And how to use it to combat pain and dizziness
If you suffer from recurrent pain or dizziness, read on. This principle may be the missing link to your success.
What Is Brain Retraining And Why Do We Need It?
Brain Retraining is an umbrella term to encompass practices that use neuroplasticity to literally change our brains. (learn more about neuroplasticity here). Brain retraining can improve communication within the brain and nervous system. It can be used to enhance how the brain perceives and relays information which can improve how we move, carry ourselves, and perceive sensations.
I was recently listening to a podcast of a prominent professor. He stated that he recently received 400 responses to a feedback questionnaire. About 390 of them were neutral and positive comments, but as you probably guessed, he ended up ruminating on the mere handful of “constructive criticism” comments and discounted all of the others. We are wired for survival, which unfortunately means that our thoughts and actions prefer to perseverate on states of fear and pessimism instead of blind optimism. Can you recall any situations where you fell prey to this biological survival wiring?
Additionally, our nervous system appears to remember physical and emotional pain in an effort to keep us from encountering what it perceives as a “dangerous situation” again. In this neuroplastic survival theory, your body is trying to keep you safe and alive by increasing the sensitivity to a body part or a situation. This hypersensitivity response is known as Central Sensitization.
When you get stuck in these negative thought patterns and chronic sensation loops, working to undo old thought patterns may be your best bet for improving how you feel.
As you slowly start to introduce brain retraining practices, you will build and strengthen neural pathways in order to build resilience and improve the way the brain responds to physical and emotional pain.
Four Categories of Brain Retraining:
Meditation:
Some use meditation as a practice to draw their attention from the outside world, inward. Others use this technique to quiet their thoughts all together. Some practices encourage stillness of the body while others can be done with walking, yoga, or breathwork. Somatic Experiencing is a type of guided meditation that focuses on the body and nervous system. It can be used for all negative sensations and has commonly been used to help people navigate stress, depression, anxiety, trauma, and pain.
The benefits of meditation are numerous and include improved physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Scientific studies have been published showing that meditation reduces blood pressure and improves concentration.
TRY THIS MEDITATION EXERCISE:
5-Minute Meditation: It is important to find a practice that works for you, but if you are looking for a place to start, begin by setting a timer for 5 minutes and sitting comfortably. You may find it helpful to close your eyes, focus on your breath, or visualize a candle. If you experience dizziness or balance issues that increase when your eyes are closed, keep the eyes open while staring softly at a single object such as a candle.
You may also enjoy my grounding meditation, which can be helpful for pain and dizziness sufferers.
Breathwork:
Breathing sounds so easy. So innate. And yet, many people are surprised to learn that they have adapted a dysfunctional breathing pattern. The diaphragm is the main muscle that brings in breath. Abdominal breathing (or diaphragmatic breathing) helps tone the vagus nerve. A toned vagus nerve can help you be more flexible when moving between different nervous system states.
As unsexy as breathwork may sound, its effects can be powerful. Taking a deep inhale into your abdomen can help decrease noradrenaline levels and signal to your brain that you are safe. This helps get you out of the fight or flight state and into the parasympathetic state which is where we feel calm and can learn more readily.
If you don’t believe me, try taking 3 slow, deep breaths next time you feel overwhelmed - or want to punch something. Hopefully, you will feel the effects that most people experience which is an immediate dialing down of intense feelings. Even better news, the more you integrate this into your daily routine, the more you train your brain that you are safe – an ideal state for rewiring the brain.
TRY THIS BREATHWORK EXERCISE:
Box Breathing: Sit up tall in a solid chair with your feet on the ground. Imagine a box out in front of you, bring your arms up and out in front of you. On an inhale, count to 2 as you bring the hands close to you. (“Drawing” the first side of the box). Hold your breath as the hands come down towards the ground for the second count of two. Exhale and the hands push out away from you for 2 counts. On the last count of two, complete the box by holding your breath as the hands return to the starting point.
*If you are unable to tolerate movement, imagine going through the arm movements in your mind.
Awareness and Disruption of Thought Patterns
An important tenet of brain retraining practices is that you not only become more aware of negative thought patterns, but you learn to redirect them to more neutral or positive thoughts. This can change your sense of well-being and changing how you move and interact with the world. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Pain Reprocessing Therapy, and Neuro-linguistic Programming are specific practices that stress awareness and change to help promote positive brain retraining.
I have personally worked with people who have a meditation and/or breathwork practice prior to working with me. Their experience tends to be that it helps with some of their emotions, but their symptoms persist. In my opinion, they are missing a huge component for change which is not only recognition of thought patterns, but also changing those patterns.
An awareness practice requires constancy – checking in with yourself several times per day. What thoughts loop through your mind? What feelings come up with activities that you find symptom-provoking? Once you cultivate this awareness, the next step is to break the cycle, stop the negative thinking loop, and replace it with feelings of okay-ness in whatever capacity you have at present.
Dizzy Example 1: Without Awareness and Interrupt
Let’s explain this principle through an example. Let’s assume you suffer from dizziness, and going to the grocery store is a trigger.
One day, you head to the grocery store and start walking down an aisle.
You start feeling that not-quite-right sensation come on.
You begin feeling tense and the dizziness persists.
You start catastrophizing. “Oh, not again! What is wrong with me? This has to be serious. I wonder if I will be able to drive home.”
Fear overwhelms you
You abandon the cart and barely make it back to your car.
Perhaps the dizziness is so severe that you call a loved one to come pick you up.
Eventually the dizziness calms down, but you feel defeated and traumatized from the event. You aren’t even sure what triggered it.
Dizzy Example 2: With Awareness and Interrupt
Now let’s revisit the scenario using an awareness and interrupt practice.
One day, you head to the grocery store and start walking down an aisle.
You start feeling that not-quite-right sensation come on.
You begin feeling tense and the dizziness persists.
You pause and notice what sensations you feel.
You come into your body to notice what emotions and thoughts are happening as well.
Once you recognize the negative self-talk, you intentionally pause the reel.
Then you find a neutral or positive thought about the situation. For example, “I am standing here and shopping despite being dizzy. I can do hard things.” If you cannot find any safety in your body, you try looking outward to ground yourself, finding a beautiful design on a food package to marvel at.
Eventually the dizziness dulls and you finish your shopping.
TRY THIS AWARENESS AND INTERRUPT PRACTICE:
Next time you have a symptom flare, find a safe place to sit or lie down. Start to focus on the symptoms. Notice the thoughts and emotions that arise. Next, shift your focus noticing the sensations only (Hot, cold, tingling, stabbing, etc). Do your best to approach them with curiosity instead of fear. Give these sensations your full attention for 2 minutes then switch your focus to a place in your body that feels neutral or good. Focus in on these positive sensations for 2 minutes. Repeat the process as many times as you need to in order to dim the negative sensations.
Mindful Movement
Study after study agree. The benefits of exercise on your mind and body cannot be overstated. One of the reasons why exercise is crucial for retraining your brain is that the effects of exercise have been shown to improve neuroplasticity. When your goal is to retrain your brain to conquer chronic symptoms, all exercise is not created equal. Furthermore, the adage, “No pain, no gain” is outdated and frankly, wrong. If you try to keep “working through the pain” in hopes that it will get better, two things will most likely happen: You will continue to exacerbate the pain. You will also continue using suboptimal movement patterns, reinforcing the muscle firing pattern that is already not working for you. This IS using neuroplasticity, but not to get the result you desire. Pain is a warning signal from your brain that it thinks something is not safe. When you ignore it, the alarms usually just get louder.
Pain Example 1: Without Mindful Movement
Let’s explain this principle through another example. Let’s assume you have chronic low back pain
You do a squat you feel a terrible grabbing sensation in your low back.
You try to keep “working through the pain” in hopes that it will get better.
The pain increases eventually causing you to stop.
You have to go home, and lie down on a heating pad. You end up having a pain flare up for the next two days and feel like "it's always one step forward, two steps" back on your recovery.
Pain Example 2: With Mindful Movement
Let’s look at the same scenario and see how you could use neuroplasticity to your advantage.
Being fully present throughout the exercise, you start to squat down and feel a twinge in your low back.
You scan your body and notice that your pelvis is tucked under, and your glutes are overactivated.
You look in the mirror for additional feedback and see your knees are falling inward as you descend.
In response to what you see and feel, you unclench your glutes, adjust your pelvic tilt and stay mindful of tracking the knees in line with your toes.
The pain subsides until you squat down a little lower.
Instead of continuing to push into a range that causes pain, you come back up and work with the range of motion that is pain-free.
As you continue to strengthen in this “safe” range, you are also building new neural pathways of motor firing patterns to reteach how to do this motion safely. The more you perform this motion in a pain-free range, the more messages of safety it sends to the nervous system. The goal of approaching movement mindfully is to build resilience and help calm down the danger signal in the brain so that you can continue to build more movement types, depths, and loads into your repertoire pain-free.
TRY THIS MINDFUL MOVEMENT EXERCISE:
Next time you are sitting, standing or moving and feel that twinge of tightness, pain, or dizziness, do a quick body scan to see if you are clenching any muscles that are not necessary for the task. Common places of holding include the jaw, upper chest/shoulders, abdominals, glutes, and feet. See if you can release some of the tension in these areas and assess if the sensations improve. If you are struggling with tension patterns or pain with mobility, I recommend working with a movement and pain expert to help you work through it.
How Long Does Brain Retraining Take?
Everyone is different, but you may be surprised at how quickly you start to feel the effects of brain retraining on your symptoms.
Things that come into play are chronicity of symptoms, how suggestible you are, and outside lifestyle stressors that affect your nervous system (such as work, sleep, life demands, nutrition, and relationships). The more you can optimize lifestyle factors, the better brain retraining will work.
Who Does Brain Retraining Help?
I would argue that brain retraining can help anyone who is open to trying some of the practices. Even skeptical people may find some benefit if they try the work. The key for real and lasting change is consistency and time. Although you may find some immediate benefit, completely undoing old behavioral patterns could take weeks, months, or even years.
Some populations who Brain Training has helped lessen or abolish symptoms:
Anxious and depressive symptoms
Hyperactive and attention deficit symptoms
Chronic Pain
Chronic dizziness
Symptoms of chronic disease such as fatigue, tingling, brain fog
If you are ready to upgrade to the next level of healing from chronic pain or dizziness, contact Dr. Stephanie House to see if Mind-Body Physical Therapy is right for you.
The information presented is for education only. If you are struggling with dizziness or balance issues, please contact me directly or book a free consultation to see if working with an expert is right for you.
Dr. Stephanie House has over 15 years of experience in the health and wellness field and currently owns her own practice as a mind-body physical therapist in Charlottesville, VA.
She holds post doctoral certifications in vestibular therapy, dry needling, yoga therapy, and pregnancy and postpartum. With extensive continued study on topics such as mind-body medicine, integrative health, breathwork, and embodiment therapy, Dr. House's extensive knowledge and comprehensive approach gets to the root of movement dysfunction and pain.
If you are ready to change the way you move and feel, work directly with Dr. House or join the House of Balance community.
"I don't heal or fix people. What I do is get your body and mind to an optimal place so you can start to heal yourself. We all have a greater capacity to heal than we are led to believe. With the appropriate input and support, our bodies can do amazing things." Stephanie House, PT, Founder
For specific questions or inquiries, reach out to Dr. House directly: info@houseofbalancept.com or visit her website: www.houseofbalancept.com
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