Brain Retraining: An Oversimplification Of MECFS Recovery

Is recovery really all just about Brain Retraining? 

Well....Yes, And NO.

I’m seeing a lot of buzz lately in MECFS circles around brain-retraining, and unfortunately, I'm also seeing an over-simplification of the recovery process.

I feel that brain-retraining programs get MECFS mostly right, but only mostly. I know that some people have recovered from them SOLELY, and I'm not dismissing their experience. We are after all, different human beings. How fast someone can shift their nervous system, and how fast the body heals - probably is dependent on a thousand, nuanced factors, such as previous trauma, their history of stress, how long they've been sick, and their overall health before getting sick.

But when programs speak ONLY about recovery as  "responding to symptoms well,” I feel they simplify things too much. They do this perhaps, so that people will not become paralyzed through knowing too much - as this often calms them enough, that all the other processes happening in their body (which eludes them), don't need to be understood in order for them to make progress. The calm perpetuates more recovery, which causes more belief in recovery, which further calms the stress response, and  the physiology regulates, without them even understanding why.

When it came to my own journey, however, I WANTED to understand all those physiological processes, and the only program (besides my own) that I’ve seen go into these nuances is ANS Rewire, (which was too heavy in science for me, we're talking hardcore nerding out hahah) but I might add, SO comprehensive. (Gotta love Dan). 

What I want to say is this: pacing is IMPORTANT. Demonizing the word is a misunderstanding of what it means to pace, both to get and stay well. Pacing is a way of life; not something that we just do to recover. It is happening on a cellular level in the universe around you, and within you. When I dont pace, life becomes stressful on an unmanageable level, not only because I once had MECFS, but because I am living out of order with the nature of the world.

Understanding pacing in its truest sense is pivotal to these "adjustment periods" as some coaches calls them. Please understand: these expansions are not JUST about telling the body it's safe and building nervous system resilience, it is also about the physiological body, with all its secondary dysfunctions, which needs to recover and build resilience, and as a result, communicate safety to the brain.

Yes, it's true that we cannot allow that healing to transpire, without addressing the ANS dysfunction. But on the other side, if we do way TOO much too soon, the body may be triggered to crash, before the ANS reacts to it! 

You see, perhaps where some of these programs miss, is that they fail to address that crashes are also happening, following a physiological to neurological path (called body-up). It's not all happening neurologically to physiologically (top-down).

What does this mean? It means that if your body is hitting its anaerobic threshold too fast, (a common occurrence in MECFS), and you’re suffering from mitochondrial dysfunction (which again, is common and results from ANS dysfunction), the body crashes because its leeching energy from storage within its muscles (which there is very little), and as a result, the ANS overreacts.

Likewise, if you're suffering from insulin sensitivity, (also super common in MECFS), and eat a ton of sugar or alcohol - your body may crash, and the ANS will overreact in its response.

Now, what these programs speak about regarding symptom response is also true. If you worry about eating sugar, or worry about going out for a walk, the worry itself can trigger the ANS response, before you even do anything at all- which can then trigger the physiological body. Crash often enough, over many years, and these psychosomatic triggers can be more powerful than the very real PHYSICAL triggers that started the whole illness in the first place. 

So my point is: that it happens bottom-up, not just top-down. This is why I always say that the key to recovery is AWARENESS, and DEEP LISTENING, so that you can develop an intuitive sense of when to expand, while quieting the mind and worry as you do. You can know WHEN to pull back. And most importantly, if your body feels through expansions, that its progressively growing weaker and weaker every time you do, you know to never, never, never slog it off as an “adjustment period” and keep pushing at the same pace.

The key in fact, in fact, is to expand GENTLY, as expanding rebuilds both the restoration of the physical body (proper movement rebuilds mitochondria, restores hormone dysfunction, improves sleep etc), and the resilience of the ANS. Yes, it's true, that we must respond to the symptoms without fear as much as we can, otherwise we only dredge ourselves in deeper to the illness when we wobble (crash), but it is equally as true, that we must also honor the "soft fence" of our baseline. 

Lastly, top-down and bottom-up does not just apply to how and why we crash, it also applies to how and why we heal. While it's true that you can use brain-retraining to work on top-down processing; your  beliefs, thoughts, responses etc..if you are not gaining enough traction in your recovery by doing this - you can also use Somatics to work on bottom-up processing; so as to create safety and regulation in the body, by showing, not telling it, (as you would in brain retraining), that its safe. In my case, I healed by using both. And also reducing the allostatic load on the body, by reducing burden of bio toxins, which will also cause the physiological body to trigger the ANS less.

So, you can go about it from all sides. And that's why I speak so often about the 4 pillars, by which my program was designed.

I hope this answer clears up a bit of confusion, around what is no-doubt a much more complex conversation around recovery, than simply “responding to symptoms well.” 

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