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85% of Americans Suffer From Learned Helplessness

Guest post by: H. Bernard Wechsler

Article Overview: There is a scientific secret revealed in this article that could improve the lives of a couple of hundred million folks. No hints - trust in the unfolding, and you will benefit.

85% of Americans Suffer From Learned Helplessness

Reversing Learned Helplessness If you spend the next five minutes with me, you will be forced to change your

attitude toward chronic pain. The latest scientific research is conclusive; your

expectations drive or inhibit pain. It is your beliefs that make the difference.

Get this: the mere fact of thinking about your pain is a command to your brain

to increase it. If you have strategies (no matter how crazy) and believe in their

efficacy, you can learn to modulate your chronic pain perception.

Japan

Anesthesiologists in Japan readily admit that injections of the intravenous

anesthetic, Propofol produce a high level of pain to patients.

The author of the study, Tomoko Higashi, M.D. published 10.16.07 discovered

asking the patient to count aloud prior and during the injection, reduced

the pain significantly. Of the patients requested to count during the injection,

none complained of pain, while just one recalled having pain at the site of the

Propofol injection.

Dr. Higashi, an instructor at Yokohama City University, says, We want to

contribute to understanding the mechanisms of pain cognition and relief.

The Causative Factor

The activity of counting is a function of your left hemisphere, specifically the language center of the brain. Positive feelings and thoughts emanate from your

left brain.

The brain's reptilian complex (Sympathetic Nervous System and Brainstem) controls automatic functions (instincts), while the Limbic system, particularly your amygdala, operate your emotions and feelings.

Both are located on your right hemisphere. Negative feelings and thoughts (mental imagery) are a product of your right brain. When you count aloud (or silently) you

shift from anxieties and fears of pain, to your left brain language area for cognition.

More

If your child lies on the ground hysterical with fear about his/her bloody knee,

he/she is accessing mental imagery from the amygdala (right brain).

What kind of mental movies? She images a painful death through bleeding.

All your reasonable, logical explanations that the suffering is just a minor scratch

and the bleeding will stop with a bandaid, are a waste of breath. Your child feels the

burning pain and sees the blood and when her eyes are closed, she imagines the injury covers her entire body.

Do This

Start singing the B-I-N-G-O song then stop and whisper in her ear, if you sing

BINGO with me, the pain will disappear and the bleeding cease and desist.

The magic is in switching her brain dominance from the right hemisphere and

its negative mental movies, to her left hemispheric language center.

You don't know the words? Google the BINGO song. It is simple and requires

the substitution of a clap for each missing letter. It works physiologically. It

takes up to 90 seconds to make the mental switch and never fails.

Pain Cognition and Hope

What you believe about your pain - the meaning you ascribe to it - increases

or decrease the amount you experience. You choice directly influences your level of

hope, and your potential recovery. The enemy is hopelessness and helplessness.

It is your expectation Simon, that dials up the level of pain.

Choices

a) This pain is a challenge and I will fully recover.

b) I hate this pain and may not accomplish my goals.

c) I am scared to death my time is up.

If you see chronic pain as a challenge, you enlist your endorphins to relieve

your burden. You have hope and statistically will almost double the standard

recovery rates.

Positive beliefs and hope overcome and lower your depression score compared to those who view pain as the enemy or a punishment. We are talking about life and

death because of your attitude and mood.

Consider This

There are two approaches to pain. One is perception of the feelings and drawing

your own conclusions about its scope. The other is active modulation (regulate)

how you experience the sensations.

Pain is not a fact like a broken bone or bleeding knee; it is a (sensory) perception

like hunger, thirst or the need to relieve your bladder. You have often delayed

these perceptions, right?

Location of Pain Circuits

Pain involves up to 10 separate areas of your brain; the leading one is the ACC,

the anterior cingulate cortex. They transmit information back and forth from

the amydala, insula, brainstem, and basal ganglia. Your Central Nervous System

and Sympathetic Nervous Systems get into the act too.

Placebo And Nocebo

Your brain can shut down the pain or augment (increase) it, based on your

belief, expectation and feelings you have been given pain relief. A physician

can inject you with a saline solution (water) and your beliefs will cause your

body to respond as if you received a miracle cure.

If your doctor informs you he has found a tumor, your body will react as if

it is a fact when there is none. It is mind over matter, and if you have no

mind, nothings matters, right? But we do have a mind and our beliefs

create our reaction and behaviors.

It is the Mu Opioid Receptors that cause the placebo reactions; your body reacts

to beliefs as if you received morphine. Fake opioids cause the brain to release

real ones. Belief becomes reality; your mind unites with your body.

Google: Oxford University study by Dr. Irene Tracy and New York Times

article 5.14.06 by Melanie Thernstrom

Endwords

There are coping strategies to modulate chronic pain. Some folks are better at it

than others because they believe. It pains me to say that seemingly insane acts

of belief (handling snakes, talking in tongues) can reduce or eliminate chronic

pain. If you have hope, you cope. Contrarians, beware of the power of disbelief.

We also suggest you improve your cognition by reading-and-remembering three (3)

books, articles and reports in the time others can hardly finish one. Ask us how

to 3x your learning speed and 2x your long-term memory.

See ya,

H. Bernard Wechsler

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Article Tags: amygdala, anesthesiologists, automatic functions, brainstem, causative factor, helplessness, higashi, language area, language center, left brain, left hemisphere, limbic system, mental imagery, negative feelings, pain perception, positive feelings, right brain, right hemisphere, sympathetic nervous system, yokohama city university



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