UK Study

A large prospective study done in the UK prospectively compared mindfulness-based teaching to over 8000 students and compared it to usual practices. The mean age was 12 years. They demonstrated that there was no significant benefit and actually caused many students with prior mental health issues to have more problems. They recommended that non-specific mindfulness interventions not be implemented in the school system.²

Mental Rigidity

A 2023 paper extensively summarized the literature on the mental rigidity. They pointed out that the role of rigidity in mental health is well-known and is characterized by automaticity,  inflexibility, and centered around concepts of self. Patterns of thinking that may have been useful in the past remain fixed and often not relevant to the current situation. Rigidity can wreak havoc on relationships, quality of life, and ability to adapt to life’s challenges.¹

These changes have been documented clinically and now on fMRI’s (functional MRI) scans, which measure brain activity. Self is defined by dynamic interactions between various regions of the brain, and lack of mental flexibility shows up as disruptions between these areas. Re-establishing flexibility seems to be important in the treatment of many health disorders. The ones discussed were major depression, complex psychological trauma, and substance use/ addiction disorders. Mindfulness practices (MBI’s) have been shown to break up mental rigidity both clinically and on imaging studies.¹

It must be combined with feeling safe

What is being missed with this recommendation regarding mindfulness in schools is why it’s ineffective and can exacerbate mental symptoms. Part of the answer is looking at why rigidity exists in the first place?

One reason is that humans don’t/can’t tolerate mental/emotional pain. Rigidity is one way of limiting your exposure. As you break up the rigidity with mindfulness, what happens? You’ll feel even more emotional pain, which is often intolerable.³ It isn’t surprising that mindfulness increases symptoms in students with prior mental health diagnoses. You must also learn to feel safe in order to move forward. You would never cross a street unless you first felt it was safe to do so.

By using and testing mindfulness alone as an approach to be implemented in the school system, can’t and won’t work without also teaching students how to also calm their threat physiology (flight or fight body chemistry) in order to feel safe. Breaking up rigidity alone, opens up the dam of suppressed thoughts and emotions, and you would expect those who are already struggling to have worsening symptoms. For those without mental health issues, mindfulness alone won’t help them one way or the other without further strategies to improve their quality of life.

Define where MBI’s fit

Mindfulness Based Interventions (MBIs) are effective in increasing the dynamic interactions and connectivity between regions of the brain that define self. The term is the “Pattern Theory of Self, and mental flexibility is increased.³

Chronic disease is complex and isolated interventions are usually ineffective. However, they should not be discarded because they can fit into a larger treatment plan. MBI’s may be an excellent entry point for many people suffering from major depression, complex trauma, and addictions/ substance abuse. However, opening up the flood gates without showing them a place to feel safe is problematic. MBI’s favorably alter brain activity that characterize these problems. Instead of discarding them, the question is, “what are additional effective treatments?”

Learning to tolerate mental pain is at the core of addressing mental health, and requires learning specific skills. Become a “professional” at living your life.

References

1. Giommi F, et al. The (in)flexible self: Psychopathology, mindfulness, and neuroscience. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology (2023); 23:100381. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2023.100381

2. Montero-Marin J, et al. School-based mindfulness training in early adolescence: what works, for whom, and how in the MYRIAD trial? Evidence Based Mental Health (2022); 25:117-124.doi:10.1136/ebmental-2022-300439
3. Frisch S, et al. Forgotten negative emotional memories increase pain unpleasantness. Submitted for publication, 2023.

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Here is the essence of the problem with RUTs and the human condition. The sequence begins with your unconscious brain that is constantly on alert for danger and is much more powerful than our late-evolving language-based consciousness. Humans use language to give meaning to everything, especially to sensations generated from inside of your body (interoception). Danger, real or perceived creates threat physiology that generates various levels and kinds of discomfort, and we have created many words that describe how badly we feel. These unpleasant thoughts evolve into concepts. They originate from the brain and also are sensory input back into it that we react to with threat physiology. We are on a spinning wheel without brakes and our brains are on fire.

New Africa/AdobeStock

The conscious versus unconscious brain mismatch

So, we generate positive thoughts to counteract unpleasant ones. We work hard to develop enough self-esteem to feel better about ourselves. But the powerful unconscious brain can generate an infinite number of troubling thoughts with minimal extra energy expended whereas the conscious brain can only create a limited number of “good” thoughts that requires effort and expenditure of energy. It is a gross mismatch, your survival brain overwhelms your efforts to feel better about yourself, you experience cognitive fatigue, and you are worn down.

The root cause driving the creation of RUTs is your fired up inflamed brain. Once the thoughts are released, how can you put them back into the box? You cannot. It is like trying to kill a swarm of mosquitos with a fly swatter. What’s effective is calming down threat physiology (anxiety and anger), the RUTs are diminished, which lessens the threat load even more. This is a bidirectional process. The medical/ psychology world has primarily focused on the RUTs without addressing the physiological root cause. Over the last decade, that is changing, and many practitioners are using methods to calm people down as the primary focus. Why not drain the swamp?

Consider a hornet’s nest where the inhabitants are minding their own business. They are working together constructing a home, gathering food, watching out for danger, and reproducing. Then someone or animal comes along and starts poking at the hive. Appropriately, they sense danger and use the weapons at their disposal to fight off the threat. Swarms of hornets attack the predator with the intention to inflict pain and they do. What is the best answer? Is it trying to battle the hornets once they are in the battle mode, or would it be easier to quit prodding the nest? It is impossible to do battle with your innumerable RUTs. Why not calm down your inflamed brain? Your RUTs will quiet down. Then you have the ”space” to move into brain circuits where you can nurture joy, move away from pain circuits, and where the definitive healing happens.

schankz/AdobeStock

Dissolution of your ego

The final step of allowing your ego (self-esteem) to dissolve can’t happen until you are able to tolerate the painful thoughts arising from your unconscious brain. Emotional pain is processed in similar regions of the brain as physical pain. The reason we spend so much time and energy on our self-esteem is because RUTs make us feel so badly about ourselves and we don’t like to hurt. Once you have no more need to “defend” your identity built largely from cognitive distortions, you can live your life in freedom.

There is another layer to the devastating effects of RUTs. “Good” self-esteem is a cognitive distortion of labeling. It doesn’t matter whether your label is “better than” or “less than”, it is still a distortion and where does it end? Then think of how many aspects of your identity are determined by “stories” consisting of cognitive distortions. A major one is “should or should not” thinking, which is at the core of how we are programmed from birth. It manifests in perfectionism and self-critical voices. These voices become stronger with time and become embedded in our brains as concretely as physical objects. At some tipping point, we spend the rest of our lives processing our worlds though our life lens and it is continually reinforced. Many people develop mental rigidity as part of this process, and it is a trait that is at the center of almost any mental health problem. Defending and becoming attached to your own sense of self is the antithesis of awareness which is essential for successful human interactions.

RUTs are one of the expressions of threat physiology. Addressing this root cause allows definitive solutions. Humans must learn to navigate cognitive consciousness in ways other than a survival mindset. Understanding the nature of the problem opens up possibilities to thrive. It is the next step in our evolution of our species with dire consequences if we don’t.

The post Understanding the “Curse of Consciousness” first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Understanding the “Curse of Consciousness” appeared first on Back in Control.

• Since the body’s response to threats affects every cell in your body, it feels like part of who you are.
• We spend a lot of time attempting to avoid this intentionally unpleasant sensation when it is necessary for life and also overpowering.
• We are trapped in life by our anxieties.
• The first step in dealing with anxiety is to separate your identity from it and view it as a gift. It is what you have and not who you are.
• Once you have achieved this separation (an ongoing dynamic process), you will be able to move forward into the life that you want.

Life depends on our brains receiving sensory input from multiple sources and interpreting the sum total as safe or dangerous. Under threat, you’ll initially become nervous and then anxious. We are compelled to take action to resolve the problem. If the solution is delayed, your body will kick in more adrenaline and cortisol, and you’ll become angry. These unpleasant neurochemical reactions and resultant behaviors increase the odds of survival. However, it is the most anxious/angry groups of humans who have flourished.

Anxiety – from just thoughts??

Imagine yourself on the fourth day of your Hawaiian vacation, lying on a tropical beach in the sun. You are full of anti-inflammatory proteins called cytokines, oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and a few other chemicals that cause you to you feel relaxed. Now visualize yourself on the same beach and suddenly you recall how your difficult boss walked in and began yelling at you. Your heart starts to race, your skin becomes clammy, and your breathing speeds up. How to you feel? Even though you’re on the same beach and in the sun in both of these scenarios,  you now feel uncomfortable and agitated. But your boss isn’t there, so why is this happening? It is another aspect of “the curse of conscious” in addition to the obsessive thought patterns. Unpleasant thoughts are threats that are unique to being human and create the same flight or fight physiological response as physical threats.

We are defining thoughts as sensory input and that are separate from emotions that represent the feelings generated by your body’s response. Remember, you are FEELING agitated and upset, not just thinking about it. When anxiety caused by a real threat, it is a gift. When it appears out nowhere, you are disconnected from the cues from your immediate environment. The term for this situation is a “dysregulated” nervous system.

Relax?

There are a couple of other problematic scenarios that occur in your conscious brain that are disruptive. One is that when you are relaxing, your brain has fewer distractions. People often feel more anxiety when they are trying to relax. Their normal busyness is effective in drawing attention away from these survival circuits.

It is interesting that a high percent of Americans do not take off the full time they are allotted for vacation.¹ They are also pressured by their bosses to not take time off. I had a friend who could not tolerate more than three days of vacation and predictably would cut his vacation short to get back to work.

Your personal brain scanner

The other issue is that your nervous system is your personal “brain scanner.” Every second of your life depends on your brain scanning your surroundings for trouble. This unconscious process guides your behavior so as to avoid danger and maximize your chances of survival. You will become conscious of this ongoing interaction with the environment only when a given need is unmet. This is especially true for basic survival needs such as air, food, water, excretion, sleep, and not being in pain. You’ll initially become nervous and then anxious. If the solution is delayed, your body will kick in more stress hormones, and you’ll become angry. This chemical reaction and resultant behaviors increase your odds of survival. It is the most anxious groups of humans who have flourished.

Your bodyguard

Anxiety is a gift and your bodyguard. It is how we evolved and what keeps us alive. You can navigate the planet, avoid physical threats, and take on new challenges by being and remaining aware of the potential pitfalls.

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Your prison guard

However, when this powerful reaction becomes a part of your identity, anxiety shifts from being your bodyguard to your prison guard. It does feel like part of who we are, but it is only the survival response of your body. When your view of yourself becomes wrapped up in this reaction, you are trapped. Your life is now defined by your fears. This reaction is intended to be so uncomfortable that you are forced to take evasive action. It is also amoral. So many of the impulses feel “morally wrong” and in light of human consciousness, they are. That is why it is so critical to understand the nature of anxiety and separate from it. It is what you have, not who you are. It is universal and there is no shame in experiencing and feeling your basic urges to exist.

Separate Your Identity from Your Survival Response

Since anxiety is so powerful, necessary, and not subject to rational interventions, how can you deal with it? The first step is to separate your identity from it. Here are several suggestions.

• Look at it as what you have but not who you are and then learning to appreciate it as a gift. You can then quit fighting it and have much more energy to live your life.
• A second strategy is to remove the word, “anxiety,” from your vocabulary. Instead use the term, “elevated stress chemicals,” or “activated nervous system” whenever you feel nervous, agitated or afraid.
• A third approach is to visualize a large thermometer. When you are anxious or upset, imagine how high the  red line in your thermometer is going. This visualization will help you understand the most critical step – that your anxiety is simply a universal stress response and not your identity.

 Word progression

There is a gradation of the intensity of this response to threats and humans use words to depict it. Here is one word progression but they all fall under the category of an activated nervous system. Anxiety is the result of a threat, not the cause.

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

Lower your stress chemicals

The most definitive strategy to lower anxiety is to use tools to dampen your stress response and also lower the levels of these hormones. There are many ways to regulate your body’s physiology that will be discussed throughout the rest of the course. These all are only effective once you have separated yourself from this basic survival response. BTW, if every living creature possesses this basic reaction, why would any of us ever take it personally?

The DOC Journey is a learned set of skills

Consider the healing process in two halves that are in dynamic balance. You’ll learn skills that separate you from anxiety and anger, but they NOT are intended to fix or solve them. That is a futile effort. Then when you are “separate” from these sensations, most of your efforts can be focused on redirecting your brain to enjoy life. You must first let go in order to move forward. The key concept is stimulating neuroplasticity in the direction that you desire. These two energies exist simultaneously and become automatic with repetition.

Recap

Our response to threats involves every cell in our body and encompasses us. It is understandable that we would feel that it is part of our identity, but it is not. When our consciousness becomes consumed with dealing with these relentless and unpleasant feelings, we are trapped. We are often not able to live the life we desire. It is critical to separate from and depersonalize this amoral survival reaction.

Strategies that can create this separation include:

• Appreciating anxiety as a gift; it is what you possess and not who you are.
• Replacing the word anxiety with, “activated nervous system.”
• Visualizing a large thermometer and the temperature represents the levels of your stress hormones.

Let your bodyguard do his or her job. You can go about your business of living your life. When you separate your anxiety from your identity, you will have the freedom to evolve your consciousness in an infinite number of ways – and thrive.

References

1. Kimble Report. No vacation nation: American workers are overworked, under pressure, and not taking time off. (2018) https://www.kimbleapps.com/2018/05/no-vacation-nation-american-workers-are-overworked-under-pressure-and-not-taking-time-off/

Let your bodyguard do his or her job. You can go about your business of living your life. When you separate your anxiety from your identity, you will have the freedom to evolve your consciousness in an infinite number of ways – and thrive.

The post The Gift of Anxiety – Your Bodyguard or Prison Guard? first appeared on Back in Control.

The post The Gift of Anxiety – Your Bodyguard or Prison Guard? appeared first on Back in Control.

Loneliness causes many physical problems including a higher mortality rate equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Mental health problems continue to increase and approximately 1 in 6 adults suffer from a mental health condition. Most also suffer from loneliness. (1)

Anxiety is the driver

I have observed from working with many patients and my own experience with loneliness during my ordeal with chronic pain, that there is a circular interaction with anxiety, anger and becoming isolated.  For many, I feel the starting point is anxiety, which is the pain.

There are an endless number of reasons for humans in this day and age to have disruptive anxiety. This has been endlessly discussed in the media. However, once it kicks into gear, there is no turning back and it will become relentlessly progressive. Since is an automatic unconscious survival response that is much more powerful than your conscious brain, you can’t control it or solve it with rational means. You also will never be rid of it, since without it, you would not survive for more than a few minutes.

The key to lowering anxiety is learning to assimilate it into your life. It is intended to be unpleasant, since it is your basic warning system. As you learn to work with it and quit fighting it, you will be able to lower your stress chemicals and de-energize it. Anxiety both protects you and also allows you to navigate new challenges.

OCD

The interaction I experienced while in pain was that I was crippled with anxiety in the form of disruptive unpleasant thoughts that evolved into an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I had become a major spine surgeon by suppressing anxiety and wasn’t connected to it. I also thought anxiety was a psychological problem when it actually is simply a physiological reaction to a mental or physical threat.

As my anxiety progressed, I became more isolated. My patterns of thinking changed dramatically, and I was consumed with thoughts of self-deprecation and why would anyone want to hang out with me? This was occurring in spite of me historically being a social person to a fault. I had a wonderful group of friends from middle school on. There was no new activity I was not up for trying. In college, I took more than a full academic load, worked heavy construction 10-20 hours a week, played intramural sports, and spent a lot of time with my friends. I don’t remember sleeping much.

Trapped

As I spiraled down with progressive anxiety, I became severely depressed. I now know that depression is a group of symptoms driven by anxiety. The isolation progressed rapidly over five years, in spite of having warm and very nice people around me. I couldn’t connect. I was so busy trying to survive, I couldn’t reach out to others. As others tried to reach out to me and failed, they eventually quit trying as hard, which only made it even harder for me to. I don’t have the words to describe the feeling, but it was crushing, suffocating and one of most intolerable experiences I have ever had and, even worse, there did not seem to be a way out. I use the word, “Abyss” to describe being in chronic pain. I think the loneliness was a step beyond or below. Even thinking about it 20 years later is causing my stomach to knot up.

My depression became severe. I lost all hope in spite of aggressively seeking professional help and reading many self-help books. One that I picked up was, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, where the author described his own struggle with major depression. (2) What struck me was that he was famous, wealthy, and had recently received a lifetime achievement award for his literary excellent. In spite of it all, he was miserable. What struck me about his story, is that he didn’t find or offer a solution. He  had nowhere to go and just remained in one spot. I couldn’t explain what happened to me but I felt a deep shift. That is all I can say. I did not immediately begin to heal, but I somehow realized that I was on the wrong track in my endless pursuit of a cure. The answers where inside of me. In an odd way, I gave up, which turned out to be the eventual answer.

It is OK to be on “The Bottom”

It is OK to be depressed. Anxiety is normal and fighting it gives it more power and it does become disruptive. Your brain will develop wherever you place your attention, especially if you are suppressing. By remaining still, I gave myself some space to heal. I become aware of many aspects of my life and experience that weren’t possible while I was traveling so fast. I quit trying to fix myself and inadvertently allowed my brain to heal. I became more connected to me.

This song is written and performed by my nephew, who I have spent many hours talking to about anxiety, depression, and life. His struggle with it was epic but he not only made it through, he is thriving. One of his gifts from the ordeal is having insights into the magnitude of the problem and has a deep appreciation for life. This song, The Bottom, reflects his perspective.

Alex Hanscom – The Bottom

Learning to be with yourself, including your fears, is key to moving forward in life on your terms and not at the mercy of other’s opinions. It is also much easier and you are able to reach out to others and be aware of their needs. It works the other way around in creating an upward spiral. I have rekindled many friendships because I have healed, but my connections are also part of the healing journey.

1. Cigna U.S. Loneliness Index. Published survey results, 2018.
2. Styron, William. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. Random House, New York, NY, 1990.

The post “The Bottom” first appeared on Back in Control.

The post “The Bottom” appeared first on Back in Control.

I talk about how the DOC Project can relate to other aspects of our everyday life, including everyday stressors and suppression. This is related to some of what I talk about in “Memorization of Neurological Circuits.”

The post Video: Standard Stress Skills Inadequate first appeared on Back in Control.

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Or imagine yourself heading to the mountains to go fishing on a beautiful lake.  The view is spectacular and the fish are hitting hard. The problem is that your fishing boat has a significant leak, and every 5-10 minutes you have to bail out the boat in order to stay on the lake. Neither experience represents a relaxing situation. The drains represent anxiety fueled by anger. Unless the drain or hole is plugged, you cannot fill the tub or enjoy your fishing trip.

In most of the articles I read about stress management, the positive side is discussed in detail. Time with friends, relaxing, etc. If there was no water in the lake or the water to the tub was not running, you also could not enjoy your fishing trip or warm bath.  So they are important. However, you are not going to move forward with a quality of life at any meaningful level until you definitively learn to process anxiety and anger. Your energy is consumed bailing out the boat or trying makeshift ways to plug the drain. You will not get rid of anxiety or anger because they are a necessary part of the human experience. They just don’t have to run your life, and there are effective tools to plug the leaks.

Now envision yourself running the water with the drain closed. You can now relax, and there eventually becomes an abundance of energy that flows outward. It is no longer just about you. Your energies can be turned outward. You can relax and enjoy the fishing experience with your partner. People inherently want to reach out and are not self-centered by choice. When you are being crushed by anxiety, it becomes a necessity.

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