Because of various studies I explored going barefoot, floor living, high-fat ketogenic diet, regular aerobic and anaerobic exercise, and other practices to help restore God’s engineering so my body and brain were able to function as fully as possible, including maximizing healing over time. So far, these have born amazing fruit. Here are a few more studies that shed light on various aspects of the brain. Keep in mind they reveal specific things that may not seem to relate to brain injury directly; however, the concepts they reveal likely have a lot to do with neural connections and healing, which has obvious applications for long term brain injury healing.
Please see the links below, and may God startle you with joy!
Another aspect of #Godsengineering, floor living follows the precipt of removing cushioning and support for sitting and sleeping, and it's benifits can be profound. Positions such as cross-legged, squatting, kneeling, even leaning against a tree, insted of sitting in a chair in a position we weren't designed for, strengthens our core muscles, helps our muscles be limber and lithe and strong, and gives us better, stronger posture, all of which aid our motion when we are up and about, standing, walking, running, riding, working. Paired with going barefoot, our quality of life can be greatly improved through better body and mind function all the time.
New York and other states have now passed laws making it legal to kill a baby up until the navel is visible as s/he is being born. This is murder and evil and we are an abhorrent society to allow it, let alone have leaders who celebrate it.
What has this to do with brain injury? If society doesn't recognize the clear and established scientific facts that:
It was only a few years ago, around 2010 or so, after living with brain injury for eight years, that I began to understand more fully the extent of harm to my capacity adrenaline causes and just how long it takes to leave my system. I suspect most of us with bludgeoned brains feel the effects of adrenaline and friends (there is a slew of neurochemical stuff released that no one is really sure what all it does) without even realizing it for the simple reason that we are under constant bombardment from stimulation.
“Your brain injury isn’t real.”
“You just do what you want.”
“You use brain injury as an excuse.”
“You’re not brain injured, you’re mentally ill.”
Horse Hocky n’ Monkey Muffins!
These are the messages people with brain injury receive, overtly or covertly, from people (family, friends, ministers, doctors, aquaintences, anyone) who do not believe them. What effect does it have on a person striving and struggling to function as fully as possible no matter the obsticles to be told they are pretending, faking, or exagerating their brain injury? Devistating. Horrific. Sometimes life altering. Always, damaging.
TBI anger is unlike any other kind of anger. It taps into our primal instinct to protect ourselves, like any wounded, cornered animal, with a burst of adrenaline. This is the source of the raw, primal strength, energy, focus, and coordination. Once it hits, it can not be stopped, only redirected in a safe direction.
Brain injury is weird. It is weird from the inside, and, from the outside, it looks weird and sometimes people mistake weird for “fake” or exagerated or psychological when it’s actually just plain head-scrach-worthy. While every brain injury is different and effects each person differently, there is a commonality (and folks with other brain challenges like stroke, brain cancer, disease, etc, experience much the same thing, though for different reasons): we all have to learn to stay within our daily brain budget. You may have received this link from someone, asking you to understand their brain injury. You may have stumbled on it yourself, or be the person with brain injury trying to understnad what is happening and why the “world just seems so hard.” If you want to understand the weirdness of brain injury in yourself or someone you love or care about, start by understanding the daily brain budget.
For those who want or need to understand what it is like (sort of) to be blind or deaf, that is relatively easy to accomplish. Block those senses. It doesn’t give an appreciation for what it is like to live without sight or sound day in and day out, but you get an excellent taste.
Brain injury raises a lot of questions. Some people aren’t comfortable asking questions. Other people are very comfortable knowing what they think they know have don’t see a need to ask questions (St. Michael defend us!).
There are many lists and guides out there the describe the symptoms of brain injury. There are not many that explore the weirdness of brain injury and what that does to family and friends or even bosses and co-workers. Educate yourself about the facts of brain injury, lest you be the equivalent of the person in 1853 not believing a blind man can use a stick to “see” and ignorantly proclaiming “They don’t need a stick, clearly they can see, even in the dark!”
Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.” – Wesley (aka the Great Pirate Roberts) in the film “The Princess Bride”
Life with brain injury is often compared to a “long hard road.” It is. It’s got extreme ups and downs plus all kinds of rocks and other challenges. The question is, what do we do about it?
The road, after all, is the road. It’s ours to travel. How do we travel it with the greatest amount of joy and the least amount of pain? Attitude and faith.