Neural Retraining I – How I Healed My Brain

Neural retraining has been fundamental to my own healing journey. This is a practice born out of the scientific theory of neuroplasticity which references the brain’s ability to change and make new connections, especially in regards to learning or experience, or healing from injury. So Neural Retraining is a specific, targeted approach to rewiring the brain. It aids in healing from chronic illness by training the brain to regulate an unconscious, yet inappropriate stress response.

THE DISCOVERY OF NEUROPLASTICITY

For many years, it was thought that the adult human brain could not recover or heal from injury. Scientists thought adult brain cells were static and nonrenewable. So a fully developed brain injured by a traumatic incident, would always be injured. As one scientist, Ramon y Cajal said, “In adult nerve centers, the nerve paths are something fixed, ended, immutable. Everything may die. Nothing may be regenerated.”

In the 1960s, this understanding began to change. Scientists learned that neurons can in fact “reorganize” after a traumatic event. A stroke patient who has lost the use of one arm can regain use of that arm with targeted therapy that encourages the brain to rewire or regenerate pathways of communication with the injured arm. Even more amazing is the study of neurogenesis, which is the brain’s ability to grow entirely new neurons. For our purposes today, though, we will focus on the concept of neuroplasticity.

Dr. Norman Doidge is one of the world’s leading scientists in the field of neuroplasticity. When you have twenty minutes to learn more, please watch the video imbedded below. His talk about the capabilities of the human brain far exceeds anything I could explain to you here.

MY PATH TO NEURAL RETRAINING

For five years, my family was unknowingly exposed to toxic mold in our home. For the last three years in that home, I was extremely sick. I was diagnosed with a new autoimmune disease or related condition every three months on average. I was the canary in our family. Neither my husband nor my son experienced the severity of symptoms that incapacitated me during that time.

In 2018, we left that home and all of our contents behind. Cutting off exposure to the mycotoxins that made me sick was enough to jump start my healing, but by 2020, I still had not recovered completely. In 2018, I was in the hospital for twelve days with a severe ulcerative colitis flare. (We discovered the mold in our home three days after my hospital stay.) While in the hospital, I began steroids to reduce the inflammation in my colon. I needed to slowly taper from 40 mg a day down to 0mg and maintain the gains that the steroid provided.

By 2020, I had failed the taper five times. Every time I got between 5 and 10 mg of prednisone, my flare symptoms would come roaring back to life. I would experience excruciating pain and bleeding, weight loss and inability to eat.

In the fall of 2019, I experienced yet another flare that landed me in the ER. I began seeing a new practitioner shortly after that flare. She acknowledged all the work I’d done with my diet, with supplements, with lifestyle changes and mold avoidance. She said, “I don’t think the problem is directly in your gut. I think it’s in your brain.” Thus began my introduction to neural retraining.

MY NEED TO “CUT NEW RUTS” IN THE BRAIN

My practitioner recommended that I purchase a video program known as DNRS (Dynamic Neural Retraining System). I looked at the website and didn’t see how my life could improve by such a thing, but I was desperate. I made the purchase and immediately began the video classes. Because I trusted my practitioner, I committed to trying the program for at least sixty days.

The program is built on the idea that in the case of chronic conditions, the limbic system is often in a state of damage that perpetuates the disabling conditions. In my case, I learned that my brain had gotten really good at being sick. For years, it walked pathways of illness. And with each journey down those pathways, the ruts got deeper and easier to walk, so that in a way, my brain had forgotten how to be well. The act of rewiring my brain, then, was the act of making pathways of wellness. I needed to cut new ruts.

Through this program, I learned that fear was the primary wall holding my ruts in place. My fight or flight response was calling the shots. Without consciously doing so, I was waiting for the next diagnosis. They had come every three months for three years. I was conditioned to expect pain. I was afraid of the trajectory of the disorders I’d already collected.

When I began the DNRS program, I was at 10mg of prednisone. I was to taper down 1 mg a week in a very slow taper. But this was my danger zone. I needed my past pattern of taper-flare-taper-flare to be interrupted by DNRS.

The truth is, I felt a change in me almost immediately. My taper would be a success.

SO HOW DOES NEURAL RETRAINING WORK?

Fear carved the ruts in my fight or flight response. In order to make new paths of wellness in my brain, I needed to purposefully focus on emotions that would shape the paths I wanted to walk. In Rewriting a Thousand Dreams, I wrote about the act of telling myself stories of my past and stories of my future. I needed to put joy and happiness at the forefront of my mind. Fear was written across all of my recent memories, and fear was obscuring any hope or dreams I once had for my future.

Aside from refiling memories and projecting a hopeful future into my life, I also needed to tell myself who I am. I wrote what I now refer to as my “I AM” statement. This statement declared me to be what I wanted to be. I declared it in the present tense and told myself that statement all day long. My personal “I AM” statement during my months of healing was, “I am strong, healthy, capable, and in love with my life.” When I first wrote that statement, none of it was true, but I repeated it to myself probably one hundred times a day in those first few weeks. Over time, that statement became true as I healed my brain.

NEURAL RETRAINING IS ONGOING

I think that neural retraining will be part of my life forever, though I spend much less daily time in retraining exercises. The truth is that there is always room to rewire negative thoughts. There is always room to grow new pathways of happiness and hope.

While I am partial to DNRS, it is not the only program that teaches practical uses for neuroplasticity. The Gupta Program is also trusted within the brain retraining community. Many other at-home courses are popping up as the popularity of neural retraining gains ground.

I plan to continue this post with a series of other posts on this topic. Check back soon for more!