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Imagine that scientist have discovered the breakthrough technology for reducing stress or eliminating your stress.  They don’t have to in a sense, the body already knows what to do, we as humans don’t realize that we have the natural ability to reduce our stress built right into the model we were given at birth, you read that right, you were given the premium model and didn’t know it.  You don’t have to ask for the upgrade.

Our built in mechanism is the natural process we go through at night called Rapid Eye Movement (REM).  What is Rapid Eye Movement?  In research this is what is said; According to scientific theories, known as the Ontogenetic Hypothesis of REM sleep, this sleep stage (also known as Active Sleep in neonates) is particularly important to the developing brain, possibly because it provides the neural stimulation that newborns need to form mature neural connections and for proper nervous system development.  Studies investigating the effects of Active Sleep deprivation have shown that deprivation early in life can result in behavioral problems, permanent sleep disruption, decreased brain mass, and result in an abnormal amount of neuronal cell death.  REM sleep is necessary for proper central nervous system development.  Further supporting this theory is the fact that the amount of REM sleep in humans decreases with age, as well as data from other species (see below).

One important theoretical consequence of the Onthogenetic Hypothesis is that REM sleep may have no essentially vital function in the mature brain, i.e., once the development of CNS has completed. However, because processes of neuronal plasticity do not cease altogether in the adult brain,  REM sleep may continue to be implicated in neurogenesis in adults as a source of sustained spontaneous stimulation.

Other theories

Yet another theory suggests that monoamine shutdown is required so that the monoamine receptors in the brain can recover to regain full sensitivity. Indeed, if REM sleep is repeatedly interrupted, the person will "make up" for it with longer REM sleep, "rebound sleep", at the next opportunity. Acute REM sleep deprivation can improve certain types of depression when depression appears to be related to an imbalance of certain neurotransmitters. This however is not proven. There is no test that will prove the theory of chemical imbalance. Most antidepressants selectively inhibit REM sleep due to their effects on monoamines. However, this effect decreases after long-term use.

Some researchers argue that the perpetuation of a complex brain process such as REM sleep indicates that it serves an important function for the survival of mammalian and avian species. It fulfills important physiological needs vital for survival to the extent that prolonged REM sleep deprivation leads to death in experimental animals. In both humans and experimental animals, REM sleep loss leads to several behavioral and physiological abnormalities. Loss of REM sleep has been noticed during various natural and experimental infections. Survivability of the experimental animals decreases when REM sleep is totally attenuated during infection; this leads to the possibility that the quality and quantity of REM sleep is generally essential for normal body physiology.

With the research referenced below, imagine that in the height of your stress with purposeful eye blinking you could go to the true original source of the stress and turn on the plasticity process.  In my opinion in doing so we as humans could access the parts of the brain that have the information of letting go of the stress because that is the part of the brain that didn’t save that stress to be hashed over and over.  When we continue to talk about the parts of our life that aren’t working we are continuing to allow that stress to live in the forefront of our lives, thus possibly creating feelings of separation, chronic pain, depression, etc… which really is dis-ease.  With purposeful eye blinking it seems that we access the parts of our brain that store our joy.  Brain Scientist Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor says that in living in our left hemisphere of our brain we disconnect from all of life, meaning we live in our ego.  This means we live in fear, when we live in fear we then are not living as our true original blueprint.  Living in our right hemisphere of our brain is when we allow healing to happen and we connect as one with all of life.   That means we are living in our true original state of Joy.

Imagine being a child purposely blinking to assist with healing from trauma of any kind.  If you open up and connect to those parts of the brain that aren’t holding onto the stored trauma you could remember the truth of who you are and where you are from which would start the healing process.  What happens as adults, we have allowed that trauma to become our identity.  Then we get to tell that story day after day when we meet someone, we then sayI have this ailment, I have that ailment, this trauma happened to me as a child and that trauma happened to me as a child.  As children we do not have the skills and tools to heal the wounds.  As an adult, you have a choice, to stay in your stress (pain) or to let it go and create a brand new identity for ourselves.  When you start telling a new more self empowering story about yourself that is when miracles happen.  

Research is being done all the time about the brain and how with easy tools and skills we can all heal the wounds of stress and trauma and create the life we want.

Eye Drives Restructuring of Young Brain

Plasticity Depends on Transcription Factor Traveling Cell to Cell

In the months and years after a much-loved child is born, attentive parents marvel at their many distinct spurts in mental skills. Babies’ eyes begin to focus and soon track moving people and objects. They respond to spoken language before they can utter their first intelligible sounds. In succession, kids can read single letters, then words. Soon, they compose whole sentences and eventually devour the latest Harry Potter book.

These windows of accelerated learning, known as critical periods, seem even more amazing from the perspective of an adult, whose brain woefully struggles in comparison to learn new things. Acquiring a foreign language is much easier before age 11, for example.

Now researchers have discovered an unusual molecular wake-up call that triggers heightened plasticity in the visual cortex in the first month after birth, reports a paper in the Aug. 8 Cell. In one surprise, the brain responds to an outside cue—in this case, eyes opening for the first time—rather than dictating the timing from within. More unexpected is the nature of the cue and the way it work.

When the eyelids of baby mice first flutter open, researchers found, the retinas flood the synaptic highway into the visual cortex with molecules called OTX2. The molecules jump from neuron to neuron to the back of the brain. Once there, they turn on the specific circuitry to rewire the brain for sight.

“The eyes are sending more than neural images and electric signals. They are sending a molecular messenger that switches on the plasticity process,” said senior author Takao Hensch, HMS professor of neurology at Children’s Hospital Boston. “It’s quite a distance to go.”

The phenomenon may apply more broadly, scientists speculate. Similar proteins from the ear, nose, or skin at different times may open plasticity in the auditory, olfactory, and other sensory regions in the brain.
“This paper establishes a key new mechanism where activity in one part of the brain [the retina] can control plasticity in another [the cortex],” said Michael Shelanski, codirector of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University, who was not involved in the study. “Neuronal plasticity is required for learning and for repair in the nervous system.”

The authors see therapeutic potential down the road. “It’s a bit of a science fiction now, but the fact that we can access the brain mechanism of plasticity from the periphery gives us a new route of entry for brain therapies,” Hensch said. He envisions delivering tiny specialized proteins to boost development of specific cells whose impairment may cause disorders ranging from vision loss to schizophrenia.

References for research done in this blog:

Rapid Eye Movement:  Wikipedia
for the entire article on the Eye Drives Restructuring of Young Brain:   http://focus.hms.harvard.edu/2008/082908/development.shtml

Our Animal friends in the face of panic, negative emotions/behaviors, disasters and irrational fears that occur within a perceived or real emergency have been misunderstood for ions of time.  Mary T. Bowen, MRET says, some animals have even suffered permanent psychological damage which have been traumatized in the course of training, competing, and by general mismanagement.  Animal stress relief using blinking, breathing, tapping and eye movement the handler is able to work with their animal to let go of traumatic experiences that have continued to plague their four legged companion such as but not limited to… a traumatic birth, being born to early or late, having to be yanked out of Mom, separation anxiety, seeing the death of companion, natural disasters and being hurt while being transported, etc.

Under stress, an animal’s fight or flight mechanism kicks in, which is the brain’s director called the hypothalamus.  When an animal’s fight or flight kicks in, the body produces adrenaline which creates stress on the heart.  Although the emergency measure of the stress response is undoubtedly both vital and valuable, it can also be disruptive and physically damaging. In most modern situations, animals rarely encounter emergencies that require physical effort, yet biology still provides for the ability to respond as if a life threatening emergency were eminent.  Thus animals may find their stress response activated in situations where physical action is inappropriate. This activation takes a toll on both the animal’s body and mind.  

Stress is the body’s natural response to threat, whether that threat is mental or a physical accident or a disease. These perceived threats to the body might be a sudden change in the weather, a new horse in the field that might cause a fight, some change to management regime or maybe the loss of a companion.  The body releases natural steroids in response to threatening situations. Other chemicals begin to prepare the body for taking evasive action i.e. running away quickly.
Stress is actually a natural state of the body. If we or our animals did not get worried or stressed about things to some degree we would be much more likely to get into trouble in difficult or dangerous situations. The problem comes, however, when stress continues for long periods of time without us being able to get away from what is causing it. Then the natural chemicals in the body that are supposed to protect the body actually start having negative effects. The body steroid hormones start weakening the immune system.  Body chemicals make us ‘revved up’ in order to escape the stress and cannot do so.  By products of all this chemical activity called ‘free radicals’ begin damaging the cells and activate the aging process. It is a bit like ‘revving up’ an engine for a long period without going anywhere.  Of course it is not good for the engine after a while. Recent studies show that short periods of stress are actually good for the body because the healing process of the body afterwards gives it a lift.  An occasional challenge requiring acute thinking processes slows brain cell degeneration and increases brain function.
Bowen has witnessed the behavior in animals which have undergone shock, whether of human or natural cause, and she believes the patterns/behavior indicates that animals have responses to traumatic experiences parallel to responses of people with Combat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  

According the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you or your animals. During this type of event, you think that your life or others' lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening the same for animals.

Anyone who has gone through a life-threatening event can develop PTSD. These events can include:
•    Combat or military exposure
•    Child sexual or physical abuse
•    Terrorist attacks
•    Sexual or physical assault
•    Serious accidents, such as a car wreck.
•    Natural disasters, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake.

After the event, you may feel scared, confused, or angry. If these feelings don't go away or they get worse, you may have PTSD. These symptoms may disrupt your life, making it hard to continue with your daily activities.
Animals experience separation anxiety as humans do, as in loading in a trailer or leaving their Mother.  A trailer creates the feelings of anxiety from slipping on the floors, falling and afraid of not being able to get up, fear of the trailer ramp, leaving their companions, being penned up while Mom is taken away, to feeling alone and abandoned, etc…

The Animal is “God’s gift to mankind”. Given the animal’s virtues of strength and speed, their incredible beauty and grace, and their patient, enduring natures, it’s hardly surprising that for many of us they hold a magnetic attraction.   
When we impose a positive emotion over a negative one, one must fall away and it usually is the negative one! Relaxation rules! Positive experiences turn on the pleasure centers in the brain and reduce areas that sense pain. The brain is elastic and can be programmed with stress management techniques. What a good deal—tune into the positive emotions to help counteract the negative ones!

So what does all this mean for animals? An animal confined for prolonged periods may become withdrawn, or angry.  This monotony can stress the animal and damage its health. When animals lose a companion and are then left by themselves, their health can begin to decline.  If a horse is constantly worried about a heavy competition schedule and non-stop traveling, it may become ill relatively easily.  Animals also like to be fed at regular times during the day and get stressed out if regimes are inconsistent.  A constant state of anxiety is created when an animal never knows when its feed is coming.
How do we prevent the longer type of stress causing damage to our animals? The key is, of course, good management and an understanding of how an animals mind works. For many people this is not natural.  It is worth reading up on how animals behave in the wild and in domestication and trying to fit in more with what an animal is happy with. Negative experiences have a powerful affect on an animal for their entire life.   When an animal has been stressed for prolonged periods of time sometimes extra help is needed.

Any stressful situation immediately affects the animal’s endocrine system.  Stress hormones, epinephrine and norepinephrine, are released via the sympathetic nervous system.  These hormones initiate the “fight or flight” response and can cause an increase in blood pressure, and in heart and respiration rates.  Extreme or chronic stress initiates the release of Corticotropic Releasing Factor which causes the release of the glucocorticoid cortisol.  Cortisol helps the horse relieve stress by initially increasing glucose metabolism and providing additional energy for “flight.”  While this effect of cortisol is beneficial at the onset of a stressful situation, cortisol ultimately decreases the uptake of glucose into the cell and may have a negative impact on energy metabolism.  Increased episodes of stress (chronic exposure) and the release of cortisol will have a negative impact on immunity, digestion, behavior, reproduction and the cardiovascular system.  Increased gastric ulcers, colic, and diarrhea are also secondary reactions to due to stress. 

1.    What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)? 

 

You can get PTSD after you have been:

 

- Raped or sexually abused

- Hit or harmed

- A victim of a violent crime

- In an airplane or car crash

- In a hurricane, tornado, or fire, natural disaster

- In a war

- In an event where you thought you might be killed, or

- After you have seen any of these events

 

If you have PTSD, you often have nightmares or scary thoughts about the experience you went through. You try to stay away from anything that reminds you of your experience.  You may feel angry and unable to trust or care about other people.  You may always be on the lookout for danger.

 

Dramatic and tragic events, like the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and with media exposure such as we have today, even people not directly involved might be affected. Simply put, PTSD is a state in which you "can't stop remembering."

Research has shown that PTSD changes the biology of the brain.  MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and PET (positron emission tomography) scans show changes in the way memories are stored in the brain. PTSD is an environmental shock that changes your brain, and scientists do not know if it is reversible.

 

In the United States, 60% of men and 50% of women experience a traumatic event during their lifetimes. Of those, 8% of men and 20% of women may develop PTSD. A higher proportion of people who are raped develop PTSD than those who suffer any other traumatic event. Because women are much more likely to be raped than men (9% versus less than 1%), this helps explain the higher prevalence of PTSD in women than men.

 

More than half of all Vietnam veterans, about 1.7 million, have experienced symptoms of PTSD. 

 

New mothers may develop PTSD after an unusually difficult delivery during childbirth. Also, patients who regain partial consciousness during surgery under general anesthesia may be at risk for developing PTSD.

 

“Lack of predictability and controllability are the central issues for the development and maintenance of PTSD. The combination of intrusive and numbing symptoms has been consistently noted over the past century.

 

Though the biological underpinnings of response to trauma are extremely complex, forty years of research on humans and other mammals have demonstrated that trauma (particularly trauma early in the life cycle) has long term effects on the neurochemical response to stress, including the magnitude of the catecholamine response, the duration and extent of the cortisol response, as well as a number of other biological systems, such as the serotonin and endogenous opioid system.” (for an extensive review on the psychobiology of trauma, see van der Kolk, 1994).”

 

Under stress, our fight or flight mechanism kicks in which is the brain’s director called the hypothalamus.  When our fight or flight kicks in, the body secretes adrenaline which creates stress on the heart.  Although the emergency measure of the stress response is undoubtedly both vital and valuable, it can also be disruptive and physically damaging.

 

Stress is the body’s natural response to threat, whether that threat is mental or a physical accident or a disease.

 

By products of all this chemical activity called ‘free radicals’ begin damaging the cells and activate the aging process. It is a bit like ‘revving up’ an engine for a long period without going anywhere.  Of course it is not good for the engine after a while. Recent studies show that short periods of stress are actually good for the body because the healing process of the body afterwards gives it a lift.  An occasional challenge requiring acute thinking processes slows brain cell degeneration and increases brain function.

 

2.    When does PTSD start and how long does it last?

For most people, PTSD starts within about three months of the event. For some people, signs of PTSD don’t show up until years later. PTSD can happen to anyone at any age. Even children can have it.

 

3.    Are you the only person with this illness?

No. You are not alone. In any year, 5.2 million Americans have PTSD.

 

What to Do?  When we impose a positive emotion over a negative one, one must fall away and it usually is the negative one! Relaxation rules! Positive experiences turn on the pleasure centers in the brain and reduce areas that sense pain. The brain is elastic and can be programmed with stress management techniques. What a good deal—tune into the positive emotions to help counteract the negative ones!

SHARKS!

Do you have sharks in your life?  This is a wonderful quote from Mark Twain...

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

Recently my family and I experienced a week of pure tension in a situation that had been going on for months with several other people.  Nothing we did was ever good enough. By telling this story over and over again trying to figure out a solution I saw myself beating the drum of victim.  I wanted to do this pattern differently but was letting myself stay stuck in the story.  We can not change a situation by doing the same thing over and over again.  I realized these people were sharks in our lives not dolphins, and there isn’t anything we can do about them and their patterns, it isn't up to us to change their behavior.  But what is key, is to change our behavior of what we believe in ourselves.

I asked myself this question, "who told you that you had to make the best of a bad situation"?  I realized, Get out! Go swimming in a different ocean with better fish.  We don’t have to put up with bad behavior from anyone. We don’t have to pay any more dues.  Relationships are key and the most important one is the one you have with yourself.  What bad behavior are you allowing from others that are causing undue stress in your life? You have to make the change for yourself; no one can do it for you.  What I have found with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Sufferers after being abused is we tend to people please, that can create anger because you are pleasing everyone else but yourself.  Learn to say no to others bad behavior and know you are worth happy and healthy relationships in your life.  Let go of the sharks and go swim with the dolphins.

You know what snoring sounds like. It has probably kept you awake. You may be amongst the one-third who snore, and you may not even know it. Treated by physicians for centuries as a nuisance, doctors are coming to realize that snoring poses serious health risks. Loud snorers have a 40 percent greater risk of suffering from high blood pressure, a 34 percent greater chance of having a heart attack and a 67 percent greater risk of having a stroke.

But what exactly is snoring? Snoring is a sign of stress. The breathing airway has become partially blocked and the snore we hear is the sound of air being forced through the blockage by a person struggling for air. Snoring happens when we lie down because when we stand upright, the soft tissues in the back of the tongue and throat remain clear of the airway. But when we lie down and relax, those tissues can fall back and obstruct the breathing passage.

For some people, snoring is even more dangerous. When these people lie down, their airways do not just partially obstruct; they become completely blocked. They simply stop breathing, often for as long as several minutes. And, they can do that several hundred times each night. The condition is called obstructive sleep apnea, and the damage can be severe, leading to a host of problems, including death.
 
The body is repaired and replenished during sleep. Because the sleep of apnea sufferers is so disturbed, they are denied the healing benefits of rest. Sleep modulates every function of the body and when that rest is denied, every physical axis of the body is upset. We have all had sleepless nights. Remember how rough you felt the next day? For sleep apneics, that becomes a way of life. Apneics suffer from a host of symptoms like memory loss, headache, depression, impotence and debilitating exhaustion. Their exhaustion limits life, interferes with work performance and can lead to injury and death from accidents.

Now here comes the really good part: because affected individuals are asleep and typically unaware of their breathing problems, AND because many of their symptoms are not directly related to sleep stress or sleep deprivation AND can occur for a host of other reasons AND because the condition cannot be diagnosed during routine physician office visits, eighty percent of people with sleep-disordered breathing problems never get diagnosed.

Generally, men are three times more likely to be apneics than women, but after menopause, the odds are equal.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can create a host of many health related issues for you.  Addressing your PTSD can assist in a better night sleep when you address the emotional cause of the stress.  Stress should not be swept under the carpet and one of those things that you say one day I'll address it when I get a round tuit.  Now is the time to get a round tuit.  No one can do it for you when it comes to your health.  You are worth the personal growth, you have nothing to lose but every thing to gain.

If there is one question I am always asked it is what role can Rapid Eye Technology play in my healing???

And I always answer something like this…

 

If you're looking for a way to heal your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual being and eliminate stress and struggle from your life… you have found the answer. 

Because of the illusions that have been engrained in your belief system, you then view your life, your personal circumstances and the world around you, as being dangerous and threatening to you. You allow yourself to play the victim.

 

And, when you feel threatened or like the victim, the cells in your body are then constantly forced into a stress filled “fight or flight mode”, as opposed to a normal, healthy, “have, do, be mode”.

 

I find one core common thread among clients... they don't love themselves. They look for outside sources to validate their existence and that they are loved. This sets them up for disappointment and pain.

 

Everyone has Emotional Barriers...taking the step to letting them go can seem daunting and frightening. Not anymore. With the Energy Psychology modality called Rapid Eye Technology you can begin to shift those barriers with the first session.

 

“Create the Life You Want” will shift false Emotional beliefs (self Sabotage). When you stop viewing your circumstances as threatening, when you are in your true balance, you are free to know who you are, live your life as your authentic self (your true thumbprint), and be free of interferences and pitfalls especially STRESS.

 

Learn more today…