One of the biggest issues mental health faces is that of re-admission, coined the ‘revolving door’ it is the process whereby we see someone make improvement and then weeks, months or even years later, return with the same issues re-presenting. It is actually much the same for anyone wishing to make changes in their own health-related behaviours, like dieting or starting to exercise or meditate - people start with the best of intentions, but often find themselves slipping back into unhealthy behaviours.
There is however, I believe, an answer to this problem, and it comes through the research and work of people like Dr Bruce Lipton, Annie Hopper and Dr Norman Doidge. Neuroplasticity is a field of neuropsychological science stating that what you do and think can change the structure of your brain. This theory looks at the ways in which the brain changes in response to what we do and experience. The idea is that we can change how we think and our abilities throughout our lifetime, that the brain is indeed not static, but rather plastic and flexible. Epigenetics tell us that thoughts actually release chemistry (electrical impulses aka instructions to the body) and this chemistry changes cells, which then create behaviour. Thus thoughts can change and control who we are and what we experience.
All of this means that your thoughts create your reality; therefore if you think negatively, destructively and hopelessly this is the environment you create, and the physical and emotional experience will likely be that you have depression!
But, it is not just conscious thoughts and beliefs that affect us, it is also the subconscious patterns we create. And given we can spend up to 95% of our time running off the subconscious mind it is highly possible that we are living our lives through patterns that do not serve us and that we are not even aware of. The pathways which our brain creates (or wires) can be impaired and affected by trauma and chronic stress: this means that, after experiencing a trauma or excessive stress, your brain could create a whole set of unhealthy and damaging behaviours that transfer into your subconscious, which you continue to utilise without knowing they are not serving you. Because your brain controls the nervous systems it generates physical responses to back up your thoughts and beliefs. For example, if you believe that stopping smoking will make you sick, anytime you stop smoking you will experience physical illness because your brain is sending signals to your cells that this is what will happen. Therefore, your cells do as instructed and create a response to match the thought/belief, thus providing you with the ‘proof’ of your belief.
So, if we are to believe that our thoughts create behaviour and our behaviours stimulate our emotional responses, then logically speaking if we reprogram our thought patterns we can change our behaviours and create new emotional experiences for ourselves. So, if we identify where this belief started by using our awareness and practising mindfulness, then if we can recalibrate our thoughts to be more supportive and uplifting, then our behaviours will change, our physiology will change, and we will stimulate positive emotions rather than negative ones.
Let me give you two examples from my own life of when I have successfully retrained my brain and my body to create a totally different experience. For 13 years I was a smoker. I smoked anything from 15-40 cigarettes a day. I connected many things with smoking: stress, emotional upset, finishing a meal, break times, when bored in traffic jams, coffee or alcoholic beverages. I had created numerous pathways in my brain that connected certain activities and feelings with smoking. This meant I had a lot of re-wiring to do! I consciously started to think about how smoking was bad for me, how it hurt my chest when I moved, how bad I smelt. I also started to focus on how nice it felt to not smell or be in pain, how clear and free my lungs felt, and how much more I could enjoy exercising when not smoking. This process took about 6-12 months of constant effort and excessive repetition to think differently about smoking and what it meant to me. I started to cut down on cigarettes gradually, and eventually I got to the point where I was not smoking at all. It has now been 7.5 years since I last smoked, and I can say that I love being a non-smoker as much as I enjoyed being a smoker. I now have developed other coping strategies for stress and boredom that do not involve cigarettes. I have retrained my brain to associate smoking with something I no longer do or need, and something that stinks and brings me to harm!
Another example of when I re-trained my brain was in relation to vegetables. I became vegetarian about 20 years ago, and at the time I liked only 5 kinds of vegetables. My poor mother had to construct a balanced diet based on this! There was no other vegetable I could eat without me gagging, and me physically wanting to be sick. At 25, I realised it was ludicrous that I was vegetarian and only liked so few vegetables. By this point, I had come to like capsicums and avocados, so I realised there was potential for change. If I had been wrong about these vegetables perhaps I had been wrong about others. So, I came up with the ingenious idea of “vegetable of the year”! I was to experiment cooking a new vegetable each year in different ways, and train myself to like it and train my body not to throw up when I ate it. After a few years of doing this (I soon realised it went quicker than I thought, so I upgraded to “vegetable of the month)”, I found I could eat most vegetables. And not only could I eat them but I actually loved them!
Neural reprogramming offers us quite an amazing potential for healing for all kinds of problems, from addictive behaviours, to mental dis-ease - e.g. anxiety, depression, OCD, etc. - to physical health issues with a strong psychological base like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Chronic Fatigue, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, etc.
You still have to want to change. You will still need to have great will power in keeping up with the new exercises and challenging of old thought patterns. You will in essence have to create new beliefs. But, a belief is only a thought you have thought over and over again! So start thinking new thoughts over and over again, and you will end up with new beliefs!
Will power alone is not enough. Loving yourself is not enough on its own either. Neural retraining alone is not enough. Mindfulness alone is not enough. But, together they can be enough to create any changes in your health and wellbeing that you would like. To integrate yourself and your wellbeing you may perhaps need the help of an Integrative Therapist! If you would like to know more about how these systems for change and healing could help you, please contact us at Amiya Transcension where we believe all problems have solutions.
