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.

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My wife, Babs, and stepdaughter, Jasmine, and I have done these workshops together since 2013. Each year, we are energized and inspired by the shifts in mood, outlook, and physical symptoms that occur within a just few days. We have been perplexed for years why this is such a consistent outcome and the last few years of neuroscience research has now explained what happens. It revolves around experiencing threat versus safety.

Fight or flight/ rest and digest

Any mental or physical threat, real or perceived, fires up your body’s flight or fight response through the sympathetic nervous system. The reaction includes stress hormones, inflammation, and elevated metabolism (fuel consumption); and you are on alert, anxious, and agitated. If the perception of danger is prolonged, then your body will respond with many different symptoms and often illness. Chronic stress (threat) keeps you in this heighted state and has been documented in many studies to be deadly. (1)

The essence of the solution lies in finding safety, which creates a “rest and digest” state that allows you to regenerate, drop inflammation, and slow down your metabolism; you feel relaxed with less pain. There are many ways to induce this state of safety. The workshop creates an atmosphere that allows this to happen. Dr. Robert Dantzer and several other researchers wrote an extensive review looking at the interaction of social factors influencing inflammation (pain) and how the inflammatory condition impacts your behaviors. (2) The main ones with most impact are:

• Social connection
• Positive affect (emotional state)
• Sense of control
• Optimism/ Hope

These workshops address all these issues and each of them is calming and directly anti-inflammatory communicated through the Vagus nerve (10^th cranial nerve). Dr. Stephen Porges, through his research and writing on the Polyvagal theory, has nicely laid out the afferent input into the midbrain and its efferent output allows safe human interaction. (3)

Social Connection

There are few times and places where you can feel safe with others. Life is competitive and it’s challenging to get a break. School has many layers of stress. Bullying is rampant. Close friends often turn on each other. Social media has intruded on privacy and quiet time. Research has shown that only about a third of families are relatively free of chaos. Other stressful arenas include sports, music, the arts, employment, and social status. Where’s there a place to rest?

We quickly realized that we didn’t have to do much after we set up the weekend. Participants in a safe and structured setting healed each other. It was also a remarkable experience for us being in the presence of those who are so supportive of each other. Oxytocin is a bonding hormone that is secreted in safe and social situations and is anti-inflammatory.

Positive affect/ play

The  weekend is also focused on re-connecting people with each other by sharing enjoyable experiences. Many of the activities are held in small groups of four or five. Participants can feel safe and it’s remarkable how quickly healing occurs. Much of the weekend is spent in play, which is a great venue to feel safe.

Babs and Jasmine are important contributors by leading you in rhythm, song, relaxation exercises, and sharing.

 Sense of control (The “ring of fire”)

There are many tools that allow you to regulate your own body’s neurochemistry and responses to threats. Just this sense of control is anti-inflammatory. Additionally, understanding the nature of chronic mental and physical pain will enable you to personalize solutions.

Awareness of your current state of being is the first step and we use a tool called, “The Ring of Fire.” Being aware of which color you are in at the moment, allows you to choose your direction. The green center is where you rest and regenerate. Blue is “life.” The red ring of anxiety and frustration is an inherent part of life that must be navigated skillfully. The goal is to be able to exist in any part of the “circle of life” on your own terms.

Hope/ optimism

People in chronic pain lose hope. The loss of hope contributes to the actual pain by increasing inflammation by speeding up nerve conduction. We will be sharing many stories of hope with the group. Regaining hope is powerful.

Comments from prior classes

“I’m still high from the weekend. And off all pain meds (even Advil) after 10 years on opioids…………..    Interesting how the class responded to my hooping (hula hoop). I can see Babs and Jaz doing a session, maybe a half-hour?  What do you think? Neuroplasticity, endorphins, fun!  Whether people catch on right away or not, laughter will be a result.  It could take practice, just like learning the cup song.  And for any resistant males, emphasize that it will improve their sex lives!”

“The program has been enormously helpful, and I can only conclude that it’s helping me to live in a more authentic way, which I feel makes my unconscious happy! I think when you have an abusive parent you have to suppress your feelings so much that suppression, avoidance and denial become your coping mechanisms. But as you know, it’s no way to live your life.

It’s possible I may still need surgery eventually, but if so, I feel that thanks to following the program, I’d be able to do it in a conscious and aware manner. Before, I felt very strongly that It would be a mistake.”

“………….  My family and co-workers are amazed at my progress. I am especially committed to no longer talking about my pain and to writing on a regular basis. I am getting (have gotten) my life back!”

Several commented, “I feel like I just spent a weekend away at camp.”

Reconnection to you

We have always been aware that when returning home, the pain will recur. But tasting freedom from pain is powerful. Every cell in your body is created to survive and thrive. If you allow yourself to be open to possibilities, it is a matter of time before you find your way to healing. Many participants have leveraged these workshops to a more enjoyable life.

References:

1. Rosengren A, Orth-Gomer K, Wedel H, Wilhelmsen L. 1993 Stressful life events, social support, and mortality in men born in 1933. Br. Med. J (1993); 307:1102–1105.
2. Dantzer R, et al. Resilience and immunity. Brain Behav Immun (2018); 74:28-42. doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2018.08.010
3. Porges, Steven. The Polyvagal Theory. Norton and Co., New York, NY, 2011.

Ffvb

through the Vagus nerve (10^th cranial nerve).

The post Experiencing Safety: Solving Chronic Pain: An Immersive Weekend Retreat first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Experiencing Safety: Solving Chronic Pain: An Immersive Weekend Retreat appeared first on Back in Control.

He defines resilience as, the process that allows individuals to adapt to adverse conditions and recover from them. Stress susceptible individuals have a different immune system profile than that of resilient individuals. He reviews the four most notable factors that affect resiliency and therefore the reactivity of the immune system. It is desirable for the immune system to quickly respond to an acute threat and equally important for it to quickly calm down. In fact, short-term stresses enhance immune function. But chronic psychological stress tends to suppress the immune response.

The psychological factors are:

• Positive affect – “can do” attitude
• Personal control
• Optimism
• Social support

It works both ways

Although, being exposed to chronic threats is problematic, how you process them is critical. One study showed that a positive affect (happiness, joy, excitement, enthusiasm, and contentment) predicted better self-rated health than hunger, shelter, and safety. (2). A classic example is the story of Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who found a way to thrive in the midst of the horrors of a concentration camp. He relates this incredible experience in his autobiography, Man’s Search for Meaning. (3)

Social connection was shown to counteract increased mortality in men over 50 exposed to high levels of stress over a seven-year period. (4)

It also works the other way around. When the immune system is chronically activated it can induce many unpleasant reactions. The brain is also compromised of glial cells that support the neurons and also throw off small proteins called cytokines. Under threat, inflammatory cytokines are produced that sensitize the nervous system. The inflammation can induce some of the physical manifestations of depression such as poor appetite, fatigue, and insomnia. Eventually, thinking capacity is affected. The immune system directly affects the psychological state of the person and the psychological state affects the immune system.

He also reviews the role of diet on the microbiome of the gut and poor-quality diet reduces resilience and is a risk factor for major depression. (1)

These are just a few points from his extensive review paper regarding the relationship between a person’s ability to adapt to adversity affecting the immune response but also the state of the immune response affecting the capacity to effectively deal with adversity.

You can retrain your brain

The good news is that a person can be trained to be more resilient in all of these domains. The DOC Journey is one program that presents a framework that allows participants to systematically address each of these areas.

• Sense of personal control – learning tools to regulate your body’s stress response is powerful.
  • For healing to occur, you must take control of your own care – and life.
  • You must quit blaming – period. There are no shortcuts to this step.
  • Knowledge is power and allows more control over your decisions.
  • Learning organizational tools enables you to execute your plans based on your vision.
• Positive affect
  • Positive thinking is problematic in that you are just suppressing negative thinking. If something is unpleasant, there is no benefit in pretending otherwise. However, a positive outlook focuses your brain on where you want to go and is a core aspect of the program.
  • Look at obstacles as challenges as an opportunity to practice your skills rather than viewing yourself as a victim.
  • “Do” instead of “try”
• Optimism
  • By understanding the nature of the problem and the principles behind the solution bring a tremendous amount of hope back into a person’s life. Being stuck in chronic pain without any idea how to navigate your way out is possibly one of the worse experiences of the human condition. It is ironic that being in The Abyss of pain is inflammatory and physically exacerbates the pain.
• Social connection
  • Group sessions have been the hallmark of The DOC Journey since 2013. We quickly noticed the healing power of a group in where you can share and feel safe. We have been excited in that our twice-weekly virtual sessions have been as effective as our in-person workshops. We have historically been perplexed why this has been the case but have learned that oxytocin (social bonding hormone) is strongly anti-inflammatory. Other hormones such as dopamine (rewards), serotonin (anti-depressant), growth hormone, and GABA chemicals (anti-anxiety) also create a profound sense of safety and contentment.

The video below is a compilation created from the experiences of some of our participants in our weekly group sessions. I am continually inspired by their persistence and determination to keep moving forward. Sharing in a safe environment is powerful. I have personally benefited and have greatly enjoyed getting to know this group.

The DOC Journey Q&A – The Power of Social Connection

References:

1. Dantzer R, et al. Resilience and immunity. Brain Behav Immun (2018); 74:28-42. doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2018.08.010
2. Pressman SD, Gallagher MW, Lopez SJ, 2013 Is the emotion-health connection a “first-world problem”? Psychol. Sci (2013);24:544–549.
3. Frankl V. Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1959, 1962, 1984, 1992, 2006.
4. Rosengren A, Orth-Gomer K, Wedel H, Wilhelmsen L. 1993 Stressful life events, social support, and mortality in men born in 1933. Br. Med. J (1993); 307:1102–1105.

The post The Bidirectional Interaction between Resilience and Your Immune System first appeared on Back in Control.

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Chronic pain is solvable using your own tools

I have since met her and have stayed in contact with her. She did slide back into fairly severe chronic pain for almost a year. We began to work together over the phone, and she reconnected with the tools that pulled her out of The Abyss the first time. Over the last year, she has thrived, reconnected with her friends and family and it has been inspiring watching her persistence in spite of many odds against her.

The most difficult challenge I face is convincing the world that chronic pain is not a problem just to be managed. It is predictably solvable by learning and using tools to calm down and redirect your nervous system. These skills are not difficult to master and they allow you to feel safe, which has a dramatic effect on your body’s chemistry and improves the function of all your organ systems. One is that the speed of nerve conduction is slowed and pain diminishes or disappears. (1)

I was given the “gift” of suffering, although I would choose not to go through it over again. I essentially lost 15 years of my life. The benefit, however, is that I am able to thrive at a level I never knew was possible. That is also the experience of most people who break loose from chronic pain. They are able to experience more joy, which is truly unexpected. So, I am happy and honored that my story is able to help many people living in so much misery.

Her recent letter

I’ve been trying to figure out what about your book changed my life in coping with chronic pain and many other things forever. When a doctor, (pain specialist at Group Health at the time) handed me a prescription with Back in Control written on it and said, “Buy this book.” I thought it was strange. But why not, what did I have to lose? I’d tried everything else under the sun. I shudder when I see the opioid overdoses and epidemic ads on TV because at one time I was taking several of those drugs simultaneously even though they barely took the edge off.  I worked, drove a car, lived and didn’t kill anyone. I have that, and so much more, for which I am very grateful. I am proud that I weaned myself off all those heavy narcotics and am grateful I never stopped searching for answers or lost my persistence in the face of such pain.

What was it about your book that was different? After all I had read hundreds of self-help books covering everything from secular advice to spiritual guidance and nothing worked beyond the time I was reading it. The first thing that comes to my mind is; this is the first book I ever read that validated me. This book talked about all the symptoms I had and more.  I didn’t have to explain my pain and frustration, because you already knew what I was hopelessly suffering through every day. The book was written from the same perception I had, by someone who had suffered in many of the same ways I did, AND the writer is a surgeon. How can this be? Someone, a doctor was saying my pain was real! I was reading a book that not only acknowledged my pain was real; it gave me real hope that I could get better (not cured) because you had already paved the road for me with your own experiences and research.

Your book has taught me how to deal with many wonderful things beyond the physical pain. Because of your bravery to be open and honest about your own abyss, I have trusted you enough to open up my journey into the abyss and look at things which I have been in denial about all my life. You have written about Anger repeatedly. I did not want to hear that anger could be a problem for me, but you provided enough trust for me to accept that this was probably my biggest problem, and has stood my way to achieving peace all my life. Thank you. The moment I accepted the Anger, the pain and the emotional scars started melting away like magic.

I look forward to Mondays, as I know I will have your newest blog to inspire me. As I have said many times, I love your ‘blue words’ (I know they are links) I just like to refer to them as the blue words. The bonuses in your blue words make me feel as if I can open them and dig deeper and deeper into more knowledge, with every new blue word I click. Thanks for including Dr. Schubiner’s Lecture #8 in your latest blog.

Lastly, but not the least by any means, your generosity in sharing your own experiences and the endless amount of research you have done makes a big difference in what you teach.  I can never say thank you enough.

You can use any part or all of this thank you note for shared stories if you feel it could benefit. I just wanted to say thank you. God bless you and your work, Carol

My thoughts

People look at me now and can’t fathom the depth of despair I was in. I am not only free of pain but I am deeply connected to life and enjoying myself. I did suffer for over 15 years with severe chronic pain that included over a dozen physical symptoms. The last seven years bordered on intolerable. I came out of it by accident and did not understand what happened for several years. Gradually, I was able to put it together and the recent neuroscience research has clearly delineated the problem along with the solutions.

From my perspective, the reason why the DOC process has been so effective, is because I did figure it out on my own through trial and error (and truly mostly error). I know clearly what was not effective and that each person is unique with a different pathway out of pain.

This book will organize your thinking around pain, figure out your own solutions, and will allow you to connect to your own capacity to heal. There is no beginning or end and I am still on a daily ongoing journey, which includes ongoing coaching. It is by bringing the concepts into the many specific aspects of your life, that will change and rewire your brain.

Open Question and Answer session–Weekdays at noon (Pacific Time) 

So, I hold an open question and answer session every Tuesday and Thursday at noon Pacific Time for about an hour. It is helpful to hear other people’s stories and what approaches have helped. You can just click on this link and you will directly enter the meeting. Feel free to ask questions and share, but there is also a lot of benefit from just listening. Like Carol pointed out, hope is a big factor in healing and has also been validated in research. (2)

1. Chen X, et al. “Stress enhances muscle nociceptor activity in the rat.” Neuroscience (2011); 185: 166–173.
2. Meevissen YMC, et al. Become more optimistic by imagining a best possible self: Effects of a two week intervention. J. Behav. Ther. & Exp. Psychiat (2011); 42: 371-378.

The post What Makes Your Book Different? first appeared on Back in Control.

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