I think it is very important to have an optimistic mindset. But as you have read in previous posts, I struggled with that throughout my childhood. It is always a learning thing and cannot be achieved overnight. I admit that I tend to be the type that is "all or nothing" when it comes to my physical therapy. One day I might feel an overwhelming drive to keep at it and to push through the obstacles, but the moment I slip, it is very easy for me to say, "well that stinks" and accept the failure.
But in this journey of discovering what I am truly made of and capable of, I have found that being in the moment gets me through the hardest times. In a nut shell, being in the moment just means that I focus on the very second I am in as they come and as I experience them. I am able to see the moment for what it is instead of using it to fuel my anxiety about the future.
The best example of this that I can give you is this: you're in lunch, but you have a test after. Usually, my mind would go straight to counting every second as another closer to the test. But when I am seriously locked in to the moment, I literally tell myself every move and describe every second that I am in. I say: I am lifting the fork to my mouth, I am putting the food in my mouth, I am chewing the food, I am sitting at the table, I am putting the straw in my mouth, I am swallowing. When testing time comes: I am prepared, able and looking at the paper. I am writing on the paper - my name - I am flipping through it and letting myself breathe.
I approach PT and my daily struggles in the same way. It does take a willingness and a lot of concentration, but the more I do it, it flows. My brain was badly damaged at birth, like having a terrible stroke. And just like most stroke patients, I have to teach every movement. Every. Single. Movement.
In the movie Lorenzo's Oil with Susan Sarandon, there's a scene where she is trying to help her son relearn how to move his little pinky. She tells him something that meant everything to me when I watched it: "tell your brain, to tell your arm, to tell your hand, to tell your finger... to move." This was such an eye-opening moment for me in my medical journey. She kept telling the boy that same sentence over and over, drilling it into his brain, creating a fresh "groove" in it, through which the new message could travel. Dr. Philip Shapiro said, "Any pattern of thought or action repeated many times results in a habit with a corresponding neurosignature, or brain groove. The brain is composed of approximately 100 billion cells, called neurons. A brain groove is a series of interconnected neurons that carry the thought patterns of a particular habit. Attention feeds the habit. When we give our attention to a habit, we activate the brain groove, releasing the thoughts, desires, and actions related to that habit (click here for source)."
All that time, though the boy was alive in his mind, his body had ultimately shut down. But with that new order being processed over and over like that, step-by-step, guess what happened? His pinky moved! The first voluntary movement in years!!!
With my brain, much like the aftermath of a stroke, it sends messages (and sometimes to the right places, even), yet there's bad reception. For example, when I eat, I use my left hand, because it was not injured. My right hand always goes up to my chest as I lift something to my mouth, because the message to lift reaches the right places, but cannot be limited to only one side.
Recently, I have really been focusing on my right hand. I had barely any voluntary movement in it since birth. A few months ago, I tried a 30-minute electrical stim treatment on it. The pulsations told my muscles when to fire, when to relax and when to fire again. I made a voluntary fist (with the aid of the electrical stim) for the first time ever. A few months later (having only done that one treatment), I started getting more voluntary movement. I started noticing 3 fingers attempting to do a baby-wave motion, and then a couple days later, noticed that I could make a semi-fist on command. It took time, but when the fingers curled, they stayed curled, unlike they used to. As time went on and I continued to focus, it got to the point where the open-close motion became more frequent and easy. I started being able to grab things, hold them, drop them and soon, carry them. In December of 2013, I waved to my mom the baby-wave for the first time and learned to grasp and hold an object weighing one pound, for 2 minutes before tiring. If I had tried that in June of 2013, I would only get as far as poking it - I did not have the strength or mobility at the time to even think about doing what little things I can now.
But it continues to be a moment-by-moment, step-by-step thing. Niki Ochenski says, "You can do anything for half a second. And another. And another." I continue to remind myself of this. Picture an assembly line: each person has their own task, and each one builds on the previous one. At the end, the product is complete. But what is at the beginning? The foundation for the product. I like to think of my body (referring to how it had been affected by my brain injury) as an assembly line. The brain is the foundation to the finished product, and if one member of that line is delayed or messes up, the whole product is not ideal. That is why you have to train each limb it's task step-by-step so that the brain knows just what to send out to it and how. When that is all in order, the rest of the body cooperates and gets tasks done.
MY TIPS FOR HOW TO EFFECTIVELY TRAIN YOUR BRAIN AND WHY:
1.) Be Patient - patience is key. You must accept that your goals cannot always be achieved over night, and just like learning any job, your limbs take time to learn new things to. Your brain needs to focus on setting new grooves and figuring out the best way to send out orders. Keeping calm will also relax your mind and muscles so they can better follow through!
2.) Be persistent - set those patterns, make your brain grooves. Practice, practice, practice. Tedious sometimes yes, but just remember that eventually you'll get it! Even after you start succeeding, don't slow in your training. Really, it's like training a pet. You have to keep up with the training or eventually they'll forget.
3.) Be in the moment - literally tell yourself what you are doing in every single second if you have to! Every thought, becomes an action in one way or another, but we really don't notice that, unless we have to. Connect your thoughts to an action every time so that eventually just the thought of the action will trigger the right movement signals!
4.) Train slow - remember that assembly line!! You must start small, get a strong foundation (those brain grooves), before your limbs can do their movements. Every movement builds on the previous one until a task is accomplished. Literally say aloud every movement as it builds. "Tell your __, to tell your __, to tell your __, to __."
5.) Set reasonable, achievable goals - don't try to chew a bigger piece than what you can swallow, because you will surely choke and you will be discouraged into not trying again. Realize that no one learns to run before they can walk, and it's the same with accomplishing any new task. Set goals that are reasonable, and achievable. It's like reading a book with lots of chapters, but short ones; each little chapter makes you feel accomplished and the more you keep going, chapter by chapter, the closer you are to finishing!
But in this journey of discovering what I am truly made of and capable of, I have found that being in the moment gets me through the hardest times. In a nut shell, being in the moment just means that I focus on the very second I am in as they come and as I experience them. I am able to see the moment for what it is instead of using it to fuel my anxiety about the future.
The best example of this that I can give you is this: you're in lunch, but you have a test after. Usually, my mind would go straight to counting every second as another closer to the test. But when I am seriously locked in to the moment, I literally tell myself every move and describe every second that I am in. I say: I am lifting the fork to my mouth, I am putting the food in my mouth, I am chewing the food, I am sitting at the table, I am putting the straw in my mouth, I am swallowing. When testing time comes: I am prepared, able and looking at the paper. I am writing on the paper - my name - I am flipping through it and letting myself breathe.
I approach PT and my daily struggles in the same way. It does take a willingness and a lot of concentration, but the more I do it, it flows. My brain was badly damaged at birth, like having a terrible stroke. And just like most stroke patients, I have to teach every movement. Every. Single. Movement.
In the movie Lorenzo's Oil with Susan Sarandon, there's a scene where she is trying to help her son relearn how to move his little pinky. She tells him something that meant everything to me when I watched it: "tell your brain, to tell your arm, to tell your hand, to tell your finger... to move." This was such an eye-opening moment for me in my medical journey. She kept telling the boy that same sentence over and over, drilling it into his brain, creating a fresh "groove" in it, through which the new message could travel. Dr. Philip Shapiro said, "Any pattern of thought or action repeated many times results in a habit with a corresponding neurosignature, or brain groove. The brain is composed of approximately 100 billion cells, called neurons. A brain groove is a series of interconnected neurons that carry the thought patterns of a particular habit. Attention feeds the habit. When we give our attention to a habit, we activate the brain groove, releasing the thoughts, desires, and actions related to that habit (click here for source)."
All that time, though the boy was alive in his mind, his body had ultimately shut down. But with that new order being processed over and over like that, step-by-step, guess what happened? His pinky moved! The first voluntary movement in years!!!
With my brain, much like the aftermath of a stroke, it sends messages (and sometimes to the right places, even), yet there's bad reception. For example, when I eat, I use my left hand, because it was not injured. My right hand always goes up to my chest as I lift something to my mouth, because the message to lift reaches the right places, but cannot be limited to only one side.
Recently, I have really been focusing on my right hand. I had barely any voluntary movement in it since birth. A few months ago, I tried a 30-minute electrical stim treatment on it. The pulsations told my muscles when to fire, when to relax and when to fire again. I made a voluntary fist (with the aid of the electrical stim) for the first time ever. A few months later (having only done that one treatment), I started getting more voluntary movement. I started noticing 3 fingers attempting to do a baby-wave motion, and then a couple days later, noticed that I could make a semi-fist on command. It took time, but when the fingers curled, they stayed curled, unlike they used to. As time went on and I continued to focus, it got to the point where the open-close motion became more frequent and easy. I started being able to grab things, hold them, drop them and soon, carry them. In December of 2013, I waved to my mom the baby-wave for the first time and learned to grasp and hold an object weighing one pound, for 2 minutes before tiring. If I had tried that in June of 2013, I would only get as far as poking it - I did not have the strength or mobility at the time to even think about doing what little things I can now.
But it continues to be a moment-by-moment, step-by-step thing. Niki Ochenski says, "You can do anything for half a second. And another. And another." I continue to remind myself of this. Picture an assembly line: each person has their own task, and each one builds on the previous one. At the end, the product is complete. But what is at the beginning? The foundation for the product. I like to think of my body (referring to how it had been affected by my brain injury) as an assembly line. The brain is the foundation to the finished product, and if one member of that line is delayed or messes up, the whole product is not ideal. That is why you have to train each limb it's task step-by-step so that the brain knows just what to send out to it and how. When that is all in order, the rest of the body cooperates and gets tasks done.
MY TIPS FOR HOW TO EFFECTIVELY TRAIN YOUR BRAIN AND WHY:
1.) Be Patient - patience is key. You must accept that your goals cannot always be achieved over night, and just like learning any job, your limbs take time to learn new things to. Your brain needs to focus on setting new grooves and figuring out the best way to send out orders. Keeping calm will also relax your mind and muscles so they can better follow through!
2.) Be persistent - set those patterns, make your brain grooves. Practice, practice, practice. Tedious sometimes yes, but just remember that eventually you'll get it! Even after you start succeeding, don't slow in your training. Really, it's like training a pet. You have to keep up with the training or eventually they'll forget.
3.) Be in the moment - literally tell yourself what you are doing in every single second if you have to! Every thought, becomes an action in one way or another, but we really don't notice that, unless we have to. Connect your thoughts to an action every time so that eventually just the thought of the action will trigger the right movement signals!
4.) Train slow - remember that assembly line!! You must start small, get a strong foundation (those brain grooves), before your limbs can do their movements. Every movement builds on the previous one until a task is accomplished. Literally say aloud every movement as it builds. "Tell your __, to tell your __, to tell your __, to __."
5.) Set reasonable, achievable goals - don't try to chew a bigger piece than what you can swallow, because you will surely choke and you will be discouraged into not trying again. Realize that no one learns to run before they can walk, and it's the same with accomplishing any new task. Set goals that are reasonable, and achievable. It's like reading a book with lots of chapters, but short ones; each little chapter makes you feel accomplished and the more you keep going, chapter by chapter, the closer you are to finishing!