Before I share two stories with you today, I need to firstly define or explain what I consider a neural network to be. A neural network is connections between neurons in our brain that we construct both knowingly by learning and unknowingly by experiences.
Building Neural Networks in our Brain
In the past I was a teacher for many years. However I ask you to think about learning to do something, not as you did at school, but doing a new process at work or figuring out a new recipe.
My daily work in the classroom was encouraging pupils to build neural networks. These neural networks could be about algebra, they could be about measurement or they could be about understanding percentages.
When you learn you're introduced to or given information, or you discover information for yourself and file it away. Let's consider younger children. As a mathematics teacher I needed them to know the basic skill of times tables.
Learning Rewires the Brain
If you think back to your own experience or those of your children complete knowledge and recall of times tables certainly didn't happen quickly. You don't just read them off, file them in your head and access them whenever you needed them.
Generally, as you develop and put knowledge into your brain such as learning the four times tables: -
It needs repetition,
It needs testing,
Or challenging and recall practice
To produce what I call consolidation.
In this learning process if you don't quite get to the consolidation stage or you haven't used your times tables which I haven't done for decades, it can be difficult to find the information. Although for myself I don't think I'd ever totally forget my times tables. I effectively have in my brain a “times table neural network”.
In the same way when you have experiences, such as an injury, or an event that created fear and later you have another fearful event these are not going to be completely unnoticed. It’s almost as if by experience you are effectively practicing your times tables, building a neural network by living experiences.
The following two stories are about anxiety; the first being my own learning experience, the second when I reinforced the fearful memory of someone else.
Anxiety in our Brain
To ensure you understand the true feelings behind my stories I need to check you understand anxiety. For many of us it can be difficult to understand the challenges of those living with persistent anxiety, especially if you are the type of person who can: -
o Just do it.
o Give it a try.
o Get on with it.
o Jump in at the deep end.
Although it may be easy for some of us, these actions can be frightening and impossible, for an anxious person. And this is regardless of their capabilities.
My Experiential Learning about Emotions
Recently something happened to me to make me a lot more understanding. My experiential learning helped me feel a short duration of persistent anxiety and its connection with often hidden or subconscious neural networks.
I have two stories to illustrate neural networks created in the brain, connections learnt subconsciously or unknowingly. At times neural networks can be or create fundamental problems that may interfere with our health and wellness. These can be more problematic as you are unaware of them – like my times tables they are there resting, but not gone away. My brain could find them if the occasion arose.
The first story is my own and it showed me graphically a personal problem I'd never experienced before. However, it served to be a very useful piece of experiential learning for a natural therapist like myself specializing in chronic pain knowledge, awareness and their connection with anxiety.
Creating a Neural Network of Fear
First Story
Last December I fell in the park and broke my arm - I'm fully recovered now physically that is. But one evening recently, I found I had a long way to go mentally!
Eight months after my fall my husband and I went to the light show in Hagley Park, the park where I'd broken my arm. All those amazing blowup glowing creatures, electronic fireflies and more. A wonderful display.
o We followed a one-way track made through the park,
o there were heaps of people,
o following Conga style,
o along a narrow path,
o often uneven ground,
o of course, in darkness.
I started out being a bit wary of where I was putting my feet. I began to hang on to my husband. I think I probably hung on so hard in fright that I bruised his hand. Very soon I no longer noticed the amazing light show.
All I would do is slowly put one foot in front of the other, hanging on to my husband. When he moved away to take better photographs I just stayed put, frozen unable to move until he returned.
I started off being frightened but this turned into being terrified.
My brain was sending off danger signals to my whole body.
"Hey Jean remember when you fell in the park and broke your arm!!!"
My brain had learnt from falling in this very park, breaking my arm and the extensive recovery process. My brain had created a resilient neural network determined to protect me from danger by sending alarm signals to my body.
Once I returned to the well-lit concrete path my body returned to its normal natural movement and as if by magic my emotions were normal, or more correctly unnoticeable.
The Aftermath of Feeling Fear
One final thing I'd like to share which could be important, that’s how I felt the next morning. I felt really lousy, down, dispirited, fatigued and achy. The remnants of those fight and flight chemicals my body produced the previous evening to keep me safe, on that dark trail through the park.
I'm certainly much more understanding of my anxiety clients and the power of neural networks to remember subconsciously, trauma and stressful events.
Second Story
Several months later when I described this experience to my osteopath it spiked one of her neural networks of fear. She recalled a very similar occasion as a girl at school doing a night time trail with her classmates.
She remembered she was effectively in complete darkness walking over uneven ground rising and falling. Although there were others with her, they couldn't see each other. They had to hold on to a rope for guidance as they walked. She remembers she was hanging on so hard to that rope as she was in complete darkness and fearful of losing her connection with the rope.
I think I’ll call this “contagious neural networks of fear”. It’s surprising how permanent neural networks can be easily generated by something as simple as having taken a night trail exploration at school. It also shows how easily these negative networks can be awakened when a patient tells of a similar but different experience decades later.
Awareness of Emotions Creating Neural Networks
I think what we have to realise, whether you have chronic pain or if you are a health care provider, these small memories have amazing power with an emotional reaction that certainly affects our emotional regulation strategies both in the present and in the past.
By sharing this conversation together with my own experience, I hope to show the: -
Intricacies of emotions,
Emotional reactions,
The impact of emotions.
I question how emotions are dealt with when we have chronic conditions such as chronic pain with all its uncertainty and unexplainable diagnosis that is offered by much of the healthcare industry.
I'm not aware of any time I've been to the doctor, or the times I’ve been to in hospital, even when I fell and broke my arm any healthcare professional enquire after my emotions or my emotional health and well-being.
Perhaps this blog and its fearful stories will help stimulate change.
Jean Jordan – Pain Coach
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After over 20 years of owning pain clinics pain clinics, I started Natural Pain Solutions to reach more people, rather than one person at a time.
After studying Postgraduate Pain Management & Freedom from Chronic Pain with Howard Schubiner, I want to spread the word about holistic self-help techniques people can use at home.
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