Being Whole

I find that in many ways the body and brain and surprisingly resilient. Many challenges and limitations can and are overcome on a daily basis. You hear stories of the body repairing and healing itself, without medical intervention. Doing what it needs to do to grow, function, and thrive.

I learn so much each time I attend my rehabilitation/therapy sessions. I learn ways to stay healthy, trigger healing body responses, and diffuse stress. Learning a whole body approach after injury is vital in maintaining resiliency and continuing to have hope. Keeping a positive outlook and having hope helps both my brain and body in the healing process. Many chemicals and hormones contribute to this healing in recovery.

The brain and body require hormones and chemicals in order to perform primary functions. One of these vital components is the hormone dopamine. Dopamine is essential in the body performing at its most basic and healthy levels. Dopamine. The body produces dopamine and is able to use it in healthy brain and body function.

Dopamine production in the brain is a singular chemical because there is not only one way for it to be produced/developed. Dopamine production is possible using a variety of triggering mechanisms. The triggers of dopamine may be related to accomplishment, health and fitness, sensory experiences, and even study and discovery. For a complete and whole body approach it is best to have multiple tools at your disposal to trigger dopamine production.

Examples of triggers for dopamine production may include exercise and sleep as part of the health/body triggers for dopamine production. Lack of sleep, on the other hand, leads to lower and decreased levels of dopamine production. In the short term this can be augmented by increased triggers in other areas, over the long term it can lead to chronic stress and disease in the body. 

For me, a regular and planned approach to triggering healthy dopamine production offers the most benefit.

• Accomplishment/Achievement may include such triggers as check lists, small steps toward larger goals, screen games such as Candy Crush, and even tracking days of a particular accomplishment. A friend of mine has a kitchen chart where she tracks numbers of days her kitchen has been cleaned each night. How can you track your accomplishments? What steps can you take, or are you already taking, that help you to trigger a sense of achievement?
• Health and Fitness are triggered by exercise, defined as 20-30 minutes per day of exertion. Sleep is also a producer of dopamine production. This requires healthy sleep, in the range of at least 7-8 hours per night. This amount may increase based upon personal need. For example last year, just after surgery I slept for approximately 16-18 hours per day. I still require extra sleep in the range of 12-13 hours per day.
• Sensory Experience includes such triggers as enjoyable foods (comfort food), listening to pleasing music, pleasant textures, or pleasurable emotions. With my decrease in taste and smell I no longer desire the flavor of ice cream but the temperature creates a chill and calms and cools my brain. A brain freeze can actually serve to offer pain relief from the heat of summer. Who knew? So, I don't care for the taste but the temperature is a relief and can serve as a trigger for dopamine production.
• Study and Discovery serve to release dopamine through meditation, prayer, mindfulness, creative pursuits such as writing, drawing, painting. Exploration of self and the world around us can act to help us both stay engaged with others and ourselves. Fascinating to learn that as I work to document my experiences in recovery I am actually working to create a prime environment for healing and healthy function. Amazing.

The more I learn in recovery both about my condition and the systems put in place by the body to compensate and heal from them, well, the more hope I have for a more complete recovery for myself and others. As we learn what the body and brain are capable of we can learn ways to trigger the necessary responses and offer hope for traumatic brain injury, brain tumor recovery, and even mental illness treatment.

God is good and I feel and see so much how His small mercies have served to create an environment perfect for my healing. I am making progress past the point of previous expectation. The mind and body are capable of more than we know. What and incredible miracle and blessing.

God bless and keep you.