Brain retraining
How to rewire your brain and nervous system for better health and less pain
It’s all brain retraining
Our brains have a beautiful quality called neuroplasticity. That means that they can change, and the neural pathways responsible for our unconscious responses can be rewired.
For a long time, scientists thought that the neural pathways in our brains got wired in the early years of our development and then basically stayed that way for the rest of our lives. We now know that, across the course of our entire lives, we can change the wiring in our brains and nervous systems with our conscious thoughts and experiences. This is excellent news for people dealing with chronic illness and chronic pain. We can take advantage of the neuroplastic nature of our brains and we can rewire the neural pathways so that rather than feeling sick and fearful, we feel healthy and pain free.
Brain retraining is the process by which we rewire our brains and nervous systems. In many circles, the term “brain retraining” refers specifically to rewiring the brain and nervous system in response to pain signals and perhaps other physical symptoms. The emotional work in the healing process is often treated as an entirely different process. I argue that all of the work and techniques on this site — whether for symptoms or for feeling safe to address repressed issues — is all brain retraining.
Ultimately, the goal is to retrain your brain and nervous system to feel safe and calm, and the processes involved in brain retraining will depend on what triggers the activation in your nervous system.
The nervous system and symptoms
Without the need for any conscious control, our nervous systems keep our body running smoothly — our heart beats, blood flows, the immune system fights off invaders, chemical reactions turn food into energy, and on and on. When something is amiss, our nervous systems take the steps necessary to get us to safety, whether that means fighting off an attacker, running away, or forcing us to freeze in the hopes the threat will eventually just go away.
Moreover, just like our conscious minds, our nervous systems learn from experience. So if your nervous system reacted to a threat and got you out of danger in the past, that’s the reaction it will default to the next time it thinks a similar threat has arisen. But, again, just as with our conscious minds, if new information comes to light that indicates that a previous reaction wasn’t the best reaction, then our nervous systems can update their responses.
So what does that mean for chronic pain or chronic illness? It means that many of our chronic symptoms are not actually occurring because something is wrong with us, but rather, our nervous systems learned to manifest those symptoms for a variety of reasons to help us avoid some real or perceived threat.
Understanding the fear
My hypothesis is that the effectiveness of brain retraining on stopping the fear-symptom cycle depends on understanding the real source of the fear. If the nervous system’s fear response is triggered solely by the symptom, then retraining the brain to feel safe with the symptom — which is what most standard brain-retraining techniques entail — is probably all you need to recover from your chronic condition.
However, if the fear response is triggered by something else, such as repressed thoughts and emotions, then the person needs to retrain their brain to properly respond to and feel safe with the repressed issues. This latter issue is why all of the emotional work may be necessary for many of us to recover.
Learn more
In the articles below, I dive deeper into topics, tools, and techniques regarding this component of healing. This is where I share what I did to heal and where I’ll add updates as I learn new information on these issues. So make sure to look through these posts as well.
Other Resources
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