My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey (23 page)

To help me find my way back into my peaceful right mind, I look at how my body organizes information into systems and capitalize on those already established circuits. I find that paying attention to sensory information as it streams into my body is a very helpful tool. However, I don't just focus on the sensory information, I consciously hook into the physiological experience underlying that sensory circuitry. I ask myself repeatedly,
how does it feel to be here doing this?

Eating, drinking, and being merry, is something that happens in the present moment. Our mouths contain various types of sensory receptors permitting us the ability to not only taste different flavors but to perceive unique textures and varied temperatures. Try observing more closely how different foods taste. Pay attention to the textures of different foods and how they feel in your mouth. What foods would you classify as fun food and why? I love chasing around those little individual gelatin balls in tapioca pudding. Spaghetti is a great texture to play with too. The most fun I have with food, however, is squishing the guts out of half frozen peas, or smooshing mashed potatoes between my teeth! I realize your mother probably expunged these behaviors out of your dining repertoire when you were young, but in the privacy of your own home, I'm thinking it's probably okay. It's really hard to entertain stress-inducing thoughts when you're having fun with food!

Besides the physical attributes of food consumption, it is vitally important that we consider the physiological impact food has on our body and mind. Beyond the traditional focus on nutritional value, try paying attention to how select foods make your body feel. Both sugar and caffeine have me crawling out of my skin within minutes after I consume them. It's a feeling I don't like and thus try to avoid. Eating foods that contain the chemical tryptophan (milk, bananas, and turkey) rapidly increase the levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in my brain and cause me to feel mellow. I purposely choose these foods when I want to concentrate and feel calm.

In general, carbohydrates turn immediately into sugar and make my body feel lethargic and my brain spastic. Also, I don't like the way carbs spike my sugar/insulin response and then leave me craving. I like the way proteins charge me up and give me energy without stimulating emotional highs and lows. You may have a different response to these foods, and that's okay. A balanced diet is important, but paying attention to how you burn energy and how foods make you feel inside your skin should be a top priority.

One of the easiest ways to shift just about anyone's mood (for better or for worse) is through stimulation of their nose. If you are overly sensitive, life in the real world can be unbearable. Capitalizing on our noses to shift ourselves back into the present moment is easy. Light a scented candle and let vanilla, rose or almond lift you up beyond your recollections of stress. When random smells waft past you, hook into that cognitive loop and spend quality time trying to identify the scent. Score it on a scale of one to ten for pleasure or yuck. Remember to feel the physiology that underlies different scents. Let them move you into the here and now.

If you are having a problem with your ability to smell, then I'm a true believer that unless the circuits have been permanently severed, it is possible to increase your sensitivity. When you purposely pay attention to the smells around you, you're sending a message to your brain saying you value that connection. If you want to improve your sense of smell, spend more time sniffing different scents and talk to your cells! Let them know you want them to improve their ability. If you are willing to change your behavior such that you spend more time consciously thinking about what you are smelling, and you're willing to focus your mind on the act of smelling, then the neuronal connections will get reinforced and potentially become stronger.

When it comes to vision, there are basically two ways you can use your eyes. Take a moment right now to look at the view in front of you. What do you see? Your right mind takes in the big picture. It sees the view as a whole where everything is relative. It observes the entire expanse and does not focus on any of the details. Your left mind immediately focuses in on the contour of individual objects and delineates the specific entities making up the view.

When I stand on a mountaintop and let my eyes relax, my right mind takes in the magnificence of the open vista. Physiologically, I feel the majesty of the overall view deep inside my being, and I am humbled by how beautiful our planet is. I can recall this moment by either reconstructing the vision or by recalling the feeling it elicits. My left mind is completely different. It eagerly focuses my attention on the specific types of trees, the colors in the sky, and analyzes the sounds of specific birds. It discriminates the types of clouds, delineates the tree line, and registers the temperature of the air.

Right now, take a pause from your reading. Close your eyes and identify three sounds you hear. Go ahead. Relax your mind and expand your perception. What do you hear? Listen close and listen far. As I sit here in Dipper Cabin at the Rocky Ridge Music Center in the Rocky Mountains near Estes Park, my ears are privy to the gurgling sounds of a creek as it passes right outside my picture window. When I focus my mind on distant sounds, I hear bits and pieces of classical music as children practice their instruments. Focusing my ears up close, I hear the hum of the heater, right here in the cabin, as it warms me.

Listening to music that you love, in the absence of cognitive analysis or judgment, is another great way to come back to the here and now. Let sound move you not just emotionally but physically. Allow your body to rock and sway or dance and play in accordance with the rhythm. Surrender your inhibitions and let your body get caught in the flow.

Of course, the absence of sound can be equally as beautiful. I love putting my ears under water in the tub to create a space of sound deprivation. I also focus on my body's gurgles when they occur and send my cells praise for their ongoing efforts. I have found that my mind is easily distracted by too much auditory stimulation, so I often work, or travel, with earplugs. I believe that preventing stimulation overload in my brain is my responsibility, and earplugs have been a true sanity saver on many occasions.

Our largest and most diverse sensory organ is our skin. Just as our brain runs various circuits that think, experience emotion or involve specific combinations of physiological reactivity, our skin is stippled with very specific receptors capable of detecting very specific forms of stimulation. As with our other senses, we are all unique in how sensitive we are to light touch, pressure, heat and cold, vibration, and pain. Some of us adapt more quickly than others. Although most of us don't spend much time thinking about our clothes after we put them on, some of us remain so sensitive that our minds obsess over their texture or weight. I thank my cells regularly for their ability to adapt to incoming stimulation. Imagine how preoccupied our minds would be all the time if we couldn't.

Humor me again, if you will, and take another pause from your reading. This time, close your eyes and think about the information you are currently detecting from your skin. How is the temperature of the air? What is the texture of your clothing - soft or scratchy, light or heavy? Is anything pushing up against you - maybe a pet or a pillow? Just think about your skin for a moment. Can you feel your watch, or those glasses on your nose? How about your hair draping on your shoulder?

From a therapeutic perspective, there is perhaps nothing more intimate than touch, be it physical connection with another human, a furry friend or even your household plants. The physical benefits of nurturing and being nurtured are priceless. Simply taking a shower and feeling the water splashing upon your body is a great way to jolt yourself back into the present moment. Feeling the pressure of water against your skin, by taking a bath or playing in a pool, is excellent light pressure and temperature stimulation. Allow these forms of activity the power to lull you back into the here and now. Train yourself to pay closer attention to when your different circuits are stimulated. As you do, you encourage them to function.

Deep body massage is also great for a number of reasons. Not only does it help relieve tension in your muscles, but it also increases the movement of the fluids in your cellular environment. The internal world of your body is how your cells obtain nutrition and clear their waste. I enthusiastically support any type of stimulation that increases their standard of living.

One of my most favorite ways of using touch to come back to the here and now is through raindrops. Walking in the rain is a multidimensional experience that moves me deeply. Drops of water spattering on my face instantly shift me into the beauty and innocence of my right mind as I feel enveloped by a deep sense of purification. Feeling the warmth of sunshine upon my face or the kiss of a breeze on my cheek also connects me directly with a part of myself that feels at
one
with all that is. I absolutely love standing on the ocean's edge with my arms spread wide, flying in the breeze. By remembering the smells, sounds, tastes, and how I felt deep inside, I can transport myself back to Nirvana in an instant.

The more attention we pay to the details of how things look, sound, taste, smell, feel against our skin and feel physiologically inside our body, the easier it is for our brain to recreate any moment. Replacing unwanted thought patterns with vivid imagery can help us shift our consciousness back toward our deep inner peace. Although it is great to use our senses to rebuild an experience, I believe the real power in experiential recreation is located in our ability to remember what the underlying physiology feels like.

It's impossible for me to end this section on the use of sensory stimulation to bring one into the present moment, and not touch on the subjects of energy dynamics and intuition. For those of you who have very sensitive right hemispheres, I know you understand what I am talking about. At the same time, I appreciate that for many of us, if our left mind cannot smell it, taste it, hear it, see it or touch it, then we are skeptical as to whether or not it exists. Our right brain is capable of detecting energy beyond the limitations of our left mind because of the way it is designed. I hope your level of discomfort about such things as energy dynamics and intuition has decreased as you have increased your understanding about the fundamental differences in the way our two hemispheres collaborate to create our single perception of reality.

Remembering that we are energy beings designed to perceive and translate energy into neural code may help you become more aware of your own energy dynamics and intuition. Can you sense the mood of a room when you first walk in? Ever wonder why you seem to be content one minute and then fraught with fear the next? Our right hemisphere is designed to perceive and decipher the subtle energy dynamics we perceive intuitively.

Since the stroke, I steer my life almost entirely by paying attention to how people, places, and things feel to me energetically. In order to hear the intuitive wisdom of my right mind, however, I must consciously slow my left mind down so I am not simply carried along on the current of my chatty story-teller. Intuitively, I don't question why I am subconsciously attracted to some people and situations, and yet repelled by others. I simply listen to my body and implicitly trust my instincts.

At the same time, my right mind completely honors the phenomenon of cause and effect. In a world of energy, where everything influences everything, it seems naive for me to disregard the insights of my right mind. If I am shooting a bow and arrow, for example, I don't just focus on the target's bulls-eye, but I trace the path between the arrow tip and the center of the target. I visualize the perfect amount of force exerted by my muscles as they pull back the arrow, and focus my mind on the fluidity of the process rather than the finality of the end product. I find that when my perception is expanded and I imagine the experience, my accuracy is increased. If you are involved in sports, you have the power to choose how you want to perceive yourself in relationship to your target or goal. You can see yourself as separate - you positioned at spot A and your target at spot Z, or you can see yourself at
one
with the target and in the flow with all the atoms and molecules in the space between.

Our right brain perceives the big picture and recognizes that everything around us, about us, among us and within us is made up of energy particles that are woven together into a universal tapestry. Since everything is connected, there is an intimate relationship between the atomic space around and within me, and the atomic space around and within you - regardless of where we are. On an energetic level, if I think about you, send good vibrations your way, hold you in the light, or pray for you, then I am consciously sending my energy to you with a healing intention. If I meditate over you or lay my hands upon your wound, then I am purposely directing the energy of my being to help you heal. How the arts of Reiki, Feng Shui, acupuncture, and prayer (to mention only a few) work remain pretty much medical mysteries. This is mostly because our left brains and science have not yet successfully caught up with what we understand to be true about how our right hemisphere functions. However, I believe our right minds are perfectly clear about how they intuitively perceive and interpret energy dynamics.

Shifting away from the subject of sensory systems, we can also use the skills of our motor output systems to shift our perspective into the here and now. Purposely relaxing muscles you routinely hold tense can help you release pent up energy and feel better. I'm constantly checking in with the tension in my forehead and inevitably, if I can't fall asleep at night, I consciously loosen my jaw and then proceed to pass right out. Thinking about what is going on with your muscles is a great way to pull your mind back into the present. Systematically squeezing and relaxing them may help you come back to the here and now.