Here and Now Counseling and Life
Implications
Of Neuroscience and
Therapeutic Life Style Changes (TLC)
Allen Ivey, allenivey@gmail.com
Australians summarize TLC’s with the motto:
LIFE, BE IN IT!
Three quarters of health costs are related to lifestyle.
(Matthews, A. (2011). U.S. health care's future, Wall
Street Journal December 12, 2011, 4 B4.
All the following increase self-esteem, mental and physical
health, are cost effective, and are backed up by research.
They need to become a central part of all treatment plans.
Stress management. Stress sends damaging cortisol to
the brain. Key to stress management is body awareness.
Note when your body and mind are tense. Therapeutic Life
Style Changes (TLC) below are important in to handling
stress effectively. Stress management is considered the
central aspect of wellness. CBT and Stress management
basically use the same strategies. THE BIG FIVE OF
STRESS MANAGEMENT FOLLOW:
1. Exercise. “It is unethical for a physician (counsellor) to
work with a client and fail to prescribe exercise. “ (John
Ratey, Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise
and the Brain.) A central part of stress management is to
get blood flowing to your brain and body. Exercise increases brain volume and has been found as effective as
meds for mild depression, may prevent cancer and slow
(prevent?) Alzheimer’s. Active cardio is best, but keep
moving. Best introduction to brain science, Ratey’s Users
Guide to the Brain (Vintage, 2002).
2. Nutrition and weight control. Think white and seldom
snack. Obesity facilitates the development of Alzheimer’s.
For weight loss, write down a resolution and share it with
others openly. But also add a plan—specifics that may
help you stay on the track. For example, nothing to eat
after 7:00pm, always leave some food on the plate (to
combat the “clean your plate syndrome), ice cream or
favorite desert no more than twice a week, cigarette
package size for high calorie foods—but develop your
own working list.
3. Social relations. Being with people in a positive way
makes a significant difference in wellness. Engage yourself
socially as fully as you can. Love and close relationships
build health.
4. Challenge that brain. Take a course, learn a language,
learn a new instrument—basically do something different
and challenging. Doing what we already do well may be
useful, but not as growth producing as the creation of the
new. Uncertainty can be growth producing. “Educators say
that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right
direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have
worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain
already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners
should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts
that are contrary to their own, says Dr. Taylor, who is 66.”
5. Sleep. A full rest is critical for brain functioning and
development of new neural networks.
6. Meditation. Time each day will make a difference and
calm you throughout the day. Evidence from the University of Wisconsin is clear—meditation makes a positive
difference in your brain. And Harvard has found that gray
matter increases. An intense, but relaxed, focus in
extended prayer, the lighting of candles, saying the Rosary,
or in healing services may function similarly to meditation
and help the immune system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc has a
very fine one hour meditation experience with top expert
Jon Kabat-Zinn. Richard Davidson is the top researcher in
this area. Visit a lecture of his at
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2487881303657
847285# Google both these men for more information.
skills communication training great for stress management.
7. Drugs and alcohol. Drugs seem only to harm,
destroy brain cells, etc. NO DRUGS, especially for that
critical 13-18 age. One or two glasses of alcohol for men
and one for women help the brain and heart and
research shows that they delay Alzheimer’s. But,
Increase in breast cancer associated with the more
alcohol taken. Moderation, moderation, moderations.
8. Careful with meds. My geriatrician, Kenneth
Minaker at Massachusetts General Hospital, developed
several items in this list. He has a wonderful half hour
summary lecture on health and aging at
http://athome.harvard.edu/dh/lhl.html (be sure to
disable your pop-ups on your browser). At this same
site you will find a useful lecture on Alzheimer’s and
prevention. Watch those meds and keep up with the
literature. For example, more than one anti-depressant
no better than one (exercise/meditation often as good
as meds); two inhalation anesthetics, Halothane, and
Isoflurane, have been implicated in the aggregation of
Alzheimer’s related plaques in the
brain. http://www.alz.org/index.asp is a valuable
Alzheimer’s source. Constantly check Google for
interaction among meds. Physicians are often
(typically???) unaware of these. Have pharmacist check.
9. Positive thinking/optimism/ happiness. Positive
thoughts and emotions rest primarily in the newly
developed frontal cortex while negative emotions of
sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise lie in the
more primitive amygdale. It takes effort to think
positively as it is a latecomer to evolution. Yet, research
shows that positive work can build new neural
structures and actually reduce the power and influence
of negative neural nets in the amygdala. I have read
recent studies that show a 6 item scale on optimism can
predict who gets a stroke! Plus other impressive
research that I consider definitive. Psychotherapy or
religion that focuses on the negative and single points
of view may develop negative neural structures and
stultify brain plasticity. Don’t spend too much time
focusing on problems—unless you want to do longterm therapy and make lots of money. Increase cortisol
through emphasis on problems slows the helping
process and may enlarge the negative parts of
amygdala. Remember that positive emotions are
primarily located in the frontal cortex
10. A strong positive belief and value system.
Dartmouth Hospital, years ago, found that those who
had a strong spiritual orientation recovered more
quickly and got out of the hospital sooner. This has
been replicated in several studies. Old research on
cognitive therapy found that using spiritual imagery
with depressed clients was highly effective. Imagery
and metaphor can affect several areas of the brain
simultaneously. A strong positive faith or belief system
can make a significant difference in one’s life. Models of
Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Viktor Frankl, Gandhi, Martin
Luther King, and figures all are likely to improve mental
and physical health. Those who adopt a more atheistic
or agnostic frame need to find something to believe in
as well and they have models also that can build
positive strengths—Epicurus, Clarence Darrow,
Andrew Carnegie, Warren Buffet
(http://brainz.org/50-most-brilliant-atheists-all-time).
11. More education. It is clear that the farther you go in
the educational system, the less chance of Alzheimer’s and
better health. And continuing education as we age will
help us develop new neural networks. Take courses.
12. Money and privilege. Not mentioned enough is not
having to worry about funds, being able to get the best
doctor’s care, buying the best food, etc. In short, a
privileged life style and being White helps us live
longer and healthier. We know the joke about George
Bush—“born on third base” and thinks he hit a triple.
Most of us, regardless of race/ethnicity reading this were
born at least on first base. Many of us benefit from being
White, relatively educated, and reasonably affluent. On the
other hand, being thrown into the world with privilege
perhaps gives us an
important responsibility as well. At the same time, look at
US disparity between rich and poor—“greed is good!”
13. Take a nature break, rather than a coffee break. In
the middle of writing this, the Wall Street Journal
summarizes research that reveals memory, attention, and
mood increase 20% if one goes for a ten minute quiet
walk in nature, or even spends time viewing nature scenes
in a quiet room. Meditation likely does the same thing.
Small breaks can be an important part of stress
management.
14. No smoking. Smoking narrows the blood vessels, thus
less blood flow to the brain.
15. Control media use. The many types are changing our
brains resulting in short-term attention; and research
suggests that hyperactivity and obesity are increased.
16. Relaxation and having fun. This will increase
dopamine release to the nucleus accumbens. Dance, tennis,
enjoying a sunset, you name it—it is good for the brain.
17. Helping others. We are our brother and sister’s keeper.
Helping others and volunteering clearly makes us feel better
about ourselves for we have likely made some or even a
significant difference in the life of those whom we help. This
is where we find life’s meaning. This increases self-esteem
and likely enlarges our brain with new, useful neural
networks.
18. Social justice action in the community. Research is
clear that fetal development depends on a healthy
mother. It is equally clear that poverty, abuse, and
trauma through malnutrition and damaging cortisol
destroy brain cells permanently. Continued racial and
oppressive harassment of all types causes stress and
raises cortisol and can cause hypertension and an array
of physical and emotional problems. On the other hand,
there is evidence that some of this can be reversed by
nurturing environments, thus making social justice
action all the more important. The prevention of poverty
and providing effective health is both a moral and a
practical economic issue (physical health and healthy
brains cost society less money.)
Think of social justice at two levels: First the
interpersonal where you see specific benefits occurring
from your efforts. By providing counseling and
information, explaining how environment hurts brain
and body, some clients will get the message and change
cognition and affect, moving themselves to social action
(a very good treatment recommendation). Visiting the
sick, helping an older person work through Social
Security tangles, etc. are good examples of social justice
activities that can help a client feel better about self.
Also, individual social justice can include buying goats
for Africa, sponsoring a child, and work on cancer drives.
At the second level, think of community, state, national,
and international action to promote change and
healthier, safer living conditions for others. Working for
gay and disability rights, developing an anti-bullying
program and seeing that it is actually implemented, the
many groups on various aspects of human rights,
becoming active in better government, supporting
international exchanges, etc.
Another maxim in conclusion:
BE ENGAGED!
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