Wellness Archives

New Reserch

As many know I have busied myself this past year doing research on solutions to stress breakdown, anxiety and other allostatic load disease states. I have learned much and many medical researchers are now arriving at a new paradigm as are may of the neuroscientists.

I was trained in classical talk therapy, which is still effective for relationship and education but may not reach the physiological damage many of us have incurred since childhood. The term homeostasis is now outdated and not used by many physiologists . The new term is allostasis or the moving or active stabilizing of systems since nothing in the human body is static.

Allostatic load is the total life load of all the millions of allostatic adjustments. When we are under stress, especially as children this load is multiplied and exponential. Each adjustment leaves an imprint on the CNS, especially the amygdala, hippocampus and hypothalamus. When the required response (stress) is too intense or frequent these organs can shrink and undergo cell death (apoptosis). As they do they lose their ability to do allostatic balancing and the feedback loops are damaged.

This can lead to a multitude of psychological and physical manifestations: cardiovascular dysregulation, IBS, CFS, phobias, anxiety, phobias, OCD, fibromyalgia, glucose/insulin regulation, allergies, asthma, blood pressure and heart rhythm dysfunctions, TMJ and over 60 known disorders as well as making us susceptible to many disease states.

The good news is that these organs (unlike the cortex) can undergo neurogenesis (new neuron generation) through the process of awake alpha/theta training. It appears that they need this parasympathetic down time to undergo neurogenesis and while some occurs during sleep, sleep is actually a very active time for the CNS with the soma or body being nearly paralyzed.

Dr. Herbert Benson, the father of the "Relaxation Response" is preparing to publish a paper that shows engaging the alpha/theta parasympathetic response on a frequent basis alters gene expression. So even if you have a potential for a genetic dysfunction or expression you may be able to change whether it is ever activated.

The question becomes how to reach this healing place and how often to engage it. It was found that the majority of meditators and relaxation practitioners never reach the place of healing during their practice (around 86%). The two best biophysiology tools I have found are GSR and Heart Rate Variability. Each has its own strength and must be used to train on a rotating basis.

Once a practitioner has trained the CNS with these tools the CNS gains a new memory for parasympathetic elicitation and can reach that place with greater ease...even during high stress occurrences. It also lowers base line arousal allowing the organism to lower overall allostatic load and purge previous stress.

Time and frequency: it is suggested that each training be 20 to 30 minutes with a frequency of a minimum of twice a day up to six times a day for those with pathological expressions.

What is also exciting is that the knowledge of 1920 for therapists working with GSR is coming back with new and better equipment. Every thought we think has an electrochemical change and one that can be measured by the heart or finger conductance. If I hook you up to a GSR unit and we talk, it soon becomes evident what arouses you and if we discuss psychological issues the GSR will immediately tell us where your "Buttons" are.

These buttons are stored energy that alters and increases allostasis on a continual basis. These are neural tracks you laid down since childhood and each track has a neural tentacle that reaches into the hypothalamus, amygdala and hippocampus just primed to go off. More stress and more apoptosis and these organs become hyperreactive (hair triggered) causing more allostatic load until there is a breakdown.

Once breakdown occurs, whether somatic or psychiatric the allostasis (stress) of the condition fuels the fires and sets up an unending loop. The hypothalamus is the major inhibitor of this loop: when it becomes damaged the disorders run rampant and can continue for a lifetime. This is well seen in anxiety disorders, OCD, CFS, fibro, etc.

Neural tracks are called Engrams and the more they are used the stronger and deeper the track (and easier to fire). Physiological retraining and purging the emotional hot buttons extinguishes the old neural tracks and/or overlays them with new, positive/healthy response tracks. This is the basis of phobic exposure and PTSD therapy (previously done without tools to principally alter the physiology that has recorded the neural tracks)

It is now known that the heart has it's own "Brain" that stores allostatic memory. This is evidenced by the emotional and memory reports of heart transplant patients that coincide with the donor. It is now thought that heart electrical dysfunctions may be the result of allostatic load and cellular memory overload.

We now have the tools and are gaining the understanding of how to heal these damaged structures that talk therapy can not reach. It does require a high degree of patient compliance and a dedication to do the training and to utilize quality tools that allow us to graphically know when we are have engaged the proper physiological states.

ADDITIONAL READING: http://www.trans4mind.com/transformation/gsr.htm