Category Archives: brain

How to get smarter

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A couple of Facebook friends (thanks, Nelson and Jacqueline!) posted links to this guest blog post from Scientific American entitled You can increase your intelligence: 5 ways to maximize your cognitive potential. The author, Andrea Kuszewski, who has worked with children with Asperger’s syndrome and helped them increase their IQs, posits that IQ isn’t something that’s genetically predetermined.

Rather, we can get smarter.

I agree with this from my own experience. Clearing excess candida and getting gluten out of my diet resulted in the dissipation of a brain fog that I hadn’t even been aware of — because I had a brain fog! I remember realizing with joy that I could focus on reading difficult texts that I would have given up on before, and I could retain what I learned.

I also read the book Buddha’s Brain and take most of the recommended supplements for brain health. I’ve noticed a difference from that. My brain seems to be humming along more contentedly, and I feel more integrated.

Tell ya later about brainwave optimization!

Of course, this is anecdotal and not scientific evidence, but it seems to me that that’s always where good research starts — from noticing differences. And if it’s true for me, it’s true for me, and that’s good to know.

Kuszewski’s post draws on research findings published in 2008 that stated that you can increase your intelligence significantly through training. And she says if you can live your life by these five principles, you’ll be smarter:

1. Seek novelty. Be open to new experiences.

2. Challenge yourself. As soon as you master something, move on.

3. Think creatively. 

Creative cognition involves divergent thinking (a wide range of topics/subjects), making remote associations between ideas, switching back and forth between conventional and unconventional thinking (cognitive flexibility), and generating original, novel ideas that are also appropriate to the activity you are doing.

4. Do things the hard way. Use your skills — don’t let technology (calculators, GPS, cars) erode them.

5. Network. Expose yourself to new people, ideas, environments. Everyone benefits.

Buddhism, neurology, and the self

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Thanks, Katie Raver, for seeing this article, thinking of me, and posting the link on my Facebook wall, and thanks to Tom Dotz of NLP Comprehensive for sharing it where Katie found it.

Buddhism and the Brainis an opinion piece published in new-to-me Seed Magazine.

There is usually a vast gulf between how someone perceives their self, say in seated meditation, and their beliefs about their self. The meditating self is often a constant fragmented stream of thoughts, sensations, memories, naming, internal dialogue, sometimes interrupted by calm.

Anatta is not a unified, unchanging self. It is more like a concert, constantly changing emotions, perceptions, and thoughts. Our minds are fragmented and impermanent…. Both Buddhism and neuroscience converge on a similar point of view: The way it feels isn’t how it is. There is no permanent, constant soul in the background.

The author asks how Buddhism got it right and brings up the paradox of reincarnation. (If there is no self, what continues to be reincarneted?) He also wonders about the Western view of the self:

When Judeo-Christian belief conflicts with science, it nearly always concerns science removing humans from a putative pedestal, a central place in creation. Yet science has shown us that we reside on the fringes of our galaxy, which itself doesn’t seem to hold a particularly precious location in the universe. Our species came from common ape-like ancestors, many of which in all likelihood possessed brains capable of experiencing and manifesting some of our most precious “human” sentiments and traits. Our own brains produce the thing we call a mind, which is not a soul. Human exceptionalism increasingly seems a vain fantasy. In its modest rejection of that vanity, Buddhism exhibits less error and less original sin, this one of pride.

Click the link above to read the whole article.

New mind-body research finding; living in a toxic world

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I came across this New York Times article, Rejection May Hurt More than Feelings.

The study found that an unwanted breakup affects the brain the same way as having hot coffee spilled on your skin.

In other words, emotional pain is like, or the same as, physical pain.

Also, the New York Times Sunday Book Review features a review, Making Sense of a Toxic World, of a new book, What’s Gotten Into Us?: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World, that looks at the difficulty of proving there’s a clear cause-and-effect of our chemical-laden bodies with rising rates of autoimmune disease, some cancers, autism, reproductive problems, and so on.

It’s not a rave review by any means, but it does have this to say:

The more interesting parts here concern the chemical industry and the free rein it’s had to market scores of thousands of underscrutinized compounds. But it isn’t just chemicals that have gotten into us, Jenkins astutely notes: it’s also culture. “We are saturated with products, and marketing, and advertising,” he writes. “Our ignorance is not an accident.” Manufacturers fight labeling laws, and the federal government doesn’t adequately support independent research into the environmental and health impacts of even the most commonly used chemicals. Regulatory agencies are underfunded and understaffed, even as consumption of manufactured goods (and goods imported from countries with even less regulation than ours) continues to rise.

The reviewer concludes:

… it’s a fine, user-friendly introduction to avoiding environmental hazards in the home, and an even better catalyst to questioning how we got to this point and transcending our unthinking reliance on chemicals that — at certain levels, in certain circumstances, at certain times in our lives — definitely do more harm than good.

Serotonin: the “don’t panic yet” neurotransmitter

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Here’s a New York Times article, Job Description Grows for Our Utility Hormone, on the neurotransmitter serotonin.

New findings: it’s manufactured prenatally by the placenta and stimulates the growth of new neural connections in the forebrain, and it plays a role in bone health.

Excerpts:

The molecule was first detected in 1948, in blood serum, and it was shown be a vascular toning agent that causes blood vessels to constrict — hence its name, a conjoinment of “serum” and “tone.” Five years later, scientists found serotonin in brain extracts as well, and they soon learned that the recently invented hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide worked by tapping into the brain’s serotonin system and that if you took too much LSD you might end up wearing hair garlands and overusing the word “wow.”

For all the intricacy, serotonin in the brain has a basic personality. “It’s a molecule involved in helping people cope with adversity, to not lose it, to keep going and try to sort everything out,” said Philip J. Cowen, a serotonin expert at Oxford University and the Medical Research Council. In the fine phrase of his Manchester University colleague Bill Deakin, “it’s the ‘Don’t panic yet’ neurotransmitter,” said Dr. Cowen.
Given serotonin’s job description, disturbances in the system can contribute to depression, anxiety, panic attacks and mental calcification, an inability to see the world anew — at least in otherwise vulnerable people.

Neuronal serotonin may be better known, but as it happens the vast bulk of the body’s serotonin supply, better than 95 percent, is synthesized outside the brain, mostly by the gut. The two serotonin stocks are kept strictly segregated by the blood-brain barrier, however, and are able to perform on entirely independent pathways.

Starting the process of brainwave optimization

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Yesterday I did something I’ve wanted to do ever since I learned about it. I had an assessment of how my brainwaves are working.

I learned that I still have traces of fight-or-flight activity stemming from PTSD. Forty something years after the trauma, after nearly 20 years of yoga, psychotherapy, releasing the traumatic energy block a la Waking the Tiger, over 5 years of meditation, learning NLP, and doing the trauma releasing exercises, this pattern (although much less than it was) is still present in my energy field. All of those healing modalities have helped and been completely worthwhile, to be sure.

Fight-or-flight is a wonderful instinct to have — when there’s something to fight or flee from. The problem is when there’s nothing in the environment to fear, but I am still tense or jumpy. It’s a brainwave pattern.

I’ve wondered how can I know I’ve completely recovered from trauma. The trauma happened when I was young, so I don’t have an adult baseline of well-being to compare to. I’d really like to know that I’m over it and don’t need to spend any more energy on it. Ever.

The aftereffects of a trauma can last a lifetime. I’d like to experience what it is like to be untraumatized. I can’t change the past, but I can change my brain wave patterns and therefore my life.  

Here’s how the process has gone so far. I made an appointment with Gigi Turner at NeuroBeginnings. That is one of three Austin affiliates offering brainwave optimization using the equipment and software and training provided by Brain State Technologies (BST).

The founder of BST, Lee Gerdes, has written a book, Limitless You: The Infinite Possibilities of a Balanced Brain. I have just gotten the book myself. One of the testimonials on the back cover mentions “restoring … humans to a joyful and highly functional state in their daily life.” Yeah.

All of these companies are staying busy, from what I hear, and I’m sure they are all very competent at doing what they do. I connected well with Gigi on the phone and identified with her as a working woman, so I chose her. She’s also the most highly trained BST certified technician in town.

At my first appointment, she had me fill out an extensive online questionnaire. I’m pretty sure they ask about so many issues because BST wants to collect as much data as it can. All in the name of compassionate science. This is a fascinating frontier that I’ve blogged about before.

At the end of the questionnaire, I identified my top reasons for wanting to do this. I listed well-being and happiness first. And, oh yeah, I wouldn’t mind having better spiritual development and meditation, cognitive improvement, social interactions, etc.

Gigi had me sit in a recliner. She put some electrodes on my earlobes and scalp. She then asked me to close my eyes for 2-3 minutes. Then she asked me to open my eyes partially. Then she asked me to open my eyes completely. With eyes open, she had me do an exercise like repeat strings of numbers.

Meanwhile, a big computer monitor with a split screen is showing my left and right hemisphere activity as colors — blues, green, red, each color representing a range of brainwaves like beta, alpha, theta, delta — streaming by.

Pretty and fascinating. I wonder what this means.

Then she’d move the electrodes and repeat the process for a different area of my brain, getting readings for the frontal lobe, parietal, temporal, occipital, cingulate gyrus, and midline, if I remember accurately.

With my eyes open, I’d do a different exercise for each area. I solved math problems aloud, read to myself and answered a question, listened to Gigi reading and answered a question, and just looked around the room.

At the end, she removed the electrodes and showed me a summary on the computer of my assessment. (It’s proprietary, so I didn’t get a copy. Darn! I love looking at data, seeing what pops out.)

Basically for each area of the brain, there’s data about the left and right hemispheres, about each brainwave type, and about ratios between types (such as between beta and theta), as far as I could tell. I bet there’s also data about the brain’s flexibility in moving from eyes closed, partly open, to wide open, and how well it functions doing each assigned task.

From experience, the BST-trained technicians have come to recognize “brainwave signatures” for various conditions like PTSD, ADHD, and so on. But it’s really not meant as a diagnostic tool. It’s meant to be used to harmonize and balance the brain, and this is the starting place.

They also can tell what range the numbers “should” be in for optimal functioning. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with being out of range. I imagine some gifts and talents that people have developed (math prodigy, psychic) rely on being out of normal range while doing that activity. The question is, are they happy and healthy? Can their brainwaves change to meet the situation, or are they in a dysfunctional pattern?

Even if you don’t have anything like PTSD, you can probably benefit from tuning up your brain. The literature says it can help with addictions, anger, anxiety, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, compulsive behaviors, eating disorders, learning difficulties, obsessive thinking, panic attacks, poor memory, sleeping difficulties, stress, and a host of other issues.

So it is possible that with the training, I can completely retrain my brain to operate as if I never had PTSD.

I can be less jumpy and experience even more well-being. I’m looking forward to that.

I can also learn to focus better on reading material that is, ahem, less than compelling. Like textbooks and other dry material.

I’m a pretty good sleeper, but Gigi says that optimizing my brain waves will help me sleep even better, waking up even more refreshed. Wow. I’ve had insomnia before and have great compassion for people with sleep problems. I’m looking forward to sleeping more restfully.

BST affiliates can also do things like increase beta in the left hemisphere and increase alpha in the right hemisphere. Yeah, let those hemispheres specialize even more! I imagine this would make someone more cognitively adept when they need to be and happier the rest of the time. I’ll have some of that, too!

So I’m going to do it later this month, when my contract job is completely done. You need to be able to come in for a couple of hours a day every day, or even twice a day, which is why I’ve waited until now.

I understand the process uses sound, and that you actually “observe” your brain waves and optimize them yourself, creating the balance and harmony you desire, rather than matching an external norm.

I will report back here at Well:bodymindheartspirit.

Samadhi and the right brain

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I’m linking to an article published in Elephant Journal that has an interesting discussion about the right brain and mystical states. Jill Bolte Taylor wrote about having her left brain shut down during a cerebral hemorrhage in My Stroke of Insight.

This writer, a yogi and ayurvedist, wonders aloud if samadhi is actually experienced through shutting down big parts of the left brain.

Read on for a worthwhile discussion, and juicy tidbits about a few spiritual eminences.

New time for restorative yoga class

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Because of the especially beautiful spring Sundays, which no one wants to miss out on, and the longer days, I’m pushing the time of my restorative yoga class back.

Starting Sunday, April 3, the class begins at 7:30 pm and ends at 9:00 pm. Read Yoga Offerings on this blog for more information about this class, which I call Unwinding.

Get your Sunday chores done, eat a light dinner, and then come to the class for some deep, deep relaxation.

You’ll sleep better and feel better on Monday morning. Start your week out well.

As I’ve mentioned before, people need activity, sleep, and rest. There are many ways to rest, and it’s as much about allowing your mind to relax as your body. Theta waves are not just a stage you move through quickly as you fall asleep and as you wake up.

Include some restful activity in every day. Daydream. Meditate. Stare at a fire. Slow down and let your mind relax.

Quote about teaching yoga

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Teaching yoga is the best job in the world because you get to do it barefoot and wearing your pajamas. 🙂 Celebrate!

From Judith Hanson Lasater on Facebook.

She’s got a point! I said that when I retired from my serious job where I was an employee and worked for a salary, I’d wear yoga clothes all the time.

Well, I’m not retired yet from that type of job (but soon, I hope), and I manage to wear yoga clothes to work (with jewelry, shawls, and jackets) nearly every day.

My favorite yoga pants that I’ve found so far come from Lucy.com (they come in lengths). They are so comfortable and durable.

To relax, to improve health, to change the world, just breathe

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Last night I attended the monthly Austin NLP meetup. Katie Raver, who was raised by an NLP-trained mom and who is a co-founder of Austin NLP and who created Year of the Breath in 2009, presented on the topic Breathing Life into Rapport.

Note: Katie is my temporary roommate. And she loves my cat, Mango. I may be biased.

Katie drew on her experiences in Hawai’i (where ha means breath, thus Hawai’i, aloha, ha‘ole — without breath, ha prayer). When she returned, she noticed how shallow breathing negatively impacted a work-related meeting she was in, and she experimented with pacing and then leading the alpha person at the meeting (not the speaker, but the key decision maker) to breathe more deeply, thus changing the state of the meeting for all 17 people present. Only Katie — or as we call her, the instigator of love — was aware of how that shift occurred.

We had fun doing exercises like matching someone’s breathing while talking to them and matching their breathing while they’re talking to you. Sorry you missed it.

I must say, it’s a lovely experience to have a room full of people breathing in unison. It’s on a par with hearing a room full of people all chanting OM. Deep. Alive. Powerful. 

 Today an email led me to this NPR article dated Dec. 6, 2010, Just Breathe: Body Has a Built-In Stress Reliever.

As it turns out, deep breathing is not only relaxing, it’s been scientifically proven to affect the heart, the brain, digestion, the immune system — and maybe even the expression of genes.

Yogis and meditators know this. Breath is powerful.

But more importantly, [breathing exercises] can be used as a method to train the body’s reaction to stressful situations and dampen the production of harmful stress hormones.

Click the link to read up on the latest scientific findings about using breath to influence health and well-being.

You can also make meetings more satisfying. At least you won’t be bored.

Trauma/stress, sleep, and brainwaves

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I have several friends who have a hard time sleeping. Could be falling asleep or staying asleep. They go through long periods of not sleeping well.

I’ve been through several of those periods myself, although not lately. I empathize with how the lack of a good night’s sleep negatively affects everything the next day — energy, alertness, performance. I feel their pain.

I’ve already mentioned that I take most of the supplements recommended in the appendix of Buddha’s Brain. I feel better than I’ve felt in years.

I honestly don’t know how good I can feel, and I’d like to find out!

When my contract job ends in 6 weeks and I can make this a priority, I intend to get my brainwaves optimized.

Here’s a link to an article, Your Brainwaves On Sleep. The author writes about the particle (chemical) and wave (brainwave) approaches to sleep.

On the particle side of the debate, there is ample experiential evidence and scientific studies that demonstrate that chemical activity in the brain can profoundly alter sleep tendencies. Many foods, medicines and other substances are well known to have promotional or inhibitory influences on sleep. Furthermore, studies have demonstrated the existence of sleep-regulatory substances, which, after accumulating in the cerebrospinal fluid of an organism and then being injected into another one, can induce the state of sleepiness.

Wave approaches to sleep focus on its cyclical aspects. A focus on wave aspects has intrinsic appeal, since sleep itself comes and goes regularly in healthy individuals. On this side of the debate, researchers have shown, for example, that there is an extra dose of sleepiness that comes in the middle of the afternoon. Within and between sleep periods, there are predictable cycles of brainwave activity. The timing of the beginning and end of a sleep period is also intimately connected with the timing of our secretion of hormones, the level of arousal of our cardiovascular system, immune system and metabolic functioning and integration of our cognitive capacities. Without good quality sleep, these systems become poorly modulated and dysfunctional over time.

I disagree that we must understand sleep as one or the other. I believe we must understand sleep — and everything else — as both particles and waves. We are bio-chemical, bio-electrical critters.

Good sleep correlates to brain activation patterns (as measured by EEG) that are reasonably balanced (left-to-right and front-to-back) and harmonized (low and high frequencies in a good proportion to one another throughout the brain). Balance and harmony are required especially in those brain areas that generally function for the purpose of internal processing and reception of external stimuli: the temporal, occipital, parietal and midline (or corpus callosum) areas.

Of course, trauma and chronic stress (or prolonged periods of stress) get the brainwaves off track. Brainwave optimization gets them back in harmony.

I hope that someday, brainwave optimization will be inexpensive, widespread, and routine in our culture. What a world that might be, with everyone’s brains functioning at their best all the time!