The Brains way of Healing.
Dr. Norman Doidge
Dr. Norman Doidge
I've been reading a book called "The Brain's Way of Healing" for honestly the past year. It took me so long to read it not because it wasn't interesting, but because I liked to read it slowly and dissect and ponder each section. (Also who has time to read with little kids??) I was already confidently recommending this book to everyone I knew after only 10 pages into it. It is one of the most thought provoking books I've ever read, so I wanted to do a little blog post about it to remember all the highlights that impacted me the most.
"The brains way of healing" is a book that explores the science behind a malleable brain. It had been believed for many years (and is still believed by most practitioners) that damage to the brain is irreparable. This would mean that those with injuries relating to the brain (trauma, mental illness, debilitation etc.) are confined to whatever their circumstance may be and are better off to accept it and work with it than try to improve it. Even our methods of treating injuries all of the body demonstrate how much the brain is misunderstood. Dr. Doidge, the author, depicts a beautiful picture of the inter-workings of the brain and we see that everything in our body is processed through this complex organ. Damage to the eyes, ears, throat or any number of areas in the body can be improved through the utilization of the brain. The science and evidence provided in this book shows just how limiting many of our beliefs and practices have been, and that if we were able to open our minds and hearts to other possibilities beyond many of the current practices today just how much it could impact the lives of many that are hurting or struggling; including our own.
Medicine has become such a controversial subject, and that's sad. We are frequently told by others we encounter in our lives that we are either doing it the right way, or we have been doing it the wrong way. I feel like we live in a day where people are so extreme and there is no middle ground any more. Our religion, our politics, our exercise, the way we eat, and definitely the way we practice medicine has become so defined by firm beliefs we have developed and no one is actively or openly listening to anyone else anymore. I really struggle with this current state of our society, and in my own life try to retain as much balance as possible. I really love that this book embraces doing methods that just make sense and have worked, and yet it is so hard for people to accept anything contrary to the current common practices. I'm hoping that with the current climate in our society that instead of being resigned to certain opinions based on where we think we should stand, step back and think about what really MAKES SENSE and how you REALLY FEEL about it.
I work in a hospital, and so I have some perspective on the things that go on there. I feel like we have gotten to where we are because there have been so many changes in the private sector of the medical field over the past 50 or so years, and a big one is that there is A LOT of money to be made in that industry. It's not the employees that are drastically over paid, it's not the nurse who tenderly looks after all you needs, or even the doctor who can spend long sleepless nights at the hospital trying to figure out what is wrong with a patient. No, it's the people that you don't see. It's the big wigs in the pharmaceuticals or the companies that manufacture gowns for the exam rooms for 50 cents a piece and turn around and charge the doctor's office 100 bucks for it, which cost is then passed to you. There are a lot of things at play that have brought this about, and in my opinion it is a lot of corruption that is making some people a lot of money at the expense of the majority of Americans. My parents had a baby without insurance 37 years ago and were able to just save and pay for it in cash. You could never do that now, you would need to take out a big loan or it would bankrupt you (by the way these are all my opinions, not things in the book.) All the hospital fees along with insurance prices sky rocketing over this period of time (and it is due to more causes than Obamacare whether you want to believe it or not,) it is getting so hard to sift through all the mess and just figure out what is the best medical treatment for yourself or your child.
So what is my point? My point is this. When the most money to be made is through (for example) a surgery, there is a lot of pressure from all directions to get the surgery, whether or not that is considered to be the least invasive or give the most effective outcome. It might be that surgery IS the best option, but with so many things at play it's hard to know if we are really getting the most informed solution to our problem. We have come to a point in our society where we are always judging others and we always feel judged. We are defensive and skeptical of one another at the same time, and we seem to make decisions based more on our emotions than anything else. My wish for myself after reading this book is to be open minded to the ideas and inspirations of others and to be constantly making small changes in my day to day to improve the quality of my life and the lives of others.
Ok, enough already right? What does the book actually say? Well, because there are so many detailed methods and explanations within the text I really just recommend that you read it, but since this is a postscript mostly for myself and the things I want to remember I will give some of the highlights. One of the ways to initiate healing is through the senses. Utilizing sounds, touch, and movement. The Tomatis method is a sound therapy in which children and adults listen to music or the spoken word at different frequencies. It sounds so simple, but this has helped improve speech, spacial awareness, mood, sensory, and sleep among other things. The Feldenkrais method demonstrates how taking broken bodies and touching them, moving them in natural motions with healthy bodies can change their own movement. Going on walks, physically moving the body as we think or listen to music can improve our cognitive and motor functions. Healing can also take place by harnessing elements we find in nature in harmony with our bodies, light and vibrations have been used in laser therapy by Fred Kahn for over 20 years. We see in hospitals how the use of light can help reduce bilirubin build up babies. These same techniques are applicable when light is directed at the brain or different parts of the body to stimulate systems within the body. A device called PoNS was developed by Helius medical technologies. This device uses electrical stimulation on "channels" in the tongue to stimulate damaged or malfunctioning areas of the brain. It has dramatically improved individuals with a range of different types of brain traumas. All these different methods have improved the lives of so many without any side effects because they are all non invasive "natural" treatments. These treatments are not 100% guaranteed to work on everyone, but what is the harm in trying it if there are no negative side effects? When I listen to commercials these days for medications and they list all the possible side effects I think, this sounds WORSE than what they already have!
I have thought a lot about this book and the experiences of the unique individuals who have changed their lives through these methods. One thing I wonder is why it worked for some people and not for others. It doesn't follow up much on those who were not improved because obviously those are not great examples, but I am sure they exist none the less. One of my theories of why it worked better for some rather than others is a topic that I am very interested in, it is the idea of the human spirit. That is why GATTACA is one of favorite movies of all time, because I love the idea that our will to do something gives way to limitless possibilities, nothing in our lives is set or predetermined. We choose our own destiny, and we can achieve what it is we set out to do. I listened to a podcast not long ago that talked about athletes and how they tried to determine what made one athlete run further or faster than another. They looked at all kinds of factors such as muscle mass, glycogen usage, oxygen levels, and many biological processes. What they found was that when it came down to the best athletes in the world they could't find one thing that predetermined one to have that extra advantage over the other. It was their will to win, the human spirit. In the book it talks about a man named John Pepper from South Africa. You read about his incredible life story, and his eventual prognosis of Parkinson's disease. John uses a number of different things to improve his motor functions but the main thing he does is walk a certain amount every day. John has tried to teach many others his methods but few seem to have the relief of symptoms to the extent that John has had, or the desire to use the same method that has worked for him. My belief is that John is so successful because of his strong will, desire, and self control. John uses his will to circumvent the damaged parts of his brain that would stop him from having complete control of his limbs. It takes a lot of work and concentration because he has to actually think through every single motion of his body that are usually on autopilot in the brain, but he does it. John says in the book that he is confused why more people don't try his method. I think it is because it is really hard. The author Norman Doidge M.D. discusses pain in the brain. All pain in your body is experienced through and because of the brain. This is a safety mechanism that helps us from further hurting ourselves, but it can be a problem when it turns into chronic pain. Every single thing you do is the result of neurons firing in your brain. This is how we do normal habits like reading and walking, but it is also how we form habits, whether they be good or bad. Each time the neurons fire the connection grows stronger so that the process of playing a song or doing a puzzle gets easier every time. The negative side effect to this process is that bad habits form in the same way and just as easily. Each time we look at our phone or have negative thoughts about ourselves or others, these connections continue to grow stronger and the urge to do them increases. Similarly, when we experience pain repeatedly in one area we can start to develop what is called chronic pain, which is pain we feel whether our bodies need the warning or not. This is caused from our neurons firing so often that a connection is made and the neurons don't stop firing. To solve this problem we have to override our brains neural activity and create new stronger neural connections. This is easier said than done, but that is the where the idea of human spirit and the human will comes into play. We have to be strong enough individuals to take control of our thoughts and our bodies and direct them where we want them to go. I used to have a lot of things that would give me anxiety or trigger panic attacks, but I realized I didn't want those to control my life so whenever I had a thought of anxiety I chose to override it with other thoughts. I did this until one day I realized that these things no longer gave me anxiety. That is why sky diving was such a beautiful experience for me. Heading up in the plane I was so overcome with fear, I felt literally paralyzed to the point that I couldn't breathe and I honestly felt my bodily functions were shutting down. In that moment I realized that I could take control and that fear wasn't what I wanted for myself. I wanted to enjoy this unique experience. So I closed my eyes, I took deep breaths and I directed my thoughts else where. I can honestly say that when I stepped out on the ledge of that plane there was not one ounce of fear in my heart or mind. It was beautiful.
Many of the health issues discussed in the book are not ailments that currently plague our family, but I loved all the science and theories in the book and so after I finished it I wanted to figure out how I could incorporate them to improve my own life. I am big believer in achieving a big change by making small incremental changes over time. There are people out there who are able to just go cold turkey and quit smoking over night, or cut out all unhealthy foods from their diet in a day, or a number of other dramatic life changes, but these people are very rare and often have a hard time sustaining these changes long term. That is why I have chosen a few small things to start changing in my life which will hopefully lead to eventual sustained habits and permanently rewiring the brain. One is to switch out the type of music I play in the car to something that may stimulate and relax our brains. Another one is take control of any negative thoughts about myself or others and try to direct them to a more positive route. I also see that there are a lot of things that I am doing right, and I am committing to myself to continue doing these things. Active walking with my kids, being outside, doing yoga multiple times a week, and choosing more often than not to eat heathy foods. I have already seen how these things have improved my life and I want to continue to improve to become the best version of myself.
Lastly I wanted to discuss a "negative" review of the book because I think questioning things is always good. I was curious to read reviews of the book on amazon. Majority were rave reviews, and some were even people telling their own stories of having found some of these methods on their own and the success it brought them in their own lives, but there were some that had some criticism for the book. One of them I touched on earlier was that these methods are presented as miracle workers when in fact they may not have worked for every person. This is a very interesting criticism to me because all medicine is this way. We go to the doctor for treatments, and there is always a chance they may not work, and often they don't, but we accept that. For whatever reason we take offense to "alternative" methods that don't work (and by alternative I mean methods that are not mainstream.) I think this perception comes from seeing other who may have tried natural methods that didn't work and we feel these people have been misled and had they tried a different method things would have been better for them. We don't know if this is true on not, but the reality is that medical procedures don't ALWAYS work either. Another reason is that I think we often feel that these other methods are not backed by science and if they were than we would be using them. "If these methods are really so great, why are we not using them." said one critic. I laughed a little to myself when I thought about this, because of course, it sounds so logical! But look at our world and the things people do that just don't make sense! I feel, as I mentioned earlier, that money is a factor, but I digress. We feel like if someone is offering a more "natural" method to us it should work for everyone and if it doesn't it is bogus. In fact many people came to find these methods after using others that were recommended that simply didn't work. Also why would we say no to trying something that has no negative side effects. If it doesn't work, try something else! I knew someone who's child was on a medication that was considered very risky and could have very severe side effects. I suggested another remedy that my sister had used that worked very well for her, had no side effects, and was a fraction of the cost but she was so averted to the idea of using anything natural that she refused to try it. Both sides of the coin tend to view the others approach with distain and we have to find somewhere to meet in the middle. I truly believe that we can.
In conclusion I loved this book because it reminded me of all the things I don't know what I don't know, and to always reach for more knowledge and be open to what others around me have to offer. I was assured that all the little things that I do in life, reading and singing with my children, spending time with them, taking walks and playing, these things matter. The book also helped me learn things that I could be doing better to help the growth and development of myself and my children. My hope is to seek to improve my own life and the lives of others, in that I pray that I can find the greatest happiness.
Medicine has become such a controversial subject, and that's sad. We are frequently told by others we encounter in our lives that we are either doing it the right way, or we have been doing it the wrong way. I feel like we live in a day where people are so extreme and there is no middle ground any more. Our religion, our politics, our exercise, the way we eat, and definitely the way we practice medicine has become so defined by firm beliefs we have developed and no one is actively or openly listening to anyone else anymore. I really struggle with this current state of our society, and in my own life try to retain as much balance as possible. I really love that this book embraces doing methods that just make sense and have worked, and yet it is so hard for people to accept anything contrary to the current common practices. I'm hoping that with the current climate in our society that instead of being resigned to certain opinions based on where we think we should stand, step back and think about what really MAKES SENSE and how you REALLY FEEL about it.
I work in a hospital, and so I have some perspective on the things that go on there. I feel like we have gotten to where we are because there have been so many changes in the private sector of the medical field over the past 50 or so years, and a big one is that there is A LOT of money to be made in that industry. It's not the employees that are drastically over paid, it's not the nurse who tenderly looks after all you needs, or even the doctor who can spend long sleepless nights at the hospital trying to figure out what is wrong with a patient. No, it's the people that you don't see. It's the big wigs in the pharmaceuticals or the companies that manufacture gowns for the exam rooms for 50 cents a piece and turn around and charge the doctor's office 100 bucks for it, which cost is then passed to you. There are a lot of things at play that have brought this about, and in my opinion it is a lot of corruption that is making some people a lot of money at the expense of the majority of Americans. My parents had a baby without insurance 37 years ago and were able to just save and pay for it in cash. You could never do that now, you would need to take out a big loan or it would bankrupt you (by the way these are all my opinions, not things in the book.) All the hospital fees along with insurance prices sky rocketing over this period of time (and it is due to more causes than Obamacare whether you want to believe it or not,) it is getting so hard to sift through all the mess and just figure out what is the best medical treatment for yourself or your child.
So what is my point? My point is this. When the most money to be made is through (for example) a surgery, there is a lot of pressure from all directions to get the surgery, whether or not that is considered to be the least invasive or give the most effective outcome. It might be that surgery IS the best option, but with so many things at play it's hard to know if we are really getting the most informed solution to our problem. We have come to a point in our society where we are always judging others and we always feel judged. We are defensive and skeptical of one another at the same time, and we seem to make decisions based more on our emotions than anything else. My wish for myself after reading this book is to be open minded to the ideas and inspirations of others and to be constantly making small changes in my day to day to improve the quality of my life and the lives of others.
Ok, enough already right? What does the book actually say? Well, because there are so many detailed methods and explanations within the text I really just recommend that you read it, but since this is a postscript mostly for myself and the things I want to remember I will give some of the highlights. One of the ways to initiate healing is through the senses. Utilizing sounds, touch, and movement. The Tomatis method is a sound therapy in which children and adults listen to music or the spoken word at different frequencies. It sounds so simple, but this has helped improve speech, spacial awareness, mood, sensory, and sleep among other things. The Feldenkrais method demonstrates how taking broken bodies and touching them, moving them in natural motions with healthy bodies can change their own movement. Going on walks, physically moving the body as we think or listen to music can improve our cognitive and motor functions. Healing can also take place by harnessing elements we find in nature in harmony with our bodies, light and vibrations have been used in laser therapy by Fred Kahn for over 20 years. We see in hospitals how the use of light can help reduce bilirubin build up babies. These same techniques are applicable when light is directed at the brain or different parts of the body to stimulate systems within the body. A device called PoNS was developed by Helius medical technologies. This device uses electrical stimulation on "channels" in the tongue to stimulate damaged or malfunctioning areas of the brain. It has dramatically improved individuals with a range of different types of brain traumas. All these different methods have improved the lives of so many without any side effects because they are all non invasive "natural" treatments. These treatments are not 100% guaranteed to work on everyone, but what is the harm in trying it if there are no negative side effects? When I listen to commercials these days for medications and they list all the possible side effects I think, this sounds WORSE than what they already have!
I have thought a lot about this book and the experiences of the unique individuals who have changed their lives through these methods. One thing I wonder is why it worked for some people and not for others. It doesn't follow up much on those who were not improved because obviously those are not great examples, but I am sure they exist none the less. One of my theories of why it worked better for some rather than others is a topic that I am very interested in, it is the idea of the human spirit. That is why GATTACA is one of favorite movies of all time, because I love the idea that our will to do something gives way to limitless possibilities, nothing in our lives is set or predetermined. We choose our own destiny, and we can achieve what it is we set out to do. I listened to a podcast not long ago that talked about athletes and how they tried to determine what made one athlete run further or faster than another. They looked at all kinds of factors such as muscle mass, glycogen usage, oxygen levels, and many biological processes. What they found was that when it came down to the best athletes in the world they could't find one thing that predetermined one to have that extra advantage over the other. It was their will to win, the human spirit. In the book it talks about a man named John Pepper from South Africa. You read about his incredible life story, and his eventual prognosis of Parkinson's disease. John uses a number of different things to improve his motor functions but the main thing he does is walk a certain amount every day. John has tried to teach many others his methods but few seem to have the relief of symptoms to the extent that John has had, or the desire to use the same method that has worked for him. My belief is that John is so successful because of his strong will, desire, and self control. John uses his will to circumvent the damaged parts of his brain that would stop him from having complete control of his limbs. It takes a lot of work and concentration because he has to actually think through every single motion of his body that are usually on autopilot in the brain, but he does it. John says in the book that he is confused why more people don't try his method. I think it is because it is really hard. The author Norman Doidge M.D. discusses pain in the brain. All pain in your body is experienced through and because of the brain. This is a safety mechanism that helps us from further hurting ourselves, but it can be a problem when it turns into chronic pain. Every single thing you do is the result of neurons firing in your brain. This is how we do normal habits like reading and walking, but it is also how we form habits, whether they be good or bad. Each time the neurons fire the connection grows stronger so that the process of playing a song or doing a puzzle gets easier every time. The negative side effect to this process is that bad habits form in the same way and just as easily. Each time we look at our phone or have negative thoughts about ourselves or others, these connections continue to grow stronger and the urge to do them increases. Similarly, when we experience pain repeatedly in one area we can start to develop what is called chronic pain, which is pain we feel whether our bodies need the warning or not. This is caused from our neurons firing so often that a connection is made and the neurons don't stop firing. To solve this problem we have to override our brains neural activity and create new stronger neural connections. This is easier said than done, but that is the where the idea of human spirit and the human will comes into play. We have to be strong enough individuals to take control of our thoughts and our bodies and direct them where we want them to go. I used to have a lot of things that would give me anxiety or trigger panic attacks, but I realized I didn't want those to control my life so whenever I had a thought of anxiety I chose to override it with other thoughts. I did this until one day I realized that these things no longer gave me anxiety. That is why sky diving was such a beautiful experience for me. Heading up in the plane I was so overcome with fear, I felt literally paralyzed to the point that I couldn't breathe and I honestly felt my bodily functions were shutting down. In that moment I realized that I could take control and that fear wasn't what I wanted for myself. I wanted to enjoy this unique experience. So I closed my eyes, I took deep breaths and I directed my thoughts else where. I can honestly say that when I stepped out on the ledge of that plane there was not one ounce of fear in my heart or mind. It was beautiful.
Many of the health issues discussed in the book are not ailments that currently plague our family, but I loved all the science and theories in the book and so after I finished it I wanted to figure out how I could incorporate them to improve my own life. I am big believer in achieving a big change by making small incremental changes over time. There are people out there who are able to just go cold turkey and quit smoking over night, or cut out all unhealthy foods from their diet in a day, or a number of other dramatic life changes, but these people are very rare and often have a hard time sustaining these changes long term. That is why I have chosen a few small things to start changing in my life which will hopefully lead to eventual sustained habits and permanently rewiring the brain. One is to switch out the type of music I play in the car to something that may stimulate and relax our brains. Another one is take control of any negative thoughts about myself or others and try to direct them to a more positive route. I also see that there are a lot of things that I am doing right, and I am committing to myself to continue doing these things. Active walking with my kids, being outside, doing yoga multiple times a week, and choosing more often than not to eat heathy foods. I have already seen how these things have improved my life and I want to continue to improve to become the best version of myself.
Lastly I wanted to discuss a "negative" review of the book because I think questioning things is always good. I was curious to read reviews of the book on amazon. Majority were rave reviews, and some were even people telling their own stories of having found some of these methods on their own and the success it brought them in their own lives, but there were some that had some criticism for the book. One of them I touched on earlier was that these methods are presented as miracle workers when in fact they may not have worked for every person. This is a very interesting criticism to me because all medicine is this way. We go to the doctor for treatments, and there is always a chance they may not work, and often they don't, but we accept that. For whatever reason we take offense to "alternative" methods that don't work (and by alternative I mean methods that are not mainstream.) I think this perception comes from seeing other who may have tried natural methods that didn't work and we feel these people have been misled and had they tried a different method things would have been better for them. We don't know if this is true on not, but the reality is that medical procedures don't ALWAYS work either. Another reason is that I think we often feel that these other methods are not backed by science and if they were than we would be using them. "If these methods are really so great, why are we not using them." said one critic. I laughed a little to myself when I thought about this, because of course, it sounds so logical! But look at our world and the things people do that just don't make sense! I feel, as I mentioned earlier, that money is a factor, but I digress. We feel like if someone is offering a more "natural" method to us it should work for everyone and if it doesn't it is bogus. In fact many people came to find these methods after using others that were recommended that simply didn't work. Also why would we say no to trying something that has no negative side effects. If it doesn't work, try something else! I knew someone who's child was on a medication that was considered very risky and could have very severe side effects. I suggested another remedy that my sister had used that worked very well for her, had no side effects, and was a fraction of the cost but she was so averted to the idea of using anything natural that she refused to try it. Both sides of the coin tend to view the others approach with distain and we have to find somewhere to meet in the middle. I truly believe that we can.
In conclusion I loved this book because it reminded me of all the things I don't know what I don't know, and to always reach for more knowledge and be open to what others around me have to offer. I was assured that all the little things that I do in life, reading and singing with my children, spending time with them, taking walks and playing, these things matter. The book also helped me learn things that I could be doing better to help the growth and development of myself and my children. My hope is to seek to improve my own life and the lives of others, in that I pray that I can find the greatest happiness.
