Episode #35: Neuroplasticity with Dr. Martin Hart, DC

Welcome to Better Health Guy Blogcasts Empowering your better health. And now, here's Scott, your Better Health Guy. The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or or as information to facilitate self treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health related decisions with your own personal medical authority.

Hello everybody and welcome to episode number 35 of the Better Health Guy Blogcast series. Today's guest is Dr. Martin Hart and the topic of the show is Neuroplasticity. Dr. Martin Hart is a chiropractic physician at the Honza center in Wichita, Kansas. Led by Dr. David Jernigan, he works with patients with complex chronic conditions. Dr. Hart respects the human body and the human being. He recognizes that each health crisis extends to include the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels of each patient. Dr. Hart earned a doctorate in chiropractic from Cleveland Chiropractic College in Kansas City and a Bachelor's of Science degree in exercise science. He's trained and studied in a vast array of disciplines including acupuncture, kinesiology, natural medicine, positive psych and many other fields. He is a certified corrective exercise specialist through the National Academy of Sports Medicine and holds advanced certification in bioresonance scanning. His passion is to use his background and continue learning to help patients weave a story of healing and transformation. From his time in strength training and rehab to chronic illness and holistic health, Dr. Hart understands this journey is a partnership between the doctor and the patient. He takes a personal approach with each patient, using American Biological Medicine and bioresonance scanning to help release dysfunctional patterns and restore optimal functioning of the human body. Dr. Hart has a thirst for expanding his knowledge and a passion for working with his patients. And now my interview with Dr. Martin Hart.

So how did you get into the realm of treating chronic health challenges such as Lyme disease and the types of conditions that you see at the Hansa Center?

Sure. So my first route into chiropractic in general was through being a corrective exercise specialist. And at that point, what I was doing before I went to chiropractic school was I was helping people who they maybe wanted to lose some weight, they maybe wanted to get healthier, but they were also having other issues like maybe they were recovering from a stroke, maybe they had broken a leg and wanted to progress faster with that healing, doing that, it was nice to be able to help them with diet and exercise, but it wasn't enough. And so I got into chiropractic and went to chiropractic school. Once I got out into practice, I had many tools at my disposal that I thought I could help many people with. And so one of the ways I built my practice before coming to the Honda center was I would go around to other practitioners and their doctors and I would ask for their hardest cases and to have a trial with doing those patients. In doing that, I came to see various stages of chronic illness, including Lyme disease, including neurological issues, et cetera. And that led me into what I'm doing now.

Awesome. That's nice. That's a nice challenge to challenge yourself to the hardest cases. I like that. So talk to us a little bit about neuroplasticity. What is neuroplasticity? What does it mean in the context of someone dealing with chronic illness? And is it essentially rewiring the brain?

Sure. So neuroplasticity, neuro, meaning the nervous system, brain, spinal cord, etc. And plasticity, meaning ability to change. So neuroplasticity is our brain and nervous system's ability to change and adapt. That happens naturally on its own. It can happen positively or negatively. In the aspect of chronic illness, what most often happens is neuroplastic changes occur due to viruses, infections, toxins, etc. And lead to negative adaptations. Now what we do at a treatment facility is we're working to make positive neuroplastic changes to help that person recover.

So how does a lack. You mentioned the word adaptive. How does the lack of adaptive capacity lead to symptoms in someone with a chronic illness? And then why is a focus on improving neuroplasticity an important part of that recovery process?

Sure. So when somebody's undergoing stress from any sort of source, we have to be able to respond and then adapt in order to grow, recover, heal and live. If we can't adapt, our resources become exhausted and then we end up with disease states, we end up with energy, excuse me, injuries, we end up with illness, etc. And so if you can't adapt, you can't heal, you can't recover, you can't live. How that works with a treatment process is that we are trying to restore the adaptive capability and, and then beyond that, we're trying to get people to change and heal into a more well being state.

So how do potential stressors such as mold exposure, electromagnetic fields, those types of things, how do those impact the body? And then does the body's ability to adapt to those things make them less stressful?

So what happens is when you get a stressor, let's say, like a mold illness, that mold comes in, it has toxins associated with it. Mold itself is infectious. And so now that mold might be getting into the nervous system, it might be depleting our resources within that nervous system, causing inflammation, decreasing your cognitive abilities, et cetera. And so you're going to start to see symptoms from that, whether that's brain fog, whether that's pain, whether that's being stuck in fight or flight or agitated all the time. And then with that, in order to deal with that, if we can adapt to it, what happens is our immune system goes after it, we deal with it. Maybe we wire ways around those capabilities. So at first, maybe we're irritable in our system. Our brain realizes, okay, this is an issue. Immune system, go after it, inflammation system, clean it up. And then until then, we're going to work around it, we're going to find a way to wire around it. Now, if you can't do that, what happens is that just keeps getting worse. If you can't adapt to it, you just keep creating increasing negative adaptations to it, where you're starting to recognize more and more stressors.

So the more ability we have then to adapt and the more adaptive capacity we have, the less likely these things are to be as significantly stressing to the body.

Correct. Somebody who can adapt can go into a moldy basement, maybe sneeze a few times, and then they're going to recover. Someone who can adapt that moldy basement might set them back for weeks.

What are the stages of neuroplasticity? And is this a generalized neuroplasticity approach or is this a model that is how it's approached at the Hansa Center.

Sure. So the five stages of neuroplasticity. I'll just, I'll briefly give you the five stages and I'll tell you where it's from and we'll go into them a little bit. So stage one would be cellular healing. And this is what you might typically think of with dealing with viruses, dealing with infections, stressors, toxins, etc. Nutritional deficiencies. Stage two would be neurostimulation. Stage three would be neuromodulation. Stage four is neuro relaxation. And stage five is neurodifferentiation or learning. Now, those five stages are a general approach. I borrowed them from a book called the Brain's Way of Healing. Norman Doidge, who's a neuropsychiatrist, he wrote that book and put together those five stages through various forms of research and integration. So the way I use them at the clinic or the way the other doctors use them in the Honza center is that first of all with the cellular healing stage, that's going to be where we're looking for what the stressors are. Many patients who come have Lyme disease and so is that affecting the central nervous system most often? Yes. And so we want to address that. And then are there toxins we need to help with that person, are there nutritional deficiencies and how we address that depends on the patient. That can be a different nutraceutical formulation, it could be a personalized remedy, etc. And we're consistently working on that and daily doing detoxification with them. And then we get to stage two, which is neurostimulation. And so how we work with that with patients that might be hands on care, traditional chiropractic type care, that could be laser settings where we'll laser different parts of the body or laser the cranium to stimulate the brain. That could be using different thought therapies like DNRs or EFT, et cetera with them. And that's another form of neurostimulation, acupressure. Acupuncture can be neurostimulation and we'll do those as needed throughout the different therapies.

So let's talk then a little bit about some of the maybe specific dietary things that are ideal for supporting neuroplasticity. And then how does the diet support the brain's ability to adapt?

Sure. So the traditional, I shouldn't call it traditional, but maybe the more accepted way to use a diet for neuroplasticity would be the ketogenic diet. The brain loves ketones, they're anti inflammatory. It's a very clean kind of diesel fuel for the brain, if you will. And so under those conditions it can learn very well. And it can also help it to deal with other stressors that are already present while trying to apply neuroplastic methods. So give me your second part of your question again.

There it was around how the diet and fats support the brain's ability to adapt.

Sure. So that ketogenic diet and then also fatty acids are a major part of neuroplastic healing. So the brain being over 40% DHA fatty acids, we're going to need to replace those as we utilize and as the brain turns itself over. If you're not, if you're not getting them in the diet, we have a very poor conversion rate of other fatty Acids to dha. And so from there that's going to create another stressor, then that's going to create a nutritional deficiency. And if you're trying to learn and you're not replacing those fatty acids, then the brain's gonna make poor neurons, it's gonna make poor wiring systems, and you're gonna have more issues in the long run.

So talking a little bit more about the cellular healing phase, what is an acquired brain injury and then what are some of the factors that damage the brain?

Sure. So kind of differentiating between acquired brain injuries and more traumatic versions, often with a traumatic brain injury or tbi, people think stroke, they think car accident, which are all possible actions that create brain injuries. But then an acquired brain injury might be toxin exposure over time, it might be an infection that's slowly making its way into the brain and then causing inflammation, causing rebound neurological changes. And so with those acquired TBIs, with those acquired traumatic brain injuries, what we have to do is accept the fact that it's not just trauma, not just traditional trauma, but it's also many factors, including EMFs, including even to a lesser degree, traumas from childhood that maybe were negative experiences.

So you mentioned DNRs. Can you tell us a little bit about how Annie Hopper's work with DNRS fits into this cellular healing phase and some of your experience with DNRs?

Sure. So Annie Hopper developed what's called the dynamic neural retraining system. And that is a thought based system where you are retraining the brain, you're retraining that limbic system in order to get the brain to heal, to break through some of those learned patterns, those neuroplastic patterns that have the system trapped into that acquired traumatic brain injury. The way it works with the cellular healing phase is kind of interesting because it's actually a form of neurostimulation. But through some of her surveys and through some of her testing and things like that, she's found that it's actually been able to help people, for instance, remove heavy metals. That wasn't even the intention. But what happens is before the DNRs, they have heavy metal toxicity verified by lab work. The only therapy they do is DNRs, which is a thought based intervention. And then post they redo that lab work and the heavy metals are clear. Wow. Now that's interesting. Cellular healing while using neurostimulation.

Yeah. That's amazing. That's fantastic. So we talked a little about acquired brain injuries. Let's talk about the traumatic brain injury brain injuries, and how those Affect chronic illness. So how does a traumatic brain injury create chaos within the body? And even a small head injury potentially that we don't even think of really as a tbi, how do those maybe set the stage for later chronic illness to develop?

Sure. So varying types of TBIs. What happens is you can induce an injury from whatever source and you end up with inflammation. Now, sometimes with that inflammation, you, it's not a big deal, we clean it up and it's fine. But other times what happens is we end up with a massive glutamate cascade. So you have the injury, some of the astrocytes spill open and glutamate and aspartate come out. Now we need some of those, but when they come out in too high doses, they become excitotoxic. And so our cells become overexcited and we end up with this massive free radical cascade. Now that free radical cascade is implicated in Parkinson's disease, it's implicated in Alzheimer's, it's implicated in every major neurodegenerative disease that we can find. And that's just from a small, that can be from as small as a punch to the head. And so when we have that, from even a small trauma, like maybe a light punch to the head or even they found cell phones, EMFs will create that glutamate cascade in the brain, whatever tissue it's closest to, then that will eventually lead to those issues occurring, those neurogenic diseases.

So let's talk then a little bit about the next stage. You mentioned neurostimulation. So what are the primary tools that you use in neurostimulation and then what is the main goal of that phase?

Sure. So the main tools we use at the Hansa center for neurostimulation, we all use hands on therapies like chiropractic, muscle release, things like that. We'll go on to use acupressure, acupuncture as well. They have other effects, but they're also neurostimulatory. I'll use a laser, and I try to laser a patient every session, especially over the cranium, to induce some of that neurostimulation. And that has a very strong neurostimulatory effect. On top of that, there's various therapies like magnetic therapy we'll use around the cranial system and the rest of the body, even vibratory stimulation to stimulate that proprioceptive feedback into the brain. There's many versions of neurostimulation we can use.

Fantastic. Thank you. So let's then continue on with stage three, which you mentioned was neuromodulation. So how is that tied in with neurostimulation? And then how does the work that's done in stage two and three help to move us out of the fight or flight mode?

Sure. So the idea behind neurostimulation is to stimulate neuromodulation, and neuromodulation being that balance between the excitatory and inhibitory pathways in the brain. Now you can be either overexcited or over inhibited within those brain cells and have symptoms. And so what we're trying to do with neuromodulation is bring those two back into balance. So for instance, lasering somebody's frontal lobe, that could stimulate a little bit more activity in the frontal lobe while decreasing activity in the limbic system, thereby creating neuromodulation.

So if we think about many times, people will say that people are stuck in that flesh flight or fight mode. Is that always the place where people are stuck or can the opposite scenario present as well?

Sure. So it often gets pushed around. That fight or flight is the only negative pattern. And while that is very negative, and those patients will be kind of that wired, but tired, jittery, but they're exhausted, the other phase is you can actually be too inhibited. You can be stuck in parasympathetic dominance where you're in a freeze state. Now that one's quite interesting. You, because what they found is you don't have enough arousal. And that's kind of symptomatic of chronic fatigue syndrome, where you're just completely wiped out. And what they found in those low arousal individuals is some of those individuals end up being violent. So violent criminals, inmates in prisons, they actually found they thought they'd be fight or flight. That's not true. They're actually stuck in that parasympathetic freeze state. And they're numb, and so their emotions are numb, and so they're less inhibited when they go to do negative actions. They can't process them.

Wow, that's very interesting. So let's then talk a little bit about the next stage, which is the neurorelaxation stage. And what's the primary goal of this stage? What are some things that people should start seeing shifting at that point? And then how do you know when someone's actually entered that phase?

Sure. So once the neuromodulation occurs and there's a balance there, people will often enter that neurorelaxation phase. And what that is is that nervous system gets the chance to actually start to relax and repair. Now, the way you get there is neuromodulation. And so once you're in that stage, often patients will start to sleep 10, 12, 14 hours a day, and they will need to have that sleep in order to begin repair. Sometimes patients say, I don't know, Doc, I'm getting really tired now. Well, I'm really excited about that because now you're in the neurolaxation phase and we can start to heal that nervous system.

So is this then the phase where the body starts to really recover and isn't just in survival mode?

Correct. It's actually starting to adapt and regain some of its resources. It's trying to refill its tanks, if you will.

Let's talk a little bit about the glymphatic system. So what is the glymphatic system? How is it connected in this neurorelaxation phase? How is it connected with sleep? And then when we have poor sleep, what happens with the neurological illnesses and how they present and move forward?

Sure. So the brain doesn't really have a lymphatic system like the rest of the body, Lymphatic system being one of the ways we carry away toxins and waste products, etc. But what it does have, and the researchers had a hard time finding this, is it has a glymphatic system. And that glymphatic system is only active in deep sleep, which is why they couldn't find it until they tried to research it in deep sleep individuals now. So when we're in that deep sleep, the brain can finally say, okay, let me get rid of this junk. Let me get rid of my own garbage. Let me get rid of the toxins I've accumulated. Accumulated. And so the liver and et cetera, can process them out. Now, how that leads into issues with chronic illness is that if you're not getting into deep sleep, for whatever reason, your brain is never getting the chance to release those toxins. So you're daily accumulating them from functioning, but you're never releasing them. And so you're progressively getting more brain fog, more memory and cognitive issues, maybe more movement issues and pain from there. Now, that's implicated heavily in Alzheimer's disease, for instance, where they find those plaques building up and things like that in the brain. Well, if you look historically, those individuals are typically poor sleepers. They haven't been sleeping for many years. And it just catches up to the old age where their brain's beginning to Accumulate all that junk.

So the sleep then really is important for detoxifying the brain. If we're not sleeping, we're building up these toxins that are then leading to more neurological challenges.

Correct. It's just adding up on itself.

So the last stage that you mentioned is learning and neurodifferentiation. So how is this different from the earlier stages? And then is this the stage that kind of moves us beyond recovery and to new heights or new stages of wellness? And then what are some of the tools that you might use? And how do people really learn in this stage?

This is kind of like the mastery stage. Your cells began to heal, you're relaxed. Your stores, your energy stores are beginning to fill back up again. You're balanced in the excitatory inhibitory pathways, and now you can be able to learn new things, new ways to do things. So, for instance, if you had a lot of, let's say, leg pain, you were developing a lot of leg pain impairment with walking, etc. So we began to heal the cells, and we moved you through the first four stages. Well, now we're getting you to walk again, and then maybe we're getting you to exercise again and maybe even jog and dance again. So you're relearning those pathways, and then maybe even you're learning new things. Maybe you can never salsa dance before, you never even tried dancing, but now you're able to pick that up because the cells are ready for new learning and you're ready to move. And kind of like you said, we're able to heal and transform through the illness.

So talking about the brain, I think this day and age, people are really pushed to be multitaskers. And I know from one of your previous talks you talked about that maybe not always being a great thing for the brain. So can you talk about the brain and what happens when we're multitasking?

Sure. So neuroscience is now showing we can't actually multitask. We can't do two activities completely at once. Now, it might seem that way to our consciousness, but what's happening is we're just switching from one task to another very quickly. Now, when you're healthy, that doesn't seem like a big deal. But as those pathways begin to break down, it becomes much harder to go back and forth between the two. And you're putting a major stressor on that nervous system by doing so. And so if we're trying to heal and we're trying to get the most out of our cognitive and neurosystems, then we want to give it the best environment to do so, which would be to focus on one task at a time. And if you're going to switch tasks, stop and completely switch tasks in presence that other tasks, rather than try to multitask between the two.

Yeah, that's interesting. Thanks for that. So let's talk then a little bit about ways that people can kind of work on building their own neuroplasticity. So you have what you call center self directed neuroplasticity. As I understand, this is a system that you've kind of architected based on many other giants before you. And I'm wondering if you can just tell us a little bit about self directed neuroplasticity and the work that that's based upon.

Sure. So that's a term I kind of borrowed that Jeffrey Schwartz came up with first and he kind of put that out there to use. And basically what we're doing is you're trying to make your neuroplastic environment intentional. And so what I'm having patients do with that is I'm giving them the tools to rewire their own brain at that point. And we can go from any phase there from someone who is just very sick and in the throes of dealing with infectious and Lyme disease and parasites and things like that, and start that process with self directed neuroplasticity. Or we can take somebody who's had quite a bit of healing and begin them in a self directed neuroplasticity program and take them that last 20% into full thriving.

So would you say that it's easier for the brain and the nervous system to learn a positive pattern or is it easier for the brain to learn a negative pattern?

Sure. So the nervous system is always trying to differentiate between pain and pleasure. And it's going to try to either move away from a strong negative or move towards a strong positive. Now, whichever is stronger of those two, if you create a very, very, very strong positive, your brain is going to move towards that habit versus a weak negative. But if the negative is very, very weak, or excuse me, very very strong, then you're going to move away from a weak positive to a very strong negative. So the idea there is when using self directed neuroplasticity is to create very, very strong positives. So the brain wants to move towards those states.

So talk to us about cross associations and then how we accumulate more perceived threats over our lifetime.

Sure. So cross associations are basically when two events or two items or two stimuli share some qualities that the nervous System doesn't differentiate against. The stereotypical example is a young child who has a fluffy white cat. And that fluffy white cat, while she's playing with it, she maybe tugs its hair too much and it scratches her and screeches. And so that baby has that negative imprint to white fluffy. And then as she gets a little older, maybe she has a hard time hanging out on Santa Claus's lap because he's got a big white fluffy beard. And now those negative imprints are beginning to accumulate. You start with a cat, you added Santa. And now every time she sees a cat or a Santa it becomes a negative imprint. And that maybe builds to, let's say clouds and et cetera, where all those white fluffy things become negative stimuli. And how that accumulates into chronic illness and creating more stressors is the nervous system will actually get better at perceiving threats if it feels like it's already in a threatened state. So when you're stuck in a stressor, we're not healing, we're not recuperating and your system still believes it's stressed, it has a stressor to deal with then a stressor that shares an idea with that. So maybe something that somehow is just a little bit musky. If you're dealing with mold illness or maybe a food that looks like the Borrelia bacteria, if you're dealing with Lyme, those will now be perceived as a stressor and the body will stress to that. And now from there it can build off of that one. So that food that looked like Borrelia, now there's another food that shares that kind of similar antigen profile. Will we're going to start to react to that food and we'll keep building up until we break that cycle.

Wow, that's very interesting. So can we look at this self directed neuroplasticity work as kind of similar to what the glymphatic system does for physical toxins in that this is a way to kind of detoxify these cross associations. And the negative toxins that impact the brain and nervous system.

Correct. It's a way for us not only to clean them out, but to replace them, if you will. So we're cleaning out the negative thought patterns and the negative wiring the toxins of the mental system, if you will. And then we're putting in new wiring pathways that are positive and nurturing for the brain.

Yeah, that's awesome. So when you say it's not all in your head, but it's all in your brain, what does that mean? And then can you talk to us a little bit about the different brains of the body, how they become sensitized, and then how is a neurological issue, or how is this a neurological issue as opposed to a psychological issue?

Right. So not all in your head, but it's all in your brain is a phrase I came up with because so many of my patients, when I would begin to gather their history and understand their story, they would cry at the fact that so many other doctors have told them, listen, this is all in your head. It's psychosomatic, get it out of there. And many have even ended up in mental health wards in addition to say, fine, maybe it is, I just want to get better. And it's not. It's not all in your psyche, it's not on your head. It's in their neurological system. So it's in their brain at that point. And that was a phrase that kind of. It gave a lot of patients hope. And so that's how I decided to come up with that and utilize that.

Yeah, I think that's great because I think the challenge, as you noted, is so many of us that struggled for years with a very real condition were really invalidated and told that it was a psychological condition. And I remember years ago, even when I got to the point that I kind of thought maybe it is all in my head and maybe I'm making it up. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. So let's talk then about brain rewiring. How does one really prepare the body for brain rewiring? How important is practice or training when it comes to these attempts to really rewire the brain?

Sure. So kind of like that stage one of neuroplastic healing, we have to get the body ready to rewire. You have to make sure all the stressors are out of the way, not all the stressors, but a decent amount are out of the way of those toxins and etc. And then we have to give it the building blocks it needs. So it's going to need those fatty acids that epa, dha we find in fish oil. That's going to need some phospholipids to make the cell membranes. It's going to need the different B vitamins and vitamin D and etc. To make all those molecules and neurotransmitters we need. And then on top of that, we have to get kind of our system in general ready. So we want to make sure that we're in a good mental space for that. Now that could be getting ready for practice and clearing space in our life for practicing the different neuroplastic techniques that could be setting up good environments. But we have to clear that space not only internally, but externally as well.

So in terms of clearing a space and creating a space for this rewiring process to happen, can you walk us through some of the techniques? You've mentioned things in previous lectures that you've done around brain dumping, coloring, somatosensory awareness, and those types of things. How are those helpful in this preparatory phase?

So brain dumping is one of my favorite techniques personally, because it's what got me to start sleeping. I often tell patients who share some symptoms myself. My major health background was I dealt with a lot of general anxiety disorder to the point where I wasn't sleeping through the night until I was 22 years old. Now, the way I got to do that was I started brain dumping. And what I feel like brain dumping is the equivalent to is shutting off your computer. When you go to shut off your computer, if you have a bunch of programs running, the system will stop. You will say, hey, shut these programs down before I can shut down. Now, brain dumping lets us do that with our own mind, with our own brain. And so what you do is, before bed, you take out a pad of paper and you just write down everything that's on your head. It could be good, it could be bad. It doesn't matter. You're just listing it, and you're just getting it out there, dumping it on paper, and you put one lying through it, and you go to bed. And that gives the brain a chance to say, okay, consciousness knows that those things are important to me, and now I can relax. And that allows not only sleep, but it allows you to stop thinking about so much. That stuff allows the brain to slow down for a moment. And that's what I mean by clearing space. Now, the other one I really like is somatosensory awareness for multiple reasons. Number one, somatosensory awareness exercise. It allows us to create some relaxation habits to help that neuromodulation, that neurorelaxation phases, and it also helps to reinform our brain maps. So a brief primer on somatosensory awareness is you can sit down or lie down, take a few deep breaths in and out, just to get calm. It's often easier to close your eyes. And then you're going to use your consciousness to just sweep some of the areas, maybe starting with your toes and feet and working your way up and just getting used to feeling what's there, because what Often happens. So often is if we have symptoms, we have issues in different parts of the body, the brain starts to fuzz those areas out. Then the signals become noisy instead of accurate. And so when we start the somatosensory awareness and we're just feeling what's there, not trying to talk about it, not trying to judge it, just feel what's there and breathe through it, the brain says, oh, that's what's going on there. And the maps it has about the body inside the brain start to get more accurate. And the brain then can signal, okay, listen, there's some issues here. We need to send the immune system or we need to activate the microphages or what have you in order to deal with that.

So in this system that you've created, let's talk a little bit about the five steps that are involved in retraining the brain. So what are the five steps?

Sure. So the five steps, number one is being aware of a trigger or being aware that you're entering a pattern. Step two would be breaking that pattern. Once you realize you're in there, you want to interrupt that pattern. Step three would be re identifying the pattern, so giving it what it actually is. Step four would be recontextualizing it, so putting it in a broader spectrum of what's going on. And then finally, step five would be redirecting it, would be giving it that positive, that strong positive pathway to grab a hold to versus the negative.

So let's go through these steps and maybe talk about some examples of each one. So you said the first step is awareness of the trigger or awareness of the pattern. So what are some of the common triggers? And then how do we create this awareness of the triggers and the negative patterns?

Sure. So first of all, by even asking someone to be more aware of the triggers, that sets up a nice little brain system to start to look there. Now, common triggers can. It could be a musky smell or a mold smell. It could be knowing that every month I hit the same cycle and that day is about to come up. It could be just a thought pattern or an agitation system that comes up, ooh, when I start to get this certain feeling, maybe it's my heart pounding, I know I'm about to go into an episode. And so once you're realizing, okay, that's a trigger for me to hit an episode, and you kind of, to start with, you kind of pick what's going to be your pathway to work on. It could be a certain pain in a certain area. It could be the Whole sears reaction to mold. It could be a typical Lyme flare, pain, achiness, head, brain fog, nausea, et cetera. And you're going to work on that. And so when that trigger hits, that's when you start to do the pattern interrupt.

So the next step then is the pattern interrupt step. So how do we interrupt the pattern? And maybe you can give us an example or two of how we break the pattern itself.

Sure. The way to interrupt the pattern once you're aware of it is, is to kind of jolt yourself into that pure conscious state. So a lot of times what happens is we get lost in the feeling and the thought and we're no longer present. And so to do a pattern interrupt, it's to bring us back to that present mind, that present state of consciousness. And so what you can often do is you use maybe a stop, stop or a cancel cancel, or even something silly like a woo. And you just give yourself a second to go, okay, I got caught in a pattern. The best way to think of this is that old Saturday Night live skit where there was a psychiatrist and you paid him for like two minutes. Right. And all he did, you went and he said, here's what's going on. You know, I had this death in the family car accident. And all he did was berate you with stop it, stop it, cut it out. Well, all he was using was the pattern interrupt. It was silly, but it'll get you to stop that pattern for a moment.

Great. And then so once you've stopped the pattern, the next step is the re identify piece. So then what's an example of what we attempt to do when we reidentify the pattern?

Sure. So the key to reidentifying is to realize that everything we experience in our day to day life, and especially in chronic illness, is monitored and experienced by the nervous system. So the nervous system figures out that experience. It could be pain, it could be whatever, and then it kind of tells the brain, and then our consciousness perceives that. So the key there is to recognize that that's what's going on. So when you're having, let's say, a flare up and you're in lots of pain and nausea, you can say, this is my nervous system responding. It's not necessarily a lyme flare up. It could be, but it doesn't matter because it's always my nervous system responding to whatever. So you could say, cancel, cancel. This is just my nervous system responding, or this is my brain stuck in a rut.

So then the next step is to recontextualize so what do we mean by recontextualize and how do we go about doing that?

So recontextualizing is the kind of taking the bird's eye view. You're realizing that, listen, over the long haul of this illness, my brain has gotten entrained in this pathway where it's gotten used to responding to things this way, and it's increasingly getting worse. And so when we recontextualize it, we've already told, we've canceled the pattern, we stopped it, we've identified what's actually going on. Our nervous system is responding at this point. And we can say, my nervous system is stuck in this rut. It's stuck in this rut of responding this way. Or you can say this is just a learned pattern.

So then the last step that we have is to redirect. So what are some of the tools that we have for redirecting our patterns? And then how is the redirect step different from the prior steps?

Sure. So redirection is really where we're trying to install that positive program. We've obviously know that those old triggers creative, negative programs that we don't want anymore. What we want is a new positive program. And so how we can install that program is, number one, we can create a really vivid visualization. Now, sometimes you can use a past memory, but not everybody has good past memories. Some people have been sick their whole lives. So it's helpful to create a future memory where you visualize yourself, for instance, at the beach, and you're smiling and you're happy and the sun's hitting you, and you feel feel good. And so in that visualization, you're really playing that up. What does the sand feel like in your feet? What's it feel like to have the breeze hitting you? And you're really creating a visceral feeling of that, and that is lighting up all these good brain centers that are replacing the old pattern. So that's one, it's a good visualization. Number two, you could do something like tapping or eft, where you're tapping in. Even though I felt this way, I allow myself to be happy, well, energetic, etc. And you're really saying that with a lot of energy. So again, you play up all those brain centers that are getting lit up so that dopamine and serotonin can release those endorphins and respond positively.

So talk to us about optimism bias, and then how do we use that to help redirect?

Sure. So an optimism bias, one of the Main reasons we can utilize that is because it'll help mitigate triggers, for one, and then when we do get in a trigger, it'll help us respond and in a more present state of mind. So optimism bias comes from positive psychology. And the way they derived that was they started with looking at heart attack patients. And so early on there was a theory that type A people, type A personalities, very driven, very maybe over scheduling, etc. Detail oriented, were more prone to heart attacks. And so they thought they could make type A people into type B people, more laid back, more relaxed, etc. Well, you can't do that. That study failed miserably because you can't change people's core personalities. And it turns out type B people have heart attacks too. And so what they decided to do is they said, okay, what if we can switch from trying to change type A to type B, but we can take pessimistic type A and pessimistic type B people who had heart attacks, and then turn them into optimistic people. Now, what they found was this worked fantastically well. These people, they could create optimism bias, they could become optimistic. So that was a change they could make. Number two, it helped prevent second heart attacks and led them to thrive better. Now they apply this to diabetes, they applied it to other cancer research, etc. And they found it works across the board.

So what are some of the tools then that we can use to create an optimism bias?

Sure. So one of the main tools that I like to have patients use is three things that went well before patients brain dump at night. I'll have them list out three specific things that went well that day. You can't list the same one from day to day because you just start to shut down the brain center. You just kind of go on automatic. But you list three things specifically went well and you write them out. It's helpful to write them out because again, you utilize deeper brain patterns. That way, secondarily, you can begin to find things that you appreciate and try to cultivate appreciation. And then in certain meditative circles, there's a loving kindness meditation where you can begin to cultivate positive feelings regarding things that maybe frustrate you and send them out into the world.

Perfect. So we've talked about the individualist steps. I'm wondering now if you can kind of walk us through a real life example of how you would use these steps to help go through this process.

Sure. So if I was trying to help somebody through a self directed neuroplasticity program to start with, I would have them very early on begin the practice of doing brain dumping at night. I might also have them do somatosensory awareness as they lay in bed to start clearing those pathways. And very often a patient in our program, I'll start them on those practices within the first three days of a two week program. And so they can start to clear those pathways. And then as we work on those, what I'll start to begin to do is if I can pick out a trigger that they're constantly talking to me about, I'll begin to explain how the nervous system works. And so then I'll say, okay, do we want to work on this trigger? Oh, yes, nobody wants those triggers. And so they're willing to work on them. And from there what we'll do is I will help them develop a script. And it has to be their own words and their own visualization so that the brain likes it. Now what we do is we don't just start them doing those script, if you will, carrying that index card, because when it's stressed, you'll forget. So we need to write out your script on an index card you can carry with you. And then what we do is we have them do 15, 30 minutes, maybe even an hour a night of reading through that script and doing that visualization. And we're doing that, we're creating a practice session that kind of installs that program in the brain, if you will. And so then later, when those triggers come up during the day, it's already there. All we're doing is reactivating it. And so what will happen is when they're conscious of that trigger that we've already decided on, they can redo that script. So that script, let's say the trigger, is bright lights. And with bright lights, I get a migraine, okay? And so I've, I've been doing the preparatory exercises and I've been doing the 15 minutes, 20 minutes a night of doing this. And so the next time a bright light occurs and I start to get the inkling of a migraine, I remember my script, I'm aware of the trigger, and so I can go, stop, stop. This is just my nervous system, it's registering the sunlight and it's stuck in this old pattern that I have. And then I can go into a visualization of maybe being nice and relaxed, taking a hike in the woods, it's very cool out, I can smell the trees, it smells great, etc. And so at that point I'm supplanting the new idea there.

So once you've gone through that process many times, and you said it becomes kind of a faster process. Do you still, then each time you're, you're running through that, you still go through each of those steps, or do you not really need to go through each of them once you've gone through it many times previously, at some point.

It'S easy just to be able to drop right into the visualization. All you have to do is notice the pattern and it almost interrupts itself at that point. Once those the way to think of it as those connections are starting to get weaker, so they don't take as much momentum to break down.

Interesting. Perfect. So talk to us a little bit about why physical exercise is also important in rewiring the brain.

Sure. There's multiple reasons why exercise is vital for rewiring the brain. For one reason, when we talk about neuromodulation, one of the main parts of the brain that neuromodulates the rest of the vein is the cerebellum. Now, most people think of that part as a balance part of our brain, but it also helps to modulate the other centers of the brain. So what feeds that cerebellum is proprioception. Now, that's a fancy word for movement signals from the rest of the body. So to exercise and to get moving, so to exercise and get moving sends those proprioceptive nourishment back to that cerebellum. Now, as that brain is getting modulated by the cerebellum, one of the other things movement proprioception is doing is, is it's secreting what's called bdnf, Brain derived neurotropic factor. Now, what that BDNF does is it nourishes those neurons so they can start to grow and make new connections, repair old ones. It's almost like an organic miracle. Grow for the brain, if you will, and it's right in there. All you have to do is move to get it to happen.

Fantastic. Yeah, I think I read something in Dave Asprey's new book, Head Strong. I think he talks a little bit about the EDNF in there, if I'm remembering correctly. So how do we create an ongoing state of neuroplasticity? What are the best ways to really keep our brains adaptive and neuroplastic?

Sure. So one of the best ways to do that, number one, is to give it the right ingredients, give it everything it needs to continue to stay healthy, to build new cells as it turns over old ones. So taking things like omega 3, fatty acids, all the good vitamins we talked about, magnesium, etc. Number two is to be in a continual state of learning. You know, once you've mastered something, go learn something new and push your boundaries. A little bit is especially important. Don't get used to your strengths. As far as learning goes, pick up hobbies that maybe are just a little bit outside of your talents so that the brain can create new pathways to do so.

Perfect. That's great. So if people want to learn more about neuroplasticity, what are some resources that you would recommend they explore?

One of my favorite books on the subject is the Brain's Way of Healing by Norman Doidge. I really think that's a good idea. Number two, there's a good book called Limitless yous which talks about neurofeedback and that's a fantastic resource as well. You can also check out our YouTube page at the Hansa center where we have some videos up on neuroplasticity.

Great, perfect. So let's talk a little bit about what you do on a daily basis in support of your own health. With everything you know, what do you think are the important things that you do for yourself?

Sure. So from a diet perspective, I practice intermittent fasting. I tend to eat a slightly lower carb, moderate protein, high fat diet. I take a core group of supplements, fish oil, vitamin D, magnesium, B complex and then just varying ideas. I'll change those supplements depending on what I'm trying to do every day. I also exercise, I lift weights, I maybe do a little bit of cardiovascular exercise. I do some brain training. So I'll do some eye tracking exercises. I will do some cross crawl training. I'll do a couple other brain pathways and then I'll meditate. I meditate for 10 to 20 minutes every day and just a good mindfulness training and then I'll do my gratitude. Throughout the day I'll do my work and then the evenings I brained up most nights I do the optimism bias. I do three things that went well. I'll often color with my kiddos to stimulate those brain pathways.

Yeah, that's awesome. So you really do practice what you preach. I like that.

I do. I try to be congruent.

That's great. So I think this is going to be a show that people will really enjoy. I think it's an important topic. I think we've all had those triggers and patterns that we would like to shift and so having some tools like this is certainly empowering. So I appreciate you spending time with us today. It was a great conversation and thanks for being here.

Of course. Thank you so much.

To learn more about Today's guest, visit hansacenter.com that's Hansa H A N S A center.com to watch the YouTube videos from the Hansa center channel, visit YouTube.com hanzacenter that's YouTube.com hanzacenter I appreciate your support of the Better Health Guy blogcast series. If you'd like to follow me, you can find me on Facebook and Twitter as Better HealthGuy. The show can be found on YouTube, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. If you'd like to support the show, please visit betterhealthguy.com donate and if you'd like to be added to my newsletter, please visit betterhealthguy.com I'm looking forward to many more shows ahead and appreciate your interest.

Thanks for listening to this Better Health Guy blogcast with Scott, your Better Health Guy. To check out additional shows and learn more about Scott's personal journey to better health, please visit betterhealthguy.com.