What Do You Have To Do To Rewire Your Brain
Its simple but maybe not easy. The simplicity lies in how we can approach getting rid of anxiety by rewiring your brain in two ways. Number one, a top-down approach thats neurofeedback brain training. Neurofeedback can unwire that anxious brain pattern and rewire that calm and focus brain pattern without you doing anything. It teaches your brain to make more calm focus speed and to make less of that extra fast speed. Therefore, it literally shifts your brain out of that anxiety mode and creates more clam focus for you.
Number two is you have to use your mind and your body for a bottom-up approach to rewiring your brain. We know that anxiety many times can be partially in nature and a lot more nurture. Meaning that the constant use of the anxiety pattern is really whats wiring it. So using behavioral techniques to use your mind and your body to calm yourself down. However, meaning that you have to change your behaviors, you have to force yourself to be able to do the thing that you may struggle with. This step becomes so much easier when using neurofeedback because your brain is moving into a calmer mode. Then that enables you to be able to use some of these behavioral techniques.
Improve Your Spinal Posture
Remember, CSF moves up the spine into the brain as you breathe. Your spinal posture will influence that pathway. Heres an exercise to increase core mobility with standing Chi Gung. Hold the following posture for two minutes:
- Draw the bodys weight to the middle of the feet, slightly away from the heels.
- Extend your arms in front of the body.
- With every breath as the chest expands, shift your body weight forward, taking additional weight off the heals.
- To balance the forward motion, extend the spine and stretches through the heels.
- Ensure the downward stretch and forward motion are exactly balanced so that there is no visible movement of the heels.
- To an observer the heels appear to be in contact with the ground, but internally they are engaged in a downwards stretch with each breath.
- Feel the stability of the spine and visualise CSF flowing up the spine.
Your brain depends on deep breathing patterns to help bath it in cerebrospinal fluid. Using your diaphragm to maximize pressure shifts in the chest cavity, this will help to boost the flow of CSF to the brain.
Breathing Exercises To Calm The Brain Reduce Stress & Cure Anxiety
Youve probably heard the expression, just breathe through it. When a situation is stressful, breathing deeply and evenly can help to cure anxiety and reduce stress. Why is that so? Theres a very important link between feeling calm, nasal breathing, better sleep, and brain health.
In Taoist philosophy its taught that The wise man/woman breathes from his/her heels. Physically speaking, this phrase is a reference to the fact breathing deeply into the body is incredibly good for health. Today research is revealing how breathing affects the brain.
The human brain is bathed with crystal clear liquid called cerebrospinal fluid . CSF carries oxygen and nutrients to brain cells while removing waste products. Recent studies using magnetic resonance imaging show a link between CSF flow and breathing.
In this article, well explore the process of breathing and how it affects the brain.
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Digital Content Support For Retraining Your Brain
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Settle Into The Present
Heres a simple practice for stepping into the present with mindful awareness when youre feeling anxious or agitated:
- Sit comfortably in a quiet place. Let your eyes close.
- Draw a slow breath into your lungs for a count of four, pause briefly, and exhale for a count of eight.
- As you breathe, feel your shoulders drop and your weight press into your chair.
- Its perfectly normal for your mind to keep producing thoughts during this exercise, so you dont have to try to stop thinking. Let the mind do what it does while you attend to the body and the breath.
- Repeat for three to five inbreaths and outbreaths.
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Stop The Anxiety Before It Kicks In
Anxiety is a process a complicated process, but a systematic one nonetheless. It is important to understand this, as it allows us to distance ourselves from its intended effects.
First, understand that anxious feelings are from yourself. You are not your anxiety. Second, know the condition that trigger anxiety and try your best to mitigate or eliminate them. Third, in the anxiety should fully surface, refuse to take part in its ploy to discombobulate the mind.
Numerous methods are promoted to help stop anxiety in its tracks. Here are some examples:
Picture a red STOP sign in your mind
Reassuring thoughts, such as Im okay, or It shall pass.
Pinch yourself
Orjust find something fun to do if you can
It Is The Reaction You Have To The Feeling Of Fear That Turns A Panic Attack Into An Anxiety Disorder
Basically when we are confronted with a situation which we feel may be a danger to us, our sensory organs send fast nerve impulses to the Amygdala, the Amygdala is then responsible for making the fast decision whether its appropriate to activate the fight or flight response.
Once it has chosen to react with an anxiety response we are immediately prepared to protect ourselves. We get a huge surge or adrenalin which prepares our body to either fight, run or freeze. All a protected measure designed to save us from the perceived dangerous situation that it thinks we are in.
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Have You Been Silly To Pick Up These Distorted Thinking Styles
Just like the amygdala is unconscious, cognitive distortions too are picked up unconsciously. Usually in childhood. Strange no? Isn’t the rational mind supposed to be smart enough to be..well..rational?
Sorry, but rationality too is developed. It doesn’t just show up in your life all of a sudden. It is developed in your formative years based on what you see, and how you’re getting trained to see the world, including yourself.
Again, you’re not aware of your unconscious learning. It’s just something that happens. Your rational mind iS unconsciously being developed by a whole lot of what is going on around you.
Maybe you’re still unsure or unaware that you respond to life distortedly. Maybe you don’t see them as distorted. “Perfectionism is distorted? Get outta here!” Maybe you don’t know alternatives.
All in all, for one reason or another, you keep them. And these guys are the whole deal. The make or break deal. The ones which get to decide whether you move on or go down.
What Is The Right Thing To Do
This you will have to figure out as it depends on the kind of issues that rock your boat.
Sometimes it’s clear what to do. It is allowing the negative thoughts to continue, and despite them consciously deciding to face you fears. If your amygdala symptoms make you feel the dread, let it. Let it ride its own storm while you continue to watch your TV show. Unfazed.
Other times, it really, really depends. I’m not a fan of articles which lists steps like “get proper sleep”, “exercise”, “don’t worry”, “think less”. What if you can’t do any of this because of the circumstances in your life? Then you need a more creative plan. Find it.
That’s why it all depends. Because it’s circumstantial.
Is it quitting your job or not?
Getting married or not?
Going to the party because society tells you to? Or is it going because you’ll enjoy it? Or is it not going because you fear a panic attack? Or is it not going because you prefer watching TV and you’re okay with that?
Which one?
In the end, you have to decide because they’re your own triggers. Not mine. You have to figure out what to do so you suffer less.
These aren’t always black or white answers. Who says any “one” person has the right answer nailed down which applies for all of us? Screw that. Only you can finally decide this.
With the right kind of tools and support, you can solve the mystery of your anxiety and head off in the direction of your own values and goals. Decided by you.
THIS IS AMYGDALA RE-TRAINING.
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How Does Brain Rewiring Work
First of all, there is a very complex and scientific law, which is called Hebbs Law. This law shows that neurons that fire together wire together. So every time you use that brain pattern, it is hardwiring itself in. Basically, when you continue to use the same brain pattern its creating neural pathways in your brain. Therefore, neuro pathways are similar to roads, streets, or paths. Every time you use the anxiety brain pattern youre trampling over the weeds and creating this divot that is memorizing the pattern.
The key to success is to take Hebbs Law and use it to create a new path of calm and focus. So how do we do that, theres a method called amphibian homeostatic learning. This works by stopping the use of the harmful brain pattern that creates your anxiety. Therefore basically unwiring that brain pattern to create a healthy new one. So were unwiring, rewiring and thats happening simultaneously to get rid of anxiety.
But There Is Also Another Part To The Amygdala
It is also responsible for the formation and storage or memories which we have associated with emotional events that happen to us, in other words its really good at linking this reaction to the situation and so every time in the future that we encounter that situation again we are programme to feel the fear automatically.
We can condition ourselves to fear. So during the fear response the sensory stimuli reach the Amygdala and they then form memories of this stimuli.
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Cerebrospinal Fluid The Brains Life Blood
Perhaps the most important fluid of your body is the 250ml of cerebrospinal fluid that flows around a system of pipes in the brain called the ventricles. CSF is produced by the choroid plexus in the third ventricle, and from here it circulates through the brain via the ventricles and then to the spinal cord.
Each day the entire volume of CSF is replaced four times. During sleep, the blood brain barrier relaxes to let CSF into the neurons and flush out the build-up from the day. This is a big reason why sleep is so important.
Schwartzs 4 Steps To Change Your Brain Change Your Mental Disorder
The first step is to re-label a given thought, feeling, or behavior as something else. An unwanted thought could be relabeled false message or brain glitch. This amounts to training yourself to clearly recognize and identify what is real and what isnt, refusing to be tricked by your own thoughts. You step back and say, This is just my brain sending me a false message. For someone with OCD, instead of saying, I have to check the stove, they would start saying, I am having a compulsive urge to check the stove.
This sounds easy, almost a trite affirmation, like what they give you at one of those weekend long shut-ins where you transform yourself into the someone you always thought you could be. It isnt. Its hard. Focusing on something completely different when your brain is sending long-embedded directions with overwhelming force, is incredibly difficult.
The second step answers the question, Why do these thoughts coming back? The answer is that the brain is misfiring, stuck in gear, creating mental noise, and sending false messages. In other words, if you understand why youre getting those old thoughts, eventually youll be able to say, Oh, thats just a brain glitch. That raises the natural next question: What can you do about it?
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The Amygdala: How It Works
The amygdala is not just in the emotional brain. It is deeeeeeep inside it. Meaning? It is operating unconsciously. You cannot control its immediate, instinctive, automatic reactions because they happen much before your consciousness kicks in.
What is it reacting to? At a high level, we can say that the amygdala reacts to new or threatening objects in the environment. When its triggered, it sends immediate rapid fire signals to your brain and body. To do what? To make your body ready to fight or flight the situation.
Heart beats faster. Muscles tense. Blood pressure rises. Adrenalin is pumped into your bloodstream. More sweating. Lungs take in more O2. And many, many more reactions.
This is excellent news. Without your body prepared like this, you are simply not equipped to protect yourself in the face of genuine danger. How can you run away from a snake if your body doesn’t “feel” like you’ll be dead if you don’t?
Another excellent news is that amygdala triggering is so incredibly quick, automatic and visceral, that “consciously”, you have to do nothing to prepare your body to fight or flight. The bodily reactions from a triggered amygdala just “show up in your life”. One second you’re a beach bum on a hammock sipping his Pina Colada and the next second you’re sprinting for your life when a lizard falls on you.
Be thankful that your amygdala exists. It can save your life when the dangers are real.
Focus On Positive Thoughts
If you’re feeling anxious, move. Literally move — go outside and get some fresh air. Put on your earbuds and start listening to your favorite relaxing music while going for a brisk walk. Try to take your mind away from what’s bothering you. Focus as you walk on positive thoughts that will make you feel safe, accepted, loved, and honored. When you’re at homeostasis, reflect on how fortunate and blessed you actually are.
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Ways To Train Your Brain To Fight Anxiety
May 12, 2017Manpreet Lehal
Your brain is the control room of the body, this means your brain controls everything, including the body, its functions, how you feel and think. By training your brain, you can learn techniques and principles that will enable you to overcome the underlying cause of depression and anxiety.
Anxiety, simply put, is an advanced level of worry. It is worry that has evolved into a constant, worst-case scenarios and what ifs spinning round the brain with unrelenting nagging, doubts, and fears which drastically saps your emotional energy, sending your anxiety level soaring. Your anxiety, in turn, interferes with your daily life, goals, and relationships.
The good news is this chronic habit can be broken, and in this article you’ll explore ways you can train your brain to fight anxiety, stay calm and see life from a more positive perspective. But in order to do this, you must realize a few things. Let me take you through the journey of training your brain to fight anxiety.