{"id":37210,"date":"2024-04-04T12:19:26","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T19:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=37210"},"modified":"2024-04-04T12:19:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T19:19:40","slug":"what-is-your-brain-telling-you-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/what-is-your-brain-telling-you-today\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Your Brain Telling You Today?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"abstract<\/a>

Created in Jasper AI<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2013, I was bedridden for 6 months. Not only did I need to step away from my work as a missionary, I couldn\u2019t do much of anything but lie in bed. The energy needed to sit up was sometimes too difficult.<\/p>\n

With so much free time, I began to search the internet for answers. Most of us know how terribly wrong that can go, but in my case, I stumbled across a webinar recording from a naturopath about the connection between the thyroid and adrenal glands. Having been diagnosed with hypothyroidism over 20 years prior, my curiosity was piqued. I listened to the recording and felt so strongly that I needed to reach out to this doctor.<\/p>\n

Once getting on her calendar, she did an intake and recognized my symptoms were pointing to adrenal insufficiency. After taking a saliva test, it showed that I was in an extreme state. By Western medical standards, I would have been hospitalized with Addison\u2019s Disease, but because I was moving to a naturopath, the treatment was very different, slower, and more intentional at getting to the root problem.<\/p>\n

A little bit about adrenal insufficiency: it is all based on cortisol levels and stress. When David Rock wrote in Your Brain at Work<\/em>, \u201cWhen you experience over-arousal over a long period of time, your allostatic load increases. This means your level of markers such as cortisol and adrenaline in the blood become chronically high,\u201d[1]<\/a> I was nodding. Although it has been over ten years, I must self-regulate all the time.<\/p>\n

One day, a friend asked what that season was like. I said, \u201cTo get up and walk the ten steps to the bathroom, I had to tell my body to move, get up, and walk, each step slow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was going through your head?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s the thing with adrenal insufficiency. So many thoughts are scrambling and running through your frontal cortex, it\u2019s hard to shut them off.\u201d I knew she was asking for a deeper response, so I added, \u201cNot once was I mad at God.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me more,\u201d she goaded.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething beautiful happened in the dark. I learned about Instagram. And as an amateur photographer, I started a photography group featuring local photographers every day. Later, when I felt better, I started doing meet-ups with the group that began virtually. My first meet-up was with a group of ex-gang members. I was the only female, but I knew I was meant to be there. They were all polite and respectful, and it ended up being a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, that group held the highest number of regional photographers under a larger umbrella. I only learned this because the founder flew to LA to join in a meet-up, and he mentioned it. And to that, I say, all glory to God. Beautiful things really can grow in the dark.<\/p>\n

About five years ago, my naturopath said she thought it wise to meditate thrice daily for 20 minutes each time. Being a contemplative person, I wasn\u2019t afraid of meditating for 20 minutes, but three times a day?! I was shocked, but when I first began meditating, I felt the benefits immediately. Rock\u2019s ARIA model of awareness, reflection phase, insight, and action is spot on, in my opinion. Your brain needs to slow down to be able to methodically enter each of the phases. \u201cMostly it\u2019s about getting the prefrontal cortex out of the way and allowing deeper signals to be heard.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

This reminds me of the first time I meditated. The right side of my brain began to tingle. When I mentioned this to both my naturopath and therapist, they were stumped only because no one had ever mentioned that to them before.<\/p>\n

The amazing part of mindfulness meditation is that the more one practices, the amygdala (associated with awareness, concentration, and decision-making) begins to shrink, and the \u201cscale of these changes correlates with the number of hours\u201d a person has been meditating.[3]<\/a> The connection between meditation and health is also remarkable. Though it might not cure heart disease, it can reduce stress and inflammation biomarkers directly correlated to cortisol.<\/p>\n

This eventually assists in what Rock refers to as the braking system because when you\u2019re always in a state of high cortisol output, you tend to be reactionary and less able to control urges. This was key when my naturopath asked me to make a list of all the stressors in my life\u2014physical, emotional, and environmental. Learning to rewrite my narrative as a Type A personality, I know that my penchant for how I approached sports activities needed revision. More walking, less running, and highly competitive sports. Darn.<\/p>\n

When I think about where I am now and where I have been, I am grateful for the journey and everything I have learned. Rock is brilliant in referring to Professor James Gross and his development of choosing different options before emotions arise. When I learned to utilize cognitive change[4] to, as I call it, name it, claim it, and put it into the Light, I also taught\u00a0my brain to slow down before going into overdrive.<\/p>\n

As I think about my NPO and how a group of interfaith writers needs validation and space to explore, I have a deeper understanding of why many write about their mindfulness and gratitude practices. They know the value and want to share it with the world, one word at a time, in hopes of creating a more peaceful place.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> David Rock, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long<\/em> (New York: Harper Business, 2009), 110.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 84.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Tom Ireland, \u201cWhat Does Mindfulness Meditation Do to Your Brain?\u201d Scientific American<\/em>, last modified June 12, 2014. https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/blog\/guest-blog\/what-does-mindfulness-meditation-do-to-your-brain\/.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> David Rock, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long<\/em>, 112.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2013, I was bedridden for 6 months. Not only did I need to step away from my work as a missionary, I couldn\u2019t do much of anything but lie in bed. The energy needed to sit up was sometimes too difficult. With so much free time, I began to search the internet for answers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3081,3168,3166,2681,3167,3165,2967,35],"class_list":["post-37210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adrenal-exhaustion","tag-beautiful-things-grow-in-the-dark","tag-neuroscience","tag-rock","tag-writers","tag-your-brain-at-work","tag-dlgp03","tag-leadership","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37210"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37215,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37210\/revisions\/37215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}