Scientist Seth Herd shares on the future of artificial intelligence and human experience.
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Neuroscience
A suggestion for stopping triggers and the thought spiral that comes out of them.
- Carry a small pocket notebook and pencil. Fancy or plain is fine but unruled is much better.
- Name each journal something having to do with the stage of sobriety or change you are going through at this time, maybe "Scared days" or "unsure about everything" or "I've got this," so later you can reference your experiences based on your stage.
- Frickin' carry it with you like I said. Like all the time.
- It's designed for Triggers but could work for cravings or thoughts as well.
- Catch yourself having an event (trigger, craving, thought, dream, emotion, etc.)
- Write down the date, time, location
- (optional) Write down the situation and the event (trigger, craving, etc.) The idea is that if you do this you can look back and see what you were experiencing for sure. If you don't do this then your notebook is virtually meaningless to anyone else who reads it, looks at it or even watches you do the drawings.
- Sketch, draw, doodle or scribble as much or as little of the page as you need to help you bring your focus away from the dangerous thought or event. Use more pages if you have to. It can be a detailed Celtic knot or a mess of loops.
- You can add anything else you want to afterwards like how it turned out, who you called, what you did to get through it or how long it lasted, but that's not as important.
through CC by Ben Brittin
The idea isn't to think or create, it's to draw, literally draw your attention away from the event and into something else. Those who draw, draw, those who sketch, sketch, and those who filled the margins of their school notebooks with this:
do that. The slight stimulation and attention to the drawing will be a short but very immediate reminder that the thoughts, events, or cravings are only that. They can't get you if you don't respond to them.
It doesn't have to be the best moleskin or a #6 soft graphite pencil. Just get something you can draw on and again, make sure you have it with you.
For a long time the standard view of tragedy is that it only takes time for most people to get over it. The phrase "moving on" or "time to heal" is seen as the proper way to view a situation where someone is affected by personal loss or life-altering physical status. The loss of a spouse, of a limb, or of a child is something that we just need to go through and heal from like a cut or bruise.
New information from Arizona State University shows that this perception may not actually apply in the majority of cases. Up till now we thought of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Chronic/Prolonged Grief, or life status adjustment disorders to be the result when someone doesn't bounce back as they should. Now there is evidence that the majority of people that face large life changes actually continue to be affected by these tragedies for a lot longer and to be more affected by smaller life changes, such as unemployment.
The research article, appearing in Perspectives in Psychological Science, may not be the end of the conversation, but it does appear to look at the same data that has been used before and draw significantly different conclusions. In fact it draws these conclusions by not looking for expected results. Whereas many of the previous studies assumed that there was not a large group that were not resilient and instead looked for why or how they were or were not resilient, this study instead simply looked at how many of the people appear to be continually affected by what happened.
What this also means is that for the many people who feel that they just aren't good enough to overcome what happened, they are not in the minority. Losing a job or losing a husband both come with severe consequences for most of the people it happens to. This also means that the benefit of group and individual therapy is increased as it has been shown to reduce the negative impact from these events. For those of us who are friends or family to someone who returned from deployment, lost a job or maybe has a child in foster care, it is important for us to realize that there is a good chance that time alone will not heal these wounds and that helping them find a way to unstick themselves and create meaning from it is better seen as a natural response to all such events instead of only necessary in a few severe cases.
Building resilience is possible and it is not like eye color or height. We can change how effective people are at facing and growing from life changes. Our brains continue to be malleable throughout our lives, and we have developed a Neuroplasticity Retraining and Enhancement program that can help every single person through life's struggles.
Stop by or call to find out how getting to your preferred cognitive reality can help you break free from the negative habits and non-resilience your brain has learned.
Walking is wonderful therapy for both mental and physical health. To encourage you to walk for your health, we are creating a kickback program where you receive a coupon for the value of your copay if you go for a walk, either for a walk and talk therapy session or on your own.