“It’s all in your head” - Rewiring your brain to slow inflammation & symptom flares
“It’s all in your head”
Rewiring your brain to slow inflammation & symptom flares
The Habit Ayurveda
“It’s all in your head.”
This blog is part of a series on my personal experience with Long Covid / Post viral illness. To get these stories delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for my email list here:
If you've ever been down the path of chronic illness you’ve probably had a doctor (or two, or ten) tell you that you’re “fine”.
“Have you been feeling stressed lately?” = the least helpful thing a doctor could say.
(like, read the room fella we’ve all been stressed lately)
I can’t think of many things that feel more horrible than a professional telling you your symptoms are all in your head.
Sure, I am stressed or anxious sometimes. Every human experiences this.
… can’t say I ever recall it leading to months of shortness of breath, random uncontrolled vomiting, numbness and tremors in my extremities, and such heavy fatigue that I can barely get out of bed…
And if it is… isn't that a PROBLEM we should look further into??
After hearing those words myself one too many times, I couldn't help but get curious.
It’s all in your head.
It’s all in your head.
Well… let’s take a look at what’s in your head.
It isn’t just some mystical space where you conjure up crazy thoughts and stories to make yourself sick, that’s for sure.
Your brain is responsible for processing all thoughts, feelings, actions & reactions in the body and the mind, on the conscious level and the subconscious level, such actions of the autonomic nervous system. (read this for more on dysfunction of the ANS).
In other words, it’s kiiiind of a big deal.
My teacher and chronic illness expert Ashok Gupta explains the approach to healing chronic illness like this:
“Our bodies create a unique pattern of defense response depending on the need of each situation, so we can survive.
Your brain says what do I have to do to survive? And then the body triggers a unique pattern of defense responses to ensure survival.
In the case of chronic illness such as Long Covid, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Chemical Sensitivities, Dysautonomia and other related conditions, parts of the brain have become hyper-defensive. They continue to retrigger defense responses to 'err on the side of caution'"
Ashok teaches that this overstimulation of defense response happens specifically in the immune system and the sympathetic nervous system,
resulting in too much inflammation in the body,
and hyper-vigilant, overreaction of the immune system.
TRUE FACT: When you have the flu it's not the virus that causes the symptoms. Symptoms are caused by the immune system and nervous system being triggered.
Often triggered by an event such as chemical or mold exposure, a traumatic accident, or a virus such as lyme, epstein barr or in my case Covid 19, the defense systems of the brain get switched on, and stay on.
When the sympathetic or fight or flight aspect of the nervous system stays switched on, the body cannot heal, and our energy is continuously drained, leading to constant exhaustion.
To add insult to injury, when this happens the brain becomes hyper-vigilant and hyper-sensitive to potential threats, which only reinforces the pattern of defense response and increases symptoms.
Aghhhhh it makes so much sense!
So, when symptoms are the result of a pattern of reactivity in the brain, the logical next step toward healing is to wire different patterns.
But how do we do this?
Looking for simple tools to bring you back to balance?
Here are 3 things that helped me rewire my brain, to slow inflammation & symptom flares:
1. Following Ashok Gupta's advice of reminding myself "This is Just a Loop in The Brain".
When I reminded myself that my symptoms were simply a stuck pattern of reactivity, it became easier to believe that this was something I could heal from. I was able to stop worrying that different situations would trigger a flare of my symptoms, and it allowed my body to release its hyper-vigilant defense response.
This did NOT happen over night. It became a continuous conversation with myself, reassuring myself daily that I'm okay, and that "we can take our time to unravel this".
2. Identifying the triggers for flares, and creating new habits that cut them off at the pass.
I was experiencing waves of fatigue and shortness of breath specifically in the early afternoon, and again after the kids got home. The accumulation of stress or activity from working through the morning, or prepping after school snacks and managing the noise in the house after school would often lead to me heading to bed for the rest of the day. I began taking breaks right after lunch, and again before picking up the kids, to lie down for 20 minutes and close my eyes. Sometimes I meditated, sometimes I slept... the important thing was just removing all stimulation and just focusing on relaxing my nervous system for that 20 minutes.
I must note here that the 20 minutes of down time ABSOLUTELY DID NOT involve scrolling on my phone. In fact, I had to drop that habit entirely for a while to give my nervous system space to relax.
I talk about some other habits I implemented in this article.
3. Getting sick.
This is a funny one, but I honestly felt a lot better after getting a few colds, and eventually a second round of Covid. This might not be the case for everyone so it's not necessarily something I recommend, but introducing an actual virus to my body may have reset my immune response. It felt like my body was reminded of what it's supposed to react to, so as the virus passed it remembered to relax.
I appreciated my body's response to getting sick again, because it removed a LOT of fear I'd developed of public spaces and people, which in turn, allowed my nervous system to relax more.
…
In the end, hearing the words "It's all in your head" was a gift,
because it led me down a path of deeper understanding of my body as a whole.
The head is not an island. The brain is connected to the nervous system is connected to the gut is connected to the heart. It's all one big beautiful ecosystem and I'm so grateful to keep learning more about it.
Have you been told "It's all in your head"??
How did it make you feel?
And reading todays letter, how do you feel now?
Let me know in the comments :)
Upcoming Articles in this series include:
The most healing diet I've found
The most helpful supplements I've found
My daily routine through post-viral illness
Experiencing chronic illness - what I learned from a year in bed
If you have something else you’d like to see covered, I want to hear about it.
To your whole self,
Carly
p.s - Could you use some support as you heal? The Everyday Ayurveda Course might be your perfect next step.
p.p.s - Be sure to check out the other articles in this series on long covid, starting here on The Habit Blog.
