I haven’t blogged for a while as am busy finishing my masters, with the date of completion fast approaching. However I have taken time out to read a wonderful book The woman Who Changed Her Brain by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young.

It is about the remarkable journey she took to ‘complete’ her brain after being born with neurological defects that effected her comprehension and conceptual understanding. She was able to devise exercises that helped her neurones fire together and therefore wire together. She now has a school in Toronto Canada helping children & some adults with their neurological functioning. I remember as a child growing up with undiagnosed deslexia and feeling dumb and stupid compared to my school companions, eventually I was able to accommodate as my reading and maths skills slowly improved. It came back to me a few years ago while trying to understand statistics because conceptually my brain could never fathom  the twists and turns based on algebraic logic.

I wish that every child who found things difficult to learn could have a school available like the one Barbara Arrow-Smith set up because it would open up a new world of understanding. I know my world would have been very different.

If you want a good book to read that gives you hope for improving mental tasks and activities, this is the one. The added plus is she is here this month for the sydney writers festival, enjoy !

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I have had the privilege of meeting Dr Norman Doidge, a Canadian psychiatrist who has greatly influenced the way I work with changing behavioural patterns. His book The Brain That Changes Itself, showed research that supports the belief that behaviour can change through changing our thinking patterns.

Before his book and the exploration of the research I noticed unhappy clients dredging up the past and critically analysing themselves, friends and partners. I wondered how helpful this was in changing their out look because instead of giving themself insight and awareness it simply reinforces their unwanted pattern. I now know that this behaviour simply lead to them re-traumatising and reinforcing their neurological pattern.

I see how it plays out with unhappy couples in their communication of criticism and blame. They continually bring up the past, focusing on their spouses misdemeanours. It is interesting that this creates such stress and cortisol release that can even lead  to memory loss.

Couples that want to move forward in their relationship strategise on ways not to bring up the past.  The most important thing is having a 3 to 6 month hiatus, where nothing negative from the past is brought up and discussed. This can enable new brain plasticity to form as the couple focus on positive bonding experiences. The only way I have seen this work if for my clients to take an active role in changing their thoughts before their anger starts to rise.  Initially distracting themselves from their negative thought eg. getting up and making themselves a tea or having a glass of water, think of something pleasant to do, ring a friend etc. This starts to change the pattern while relaxation techniques are the key to reinforce real change. Leaning how to say to yourself “ …. is doing the best they can”,  “ .. was not done on purpose”, “ I am not going to let small things effect me, because I won’t feel the same about this in a week, a month, a year, so how would it feel if I felt like that now ”.

I have watched wonderful results with highly stressed and anxious clients as they became focused on helping themselves by re-train their brain through a different way of thinking. Their commitment over a period of weeks and months lead them to be able to have choices in their communication.

I have used this process many times on myself and remember a few years ago when I was going through a difficult patch, I consciously decided not to focus on my unresolved problem but on what made me happy and fulfilled. The problem did not resolve for many months and yet I was able to find meaning and pleasure in my life, which meant that I could appreciate what I did have rather than what I did not.

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The conversations in my life with my friends, colleagues and clients seems to end up talking about ‘lack of sleep’. Sleep is such an important repair process both physically and cognitively. I wonder whether Margaret Thatcher’s Alzheimer’s was accelerated by her only having 5 hours sleep a night, when it is recommended that we need 7 – 8 hours.

Research has shown that toxic plaques develop in the brain through sleep deprivation, and that this plaques also builds up around the heart valve that can lead to cardiovascular problems. Also simple issues like weight gain can be caused by not getting enough sleep because insulin is produced in the middle of the night to help digest food.

 Shift work has long been recognised to increase the likelihood of developing cancer because at night the hormone melatonin is released that suppresses tumor development and if you do not sleep during the night hours the body does not produce it.

There are many things that help you get a good nights sleep including spending time in natural light in the morning without sunglasses as the circadian rhythm is able to kick in making the body clock ready for sleep at night.

When I am trying to go to sleep  I say to myself “ if I was going to fall asleep how would my body feel ( heavy and relaxed, so what would that feel like now ) how would the bed feel, how would my pillow, what would it be like if I was able to really enjoy the sensations and expand this ” ? It does work most times as I find my body drifts off to peaceful slumber.

There are some areas that no matter what self relaxation techniques are used sleep is not possible, especially around hormone fluctuations. For many women going through peri-menopause and menopause, sleeplessness is part of the symptoms because of the progesterone fluctuations.

Many times I look at my beautiful sleeping cats and hope that my nights rest will be as easy as theirs seems to be, so wishing everyone a restful sleep tonight.

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The start of 2012 gives us all the opportunity to be look at our behaviour and our level of generosity. A workshop I attended years ago had an impact on me because it taught that being generous to others is essential to us being happy and was coined ‘Mitzvah Therapy’.

It is based on being helpful to others and that this inadvertently leads us down a path to become enriched and fulfilled ourselves. It also has the added benefit of  lowering anxiety and depression, as well as improving our over all happiness. I call this ‘being generous of spirit’, just doing things for others out of the goodness of our heart. Even marriages and relationships benefit from this approach with couples reporting they were five times more likely to say the marriage was “very happy”, because of high amounts of generosity.

There is research that believes that this altruism has a foundation in human evolution and is wired into our survival.

Perhaps it would be helpful to imagine the person we have decided to be generous to, is actually a close relative. I do know that the more ‘generous of spirit’ I have become the happier I am as a person. I am interested in other peoples experiences, so please let me know what priority ‘Mitzvah Therapy’ is going to play for you in 2012.

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As we near the end of 2011 I wonder how many of you made new years resolutions at the beginning of the year and have been able to sustain them ?

I recently read an interview by experts on procrastination, Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago, and Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

They define procrastination as a lifestyle where an individual leaves everything to the last minute or deals with things after the due date eg. late tax returns & bills. Ferrari & Pychyl  define this as problem of self-regulation in response to authoritative parenting, where it is a way to try to rebel. As a by product they believe that the health of a procrastinators suffers with increase colds, flu and gastrointestinal issues as well as problems with alcohol and substance abuse.

Dr. Ferrari identifies three basic types of procrastinators:

• arousal types, or thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush.
• avoiders who display fear of failure or success, and are overly concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.
• decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision. They think by not making a decision that it absolves them of responsibility for the outcome of events.

My tips to assist to transform procrastination:

• Procrastination comes from a habit, so break this by doing the hardest things first.
• See things as a circle with a start and a completion.
• Break things up into small areas and just take on and complete, one small thing at a time e.g. clean up a cupboard first rather than pressure yourself to clean up the whole room.
• You can start by visualising yourself doing what you have been procrastinating about, and finding the task much easier than what you imagined.
• Mindfulness is very helpful in breaking patterns, because it helps a person to become aware of their self-sabotage and supports them in creating a new awareness around their behaviour.

It works best for me to do the hardest tasks first and then to give myself the reward, rather than the other way around.

I hope that you are able to leave behind in 2011 anything you no-longer need and embrace what ever you may need in 2012. Wishing everyone a wonderful, fulfilling, happy 2012 !

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