[HN Gopher] The brain's reading of the body's state is key to me... ___________________________________________________________________ The brain's reading of the body's state is key to mental health Author : graderjs Score : 155 points Date : 2022-02-19 09:07 UTC (13 hours ago) (HTM) web link (psyche.co) (TXT) w3m dump (psyche.co) | tomhoward wrote: | Some friends have a 7-year-old son who is being assessed/treated | for autism-spectrum disorder; he's outgoing, sociable and highly | intelligent, but has issues with emotional and behavioural | dysregulation and can often get into kind of manic states. One of | the techniques I've seen his parents use when he's getting into | these states is to ask "where are you feeling this in your | body?", then for him to focus on that region while using | controlled breathing to calm down. | | Re this: _There is also the possibility of using interoception | training as a form of mental health treatment_ | | This kind of thing exists, though still in the fringes. I've been | using versions of it for over 10 years to resolve the effects of | many earlier-life experiences caused ongoing charged reactions | and chronic mental and physiological issues (after years of | mainstream medical treatment and therapy was ineffective). It's | very much a process of identifying and letting go of the way | these experiences (often described as traumas, but not always in | that category) are held/felt in different parts of the body | ("butterflies the stomach" when nervous is the most obvious | example, but goes much much further/deeper than this). | | I'm now completely free of depression and mostly free of anxiety | and fatigue/pain issues (CFS/ME) but still continuing to | progress. | | If any researches/professionals working in this field happen to | be reading this, I'd love to get in touch. | [deleted] | kayodelycaon wrote: | This sounds like variations on cognitive behavioral therapy and | mindfulness in the best possible way. There are many mental | illnesses that are curable in this way. | | And you're exactly right this exists but it isn't a fringe | method without strong and clear evidence. It's just not the | common approach. | | The key is finding good mental health professionals such as | psychiatrists who specialize in holistic treatment or | therapists who explicitly works on teaching therapy techniques. | | Unfortunately, people don't know enough about mental health to | know this an option or they aren't willing to put in the work | necessary. Changing your thinking is a long, slow process. | mansoon wrote: | Cognitive behavioral therapy by unskilled practitioners is a | form of torture. The ethics are contextual. The manualized | protocol is insufficient. | mansoon wrote: | The topmost comment in this tree is describing something I | agree to as ethical. | 0xcde4c3db wrote: | > The key is finding good mental health professionals | | Unfortunately, the odds of actually doing this aren't great | in my experience. The field seems to be packed with people | who are only qualified on paper and have no idea how to | actually help people, and it's hard to screen them without | going through their intake process first. | ratsmack wrote: | With today's industrialized medicine, this is becoming a | bigger problem across the entire medical system. | kayodelycaon wrote: | I know. It's often difficult to find anyone at all. | p1esk wrote: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30398529 | | I'm not associated with them, just saw it earlier today | on HN. | ericmcer wrote: | Interesting, yeah this is kinda similar to "being present". | Focusing intensely on something like how the inside of your | knee feels or your breath can pull you away from your current | mindset. | kayodelycaon wrote: | It is. I find this technique extremely effective in combating | psychosis, but it is exhausting to maintain for any length of | time. | andrei_says_ wrote: | As someone with experience in similar approaches - | exhausting because of the effort to keep your attention | focused on the desired object and away from the destructive | loop? | kayodelycaon wrote: | Basically. When dealing with psychosis, I'm having to | constant ignore everything going on in my head and force | myself see past whatever my brain wants to do, feel, and | see. | | For me, I know what's real and what isn't. I just can't | stop myself from acting on not real information. | agumonkey wrote: | it's interesting because meditation uses body-focus as a main | trick | | also physical exercise and manual labour also floods your brain | with signals from your body | | about your case and idea, do you think that our reflexes acts | like a kind of stuck loop: situation X -> reflex -> | interpretation of negative context -> more reflex .. a kind of | emotional fibrillation :) ? | ajkjk wrote: | There are a lot of kinds of meditation, so saying that | without qualification is too broad to be correct. | gloryjulio wrote: | This is the best plain description of the practical meditation | techniques which can help to improve mental health. Hope more | people can benefit from reading this. | lokalfarm wrote: | Have you read Focusing by Eugene Gendlin? | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focusing_(psychotherapy) | mansoon wrote: | DM me please. | tomhoward wrote: | Thanks for the reply. No DMs on HN but you can email me | (address in profile). | ciconia wrote: | This is something I've been exploring on a personal level lately. | I'm practicing intermittent fasting, and have found that | listening to your body is key to maintaining personal discipline. | | Sometimes I'd get "the munchies" and I'm gradually developing the | ability to respond to those urges by stopping, listening to my | body and understanding what it really wants. Now that it's more | used to it, my body would say "I don't need anything right now, I | have enough energy, proteins etc in my reserves, thank you." | | It also occurred to me that I can develop this skill of listening | to my body for other uses/occasions. For example, listening to | music can also be done with our skin, which is sensitive to | vibrations. | | Finally, it's the realization that our bodies have a very rich | interface with our environment, and can provide us with so many | signals, we just need to turn off our brains for a while in order | to have that feeling of connectedness. | BLKNSLVR wrote: | I've done some intermittent fasting as well, and one thing I've | noticed is that it's easier to suppress what feels like actual | hunger (stomach rumbling kinda feeling) than it is to suppress | a "want to eat", which I'm assuming is your "munchies". | | If I think of, or see, something like Country Cheese biscuits | or Pringles, something clicks and there becomes a kind of | vacuum in my mind which can only be filled by that particular | snack. | | Want, it seems, outranks the mild beginnings of need. | | This is one data point that helped me realise just how much | humans are tuned to be slaves to their habits. | akdor1154 wrote: | I have the same experience but had never consciously realized | this difference. My gf is the opposite, which I find | interesting. Genuine hunger is a much more intense feeling | for her. | amelius wrote: | Reminds me of this video, where they ask: "where is your | headache?", "what color is your headache?", etc. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKGtv84aSjo | mansoon wrote: | I can justify this exhaustively. I will not do so in an argument | on the internet. You may ask questions. I reserve the right to | refuse. | | This is how to protect your body if you have a strong impulse to | argue, and you find yourself testing it on the internet. | themodelplumber wrote: | Assuming you are conscious of the impulse. :-) | mansoon wrote: | I have stated in nonviolent language. What further proof do | you believe is possible? | | Becoming this aware almost killed me. | buscoquadnary wrote: | So this isn't directly related but is in a similar veind. There's | a book I read called persuasion bt a Dr. Robert Calidni which is | about demonstrating various types of subconscious tricks to get | someone to be compliant. However one of the parts of the book I | found interesting was he also noted that many of these tricks of | persuasion would be made to disappear if the you brought | someone's attention to the trigger. E.g people are less complaint | when the weather outside is bad; however if you start by asking | someone how the weather is the effect disappears. | | I take the whole book with a grain of salt since the whole of | social psychology is full of tons of issues right now but it is | interesting, especially when one considers the beneficial effects | of meditation that have been observed when that is mostly about | sitting and becoming aware of your body and your feelings. | golemotron wrote: | If this is true (and it seems to be), the metaverse and VR aren't | likely to help mental health. Too much of our entertainment | disembodies us. | Hoasi wrote: | > If this is true (and it seems to be), the metaverse and VR | aren't likely to help mental health. | | And we haven't yet fully assessed the damage of "social" Web | 2.0... | agumonkey wrote: | I second this wholeheartedly. | | I think there's no point in pursuing VR unless dedicated | training / tooling. | | Approaching reality is pointless when you just have to walk | outside. | mansoon wrote: | The body keeps the score is the best book on this that I am aware | of. | kayodelycaon wrote: | As someone who is bipolar, it's very easy to see how the mind and | body are connected. | | Getting my high blood pressure treated significantly helped my | anxiety, because it got rid of the constant pressure in my chest | that felt like anxiety. | | Separating anxiety and asthma symptoms is difficult. They feel | very similar and trigger each other. | | Unfortunately, this is far from new information. It is decades | old and this study currently offers no greater insight into what | is already a well-known effect. This is already incorporated into | a treatment of mental illness. Not as widely as it should be, but | it is there. | | Nevertheless, this study gives me hope for the future, because | someone is looking in what I believe the right direction. It's | the one more step in a long series of steps into figuring why | this is the case. | BLKNSLVR wrote: | "hope for the future" is it's own separate mental health data | point as well. | mansoon wrote: | ta988 wrote: | The really good ad tracking system of HN that is listening to | your deeper thoughts. Can't fight it. | mansoon wrote: | Hacker news is an extraordinary joint cognitive system. The | recent increase in noise clarifies the signal that | propagates. | dboreham wrote: | HN Birthday Paradox? | mansoon wrote: | For fuck's sake. | | Today is a good day to have understood the necessity of | coincidence. =) | amelius wrote: | My problem is the reverse. When my brain is working, my jaw | tenses up, and my breathing becomes shallow. I tried everything, | but it seems impossible to decouple mental performance from these | physical issues. I wish that there was some kind of bio-feedback | device that could warn me when I push myself too far. | retrac wrote: | There are some biofeedback devices re: jaw clenching/teeth | grinding in particular. Both muscle innervation sensors | (applied to the skin) and pressure sensors (held between the | teeth) out there. Not sure if they're actually effective but | one small study with people who grind their teeth while asleep | found significant reductions from a mouthguard that vibrated | when a pressure threshold was exceeded: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4389117/ | themodelplumber wrote: | I used a biofeedback device for measuring jaw tension among | other things a long time ago...it was really helpful for | training the body in how to naturally relax. Not sure it would | solve the problem for someone entirely but it's worth a try. | | For pushing too far I use a timer system based around | supporting the work characteristics, and it's been really | helpful too. Hopefully you find something that helps. | amelius wrote: | Thanks, could you provide a link to the system that you used? | themodelplumber wrote: | Sure, it's Module #4 here: | | https://www.friendlyskies.net/maybe/the-balance-first- | approa... | | --Marc | amelius wrote: | Ok, thanks! Do you also have a link for the bio-feedback | device that you used? | themodelplumber wrote: | I wish I did, it was at a university biofeedback lab in | about 2000. I'd guess anybody who works with biofeedback | devices could recommend something better by now anyway. | amelius wrote: | Heh, ok, yes I expected you to say something like this. I | had biofeedback therapy as a child (also jaw/bruxism | related), and those devices looked archaic, even for that | time :) | themodelplumber wrote: | Speaking of which...What about a retro-computing project | in QBasic? | | https://archive.org/details/ElectronicsNow199612/page/n36 | /mo... | User23 wrote: | Try consciously resting your tongue against the roof of your | mouth and breathing through your nose. | neitsab wrote: | Many commenters here have already noted the strong connection | between this study findings and common Buddhist-/mindfullness- | based meditation instructions. | | To me it was the concept of _interoception_ which produced the | stronger callback to Buddhist themes, in this case to the notion | of "sixth inner sense" commonly referred to in Pali Buddhist | scriptures: | | > In Buddhism, "mind" denotes an internal sense organ which | interacts with sense objects that include sense impressions, | feelings, perceptions and volition.[0] | | I have always found this sixth sense organ a welcome -and even | necessary- addition to the regular Western list of senses, as | without it it is impossible to account for the bountiful nature | of our inner experiences (and our perception of them, which | evidently foregoes the five other physical senses). I am really | glad to see we have a somewhat established (if not very well- | known) comparative concept to use in the scientific framework of | understanding. | | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80yatana | | edit: typo and missing word | qiskit wrote: | Not only buddhism. The romans gave us "mens sana in corpore | sano" - sound body, sound mind. | | It seems like ancient peoples around the world associated | healthy body with a healthy mind. | lazide wrote: | And healthy minds tend towards keeping their bodies healthy | too. | | The issue is that it doesn't pay to ensure everyone is | mentally healthy - far from it, it many cases it pays the | bills exacerbating other peoples mental illnesses :( ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-19 23:01 UTC)