• When stresses overwhelm the coping capacity of your nervous system, your body will go into flight or fight physiology.
• You have choices regarding what you input into your nervous system.
• If your attention dwells on disturbing topics, you’ll remain agitated, which fires up the physiology of your whole body.
• You may not be aware of the many ways you’re continually keeping your physiology fired up.

Anger and anxiety are words that describe agitated physiological states and are sensations generated by your body’s response to threats. When states of agitation are sustained, your body’s physiology causes physical damage to your tissues, sensitizes your perception of sensory input, and detracts from your capacity to enjoy life. Mental and physical pain will also increase. To some degree, you are in charge of the information going into your nervous system, and what you choose to input into your nervous system will affect your body’s chemistry (output).

What are you choosing to input?

Living creatures stay alive by scanning their environment and interpreting the resulting sensory input to determine whether a situation is safe or dangerous. Your nervous system coordinates your body’s internal and external responses to adapt and move on. Much of this process of adaptation involves your autonomic nervous system, which regulates your internal organs and the makeup of your body’s chemistry. When you feel threatened, your body reacts by upping its rate of energy consumption (preparing to fight or flee) and kindling inflammation (putting the immune system on guard against wounds). When this physiological state is sustained, you have a significant chance of becoming ill, as you are consuming resources to surivive.¹

Humans have the additional input of consciousness. Any threatening thoughts or concepts will cause your body to go into fight or flight. Consider the various ways we upset ourselves that we have conscious choices about. Simply recognizing the effects and choosing different calming input can significantly change your body’s physiology to a healing state of safety.

UNSOLVABLE PROBLEMS

A common means of becoming and remaining upset is focusing on situations that we have no control over. It is an effective way of maintaining an unpleasant physiological threat state. Dr. Fred Luskin, director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project and author of Forgive for Good,² has a term called, “the unenforceable rules.” His point is that it is fine to wish people would behave in a better manner, but you can’t control other’s behavior; especially at a societal level. It is easy to complain about politics, abuses in almost every arena of life, the unequal distribution of wealth, human trafficking, blatant misuse of power, the educational system, and bullying.  There are endless societal problems to be upset about, and it is a deeply justified reaction.

When these unpleasant thoughts rise to the level that you are reacting to them, you are consuming energy that you could otherwise use to actually make a difference in your own sphere of influence. Unfortunately, when you are agitated, your inflammatory markers are elevated,³ which increases the speed of nerve conduction;⁴ the brain is sensitized, and any pain will be magnified.

Here is a letter from a person who has been suffering from chronic pain for many years.

…… violence in nature is difficult for me, but human cruelty to others is incredibly upsetting. I have been this way since childhood. I am very sensitive, and I almost do not feel at home on this planet. I feel wired and tired at the same time.

Her outlook is understandable, and I think most people feel this way. However, she is “wired and tired” from being in a sustained flight or fight state.

Healing occurs only by stimulating your physiology to move into a state of safety. and It is almost impossible to accomplish while remaining agitated about situations you have no control over.

COMPLAINING

Another way we  remain agitated is by complaining, engaging in malicious gossiping, being judgmental, and giving unasked-for advice. How can this input bring your body’s physiology into that of feeling safe? When you are suffering from chronic pain, your overall life outlook may be clouded, and these behaviors may become more frequent. Although you have legitimate issues to be upset about, you are also reinforcing unpleasant neurological circuits in your brain. A better alternative is choosing to place your attention on more functional or more positive neurological circuits.

WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING?

What about what we choose to watch? Violent movies and video games fire up your nervous system and consequently your whole body. You have to ask yourself why would you choose to do this to yourself? It is a surefire way of being in a heightened state of flight or fight. Unfortunately, with repetition, it may become normalized, and you may not appreciate your body being in this state, although it has detrimental effects on your mental and physical health.

THE NEWS

Another behavior to consider is how much time do you spend watching the news? It goes without saying that most newsis upsetting. Although it is fine and important to have a feel for current events that affect our daily lives, watching the news for hours is counterproductive. You are sedentary (exercise is anti-inflammatory)⁵ and you are not viewing material that is creating a sense of relaxation and peace.

Moving forward

Understanding the effects of what you are inputting into your nervous system is important in calming it down. Initially, they may be so ingrained that you can’t see them or the effects they are having on the quality of your life. It takes practice to notice and is also challenging to change. How much of your life has been consumed by them. Are they productive?

You may notice that as you back away from these activities, you may feel more anxious, as you are less distracted. Anxiety is unpleasant and it takes practice to learn to tolerate it. Eventually, as you quit fighting this sensation, it will be less powerful and integrated into your daily life. It is a stepwise process and a learned skill.

Quit upsetting yourself

Here are some suggestions regarding changing your input in order to quiet down your threat physiology.

• Create a list of societal issues that are deeply upsetting to you. Feel how enormous and terrible these problems are. Express your feelings on paper – and tear it up. This can be done repeatedly. Paradoxically, you have more energy to take action in some domain you have a say in.
• Stop engaging in the following activities:
  • Watching violent movies or playing intense video games
  • Complaining about the states of various world affairs that are particularly upsetting to you.
  • Complaining about anything. If you can’t do something constructive, don’t spend time with it.
  • Giving unasked-for-advice or being verbally critical. Consider how you feel when someone does this to you. Both parties are on the defensive, social connection is compromised, and your nervous systems are fired up.
  • Malicious gossiping. Consider why are you engaging in it? You are in a small or big way, robbing a person of his or her reputation. You certainly are not creating a sense of peace and safety.
  •  Spending long periods of time watching the news. Limit yourself to maybe 30 minutes a day or just skim the daily headlines.

Become a light

Your individual contribution to the human experience lies in creating positive changes in yourself and being available to others you care about.  However, you can’t reach out if you are consumed by pain and frustration. You may be so deeply involved in dealing with the negatives of the human condition that it may not seem possible to be any other way. But you have a choice.

Not only is a constructive mindset —not to be confused with mindless positive thinking—attainable, it is possible in the worst of circumstances.

Exhibit A is Man’s Search for Meaning , written by Viktor Frankl,⁶ an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the WWII concentration camps. He bore witness to the worst horrors of the human experience, lost much of his family, and still found meaning and purpose in the midst of extreme suffering. The question he kept asking was, “What is life asking of me now?” Few of us could pull this off, but he demonstrated it could be done. Keeping perspective on a given day when the challenges seem unsurmountable is in sharp contrast to feeling like a victim.

The Swerve  by Stephen Greenblatt⁷ tells the story set in the mid-15^th century of the discovery of an ancient Greek manuscript. Greenblatt defined “The Swerve” as an event that is so significant that it altered the course of human history. The manuscript written in 60 BC contained the poem, The Nature of Things by Lucretius. Somehow, Lucretius figured out that matter was made up of particles called, “atoms.” The Church realized that if this was widely known, that there was a more powerful force than their authority, they would lose their hold on the population. Indeed, after this poem was discovered, it seemed to be a factor in ushering humanity out of the Dark Ages.

The most remarkable aspect of Lucretius’ poem is that he concluded, even while living in the midst of the misery and brutality of ancient times, that all each person can and should do is to live a full, rich, and meaningful life.

Both of these books drive home that the world—then and now—is full of extreme suffering. It is easy to become focused on what is wrong or we can step up and do what we can to alleviate it. Living life with sense of purpose improves your quality of life and contributes to happiness.⁸ It also pulls you out of threat physiology and allows you to refuel and regenerate.

Recap

Healing from chronic illness requires your body to be in a state of safety. You can’t heal while consuming your body’s resources while in threat. In a way, accomplishing this by carefully avoiding upsetting input is the easiest aspect of solving your chronic mental and physical pain.

Awareness of the effects of various inputs is the starting point. Then becoming more aware of the numerous ways you engage in these activities is important. As you use your brain’s survival circuits less and nurture more pleasurable ones, you will be able to experience a more gratifying life. To have a good life, you must live a good life.

 References

1. Smyth J, et al. Stress and disease: A structural and functional analysis. Social and Personality Psychology Compass (2013); 7/4217-227. 10.1111/spc3.12020
2. Luskin, Fred. Forgive for Good. Harper Collins, New York, NY, 2003.
3. Shields GS, et al. Psychosocial interventions, and immune system function. JAMA Psychiatry (2020); doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.0431
4. Chen X, et al. Stress enhances muscle nociceptor activity in the rat. Neuroscience (2011); 185: 166-173. Evans, Patricia. Verbal Abuse: Survivors Speak Out. Avon Media Corporation, Avon, MA, 1993.
5. Sallis R, et al. Physical inactivity is associated with a higher risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes: a study in 48440 adult patients. Br J Sports Med (2021); 0:1-8. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2021-104080
6. Frankl, Viktor. Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1959.
7. Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve. Norton and Co., New York, NY, 2011.
8. 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

The post Tune Your Nervous System and Lower Anxiety – You have the controls first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Tune Your Nervous System and Lower Anxiety – You have the controls appeared first on Back in Control.

• Processing anger is more doable if it is broken down into its components.
• Anger is a powerful, necessary, and hard wired survival reflex. You cannot tame it with the conscious brain.
• It is an acquired skill that requires ongoing “adult education” in order to refine it.
• Framing the approaches in terms of an “anger academy” will help you rethink the complexity of anger and enable you to deal with its parts in a focused manner.
• Developing a “working relationship with anger” is your degree.
• It an expertise that you will be using daily indefinitely.

Anxiety is the sensation you feel when you sense real or perceived danger and anger represents a more intense reaction when you can’t solve the threat. They are hard-wired responses that are present in every living creature and sustain life. The only way to lower them is to decrease your levels of the stress hormones, inflammatory markers, and metabolism (rate of fuel consumption). You cannot reason with or control the flight or fight response. It is as effective as talking to the hard drive of your computer – can’t work. Consciousness elicits the same threat physiology, but you can’t escape it. Consider how much of your life’s energy is consumed by battling these unpleasant emotions.

There are two distinct aspects of deep healing.

• Learning tools to neutralize and lower these survival reactions
• Placing your energies and attention on creating the life you want.

Healing occurs as you move into wellness and away from the pain circuits. What doesn’t work is using “fun” and other activities to counteract these emotions. The bottom line is that you want to minimize your time in threat physiology and learn to create mental and physical safety. Regardless of the site of intervention, processing anger is focused on lowering the levels of the hormones and inflammation caused by your threat response.

You can directly lower these hormones, increase the resiliency of your nervous system, and learn to change the nature of your input. All three areas are important and require different tools. We are going to use the metaphor of a boarding academy to conceptualize the various strategies.

Welcome to “Anger Academy”

Visualize a walking onto a beautiful campus and seeing the main building bordered by two departmental ones. There is an entry gate with a security guard, and you must be carefully screened before you are allowed be on the grounds. The three buildings represent:

• Output – the student center/ food/ spa/ lounge – Main building
• Your nervous system – engineering and design center – on your right
• Input – educational/ training center – on your left

The curriculum – Enrollment

It is most desirable on a given day or moment to have your “output” or your body’s neurochemical state in a range that is neutral or relaxed. The more time you can spend in this state the better. But, anger is inevitable, and it is important to use it only when necessary and be careful not to cause damage–especially to those who are close to you. The final physiological response is affected by 1) the reactivity of your nervous system and 2) the content of your input. It is a dynamic process that varies from minute to minute.

The state of your nervous system is influenced by your prior programming, current circumstances, and how you are caring for your body. For example, lack of sleep and exercise along with a highly inflammatory diet will elevate your levels of inflammation and compromise your coping skills.

Daily stresses are often overwhelming. If you come from a challenging and chaotic childhood, it is hard to feel safe because maybe you really never knew what that was like. Consider the hypervigilance of a feral cat compared to a pampered domestic one. It is difficult to truly tame a cat who had to fend for itself from birth. It takes less stress to set off the threat response and this is also hardwired in for each individual.

Output is clearly affected by your “input.” There are two categories of input.

• What are you choosing to put into your nervous system?
• What are you holding onto from the past?

The first step is becoming aware of the nature and effects of your ongoing input. Once you have some clarity, there are multiple strategies to alter it. It is a deeply personal process.

Security gate

The security area represents the current state of your body’s chemistry, and it can vary from a profile of being content and safe to upset and inflamed. Of course, the reason you are coming to this institution is that you are trapped in pain and the levels of frustration often reach a level of rage. The sensations are intense and powerful. Your whole body, including your brain, is full of inflammatory markers. Your brain’s blood supply is diverted from your neocortex (thinking centers) to the lower centers that are meant more for basic survival. In this state it is not possible to think clearly or absorb new information. So, before you can enter the university to master anger processing skills, you must first normalize this inflammatory state. Your “output” is hypervigilant, which is the outcome of being trapped for any reason.

The “security guard” will take your temperature, vital signs, and see if you are calm enough to engage in the learning the skills to process anger. This is not a small step, in that anger is the greatest block to healing. There are many facets to it; it is powerful, and most people don’t want to give it up because it keeps you safe – whether the sense of safety is real or perceived.

If you are fired up, you can leave and return another day, or you can hang out in the spa just outside of the campus intended for your use to calm down. It has a pool, hot tub, massage, sauna, gym, and soft music. It is a beautiful modern building and could not be a more relaxing place to be. You can stay as long as you would like and return anytime.

If you choose to turn around and return to your prior situation without taking some action to calm down, it is unlikely that you will be able to meet the criteria to enter the campus. Regardless, whether you calm down on your own or with some help from your time in the spa, it is the first step in being able to engage in learning the strategies to understand and deal with anger. Your brain has to come back “online.”

On the grounds

Once you are through security, you have a choice of which building you want to enter but continuing to calm yourself is probably the best option. Each one has multiple resources to help you acquire anger processing expertise.

The center main building (output) is a deluxe version of  the spa area just outside of the campus. It’s large with nice facilities and concierge services. There is no limit as to how well you are treated. You can hang out with your friends, eat great food, and kick back in the jacuzzi. There are resources to teach you to self-soothe and nurture yourself. You may want to spend more time there to re-energize before you start to work on the other aspects of anger.

The engineering and design building on the right is where you will be rebuilding and strengthening your nervous system. Every action you take today is based all of your life experiences up to this very second. It consists of your prior life programming, the state of your general health, and how skilled you already may be in using tools to calm and improve it. In essence, it is the sum total of your coping skills and resilience. Both can be refined and strengthened with a thoughtful approach.

The training/ education building on your left is where you will learn strategies to process the input from your life – all of it. What is being entered into your nervous system affects the composition of output?

CHOICES OF INPUT

Examples of what you might currently be uploading are conversations that are critical of others – either directly to them or in the form of gossip, discussing your pain and medical care, complaining, sharing a generally negative world view, watching violent TV, etc. These types of activities keep your nervous system fired up with many direct effects on your body and peace of mind.

What are you holding onto from your past that continues to agitate you? Why would you do that? The past has little if anything to do with your day. You have given your quality of life over to someone or some entity that you despise. Forgiveness is an advanced set of techniques that dramatically alters the input into your nervous system.

Your degree

An “working relationship with anger” diploma will allow you to efficiently neutralize your flight or flight response. It is one of the more practical degrees you can attain. Acquiring these skills is one of the most powerful and definitive moves you can make to take back control of your life. But remember, the first step is getting past security.

Recap

Anxiety is the sensation generated by your neurochemical response to a threat and intended to motivate you to take action to solve it. If the stress persists, your reaction will become stronger, you’ll secrete more stress chemicals, and feel anger. Anger is your body’s last ditch effort to regain control.

It is a powerful and hard wired impersonal reaction. It is also complex and involves every cell and organ system in your body. You cannot survive without it, and it is impossible to thrive if this physiological state is sustained.

Developing a “working relationship” with it involves understanding the different aspects of it and learning to minimize your time in a threat state through different portals. Do you want your life to continue to be an ongoing replay of your past or are you ready to create the life you want – from reactive to creative?

 Questions and Considerations

1. When trapped by chronic mental or physical pain, your brain and body are literally on fire. Your inflammatory markers are sky high, and you cannot think clearly. Have you considered how you feel in this state and compared it to when you are calm? Even without pain, what is the quality of your life when you are enraged?
2. Your brain is “offline” while you are angry, and it really is temporary insanity. It is humbling to consider how many “issues” disappear after you have calmed down.
3. Every living creature, including homo sapiens, has a version of this reaction. It is universal and intended to be unpleasant. So, why you take it personally? It is protective, and what you have, but not who you are.
4. Forgiveness alone is the historic approach in addressing deal anger. However, it is a big leap to forgive in light of many circumstances. Anger is a complex full body response to an uncontrollable threat and breaking it down into its components is a basic starting point to master dealing with it.

The post Anger Academy first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Anger Academy appeared first on Back in Control.

The root cause of disease

Two aspects of this sequence determine the expression of symptoms. One is the magnitude and duration of your stresses (input), and the other is the reactivity of your nervous system. There are three possible outcomes (output) – safe, neutral, or threat. Living creatures are in the neutral zone most of the time and gravitate to safety whenever possible to rest and regenerate.

The perception of danger (threat) causes the nervous system to send signals to prepare for battle and wage it if necessary. The common term is, “fight or flight,” and your body’s response (activated) is intended to feel unpleasant enough (anxiety) to compel you to take action to resolve the situation. The goal is to remain in this agitated state for as short a time as possible. But what if you cannot solve the problem and you’re chronically fired up? Your body stimulates even more of a response to regain control, and you are hyperactivated (angry).  Unpleasant sensory input progressively impacts your body at three levels.

• Response
• Symptoms
• Illness/ Diseases

When the threat is short-lived your response will be appropriate to the situation and quickly disappears when it has passed or resolved. Almost every internal and external action of your body is automatically directing you in a manner, so you don’t feel many unpleasant sensations. It is called the nociceptive system. If you do sense danger, you are programmed to resolve it immediately. Examples are looking away from the sun, spitting out rancid food, pulling your bare foot back from hot pavement, frequently shifting in your chair to avoid skin breakdown, and avoiding predators.

When threats are prolonged, you will experience symptoms such as back pain, tension headaches, anxiety, poor appetite, nausea, urge to urinate, sexual dysfunction, burning sensations, skin rashes, dizziness, ringing in your ears, and insomnia. There are over 30 different physical and mental symptoms that can occur.²

When threats are sustained, you have a significant chance of becoming seriously ill or developing a disease. It is well-documented that chronic stress kills people and unfortunately the symptoms of an illness or disease also add to the threat load. This is particularly true in chronic pain.³

Dynamic Healing Overview

The nature of your body’s physiology under threat

Environmental cues of threat set off a defensive response. Immediately, before you are even aware, your immune system girds for the possibility of injury by initiating inflammation (to protect cells against invaders (bacteria, viruses, cancer cells), elevates metabolism to provide fuel for defense, increases the speed of nerve conduction–which increases your alertness but also your pain sensitivity, and elevates the levels stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline, histamines). Much of this defensive state is modulated by small signaling proteins called inflammatory cytokines.

So how do you think you feel when you are in this physiological state? Your heart is racing, you are sweaty, tired, anxious, overwhelmed, nervous, stomach feels tight, blood pressure is elevated, pain is worse, and your breathing is rapid. The bottom line is that you don’t feel great when your body is in this heightened neurochemical state. Are these symptoms imaginary? Not a chance. None of them.

Defining threat

Examples of physical threats include viruses, bacteria, being attacked by a predator – human or animal, hunger, lack of shelter, poverty, lack of opportunity, being bullied at work or school, racism, authoritarianism, trapped in a difficult living or family situation, and physical maladies.

Mental threats are processed in a similar manner as physical ones with the same physiological response.⁴ They are more problematic in that humans have consciousness, many of our thoughts and emotions are unpleasant, and unlike visible threats like tigers or a severe storm, we cannot escape our thoughts. Repressed thoughts and emotions are even more impactable on your body’s neurochemical state. Many of our unpleasant thoughts are based on cognitive distortions or “stories” about our lives. Unfortunately, whether the threat is real or perceived it has the same deleterious effect.⁵

Systematically addressing the root cause – circumstances versus coping capacity

First, it is always important to undergo a medical workup to make sure there is not a structural issue such as vascular disease, pinched nerve, tumor, or an infection.

Second, regardless of the findings of the workup, maintaining your body’s metabolic, immune, and nervous system balance is important. If you require a procedure, your odds of a good outcome will be maximized.

Third, all three aspects of chronic illness must be addressed. Here are some examples of interventions for each one.

Input (what are you uploading into it and what are you holding onto?)

• Forgiveness
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Expressive writing
• Never discussing your pain or medical care

State of the nervous system (calm or hypervigilant)

• Exercise
• Sleep
• ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy)
• Processing prior trauma

Output (physiological profile – safe, neutral, threat)

• Breath work
• Mindfulness/ meditation
• Humming
• Vagal stimulation
• Certain pitches of music

Finally, you must take charge of your own body and health. Chronic diseases are complex, and you are unique. You are the only one who can figure out a solution. The first step is understanding the nature of chronic disease. The solutions lie In implementing strategies that address the root cause of disease and lower inflammation,⁶ which destroys tissues throughout your body. It is more doable than you think. Not taking charge may have severe consequences.

Modern medicine is continuing down the wrong road

Modern medicine is mainly addressing symptoms. This approach works well when there is an identifiable structural problem that can be fixed. But the vast majority chronic illnesses/ diseases result from being in a prolonged fight of flight state and structural approaches cannot and do not work. The burden of chronic disease continues to rise without an end in sight.¹ Why do we continue to travel down the same road?

The tragedy is that It is an eminently solvable problem at a fraction of the risk and cost. There is  deep data revealing the common neurophysiological nature of chronic mental and physical diseases. Most of modern medicine is ignoring it.⁷ A significant percent of interventions have no supporting data. Integrative medicine and similar approaches are much better at systematically addressing the dynamic interaction between a person and his or her circumstances. Treating symptoms is necessary but won’t definitively heal you. The more accurate term for current “mainstream medicine” is “disintegrative medicine.”

Dynamic Healing Medicine

Dynamic healing medicine requires listening and knowing you. Feeling safe positively affects your neurochemical profile.⁶  It is important to understand both your circumstances (input) and your coping skills (nervous system resilience) to develop a healing relationship with your provider.

My book, Back in Control: A Surgeon’s Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain,⁷ provides a foundation and framework to understand and implement your own solution to chronic illness.

The DOC Journey course and app are frameworks that reflect updated neuroscience research. They include a guided course, videos tutorials, webinars, and access to supportive group sessions. We have been delighted that we have been able to provide clearer explanations for chronic mental and physical pain and allow patients to more quickly find their way out of The Abyss.

Join us in bringing Dynamic Healing into mainstream awareness.

References:

1. O’Neill Hayes, Tara, and Serena Gillian. Chronic disease in the United State: A worsening health and economic crisis. Americaactionforium.org; September 10^th, 2020.
2. Schubiner H and M Betzold. Unlearn Your Pain, 3^rdMind Body Publishing, Pleasant Ridge, MI, 2016.
3. Smyth J, et al. Stress and disease: A structural and functional analysis. Social and Personality Psychology Compass (2013);7/4:217-227. 10.1111/spc3.12020
4. Eisenberger NI, et al. An experimental study of shared sensitivity to physical pain and social rejection. Pain (2006);126:132-138.
5. Burns, David. Feeling Good. Harper Collins, New York, NY, 1980.
6. Porges, Stephen. The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe. Norton and Co, New York, NY, 2017.
7. Hanscom, David. Back in Control: A Surgeon’s Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain. Vertus Press, Seattle, WA. 2016.

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The post Dynamic Healing first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Dynamic Healing appeared first on Back in Control.