Archives for November 2019

Love + Good Stuff Folder

Nov 25, 2019 by United Brain Association Leave a Comment

Brain disorders can take their toll on both sufferers and their loved ones, making opportunities to surround yourself with positivity and love that much more important. When times are darkest, we can easily forget all the kind and wonderful things people say to us. It’s normal to fall into the trap of negativity and space we don’t want to be, which is where the “Love + Good Stuff” folder can come in handy.

Create a folder – digital, paper, or a box – and include cards, printed emails, notes, or any positive written words that people may have given you over the years. If you make a paper folder, decorate it with your favorite pens and markers and label it “Love + Good Stuff.”

Place this folder someone easily accessible and refer back to it often. We all need this sunshine when times seem dark!

Pain vs. Joy: Breaking the Cycle

Nov 19, 2019 by United Brain Association Leave a Comment

When we suffer from pain–whether it’s physical or emotional pain — all we want is some relief. It makes sense that we want the pain to go away, and it also makes sense for us to take steps to free ourselves from the pain, even if only briefly.

Many people, however, retreat from pain in ways that provide only fleeting relief, allowing the pain to come back over and over again, often stronger than it was, to begin with. Their strategies for making the pain stop provide only a temporary escape, and often those escapist strategies create new kinds of pain that demand even more aggressive kinds of escape. It’s a cycle of pain that never ends.

Some people, though, find ways to confront the root causes of their pain and give themselves relief that lasts. Ultimately, their strategies lessen the pain rather than perpetuating it. They find ways to bring joy into their lives, and joy is a formidable pain reliever.

The Cycle of Pain

Harvard psychologist Jim Hopper theorizes that our behavior is guided by six different “key circuitries” in our brains, areas of brain activity that work together to help us respond to our environments.

The six key circuitries are:

Fear Circuitry – the parts of our brain that alerts us to danger and trigger us to respond to threats.
Seeking Circuity – which pushes us to pursue our goals, both large and small.
Satisfaction Circuitry – which rewards us with feelings of contentment when we meet our goals.
Embodiment Circuitry – monitors our body’s feelings and helps to tell the other circuitries how to respond.
Executive Circuitry – allows us to think, plan, solve problems, and focus on thoughts consciously.
Default Circuitry – controls where our minds wander when we’re not consciously focused on something else.

Hopper suggests that a cycle of suffering often begins when the brain’s key circuitries interact in unhealthy ways. Often, the fear circuitry is triggered by something that threatens us–physical pain, emotional distress, relationship tension, anxiety, etc.–and the seeking circuitry begins to look for ways to avoid the threat. But because the seeking is motivated by fear, the solutions are often quick fixes–drugs or alcohol, destructive behaviors that don’t get to the heart of the problem. The threat returns quickly, but we become addicted to the temporary relief and don’t look beyond it for a more permanent solution.

Hopper also suggests another kind of cycle of suffering that’s triggered by depression. In this case, the embodiment circuitry is overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness, and it suppresses the seeking circuitry because there seems to be no escape from the bad feelings. The suppressed seeking circuitry looks for low-effort solutions–sleep, substance abuse, etc.–which provide no real satisfaction and very often make the feelings of hopelessness even worse.

The Cycle of Joy

The theory of key circuitries allows for cycles of happiness, contentment, and joy, just as it explains cycles of pain and suffering. The positive cycles of joy involve the embodiment and satisfaction circuitries, and they require conscious action and effort on the part of the sufferer to work. They’re not easy to achieve, but people who work at them are very often able to find long-term relief from pain.

Hopper suggests that engaging the embodiment circuitry is a way to break the fear-triggered cycle of pain. This approach involves actively working to be aware of the source of your pain so that you can understand and respond to it in a more effective way. This will lead you to something better than the quick-fix solutions in the cycle of pain.

In practical terms, that means finding ways to deal with your pain on a conscious level. There are many ways to do this, including:

Undergoing cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
Following a program of meditation or mindfulness training
Seeking out a support group
Engaging with a spiritual or religious community

This strategy is challenging because confronting your pain head-on is usually unpleasant, but it gives you a much better chance of finding long-term relief. It teaches you how to treat the pain instead of just escaping from it.

Another way to break the cycle of pain is to use the embodiment and satisfaction circuitries to replace the pain with something (or many somethings) that will bring true joy to your life. This approach takes advantage of the seeking circuitry, but it requires us to look for deeper solutions than the escapism that fear and hopelessness drive us toward.

This approach also takes a lot of work. You’ll need to learn how to recognize which things make you truly, deeply happy, and you’ll also have to learn to recognize how you feel physically when you are truly content. When you can do that, you can spend more time pursuing the things that bring you joy; that will make you more content overall, and a new cycle of happiness will begin.

Hopper suggests several ways to explore this path to joy, including:

Moving from Pain to Joy

Regardless of the path, you take to finding joy, the most important thing is that you step onto the path. Cycles of pain and suffering keep going because they’re reflexive and easy; your body and brain are focused only on quick escape, not seeking out real solutions. Moving from a cycle of pain to a cycle of joy takes effort, mindfulness, and courage, but it is the only way to find lasting relief and contentment.

Crucial Tips from Fellow Caregivers

Nov 18, 2019 by United Brain Association Leave a Comment

Take some advice from fellow caregivers to serve as a reminder that you are not alone.

“Make time for yourself every day. Even if it’s just a short walk, shower, or eating lunch outside. Taking a little ME time is important to recharge your batteries so you can continue caring for the person you are caring for.” – Heather M.

“Be kind to yourself. If you don’t care for yourself, you’ll have nothing to give…” – Susan G.

“It’s all about the moments, cherish the good, distract the bad… Love through all.” – Patty M.

“Don’t be too proud to accept help when needed.” – Marjorie F.

“Instead of trying to bring your loved one to your side of the river, go to theirs. Try and truly understand what standing in their shoes is like. Join THEIR journey.” – Diane J.

Overcoming Depression & Anxiety About Death with Psychedelics

Nov 16, 2019 by United Brain Association Leave a Comment

Breakthrough research is putting the spotlight on the therapeutic benefits of psychedelic drugs, a class of drugs that had been neglected by scientists for decades. New clinical studies are beginning to show that psychedelics–in particular, psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in hallucinogenic mushrooms–could have enormous potential for treating a wide range of neurological and psychiatric conditions.

Using psychedelic drugs to treat brain disorders is not a new area of study, but political and cultural pressure had halted research for decades. In the 1950s, scientists began to look into the possibility that LSD could be used to treat, among other disorders, alcohol addiction. Although the research showed promise, the association of psychedelic drugs with 1960s counterculture was difficult to shake, and new laws established during the Nixon administration effectively ended almost all research involving the substances.

Not until the turn of the century did research finally resume. In 2000, a group at Johns Hopkins University led by Roland Griffiths, PhD, was granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration to begin new studies involving psilocybin. The group’s publication of positive results in 2006 helped to initiate a new wave of research.

Pioneering Research

Click here for the full video: https://cbsn.ws/2phQBKv

The team at Johns Hopkins went on to publish their work in dozens of peer-reviewed articles, and their studies showed that psilocybin has promise for treating disorders as diverse as nicotine addiction and major depression. The success of their work has not only helped to broaden the understanding of how psychedelics can be used to treat brain disorders, but it has also encouraged other scientists to venture into this once-taboo area of research.

In 2019, the university secured private funding to establish the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. Under the direction of Griffiths, the center will conduct research on the effects of psychedelic drugs on brain biology and function, behavior, mood, learning, and memory. The center’s researchers will also pursue studies of psilocybin as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), opioid addiction, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, anorexia nervosa, and major-depression-associated alcohol abuse.

“The center’s establishment reflects a new era of research in therapeutics and the mind through studying this unique and remarkable class of pharmacological compounds,” says Griffiths. “In addition to studies on new therapeutics, we plan to investigate creativity and well-being in healthy volunteers that we hope will open up new ways to support human thriving.

New Frontiers

Johns Hopkins is not the only place where new research on psychedelic therapies is producing exciting results. At New York University’s Langone Medical Center, Michael P. Bogenschutz, MD, is leading research that uses psilocybin to treat alcohol dependence. In Bogenschutz’s studies, participants are given controlled doses of psilocybin followed by motivational therapy sessions, all of which are carefully monitored and supported by therapists.

ABS is proud to be supporting Dr. Bogenschutz’s research and making a major impact by raising money to fund research projects that are critical to opening the pathway to cure brain diseases & mental health disorders.

Donate to Alcoholism Research

The initial stages of the research have produced results that suggest psilocybin can significantly improve drinking behavior in patients with alcohol dependence problems.

“People have uniformly reported strong decreases in their craving for alcohol and increased salience in some of their positive values like family, religion, health, productivity, and being a useful member of society. They felt rejuvenated and optimistic,” Bogenschutz says. “There really haven’t been any significant adverse effects to date.”

Psychedelics and the Brain

It’s not yet clear how psychedelics can help counter the effects of brain disorders. Early research in using LSD to treat alcohol dependence speculated that a “bad trip” could produce a frightening experience that would shock participants into changing their drinking behavior, a sort of “rock bottom” that would inspire them to do better.

However, while some participants in modern psychedelic studies do report having a negative experience, the majority say that their experiences are more enlightening than frightening. Participants often say the experience causes them to see beyond their own thoughts, to stop seeing themselves as the center of the universe, to have a diminished sense of their personal identity. The feelings can be transformative and may have an impact on behavior well beyond the psychedelic experience.

From a neurological perspective, the experience might be the result of new pathways being forged in the brain. Researchers think that psychedelics may open up interaction between parts of the brain that usually remain relatively isolated from one another. The effect might be as specific as being able to “hear” colors during a psychedelic experience or as broad as acquiring a new and different sense of one’s place in the world.

A Struggle for Funding

Although the legal prohibition on psychedelic research has been lifted, finding funding for the research remains a challenge. Government funding for studies is sparse to non-existent, leaving researchers to turn to private sources for support. The Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins, for example, was established thanks to a $17-million contribution by a group of private donors, and contributions from a small number of philanthropists will fund the first five years of the center’s operations.

The funding model points out just how difficult it is to keep this ground-breaking research going. But it’s work that needs to be done, says Alex Cohen, president of the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, one of the center’s supporters.

“We have to take braver and bolder steps if we want to help those suffering from chronic illness, addiction and mental health challenges. By investing in the Johns Hopkins center, we are investing in the hope that researchers will keep proving the benefits of psychedelics — and people will have new ways to heal.”

Donate to Alcoholism Research

Incomplete Self-Compassion

Nov 11, 2019 by United Brain Association Leave a Comment

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” –
Jack Kornfield, Buddha’s Little Instruction Book

As a caregiver, don’t make the mistake of not thinking of yourself. YOU must be made a priority! Go easy on yourself and treat yourself kindly.

Just as the serene beauty of the lotus blossom grows out of muddy water, Jack Kornfield emphasizes the need to find wholeness and peace amid life’s crisis and distractions. As a well-known American Buddhist teacher and psychologist, his lessons are very applicable to life as a caregiver. It’s essential to be mindful of the practical ways we can infuse small everyday action with insight and joy.

Kornfield says, “Just as we are hard on others we are even harder on ourselves. With mindfulness, our natural compassion grows. We can see that we are all carrying our own burden of tears. You and everyone you meet are sharing in some measure of the pain present on the planet. You are called upon to witness this pain—in yourself and others—with compassion.”