existence: stress

Brain development in early childhood is extremely important as it sets the stage for the rest of a child's life. Neuroscience research has shown us that early childhood is a time of tremendous brain development. Early experiences affect the development of brain architecture, and provides the foundation for all future learning and behavior. Just as a weak foundation compromises the quality and strength of a house, adverse experiences early in life can impair brain architecture, with negative effects lasting into adulthood.

Brain architecture is comprised of billions of connections between individual neurons across different areas of the brain. These connections enable lightning-fast communication among neurons that specialize in different kinds of brain functions.

The early years are the most active period for establishing neural connections, but new connections can form throughout life and unused connections continue to be pruned. If a child experiences trauma it may rewire the brain which can have effects later in life. Both positive or negative experiences can add up to shape a child's development and can have lifelong effects.

If a child touches something hot and burns a finger it creates a special kind of memory so that the next time something hot is touched, there is a reflex that jerks the hand back, away from harm. And this happens even before there is a conscious awareness of the danger.

In this way trauma can rewire the brain. There is a special part of the brain that regulates approach and avoidance. There is a reward circuit or system of neural structures responsible for incentive and positive emotions, particularly ones which involve pleasure as a core component.

Under normal conditions, this circuit controls an individual's responses to natural rewards, such as food, sex, and social interactions, and is therefore an important determinant of motivation and incentive drive. In simplistic terms, activation of the pathway tells the individual to repeat what it just did to get that reward.

There is also another special fear system to escape the discomfort or danger. Much of human behavior is explained via avoidance conditioning. An avoidance response is a natural adaptive behavior performed in response to danger. Excessive avoidance has been suggested to contribute to anxiety disorders.

According to The Biology of Belief by Dr.Bruce Lipton, the subconscious mind can process many millions of bits of info per second. The conscious mind can only process about 40 bits of info per second. So the subconscious mind can process much more than what the conscious mind is able to and is in charge about 95% of the time..

So we are not consciously aware of most approach and avoidance which is primarily emotional. Negative emotions signal threats to needs and goals and energize avoidance. Positive emotions signal the opportunity to meet needs and goals and energize approach. A reaction is based in the moment and doesn't take into consideration long term effects of what you do or say, which would lead to an action.

Both love and fear are more emotional than logical. An emotional connection is a bundle of subjective feelings that come together to create a bond between two people. The word emotional means to arouse strong feelings. We say "falling" in love because it isn't rational.

A strong emotional connection will set aside any concern that might come from other people's judgments or actions. The feeling of being emotionally intimate with someone occurs when you believe that a person deeply knows, understands, and accepts you for being who you really are.

Child abuse is when a caregiver either fails to provide appropriate care (neglect), purposefully harms a child. Every child who has experienced abuse or neglect will have their own response to the trauma. A child who has been subjected to child abuse develops many insecure feelings, as well as low self-esteem and feel emotions like distrust, disconnection, and resentment. These people's core behavior is to be guarded and suspicious, and their worldview is that people cannot be trusted.

Rates of childhood and adult trauma are high among incarcerated persons. In addition to criminality, childhood trauma is associated with the risk for emotional disorders (e.g., anxiety and depression) as well as alcohol and drug abuse and antisocial behaviors in adulthood. Most are unaware their brain was rewired.

Seven out of ten of the leading causes of death are dramatically increased by childhood trauma. It not only affects brain development, but also the immune systems, hormonal systems, and even the way our DNA is read and transcribed. It can triple the incidence of heart disease and lung cancer. And as much as a 20 year difference in life expectancy. Substantial abuse increases suicide rates by 12 times. And yet doctors are not trained in routine screening or treatment. About 67% of adults have experienced abusive trauma in childhood. - Nadine Burke Harris

Trauma that affects the brain can also happen to adults. PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, can happen to anyone who experiences or witnesses a terrifying event. Dr. John Rigg MD is a specialist who provides medical oversight and rehabilitation from brain injuries. He explains the problem in terms of two kinds of brain function which he refers to as the animal brain vs. the thinking brain. He says the cerebral cortex, or thinking brain covers over 2/3 of human brain involves processes such as thinking, perceiving, processing, and understanding languages. It is logical but slower than the brain stem is the lowest and "oldest" region of the brain.

The brain stem (reptilian brain) handles the most basic functions required for survival; things like, heart rate, reflexes, breathing, digestion, and regulating sleep. Dr. Rigg calls it the primitive animal brain, fast but not very smart. It can instantly take over in a threatening emergency.

Trauma occurs when a person is overwhelmed by something that happens if is beyond their control. Overwhelming stress can cause trauma. Stress is a natural physical and mental reaction to life experiences as everyday life gets more complex, stress levels are ever rising. The Coronavirus pandemic puts some people over the line and instinct overtakes reason.

The U.S. suffered around 58,000 fatalities over the course of the Vietnam War, which lasted from 1955 to 1975. This number has now been eclipsed by the more than 60,000 U.S. veteran suicides in a recent span of just 10 years, plus 20 per day.

PTSD is not just for military personal. Some degree of it is increasingly being seen among non-mitary people. Indifference, freezing, or panic may result. Your focus is on what's wrong which can be exhausting or lead to depression. Your identy may get stuck in the past, when the trauma occurred.

If it happens repeatedly, the alarm system becomes jammed. Normal memory functions may be impaired. Even though the trauma may exist only in the past, the body may continue acting as if the trauma is still happening.

Studies have shown that increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol may be associated with pain. And the relationship between pain and anxiety can become circular. Drug treatments can even complicate the problem.

Drug addiction has reached epidemic levels across the globe with approximately 247 million drug users worldwide. The International Review of Psychiatry reported in June 2005 that more than 67.5 million Americans—almost one-in-four of us—have taken a course of antidepressant medication.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He writes:

1 in 5 Americans was sexually molested as a child.
1 in 4 was beaten by a parent to the point of a mark being left on their body.
1 in 3 couples engage in physical violence.
1 in 4 grew up with alcoholic relatives.
1 in 8 witnessed their mother being beaten or hit.

He says that intellectual or drug therapies are less successful than somatic therapy. Somatics is a field within bodywork and movement studies which emphasizes internal physical perception and experience. When there is a wall between the body and the mind the body should first be soothed becaues the body can hijack the intellect.

By focusing on calming body first, you then can begin calming the mind using approaches that take patients beneath their cognitive minds to heal the parts of them that remained frozen in the past - somatic & body-oriented processes and neuroscience designed to enhance the body's own capacity to heal, such as neurofeedback, EMDR, meditation, yoga, mindfulness meditation, and sensory integration methods such as dance and movement, breath work, touch and hands-on healing. Somatic awareness is fundamental for emotional awareness, and the autonomic homeostatic process has a fundamental involvement in healing trauma.

"There are really only two things you need
to be able to do to meditate; become aware
of yourself and stay there for a while." - Diana Lang

Meditation training promotes positive psychology and better cellular health. Researchers have discovered a link between the positive psychological changes which occur as a result of meditation.

The Shamatha Project is the most comprehensive longitudinal study of intensive meditation yet undertaken. Participants within the studies attained numerous psychological benefits from meditation training, while decreasing negative emotionality. The effect appears to be attributable to psychological changes that increase a person’s ability to cope with stress and maintain feelings of well-being.

Positive psychological changes from meditation training linked to cellular health associated with greater telomerase activity, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, San Francisco.

The study is the first to link positive well-being to higher telomerase, an enzyme important for the long-term health of cells in the body. And meditation helps rebuild and lengthen telomeres which increases a person’s health and promote longevity in those cells and increases a person’s sense of well-being. This may have a profound effect on the most fundamental aspects of their physiology.

An intensive meditation retreat took place at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colo. That study included 30 participants each in the retreat and control groups. Participants received ongoing instruction in meditation techniques. They attended group meditation sessions twice a day and engaged in individual practice for about six hours a day.

A control group of 30 people matched for age, sex, education, ethnicity and meditation experience was assessed at the same time and in the same place, but did not otherwise attend meditation training at that time.

The Shamatha Project has drawn the attention of scientists and Buddhist scholars alike, including the Dalai Lama, who has endorsed the project.
Saron and his colleagues are now analyzing and publishing other findings from the project. In a paper published this summer in Psychological Science, Katherine MacLean, a recent UC Davis Ph.D. graduate now at Johns Hopkins University, reported that meditators were better at making fine visual distinctions and sustaining attention over a long period.

There is something about the quality of attention and intention, that you can develop through contemplative practices, that changes how you experience difficult moments in life." Kelly McGonigal

Yoga Nidra is an an ancient form of meditation that has been proven effective to reduce stress, tension, anxiety, sleeplessness and many other psychological disorders.

Sometimes referred to as 'yogic sleep' is a guided meditation that guides you into conscious awareness of each part of the body for deep and effortless relaxation like a progressive relaxation technique.

Yoga Nidra induces the mind to transition from the waking state, through the "hypogonic" state (between waking and dream), into dream and deep sleep states. This transition however is not done unconsciously. It can be used to fall asleep but usually as a quick stress relief.

The practitioner to access layers of the subconscious mind will clarity and mindfulness. This allows for the release of many negative patterns in the mind to unravel and ultimately dissolve.

It is a way to help you relax deeply and touch a place of deep stillness, peace and insight within. It is deeply nourishing and an essential practice to help us slow down and unwind in the often fast paced modern world.

There are various free downloadable ones of various lengths. Busy people often habitually use this technique for a few minutes of stress relief session to heal and restore the body, quiet the mind, and bring compassion and love into your heart.