makes it much more expensive because, now, we have to do it through lawyers and can’t just scream directly at each other. He has been and continues to be one of my greatest teachers. Seriously. He has provided me with countless growth opportunities. I have grown in strength, courage, and self confidence tremendously each damn time. One day soon, I am gonna graduate.

Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun philosopher, gives the unique advice of going directly into the situations from which you want to instinctively run in her book “The Places That Scare You.” Therein lies the opportunity for the biggest personal growth.

According to her, we always have a choice. We can let the people and circumstances of our lives harden us and make us increasingly angry and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us more compassionate. This wisdom (or magic wand) is always available to us. We tend to block it with habitual reactions and unconscious living.

So, pick up your magic wand, wave it in the air with a big “Whoop!” and get busy. This does not mean that *POOF* you can make everything just as you want it. It means that *POOF* you are able to find peace, joy, and acceptance no matter what happens.

Into The Fire

2010-08-20T07:59:00.000-04:00

I love the myth of the phoenix. Do you know it? In it, the giant, beautiful, colorful bird builds a nest and sets it and itself on fire. (Don’t even ask me how the hell a bird sets a nest on fire. It makes for a good story. OK?) The bird emerges from the ashes a totally new, reborn bird. The phoenix has become my symbol over the past 3 years.

I downed over 90 pills in a very real attempt to kill myself. There are some things at which it is good to fail. They found me too late to pump my stomach. All the drugs went completely through my system. Mostly brain drugs – sleeping pills, tranquilizers, anti-anxiety drugs and anti-depressants (ironic, I know.)

At first, I was seriously mentally impaired. I had a hard time putting thoughts into words. It was a painstakingly slow process. I could barely talk. It sounded like a drunken slur. I shook uncontrollably. I did not know what to do with my arms when I walked. My balance and coordination were way off. With lots of determination, lots of hard work and discipline every day, lots of reading and learning, lots of self examination, lots of doing things differently, and through the miracle of neuroplasticity, I have emerged slowly from the chaos I created stronger, happier, and healthier than ever. I am a phoenix.

In her book Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, Elizabeth Lesser calls such a transformation the Phoenix Process:

Surviving the Holocaust, enduring the loss of one’s child, learning to live with an incurable illness, witnessing terror, or experiencing trauma—these are Phoenix Processes of the tallest order. Come through one of them with an open heart, and you will light a path through the woods for all of us.

She goes on to say that a person must make the journey by themselves. They must go into the flames alone to burn away the illusions of the ego and arise from the ashes with their true, authentic, new self. A person can choose to go into the fire, through the unknown, through the darkness and do the gut wrenching work or they can choose to turn away and remain frozen in an empty relationship, a soul killing job, a difficult loss, a numb life or whatever. Should they go into the fire, they stand to emerge with a new level of strength, power, and courage and with an awakened sense of empathy and a softer heart.

My choice initially was to do neither. I just wanted out. Surviving the suicide attempt and the resulting brain injury flung me right into the fire. It put me in a situation where all I could begin to try to control was how I dealt with the reality of the circumstances psychologically. Therein is the magic for anyone in any situation. The whole recovery has been a transformative Phoenix Process for me and a blessing in disguise. I would not go back to being who I was before for anything — even though she didn’t talk funny and had much better penmanship.

As a symbol of all I have been through and the promises I have made to myself going forward in my life, I got a tattoo of a phoenix. My first one. At my age!?! It is small and in a discreet place. I just love it! It is my own, private badge of honor and courage. I am ready to fly.

Mental Gymnastics

2010-08-13T08:13:00.000-04:00

You can’t see your brain or anyone else’s for that matter. (Thank goodness!) So, we tend not to think too much about what shape it is in. It doesn’t have to fit into a bikini or squeeze into some tight jeans. So what does it really matter? If your brain is not in tip top shape, it can effect almost any aspect of your life. Believe me, it is one of those things you take completely for granted until something is not working right. Then you notice big time.

Brain fitness has to become a part of our culture just like physical fitness. It is already starting to somewhat. Brain gyms and brain fitness classes are popping up here and there. However, it is not necessary to go to a brain gym to keep your brain in shape. There is plenty you can do on your own.

Just as for your heart, breaking a sweat is about the best thing you can do for your brain. Exercise increases the oxygenated blood flow to the brain and promotes the birth of new neurons. A study at the University of Illinois found that something as simple a three vigorous, 40 minute walks a week over a 6 month period improved participants memory and reasoning.

Complex and diverse mental challenges are next on the list for brain fitness. Doing crossword puzzles and Sudoku are good, but they are not near enough. They ask a person to recall things already known. The brain stays healthy by doing new things and by being challenged.

The idea is to push your brain beyond its comfort zone. Learning new skills, hobbies, or sports, continuing to educate yourself, putting yourself in new social situations, and traveling to new places are great for the brain. Even seemingly simple things like taking a new route to a familiar place, sleeping on the different side of the bed, or brushing your teeth with your non dominant hand will give your brain a little work out.

There are many companies offering brain boosting products these days. Luminosity (www.luminosity.com ), Advanced Brain Technologies (www.brainbuilder.com ), and Posit Science (www.positscience.com) are some recognized names in this field. Studies showing the hard, definitive results for such activities are still being conducted but are generally encouraging. Most are proving, just like with physical fitness, consistent practice over time does produce positive results.

I can tell you, from my own experience, such products have been an invaluable and amazing part of my recovery from a serious brain injury. I can’t say enough good stuff about Posit’s products. In doing their Brain Fitness Program software, I more than doubled my mental processing speed. This made a huge difference for me. I still do brain training consistently.

Last, but not least on the list is nutrition. All the same recommendations for a heart healthy diet work for a brain healthy diet. Eating lots of dark colored fruits, especially berries, and myriad of vegetables provides the brain with antioxidants and many vitamins and minerals. Including fish and nuts regularly and often will give your brain the omega-3 fatty acids it needs to be at its best. A highly intelligent diet would include lots of lean proteins, complex carbohydrates and good fats. Supplements are a great aid here. Water is SO important to your brain’s optimal functioning.

Older and Better!

2010-08-06T07:33:00.000-04:00

I bought my first pair of reading glasses a couple of weeks ago. Red. I think they are kinda fun and funky. While, amazingly, I do not have any gray hair yet (just had to throw that in), the half century mark is looming not too far ahead for me. The good news is that it is not all down hill and doom and gloom for my brain from here.

Recent research is showing that our brain gains skills as we age - reorganizing itself and using more parts to problem solve and multitask. Barbara Strauch, in her book The Grown Up Brain , says studies are revealing that the brain peaks in middle age somewhere between ages 40 and 68. Yipee!

While the aging brain does lose 45% of the kind of dendrite spines responsible for learning and remembering new things (Where in blue blazes did I put my keys?), it does not loose any of the other kind of dendrite spines that are linked to core knowledge.

A myelin sheath coats nerve fibers in the brain, insulating and protecting them. Myelin continues to grow into our 60’s. Neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to change its functioning and to grow new neurons and synapses, continues throughout life.

The elderly brain is less dopamine dependent. Dopamine is the feel good neurotransmitter involved in the reward/pleasure rush as well as wanting and craving. This means the older brain is less impulsive and less driven to seek immediate gratification. Patience really does come with age. Hallelujah to that one!

All of this points to an older brain that is slower, for sure, but also wiser with some enhanced depth and abilities. There is growing acceptance of the idea of a “cognitive reserve” that builds as we age.

Younger people do score better on standard brain tests in the lab, but the older brain may fare better in real life. It really boils down to what exactly is being measured and what is defined as “better.” While a 20 something year old may be able to find the next letter in a sequence of letters faster, is that really going to help them to be a better CEO of a company?

Some of the long standing, bad news beliefs about what happens to the brain as we age are beginning to be questioned and debunked. A lot of the differences may have more to do with generational factors rather than mental decline. It is beginning to look like a brain that declines with age is becoming almost optional.

The Second Act

2010-07-30T07:53:00.001-04:00

My 47th birthday was yesterday. Man, how did I get to be that old already? I certainly don’t feel it. My perceptual age of myself just graduated recently to somewhere in my thirties. About time, huh? I like to think I don’t look it either. At the airport the other day, the guy at the security checkpoint could not believe the date on my license. OK, he might have been flirting a little, but, hey, I’ll take it.

My paternal grandmother, we called her Mawmaw, (this is the South) was an identical twin. She quit school after the third grade and stayed home with her mother learning all the domestic talents. Boy, she could make some yummy biscuits from scratch. They would melt in your mouth. Her coconut cakes were legendary. She made them from fresh, whole coconuts, and usually 4 layers high. Mmmmmm!

Except for a few very brief stints, she never really worked or drove. She preferred to stay home and watch her soaps and interact with a small, comfortable circle of friends and family. She lived her life within a short distance from where she was born.

Her sister, on the other hand, finished high school and never worked for money, but did volunteer work throughout her life. She drove a car. She was socially outgoing, active at church and in clubs, and lived in many states.

Both developed Alzheimer’s. My Mawmaw started showing signs of it in her late 50’s. She died at 77 after being in an assisted living facility for 14 years. Her sister developed Alzheimer’s in her late 70’s. She died a few years later at the age of 80.

This example, of course, is not scientific proof, but I do draw some pretty strong conclusions from it. I believe, the life my Mawmaw led contributed to her developing Alzheimer’s much earlier. Because her brain did not develop physically as much over her somewhat sheltered life, it was much more devastating earlier when Alzheimer’s started pruning it away. She had no extra.

Because I physically resemble my Mawmaw, I used to be very scared of developing Alzheimer’s. Not so much anymore. While having had a brain injury does increase my risk, I feel like I have already been there and back.

Many studies have confirmed that regular cardiovascular exercise and a diet high in fruits, vegetables, nuts, and antioxidants has clear-cut, positive benefits in staving off the onset of the disease. There is also much evidence to suggest that keeping the brain stimulated, challenged, and alert, maintaining an active social life, and staying emotionally healthy lowers the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

Recent studies have even shown that our brains grow in some abilities as we age. There is an overall net gain in middle age with wisdom, cognitive depth, and reasoning power increasing. Yipee! (More on that later.)

I know that, without a doubt, my future is going to be fabulous. I have learned the tools to make it so no matter what happens around me. I am in the best shape mentally, emotionally and probably even physically than I have ever been. I truly am better than ever and ready for the second act

You've Come A Long Way, Baby

2010-07-23T08:56:00.000-04:00

If you read this blog regularly, I feel like I give the impression that before the growth period of recovering from my brain injury, that I was a complete neanderthal, totally unaware and unconscious. While this is partially true, it is not entirely. I was trying to grow, but was still planted firmly in fear, limitations, scarcity, lack and just plain “can’t.” I had good intentions. Doesn’t that count for something?

I liken it to having one foot in a boat and one foot on land. As stress and the events of my life piled up in unrelenting succession the distance between the boat and the land kept getting further and further apart. I am amazingly limber, but it soon became a comical straddle, and I fell into the water with a big splash. I tried to commit suicide.

Looking back, I now know that I was in a transition phase emotionally and physically. Emotionally, I was trying to grow and change for the better and be more mature and less dramatic and reactive. Goodness knows, I had read enough self help books! I understood it all intellectually.

Physically, through neuroplasticity, my brain was actually in the process of rewiring itself to make this calmer, wiser, more aware Debbie the default. However, for neuroplastic changes to take place there has to be consistent practice and the process takes time - not nearly quick enough for me. In times of anxiety, the well worn pathways were all too active.

The below quips were written before my suicide attempt. At rare times, I did have my moments of insight and was even able to see the wisdom and humor in all the crap swirling around me in my life.

When I read some of these, I can see how stuck in my story I was and am very grateful to be where I am these days. (If you like where you are, you can't complain about how you got there.) Some of the same hurdles are still in my life plus a few new ones because of my brain injury, but I am different. Thank goodness! Think the phoenix. I can see past obstacles now with a broader perspective. It is like looking through a wide angle lens. Nothing seems so large or insurmountable anymore, and I can see the alternate routes to get to where I need to go. Road blocked? No big deal. I’ll just go another way. I will get there.

I have learned that taking well timed naps is a viable, self defense mechanism. When you are asleep you don’t have to think, feel, worry or even exist on any level.

I have learned that little boys don’t value sleep quite the same way, and, if you zonk out on the couch one Friday night, they may stay up until 4AM playing video games simply because they can.

I have learned that you should not attend a wedding too soon after you get divorced or you will end up crying until snot comes out of your nose, and it will have nothing to do with the blessed union you are witnessing before you.

I have learned that you can be married to someone for 18 years and that you can look at them sitting across from you in some fancy lawyer’s office and realize that they are just as much a stranger to you as the girl who led you to the room and gave you a bottle of water because your mouth was dry.

I have learned that dogs make good cuddlers, but really sloppy kissers and they leave little hairs all over your sheets.

I have learned that a dog may leave little hairs on your sheets, but he is very forgiving about your toxic morning breath, your bed head, and the big wrinkle imprint on the side of your face.

I have learned that a cat rolling around on her back in a sunny spot on the driveway can always make you smile even when you thought you had nothing to smile about.

I have learned that a 45 year old man who has been married one time in his life for 13 months can accumulate the world’s most impressive collection of coffee cups and Tupperware from his multitude of old girlfriends…and will add many of your prime specimens to his collection.

I have learned that even though you might be mad at your dead brother for not intervening in your life according to your wishes, he can still let you know he is very much around one night at the grocery store which results in you sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of the canned goods on isle five.

I have learned that “good-byes” are just as much a part of life as “hellos”…and that you better get used to both.

I have learned that no one has the right to lie to you, treat you badly, and continuously hurt you…no matter how much you think you love them.

I have learned that it is much more important what you think about the person staring back at you in the mirror than what others think about them.

Your Brain Online

2010-07-16T08:11:00.000-04:00

There is no question that the internet has greatly boosted any person’s ability to find a really good authentic Italian restaurant or to figure out where to get moccasins for a Pocahontas costume or to meet the person of their dreams specifically with red hair and green eyes (if you can believe the stuff they put on their bio) or to research how to make their car run on solar power or just about anything else you can imagine. Ever stop to think about what this is doing to our brains?

When culture changes the way we engage our brains, our brains, in turn, change. While this subject can get very in depth and many studies are being done and will continue to be conducted, the jury is still out. Like almost anything, there are proving to be both good and bad consequences to becoming a society of online addicts.

On the upside, all this information at our fingertips improves the brain’s speed and accuracy. Studies show that the brains of experienced web surfers have higher activity in the prefrontal cortex associated with problem solving and decision making. After just 5 hours online, people showed increased brain activity. Boy, mine must be buzzing.

However, even as the internet gives us easy access to huge amounts of information, it is turning us into shallower thinkers who are easily distracted, with weaker concentration and much less control over our working memories. Research has shown that people who read something the old fashioned way, linearly, remember more and learn more.

Our intelligence is largely dependent on our ability to transfer information from working memory, the scratch pad of the mind, to long term memory, the filing system. When we have information in front of us along with numerous links and advertisements, all screaming at us at one time, it leads to cognitive overload.

Short term memory is very fragile, and a break in attention can wipe the slate clean. I bet you have experienced this. Ever been reading something and an interesting link catches your eye? You click on it to explore and, when you go back to the original piece, you have no idea what it is about.

Our ability to focus is being attacked. Every time something changes or moves in our environment, a primitive, physical impulse to respond to immediate opportunities or threats called the orienting response is triggered - hence, all the flashing and moving internet ads. This stimulation results in a dopamine squirt. Dopamine is the reward neurotransmitter which aids in making habits addictive and in making permanent neuroplastic changes in the brain.

Every medium develops some cognitive skills. Surfing the web strengthens brain functions involved in fast paced problem solving and and finding information. Playing Super Mario improves hand-eye coordination, reflex response time and visual cue processing. Our growing use of the internet and other screen-based technologies is weakening our capacity for deep processing necessary for analysis, complex thinking, imagination, and reflection. The gain in some areas is always at the expense of others.

A Little Means A Lot

2010-07-09T10:46:00.001-04:00

Did you know that our DNA only differs from chimpanzees by 2%. That is right. We share 98% of our DNA with those furry things that swing from trees, eat bananas and screech. So what is it exactly that makes us human and keeps them being chimps?

Scientists, as part of the human genome project, identified specifically which genes are different. Turns out one of them is the regulatory gene that determines how many neurons humans can make and when the process stops.

Human neurons are basically identical those of chimpanzee neurons and even those of a marine snail. Hard to believe, isn’t it? The big difference is in the total number of neurons each ends up making. Humans end up having about 100 billion neurons. Yes, billion. Chimpanzees stop a little earlier so that they have brains about one-third the size of ours.

Each neuron makes thousands of connections. This leads to the possibility of a staggering amount of neural circuits, a ten followed by a million zeros. This huge number allows the human brain to be so complex and to be capable of performing such a vast array of mental functions and behaviors.

This also explains how the brain is capable of massive change through neuroplasticity. Before the discovery and acceptance of neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to physically change itself and it's function based on a person’s experiences and behaviors) it was pretty much believed the only way the brain could change its structure was through the long, painstakingly slow process of evolution.

Plasticity offers a new way for the brain to change and evolve other than genetic mutation. For example, when a person learns to read, it changes the biological structure of their brain. Reading is taught to the next generation and, subsequently changes their brain and so on.

However, this process of learning not only changes the brain circuits in one area of the brain, but also many modules that are connected to the ones actually used in reading are changed. Plastic change tends to “flow” through the brain. When areas of the brain are linked together in a new way by a new activity, the brain modules involved are changed by the interaction. This creates synergy and a new whole which has greater capabilities than it’s individual parts is formed.

This may explain how our hunter-gatherer brain and more cognitive-cerebral brain work together to make us “civilized.” Becoming civilized is basically a process of learning to restrain or channel brute predatory and dominance instincts into acceptable expressions such as contact sports, board and computer games, art and literature.

The basic instincts are still there, for instance, when a fan yells “Kill him!” at a football game. Yet, when the instinct to stalk prey is linked up to an activity with rules and acceptable behaviors, the neuronal networks are also linked and temper each other.

Civilization is a series of processes where the hunter-gatherer brain teaches itself to rewire itself. Because the plastic brain can always allow brain functions that have come together to separate, regression is always possible. Civilization is always, at most, only one generation deep.

Culture Shock Really Is Brain Shock

2010-07-02T17:59:00.001-04:00

When Michael Angelo painted the Sistine Chapel, he had to work in a very awkward position for several months with his head thrown back looking up. In addition to a serious neck cramp which I am positive he had, his brain rewired itself to see in this kinda upside down way all the time. It took several months for his eyesight to get back to normal.

Not only does man’s brain shape and make culture, but a person’s culture shapes and makes their brain. Because of neuroplasticity (the fact that the experiences one has and behaviors in which one repeatedly engages physically changes their brain) the life you live and what you do in it uniquely shape your brain. Your culture and even the lack of it make your brain.

In Norman Doidge’s book The Brain That Changes Itself, he tells of a group of nomadic people who live on some tropical islands off of the West Coast of Thailand called the Sea Gypsies.

They learn to swim before they learn to walk. They live over half of their lives in boats and on the sea. They dive down in the water to great depths without any equipment. They have learned to lower their heart rates and can stay under twice as long as most people.

What is amazing is that their eyes have adapted to see under water clearly without goggles. Under water, light is bent so that it does not land on the retina where it normally does. The Sea Gypsies have learned to control the shape of their lenses and the size of their pupils to account for this. Really. In studies, others have learned to do this also. This is the nervous system and brain learning to rewire itself based on the demands of the environment.

Studies have shown that musicians who play stringed instruments, have larger brain maps for their active hands. Brain scans of London taxi drivers show that the more years on the job, the larger the area of their brain that stores spatial relationships. Meditators have denser parts of the brain which are activated when paying close attention.

This cultural modification of the brain makes for some trying and humorous situations when someone immigrates to a new country. Culture shock really is brain shock. The native culture is learned and literally wired into the brain. What seems natural in one culture – how close we stand to each other, how loud we speak, the pauses in conversations – are learned. So the creepy guy standing way too close who shouts at you when he talks may just be from somewhere else.

Immigration is much more than simply learning new things. A Japanese six month old can hear the English r-l distinction. At one year, they no longer can. It is a massive rewiring of cortical real estate. Even much smaller changes, such as moving to a different space or changing jobs, require new routines and brain rewiring.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2010-06-25T17:30:00.000-04:00

The good news is your brain makes physical changes based on the repetitive things you do and experiences you have in your life. The bad news is your brain makes physical changes based on the repetitive things you do and experiences you have in your life. This works both ways…for you and against you.

Neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to change its own structure and function through thought and activity, is an amazing, empowering truth of the last decade. It has implications and possibilities in almost every aspect of human life and culture. This same characteristic also makes the brain very vulnerable to outside and internal, usually unconscious, influences. Norman Doidge, in his book The Brain That Changes Itself refers to this as “the plastic paradox.”

Think about it. The brain actually wires itself and forms neuronal connections based on what you do repeatedly in your life. Vegging out on TV. Getting a sugar fix. Sipping a soda. Drinking the morning cup of joe. Fixing a drink to unwind after work. Smoking cigarettes. Burning a joint to take the edge off. Having a hit of harder stuff. Biting fingernails. I could go on and on. We call them bad habits or addictions. They become wired into your brain.

Not all addictions are to substances. An addiction is any compulsive habit. People can be addicted to anything…exercise, facebook, pornography, shoes, negative self talk. All addiction involves neuroplastic changes in the brain. A person (addict sounds too hard core here, but that is what we are talking about) experiences cravings because their plastic brain has become sensitized to the substance or experience.

When the craving is satisfied, dopamine, the feel good neurotransmitter, is released. Dopamine is an essential component of neuroplasticity. The same shot of dopamine that makes someone happy also assists in making neuronal connections.

When someone kicks the habit – whatever the habit is, the addictive neuronal circuits in the brain become weaker and less active over time without the reinforcement of the behavior, but they are still in place. Alcoholics Anonymous insists that there are no “former alcoholics.” They are right! The pathways are still there and can easily be reactivated.

Recent research shows that it takes 66 days to make a new habit automatic. I could not find any definitive information about the time frame required to deactivate a habitual brain circuit. However, I would guess it is about the same as they are simultaneous processes and one is dependent on the other. Unlearning involves weakening connections between neurons through disuse and is just as plastic a process.

The same neuroplasticity that allows us to amazingly alter our brain and reality by implementing healthy, good for you habits conversely allows not so good habits to be unconsciously carved in the brain in the first place. What are you etching into your brain? This is one area in which you can really make a conscious choice and change yourself and your life. It is a use or lose it brain. Use it for you.

Oil on the Brain

2010-06-18T19:47:00.000-04:00

I am going to take a bit of a divergence here, but not really, because it is something that has been weighing heavily on my brain for weeks. Let’s talk about the Horizon oil gusher. It is misleading, I believe, to even call it a measly “spill.” A hellish, nightmarish flood is more like it.

Last week, I was ready to drive to Louisiana and volunteer. As an animal lover, the pictures of the oil covered birds, turtles, fish, even crabs made me cry and hurt my heart. In addition, the stories of whole industries, communities, and ecosystems suffering utter devastation is just tragic and hard to even fathom.

In my typical fashion, but not as bad as I used to be mind you, I hyper focused on all this – clicking on every Facebook link and watching every YouTube video I could find. Too much. I felt totally outraged, overwhelmed, and helpless.

In an email to a friend, who works for a solar energy company BTW, I vented. Along with a bunch of other stuff, they responded with:

I appreciate your anger and frustration over the oil spill. I feel however, that your reaction stops just where most of us do, at the feeling of helplessness and frustration we experience from the ugly consequences of decisions we don't recognize as our own. I don't feel you are acknowledging your part in this.

What are YOU doing to stop the oil spill?

I'm not asking you to stop it directly. This is a systemic situation that is a result of my, your, our dependence on oil. There's no way we can all switch to renewable energy tomorrow, and we can't just turn off our cars today either. So you, I, we use oil to create refined products like gasoline, plastic etc.

You, I, we consume this stuff without caring where it comes from or how much we use or how inconvenient or dangerous it is to get it when we have already consumed all the easily extractable resources of it domestically. So, we resort to drilling a mile or two deep in the ocean to slake our black thirst so we can maintain our convenient lifestyles. We fly across the country and drive cars that get 20 mpg instead of 40 mpg and don't give a damn about CAFE standards, and vote for people who are even less conscious about this than we are to make decisions for us about environmental and energy policy.

And you know what? They are right. Instead of reacting defensively, their words made me feel empowered and brought me a sense of peace. There is something I can do besides going down to the Gulf and putting on one of those white suits. There is something we all can do in our own lives. We can start living more consciously and make reducing our dependence on oil a factor in the decisions we make every day.

Other headlines are already taking prime position. It is becoming old news. I was floored to find out from my sons that this was not even a topic of discussion in the halls or the classrooms of their schools. This is going to effect their and all of our futures.

In a small, good way as well as the obvious, huge bad, I wonder? I hope. It is our decision. If anything good is to come of this, we have to allow it to teach us and change us. I know I am going to. We can blame BP or Obama and look to them to fix this mess, but the solution has to start with each of us.

The earth produces all things and receives all again. ~ Spanish Proverb

The Heaven and Hell Inside Your Head

2010-06-11T08:02:00.005-04:00

My brain injury, resulting from a pill popping suicide attempt, has actually been a blessing in disguise. I certainly did not think I would ever say such a thing. While the injury was global, my left side was more damaged than my right because I am physically right dominant and there was much more to damage on the left side of my brain.

Because a lot of my existing connections and pathways were wiped out, I got to start with a clean slate of sorts. I am not advocating this at all, but it has proven to be an amazingly good thing for me. Really.

Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist, experienced a massive hemorrhage on the left side of her brain. In her book My Stroke of Insight, she uniquely and knowledgeably describes the process she experienced as her brain shut down, and she lost the functions of speech, motion, and self awareness.

She tells of living out of her right brain for a while after. She likens the right brain to a parallel processor. It is all about the right here and right now and interpreting our experience of ourselves in the world through the senses. It thinks in pictures and connects us to everything around us through its’ consciousness.

The left brain is a serial processor. It interprets the world linearly and methodically. It is all about the past and the future. It picks out details of present moment and categorizes them and gives them meaning based on associations it makes with past experiences. It thinks in words and defines us as separate entities. It is also responsible for that ongoing brain chatter which, in my case, was incessant and not very nice.

With her left brain quiet, she tells of experiencing a kind of nirvana when she awoke. I also lived in this kind of bliss for months as my left brain functions gradually came fully back on line. For the first time in my life, it was quiet in my head. I was not haunted by the past. It was there, but it was not constantly, drearily encroaching upon the present and the future.

I also was not terrified of the future. To me, it might as well have not even existed and was not a concern. I lived entirely in the present. I liken it to the Mad Magazine guy’s slogan “What me worry?”

I can remember laying on the trampoline (makes a great place for a nap BTW) in the sunshine just watching the puffy, white clouds float by against the backdrop of a brilliant, blue sky and being perfectly content even though I had a pretty serious brain injury and had lost custody of my kids, blah, blah, blah.

Jill Bolte Taylor says this proved to her that anyone can attain this same state and make the choice every moment of every day to exist and operate out of either of the two cognitive minds.

In my own life, it has been a deliberate process to develop and maintain the glimpse of nirvana and to not allow the left brain to bully the right brain and take over. I do this through such practices as meditation, mindfulness, and more. Anyone can also achieve this. Brain injury not required. Heaven or hell? It really is your choice and is all in your brain.

Jill Bolte Taylor:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

Go Jump!

2010-06-04T20:23:00.001-04:00

Literally. Have you heard of the kind of rebounding that doesn’t require a basketball and a back board? It’s bouncing on a mini-trampoline. It is a superior form of exercise for many reasons, and it is fun! Weeee!

At the top of a bounce, you experience weightlessness. At the bottom of a bounce, your weight doubles or triples depending on how high you are bouncing. These forces of acceleration and deceleration maximize your effort. A half hour of rebounding is equal to an hour of other exercise. It is 68% more efficient than traditional exercise. It is truly a cellular, aerobic, strength training exercise which effects every cell in your body. Now, those are pretty good stats!

Unlike most other exercises which put extreme stress on certain joints, rebounding is considerably gentler to the body. It is not shock-less, but almost. Any body at any age, in any health, and at any level of fitness can do this. A person can even get benefits doing it sitting down.

Rebounding provides incredible detoxification results. The lymphatic system is the metabolic garbage service of the body. Lymph fluid bathes every cell, carrying good stuff to the cell and bad stuff away from the cell. Unlike the circulatory system, it has no pump and relies on movement of the body to make its rounds. Rebounding is reported to increase the lymph flow by 15 to 30 times.

The rebounding motion stimulates all internal organs, moves the cerebral-spinal fluid and is beneficial for the intestines. It causes immune cells to be 5 times more active. This directly translates into a stronger immune system.

The benefits of rebounding go on and on:
• Increased oxygenation of the body and lung capacity
• Combats depression and anxiety
• Prevents cardiovascular disease and normalizes blood pressure
• Increased activity of red bone marrow and red blood cell count
• Lowered cholesterol and triglyceride levels
• Improved digestion and elimination
• Improved sleep and mental performance

A gentle two minute health bounce frequently throughout the day will increase mental sharpness, focus and attention, strengthen the immune system and work in the physical benefits of exercise. For this reason, some people have mini-tramps at their place of work. Rebounding has proven remarkably effective in aiding everything from lymphedema to cancer.

A rebounder is portable and can fit even into the most space constrained places. You just can’t have low ceilings!

I have been rebounding for about a year and a half. I started by doing instructional cd’s to get the hang of it and learn the basic moves. You can do a lot more than just jump. You can jog, twist, kick, shuffle, or do jumping jacks. It is great for doing cross lateral movements, like raising the elbow or hand to the opposite knee. These type of movements get signals going across the hippocampus which is absolutely wonderful for any brain especially those recovering from a brain injury.

My son keeps me well supplied with techno tunes. I just turn up the music and get creative and have a blast. I really work up a sweat in no time. The thump, thump, thump sets a great pace to work out to and gets the energy really revved.

It was an itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikini.....

2010-05-28T17:26:00.002-04:00

OK, I am showing my age here with this one. (I remember my Dad singing that song when I was little.) And for the record, the bikini had blue and purplish flowers. Whoever would have thought there was a profound “aha moment” waiting for me in my bikini in a bay in Hawaii?

It was 7 months after my brain injury. I was still mentally impaired, but trying very hard not to act like it. Just packing for the trip and navigating my way through the airport was a real challenge for me. It made my underarms wet. At times, I felt like a scared, little kid lost at the mall.

Then there were times that I told myself “You can do this. Dammit!” It felt great just to accomplish what most people would consider normal. Everything terrified me, but somehow I knew that I had to overcome the fear and push through it to regain any kind of semblance of a regular life.

I had gone to Hawaii with my brother and this was our first snorkeling excursion. Hanomolino Bay looked like something on a postcard. There were leaning palm trees complete with coconuts flanking a beach of black sand leading up to azure blue water rolling into the beach in gentle waves capped with white surf.

For a while, we were content to swim around the little bay and ooh and aah at the colorful sights under the surface. Not being nearly as physically coordinated as I used to be, it took me a while to get the hang of breathing though the tube. I used to be a lifeguard during the summers in college, so I soon felt pretty comfortable. I ventured out to where the bay opened up to the ocean. The current and waves had much more force here.

I kicked some rocks with my fin, and it came off and sunk to the bottom. It was probably about 20 feet deep. Without the fin, I was not nearly as strong a swimmer.

Just keeping my ahead above the water and fighting the waves was a struggle. I was really scared now. I swallowed big gulps of salty water. I had that urgent, panicky feeling I would imagine an antelope has when being chased by a lion. I managed to make it over to some rocks and to partially climb up on them cutting my feet and legs in the process. They were covered with coral and sliced my skin upon contact.

By this time, my brother had noticed my predicament. He yelled for me to stay on the rocks while he went and got my sand shoes. Never having been one to follow directions too well, I decided to swim to a sail boat anchored in the bay rather than just wait there.

After what seemed like the longest swim of my life, I reached the sailboat and managed to grab the top of the side of it and gasp out several times a squeaky, but urgent "help!"

A thin, scruffy looking man with long hair and wearing cutoff jeans – think stoner - came up on deck. He looked startled and surprised, to say the least, to see me hanging from the side of his boat in my bikini bleeding. He had that “WTF??” look -- like he was not sure he wasn’t hallucinating. After he got it, he rowed me to shore in a little boat. My hippie hero!

The experience scared me, for sure, but was also a very meaningful lesson. I was brain injured because I had tried to kill myself. In the months that followed, I did recover physically somewhat, but I was still unstable emotionally. I was undecided as to whether I wanted to live this life. I wanted to kill myself before, and now I was supposed to live like this - half retarded and sounding like I was drunk? I was not convinced.

I realized that instinctively, without me going through all the typical drama of weighing the pros and cons, something inside of me had just kicked in and fought hard to live. I could have very easily just slipped quietly under the water and finished what I had started months earlier. Eureka! Something inside of me wanted to live!

That was a major turning point for me in which I realized that I did not want to die. Since then, I have been acting like I want to live. I started taking responsibility for my recovery and my life. I have worked every day to get better and to make my life better. I have a few grains of black sand in my foot that remained after it healed to remind me of the valuable lesson I learned that day just in case I ever forget.

I'll take Door #2

2010-05-21T18:48:00.003-04:00

Just what is this thing we call happiness? Go ahead. Try to define it. You will end up describing feelings or things or even circumstances. These will undoubtedly vary from person to person because happiness is a completely subjective perception and experience. It is a universal "you know what I mean" feeling, but to precisely pinpoint its components is impossible.

In his book Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert tells of two conjoined twins, who, fused at the forehead, have spent their whole lives looking at each other eye to eye, sharing every waking and sleeping moment. Can you even imagine? Most of us would think this existence rather abysmal, yet they are joyful, content, and optimistic...happy. They have no desire at all to be separated.

We may look at them and see only the challenges and the inconveniences. However, what if we consider the other possible attributes of this situation? It is a matter of where we place our focus. The idea of always having your best friend right there, someone who knows you better than any one else and who knows all your secrets, good and bad, is a pretty rich one. We might say "They only think they are happy because they don't know any different." That is precisely the point! They have found happiness within their current circumstances.

Happiness is a point of view, an emotional experience that is different for each individual. We can all pretty much agree that the sky is what we define to be blue. However, we can in no way be certain every one is looking at the sky and having the same experience of blue.

Happiness is roughly the same neural activity pattern in all human beings and within the same person. Yet, happiness is very different from person to person and has a wide range of manifestations within the same individual. While devouring some Ben and Jerry's Caramel Sutra ice cream, burying my face in the soft, furry belly of a purring cat, and getting jiggy to Train's "Hey, Soul Sister" may all activate the same electrical happy circuit in my brain, they are very different experiences.

Happiness may not be neatly defined, but I think no one would argue with its' mega importance in every life. Human beings are innately programmed to strongly desire and seek happiness - whatever that may be for them.

Happiness is therefore a personal pursuit and decision for each one of us. It is natural for someone to experience panic and anxiety when they find that the company is cutting expenses, and their job is one way in which they are accomplishing this. It is natural to grieve and be sad when your partner walks off into the sunset without you. These types of situations are an unavoidable and uncontrollable part of life. However, each one of us does have the power to move through these experiences and to choose to keep working towards happiness everyday. It is a choice. A decision.

It is like the Let's Make a Deal show. Remember that one? No matter what door you choose or what is behind it...the new car or the billy goat...you can choose happiness. You get to go home with something...even if it is a farm animal. It is all in your point of view and focus.

As good as it gets?

2010-05-14T19:38:00.000-04:00

If I told you that you were a big, fat zero, would you say "Thank you" and squeal with delight or would you get in a huff and be insulted? If I were to ask you to rate yourself on a scale from negative ten to positive ten, would you put yourself happily at zero and be proud and content? I would think not.

If we score mental health on a scale from negative values representing mental illness to positive values with zero representing the threshold of the absence of clinical mental illness, "normal" is a zero. In the western world, the underlying assumption is that "normal," free from mental illness, is a healthy mind and is as good as it gets. Most of the mental health information and programs in our society focus on getting people to the zero line - not above it.

This "normal" mind still experiences many forms of mental distress such as anxiety, frustration, boredom, restlessness, unhappiness, and resentment. This is considered just part of life and how things are. As long as these are not chronic or disabling, that person gets a passing grade. Anything above "normal" is generally reserved for monks or saints, and it not thought of as something that can be cultivated and learned and certainly not expected.

Our society and our science focuses on the mental states below zero. In the last several decades, there have been thousands of studies on mental illness and a pitiful few on happiness, contentment, joy and compassion. We know almost nothing about the qualities that make life worth living and the accompanying brain states.

Many philosophies of today teach that which is focused on materializes. Paying attention to something feeds it and gives it energy to perpetuate. So, be careful what you focus on in your own life! Hence, worrying only brings what you are worrying about into your reality. Get it? As a society, focusing on the downside of mental health only brings about more of the same.

As individuals, we need to strive to rise above "normal." Aim higher than this baseline which is somewhere above depression but far below what is possible. Humanity does not have to be satisfied with this this minimal level of mental and emotional health.

Neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to physically, permanently change based on repetitive experiences, provides everyone with the ability to improve and change their own mental and emotional functioning. As individuals and as a population, it is entirely possible to attain higher levels of attention, awareness, happiness, peace, empathy, compassion, patience, altruism, joy, contentment, etc. I could go on and on. It is possible.

We are coming into a brain fitness era where it will become standard for a person to exercise their brain regularly just like they do their body. Exercise for the brain includes such things as regular meditation, mindfulness practices, visualizations, affirmations, focused attention, and anything stimulating like crossword puzzles, sudoku, learning a foreign language, mastering a musical instrument, even visiting a museum or traveling somewhere new...anything that gets you out of your comfort zone and gets the brain learning and making new connections.

Science is confirming the reality that we can change our brains by studying "above zero" people such as Buddhist monks whose mental baseline is at levels most people only achieve briefly, if ever. What is being learned from them is the key to everyone raising their set point with mental training and hints at what is possible.

I know in my own life, I have gone from somewhere in the negatives to somewhere above zero. Let me tell you, I sure like the view much better on the other side.

The Best Belly?

2010-05-07T19:21:00.000-04:00

Remember a time when you had one of those strange, but sure gut feelings? You know, that eerie, strong, undeniable certainty of something you could not possibly know based on thinking and logic. I am sure there have been plenty of times when you had that unmistakable flutter of "butterflies" in your stomach or felt green and queasy sick to your stomach as an emotional response to something.

There is a valid basis for all this colorful, folksy speak. I have told you about a second brain in your heart, but did you know there is also a third brain in your belly? The Chinese have long known about this and refer to it as the "monkey brain." Hawaiians have traditionally referred to this as the na'au which includes the bowels, the mind and the heart.

Technically known as the enteric nervous system, this brain consists of a network of some 100 million neurons lining the gut. That is more neurons than in the spinal cord. It can function without any input from the central nervous system and sends information to it. While this brain down below is not the seat (pun intended) of conscious thought, it does exert a powerful influence on our physical bodies and emotional states.

This gut brain uses over 30 neurotransmitters including dopamine and serotonin just like the brain above. A big part of our emotions are influenced by this brain. Recent scientific studies are linking this brain to stress, depression, autism and even osteoporosis and may have possible implications as to how these are treated.

Our challenge is to learn to listen to the perceptions and the information of the brains in our head, our heart, and our gut. To allow all of them to integrate and have input in directing our lives and creating our realities. In western culture, we are taught pretty much early on to solely rely on the brain in our heads and to totally ignore any other source of wisdom.

In my own experience in the past, the brain in my head greedily took over, running wild, chattering not so nice and anxious nonsense incessantly, until I got completely cut off from any other innate sense of knowledge. I have since learned how to calm it down, and shut it up long enough to let the others get in a word.

It is also our challenge to take care of each of brain in a healthy, respectful manner through diet and exercise. As you can imagine, the brain in our gut and hence, our emotions, are strongly tied to what we put in our bodies. Eat junk, feel like junk.

So the next time you have a gut feeling, give it a little more importance and attention. Your body has a many ways in which it communicates with you. Sssshhhh! Listen.

Turn It Around

2010-04-30T22:56:00.008-04:00

A lot of people attempt suicide. In fact, someone commits suicide every 17 minutes in the US. A male is 4 times more likely to succeed than a female. What a thing to be better at! Poisoning is the 2nd most successful method overall, but is by far the method of choice for women.

Many people who use poison, get their stomachs pumped and go back to trying to cope and putting their lives back together with little lasting evidence. Because too much time had elapsed from when I took the pills from the time I got to the hospital, my stomach was not pumped. Over 90 pills - mostly brain drugs: sleeping pills, tranquilizers, antidepressants (ironic, huh?), some Tylenol, extra strength mind you, and other assorted chemicals went all the way through my system.

At the hospital, at some point, they quit even monitoring me so I am told. My fever went over 107, and my mother had to literally pitch a fit to get me a cooling blanket. (Eternally grateful, Mom) I was on a respirator. My heart stopped three times, and I had seizures for hours. I know that if I had not been in such good physical shape, I would not have survived. My Mother actually witnessed staff going back and filling in my medical charts.

I was seething mad about this for a long time. Yes, I had tried to kill myself. I was messed up but, once I got to the hospital, they had a responsibility to do everything to help me and, at the very least, do their jobs. There was a time when I wanted vengeance and to sue the crap outta that hospital.

In the past couple of years instead of pursuing a lawsuit I have chosen to put my energy into getting better and healing. Even if I did sue and win, would it really change anything? I'd have more money, but I'd still talk funny. I would have expended my resources towards something negative instead of bettering myself and my situation.

I have come to have compassion for the nurses and doctors on duty that night. It was a full moon and a busy ER. Gurneys lined the hallways. I choose to believe that the hospital personnel had finite resources and thought I was going to die. Therefore, they made the logical and understandable decision to put their efforts into people who had better odds. I can only imagine the "holy shit!" look on their faces when they realized I was going to pull through.

I have found that you can take any situation and put some distance between yourself and it emotionally and look at it objectively. I didn't say this was easy. It takes some effort and practice, but it can be done.

Over time, with repetition, because of neuroplasticity, this actually becomes the default in your brain. However, you do have to consciously make a disciplined effort at first. Reinforcing these pathways and activating this loop in your brain permanently rewires your brain.

Byron Katie has a process she calls The Work that teaches you exactly how to do this. You can take any situation and stop your struggling and anguish. According to Katie and many philosophies, all suffering is caused by our own thoughts and judgments about what happens, not by what actually happens. The goal is to change your thoughts. The Work consists of four questions and a turn around. The questions are:

- Is it true?

- Can you absolutely know that it's true?

- How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

- Who would you be without the thought?

After you've analyzed your situation with the four questions, you turn it around. Each turn around is an opportunity to experience the opposite of your original statement and see what you and the person you've judged have in common. She says the turnarounds are the prescriptions for happiness. For example:

"The hospital workers should have done more to help me" turns around to:
- The hospital workers should not have done more to help me. They had to make a judgment call here.
- I should have done more to help myself before ever getting to the hospital.

This exercise can help to alleviate your anger and suffering about any situation and give you a new perspective. You can find a full explanation of The Work and even worksheets at http://www.thework.com. Give it a try about some situation in your life and turn it around.

Seeing Thunder and Hearing Lightening

2010-04-24T22:34:00.007-04:00

Whaaat? It was largely accepted until fairly recently that the human adult brain, was essentially fixed. This was illustrated in full color diagrams confidently mapping the regions and structures responsible for say moving the left pinkie or for processing the feelings of biting the tongue. Ouch! It was believed that every bit of neural real estate was zoned and assigned a specific function. So, it had to be true, right?

Wrong! Much research in recent decades has proven this to just not be the case. Many scientific studies have confirmed that the brain is plastic meaning it is not fixed, not static, and not hard wired. It is malleable, dynamic and capable of physical change all throughout adulthood.

I like to think of our brain like play dough. We are holding this blob in our hands and can shape it however we choose. We sculpt our brain with our environment, our experiences, the demands we place on it repeatedly, and, basically, the lives we lead every day. Works both ways - good and bad.

Plasticity was demonstrated early on in an experiment with ferrets, who have identical wiring to the auditory cortex and visual cortex as humans except for one important factor, the timing. Human basic wiring exists at birth. Ferrets grow this circuit after birth. Scientist interrupted this pathway in the ferrets with some very careful brain surgery so that nerves from the eye grew into the auditory cortex. The ferrets were then trained to respond to sounds and lights. The ferrets "heard" the lights with parts of the brain that would normally process sound.

In a later experiment, sighted adults were blindfolded all day, every day for 5 days. They spent their time learning Braille and performing various tactile and auditory activities. Their brains were scanned before and at the end of the experiment. Beforehand, their auditory cortex showed normal activity upon hearing sound. Their visual cortex lit up when seeing as expected, and their somatosensory cortex buzzed appropriately when fingering Braille symbols.

After just 5 days of being blind folded, their "visual" cortex became active when doing all these things. The "seeing" brain was now hearing and feeling. Even though it had spent all its years up until that point handling visual input, with no signals coming from the eyes at all, the brain reorganized itself to utilize the newly dormant areas for other functions - sort of like an industrious developer seizing some prime vacant piece of land and capitalizing on it.

This same amazing ability is the cause of phantom limb. People who have lost a limb experience a brain reorganization. The part of the brain that formerly received input from the missing limb is taken over by neighbors on the homunculus. Because the face and the hand are side by side, it has been documented that someone missing a hand actually learned where to scratch on their face to satisfy an itch on the missing hand.

Phantom pain has been shown to be caused in most cases by that being the last signal the brain received from the lost limb. In a confused loop, the brain processes this sensation endlessly. This phenomenon has miraculously been alleviated by utilizing neuroplasticity and tricking the brain and interrupting this cycle with mirrors which visually replace the lost limb and change the signals to the brain.

There is a catch to neuroplasticity. It only occurs when a person is paying attention and focusing on the input whether it be intentional or not. Hence with directed consciousness, a person has the ability to change their brain. Unfortunately, this is more often done unconsciously by most people.

The science of neuroplasticity is very new. It's limits are unknown. It opens up a world of possibilities. In a very personal sense, each individual has the power to change their life. On a broader scale, the same brains that now practice prejudice, hatred and warfare have the potential to be kinder, more compassionate and less aggressive. It can happen one brain at a time.

Alone.... but not lonely

2010-04-16T22:10:00.003-04:00

For the past three years since my brain injury, for the first time ever in my life, I have been alone...completely alone. No kids. No man. Nada.

Pets don't count, do they? The number of cats has grown abnormally high over the years...six....and one dog. BTW - I think the "crazy, cat lady" has a certain charm.

After I tried to commit suicide, my ex-husband sued me for custody of the kids. He won, and then promptly moved out of state with them. It certainly was in the best interest of the kids at the time, and, while I do not think it was his intent at all, it was what was absolutely best for me too.

My boyfriend of three years had taken himself out of the picture rather unexpectedly for me at least. That was part of what prompted my suicide attempt. I was planning on a future with him whether he was with me or not. I had it all worked out nicely in my head.

So, here I was all alone. Even pretty seriously brain injured, my first instinct was to struggle against it and fill up the time and space with people, with TV, with emails to my kids...just general busy-ness. I slept a lot because my condition required it...I couldn't NOT sleep...but, also, because when I was asleep I did not have to think or feel or be alone. I considered getting a room mate.

I remember seeing the geese at the lake near my house. Ever noticed how geese always seem to be in pairs? Boy, I sure did, and I was jealous of them! It made me mad. I thought, "Why do they get to have a mate??...even if he does honk annoyingly as hell and poop green slime all over the place."

Over time, I grew to appreciate and even like my solitude. Being alone has been vital to my healing both physically and emotionally. I just barely had enough mental energy to exist and function at first. There were not enough reserves to worry about what others thought and to "perform," which I had perfected to the level of an art up until that point of my life.

I pretty much isolated myself and withdrew from everyone and everything. I could not be around people for any length of time. It mentally exhausted me. Still does somewhat. This gave me the opportunity to put my energy into myself. I had nothing else to do. Something I have never really done - ever. A man or the kids had always been at the top of the list. I was somewhere down near the bottom after the dog.

Being alone also forced me to grow up, finally, in my mid forties. About time, huh? I had to decide who I was without hiding behind the roles I played in life or by trying to be what I thought some man wanted me to be. All that was gone. So, I had to determine what was left and who I was then.

In her book "Why People Don't Heal and How They Can," Caroline Myss says that the fear of being alone lies at the core of many people's inability to heal. Not healing allows people to lean on others for assistance and play on their guilt to keep them around. There is a certain power over others in not healing.

Being alone has allowed me to heal, become self sufficient and learn to like my own company. You know what? I am pretty cool to be around! It has allowed me to eat whenever I feel like it, play my music as loud as I want, and walk around with zit cream on my face. However, I can't say that it has done much for my table manners.

Gimme a break!

2010-04-10T21:46:00.002-04:00

"You deserve a break today...So, get up and get away to McDonald's." Remember that? I know you youngsters don't. I agree with the first part, but the second part, not so much. You do deserve a break. I deserve a break. We all deserve a break, dammit!

This practice has to first originate with ourselves, to ourselves. I used to be terrible at this. I was my own worst critic although I have had some pretty enthusiastic cheerleaders over the years from which I could always draw fresh material. I do take responsibility for willingly playing the starring role. However, my brain injury has taught me how to be kind and compassionate with myself and others.

At first, I tried very hard to not act brain injured. Didn't work. With barely understandable speech and poor mental functioning, this was an exhausting effort, and I did not fool anyone although I was not even cognizant enough to know it for a while. I soon found that I could not even begin to keep this up, and allowed myself to be brain injured. This was the beginning of the crumbling of the wall that I had hid behind all my life, and the beginning of being authentic with myself and those around me.

I had to be very forgiving of myself when I drove around the neighborhood beside mine in a panic for thirty minutes because I couldn't find my way home. I had to be kind to myself when I threw my credit card at the cashier at the grocery store because my fine motor skills were lacking. Along the way I have learned to be gentle with myself and even laugh. Imagine that.

Thank goodness, I don't make anywhere near the blunders I used to, but, just this past week, I had a brain blip. I am doing some intensive neurofeedback called Brain State...more on that later....amazing stuff. I did 2 sessions a day for a week. When I went for my afternoon appointment on Tuesday the door was locked and no one was there. I figured they had gone to lunch. I sat outside the door reading a book for 30 minutes until they called me on my cell, and said "Did you forget your afternoon appointment?" I had turned in a different entrance and was at the building across the parking lot. Oops! In my defense, all the buildings are cookie cutter identical.

In the past, something like this would have mortified me and ruined the rest of my day as I replayed it over and over in my head kicking myself and calling myself not so nice names each time. Now, I chalk it up not only to the brain injury but to also to just being human and shrug and let it go. I actually can keep myself very amused at times.

I have often wished I had a big bandage on my head because, even early on, I looked "normal." I like to think hip and street smart even. Indulge me here. A (stupid and rude) person actually asked someone with me one time "How much has she had to drink?" At the airport alone once, I beeped when going through the metal detector. I had no idea why or what to do. The guy had to rather disgustedly explain it, in detail, to me until I took off my belt and put it in the little tray.

These experiences and this learning process with myself has allowed me to extend the same kind of compassion to others. It is so true that we never know what challenges someone is facing by their outward appearance. You just never know. My initial reaction may still be somewhat judgmental and assuming, but then I have learned to step back and look at the same scene through a filter of kindness. It is amazing how the view drastically changes. It also makes me aware of the many presumptions I make about something when I really have no idea.

Try it! Give yourself and the others in your life a break today and not the kind with cheese. We see things not as they are. We see them as we are.

The heart of the matter

2010-04-03T21:25:00.003-04:00

While the males in our population have long been accused of having a second brain in their pants, every one of us has a brain in our chest as well as in our head.

Thoreau said "The intellect is powerless to express thought without the aid of the heart." Science is proving more and more that our experience of the world is first perceived by our heart, which thinks about it, responds accordingly and sends information to the brain for further processing.

Around 65% of the cells in the heart are neural cells, clustered in ganglia and connected to the neural network of the body through axon-dendrites just like in the brain. The heart is a specialized brain hooked into the central nervous system making and releasing its own neurotransmitters and with its own memory.

The neurons in the heart store memories. This is why when Grandpa gets a heart transplant from Julio Vasquez, he starts liking salsa afterward when he couldn't stand it before.

Wild, huh? This stuff completely blew me away and is from Stephen Harrod Buhner's book The Secret Teachings of Plants: In the Direct Perception of Nature.

These neural cells in the heart have a direct connection to the brain and are constantly chattering back and forth with the brain and the two, together, decide how to respond to incoming information. Neurons in the brain alter their behavior in accordance with the signals embedded in each heartbeat and send it to the central nervous system to make physiological and behavioral changes almost instantly.

The heart's ability to perceive meaning from the world even has a name: aisthesis which literally means "to breath in." It is that moment when the life force of one living organism communicates with and moves into another one. We live in a world that is alive with awareness and intelligence. It is up to us to acknowledge and allow this intimate exchange kind of like the Navi in Avatar plugged their tails into something to connect with it.

Even though we are trained out of using our heart as organs of perception early on, the skill still exists and can be developed. Think of seeing the Grand Canyon or any postcard worthy scene. There is a real, palpable reaction in the body as the energy, the power of the thing is felt.

The brain is an organic computer processing data and acting as a clearing station for central nervous system functioning. Unlike the heart, the brain is linear and to use it as the primary organ of perception reduces life analytically to a mechanical process with little meaning.

Because of my brain injury, I was forced to rely heavily on the perception and intelligence of my heart. I have learned to trust it and listen to it. You know what? It is much wiser than my brain ever was. Using this type of intelligence and perception, I truly feel connected and just know the right direction for me at each turn. I used to be hopelessly disconnected, lost, and did not have a clue. I was always looking externally to others and things to give me the answers here.

There is a great power and wisdom in the world around us. The challenge is to notice it, develop it, and invite it to play a bigger role in our lives. To begin to use the heart as an organ of perception and communication allows us as a species to become, once again, a respectful, integral part of the web of life of Earth and allows us as individuals to begin to live more fulfilled and authentic lives. The problem is our heart intelligence is in kindergarten while our mind intelligence has already graduated.

In a daze...on purpose

2010-03-26T23:29:00.004-04:00

When someone says the word meditation do you think of a granola head sitting cross legged on a pillow with their fingers held daintily just so making a weird noise? While meditation can be a spiritual practice, it is basically about learning to consciously alter and control the brain waves. Done with regularity, it actually physically changes your brain. It has been a large part of my recovery from a brain injury. I do it every day, and, OK, I do eat granola.

Everybody already does light meditation even if they don't know it. It occurs when you are doing any activity in which you become so engrossed that you loose sense of time and you aren't thinking about the bills or your to do list. Your attention is only on the task at hand while experiencing a sense of calm and a laser beam focus. This can occur while gardening, taking a walk in nature, writing or even cooking - anything. I have a friend who says he experiences this while riding his motorcycle. This is an alpha state in the brain. It is the most relaxed a person can be while remaining awake.

Deep meditation takes this further into that half asleep, half awake state where a person is aware of their surroundings, but they are not actively conscious of them or interacting. Although, there are moving meditations such as tai chi, yoga, and labyrinth walking. At this level, the brain produces theta waves which are the first stages of sleep.

While in theta, the happy chemical, serotonin, is released and blood pressure lowers. Brain scans of people who practice meditation show higher activity in the frontal lobes which are basically the the parts of the brain that make us human. There is also increased activity in the thalamus which helps different parts of the brain talk to one another and is very involved in the processing of sensory information. This happens even when not meditating. Meditation literally changes how the brain works.

There is no right or wrong way to meditate. To put a lot of pressure on yourself to meditate "the right way" kind of defeats the purpose. There are many different flavors of meditation - some vanilla versions and some down right strange, but basically, all practices involve three essentials: 1) Focus on something simple and non thought provoking like the breath or a single word or sound. 2) Consciously relax the body. 3) Exercise a passive awareness of the mind.

I started meditating in an effort to reduce the extreme anxiety shown in my brain waves on a qEEG. I have to admit, at first, I had no idea what I was really trying to do. I read books and listened to cd's. I have tried it with my eyes open staring into space and staring into a candle flame. (did not work for me at all!) I have developed my own method of meditating/visualizing with my eyes closed while music is playing, and I kind of hum.

I like to feel the vibration of the music so it has to be loud. Drums, chants, Celtic songs, classical music with the chords of a piano or violin. Are you following me here? I even have some where Monks sound sort of like they are being strangled under water, but the vibrations of it are remarkably peaceful and transcending if you can imagine. I also hum on the exhale because I can really feel it in my throat and nasal passages. I have a lingering speech impediment due to the brain injury, and I can feel this healing and working on and sending energy to those areas.

The third one, "exercising passive awareness of the mind," I find ridiculously hard, but therein is the most beneficial work. The goal here is to become detached from your thoughts and just observe them and not get all wrapped up in them. I have heard it described as noticing your thoughts like you would a passing cloud. Just say "Oh, lookie!" and let it go on by. When this happens, and, it most certainly will, just label it as "thinking," and return your focus back to your breath or your word or sound.

This building awareness of and detachment from your thoughts is the goal. It is this manner of being consciously aware of your thoughts which you are learning and why it is called a practice. I have been meditating for two years and still find myself thinking about the crud in the dog's ear and wonder with a chuckle "How in the hell did I get here?"

The concept and understanding that I am not my thoughts was huge for me. I used to think I was an absolutely horrible person because of some of the thoughts I had. Now, I still have shocking and not so nice and wacky thoughts - we all do if we are honest, but I am just amused by them and do not define myself by them. I choose which thoughts I buy into and act on and, in turn, allow to define me. It is a choice. You can't choose what you think, but you can choose which ones you put energy into. Choose wisely.

Picture this!

2010-03-19T23:21:00.001-04:00

You are watching a scary movie that you've seen a million times before, and when the music gets creepy and the circumstances get hairy, your heart starts racing, your breathing becomes a shallow pant and the muscles in your neck tense up. This is even though you know nothing bad is going to happen and everything will turn out OK.

These bodily reactions are produced by make believe images and sounds, not real life situations. You can put the same happenings to work for you by creating pictures in your mind with "creative visualization."

The thoughts, words and images that run through your mind have very real physiological consequences for your body. Your brain sends the same messages to the central nervous system whether something is being imagined or actually experienced. So be very careful what you think! Seriously, consciously being aware of and controlling your thoughts is a huge way we can change our realities. Magic!

I have used visualization daily for two years in my recovery from a brain injury, and it has been miraculous. It has been amazing to me that everything I have visualized has eventually come true. Not quick enough for me most of the time, but better late than never.

At first, I imagined the messages in my brain traveling along lines like an old telephone switchboard because connectivity and getting signals across the hippocampus was an issue for me. My grandmother used to be a switch board operator at a hotel so it worked for me and was comforting at the same time.

The images just naturally evolved as my healing progressed. I have imagined my brain like the old, card catalogue file that used to be used at the library - remember those? Now, I have graduated to picturing it as Google.

My mother has breast cancer. After her first round of chemo two weeks ago, her white blood cell count fell so low she was "isolated." She has been doing visualizations to bring up her white blood cell count. She has been using the mental pictures of a field of daisies bursting with blooms, snowflakes piling up, and white beans - don't know how that one works. Her white blood cell count before this last treatment was higher than even before she started chemo. It really works! Now she is visualizing something to do with glue to hopefully keep from losing her hair. Let you know how that one goes.

Visualization can be used for anything. It is a recognized mind-body therapy that is effective with any health concern especially stress related ones (aren't they all, basically?) It has also been shown to be extremely powerful in improving performance, changing behavior, or influencing an outcome. Although, I don't know that it is a good use of time to sit around and see yourself winning the lottery.

In her book Creative Visualization, Shakti Gawain offers the following guidelines:

1. Set a goal - decide something specific you would like to have, work toward, realize or create.
2. Create a clear idea or mental picture or feeling - This should be in present tense. Think of the situation already existing.
3. Focus on it frequently - Bring your idea to mind often in quiet meditation or casually through out your day. Make it part of your reality in a light, relaxed way.
4. Give it positive energy - Think about your goal in a positive, encouraging way. See yourself receiving it or achieving it. Feel it.

When you cut your finger, you do not have to tell your body, step-by-step, the specific details of how to heal the wound, thank goodness. If you are like me, you don't even know these. It just does it. It already has the natural wisdom and power. Creative visualization consciously directs these innate forces. Ready, set, pretend!

Nothing like a little pressure

2010-03-12T23:12:00.003-05:00

You can live weeks without food, days without water, but only minutes without oxygen. There is nothing the body needs more than oxygen. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (hbot) has made and continues to make a very dramatic difference in my recovery from a brain injury. Yes. It is that space capsule like thing Michael Jackson reportedly used to sleep in.

I wish I could tell you that my incredible intelligence and research led me to hbot, but as with most everything in my miraculous journey of recovery, I was guided to it. An inner voice told me "You need to watch Oprah today. There is something on there for you." Sure enough, Dr. Oz was talking about hyperbaric benefits. I knew immediately that was my message. Freaky? Great!

In hbot, a person is exposed to increased atmospheric pressure in an inflatable chamber. In this pressurized environment, the blood is able to dissolve up to 10 times more oxygen which allows it to pass into tissue, cells, and the brain more readily. In addition to greatly increasing the availability of oxygen, it also allows oxygen to reach areas of the body that it normally would be difficult to reach drastically improving healing.

It can really aid the body with just about anything, but has proven to be especially effective with autism, autoimmune diseases, brain injuries, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, slow-healing wounds and injuries, surgical and stroke recovery.

Hbot is widely used and is part of the established medical systems in most European countries and Canada. There is a wealth of research world wide confirming it's substantial benefits. The US medical community, in its arrogance, has failed to accept it as of yet. Research is just beginning to be done in the US, with very promising results.

My practitioner has seen what she refers to as many little miracles from hbot therapy. One client post stroke came in using a walker and couldn't speak or write because she had very little feeling in her hands. Within about a year, she was walking with no aid and speaking normally. She also could feel it when she burnt her hand on the stove. Who would have thought burning your hand could actually be a thing to celebrate?

She has also witnessed several autistic or brain damaged children begin to speak as a result of hbot. She has seen people with paralyzed limbs regain their use. Pretty amazing stuff! Why aren't doctors here using this already?!?

She has also had a couple of people claim to have eureka/spiritual/other world experiences in there. I have not experienced that. Darn it!

I did three, hour long sessions a week until I got the recommended 50 under my belt. Now I do one session for two hours once a week, and I still feel it working. I love it. It is like being in a cozy cocoon where I get to read, listen to my iPod, and nap. Perfect for meditating. They even have portable DVD players and a good selection of movies for those who feel so inclined. But no popcorn. I just do try to make sure not to drink too much before going in. Only one time have I broken out in a sweat and considered ringing the little doorbell thingy provided inside in case you just can't wait.

For more info visit: www.hypertc.com

When my world was warped

2010-03-04T18:01:00.001-05:00

When I read on Facebook about Marie Osmond's teenage son committing suicide, it brought knowing tears to my eyes. Of the 19 comments, not one of them mentioned compassion for the son. While my heart certainly does go out to those left behind, I immediately empathized with the excruciating pain and utter hopelessness he must have felt.

Having committed what is termed a "serious" suicide attempt - like some are just joking around?? - I have been in that terrifying place. While I cannot know what he or anyone else felt exactly, I have my ideas. Very surprisingly to me, no one has really asked me specifically about my feelings at that time. I think this is a big part of the ongoing problem. Such an act carries a huge, black cloud of shame and is hush hushed. It makes people squirm. I believe that only by sharing honestly can I heal fully and help others no matter how uncomfortable it makes some people.

I have heard many times that suicide is a selfish act. Let me tell you that I did not see it that way at all. I saw at as a selfless act. I know now how terribly skewed that sounds, but, then, I honestly thought that the world...especially my kids... would be better off without me.

When I tried to commit suicide, of course, I had a lot of what I considered then to be hellish, mitigating factors in my life. I had this blur of a movie running non-stop in my head. It played out in intricate, garish detail all the worst "what if" scenarios possible in the future. It replayed all the most horrible scenes of my past in full color. Over and over. I could not find the pause button. I hadn't slept for any amount of time in weeks. I really desperately wanted some peace and just to rest.

My brother, who was my best friend in the world, died 10 years earlier. I don't really know where I thought he was, but I wanted to go be with him wherever that was. I have had several close relatives commit suicide. The power of suggestion. I saw it as a viable option. I had just started a new antidepressant. For me, all of these and more were factors.

The bottom line is that I did not have the faith or the hope to see a way out nor did I have the tools or the forward energy to even begin to know how to get there. Almost three years later, I just want to scream at anyone who is suicidal and tell them that they will not always feel this way even if I know they probably won't believe me right then and would tell me to shut up. I know I did not want to hear it.

Life is a lot like the story of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. It is a journey which is gonna have good witches, skipping on the yellow brick road, and emerald castles, but it is also going to be filled constantly with tornadoes, bad witches and flying monkeys. Expect them. They are part of it.

The problem comes when we buy into the illusion of finding something out there that magically makes everything perfect, in this case, a wizard. He turns out to be nothing much behind a big, elaborate front. If you will remember, he high tails it in a balloon, leaving Dorothy once again to solve her own problems.

With the help of the ruby slippers which are a symbol of the power Dorothy has within herself all along, Dorothy makes her own wish come true in the end. Like Dorothy, we have the power to make our own wishes come true and transform our own realities. It is in our brain.

We each have to find what works for us. Whether it is changing the nuerochemical balance in the brain with other chemicals; whether it is consciously directing mental processes, which, in turn, alter the physical brain, such as meditating, practicing positive affirmations or keeping a gratitude journal; whether it is making behavioral, lifestyle changes such as exercising, eating healthier and not partaking in drugs and alcohol, and most likely a combination of some of these, we each have the power to change our lives for the better. We are already wearing the ruby slippers.

When someone is suicidal, they cannot fathom this. They will hate you for even suggesting it. That is OK. They will get over it. They are not thinking clearly. They do need someone to extend a hand, intervene with force if necessary, and keep them safe until they can do so themselves and begin to take the necessary steps.

I did not like it one bit and was mad as hell at those who had saved me and continued to ensure my life. I thought "How dare they?! This is my life! Why don't they mind their own business!?" Thank you immensely to the people who did so for me. I am forever grateful. So, be a bother. Butt in!

My advice to those in the dark place is to quit running and stop all the struggle. Exhale. Give up. Have a break down. Sink into the pain and despair. Feel it. Allow it to move through you. And it will. That is the first step in healing. Actually experiencing the feelings won't kill anybody. Suicide will. Seek help and then actually allow it. If the first thing doesn't work, and it probably won't, keep searching. And, if the fifth or the fifteenth thing doesn't work, keep at it. Before a hand ever grasps a gun or some pills, suicide first occurs in the brain and has to be addressed in the brain.

Godiva chocolate or Seven Eleven slurpee?

2010-02-26T22:40:00.000-05:00

If someone were to ask you "What is the one most important thing in your life?" What would your answer be? Your honey? Your kids? Your job? Your car? Your iPod? The correct answer for the big bucks here is YOU!

While my iPod is up there at the top of the list, I am my most prized possession these days. Think about it. Without you being in some kind of healthy, functioning shape, all of these other areas of your life are going to fall apart. Believe me, I know this from experience!

Having had way too much up close and personal experience with narcissists in my life, I used to think this was selfish and wanted to be nothing like it. I proved with gusto that you attract those people with the qualities you need to develop the most. I took giving to a whole new, sick level. I put others' wants and needs way before my own so much so that I ended up really angry and resentful because the whole time I was doing what they wanted, I was boiling inside and grumbling not very nice words under my breath. And I know a few.

I have finally realized that usually the other person could care less and there was not any shiny medal for my act of self sacrifice. I once drove straight through from Florida to North Carolina with a 3 month old infant and a 3 year old toddler in the car...peeing in a diaper which I held let me just clarify (although the visual of me driving a car in a diaper does make me laugh)...now that takes some talent...while my then spouse drove another car by himself comfortably listening to tunes and stopping for potty breaks.

While making yourself a priority also can be taken to the extreme of being a pure schmuck, it is healthy to be a little bit selfish and to learn to get comfortable with saying "No" and setting some boundaries for yourself. I have even gotten good at it.

My brain injury was actually a blessing in disguise here as it forced me to put myself first. I had to become very self centric to recover. I had to have the self discipline to do the things and make the choices which are good for me and my brain and say "No, thanks" to the people and the things that maybe are fun, but are not going to get me where I want to go.

I used to like my red wine. Now I am not ruling out out having a glass at some point in the future. The idea of becoming a tee totaller is just too bleak. However, about a year ago, I had two glasses of wine the night before and did nuerofeedback, a therapy which trains the brainwaves, the next morning. My brain told on me. She said "It looks like you have a fresh brain injury!" I just sat there looking like the cat that ate the canary and did not say a word. Ever since then, it's just is not worth it to me to drink any alcohol.

My daily life now reflects my honoring myself. I put healthy things in my body. I take supplements. I get lots of sleep. I make time to exercise every day. Some days vacuuming the house counts as my cardio. Hey, I work up a sweat! I meditate daily. I call this my healing time, and I really think it has been. If I do not do it even for one day, I can really tell a difference. I do brain training every day in addition to my own speech therapy which is learning Spanish...hola!... and reading out loud. I also have learned to decline many requests for my time and attention in order to do these things.

You get the picture. While I have been accused of having OCD which may be a little bit true, I prefer to think of it as having self discipline. These are the ways in which I tell myself and the world that I am important. I am recovering from a brain injury and getting myself mentally and spiritually healthy, someone already there might not have to be so militant.

It is true, you teach everybody else how to treat you and, in general, no one is going to treat you any better than you treat yourself. Are you teaching people to treat you like some Godiva chocolate or a Seven Eleven slurpee?

A Japanese Ham Sandwich

2010-02-19T23:26:00.001-05:00

It is hot. I get all sweaty. I wear as little clothing as possible. When I am finished, my body is tired, but also feels strong and revitalized. My mind is calm and peaceful, yet alert and rejuvenated. I do it 3 or 4 times a week. No, it is not that! It is Bikram yoga also known as hot yoga.

Bikram yoga is 90 minutes of Hatha yoga in a room heated to 105 degrees and with 40% humidity. Most people's idea of a hell on earth, huh? A class consists of 26 postures with very long, hard to say Indian names, but with simplified American descriptions like "Japanese ham sandwich." The idea behind it being so hot is that it increases flexibility and decreases the risk of injury and allows a person to rework their body. Think of the analogy of a sword. Cold, it is rigid and inflexible, but heat it up and you have something pliable with which you can work and shape.

The heat and humidity does make you sweat, but that is a good thing. Really. When I am finished, I look like I have been swimming. I have chuckled to myself during class because when I was supposed to be focusing on my breath, I was having visions of a tacky Will Ferrell movie where the props guys had cut corners and used a water hose to simulate sweat ridiculously pouring off. All the sweat is an incredible detoxification through the largest organ in the body...the skin. I leave the room cleaner than when I went in. Can't say I smell better though.

Because over 90 pills went entirely through my system when I tried to commit suicide, detoxing was pretty high on my list. When I first started doing hot yoga, I would feel mentally clearer after each class. I did a challenge where I did 60 classes in 60 days. Unknowingly, it was probably the best thing I could have done to get the residual drugs out of my body. You think I am crazy? We just had a girl in my studio complete 365 classes in 365 days.

She says the same thing that I do. Bikram yoga has transformed my life. It has aided me in recovering from my brain injury physically as well as mentally and encouraged me to adopt a healthier, kinder, gentler perspective towards life and myself.

Muscle tension is a side effect of a brain injury. For the longest time, my hands were clenched like claws. While my writing still looks like chicken scratch, my hands have relaxed. My speech was greatly impaired. I believe this was largely due in part to clenching my jaws. Think Thurston Howell. Oh, Lovey! My jaws have really relaxed, but I am not quite Gilligan yet.

Over the two years I have been doing it since my brain injury, Bikram yoga has greatly helped to improve my balance. At first, with my eyes open, the room would spin. Now, I am steady and can do a mighty impressive impersonation of a flamingo.

The one most crucial thing stressed in yoga is the breath. The class begins and ends with breathing exercises to increase the lung capacity and strengthen the lungs. I am constantly reminded to concentrate on my breath. This is harder than you would think. As a result of my pill popping, I also sustained an "acute lung injury" whatever that means. All I know is that I used to not be able to breathe and talk at the same time. It has greatly helped this, and I don't gasp mid sentence anymore.

Bikram yoga encourages the heart and lungs to be friends and to work together like originally designed. It is proven to increase the oxygen levels in the blood and to improve the circulation which are both something I greatly needed in my recovery.

Anyone can benefit from Bikram yoga. It has been shown to be helpful in aiding sleep, regulating the appetite, stabilizing moods, decreasing stress, reducing and alleviating pain and more. Because of its super detoxification benefits, people doing chemotherapy have found it to be very helpful. Also, because one class burns around 800 calories, it is a great way to keep those weight loss/get fit New Year's resolutions.

So, if you thought yoga was a bunch of flower children, burning incense, relaxing and stretching while chimes play in the background, think again. This is rigorous, physical exercise. It is not pretty, but it is sooo good. When you are finished, you feel like you have accomplished something. You are just not sure what.

A Human Pincushion

2010-02-12T21:25:00.001-05:00

I have come to believe that our brain is like a 3 pound, mushy battery. It is similar to a power generator for a New York City block. It determines whether we are a colorful, blaring neon sign illuminating our surrounding area or whether we are a barely noticeable sign flickering dimly on and off. Like a battery and thank goodness for me, I have found that the brain can be recharged.

One way in which I have done this is through acupuncture. Acupuncture has been practiced for 2,500 years. It is based on energy channels called meridians. Qi or life energy flows through the body and between the skin’s surface and the internal organs along these meridians. Illness or pain occurs when the healthy flow of energy becomes imbalanced or blocked along these pathways. Acupuncture facilitates health by restoring the natural flow of this energy.

Acupuncture has been medically proven to speed up healing, improve circulation and increase nerve growth. Recent research is further validating this ancient art by showing that pain killing endorphins and important mood regulating transmitters are released throughout the body when points are stimulated. It is used to successfully treat allergies, depression, arthritis, back pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, headaches, infertility, insomnia, post polio syndrome, sciatica, smoking cessation, weight loss, and much more.

I started doing acupuncture about a year and half ago. In the beginning, I did as much as three treatments a week. Now, I am down to once a week. The first time I did it, the difference in my perception was so great afterwards that the drive home was scary. My perception - it was more than just my vision - was so much sharper and clearer. Edges were more defined and crisp. It was like taking a camera lens and turning it to be more in focus. Although, I did not even know it was out of focus before.

This makes sense, because vision is mostly in how the brain processes the input from the eyes. In testing, my vision was normal– no worse, no better than before the brain injury. Something was going on though, because, for instance, when I put the dog’s leash down in the leaves I could not pick it out of the collage of shapes and colors, but my Dad walked right up and could immediately spot it.

However, it was not only in my vision that I could tell a big difference. It was as if I had taken smart pill and my whole brain had become more efficient and focused. My thinking was much faster and clearer. I also just felt revitalized and more alive and stronger.

I do cranial acupuncture where needles are stuck in my head. I have also had needles put almost every other place imaginable. Well, almost. When they were in my jaw joints, I had visions of Frankenstein. They do not hurt, but I am aware of them when they go in usually. The needles in my head are actually hooked up to a machine which sends electrical impulses into them to provide constant stimulation. Amazingly, I do not glow in the dark yet.

Once I am all stuck and hooked up to my recharger, I just lie there trying really hard not to move for an hour and usually listen to music or educational cds and nap. I have gotten really good at just ignoring the little urges to scratch my nose.

I also take a daily herb granular mixture and a liquid tincture that the acupuncturist mixes like a mad scientist just for me taking into account my brain injury and whatever else may be going on with my body and in my life at that time. She looks at my tongue and reads several different pulses to determine what is needed in the supplements and treatment that day.

I have not done acupuncture in two weeks because my person has been out of town. I am ready to be plugged up and recharged.

"Air Head" is a compliment...really

2010-02-05T23:21:00.000-05:00

I frantically told someone very shortly after my brain injury "I am in here!" It was kind of hard for anyone to tell for sure because I did not sound, move, nor act like I did before, and I had the blank look in my eyes like nobody was home.

Let's see if I can even try to explain this. Even though huge chunks of my my personality were missing and my mental processes were all messed up as well as some of my physical functioning, my spirit or soul or essence or whatever you want to call it was always in tact and fully aware. It was never damaged or injured in any way and remained whole. As a matter of fact, it became stronger and more defined as my ego and physical self became less imposing.

I recall wondering to myself "What part of me is observing me?" It was as though some other me was watching the new pitiful, damaged me in a very unattached and objective manner with almost no emotional reaction, but lots of compassion. Freaky. To actually look at myself kindly instead of picking apart and criticizing my every move was totally new for me.

I was brain damaged, but in some way I was deeper and more thoughtful. The injury had actually slowed my mind which had constantly raced most of the time before like a Jack Russell forever, tirelessly chasing its tail round and round in circles. Now, it was more like the old, fat, hound dog who can barely muster the energy to get up and waddle somewhere not too far only to plop down again.

I surely would not have been a winner on "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?," but I did have the presence somehow to challenge the well known "I think; therefore, I am." While I wasn't thinking all that great, I still knew that "I" was, and that "I" was not impaired.

I have often thought that recovering from my brain injury was the painstakingly slow process of coming back into my body. I even remember telling my brother "I came back in body this week," after a week especially filled with lots of the "tinglies" of nerves coming back on board and deciding to work again.

Although it may sound kind of twilight zone-ish, I now think that I actually wasn't too far off. Traditionally, we have thought that the brain must be the source of the mind. This is similar to insisting that a radio is the source of the music which comes from it. It may seem important that the brain is active during thought, but then a radio is also active during a broadcast.

Quantum physics is confirming that there is a field of energy everywhere called "The Zero Point Field." Rather than the old way of thinking that the mind is what the brain does, now, it is more like the mind is the controller of the brain. Imagine that there is a cloud of possibilities - words, memories, ideas, images - from which your brain can choose at every moment. One of these possibilities becomes an actuality in the brain. Like the quantum field which has been scientifically proven to generate real particles from virtual ones, the mind generates real brain activity from possible or virtual activity.

Quantum physics is proving to have many new mind blowing (pun intended) discoveries which are totally rewriting our understanding of the basic principles of our world and universe. Lynn McTaggert's book The Field totally altered my perception of reality. There is growing evidence to suggest that, in fact, we do all share the same mind field. Think of prodigies like Mozart or savants who can tell what day of the week November 16th falls on in the year 2135.

No physical process has been identified through which memories are transferred from neurons which die naturally every day to new neurons in the brain. Perhaps memories exist and persist on a nonphysical level. This would also explain, how someone can relay what dead Uncle George has to say from the beyond and other phenomenon such as distant seeing and mind reading. OK, is this too far out for ya yet?

We can use CAT scans and MRIs to show the activity of the brain, but that does not prove that the mind arises in the brain. These are maps showing the terrain of the brain as a thought or emotion crosses it. Deepak Chopra says in his book Life After Death "They don't prove that the brain IS the mind any more than a footprint in the sand is the same as the foot."

I see my recovery as a matter of getting my equipment to better receive and express the signal of me which has always been there strong and clear. I have gone from a crackly, antiquated radio like Grandpa used to have to an iPod coming through some Blaupankt speakers, and I keep upgrading.

The light at the end of the tunnel or a train?

2010-01-29T23:49:00.000-05:00

There is always a light at the end of the tunnel, right? Faith is believing that it is not a train barreling straight at you. Somewhere during the first year after my brain injury, I quit running like hell through the tunnel, scared to death all panicky and sweaty. I slowed down, calmed down, and developed the innate knowing that it was not a train coming at me and that somewhere down the tracks the darkness was going to lift and there would be sunshine. I am at the point now where I am walking...kind of sauntering and whistling even...and I can see the suns' light streaming in at the end of the tunnel and feel its warmth. Behind me is pitch blackness.

Believe it or not, I am grateful to have had my brain injury and would not go back to being the person I was before even if given the chance. "If you like where you are, then you can't complain about how you got there" is one of my favorite sayings these days. Wouldn't do any good anyway. Now, don't get me wrong. I would rather have my fingernails pulled off slowly with tweezers than go through the whole thing again, but the experience does have its benefits. Like any other seemingly "bad" thing, it has given me some profound gifts.

Let go of the past. A large part of my memory was wiped out with the brain injury. It follows no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell. While I can remember the words to almost every inane song that comes on the radio, the memories are not really there in detail for my sons' births. Pictures become my memories here if that makes any sense. I also do not remember all the little and some of the rather big hurts that I accumulated and lugged around everywhere with me over the years. They eventually became so heavy that they sunk the boat. I feel so much lighter now.

Appreciate the little things. When you have hit rock bottom there is no where to go but up. I used to "chug" my arms when walking because I did not know what else to do with them, and they did nothing naturally. Sure makes me like the the cool way they just automatically swing now without me even having to think about it. Just going to the grocery store used to make me break out in a sweat and had me mustering all my courage. "Please, please, please don't let the cashier be chatty," I would pray. Now, no problem, and I am the one with witty banter. While my speech is still affected and it is no where near sounding like the drunken slur that it once did, I sure wish I could just sing a song under my breath effortlessly. I'll get there one day.

Focus on the abundance. Before my brain injury, I had so much abundance in my life, but all I could see and obsess about over and over was what was absent. I have not been shopping except for necessities since the injury. Every time I open my closets, it is like going shopping. "Weee! Where did all these clothes come from?" Before, I had two sons living with me. I did appreciate them, but like any other full time, single parent, I would get annoyed much more easily by the little, every day things. I took them being in my everyday life for granted. They now live with their Dad in a different state. When they come in, I just revel in the energy they exude and notice and enjoy so many little things I did not before. Now, farting in the car, I don't think I will ever come to appreciate.

Have no fear. I used to be afraid. If you knew me, I don't think you ever would have known it. Tough girl. I put up a very brave front, and part of it was real, and I wanted the other part to be real very badly, but inside I was still terrified of just life. Over the last two and half years, I have had to draw on strength I didn't even know I had. I have learned that I can trust and depend on myself. For a person who had perfected playing the victim, that is major. Now, literally nothing scares me. Well, OK - maybe bungee jumping. I know pretty much that I can go through anything and even find some joy along the way. Bring it on!

I could continue, but you are probably getting bored. I can often be seen smiling or giggling to myself these days because, I know it sounds corny enough to make you wanna throw up - me too, but I actually see joy and find happiness all around me in the mundane everyday. Tee hee! It can never be taken away either. Pretty neat. As they say in yoga class "The better it gets, the better it gets!"

A Mood Ring for the Mind

2010-01-23T01:37:00.000-05:00

Many fads gain popularity for unknown reasons. Remember polyester leisure suits, beanie babies, or pet rocks? Thank goodness, most of them fade back into wherever they came from pretty quickly. A few have staying power and even prove to be visionary.

Mood rings are an example of this. They were actually an early form of biofeedback. Biofeedback is a therapy in which people are taught to improve health and performance using signals generated by their own bodies such as heart rate and breathing. NASA and top athletes have been benefiting from biofeedback for years.

Neurofeedback is a specialized form of biofeedback in which a person physically learns to alter their brainwaves. The learning occurs at a subconscious level and is permanent. It has been used successfully for many conditions where the brain is not functioning optimally including chronic anxiety, autism, ADHD, depression, brain injuries, addictive disorders, seizure disorders, learning disabilities and more. It can also be used just to perfect and heighten focus and concentration such as required in school or in playing golf or other sports.

I can say that neurofeedback has undoubtedly made the most dramatic difference for me in my recovery. I started doing neurofeedback 14 months after my brain injury. My practitioner has told me stories about people 13 years post injury having remarkably successful results. It is never too late for your brain to learn.

In neurofeedback, EEG sensors are put on the head and ears. Think good blackmail pictures. The EEG reads the amount of electrical energy put out by the brain in the form of brainwaves at the different sites. Just like a radio station, the electricity is measured in terms of "frequency." The brainwaves are monitored by computer software that processes the EEG information and provides feedback to the person.

Feedback can come in several forms. It can be in the context of a video game and, when the set criteria are met, a rocket ship goes faster or a pac man gobbles up dots more frantically. When the brain does not meet the desired levels, the game slows and the reward stops. With practice, the brain learns to regulate itself and this actually produces permanent physiological changes allowing the brain to perform differently and to continue to make adjustments when not training.

I have done it so much, that all I get these days is a lousy little "ding" and the technical computer screen - no fancy games to entertain me anymore. I have learned to read these and to watch the raw EEG data to monitor my own performance and train my brain.

Because it is a learning process, the results of neurofeedback occur gradually over time. For me, my thoughts and my speech which had been separate with a time delay in between, if you can even imagine, came together and became simultaneous within 10 sessions. Shortly after I began neurofeedback, I started sleeping soundly and deeply. Until then, my sleep had been fitful and not restful. I spent a lot of time just staring at the ceiling and took way too many baths when I should have been sleeping. I know that sleeping more contiguously and productively allowed my brain to really start doing some serious healing.

We would train specific areas of my motor strip, and I could physically feel the corresponding areas of my body waking up with what I have come to technically call "the tinglies." At first, my gait was somewhat spastic, my coordination was kind of jerky and my balance was definitely off. Now, my movement is much more natural and fluid, and, while I am probably not going to go dancing anytime soon, I could still do a mean robot.

Once I saw that it was really doing something pretty miraculous, I did neurofeedback as much as I could, up to 4 times a week. Currently, I am doing it twice a week. I do foresee the day when I do not feel that I need it at all, but, for now, I continue to see benefits and results.

This summer, we did neurofeedback treatments on my oldest son pretty intensely while he was here with me. I see it as an investment in his future. He does not have any diagnosed disorder. He has reported that he can tell improvements in his concentration for schoolwork and that he just feels calmer and less reactive emotionally. I think his younger brother has less bruises to prove it.

Brain Basics

2010-01-15T21:52:00.000-05:00

Let's talk about that three pounds of jelly under your hair that separates you from a starfish. You use it every minute of every day and it is a crucial part of your functioning in this world, but most of us never even give it a second thought and take its miraculous and still somewhat mysterious workings completely for granted. I know I did. I also know that you would give it a second and third thought if something about it did not work as it should. It was not until after my brain injury that I took notice. When I couldn't even do something as simple as run because my arms and legs would not cooperate, I thought "Why, can't I do this? I know how."

If you take your hand and make a fist with your thumb folded cozily inside, this is a "handy" model of your brain. Your thumb is your brain stem. It connects to your spinal cord and is the most primitive part of the brain sometimes referred to as the reptilian brain. It controls the basic, automatic bodily functions like respiration and heart beat. The fight or flight response is housed here also because it was necessary to keep us from being eaten by a wooly mammoth way back when.

The back of your hand is your cerebellum. It mostly controls coordination and balance while also being involved in some known language and attention functions.

Your fingers are the cerebrum or your mammalian brain. The back area primarily processes the external world, and, generally, as you move from the back to the front here, we become more and more human and the functioning becomes more complex. Our ape friends must think we are really ugly because our brains have grown so enormous as to push our foreheads out kinda funny like. It really is a good thing. It is the brain behind these large foreheads that allow us to be humans with complex thoughts, emotions, imaginations and problem solving skills.

The cerebellum is divided into two halves. The left side usually houses the more analytical functions like math and writing skills while the right side is the more abstract and generally is where creative functioning is located. Except on the head, the opposite side of the brain is in charge of the opposite side of the body.

Your brain is extremely complex. It is much more sophisticated than the most expensive computer with all the latest whiz bang gadgets. It contains more information than google. The adult brain has about 100 billion nerve cells that branch out and connect at more than 100 TRILLION!! points called synapses. I don't even know how many zeros that is. This makes a dense, tangled up neuron forest - think Christmas lights.

Signals travel across the nerves and synapses as electric impulses carried by neurotransmitters. The electrical activity of these signals is manifested in a brain wave. In order for a brain to function optimally, brain waves need to be within a certain voltage range called amplitude. Amplitude varies for different points in the brain and each point has a spectrum of wave ranges that serve different purposes. Signals also have to be able to get through the neuronal maze quickly and with no road blocks. This is connectivity. While specific parts of the brain do correspond to very specific functions, the brain is also global and operates as a whole. It takes several regions of the brain cooperating and communicating to create a thought, feeling or sensation.

Because I used to not know how many nickels were in a dollar and many other similar things, I have deduced that my left brain was more damaged than my right, but my injury was global. A quantitative EEG showed my amplitudes to be very low overall and my connectivity was like a bad cell phone connection.

For me, having to live out of my right brain was kinda good actually because it forced me to think more abstractly and creatively and imaginatively. It shut down the pragmatic, pessimistic more realistic voices that had told me my whole life that "you can't!" My brain injury allowed me to think, I believe, more openly and more positively. The voices now said "Why not? Anything is possible." I have since come to believe that the mind and the brain are two seperate things entirely. Changing one allows you to change the other and vice versa, but that is a whole different blog.

Because the brain is very delicate, it is protected by the thick bones of the skull, but is still very susceptible to damage and must maintain a very sophisticated, intricate balance. The most common forms of physical damage are closed head injuries such as a blow to the head or a stroke or exposure to neurotoxic chemicals. Genetically based conditions, such as Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis or autism are a malfunction of the brain processes. A number of psychiatric conditions are thought to be physically based in the brain.

Neurologists estimate that a person is aware of about 2,000 bits of information per minute. As impressive as this is, your brain is actually processing 400 billion bits of information per minute. Miraculously, the brain remains in control of each one and filters out what is not required to function at the present moment. So even when you think you are not doing much of anything, you are doing a lot.

Deeper than down in the dumps

2010-01-08T23:55:00.000-05:00

I want to talk candidly about something near and dear to my own heart and brain...depression. First, let us be clear about what depression is not. It is not some yuppie fad for people with way too much time to think on their hands and not enough interesting stuff in their lives to keep their minds entertained. It is not people who think pessimistically and need to become happy campers living in a world filled with sunshine and butterflies. It is not people who do not not go to church enough.

Depression has a real physical basis in the brain and it kills. It almost killed me. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in females aged 15 to 40. Suicide takes more lives annually than traffic accidents, AIDS, or lung disease. It kills about 800,000 people around the world every year. Pretty staggering, huh, when put that way?

Depression is in the brain. The standard theory is that it is a disease caused by imbalanced levels of essential neurotransmitter chemicals in the brain like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. It has generally been assumed that depressed people have low levels of these key chemicals. However, it is not really known exactly how the mood is disordered in depression.

Doctors are far too happy to and careless in writing prescriptions for antidepressants. They are the number one prescribed medication and their use has doubled in the last 10 years. These are serious medications which alter the brain's chemistry. I was two weeks into a new antidepressant when I tried to commit suicide. Of course, they do have strong warnings which I totally ignored not to drink while taking - which most certainly would include a whole bottle of wine at one sitting.

Only about 50% of depressed people respond positively to antidepressants at all and their positive effect wears off pretty quickly over time. Something else has to be going on here.

New research is showing that depression may not be so much a disorder of the negative emotions, but rather a disorder of positive emotions. The basic idea here is that some depressed people cannot maintain positive emotions. These recent findings effect which medications are used to sustain the reward system in the brain.

While medications can and do help some people. Some people find success with altering their behavior through mindfulness, affirmations, positive thinking, prayer, meditation and other cognitive practices. Remember, what you do repeatedly in your life will make real, physical changes in the brain. Some people find beneficial results with a combination of these and or other methods, and some do not find relief at all, unfortunately. It really is a mystery.

Personally, I weaned myself off of antidepressants within 6 months after my suicide attempt. I also did not go to a traditional mental health counselor at all except the obligatory time frame right after the attempt. Still do not. I had taken pills for years and talked until I was blue in the face with little success obviously. It was not until I quit looking for a quick and easy fix in a pill or in a therapist that I really began to confront and work through my issues and make positive changes in my life.

I would say that my problem was physically based while environmentally and socially reinforced for decades from an early age. In this case, my brain injury actually helped me in that it erased the habitual pathways in my brain and, hence, well established behavioral patterns which had become the defaults for me. I started with kind of a clean slate so to speak. I had to learn new ways of responding and make new connections in my brain. The old ones were gone.

I did neurofeedback therapy which trains the brain to perform at optimum levels. I believe this radically taught my brain to function properly and allowed it to make healthier connections. Simultaneously, through mindfulness practices and meditation, I have amazingly changed my thinking and my approach to life which, in turn, also reinforced different connections and pathways.

I am not advocating that anyone get up off of the therapists' coach (although I never did lie down) and throw away their pills. This is what finally worked for me. Thank goodness. Each individual has to find what works for them.

I am saying that depression is real problem with a real physical basis. However, unlike a cancer victim or someone who has a heart attack, depressed people are generally negatively judged and blamed in society and there is a stigma that goes with the disease. Believe me, I think most depressed people would be more than happy to just buck up and get over it if they could.

The play dough in your head

2010-01-02T21:40:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! The beginning of a new year. I like it. It gives me the sense of a fresh start with infinite possibilities. What do you want this year to consist of for you? We have much more power to shape our reality than most people even know due to something in our brains called neuroplasticity. It is like having super powers or a secret weapon. Very cool. It is with us from birth. We are using it all the time whether we know it or not. It is our choice to use it consciously. To me, it has been the key to my recovery, and I fully plan to continue to direct it and exploit it to the fullest. You can put it to use for you too, and it will change your life. Promise.

The brain is pretty much like play dough minus the funky smell. It is changeable, malleable and adaptable even into adulthood. This quality is called neuroplasticity. Technically, nueroplasticity is defined as the property of the brain to change its structure and function. We are talking real physical changes here. The changes occur in response to actions we commit, our senses and perceptions, and even our thinking and imagining. Basically, what we do and think every day in our lives.

Thought actually changes matter. There is the secret weapon we all have available to us. You can just think about your hand raising and it does. That in and of itself is both extraordinary and very ordinary. Thoughts actually lead to changes in the brain.

Neuroplasticity has pretty amazing implications for every aspect of human nature and culture including medicine, psychiatry, psychology, relationships, education, and more. Neuroplasticity has allowed people who have experienced strokes and brain trauma to recover amazing functionality. It has allowed conginatively blind people to learn new methods to see. It has allowed children with cerebral palsy to learn to move more gracefully and children with autism to make cognitive strides which were thought not possible. It is allowing people to erase chronic pain. The examples go on and on.

These same principles can be used to change entrenched behaviors or patterns in your own life. Nothing is "hard wired." If there is anything in your life you want to change...you can. You just have to actually make the effort to do it with some consistency and your brain will respond by making permanent changes.

Wanna quit smoking? Interrupt the pattern habitually and your brain will become your ally in this. Wanna stop craving sweets or drinking coffee nonstop all day? Your brain can work for you here too. Wanna drop 10 pounds? Start visualizing it among other things. Wanna quit yelling or change your outlook or thought processes? Do it! Want your nagging back pain to lessen? Put your thoughts to work on it. Just about anything in your life, you can change and your brain will change too and reinforce the new pattern.

I personally quit smoking. They wouldn't let me light up in the hospital two years ago. So, I figured it was a good time to stop anyway. However, the biggest change I have made is in my thought processes. I had years of mental health counseling and had taken antidepressants for years. I did all this and still tried to commit suicide. Not too successful in my book. Without pills or professional help in the past two years, I have literally rewired my brain to think differently...and I do. That is the best super power of all.

The bottom line is that we have grossly underestimated what the brain can do and the huge role it can play in shaping our lives and our reality even. I encourage you to put yours to work for you this year. You have a magic wand. Use it!

The ultimate do it yourself project

2009-12-18T23:07:00.000-05:00

I had an appointment this past week for an assessment with a speech therapist. I did speech therapy initially after my brain injury for three months. As you may have figured, I have not been a real big fan of traditional, western medicine. I have not utilized it at all in my recovery. I am just now starting to blend it back into my regime because I have been forced to basically. I have incorporated it into my practices in an attempt to "look good" in the eyes of the court system which is making painstakingly slow decisions regarding the visitation issues with my children or they are supposed to be anyway. Hope it works.

So I have gone back to the neurologist, to a rehabilitation specialist and now to a speech therapist. I am finding that I am developing a new found respect for these people. Cynical me? Who knew? While I am finding they do not have all the answers, they do have valuable information that can lead me to find my own answers.

I have found my recovery to be like a jigsaw puzzle. Pieces I need to complete the puzzle can and do come from all different places. It is up to me to be open, take the information and research and assimilate it and act upon it in a way that works for me.

While the speech therapist did not want me to come back for regular therapy as he did not think that would benefit me. He did tell me things I can do on my own and gave me valuable pieces of the puzzle for me to turn all around and look at from every angle and then fit into place for myself.

Your brain's health, your overall health and life are very similar and very much a do it yourself project. I watched a webcast by Daniel J. Segal in which he defined the mind as the process that regulates the flow of energy and information. He described the physical brain, the mind, and our relationship or interaction with our world as forming a triangle that basically makes us us. He said the mind uses the brain to create itself. Hmmm. Think about that one for a minute.

A thought can actually change neurons. Interactions in the world or relationships with people and things shape the firing in the brain hence the synaptic connections. Neurons that fire together wire together. There is your power to change your brain and change your life. It is like having a secret weapon or a super power. What you actually do in your life and how you think about what happens in your world shapes your brain and your reality. This power is within us and it has been there the whole time. It is up to us to put it to good use. To actually do the do it yourself project and not put it on the shelf for some later date.

He calls the most basic process of changing your brain mindfulness training. It has been around for thousands of years in the form of yoga, tai chi, qi gong, meditation and the many other similar activities. Being mindful is a way of focusing and integrating energy flow to actually strengthen the prefrontal area of the brain. This, in turn, creates what he calls an approach state where a person is adaptable, open, and motivated. It also has been proven to strengthen the immune system, improve blood pressure, and to increase empathy.

Even doing simple mindfulness techniques such as focusing on the breath for 10 minutes a day can make physical changes in your brain. This creates an awareness state. Done repeatedly, this state becomes a trait. They have shown these practices to reduce playground bullying in children. Because you can't tell an 8 year old to mediate - well you can, but it probably is not gonna do any good, - they teach the techniques by putting a stuffed animal on their belly and telling them "to rock" the animal. They have even found it increases their grades.

So back to speech therapy. What does all this have to do with my speech therapy? We are our own ultimate do it yourself projects. All too often we look to the doctors or other "experts" in any area to give us the answers or a super pill or quick fix when we have the power to change ourselves, our health, and our lives. We just have to start using it.

I have decided to read out loud everyday as my own speech therapy. I started last night and made myself laugh at some of my horribly twisted pronunciations, but I know I will see improvement, and the important thing to me is that I am actually doing something about it myself. How empowering. Dr. Zeuss is calling. One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.....

Sleep well, think well

2009-12-13T22:33:00.000-05:00

We spend about one third of our life doing it. That is roughly 56 hours a week, 240 hours a month and 2920 hours a year. Kinda hard to believe when it is put that way, isn't it? All that time doing nothing. Or are we really doing nothing?

When we sleep, as you may know, our brains are very active. Sleep is very essential to a healthy brain. I know with my brain injury, I did not truly begin doing some serious healing until I started doing some serious sleeping.

Over the first year, I would sleep a lot...until the afternoon oftentimes. I would get up and answer the phone when it rang. "What you doing?" the caller would ask. "Oh, you know, the usual," I would answer groggily probably not very convincingly. Because the neurologist told my family to not let me sleep more than 10 hours a day, I felt like I had to hide it. That was the first time I remember just doing what my body innately needed and not following the conventional medical recommendation. Thank goodness. Smart girl. In my research, it has been shown that sleep and lots of it is absolutely necessary for recovering from a brain injury. It is when the brain heals.

For all that time spent horizontal, I never really felt rested and was always sleepy because it was not deep, contiguous sleep for me. I woke up several times throughout and could not go back to sleep. I would get up and take a bath. Some nights I know I took as many as 4 or 5 baths and my fingers got all wrinkly. I found something about the water soothing, but all too often it did not help me to go back to sleep. I would just lie in the bed, very clean mind you, half asleep and half awake for hours until I got bored and decided to take another bath. Not fun.

I started doing some major healing when I started sleeping better shortly after beginning neurofeedback which is a therapy I still do where electrodes are attached to the head and the brainwaves are actually trained to perform within an optimal range like they are supposed to. It has been the one therapy which has made a huge, dramatic difference for me. More on that later.

OK. So you don't have a brain injury, but did you know sleep can make a tremendous difference in your life? Studies have shown that sleep enhances your immune system, your motor skills, your language processing, your memory, and much more, but most of all it greatly increases your ability to learn. So whenever you pull an all nighter...or did...way back when...you are really kind of shooting yourself in the foot, defeating the purpose.

Rats deprived of sleep die within a matter of 2 to 3 weeks, and it is practically impossible to kill those little pests otherwise. You know you need your sleep. Total sleep deprivation in humans is fatal. Lack of adequate rest will start showing very quickly as problems with executive function, mood, memory, attention, logic and even speech and coordination. Coffee will not help. Only sleep does.

I used to pride myself on being able to go without sleep, and it sure came in handy in the baby days, but not anymore. I love my sleep now. I consider it a treat when I can go to bed early. I know. I am getting old and boring. I also often take several naps throughout the day if I feel the need to. A NASA study showed that a 26 minute nap improved a pilot's performance by more than 35%. Talk about a power nap. Go ahead. Indulge.

The point is that you may not realize how important sleep is in your own life or how the lack of it can be manifesting itself everyday for you. Inadequate sleep is highly correlated with many things that greatly impact quality of life from stress and anxiety to depression and more...studies even show that lack of sleep is linked to gaining weight. OK, now there is some motivation for a lot of us.

Make an effort to get some more, good sleep for a couple of days and see if you don't feel better. Then, make it a habit. Treat yourself. I am. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

Feed Your Brain

2009-12-04T22:04:00.000-05:00

How did you do this past week? Did you feed your brain and body good stuff? I did less than my norm because of the Thanksgiving leftovers. Can't just let a pumpkin pie and a chocolate cake made expertly by the loving hands of my son go to waste, can I? So, I didn't. Well, some got thrown away. Now that they are all gone, it is easier to get back to a good standard. I find it much easier to not even bring the bad-for-you, tempting stuff in the house on a normal basis. Works for me.

We all pretty much know the things not to eat. They are the same for your brain, in general, as for the rest of your body. However, I want to extend the list to include anything we breath into our bodies or introduce into our blood stream. Nuf said? It affects your brain. Not only in the mellow, far out, groovy way temporarily, but permanently in a not so cool kind of way over time. Repeated use of mind altering substances alters your brain permanently. It actually makes holes or areas where the blood does not flow anymore. Even cigarettes.

So what should you be putting in your body to boost your brain power? The three key essentials to keep your brain healthy and to keep your mental processes razor sharp are really pretty simple to say. Harder to do. They are nutritious food, water, and oxygen.

A highly intelligent diet would be heavy on the proteins, complex carbohydrates and good fats. Proteins are essential to make neurotransmitters which are vital for smart processes. Carbohydrates break down into glucose which is the brain's primary source of energy. You are aiming for a steady supply here.

The brain is more than 60% fat. The next time someone calls you a "fat head," just say "thank you very much!" Brain cells are covered by a myelin sheath which is 75% fat. Fats also play a crucial role as important messengers. Good fats would be your omega-3 fatty acids. These are found in things like fish, nuts and flax seed. They can easily be added to your diet in a daily fish oil supplement. An excellent book for diet and supplements specifically for improving the brain is Gary Null's Mind Power.

For those of you that like things spelled out, me included, here is a short list of especially good brain foods. The list will look familiar to you as it is the same stuff that is good for your heart.

avacados
beans
lean beef
bran
broccoli
brown rice
blueberries
chicken
eggs
flax seed
fruit
greens
nuts
oatmeal
salmon
soybeans
spinach
tuna
turkey
walnuts
wheat germ
yogurt

Even if you don't like going anywhere near the water, your brain loves water. Water makes up 83% of your blood and is the transport system to the brain, making the needed deliveries of nutrients and taking away toxins from all the bad habits you haven't given up yet.

Studies have shown that most people are permanently partially dehydrated. If you're already thirsty, you're in this group. This means your brain is working considerably below its potential. I don't know about you, but I surely don't need that. So drink up. Water that is! I am guzzling water as I write this. That is one I have to continually work on. To my credit though, I have become quite a bathroom connoisseur and know where the best bathrooms are conveniently located all over town.

The third thing our brain absolutely needs for us to do is to just breathe. Easier said than done. We are taught to hold our stomachs in and breathe out of the top of our lungs for vanity. Relax. Let it all hang out. A little pot belly here is OK. You want to breath slowly and deeply into your diaphragm and even pooch out your stomach. One way in which it was described to me which helped me take my breath even deeper, but also always makes me kinda giggle just a little is you want to breath as if to distend your perineum. I always imagine myself saying to no one specific "Excuse me while I puff out my perineum."

Digestion pulls oxygen away from your brain and diverts it to your stomach. So you don't want to eat a big meal right before a task where you want all your brain power available. Eating little and often is best for your brain to stay alert. Cardiovascular exercise increases the oxygen in your blood and oxygenates your brain. Yet another reason to add to the list to exercise regularly.

Gulp. (More water.) Gotta go take a bathroom break. I am gonna try to do better this week in feeding my brain and giving it what it needs. Hope you do too!

Brain food

2009-11-29T20:38:00.000-05:00

One cannot think well, love well or sleep well if one has not dined well." Virginia Woolfe

With the holidays fully upon us (fa la la la), and having just finished turkey feasts with all the fixings and still working on the leftovers, I thought now would be a great time to talk about food. When it comes to your brain, you literally are what you eat. Your grocery list can have a direct impact on whether you effectively cross things off of your to-do list.

Your brain is the biggest energy hog in your body. While, on average, it represents only 2% of the body's weight, although I know we all can think of some people where it is obviously much less, it uses about 20% of the energy produced by the body. Studies show that a person can be as much as 200% more productive just by making better eating choices. That is pretty powerful stuff! You can promote quicker thinking, better memory and concentration and improved balance and coordination, sharper senses, and the activation of your feel good hormones just by what you put on your plate.

On the flip side, it is equally important to realize that certain foods can also diminish your brain power and help to make you the dullest knife in the drawer. I don't know about you, but I want no help in that department. With holiday food and festivities at every turn from now until after the new year, I'll go ahead and be a kill joy and concentrate on the bad things first. Let me add a little to the guilt.

A list of the worst brain foods would include: alcohol, artificial food colorings, artificial sweeteners, sugars and corn syrup, hydrogenated fats, and nicotine. Basically, what is bad for your heart is not going to help your brain either.

You brain runs pretty much on blood sugar, using as much as 20% of the carbohydrates you ingest. It performs best on a steady supply. Simple carbohydrates - processed flour and sugary foods - cause wild fluctuations in this. The blood sugar roller coaster is just plain not good for any part of your body. So while that chocolate covered, cream filled doughnut may taste sinfully delicious, it is doing much more than making your pants tighter.

Since my brain injury, I have quit smoking and do not drink. I have become the obnoxious ex-smoker who gets offended when anyone pollutes "my" air. How dare they? While I do miss the way red wine would just slide down my throat and give me a big, warm hug all over, I don't want to chance canceling out all the other good things I am doing in my life. So, as a general rule, I do not indulge.

I have also cleaned up my daily diet immensely eating things like rice milk, flax seed and lots of nuts, fresh fruits and veggies and other good things. I also do not eat any diet foods or artificial sweeteners. Stevia is a natural artificial sweetener that can be found at any grocery store. I know, don't I just make you sick? It took a brain injury to make me do these things. Believe me, I know it is not easy to do with less motivation. But, then, I am jumping ahead to next week's blog.

Now, I am not advocating that we all give up every indulgent pleasure and become boring, abstainers from almost everything. I did have a little bit of each dessert after the Thanksgiving meal thank you very much. I believe that totally denying yourself only sets you up for failure and makes life very colorless. I make healthy choices every day on a regular basis as a general rule and allow myself to indulge when I think the occasion calls for it. That works for me. You have to find what works for you.

I would encourage you to start by doing something manageable and small for you. It might be changing your sweetener or limiting yourself to one cup of coffee a day. I know my Dad cut out the sodas in his daily diet and lost weight and noticed that he feels much better. The point is do something. You can do it. Look at your life and diet. What can you change or eliminate? Try it for a couple of days and see what changes you notice in your energy levels, your thinking,your moods or whatever.

I would love to hear what you are doing and any differences you perceive. Now, go enjoy those leftovers!

Giving Thanks Can Actually Change Your Brain

2009-11-22T21:56:00.000-05:00

Since the upcoming week includes Thanksgiving, I feel compelled to offer some of my priceless wisdom about that. It may be easy to feel gratitude and thankfulness on such a cozy occasion surrounded by family and friends and maybe a herb roasted turkey, some yummy sweet potato and pecan concoction, a sinful pumpkin pie and lots of other stuff you really don't need, but are gonna indulge in anyway. You can light some candles in the center of the table and say a few words of thanks before digging in, and feel absolutely blessed with such abundance.

Or maybe not. It can be pure hell, and it can be just something you endure, hating every minute and counting the seconds for it to be behind you for another year. There is that one annoying relative that won't shut up incessantly babbling about something you could care less about. Yawn. There is also that one friend of a relative that has breath so bad you imagine it melting your face like plastic. Yeech.

It really is up to you as to how you experience the day no matter who is there, how toxic their breath may be or how inane their conversation topics. You can intentionally focus your thoughts and attention on the good or the bad. It is your choice with a Thanksgiving get together or anything in your life. This type of choice in any situation literally effects you physically and can change your brain and your life with regular repititon.

Emotions evoked by your thoughts cause cellular reactions in your body which then are transformed into physical reality. Norepinephrine is an example of a chemical that flows in your blood stream when you are in a pleasant state of mind.  Norepinephrine and other "happy" chemicals lock into the cellular receptors in your body. When viruses or "bad" chemicals look for a place to enter your cells and hook on they cannot because the receptor sites are filled with "happy" chemicals. Thus making you feel better and your immune system stronger. That is a really simplified explanation, but you get it, right?

Artists and athletes vizualize their performances before the events. It has been scientifically proven that the brain cannot tell the difference between this mental practice and the actual event. It chemically responds and fires the same as if the thing was really occurring. That is very powerful stuff. Herein lies your ability to actually change your brain and your reality. What you repeatedly think about is actually changing your brain. Be careful what you think about.

For example, I just went to court AGAIN this last week. Uugh! Unfortunately, I am a regular. This time it was to address some visitation issues. Because I tried to kill myself and had a resulting brain injury, the visitations with my kids were ordered to be supervised by the courts. I also was under court order not to drive the kids. The restrictions were warranted and in the best interest of the kids at the time they were originated. That was two and a half years ago. A lot has changed since then. I have been trying to get to court for over a year and a half to get them revised. Our legal system is infuriating and ridiculous.

I followed the court order down to the letter on supervision for a year. I did not drive the kids until I took the NC on road driving test and passed. Yes, like when I was 16. Only, I passed the first time this go around. However, I relaxed it a little on my own for the last year and a half just complying with telephone supervision.

The judge is not going to announce her decision until December 5th. For the Thanksgiving holiday visitation she ordered that the restrictions are still to be in place full force and are to be followed around the clock.  Initially, I was extremely hurt and insulted to the point I was ready to tell my X just not to send the kids.  To comply now seems totally ludicrous to me and the restrictions competely change the dynamics of my relationship with the kids.

That was the "old Debbie" reacting out of ego. But giving the news some time to sit with my changed brain and new way of thinking, I soon began to see a larger picture and a different way to respond. I can focus on the limitations of the visit or I can focus on the fact that I get to hug my kids and be with them for a couple of days. It is my choice. I can choose to experience it as a visit with the kids with the grandparents around a lot or I can choose to not even have the kids come and experience it as incredibly painful and senseless. Hence, creating my own struggle. It is totally up to me. I can't change the restrictions, but I can change the way I think about them and choose my experience.

Making this kind of choice repeatedly actually changes the pathways in your brain. It is like a sled going down a hill. The first time, it has to plow through the rough snow. After many times, there is a well worn path. It becomes the default. Mine is not virgin snow, but as evidenced by my initial reaction, the grass isn't showing through yet on the path. I am getting there.

How you experience Thanksgiving and something as everyday as the toilet overflowing is completely up to you. Either can be whatever you make of it. I am gonna choose to make most of my experiences not so bad....even the toilet overflowing. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Blessings to you.

The start of it

2009-11-15T21:12:00.000-05:00

In June of 2007, I swallowed a colorful assortment of over 90 pills and tried to kill myself. Needless to say, it wasn’t a successful attempt, but it did put me in the hospital for two weeks and leave me with a serious brain injury changing my entire life. It is not clear whether the cause of my global brain injury, technically termed encephalopathy, was the result of all the drugs going completely through my body or my heart stopping multiple times or the 107 degree fever or the hours of seizures. Right afterwards, I would say that by my own honest definition I was mentally handicapped.

I had tremendous trouble remembering anything short term or long term. I asked my Dad on the way home from the rehab center I went to after the hospital in all seriouness "I have a house?" I am sure he thought, "This is bad."

My speech was very slurred and hard to understand. My thinking processes were impaired and very slow. I couldn’t sleep for any length of time at all. I even had trouble controlling my bladder and eating without biting my cheek or tongue. My hands had a constant tremor, and I did not know what to do with them when I walked. The best I can liken it to is being drunk. I literally had to struggle to maintain some level of coherent consciousness for any period of time.

Over the next year, I was driving and living on my own, but I had lost custody of my kids and they rightfully went to live out of state with their Dad. It was all I could do just to take care of me. I slept fitfully for as much as 16 hours a day, but never felt really rested as it was not deep, contiguous sleep.

I would go to put up laundry and get lost in my drawers or closet for hours. "Where did all these clothes come from?" I would wonder to myself.

A good day for me was one in which I had emptied the dishwasher and that took a ridiculously long time. The world terrified me. Going to the grocery store required me to muster my bravery. Every interaction with people would send my heart racing and leave me mentally exhausted. My speech had improved somewhat, but I still got the sideways glances and people whispering “How much has she had to drink today?”

Western medicine had nothing to offer me, and after three months of occupational and speech therapy, they basically told me to go home and cross my fingers. As I became more aware, I did my own research and assembled my own therapy regime. I have incorporated neurofeedback, acupuncture, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, cranio sacral massage, hyercapnia or “bag breathing,” my own respiratory therapy with a device called a power lung, energetic healing, meditation, visualization, cardiovascular exercise,cross lateral movement, supplements and more.

It has been an incredible and painstakingly slow recovery process and journey. In addition to the things above, I spent hours every day doing computer programs and exercises on online websites to increase my processing speed, brain function, and memory. I carried a Nintendo DS with me everywhere and played a game called Brain Age. I breathed into a plastic bag every 15 minutes when awake and not in public. I also did daily cardiovascular exercise to oxgynate my brain. I still do and am in the best shape of my life.

I crawled daily. Yes. On my hands and knees like a baby. Still do, but not every day. It is great for making familiar pathways for signals to travel across the hippocamus as is any cross lateral movement.

The point is that I found out there is a great deal I could do on my own, and did it. There was no easy or standard rehabilitation for my injury. It was unique, and I had to educate myself and draw from many other areas. No doctor told me all this stuff. I had to find it on my own and have the discipline to do it. You can too. Whether it is a brain injury, a stroke, alzheimers, autism, age related decline, cerebal palsy, obssesive compulsivity, ADD/ADHD, depresssion...whatever....you can do something about it. You can improve your brain.

The estaslidshed medical community will most likely not tell you about any of this as is considered "aternative." I will here. Stay tuned.