Chiropractic for Nervous System Repair

This is so obvious an approach to throw at mental illness/nervous system dysfunction at the precise same time as being rather left field & unlikely.

And I am well up for it. I love my chiropractor, I don’t need to see him very often but he performs real miracles as far as my hips & shoulders are concerned & just from the perspective of not being in physical pain constantly mental health is improved but apparently there is more.

Here is Russell on his Awakening with Russell YouTube channel talking to his own Chiropractor Dr Jerome Poupel as well as Phd neurophysiologist (I want that qualification 😍 but 7 yrs study 😔) Dr Heidi Haavik.

I encourage you to bear with it & watch the whole thing as Jerome gets a bit woo woo in his description early on & I thought that may put some people off, which is a shame because as Heidi then explains it is not woo woo at all. 🙌

The second video is a really concise 3 min explanation of the reasons why this works 🩷

Deep focus intense adhd/mood relief plus EMDR plus Brainspotting Tech plus….

I stumbled upon a Brainspotting technique last night, simply put it’s near far eye movements, so you just take a pen hold say 1ft away in front of you, focus on that then into the distance then back, as a pattern, gently, unhurried, curious to see/feel for any changes in body/mind.

THEN I realised that one could easily combine the usual EMDR: left right eye movement or body/chest tap with either alternating or simultaneous up down eye movements popularly used in sports therapy for immediately increasing Dopamine **as well** as this ‘near far’ idea from brainspotting.

The main advantage to my idea of the combination of these 3 done in a kind of bespoke way, as you feel to, would be reduced muscle tiredness & stress from repetition & I can really see how using all 3 in sequence, again, as you feel it, would create a powerful mood improving tool & longer term improvement in brain health. These 3 techniques are all based on quite simple neuroscience.

Good luck 🩷

I’ve also posted one of my fav isochronic tones here, it is designed to be firmly mood regulatory as well - I often combined these on headphones with EMDR while managing overreactions to triggers in the early days of healing my BPD. I know it feels endless, that’s the lie, time perception is greatly slowed & exaggerated. It is not in fact endless but the segregated, clouded mind in mood dysphoria often achieves complete amnesia of the fact that positive mind states exist & are our natural unencumbered state. 

7 Ways to Heal Trauma

These guys - Dr Rangan Chatterjee talking to the amazing Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk of The Body Keeps the Score legendary fame.

This is a long chat/discussion at 1.5 hrs but I ended up enjoying it so much I felt to share it. 

I particularly love Bessel casually exposing the corporate corruption & biases that cannot help but occur in the fields of science & research precisely because Money is necessary to pursue anything with potential & therefore Money gets to chose what moves. This is something I’ve been aware of for a very long time & seems absolutely obvious & yet far too many on the political left are still sadly completely oblivious & unwilling to explore the unobscured facts of.

I picked up the fact this week that 70% of research is privately funded & overwhelmingly brings back a result favourable to its financial sponsor - just start there if you want to explore that subject, it’s fascinating & terrifying in equal measure & will put you off many common prescription drugs for life.

How to reset your body from chronic stress - Gabor Mate Lecture

 

This is an hour long but Gabor is always an easy listen in my experience- I’m not sure that the title explains the content but it’s definitely a very needed explanation of the progression of & chronic stress relatedness of so called physical illness. 🙌

EMDR is as Simple & as Natural as walking & DIY works wonders for day to day triggers

Here is a good thorough overview about EMDR, it’s a recent article on ADDitudemag.com.

https://www.additudemag.com/emdr-therapy-eye-movement-desensitization-trauma-adhd/?utm_source=eletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=treatment_july_2023&utm_content=072723&goal=0_d9446392d6-d55c617ff8-300024141

I want to emphasise what I’ve titled above. EMDR is undoubtedly the most powerful nervous system tech of modern times. It is also as logical, natural & beneficial, more so even than walking, which as I’ve mentioned is soft EMDR in & of itself. 

I extremely disgruntled with articles that seem to seek to take this simple & yet proven therapy out of the hands of those who need it most, the dx & undx mentally ill, the traumatised, drug addicts, alcoholics, addicts of all kinds. 

It goes without saying that doing EMDR regularly with a trained therapist is going to be plenty more powerful that diy, but at 100£ per hour that is completely out of reach for, I would say the absolute majority of the people with nervous system dysfunction who need it.

EMDR is going to improve the lives of everyone who gets to do it with or without professional support, & professional support is massively beneficial in its own right for multiple reasons. 

In UK you need a 3/4yr professional psychotherapy qualification to be able to add on EMDR which I think is what is driving the high prices being charged here. I think that if you charge 100£ an hour for EMDR you should take on a number of free clients from the groups I mentioned above ie those that need it most, those that can’t house themselves, support themselves or free themselves from harmful influences - these are the true traumatised, for no fault if their own in the first instance probably without exception.

For the many of us that can’t get it free or affordably there is a link in my sidebar to a simple DIY explainer although I myself just do it when I’m stressed, triggered or having mental weirdness of any kind to great affect. I do it with my eyes closed anywhere bar driving & I always endeavour to engage with any direct body sensations as i go, which is a healing act in itself when achieved without too much mental twisting or judgement.

Walking as Soft EMDR

EMDR works by the left right movement of the pupils of the eyes to either side, this movement repeated effects a change in focus in brain activity, shifting from emotional centres to logic & processing centres, this facilitates rapid processing of emotional pain when it is held in somatic/ body awareness.

Well, the same goes for the left right emphasis of walking/running to a lesser/softer degree, whilst holding body awareness & equally a crossed arm chest tap is also equivalent. 

For myself, holding sensation in as gentle awareness as possible is the key although I have found it still works to reduce emotional charge/ mental mayhem even without accessing physicalised feelings, so that’s really helpful for deeper numb stuff. 

So, this all explains rather nicely why walking/running, the natural forwards motion of our bodies through space is designed to also deconstruct Trauma semi-automatically - just requiring some body consciousness to fulfil that. Isn’t that cool! 😅😊

Dr Pete Levine - Beyond Theory Podcast S2 episodes 13 & 14

I read Dr Levine’s book Healing Trauma in the autumn last year. It’s a very small concise book with simple exercises at the back - I recommend having it to anyone with any long standing mental/nervous system dysfunction inc problems with addiction etc. It simply sets out the basic premise of Somatic Therapy for healing trauma. 

Peter is a very early pioneer of body first trauma therapy & remains an exceptional resource for healing mental health issues of all types.

I love listening to Dr Levine and could listen all day but I know not everyone wants or needs all the nuts & bolts & just wants to get in the car & go so I will be finding some short, more potent videos to post here ASAP but these are wonderful in their own right. The 2 podcasts make an hour so maybe listen whilst driving or something & just let it wash over you as a subject. 🩷🤗✊