The biggest game changer in my recovery journey
Navigating recovery from chronic illness can be confusing, especially when you don’t understand what is going on with your body. Let me share with you what made the biggest difference in regaining health.
Dealing with a chronic illness is challenging. I remember what it was like battling symptoms, feeling upset, anxious, and depressed that my life had been dramatically restricted.
I was doing everything I thought would help - following the GP’s recommendations, changing my diet, CBT, acupuncture, working with a naturopath, taking all the herbs. While these things all helped a bit, I was still suffering from chronic fatigue.
The important role the nervous system plays in health
What I didn’t know back then was the role my nervous system had to play in my health. I remember learning about the ’fight or flight’ response at school, and I knew this was part of our body’s amazing ability to mount a physiological response to a real or perceived threat. However, I hadn’t realised this response was designed for the short term and prolonged activation of this ‘stress response’ had a real physiological impact on the body.
When the sympathetic nervous system is activated through the stress response, it changes your heart rate, breathing rate and the release of hormones, creating physiological changes in the body. This natural response is designed for the short term and exists to keep you safe. The problem comes when it’s continuously activated, as you’re not engaging the parasympathetic nervous system. Also known as your ‘rest and digest’ response, the parasympathetic nervous system controls the body’s ability to relax, rest and repair. It influences our sleep, digestion, immune function and is vital for health and healing.
The dark side of your amazing brain
What’s more, our brain will continue to change depending on how it is being used (thanks to neuroplasticity), and it will put information into unconscious automatic patterns. It's how we can drive a car or ride a bike without having to consciously think about it. The dark side of this occurs if the patterns we’ve made unconscious and automatic are not useful or no longer appropriate. Imagine a continuous unconscious activation of the stress response. This is how you can get stuck, unable to access your natural ability to heal.
The real game changer
The good news is neuroplasticity means the brain continues to change depending on how it's being used. Learning how to use our brain and engage the nervous system differently will change our physiology. Our body is designed to heal and when we engage the parasympathetic nervous system the body can do its job.
This information helped me understand why I hadn’t been able to recover. However, the real game changer was when I came to the realisation that I was the one who was most influential in my own health. In the end, it was my brain and my body.
If we are caught up in unconscious patterns, it will feel like we have no choice. Change comes by learning how to spot these unconscious automatic patterns (responses, symptoms, thoughts, beliefs) and realising we have a choice to do something different. Learning clear tools for HOW to retrain your brain and body to respond differently puts you back in the driver’s seat.
Learn how to heal yourself
These are the skills I teach my clients in the Lightning Process (LP). It is a training program that teaches you to change the way your nervous system controls your body. Its empowering tools involve gentle movement, meditation-like techniques and mental exercises. With practice, you learn how to switch on the pathways that promote health and switch off the ones that aren’t so good for you. Find out more about how the LP can help you here.