Thinking yourself to health

In my last post, I wrote about a recent article on how brains change and grow in response to how and what we think. In many ways, this should come as no surprise. Our muscles and bones also grow in response to use. When we lift weights, we gain more muscle. When we put more stress on our bones, they get stronger. Martial artists have a long practice of training by hitting walls or sand repeatedly. Each impact signals the body to grow stronger bones and tougher skin. Heel spurs are the result of impacts on the heel when we walk which results in dysfunctional and painful bone growth. Same process with two very different results.

MS is an auto-immune disease which means we cause it ourselves. Given what we know about bone and muscle growth, the question arises if there is something in our own actions that causes the dysfunction in our immune systems? Given what the recent study revealed about brains following the same pattern but in response to the way we think, are there patterns of thought which lead to a worsening or improvement in our MS? Do these patterns of thought cause physical changes in the brain that alter our symptoms? And if they do, how does one change those patterns of thought to lead to a healthier brain?

My approach is that the dysfunctional patterns of thought revolve around self-hate, fear, and giving away power. I would also add a lack of connection to self and to God. Over time, they pull the brain in the wrong direction and encourage a dysfunctional immune system.

One thing that the article really stressed was that the changes in the brain take years to occur. Cognitive  reserve, their term for mental strength, is developed over a lifetime. The article also stated that mental strengthening is the result of continual effort and focus – finding challenges and raising a mental sweat in overcoming them. This means that any changes in the course of our MS from this approach take a long period of concerted effort to show any results. Simplified, this all means to have patience with yourself.

What do you think? Are there patterns of your thinking that lead you to get healthier or sicker?

Photo courtesy of LuMaxArt

Flexing your Brain

The lead article in the fall 2009 issue of the Rocky Mountain MS society's magazine InforMS is about changes in the brains of London cab drivers while they learn their craft. In this blog post, I will summarize the article and the conclusions it draws based on this research. In my next post, I will propose another direction the research can take us and how that might help people with MS.

Studies show that as new drivers go through an intensive three year training program to memorize all streets, attractions, and restaurants in central London, the parts of their brains thought to be connected to navigation got bigger and bigger. The study shows that our brains continue to change and develop over time in response to what we do and think. The article states:

“This research on the cab drivers adds to our growing understanding that our brains are sculpted by what we learn and experience throughout our lifetime. We know that our brains influence what we do with our lives. Now we are beginning to appreciate the converse: what we do with our lives influences our brains.” (p. 3)

The article continues that our brains ability to grow and change is called “Cognitive reserve”. Which is defined as "...a measure of brain fitness and flexibility. Like muscles, brains become more flexible if they are regularly challenged.” (p. 4) Brains with lots of cognitive reserve have an easier time repairing themselves.

The article continues to talk about ways to improve one's cognitive reserve, of which the best ways are physical and mental exercise. Physical exercise improves blood flow to the brain and reduces stress. As for mental exercise, the article states that “Apparently, what really stimulates the brain to learn and grow is more a function of how, and how much you are challenged to learn, not what you learn. “ (p. 5) As with physical exercise, the amount of benefit you receive is directly related to the amount of effort you expend. If you focus on a mental challenge, you will build mental muscle.

The Rocky Mountain MS society does wonderful work and also does a lot of work with examining how complimentary and alternative medicine can help people with MS – something near and dear to my heart. I recommend checking out their website and subscribing to their newsletters and quarterly magazine. As an addendum to this post, I would recommend checking out the bibliography on the brain Article as well.

Fizz to Solidity: A technique for feeling the world

I was lying in bed the other night waiting to fall asleep when I starting paying attention to my sensations. Along my back and torso, I could feel the bed as a solid object, pressing into me. But along my legs and feet, it felt like wind. Instead of feeling the solidity of the bed, I felt like my legs were resting on a the top of the foam that bubbles to the top of a freshly poured soda.

I knew that this type of diffuse sensation is not uncommon with MS, so I didn't try to do anything about it. But it was an interesting sensation, so I focused on it without moving my legs or trying to change it in any way. That's when it got really interesting. A few minutes later the sensation changed from fizz to concrete reality. Instead of the foam sensation, I felt the bed solidly underneath me pushing back on the weight of my body lying there.

I didn't think much of it and went to sleep. The next night, I tried it again. No intent to change, no desire to actually do anything other than pay attention to the actual sensation my legs were giving me. Again I felt the fizz and again it changed to solidity, but quicker than the first time. I did that for a few days and three nights ago, when I lay down, I only felt solidity, no fizz at all.

Since that first night, I've been paying a lot of attention to what I am actually feeling. When I sit, I focus on my legs and butt meeting the chair. When I stand, it's my feet on the ground. I've had intermittent dulled sensation in my feet for years, so it's been really interesting to pay attention to what I feel and watch the sensation come and go. Though again, the more I pay attention to it, the more it turns into solidity and less fizzy.

For a number of years, I saw an Alexander Technique teacher in Boston by the name of Debi Adams, who I strongly recommend to anyone in that area. I had to stop the lessons when I moved to Israel three years ago, and the bodily awareness that came from them  faded over the course of a year or two. But when I started to pay attention to the
sensations, then lessons instantly came back and with them a body awareness I hadn't realized was so dulled. (On my healing blog I wrote about a class I took with Tommy Thompson, a master teacher of the Alexander Technique).

The trick seems to be to pay attention to two things: the actual sensation coming from my body and the fact that the thing I'm touching is pushing back on me. When I step on the ground, I'm pushing down, but the ground is pushing back up. When I lie on the bed, gravity is pushing me down and the bed is pushing me up. Focusing on the contact point between the two is where all the good stuff happens. If I focus too much on myself, then I ignore the world around. But if I focus too much outside, then I miss myself.

The other trick is not to try to change anything, but just to pay attention and let the change come. Part of MS is a disconnect between what's outside and our perceptions of it. This technique brings those two into clearer harmony.

I don't know if the technique helps repair the damaged nerves or builds new neurological connections, but one way or another, it helps.

I'm wondering what types of experiences others have had when focusing on their sensations and if it helped them to heal? Please comment and let me know.

MS as teacher

Last week, I had a lovely lunch with Shulamit Lando, a psychotherapist and personal life coach who has had MS for the past 20 years (check out her website for some good info).  One of the most interesting things she said to me was that one of her primary focuses in working with people coping with MS and other diseases is to help them shift their perspective to realize that the disease is teaching them something and they need to learn from it rather than fighting it. Once they do that, they can begin to really change and embrace who they are now instead of fighting to hold on to who they were before they got sick.

I thought her approach was a good one, so came to the blog to write about it and found that I'd already started the post before I met with her!

In the middle of January, I had written:
Someone asked me recently how I relate to my MS. My response was that I view MS as my teacher, albeit one with awful pedagogical methods, but a teacher none the less. In every episode or symptom is the potential to learn about myself. Every aspect of MS is trying to teach me a lesson, and it's just up to me to figure out what it is. I don't know if the MS will go away when I've learned the lesson, but I know that I am much happier and centered.


MS is the motivation to move me forward in my spiritual development. I think that if I didn't have MS, I would still be working at Kinko's trying to figure out how to be a business person and not really understanding why I wasn't succeeding. With MS, I've become a healer and am really able to make a difference in people's lives.

I wrote it, saved it to be edited, and forgot about it.

It's funny how the world works sometimes. I can't figure out if God was trying to give me a clear message or if I was just in tune with the flow of energy in the Universe. In either case, it's helpful to figure out how MS can be your teacher.

I'm curious if other people view MS this way and what are the lessons they feel MS has taught them?

Praise your part in your MS

Photo (c) Aaron Askanase (yes, this is my daughter!)

I think there are many lessons to be learned from the work of Carol Dweck, a professor of Social psychology at Stanford. Her work on the effects of praise on children have influenced my thinking (and my parenting).

She divides praise (and criticism) into two categories: person/trait praise and process praise. In person praise, the child is praised for a trait such as, "wow, you did the puzzle, you must be very smart!". In process praise, the child is praised for their effort, "wow, you worked really hard to finish that puzzle!". What she found is that children who receive process based praise were more likely to work harder, seek greater challenges, and overcome adversity better. The children who received trait based praise became more easily frustrated, and were more likely to seek simpler challenges in which they could succeed more easily.

In my opinion, the most important part is that the kids who were praised for something within their control worked harder. When I praise my daughter for effort, she knows that to succeed she just needs to work harder. If I praise her for being smart, she has no idea how to be smarter. In fact, there is no way to be smarter, so I haven't given her any tools or hints on how to succeed. Dweck points out that children who are praised for being smart (or any trait) often feel dumb if they fail at a task. The trait based praise leads kids into a dead-end: they are judging themselves on a standard over which they have no control.

These standards can be used for how we describe MS. It can either be a trait, something that is fixed, over which we have no power. Or it can be a process, one in which we have a great deal of influence.

It's very important to conceptualize MS in a way that includes our own influence on the course of the disease. I often think of MS as a condition of my life. It's not a disease that is afflicting me, but rather an aspect of who I am. Just like I wear glasses, I have MS. For my bad eyesight, I know that I can wear glasses or do eye exercises to help me improve. For my MS, I know that there are things I can do to make it worse and things to make it better. And those things are firmly in my control.

When I evaluate my MS, I don't measure it according to how many times I felt symptoms or how bad they were. Rather, I measure it according to what I did to effect the condition: did I do my exercises? Did I eat right? Did I take my drugs? Did I sleep enough? Have I meditated? I know that all of those things are in my power, so that's what I focus on. I know that there will be setbacks or problems with my body, but if I look at MS in a process way, I will always be able to find a way to continue doing everything in my power to make myself healthy.

The hardest question

Photo courtesy of thehoneybunny

Last night I found my wife's chocolate stash and decided to help myself to a piece. I knew it wasn't good for me, but after thinking about it for a moment I took a piece anyway. As if to prove a point, I got an instant headache.

What struck me was the thought process: I know this is bad for me and I'm going to do it anyway. I've written before about the urge to self-destruction, but this was a totally different energy. I wasn't doing something unconsciously or without realizing it was bad for me, I was choosing it intentionally. Why would I do that?

It led me to the hardest question: do I want to be sick? Is there some benefit to myself that makes me choose to be sick?

My daughter looked up at me the other day (when she was home sick from Kindergarten) and said: "Being sick is fun, I get to stay home with mommy and daddy, draw all day, and play on the computer." I stared at her for a moment before I said anything. I started looking back at my life and remembering the many times when I had the same reaction. Now I have to start looking at my life now and seeing if I am having that same reaction.

And then I have to ask myself the hardest question of all: do I enjoy being sick? And if the answer is "yes" than I know what my next stage of spiritual growth has to be.

Surrender and Progress

Picture by Aaron Askanase

I was recently contacted by someone who was newly diagnosed with MS. Her main question to me was if her anger at the diagnosis would pass. I reassured her that it would, but let her know that we all have to find our own peace with the condition.

It got me thinking in two directions. The first is that I firmly believe that anger is best dealt with by dealing with fear. Fear causes the fight or flight reaction and the extra energy easily turns into anger. A new diagnosis is very scary. It puts the future into very uncertain terms, some of which can be very debilitating. My advice as a healer is always to look at what scares someone about the potential futures and spend time with the fear.

My second reaction was realizing that I'm not sure that I went through a long period of anger about the diagnosis. I was 26 when I got diagnosed and really had no understanding of MS at all. I didn't even know I should be scared of it, so I just rolled with it. I had no idea how it might effect my life, so wasn't sure how to react to it. There are times that I get angry about it, but they pass relatively quickly.

I was talking to my wife about this, and she was remembering her anger at blowing out her knees while training for a marathon years ago. She was so angry that she was not going to be able to run the marathon, and angry that she couldn't really walk for about three months.  My wife is a very goal oriented person with a high drive to succeed. I'm not. When the MS limits me, I just find something else to do. When she gets stymied, the energy just builds up until she finds another way to succeed or she gets really angry.

For me, having MS meant that because of the heat, I couldn't go to the rain forest in Peru on my honeymoon (something I'd always wanted to do). I thought it would have been amazing to go, but we just found other places to go, no big deal. For a very goal oriented person, I would think that would have been very frustrating.

It's hard for me to determine when I started to be this way, but my life is a careful balance of surrender and progress. I work very hard on myself to heal and to be a good healer, but when things change for me then I surrender to the change and adjust. I have an innate faith in God, but I don't know if that is a result of the MS or if it was just accentuated by it. I learned very early on that there were things in this world that were more powerful than I was, and that I just needed to surrender to those things. The difficulty is knowing which things should be struggled against, and which things should be accepted.

I think it's like a stream coming towards me. If I fight it, it builds up and overwhelms me (and even a small stream can do this if allowed to). If I completely surrender, then I get washed away. But if I accept the force coming towards me and change with it's influence, then I can stand in the stream and maintain myself.

I think the anger about MS is that resistance to the change. MS is so much bigger than we are, but we have so much influence over how it effects us and how we react to it. Dealing with the anger is a question of learning to live with those changes, and learning to be at peace with the uncertainty MS brings.

I'd like to hear from you about how you've dealt with your anger, and what you've found most effective.