Q & A- How Mindfulness Can Help Recovery From ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, & MCS

Okay, so welcome to our live Q and A. So I'm glad you can join me for this part of the webinar. And the first thing I'd love for you to do is on our previous webinar. So the one that you've just experienced, I'd love for you to share that on your Facebook page, on your Twitter account, et cetera, because there's so many people out there who are suffering from this particular condition, this whole suite of conditions, M.E. fibromyalgia, et cetera. And I'd love for them to have access to some of these initial tools that we've spoken about to help them calm the mind as well as have access to the free app. So if you can share that and all you have to do is underneath the video in the timeline, just click share and then share on your personal timelines, especially perhaps Facebook groups that you're a part of. That would be wonderful. Good. So now we'll go into a Q and A. Now, I know the Q and A is going to have a slight delay because it's actually going to be on the Facebook page, and there is a delay between when I'm transmitting and when it goes live onto Facebook. So in the comments section of the Facebook Live that you're experiencing on the Gupta Program page, please do ask any questions. And what I'd love for you to do is this is really for new people. So if you're someone that's already experienced the Gupta Program, who's already done the webinar series, you can always ask questions to me during that time. But really what I want is questions from people who are new to the program. So perhaps people who haven't got the program yet, or any questions about mindfulness, I'd like to give a priority to them because I know the rest of you have already got access to me on the live webinars. Okay, good. And if you'd like to just say where you're from so that I can give you a little hello as well. Michael asking so in your clinical experience, do you see that people get a glimpse of what's to come, where they get a little more energy back for a few hours or a few days, then they go back to where they were. Absolutely. So this is what we call ourselves, glimpsing where you glimpse health now, what's actually going on there? Occasionally, when the brain is engaged in worrying about the condition and engaged in that defense response, if the brain is able to engage with something which is even more important, then temporarily it closes the Vicious cycle because the brain is so engaged in a new activity that is of more what we call effective significance. So in psychology it's called affective significance, which basically means something which is more important. And in that particular instance, the vicious cycle slows down and stops. And then temporarily we have a bit more energy that comes back to the system which shows us that it's not a hardware problem, it's a software problem. Because how can the body feel really awful one moment and suddenly we feel better for a few hours or even a day. But then once the brain is no longer engaged in that external activity that is offsetting the internal survival instinct, it goes back to the survival instinct and then triggers those hyper defense responses. So that explains why we can glimpse health for a little while, but then it doesn't seem to last. So I hope that answers your question there. Hazel asks, I'm doing the retraining at the moment. Do you think it can help anxiety that isn't related to my CFS symptoms? Yes, absolutely. So all of these tools are designed to help two things in our lives. Number one, we want to retrain those particular patterns that are signals from our unconscious that we're in danger. So that's the first part of the retraining to retrain the brain. The second part is retraining the brain with respect to anxiety about the body and anxiety about the symptoms. Sorry, anxiety, that's not related to the symptoms. And that's where we can use the existing seven step process or we can use the ABC technique that I talked about today. And those of you who are really sharp on the ball, you'll notice that essentially the ABC technique is the new groove technique. So the new groove technique is something we talk about in the program, which is a way of retraining the brain out of non symptom patterns. Arjuna is asking, mindfulness also makes me more aware of my symptoms and therefore counterproductive perhaps to the retraining. What are your thoughts on this? So this is a really interesting question because often people feel that the. Mindfulness and the brain retraining are somehow separate. But no, they are complementary. So in mindfulness, often what we're doing is we're seeing the vibrations of our brain. They're all those thoughts and worries and we are in a non judgmental way being the thumb and just observing what's going on with awareness, but without judgment and without being involved in it. Whereas brain retraining seems to say, okay, we now need to retrain these specific thought patterns and ways of being in Order to be able to retrain them, we have to have got into a mindfulness state in the first place. So when we do the step one and two of the retraining, and for those of you who are new, you won't know what those seven steps are. But when we do the first two steps of the retraining, that is essentially a mindfulness technique where we are enabling ourselves to not be lost in those thoughts, but instead to become the observer and then we can do something about it. And sometimes if we've really retrained a lot, we don't need to do the retraining anymore. Simply becoming aware means we're no longer involved in this. But often those patterns come back very strong and they overwhelm us again and emotionally hijack us, which is why we have to become the thumb. So mindfulness is a part of the retraining. But if you find mindfulness by itself is not strong enough, which it often isn't, then we do the retraining. HB Golden. What a beautiful Facebook name. Can you please speak about mast cell disease, Rheumatoid arthritis, Fibromyalgia. I've been meditating 20 minutes for the last 950 days. Oh, good. Counting. Still can't get out of my own way to let go of my busy mind. Yes. Now, when we have fibromyalgia specifically, and I don't know enough about the other two conditions to say that those also involve busy minds. But when we have fibromyalgia, definitely our brains are in hyper defense mode, which means that we have a very busy mind. And even if you've been meditating for 20 minutes every day, that doesn't mean that it's going to stop that busy mind. What I would advise is to meditate for longer than 20 minutes and perhaps twice a day. And that can obviously help to let go of a busy mind. And obviously in our program, the full Gupta program, we are using brain retraining techniques which are far more powerful than mindfulness by itself, which enable the brain to calm down. The reason we have a busy mind is because we're in that defense mode. We're in survival states. The brain doesn't care about you being happy. The brain cares more about you surviving. That is its number one priority. And that is the key to how we get out of this condition. Ruth asks a question here. How do you deal with other medical issues that maybe could have been completely healed in earlier days with brain retraining, but now seemingly have long term effects? For instance, someone might be on diabetic drugs after developing type 1 diabetes in certain conditions? Or what about recurring clots through decades of time that now become permanent and risk, sorry, permanent damage and risk leaving drugs because of those serious clots. Now, of course, the conditions that you're speaking about are ones that you need to see your doctor about. So if anything comes along, a new symptom that we're not sure about, we definitely see our doctor, consult our physician before we rely purely on brain retraining. Once you've got those physical conditions checked out and the doctor has done as much as they can for you, then you may consider doing the brain retraining. Brain retraining is still effective to support your healing in those conditions because we know that when the mind is calmer and we're in a mindful state, a more meditative state, our body is in the optimal healing state. It means we're more likely to support the recovery from blood clots or support our healing from diabetes when the immune system is fine tuned to be ready to react, but isn't overreacting. When our nervous system is fine tuned to react appropriately, but once again, isn't overreacting. So even though you have these secondary illnesses, continue with your brain retraining and your meditation and those secondary conditions will be supported through that. Josephine, hello to you. I really struggle with deep breathing. It causes me distress and pain in my ribs, chest and lungs. What can I do? Well, deep breathing is obviously one technique that can help us to become more mindful in the present moment. Inevitably, if it's causing you more distress and pain, that can be a technique that you just let go of. But I don't want you to think that you're missing out on the program. Once again, that's a fear based reaction. There are plenty of other tools to support your healing and recovery. And periodically come back to the broad breathing to see if you can manage any more of that. Hazel says, can your GUPTA coaches help me through tapering off prescription medication for depression and anxiety? Yes. So a lot of people use the Gupta program, and indeed some of our coaches, to support their gentle tapering off of medication. So as you come off those particular drugs, although formally we're told that they're not habit forming, of course. Well, they are. I mean, you know, someone can sue me for that, but they definitely are. I've seen evidence of that all the time. So you very slowly come off your drugs with the support of your doctor and physician. And the Gupta program can also begin to take over in terms of keeping the nervous system calm, even though it wants to overstimulate because of your tapering off of medication. And as you may know, you mentioned Gupta coaches. We're still in January, so for our first session with the Gupta programme coach, we can have our first session at half price at €35. Not all the coaches are offering that, but some of the coaches are. Okay. Julia says, I've been doing the program for a while and for me the accelerator and the slow motion technique really is the perfect addition. This really works for me. Great. Glad you're enjoying the slow motion technique. You know, it's not something that's taught generally mindfulness, but really it is something that we can all benefit from. When you're asking a question, if you just let me know where you're from so I can say hello. So Kelly is asking, is the three month webinar on the 5th of February the full program? Yes. So if you purchase the full program, you receive a DVD home study course, and then three months of webinars as well as access to our very healing forum. And that's the full program. Lydia says, I get noises and buzzing in my head from the electric sensitivity. Any helpful hints on how to diminish this? Yes. What we generally find is when it comes to certain symptoms in the brain, especially pain or noise, we can calm the mind generally, which can help reduce the sensory input they're experiencing, but also distraction. So we know, for instance with tinnitus, we know with pain that a combination of deep relaxation of the body combined with distracting the mind away from those signals can support healing. Because the more we allow our minds to focus on those signals, the more the vicious cycle is completed in the brain. Suzanne says, I'm finding it hard to get to sleep and I've turned night into day. So sleeping during the day, what can I do? Well, there are many ways to get our sleep cycles back into balance, and that's something we cover in the program. A couple of quick hints that I'll give you is sometimes to get our sleep rhythms back on track. If it's really that desperate, I want to ask about light, because if we get a light box and make sure that when we wake up in the morning, we have a light box so that the hormonal systems are getting into the right rhythm. And that means that when it gets dark in the evening, our brain is ready to sleep and we can use an eye mask. So that's one way of supporting getting our sleep rhythms back into normal cycles, which is to get a light box and Also generally when we meditate, we calm the nervous system that can support us getting back to sleep and staying asleep. I also have a meditation in the app which is called the get back to sleep meditation, which a lot of people have found very powerful for when they can't sleep. Okay, we're not going to have time to answer everyone's question, so I'm just going to pick out, you know, questions about something new or different. So some people are asking questions if they've already got the program. So those questions I will answer perhaps in next week's webinar. Just someone just saying. So Boston saying, having the Gupta program helped me in my Klonopin withdrawal for sure. Brilliant. Now some people saying the 10 discount code is expired. I do apologize. So straight after this webinar I will go onto the system and I will make sure that the 10 discount code actually works. So I don't know why it's saying that. That is a error there. Make sure it does work. So if you just give me a few minutes after today's webinar and I'll make sure that 10% discount is available for you. Gareth saying hi Ashok, I feel I've made a big step towards recovery from CFS after years of retraining. I have a part time job and exercise regularly, but my amygdala is still in a stress state. How can you tell if your amygdala is still in that stress state? Well, you know, you don't need me to tell you if the image is still in the stress state. What is required is longer and deeper meditations and you might say, well, why do I have to do that compared to other people? It's just that our nervous system is more sensitive and we've just got to make put more effort in to make sure that we keep our systems balanced. Can the program so Gary's saying, can the program help with food allergies? Yes. We've had many people come off food allergies using the program. It just needs a bit of tailoring. But I do explain that in the webinars because once again, it's not actually food allergies, it's food sensitivities and food intolerances. If you've got a specific deep food allergy, that is something that I wouldn't risk the program with. If you actually have an allergic reaction where you have swelling, etc. That's not what the program is for. But if you've got reactions to food which are moderate, where you just feel you can't have certain foods, you then the program can certainly help with that. Somebody was commenting the app wasn't working. Yes. So temporarily we had a bug in the app yesterday, but it is now back and working. So the iOS app and the Android app should be working. But please do let me know if it's not. So I'm just answering questions which are from hopefully new people who want to find out more. Just a little comment. There has been recent research showing that aspects of the immune system seem to have got locked together with the nervous system. And that's exactly what we're saying in the hypothesis that neurons that fire together wire together. That when we've had so much overstimulation from the nervous system and the immune system for so long, they become tied together. So eventually any stress that someone experiences also triggers the immune system, which is why someone is staying ill. That any minor stress can trigger immune system over response, which is causing a lot of the symptoms in the body. And obviously that's even relevant for MCS where you're having a reaction to a chemical because the immune system's got tied into nervous system and chemical responses. So Lisa, asking, would you say that symptoms from the nervous system and immune system itself is caused by stress hormones and that is why amygdala retraining helps, or is it more that the body will recover when it's brought into homeostasis? Right, so this is why we call it amygdala and insular retraining. Both the amygdala and the insula are involved in nervous system responses but also immune system responses. So when we trigger safety for the amygdala and the insula, we directly retrain its nervous system and immune system responses. That is my view, Constance saying, do you have any ABCs for pacing? I find that the biggest challenge at the moment. Well, I'd say ABC stands for accept be in the moment and C is for compassion. Be compassionate with yourself and make a compassionate choice. So when we're pacing, sometimes we overdo it. We've got too much achievement going on or we're being perfectionist. So in that moment we take a deep breath in with acceptance. We accept that we may have overdone it and we be in the present moment and then at C we make a compassionate choice. How can we be compassionate for ourselves and make an appropriate choice for how much we should pace ourselves and give ourselves feedback. Okay, yesterday I didn't pace myself correctly. I overdid it a bit. This time I need to do something different and we'll get Used to it. It's an art, not a science. Thank you, Julia, for your nice comments. Kelly saying. Kelly from Cranbrook, B.C. is that British Columbia? Yes. I have so much, so many MCS symptoms or multiple chemical sensitivities that, that I'm unable to enter my office and I'm stuck at home. It started 20 years ago due to mold exposure and has got worse as I age. Is this program suitable for this? Definitely. So what is multiple chemical sensitivities? Generally, we find that people have exposure to one particular chemical or mold at a stressful period in their lives. And then the interesting clue that this hypothesis is correct is that that generalizes to all chemicals. And suddenly someone is sensitive to anything that resembles the original exposure or a fragrance or perfume. And what's happening here is the brain to err on the side of caution, starts generalizing its sensitivity to anything that it thinks could make it feel worse. And our brain retraining is about training the brain out of these sensitivity responses, out of this condition response, and for mcs, the most important C, to see things differently. I don't know which way you're looking around is that a C or that C, whichever one it is for you, the C inside abc, the most important perspective shift is that rather than thinking these chemicals are dangerous, it's recognizing that my reaction to that chemical is, has become over the top. So that's really, really important to actually recognize that. And of course, in the MCS community there's so much talk about, but you know, chemicals are dangerous. We're living in a polluted environment. Yes, we are living in a more chemically exposed environment. And all of this can benefit from reducing our overall usage of chemicals. But that overreaction that we are experiencing is an overreaction. It's an over defensive response. The same response is happening in hay fever. In hay fever, at some point in someone's life, their brain has learned that that exposure to pollen is bad for us, that that pollen will overwhelm us. So it creates a defensive response. Now, of course, pollen is everywhere. We all experience pollen, but only some of us react and some of us don't. But that doesn't mean that pollen is dangerous. It simply means that some people's brains have erred on the side of caution and are over defending against pollen. Agrophobia. Can we use this program for that situation? Now, of course, the program is designed for physical conditions, which I call ednics neuroimmune condition syndromes. That's what it's specifically designed for. But we have had people use it for agoraphobia, for obsessive compulsive disorder, for anxiety, for trauma. Because it is all about retraining the brain out of conditioned responses. And that essentially summarizes a lot of what the purpose of therapy or coaching actually is. It is to reduce the impact of trained responses in the brain. So certainly it can help with agoraphobia. Can the program help with bipolar ADHD and Asperger's? Now, look, the program is not specifically designed for those conditions, but what we do know is that when the brain is generally calmer and more meditative, those conditions are improved. So, yes, as a secondary consequence of the. Of the training, the brain, retraining those other conditions that you have may be supported and helped, but that's not specifically what it's designed for. Gianna saying, is there a way to purchase and watch directly online for people who don't have access to a DVD or CD drive? Okay, so we will be doing weekly webinars, and the weekly webinars are the latest updates to the program. So they are really the main part of the program. And the DVDs and the CDs are just a supporting support to that. Now, if you don't have access to a drive to play those particular things, we hope that you'd actually just buy a very cheap DVD player. So from Amazon, there are DVD players that just cost 25 or $30, and that would enable you to be able to access the home aspects of it. Lydia saying, thanks for the answers you're now giving me. They're helping me on understanding the mci. The MCS side. Yes, MCS is a very misunderstood condition, and it's growing and growing because it's misunderstood. Yes, it's a real physical reaction from the brain. But the MCS communities are now encouraging people to go off and live in the middle of Arizona away from all chemicals. But all that does is reinforce the chemical sensitivity in the brain, because the brain, you're basically telling the brain we need to get away from all chemicals, and that's the only healthy way to live. But of course, what we want to do is once we've got mcs, we want to train the brain to understand that these chemicals themselves are not dangerous. Overall. Chemicals we want to reduce, but chemicals themselves are not dangerous. That's all the brain has learned, and it can be retrained out of those responses. Good. All right, so I think we've answered most people's questions there. So it's been wonderful to have you here. Today. Thank you for watching the webinar and thank you for watching the second webinar with our Q and A. Once again, what I'd love for you to do help me out is on our first webinar, so the one that was an hour long. If you can share it on your various Facebook pages, share it with an MCS Communities. Me and Fibro Communities. We can get a lot more people to understand more about what causes their condition and some basic tools that they can use to support them. So really for me it's just about spreading this knowledge and getting more people better. And it's a wonderful journey for our clients and for myself as well. So please do like share and comment on all of these couple of webinars that we've done today. And as I said, we're starting our three month webinar series next week week next February and we have a new three month coaching series starting every three months or so. So our next one will be starting in May. So hope you can join us either February or May. And we've got a 10% discount for those people who watch this webinar and the discount code is 10 discount. So the numeral 10 and the word discount. I'll go onto the system now and just make sure that that discount code is working. So it's all left for me to say thank you for watching and I look forward hopefully to see you next Monday. Thank you and goodbye.