Brain Re-Training
Today I’m going to talk about something that I receive a lot of questions about, and that is how I implement ‘brain retraining’.
As someone who obsesses compulsively over doing everything ‘the right way’, I want to share my mistakes with brain retraining, and how I’m approaching it right now.
Today I’ll go over:
- The premise of brain retraining (or the one that I’ve learnt)
- My mistakes previously
- How I’m approaching it now
Hope you enjoy!
The premise of brain retraining
The whole idea behind brain retraining is that at least a large part of the reason we have such horrendous symptoms is due to our system being in a perpetual state of sympathetic activation.
That is, a chronic state of fight or flight.
I’m not going to delve into whether this is the only thing going on, or the science, or whether this is the case for everyone.
But I know that for myself, this certainly makes a lot of sense, and I know that for a fact, regardless of the ‘route cause’, implementing techniques that aim to reduce this overdrive have been incredibly helpful.
The premise of brain retraining is that an unconscious loop maintains this fight or flight mode, sending reaffirming signals to the body that it is in fact in danger, thus keeping the chronic loop of activation continued.
Think, have you ever noticed and been alarmed at certain symptoms or sensations in your body?
Find your mind constantly drifting to thoughts of your former self, which send a shudder down your spine?
Regardless of what you believe the ‘route cause’ to be, I think it can only be helpful to help your system become less alarmed at its bodily sensations, and that is what brain training aims to do.
The method I learnt
I’ve taken several ‘courses’ when it comes to brain retraining.
I won’t go into detail of them here, as I have already made a video on this, but I will instead outline the general premise of how they teach you to ‘practice’ these brain training exercises.
Quite simply, it goes as follows:
1. Notice when your thoughts drift onto your symptoms, or other negative thought patterns that send alarm through your body
2. Interrupt these thought patterns with a physical interrupt. Like using the word ‘stop’ and gesturing with your hands
3. Send your body messages of safety by envisioning yourself somewhere safe. Maybe in the arms of a loved one, maybe relaxing in the sun.
4. Envision yourself in a positive and healthy state, one where you are running perhaps, dancing, enjoying life.
5. Continue with your day
If you’re looking at this thinking what a load of hippy dippy nonsense, you’re not alone. But the whole premise of this is that over time, your brain will gradually learn to shift into a more safe and parasympathetic state, by constantly interrupting these ‘negative feedback cycles’.
Mistakes I made
I’m someone who comes from a physics background, and was unbelievably skeptical of this (what I believed was) nonsense, a few years back.
It took me a long time from being aware of such techniques, to giving it a go, all with a healthy (or maybe rather unhealthy) degree of scepticism.
But I won’t bullshit you, as I’ve mentioned many times, this technique has provided the largest ‘needle mover’ in my recovery so far.
Before I started doing this back in 2021, I felt truly lost, in despair, and totally swamped in fatigue. Within a few months of doing this technique I got my life back. It didn’t cure me, and I’m still trying to piece together the correct and most beneficial way to implement it, but here’s what I learnt to NOT do.
- Obsess. The whole point of this technique is to enter more of a relaxed state in your body. And guess what isn’t going to help you do that? Panicking every time you notice a negative thought/ sensation, shitting your pants and then obsessively trying to ‘make up’ for it, by doing more visualisations. Yeah, that was me.
- Enforce. Doing the whole routine malarkey I listed isn’t sustainable, right? I don’t know about you, but my colleagues or friends wouldn’t be all that impressed if in the middle of a conversation, I shut my eyes, put my hands out in a stop sign, and took 2 minutes of silence. (Or who knows, maybe this would be a welcome relief) Anyway, I spent too long trying to do this whole process every single time I got a symptom, and it became totally exhausting.
- Distract. For me, I had points where my attempts to implement this technique became an almost avoidance and distraction mechanism. Every time I noticed a sensation I would do everything to distract myself and be totally uncomfortable with it being there.
As I’ve learnt from my exposure therapy in OCD treatment, simply distracting yourself, without the acceptance of the thoughts/ symptoms/ sensations, is just avoidance.
How I do this now
I do hope this has been a valuable, if not slightly lengthy article.
I hope that you can learn from my mistakes because they are plentiful, and it is an ongoing journey.
But I thought I would leave you with my approach that seems to be working quite nicely going forward.
I break it into 2 parts - general ‘work’ throughout the day, and then dedicated times for showing my body I’m safe.
My Approach:
1. I no longer obsess with this lengthy routine throughout the day.
Instead, when I notice symptoms or thoughts, I accept them, and gently pull my attention back to being in the present. As someone who tends to live more in the future, bringing myself back to the present helps me resettle a sense of calm in my body and mind.
A favourite technique of mine, when I notice my mind being drawn elsewhere, is to try and observe everything I can see around me that is yellow.
I look around and talk myself through what I see. ‘That’s an interesting shade’, ‘ I guess that lamp post is a kind of yellow, if not slightly more orange’.
This dialogue brings you right back to the presence, and roots you in the moment, rather than in your symptoms instead.
2. Messages of safety
Implementing this technique all day was draining, and I often would lose motivation within days.
Instead, I have dedicated moments where I will send messages of safety to my brain. More often than not this is in the shower, when enjoying a tea by the window, or chilling on the sofa at night.
I feel into myself, sometimes even hug myself, and envision myself in a joyful state. Often, back before I was ill, having a coffee in the sunshine with my mum. I do this as often as I can, but I don’t sweat it.
To conclude
For me, like with any of these ‘recovery techniques’, it’s about making them as sustainable as possible, so that they actually get done - and this new way of doing it has made it just that.
My rationale is that if I can bring myself back to the present more often than not, if I can spend more time feeling a sense of bliss from visualisations, then that can only be good for my nervous system and healing state, right?
I hope this was useful, I’d love to hear how you are all getting on!
