At some tipping point, this becomes the new trajectory of your life. Life’s challenges continue to come at all of us. As life becomes easier to navigate, your body is exposed to less threat (stress) physiology and more to safety. Safety is where fuel moves into cells, and your body regenerates and heals.

The metaphor for this navigated course is the ski slope. No matter what your skill level, you must get down the hill. If the ski run is above your skill level, you may not be only stressed, it can be terrifying. The goal is become an expert at life skills and learn to feel safe a higher percent of the time. Here are the prerequisites.

• Have a working knowledge of The DOC Journey course.
• Understand the natural resistance to change.
• Review the “circle of life” with the “ring of fire.”
• Begin to connect to your vision of what is possible.
• Your healing emanates from feeling safe and creative.
• Constructing your new home (life) is the final focus of the journey. Enjoy!!

Overview

First of all, congratulations for reaching this level. The key to healing is persistence and you have already shown a willingness to fully engage in learning to create and live the life you want. Before you began this journey, that may not have seemed possible. But to be clear, your journey is not about completing a course or believing in David Hanscom. It is about connecting your own capacity to heal. Healing of any part of the body is nothing short of miraculous, but so is the gift of life.

Many people arrive at this point of their journey and they feel better. So, being back to their baseline, they quit. “I am good enough,” and they move on with their life. I think that it is tragic to stop now. Your creative brain is coming alive and the potential for future learning and growth is unlimited. Why would you want to stop?

There are actually a few reasons why this happens so often.

• Humans are programmed by every second of their lives. Our brains unconsciously memorize everything. Familiar patterns are not noticed since not only are they embedded in our brains, but they are our version of reality. Any new or unusual data catches our attention and stimulates some level of threat physiology. We feel anxious and instinctively resist change. So, maybe you are back to a comfortable baseline state. Why would you wish to continue?
• There is a lot of anxiety with success, if you are used to simply trying to survive. When is the shoe going to drop? A classic example is golf. It is remarkably predictable that when you have shot well for three or four holes that your anxiety levels rise. Of course your muscle tension increases, and suddenly it seems like you don’t which end of the club to hold. The same scenario holds true in any performance arena at home, work, or even relaxing.
• Examples are present in every kind of performance. Maybe you have been promoted and have a higher profile in your sphere of influence. More eyes are on you, and many people might jealous of your success. They may look for any opportunity to cut you down. There is a term for this phenomenon called “Tall Poppy Syndrome.” It is easier to just blend in with the crowd.
• Understand that the shoe will always drop. That is life. If your goal is to be in an endless state of bliss, you’ll fail. Life presents an endless number of daily challenges and at some level of stress, your body will respond with threat physiology. Maybe it will last for an hour or even days. It is what your body is supposed to do – protect you. But you now have choices regarding how long you wish to remain there.
• A different problem arises in that now you have tasted what it is like to be in the green center, and you don’t want to leave. Additionally, when you are triggered and in the red, the contrast is sharp and you may get more frustrated about what is possible compared what you are experiencing in the moment. I call this, “the curse of awareness.” What you want to do is nuture emotional flexibilty, be present with whatever state you are in, and move in the direction of your choice.
• I experienced a common scenario in that I had no idea that there were other possibilities about the way I negotiated my life. All I ever knew was anger and chaos. Although, I attended workshops, read self-help books, and underwent extensive counseling. I did not connect with how angry I was until I was 50 years old. It was an incredibly unpleasant experience and I did not have the tools to deal with it. Healing happens with connection – to yourself and then to those around you. Not wanting to experience unpleasant emotions may be a major reason why people don’t engage in this process or pull up short of really moving forward. One of my friends has often quoted the phrase, “you have to feel to heal.”

The ”circle of life” containing the “ring of fire” is the signature tool of this journey. A version of it was created by Dr. Paul Gilbert, who was the founder of compassion-based therapy. Compassion (love) as defined by Anthony DeMello in his book, The Way to Love, is awareness. Anxiety blocks awareness. But as you nurture awareness, you’ll actually feel more anxiety, and it requires tools to tolerate it. This is a bidirectional interaction. So, this final level is focused on not only learning to nurture joy, but also to better tolerate anxiety.

The metaphor is building and decorating a new house. Each room represents an aspect of your life that must be addressed. Use it daily as a quick mental checklist as you go from room to room in your own home. The “lot” is the green center of the circle of life. With repetition, you’ll create the life you want. “To have a good life, you must live a good life.”

Books to read

Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness

Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can’t control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus was born on the eastern edges of the Roman Empire in A.D. 55, but The Art of Living is still perfectly suited for any contemporary self-help or recovery program.

The healing journey progresses from “reaCtive to Creative”. You must first see where you are at before you can change direction. You can’t heal by focusing on problems. Healing occurs with creativity and moving away from unpleasant neurological circuits. The wisdom of the Stoics is remarkable in that it is as, or more, relevant as it was 2000 years ago. Regaining a healthy life perspective is the definitive solution to decreasing your suffering.

On the slopes

A world class skier can ski anything humanly possible if the conditions are reasonable. I used to think I was a double black diamond skier until I was exposed to US Ski Team skiers who were far above a level than I ever imagined. They not only possess a high level of skill, but they are supremely confident as a result of putting in thousands of hours of practice.

Many years ago a group of us where on the back side of mountain at Alta Utah. It was a gorgeus day with a lot of new soft powder. We were all “expert” skiers. We were standing in a narrow line waiting to head down the hill and my son, who is a US Ski team level mogul skier was on another transverse about 30 feet above us. We wondered what he wanted us to do. What he wanted was fresh untracked powder and he took off and jumped over all of us. It must have been a 40-foot drop and he landed about 50 feet down the hill. There was no hesitation. He kept going until the bottom skiing at a high speed. I realized that his was a reality I was not familiar with.

But consider any performance from art, music, dance, athletics, mechanics, business, and work. Every endeavor can be manifested at the highest level. You might be thinking, “I could never accomplish this level of expertise, and in a given field, you probably won’t. Or maybe you already have. However, life skills are accessible to everyone and anyone who wants to commit the living an excellent life. All that is required is a willingness to continue to learn and practice. The DOC Journey presents a foundational set of concepts and tools and there are endless additonal ways to enhance your journey.

The only “goal” of this course is to allow you to connect to the moment you are in and with awareness can be in any color of the “circle of life” on your terms. You have the choice to remain there or move in any direction.

Why not attain the highest level of expertise in living your life? The focus is on attaining skills and not reaching for perfect, where you beat yourself up for “failing.” It is about just learning to execute what you know regardless of the circumstances. Outcomes are usually beyond our control, but you can up the odds of success.

This level is a jumping off point for living the rest of your life. Let yourself think big and enjoy your day.

The post Be an Expert at Living life first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Be an Expert at Living life appeared first on Back in Control.

A straightforward decision

I rarely make a surgical decision on the first visit, but his situation seemed so straightforward that I decided to make an exception. He also wanted to proceed quickly, as he was frustrated by his limitations. As I walked out the door to grab the pre-operative letter that describes the details of the fusion, he quietly said, “My son just died a few months ago.” I immediately turned around and sat down with him. His son had died from a massive heart attack. I let him know how sorry I was about his loss, and also told him that I was not comfortable with him making such a major decision in light of the situation. He agreed. I gave him the pre-op letter and asked him to return in a couple of weeks. I gave him a copy of my book, Back in Control, which is an excellent resource for dealing with stress, as well as chronic pain. A week later he called and told me that he really wasn’t into reading my book and just wanted to proceed with surgery. I asked him one more time just to glance through the book, as it does help with post-operative pain and rehab; and I signed him up for surgery.

The pre-op appointment

He came in with his wife for his pre-operative appointment to coordinate the final details around the operation. I wanted be sure that I was on the same page regarding the severity of the pain and his understanding of the procedure. He said, “I am feeling better. I have read some  of your book and think that maybe I should work through some of the issues around my son’s death.” We had a long conversation about the effect this degree of trauma can cause. He asked me if it was OK with me for him to delay his surgery for a while.

I saw him a month later and he had no pain in his back or down his leg. He was fully active and had just re-joined the gym. I asked him what seemed to be the most helpful strategy in resolving his pain. He had continued to read the book. However, I am well-aware that reading my book, or any book, is not going to take away pain. It requires some level of engagement. For him, it was awareness. Just understanding the links between anxiety, anger, trauma, and pain helped him make sense of the different emotions he was trying to process. He was also now talking to his friends about his loss, who were offering a lot of support. His whole demeanor had changed and he was now more concerned about how the situation was affecting his wife.

How do I decide who needs surgery?

It is becoming increasingly unclear to me what severity of pathology requires surgery to solve a given problem. His constriction around his 5^th lumbar nerve root was severe and he had a classic history that matched. Had I done the surgery, his leg pain would have resolved; but not his emotional pain. He now is moving forward, as his emotional pain is being addressed. His back and leg pain are gone. He did not have to undergo the trauma and risks of surgery. He will return to being a productive person and provide emotional support for his wife. Although, not the main reason, there was essentially no cost involved.

“I know when a patient is at risk for a poor outcome”

I have witnessed many stories that are similar to George’s; and I am more diligent in making sure that there not major life stresses occurring while making a final decision regarding surgery. There doesn’t need to be one specific event. More commonly people hit their breaking point from cumulative stress, and they don’t see a way out. Physicians almost uniformly feel that they can detect emotional distress in their patients. As I have been doing spine surgery for so many years, I feel like I am really able to detect patients with anxiety and depression in my clinic. However, research shows that physicians are correct in this regards only 25-43% of the time. It does not matter whether the doctor is a junior resident or senior staff physician. George’s story again reminded me that I cannot figure any of this out either. There is too much going on in the middle of a busy clinic – especially on an initial visit. (1)

Physical versus mental pain

The areas of the brain that interpret physical and emotional distress are located in close proximity to each other. (2) It also seems that there are abnormalities of a given person’s body that are not quite severe enough to cause pain. But when the pain threshold is lowered, in the presence of adversity, these specific areas can become symptomatic. As one of my workout buddies points out, “It is the weak area that lights up.” Prior pain circuits can also be activated.

There are hundreds of research papers documenting the link between anxiety and depression with pain, and poor outcomes with treatment. For many reasons, these factors are not being routinely addressed. The culture of medicine is geared towards performing procedures, and not on talking to you about other options or providing the necessary resources. It is critical that you have done everything possible to calm down your nervous system before you undergo a surgical procedure. In this medical environment, you will have to take on that responsibility.

1. Daubs, M, et al. Clinical impression versus standardized questionnaire: The spinal surgeon’s abilityto assess psychological distress. JBJS (2010); 92; 2878-2883.
2. Hashmi, JA et al. “Shape shifting pain: chronification of back pain shifts brain representation from nociceptive to emotional circuits.” Brain(2013); 136: 2751 – 2768.

The post “My Son Just Died” first appeared on Back in Control.

The post “My Son Just Died” appeared first on Back in Control.

I went skiing for the first time when I was 14. Our family was not a ski family, but my father decided to take us on a ski vacation at Mammoth Mountain. The whole trip was somewhat of a disaster as we were so unprepared. I got to the mountain too late for ski school, so my brother, who had skied once said he would teach me. We ended up on an intermediate slope. In spite of his best non-efforts, I twisted my knee, tore one of the ligaments, and ended up in a long leg cast for eight weeks.

No choice

For those of you who have never skied, being on a slope that is above your skill level is not only frightening, but it can also border on terrifying. Most skiers have experienced this scenario at least once. But any situation in life where you are in above your head elicits a similar response. What makes skiing unique is that you have no choice. You must get down the hill by the end of the day.

You must also make it through life. Consider life as a major ski resort with many choices except one. When you check into the ticket window early every morning, instead of buying a ticket, you are assigned to ride one chairlift. You must ride it regardless of the difficulty of the run or your expertise. No one is going to help you down.

Ski runs

The difficulty of a run is rated by colors. The easiest slope is called the “magic carpet.” You stand with your skis on a moving belt and get off on a hill that is almost flat. Green circles are usually accessed by chairlifts and the runs are smooth and gentle for beginners.  A blue square indicates a somewhat steeper slope for intermediate skiers. Some runs have bumps called moguls. Black diamond runs are steep, usually ungroomed, and often have many moguls. Double black diamond runs are challenging even for high level skiers and dangerous for beginners. There are many warning signs saying, “experts only.”

Life

One problem we all face is that life is full of double black diamond runs. However, it is all relative. Anytime you are on a hill that is beyond your skill level, it is problematic. A beginner skier on an intermediate hill is not having a great time. Consider a beginner skier who has to navigate a double black diamond run. It is truly terrifying.

The core cause of all chronic mental and physical illness is sustained levels of stress. Stress can be defined as threat physiology or flight or fight. This state is necessary in order to keep you alive. The reason why chronic stress is so deadly is that you have no time to rest and regenerate. For example, the reason your heart can function for so long is that it rests between beats.

Dynamic Healing

There are three aspects of staying alive: 1) your input or stresses, 2) the nervous system which processes sensory input, 3) and the output, which is your body’s physiology. It can be in threat or safety. Sustained threat physiology is what creates mental and physical illnesses. It is the balance between your circumstances and coping mechanisms that determines your body’s chemical state. The essence of healing is decreasing your exposure to threat physiology and increasing time in safety. These are acquired skills.

They consist of processing input (stress) so it has less impact on your nervous system, calming the nervous system so as to be less reactive, and directly lowering your threat physiology. All three portals are accessed daily, and it requires repetition to make them automatic. Over time, you will be a “professional at living life.”

On the slopes

Taking this back to the ski resort metaphor, anytime you are in over your head, you will be in threat physiology. Your goal is to increase your skill level to the point where you have less of a chance of being on a hill that is frightening to you. Before you begin, you must have equipment that is safe and comfortable, including  being dressed according to the weather (too hot or too cold is a problem). Skiing requires strength, flexibility, and endurance, so conditioning is also important.

But the next step once your skis are on, is that you must learn to stop, regardless how steep the hill is. Even on a bunny hill, this is critical. On expert terrain, you must be able to set a firm edge. You cannot learn anything until you can stop. My wife endlessly reminds me that the first time I took her skiing, I neglected this detail, and she stopped by running into a building. It was a slow speed, so she wasn’t injured; but she wasn’t that happy.

Why do you ski? Why do you live?

Your desire is to enjoy your experience as much as possible. For example, if you are an intermediate skier on a blue slope, you can feel relaxed, work on skills, let the skis do the work, and have a great time. Isn’t that the reason you are skiing? But what if you are a blue skier on a black run or a green skier on a double black diamond run. It really is terrifying, and one experience will cause people to quit forever. But you have no choice. Life keeps coming at all of us and there is no end to the challenges. What are you going to do? You cannot stay on top of the hill all night. You don’t want to fall down a double black run at a high speed. It happens and people get hurt.

Then consider the scenario of an expert skier on an intermediate run well below his or skill level. Normally, it is an enjoyable experience. But today is 12 degrees, the wind is blowing about 20 mph, it is foggy, hard to see, and extremely icy. The expert skier must go into a defensive survival mode and might be OK. But it isn’t  much fun. What if you are green skier on a double-black diamond run in these conditions? It is beyond terrifying and also life threatening.

Good luck – or is it luck?

You cannot control most of the circumstances in your life, but you can develop skills to deal with them more effectively. Many more days will be enjoyable, and you also possess the confidence to deal with severe adversity. Your body frequently goes into threat physiology because it is protecting you. But you don’t have to stay there.

Few of us are taught the life skills of regulating our physiology (stress) and even fewer are taught to nurture joy. You might say, I don’t want to learn how to ski. I don’t like it. Good luck. You still have to check in at the ticket window and get your assignment for the day. We spend a lot of time learning many different skills but not much attention is spent on learning how to navigate life.

The post Downhill Skiing is Dangerous – So is Life first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Downhill Skiing is Dangerous – So is Life appeared first on Back in Control.

Here is a famous quote from Gabriel Garcia Marquez.¹

It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old.

They grow old because they stop pursuing their dreams.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This is a wonderful quote except I have a different take on it.

People grow old because their dreams are crushed by anxiety.

Stress

Stress is the sum total of the obstacles we face every minute to stay alive. When your body is in a flight or fight state, the sensation is called “anxiety.” This reaction is present in every living species, but humans have language and can name it. It is challenging to achieve your dreams and experience the life you wish while feeling stressed. Your creativity and choice are compromised while you are in a survival mode; the blood flow in your brain shifts from the neocortex (thinking centers) to the limbic system (flight or fight).

The Holmes scale², developed in the 1960s, quantifies levels of stress connected with life events, and you can calculate your own cumulative score. A score of 300 points or more correlates to an 80% chance of a health breakdown within 24 months. In spite of overwhelming data connecting chronic stress with illness, disease, and early mortality, we are generally taught that stress and anxiety are “psychological” issues. Nothing could be further from reality. Why does chronic stress cause mental and physical illnesses?

One of my close friends and colleagues were discussing the role of stress leading to health problems and we decided to assess ourselves with Holmes scale. He had been dealing with an unspeakable number of challenges for several years. His score was 435 and then he told me that he had been diagnosed with cancer a few months earlier. Fortunately, he did well with treatment.

Safety

We want to feel safe. In this state our body’s chemistry consists of anti-inflammatory molecules called cytokines. Fuel consumption is lowered (metabolism). There are about 80 billion neurons in your brain that communicate by molecules called neurotransmitters. When feeling safe, these molecules are calming. Hormones include dopamine (reward), serotonin (mood elevator), growth hormone, and oxytocin (social bonding). Emotions represent feelings generated by your physiological state (how the body functions) and safety creates a sense of connection, contentment, and joy. Another term describing this state is “rest and digest.” Your body must refuel, regenerate, and heal in order to sustain life and health.

Threats

What happens when you don’t feel safe? Your body goes into various levels of threat physiology (flight or fight) to optimize survival. It is designed to deal with acute threats effectively and quickly, but it doesn’t do well when your challenges are unrelenting. At the core of all chronic mental and physical disease is being in a sustained stressed state.³ Here is what is going on.

Activated inflammatory cytokines fire up your immune system. In addition to fighting off viruses, bacteria, and other foreign materials, your own tissues are attacked.⁴ Neurotransmitters switch from calming to excitatory and your nervous system is hyperactive. Fuel is consumed from every cell in your body, including your brain. Chronic disease states cause physical shrinkage of your brain.⁵ Fortunately, it regrows as you heal. Stress hormones include adrenaline, noradrenaline, histamines, and vasopressin, which shift your body from thinking to fleeing. This situation can be likened to driving your car down the freeway at 65 mph in second gear. It will break down more quickly than if you are cruising in 5^th gear.

The driving force behind chronic mental and physical disease is sustained exposure to stress physiology. The solution lies in using approaches to increase “cues of safety” and allow your body to rest and regenerate whenever you can.

Dynamic Healing

Sustained stress translates into threat physiology, which creates symptoms. In mainstream medicine, we are just treating symptoms instead of addressing the root cause being the interaction between your stresses and nervous system. We don’t have time to know you, understand the nature of your circumstances, or how we can help you calm down. Treating only symptoms is similar to putting out an oil well fire with a garden hose. It is no wonder that the burden of chronic disease and suffering continues to skyrocket.⁶ In fact, you often feel more stressed while interacting with the medical system. We introduce the concept of “dynamic healing.

Dynamic Healing is a framework that categorizes interventions that decrease exposure to threat and increase safety. The three portals are:

• Input – processing your stresses in a manner to have less impact on your nervous system
• The nervous system – there are ways to lower its reactivity
• The output – directly stimulating your body to go from stress to calming physiology.

This model organizes known research to both clinicians and patients. You can regain control of your care and create a partnership with your provider.

Why not become a “professional” at living life?

Consider the process as becoming a “professional at living life.” It is similar to acquiring any skill such as playing the piano. You must learn the basics, incorporate them into your daily life, and then continue to deepen your expertise with practice. Mastery is critical, and as they become habituated and automatic, life becomes easier to navigate.

Additionally, the power of neuroplasticity (changing your brain) is powerful and unlimited. You can program your brain in whichever direction you wish, away from unpleasant survival circuits.

Modern stresses

Times have changed since 1962 regarding the Holmes-Rahe scale. The industrial revolution occurred only about 200 years ago. In light of over four billion years of evolution, this not even a drop of water in the ocean. The level of daily sensory input dramatically increased. Now we are in the information revolution that began in 1980’s forcing us to process magnitudes more information. Smart phones came online in 2007, and along with the barrage of social media, we are on a massive sensory overload. The human brain has not evolved to keep up with it. So, we have ongoing stress levels that weren’t present even several hundred years ago. It is somewhat perverse that we have so many anxiety-related problems when we have access to more physical comforts than any generation in history. One fallout is that of teen suicide, “deaths of despair”, have risen dramatically correlating with the advent of the bi-directional smart phone.⁷

A healing sequence

The DOC (Direct your Own Care) Journey course teaches skills to optimize your capacity to enjoy life by effectively dealing with adversity and nurturing joy. These are two separate, but linked, skill sets. As you lower your time feeling stressed and increase your sense of safety and joy, your body will regenerate and heal – mentally and physically. Your brain physically changes (neuroplasticity), pleasurable circuits strengthen, and pain (mental and physical) regions atrophy. You can reprogram your brain away from almost anything with persistence and repetition. The exciting aspect of neuroplasticity is that at some tipping point, your healing continues to build on itself and there is no limit as to what life (brain) you wish to create.

What do want out of this life? Decrease your exposure to threat physiology, increase time in safety, enjoy your life, heal, and thrive.

Homework

1. Take the Holmes-Rahe stress assessment test.
2. Write down the details of each category affecting your life.
3. Consider what percent of your time you spend fighting off stresses compared to nurturing joy. Where is your brain developing?
4. The most stressful stresses are the ones you can’t solve. It is why you must learn techniques to minimize their impact, calm your nervous system, and spend less time exposed to threat physiology.
5. What is one aspect of your life that is the most important to you? Write it down. Are you willing to pursue it?
6. Your body is a complex powerful survival machine. It has evolved to seek safety, deal with threats, break loose, and thrive. Allow it to do its job.

 References

1. Gabriel García Márquez. Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude. 1967. Editorial Sudamericanos, S.A., Buenos Aires.
2. Holmes TH, Rahe RH. The Social Readjustment Rating Scale.J Psychosom Res (1967); 11:213–8. doi:1016/0022-3999(67)90010-4
3. Furman D, et al. Chronic Inflammation in the etiology of diseases across the life span. Nature Medicine (2019); 25:1822-1832.
4. Cole SW, et al. Social Regulation of gene expression in human leukocytes. Genome Biology (2007); 8:R189. doi: 10.1186/gb-2007-8-9-r189
5. Seminowicz DA, et al. “Effective treatment of chronic low back pain in humans reverses abnormal brain anatomy and function.” The Journal of Neuroscience (2011); 31: 7540-7550.
6. Bezruchka S. Increasing Mortality and Declining Health Status in the USA: Where is Public Health?Harvard Health Policy Review [internet]. 2018.
7. Miron O, et al. Suicide rates among adolescents and young adults in the United States, 2000-2017. JAMA (2019); 321: 2362. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.5054 – Connection with cell phones made by Dr. Rob Lustig lecture on 12.1.21 – https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/182pygqTnS2GPQ4LUmioO06zkRf4-jpIH

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The post Stress Kills – Don’t Allow it appeared first on Back in Control.

In 2003, a neurosurgeon performed a laminectomy of his neck. That’s an operation where the lamina or the bone over the back of the spinal cord is removed to relieve pressure. He seemed to improve for a little while. In 2005, his symptoms worsened, and in 2009, he underwent a fusion through the front of his neck between his 5^th and 6^th vertebrae. Again there was a slight improvement but two years later he was in my office with crippling pain throughout his whole body.

Normal studies

As I talked to him, I could see how desperate he was for relief. He also wasn’t sleeping and his anxiety and frustration were a 10/10 on my spine intake questionnaire. I couldn’t find any neurological problems on my physical exam. When I looked at his neck MRI, I could see where the two prior surgeries had been performed, but there were no pinched nerves. The alignment and stability of the vertebrae were also fine. He also had undergone several workups of his brain and the rest of his nervous system. Everything was normal.

When I explained to him that I did not see a structural problem that was amenable to surgery he became understandably upset.  He was stuck on the idea that the prior surgeries had helped and that I was missing something. It didn’t matter what I said or how I explained the situation to him. He wasn’t buying it.

What I didn’t tell him was that I had also looked at his scans he had prior to undergoing each surgery. Telling a patient that they did not really need a prior surgery is a very unproductive, unpleasant interaction; I didn’t see why this patient’s prior surgeries were performed. On the first MRI of his neck, there were no bone spurs and the spinal cord was completely free. There wasn’t a structural problem that could have been corrected by surgery. On the scan before the second operation, there also wasn’t a hint of anything that could be causing any symptoms of any type.

The power of placebo

What’s difficult for patients (and physicians) to realize is that the placebo rate for any medical or surgical treatment is between 25-30% or even higher. The response and improvement is not only real but is powerful. It is the result of your body’s own healing capacity. It is a desired response, and you feel less pain.

The pain-killing effects of a placebo are reversed with Narcan, which is the drug used to reverse the effect of narcotics. There is a part of the frontal lobe of your brain that shuts off pain pathways for short periods of time. Another example is the placebo effect of cardiac medications causes the heart rhythms to actually change. Just because a prior surgery or procedure on normal age-appropriate anatomy might have been temporarily effective is irrelevant. It should have nothing to do with current decision-making. I tell my patients “If I can see it, I can fix it” and  “If I can’t see it, I can’t surgically correct it.” It’s critical to have a specific structural problem with matching symptoms before surgery becomes an option. Surgery: The Ultimate Placebo

I suggested that he take a look at the DOC website and I would be happy to explain the whole program to him in as much detail as needed. He was so angry that I didn’t think I’d hear from him again.

Early engagement

Over the next couple of months, I received a couple of emails and had a telephone conversation that seemed to go pretty well.  He was willing to engage in the DOC protocol and began some of the writing exercises. I had a second phone conversation with him a couple of weeks later that seemed to go even better. He was able to recognize that his thought of me “missing something that needed to be fixed” was an obsessive thinking pattern. I was encouraged and thought that maybe I had been able to break through his “story.”

Time went by and our third and final conversation was dismal. He couldn’t let go of the thought that “something was being missed” and that his seventh cervical vertebra was “out of alignment.” I assured him it was OK. As a surgeon, I am also quite obsessive about not missing problems that I can fix. At this point, it didn’t matter. He’d found a surgeon who was going to fuse his neck.

Injury conviction

Physicians use the term “injury conviction” to describe this phenomenon. It is the relentless pursuit of a cause for your symptoms that is well beyond reason. My concept has changed in that I feel this pattern of thinking becomes its own irrational set of neurological circuits. It is similar to phantom limb pain and my term is “phantom brain pain.” Regardless of whether the original source of pain is there, the symptoms are the same. Rational arguments have absolutely no effect.

Hell

I wrote a post Anxiety and Anger: The Highway to Hell. Unfortunately, if you’re in this pattern, you’re in Hell, and the only way out is through you. The deep tragedy is that if you don’t realize you’re in Hell, you’ll remain there. I never give up, but I have learned to let go when I can’t penetrate that firewall of obsessive thinking. For those of you that have let yourself out this hole, I am open to suggestions as to what gave you the insight to move forward. Awareness is the basis of the entire DOC process and is always the first step.

I don’t know how many more tests and surgeries he’ll undergo over the next 30 years. The personal cost to him and society will be enormous.

What’s puzzling is that if any of the surgeons who’d chosen to operate on this man’s essentially normal anatomy were examined by a board examiner about their indications for his surgeries, they’d be failed immediately for giving a “dangerous answer.” It’s our medical responsibility to you to not offer risky procedures that have been documented to be ineffective.

Video: “Get it Right the First Time”

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• Avoiding danger is what keeps us alive. Humans call this signal anxiety.
• Avoiding this sensation drives much of dysfunctional human behaviour. We know how to stay alive but not necessary thrive.
• Anxiety is a physiological reaction that is about a million times stronger than the conscious brain. It cannot be controlled.
• We can auto-regulate and redirect it. Addressing anxiety at the root physiological cause will solve many mental health problems.

Why is Anxiety Considered a Psychological Diagnosis?

Anxiety is simply a warning signal. Every form of life has a withdrawal/ avoidance response to real or perceived danger. All life forms, from one-celled organisms to humans respond with complex changes to optimize the odds of survival. This unconscious automatic reaction is powerful and has evolved to feel extremely unpleasant in higher life forms. It compels action to lessen the sensations. The species who did not pay attention to these danger signals, simply did not survive.

 Staying alive

When you sense danger, how do you feel – anxious? Although this a basic survival feeling, humans have the capacity to name it. It is the result of stress, threats, and life challenges, not the cause. Avoiding this sensation is the driving force behind much of human behavior, and seeking safety is necessary to store up reserves to fight another day.

What happens in your body that creates this sense of dread? The term is, “threat physiology.”

Threat physiology

Physiology is the term that refers to how your body functions. Your survival reactions are mostly unconscious, and about 40 million bits of information are processed per second. Our conscious brain deals with only about 40 bits per second. Your unconscious brain is a million times stronger than your conscious brain; the responses are hardwired and automatic, and the reason it is not subject to being controlled. However, it can be regulated and reprogrammed.

Examples of physiological actions are heart rate, blood pressure, blinking your eyes, acid-base balance, sweating, breathing, bowel and bladder function, hunger, and the list is almost endless.

These are some of drivers activating threat physiology.

• Stress hormones – adrenaline, noradrenaline, histamines – ready the body for fight and flee
• Cortisol – mobilize fuel (glucose) from tissues throughout your body.
• Glutamate – Neurotransmitters change from calming to excitatory to increase alertness and sensitivity to danger signals.
• Inflammatory cytokines (small molecules that transmit signals between cells) – the many aspects of the immune system kick into action.

Anxiety is a physiological state

This is a small fraction of actually what occurs in fight or flight physiology. Consider how you feel when your body is in this state. Here is a suggested word progression.

• Alert
• Nervous
• Afraid
• Angry
• Paranoid
• Terrorized

They fall under the umbrella of “anxiety” or “fear.” We will do almost anything to avoid this sensation resulting in many bad behaviors. Psychological diagnoses are ALL anxiety driven. The exceptions are in the positive psychology domain.

A paradigm shift

The way we view mental health must change. Here are some suggestions.

• Eliminate the word anxiety from the DSM coding system. It is the driving force and cause of poor mental and physical health.
• Most psychological diagnoses are descriptions of behaviors driven by the sensations created by threat physiology. Descriptions are less pejorative than labels (diagnoses).
• Substitute the word anxiety with the phrase, “activated threat physiology.”
• Anger is “hyperactived threat physiology.”

“Dynamic Healing”

The root cause of our mental health crisis is sustained threat physiology. There are many ways of lowering it and creating “cues of safety.” The model is called “Dynamic Healing” and is at the core of how medicine should be delivered. The portals are:

• The input – you can process your stresses so as to have less impact on your nervous system.
• The nervous system – the resiliency can be increased so it takes more stress to set off the flight or fight response.
• The output – your nervous systems takes in sensory input, summates them, and sends out signals of threat or safety. There are ways to directly dampen the threat response.

None of the approaches are difficult and require few resources. There are many clinicians in all medical fields that understand and are applying these approaches. It is just not happening on a wide enough scale.

There is no question that symptoms and behaviors must also be addressed while people heal. But if the root cause is not dealt with, their suffering will continue. Hence, the nationwide burden and fallout of poor chronic mental health continues to skyrocket.

Let’s do this!!

Our mental health crise reflects a lot of needless suffering as deep science has pointed the way to effective treatments for over 40 years. Most of clinical medicine is not connected to the data or is categorically ignoring it. It is certainly not being widely taught in medical school.

Where will the energy come from to wake us all up? It has to emanate from the public demanding better care because the business of medicine seems to have little interest in true change. It is the responsibility of the medical profession to honor the known data and implement what is already known.

The answers for our mental health crises are right in front of us if we just pay attention. Take your medical care and life back. It is your right.

The post There is an Answer to the Mental Health Crisis first appeared on Back in Control.

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• There are many different physical and mental symptoms that are possible when you are in sustained flight or fight physiology.
• At my lowest point, I was experiencing 17 of them. No one could tell me what was happening despite seeing many physicians. I suffered for over 15 years.
• The mental pain was the worst part of my ordeal.
• One reason this process has been effective for so many people was that I learned many important details from my own harsh experience.
• My symptoms resolved and I am grateful I can pass along the healing principles.

I was driving across a bridge late one night, when my heart began to suddenly pound at a furious pace. I couldn’t breathe. I was sweaty, light-headed, and I thought I was dying from a heart attack. I was only 37 years old. This was the first of many panic attacks I would have over the next two years. In one minute, I went from being a fearless spine surgeon to experiencing relentless, progressive anxiety. I wouldn’t emerge from this slow spiral into hell for 13 years. What happened and why so suddenly?

The beginning

My first migraine happened on the 4^th of July. I was five and excited because the local fireworks were being set off in the town commons, directly across the street from our house. But as the sun set, my head began to throb and by 10 o’clock I felt like I was being hit with a sledgehammer. The fireworks less than 100 yards away weren’t helpful.

This was the first of 17 symptoms of a stressed nervous system I developed over the next 50 years. My suffering included tinnitus, burning feet, prolonged tendonitis, insomnia, anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), major depression, migratory skin rashes, crushing chest pain, sweats, PTSD, back and neck pain, heart palpitations, light-headedness, and tension headaches. At my lowest point, I was experiencing all of them simultaneously.

The “perfect” family

My father was a family doctor in a small, New England town. He was highly respected and appreciated. My mother was active in many local activities. I was the oldest of four children, with two brothers and a sister. People would often comment on our  “beautiful family.” We were – from the outside.

Inside our house, my mother was in an intense rage most of the time. She was physically and verbally abusive to me and my three younger siblings. My father wasn’t around much, and he didn’t comprehend the full extent of the situation.Since this was all, we knew, we thought this was what life was supposed to be like.

Interestingly, one of the few things that would cut her anger short was one of my migraines. She would instantly become a loving and nurturing mother, placing cold compresses on my forehead, and keeping everyone quiet.

My new identity

When I entered high school, I felt a deep shift. I was increasingly aware that my family life was not ideal, and I decided that I had had enough. I “shut the door” on my past

Although I still lived at home, I mentally separated from the chaos. I embarked on a quest to create a new identity. I became an excellent student, trumpet player, hard worker, leader, and athlete. During my junior year in college, I took 18 to 21 hours of credit every quarter, worked construction 10-20 hours a week, played sports, had an active social life, ran for student body president, and pulled off a 4.0 GPA. I was having the time of my life. I wasn’t sleeping much.

I continued to graduate from medical school with honors and was accepted in a competitive orthopedic residency in Hawaii. With a great wife, a home in Hawaii, and a promising career, I thought I had it made. I was unaware that I was keeping busy to outrun my past and I had also become a master at suppressing unpleasant emotions.

I completed two years of internal medicine residency before I entered surgical training in Hawaii. Most orthopedic residents undergo a couple of years of general surgery residency before specializing and are comfortable in the operating room. I had never made a skin incision or even knew how to tie a knot. However, handling stress was such a core part my existence, I did not feel it. I was wrapped up in my identity of being “cool under pressure.”

I noticed that my feet burned while I was jogging, which I thought was due to the warm, Hawaiian pavement. My migraines were more frequent, and I had a reoccurrence of warts over both of my hands. One afternoon, while in a weekly orthopedic conference, I noticed some vivid, intrusive thoughts entering my mind. I didn’t think too much about it, but I felt a bit unsettled. Still, I was on top of the world, enjoying my family, learning, and living in a paradise.

Stress

The wheels started to come off when during my post-residency spine fellowship at one of the top programs in the world. It was not as physically demanding as the rest of my residency, but the expectations were extremely high. My migraines were occurring every other week, my ears started to ring, while my feet continued to burn. I pushed through it all.

My “iron man identity” continued to evolve. It seemed that I could handle an unlimited amount of stress. It was my badge of honor. The obstacles I encountered in private practice dwarfed any prior challenges in my training. I recall sitting at my desk one night after working yet another 14-hour day. A patient had developed a serious postoperative wound infection. Another one had gotten into a fight with a security guard. I discovered I wasn’t getting a paycheck that month because of the high office overhead. My mindset was, “ Bring it on.”

A few weeks later, I crashed with the panic attack.

It was only the beginning

Little did I know how severe these symptoms would become and how many more would occur. Skin rashes popped up and disappeared all over my body, my scalp itched, my nightmares became more intense, I had deep aching pains in my upper back, and intermittent crushing chest pain.

There were other terrible aspects of my ordeal. I am a social person and since I didn’t feel great, I quit spending as much time with my friends. The loneliness was crushing. No marriage could have survived all these untreated symptoms because I was often not in a great mood. I worked at hiding it from almost everyone.

As my family disintegrated, I descended into a full-blown obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I had the internal version, which is experiencing vivid intrusive thoughts, that I would then try to counter with “good” thoughts. I was in an endless, unwinnable battle and my thoughts progressed to disturbing impulses. Along with my many other symptoms, I was in bad shape. I then made the mistake of reviewing some articles on OCD and discovered that the prognosis was (and still is) poor. The best outcome would be to somehow manage or diminish the symptoms with medications or behavioral therapy. I became totally despondent. There was no escape and I sunk into a major suicidal depression. Still, no one could explain to me what was going on or how to solve it

Penetrating the facade

I now understand that major life changes, especially around family dynamics, create more stress and symptoms. The stresses can be positive or negative. The problem with major family events is that they penetrate the façade, and I had been working on mine for decades. A major shift in my symptoms occurred with the birth of my son. My divorce was disastrous. The burning in my feet increased to the point where they felt like they were in a toaster oven. The ringing in my ears was intolerable, I couldn’t sleep, all my other symptoms worsened, and the unrelenting anxiety was the worst part of my ordeal.

I pursued many self-help books, took medications, saw other physicians, underwent multiple diagnostic tests, and aggressively pursued psychotherapy and counseling. I was both open to anything and desperate.

I would’ve thought that meeting my current wife would have been the answer to my suffering. We had an instant connection and I fell in love – except it felt like I was falling off a cliff. I lost more control. When I mustered up the courage to tell her that I was in love with her, she thought I was going to tell her that I had terminal cancer. My suffering dramatically worsened, and I was beginning to seriously give up. No avenue of treatment was working. I had no hope.Slowly, things changed. I escaped the grip of chronic pain in 2003 and continued to gain a deeper understanding of the problem, as well as the principles behind the solutions.

Recap

One reason that the concepts presented in Back in Control  have been helpful for so many people is that they evolved from my prolonged suffering. Almost everything I tried failed, and when I experienced the faintest glimpse of a way out, I kept building on it, step-by-step. Not only I am I doing well, but I am thriving. It is my  privilege to share these strategies with you and be a witness to your healing journey.

Chronic pain has multiple manifestations. Each person has a different experience and must find their own way out. But contrary to common perception, chronic pain is a solvable problem. I am one of the success stories.

The post My Descent Into The Abyss first appeared on Back in Control.

The post My Descent Into The Abyss appeared first on Back in Control.

She was a healthy physically active rancher. Her low back pain started in the summer of 2005 after a lifting injury. The pain had become constant and was located throughout most of her back. She was still functioning at a fairly high level, in spite of the pain.

Her prior care

Jean’s care so far had consisted of six visits to physical therapy, and two sets of cortisone injections in her back, none of which had been helpful. She had not been prescribed a ongoing organized treatment plan. On her second visit to a spine surgeon, it was recommended that she undergo a eight-level fusion of her lower back from her 10^ththoracic vertebra to the pelvis. It is a six to eight-hour operation that carries significant risks.

Jean’s x-rays showed that she had a mild curvature of her lower back. Other imaging tests did not reveal any identifiable, structural source of pain. From my perspective as a scoliosis surgeon, I felt her spine was essentially normal for her age.

Instead, I felt that her pain was probably from the muscles and ligaments around the spine. The medical term that we use is myofascial. When an operation geared towards the bones, such a fusion, is done in the presence of mostly soft tissue pain, it rarely works. In addition to the risks, the entire lower back becomes a solid piece of metal and bone. This surgery should only be done if there are no other options. The procedure comes with long-term lifestyle limitations and she was still so active.

At this point, I was perplexed as to why surgery had been recommended when she had done so little rehabilitation. I also didn’t understand why she was continuing to experience such severe ongoing back pain without any obvious cause.

What was missing?

I consulted her spine intake questionnaire to look for clues.

It revealed that she’d had some marital difficulties and had just reconciled with her husband six months earlier. That immediately caught my attention because marital troubles usually indicate significant stress. She then said her job had become much more difficult. Although she worked for the same employer, they had forced her to switch duties without adequate training. She was worried about not only her performance, but also her ability to keep her job – another major problem.

I turned the page. A month before her pain began, her twenty-six-year old son had drowned. I knew that outside stressors played a role in chronic pain, but this factor had never been so powerfully demonstrated. Her case really brought home for me how crucial it was to take a full view of the patient’s life and circumstances, instead of just looking at surgical solutions.

As I sat there stunned, I realized that I needed to do something different. In fact, the whole medical profession needed to do something different. How could a surgeon have recommended a fusion without taking the time to get to know Jean and to hear her circumstances? I have always wondered if she went through with the surgery, but I never heard from her again.

From that moment, some form of structured rehabilitation became my focus with every patient, without exception. I have not taken my eyes off of that vision since that day.

The post My Call to Action first appeared on Back in Control.

The post My Call to Action appeared first on Back in Control.

Chronic mental and physical disease are connected by a common root cause – stress. How and why?

Stress (threat) creates chemical (physiological) changes in your body (fight or flight), which creates mental and physical symptoms. When you are subjected to chronic stress, the ongoing inflammation and increased fuel consumption (metabolism) breaks your body down. Hence, you’ll eventually develop illnesses and disease.

Stress kills

It is well-documented that stress kills. The Holmes-Rahe stress scale was developed in the early 1960’s with points assigned to life events – both positive and negative. If your score was 300 or more, there was an 80% chance of developing a major illness within two years.¹ I have a close friend that I took the test with recently. His score was 463. Guess what? He developed cancer in his spine.

Bruce Lipton is a developmental biologist who stepped out of academic medicine in 1993 because what he was observing in the lab did not conform to the standard thinking in mainstream medicine. He understood that all life is possible because living organisms were able to transform energy into functional forms. Atoms, the building blocks of life and substance consist mostly of space and are powerful energy fields. Biologists embraced the role of quantum physics in biology in 1927, but mainstream medicine has been slow to adapt. His views have not historically been well-received, but it turns out that he was not only right but was decades ahead of his time.

Beliefs and your body

He is the best-selling author of The Biology of Belief. His work is now well-documented regarding the effects that beliefs exert on your body’s physiology. Negative belief systems fire up the fight or flight response and keeps it there. The common link to chronic mental and physical disease is sustained threat physiology and healing happens when you are in safety. Here is a small sampling of some data that supports this perspective.

• Dantzer in 2018² published a review on resilience. He documented the effects of stress on inflammatory molecules called cytokines. There are four factors that lower inflammation.
  • Optimism/ Hope
  • Sense of control
  • Positive outlook/ vision
  • Sense of social connection and community

Notice that when suffering from chronic mental or physical pain that all these factors are compromised – badly.

• Cole in 2007³ documented that chronic stress and social isolation caused the production of aggressive monocytes that he called, “warrior monocytes.” These are white blood cells that attack foreign bodies such as viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells. But these monocytes also attack your own tissues.
• Lisa Feldman-Barrett runs a large neuroscience lab in New England. She has documented that thoughts and consciousness become embedded in our brains as concretely as any object.⁴ So, each person views the world completely differently regarding threats vs safety and body’s coping resources are also infinitely unique. It doesn’t matter if the threat is real or perceived. If your perception of a situation doesn’t match the reality, you’ll have a stress response and your beliefs have to adjust for similar scenarios in the future.
• Note on the Holmes-Rahe stress scale that most of the stresses are not physical. They are real because they are events for which your body has to mobilize resources to deal with them. Unfortunately, perceived stress also causes your body to be activated.
• Consider ACE (Adverse Childhood Events) scores. The score is a rough measure of childhood trauma and higher scores cause inflammatory markers to remain elevated for decades.⁵ When you are raised in an abusive environment, you are programmed to see much of the world as dangerous, and that doesn’t change unless you thoughtfully reprogram your responses.
• Systemic chronic inflammation (SCI) is a state of inflammation that cannot be measured by blood tests.⁶ The problem arises from the breakdown of small structures in each cell called mitochondria. They are the engines whose chemical reactions create the energy of life. The “fuel” leaks outside the cell and is highly inflammatory. Over 50% of all deaths and diseases are caused by SCI. Chronic stress is one of the drivers.
• Pain reprocessing therapy (PRT) is a process where patients’ fears and beliefs about their pain are acknowledged and connected to the actual experience. Patients are reassured that the nature of the pain or problem isn’t dangerous, and then gently taken through a process of reassurance while performing actions that would normally cause pain. By feeling safe while engaging in activities they considered risky, they are able to calm down, feel safe, and the pain decreases or resolves most of the time.⁷ Again, the structure of their body hasn’t changed, it is their beliefs about it.

Why did Bruce and David team up?

It is clear that anxiety and anger are hard-wired automatic reactions that we have not control over. Bruce has pointed out that you might as well have a conversation with the hard drive of your computer. But he has pointed out for a while that you can reprogram them.

I have been on this course of action for a while but have not stated it as clearly as Bruce. I have seen so many “hopeless” patients heal that I am convinced that you can reprogram your brain around almost anything. Our brains are incredibly adaptable.⁸

Getting there

The DOC Journey course and app take you through a sequence that first teaches tools to calm down your nervous system, helps understand the principles of healing chronic disease, presents the problem of anxiety being the pain, explores awareness, teaches anger processing strategies, emphasizes repetition, and then helps you visualize and act on building your future.

The final answer to chronic mental and physical pain is shifting into joy, and where Bruce presents a wonderful picture of what that looks like.⁸ A significant aspect is programming in this outlook. We both agree that positive thinking can’t and doesn’t work. The DOC Journey course and app present practical strategies to achieve the state of consciousness that allows us to not only heal but thrive. Once you flip your beliefs to the future you want, your brain and life will follow, and it will become your reality.

Bruce and I created this four-part video series along with a lesson plan that presents an overview of the healing journey as well as suggestions how to start. We are excited about them in that we did not realize how close we were in our thinking until we made these videos. We hope you enjoy them and welcome to your new life.

References

1. Holmes TH, Rahe RH. The Social Readjustment Rating Scale.J Psychosom Res(1967); 11:213–8. doi:1016/0022-3999(67)90010-4
2. Dantzer R, et al. Resilience and immunity. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (2018); 74:2842. https://doi.orgl/10/1016/j.bbi.2018.08.010
3. Cole SW, et al. Social Regulation of gene expression in human leukocytes. Genome Biology (2007); 8:R189. doi: 10.1186/gb-2007-8-9-r189

4. Feldman Barrett, Lisa. How Emotions are Made. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, NY, 2017.
5. Dube, SR, et al. Cumulative childhood stress and autoimmune diseases in adults. Psychosomatic Medicine (2009); 7:243-250.
6. Furman D, et al. Chronic Inflammation in the etiology of diseases across the life span. Nature Medicine (2019); 25:1822-1832.
7. Ashar YK, et al. Effect of pain reprocessing therapy vs placebo and usual care for patients with chronic back pain. JAMA Psychiatry (2021); Published online 9/29/2021.
8. Lipton, Bruce. The Biology of Belief. Hay House, Los Angeles, CA, 2016.

The post Connecting the past and present to the future – Bruce Lipton and David Hanscom first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Connecting the past and present to the future – Bruce Lipton and David Hanscom appeared first on Back in Control.

“Don’t turn the ball over!”

Which brings us to the Golden State Warriors, who have become an NBA basketball dynasty. There are many facets to winning a game, involving strategies and skills that are well beyond my comprehension. However, one aspect of winning is minimizing the number of times you turn the ball over. Each time you turn the ball over, you open the door to making a bad pass or having the ball stolen by the opposing team. But it also involves a different energy than free throws, shooting, conditioning, and ball handling. There are many factors causing ball turnover; it always means less control.

The Warriors are legendary for their ability to move the ball around quickly, and you would expect a higher number of turnovers. It was a topic prompting discussion in multiple public forums, and decreasing turnovers must have been a focus of the team. However, something I read in the newspaper one day caught my attention: The Warriors had decided to quit worrying about turnovers and just play.

It was inspiring to watch their performance improve. Not long after, they went on to win the NBA championship.

Their experience is a classic example of “the ironic effect.” Trying not to think of something not only causes you to think about it more, but it also sets off a documented trampoline effect, you’ll think about it a lot more. Focusing on the highest level of performance is much different than “not trying to make mistakes.”

Skiing “not to lose”

My son is a world-class mogul skier and won the Junior Nationals championship in dual moguls two years in a row. He then hit many rough spots, including multiple significant injuries. One of them was a high-speed fall than caused his left shoulder to dislocate. He was moving so fast that he thought he was going to die as he hit the snow and narrowly missed a tree. He lost some of his edge of being infallible. He didn’t quit; he began skiing, “not to lose.” Of course, at that level, you also can’t win. His efforts to improve kept getting sabotaged in spite of an incredible commitment to conditioning and practice. In the midst of a few more injuries, including nine concussions, he really struggled.

He engaged the expertise of an athletic performance coach, David Elaimy, with an emphasis on connecting with one moment at time and visualizing what he wanted to accomplish. He also understood the powerful effects of expressive writing, writing down thoughts then destroying the paper they’re written on. It is the one exercise that breaks up the need for mental control, which is the driving force behind the ironic effect and repetitive thought patterns.¹

As he stood at the starting gate for his last attempt at qualifying for the U.S. ski team, my son carved in the snow  the word, “fail” with his ski pole, then trusted himself to execute what he already knew how to do—ski at the highest level. He went on to ski the best run of his life and qualified for a shot at the Olympic Freestyle team. For other reasons, a skier who finished below him was chosen for the team. But he did it. He broke through and performed to his potential under extreme pressure.

What does this have to do with pain?

There are two separate but tightly linked areas of expertise involved in resolving mental and physical pain.

One is learning how to process stress by developing a “working relationship” with your powerful survival fight-or-flight response. By learning the tools to stop fighting it, you can place your attention on what you want to accomplish.

The other is learning to nurture yourself and actively create the life you want. Few of us have been taught these skills.Your nervous system and body’s physiology will shift from an activated defensive state to that of safety, with profound benefits to your mental and physical health.

Winning is not the same as “not losing”

By trying “not to turn the ball over,” your powerful unconscious brain is trying to help with that effort, but it is also taking attention and energy away from what you desire. Focusing on what you want to accomplish is a more effective way of enjoying your life.

I have no idea whether the Warrior’s coaching staff was aware the ironic effect. I am even not sure whether turnovers dropped much. But the switch likely allowed them to focus more attention on execution.

Successfully dealing with ironic effect has a major influence on people’s quality of life. I have witnessed hundreds of people heal. that way. Deep healing cannot occur while you are in a sustained defensive mode, in fight or flight. Life is meant to be more than just surviving. Becoming a “professional” at living your life allows you spend less time feeling stressed, and decreases your exposure to fight or flight physiology. To win, you must practice winning.

References

1. Wegener DM. The Seed of Our Undoing. Psychological Science Agenda (1999)/ 10-11.
2. Wegener, D.M., et al. Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1987); 53: 5-13.

The post The Golden State Warriors and the “Ironic Effect” first appeared on Back in Control.

The post The Golden State Warriors and the “Ironic Effect” appeared first on Back in Control.