In March we focused on growth and evolution, and we were privileged to hear from 4 individuals and their perspectives on this topic.

This month I am excited to share information that continues the theme of growth and evolution but with one specific focus—the brain. Frankly I never thought I would be this excited about the brain, but I am. Almost every day we are learning new things about the brain, how it functions and it’s ability to change and even heal. This is incredibly exciting, and frankly many of us over the age of 50 want to assist our brain in working better.

My current favourite book is The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity, by Dr. Norman Doidge. If that name rings a bell it could be because he is the author of The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. I’ve mentioned this ground-breaking book before as well as the fact that David Suzuki did a program on this book on his award winning television series, The Nature of Things.

In his new book, Dr. Doidge presents more exciting research and compelling case studies that, in some cases, challenge some very entrenched beliefs.

Let’s start with the case study that totally impressed me and I’m still thinking about—a woman who suffered chronic, debilitating pain.

Jan’s pain was so severe she was off work completely, and at the stage where only morphine could control it. Jan was a cardiac nurse, and was injured at work when a very heavy patient collapsed on her, crushing vertaebre all the way down her spine. For ten years she was unable to work, only left her home to see the doctor, and couldn’t focus mentally due to the pain medications. She felt like her life was over and was at the point of suicide.

Fortunately, Dr. Michael Moskowitz, a pain specialist at the pain clinic Jan was attending, was exploring a new approach to pain management. Because of his own experience with injuries and pain, he threw himself into intensive study of neuroscience. He realized that chronic pain stimulates the brain in such a way that it creates a larger and larger “brain map” of pain, eventually leading to excruciating pain felt all over the body, with just the smallest stimulation. He defined chronic pain as “learned pain” and framed it as plasticity gone wild.

Now for the exciting part—Dr. Moskowitz wondered if the brain’s plasticity could be used in reverse: to shrink the brain map of pain. What if the brain was literally challenged with a “competing” focus whenever a pain signal occurred? In other words, what effect would  intentionally asking the brain to address another matter, instead of running the pain response? And if the brain was consistently “redirected” would it in fact change the experience of pain itself?

Hypnosis has been used for pain management for quite some time, but Dr. Moskowitz was going beyond just pain management to the actual restructuring of the brain, and the way it processes the signals it receives. In other words, he was challenging how we view pain and where it is actually located. Anyone who has had back pain, neck pain, broken bones etc., knows the pain is in the body not the brain…right? Well, actually… wrong.

Over a period of months, Jan was able to change her whole experience of pain and discovered her pain was in her brain not her body. Dr. Moskowitz started her on a program that involved visualization. He showed her 3 pictures of the brain—the first in acute pain, the second in chronic pain and the third when the brain was not registering any pain at all. He told her if her brain looked like the third picture she would not feel any pain. At the slightest twinge of pain she was to picture her brain returning to the image of “No Pain.”

After three weeks of diligent focus, Jan started having a couple of minutes without pain and by the fourth week the time had stretched to half an hour. But would it last? That was Jan’s question. It did last, and her improvement continued she was able to reduce her medications. Today she is completely medication and pain free, and more importantly, she is bubbling with life. “It is like I was asleep for a decade. Now I want to stay up twenty-four hours a day and read, and catchup on all that I have missed. I want to be awake all the time.”

This is an exciting example of how malleable the brain is, and the important role we play in how it functions. Left to its own, Jan’s brain would have continued to endlessly be triggered by the smallest movement—caught in a chronic pain loop. Now that we know the profound influence we can have, what areas of your life come to mind that could be positively influenced by more mental focus—grooving the new neural pathways that serve you? For example, I’m thinking about my own fitness program, and what I could be focusing on as I build those elusive abdominal muscles. In business, what neural pathways would you really want to be firing and wiring as you approach sales, marketing, or business development?

As Dr. Joe Dispenza says, let’s start “Breaking the Habit of Being Ourselves,” and step into a new personal reality.

Tell me your thoughts, and share your comments and inspiration in the comments below. I love to hear from you!