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Science based strategies for the brain and nervous system, and thought work tools from life coaching to help you feel better in your body at any age!
Episodes
Monday Dec 05, 2022
Monday Dec 05, 2022
Today's Episode is about Pain Catastrophizing- what it is and how it affects your symptoms.
People with high levels of pain catastrophizing are more likely to develop a new acute pain, more likely for their acute pain to turn chronic. And who catastrophize more before surgery are more likely to have complications and a slower recovery.
Here are the 13 questions on the Pain Catastrophizing Scale. Rate from 0 (not at all) to 4 (all of the time) when you feel pain:
- I worry all the time about whether the pain will end.
- I feel I can't go on.
- It's terrible and I think it's never going to get any better.
- It's awful and I feel that it overwhelms me.
- I feel I can't stand it anymore.
- I become afraid that the pain may get worse.
- I think of other painful experiences.
- I anxiously want the pain to go away.
- I can't seem to keep it out of my mind.
- I keep thinking about how much it hurts.
- I keep thinking about how badly I want the pain to stop.
- There is nothing I can do to reduce the intensity of the pain.
- I wonder whether something serious may happen.
A score over 37 means you tend to catastrophize how you think of your pain.
What is the solution for pain catastrophizing?
Mindfulness- being in the present moment!
There are ways to interpret your pain differently, like through somatic tracking or sending yourself messages of safety
Somatic strategies to calm the nervous system will help decrease pain catastrophizing.
So listen in for this quick summary of pain catastrophizing and how to rewire it!
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA
Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543
Transcript- Automatically Generated:
This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 107, Pain Catastrophizing. In this podcast, we learned to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become Unstoppable Body and Mind.
Hello, my loves. Today, we are going to talk about pain catastrophizing, what that is and what the research shows about it. So pain catastrophizing is a way that they measure the way you think about your pain.
What they found in research is that people's views on pain, the way they think about their pain and talk about their pain actually influences how much pain they have. This totally makes sense with neuroscience because of the pain-fear cycle. If you want to learn more about that, you can listen back to episode 69, the pain-fear pain cycle.
And I talk a little bit about pain catastrophizing there, but I wanted to make a quick little episode about pain catastrophizing today because I think it's so helpful just to hear the kind of statements that they use in the pain catastrophizing scale so that you can be aware of when you're catastrophizing about your pain and decrease that to decrease your pain. The pain catastrophizing scale is given to patients where they rate from zero, which is not at all, to four, which is all the time. How much they think about these types of thoughts when they have pain.
It's only 13 questions, so I'll read them to you. Here are the 13 statements on the pain catastrophizing scale. I worry all the time about whether the pain will end.
I feel I can't go on. It's terrible, and I think it's never gonna get any better. It's awful, and I feel that it overwhelms me.
I feel I can't stand it anymore. I become afraid that the pain may get worse. I think of other painful experiences.
I anxiously want the pain to go away. I can't seem to keep it out of my mind. I keep thinking about how much it hurts.
I keep thinking about how badly I want the pain to stop. There's nothing I can do to reduce the intensity of the pain. I wonder whether something serious may happen.
These sound like normal things that people who are in pain, and especially in chronic pain, would think. But what the research shows is that people who score higher on pain catastrophizing also are more likely to get new acute pains. They're more likely for their acute pains to turn chronic.
And people who catastrophize more before surgery are more likely to have complications and delays with their healing. So notice with yourself, do you tend to think these type of thoughts? And how frequently do you think them?
Even if they seem true, even if you could prove them, they are not helpful to think. They're actually amping up the danger signal and dysregulating the nervous system to think these kinds of thoughts. So what is the solution to catastrophizing?
It's mindfulness. So episode 70, I talk about mindfulness and give you some examples and give you some examples of different ways to think about your symptoms. But one good example of mindfulness is somatic tracking.
You may have heard the term somatic tracking. It's very similar to a way I learned as a life coach to process emotions and what they do in somatic experiencing to process trauma. And basically, it's going into the body, just describing what is going on in real time with general neutral words.
So instead of saying, I have a lot of anxiety right now, or I have a migraine right now, you might say, I have a tightness in the chest and a rapid heartbeat, or I have a pulsing sensation in this part of my head. So you just describe it neutrally. You see, if you visualize a shape or a color to it, is it moving?
Is it warm or cold? These types of things bring you to the present moment. You're not thinking about the future.
You're not thinking about the past, and you're able to calm the nervous system. When you get into more of that relaxed rest and repair state, you're actually able to decrease those pain signals. Your brain is not on high alert and creating more and more of them.
Now, I'll give you a few suggestions for thoughts you might want to try on instead. You could notice if you're catastrophizing, just be the observer at first. You could label, oh, there's my brain catastrophizing, and then you want to send your brain messages of safety.
You want to be in the present moment. You want to describe things neutrally, just as they are. So you could say things like part of me is feeling scared.
My brain interpreted this signal as dangerous, but I'm safe. It takes time for my nervous system to heal, and that's okay. I'm learning to take care of myself.
I am here. This is happening. I'm working on getting physically and mentally stronger.
This too shall pass. There may be other thoughts that are soothing to you. One of my favorites is just you are safe.
You're safe. It's amazing how often I tell that to myself because my primitive brain likes to be very reactive. It's always on the lookout for danger, and my survival responses are constantly kicking in.
And when I feel that dysregulation in my body, I tell myself, I'm safe. I look around the room. You can actually look and name objects that you see.
You can think of things that you smell and taste and touch. Tuning into your senses or many of the other somatic approaches that are out there for calming the body and the nervous system can also be helpful to come back to the present moment when you're catastrophizing. If you want help with pain catastrophizing or any of the other pain reprocessing or emotional processing techniques that I teach, I would love to be your coach.
There are some different options that I have for a group membership, for a few limited spots of one-on-one coaching. And if you'd like to check that out more, just feel free to click on the information in the show notes. And right now, I'm offering a free 60-minute consultation with me so that you can talk to me about your specific situation and see if coaching might be a good fit for you.
Thanks for listening. Have a great week. Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an unstoppable body and mind.
Tuesday Nov 15, 2022
Tuesday Nov 15, 2022
Episode #106- Extinction Bursts
Today’s topic is about part of the normal mind-body healing process- extinction bursts.
When you are starting to experience some success with healing, one thing that can commonly happen is a resurgence of pain in an old area or a completely new pain.
Dr Sarno called this the “symptom imperative.”
In “The Way Out” by Alan Gordon, they call it an extinction burst because of a study with a rat receiving food through a lever.
When the lever broke, the rate started pressing more urgently and quickly before the behavior of pressing the button extinguished.
If you have an extinction burst, there are 3 common stages 1- panic, 2- forcing it, and 3- oh this is how it works!
Listen to this episode for more, and trust the process- extinction bursts are a good thing because it means the signal will soon become extinct!
Want help applying this into your life? Check out my group coaching membership, Alignment Academy!
https://betsy-jensen.mykajabi.com/alignment-academy-membership
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA
Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543
Transcript- Automatically Generated:
This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 106, Extinction Bursts. In this podcast, we learned to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become unstoppable body and mind. Hello, my loves. Today, we are going to talk about a topic.
I actually can't believe I have not recorded a podcast about this sooner. It's such an important step in the process of mind-body healing. And it's good to know about it, that it can come up and have a name for what's going on so that you know.
So today we're going to talk about extinction bursts. This is also what Dr. Sarno called the symptom imperative. But basically, they got the name extinction burst from an experiment they did with a rat, where the rat was pressing a lever for food and the lever broke.
So the rat wasn't getting the food. So they expected the rat to just stop pressing the lever, which it did. But before that, it actually started pressing the lever even more frequently and urgently.
So there was actually this increase of behavior before there was the extinction. So think of an extinction burst as a good thing, because it's a sign that it's on its way out. But what can happen is you're going along and starting to get these mind-body concepts under your belt and feeling better, and then you have a resurgence of pain.
It could be what they call like a flare of the same pain that you've had before. In the Boulder back pain study, they found that that was often what happened. But some people would have pain in a totally different area, like their hip or their knee.
So most people think that they've injured something, and then they start to get afraid. And then we know the pain-fear cycle kicks in and actually causes the brain to produce more pain and to amplify the pain. But remember, neuroplastic pain is all based on fear.
So this is what Alan Gordon says in The Way Out. By authentically changing your relationship with fear, you can start breaking out of the pain-fear cycle and your symptoms will begin to fade. But if fear has been a part of your life for a long time, your brain has been accustomed to it and may not go quietly.
So basically, it's a protective response from our body. And it makes sense if we've lived with so much fear and high guard and high anxiety and hypervigilance that it doesn't feel totally comfortable to just relax. If you were sleeping in the jungle at night, you wouldn't have the best sleep of your life because you would be in this vigilant state.
And when you're in that vigilant state a lot, it does not feel comfortable to let that go. So these extinction bursts are usually seen at the early part of your healing journey. And it is usually very frightening and brings up a lot of emotions.
The most common thing people think is that something structural is going on after all, or they've re-injured themselves or hurt themselves with a new injury. The other thing I see people thinking a lot is that they're not good enough. They can't do this.
They haven't been doing enough somatic tracking or they haven't been meditating well enough. So just notice if you do start to get some sensations during this process, it's not always linear. And if sensations come up, what emotions come up for you?
And just know that the more neutral you can stay about it, the faster it will go away. There are certain stages that people go through. They describe in The Way Out three stages.
And the first one is panic. So that's normal, to feel panic, to worry, to think something's gone wrong. This is part of the process.
The second stage, he calls forcing it. So it's where you're like trying really hard. You might try your somatic tracking, and then you get frustrated that that doesn't work.
And you do all of the things that you've been doing that have been working, but with this like urgency or intensity. It's like you're in flight. And so your nervous system is still activated, but you're like doing all the right things, but from this energy of forcing it.
And then he says, after the terror of stage one and the frustration of stage two, there's stage three, which is, oh yeah, this is how that works. So if you guys haven't read The Way Out yet, it is really a great book. I love how he explains extinction bursts and the process here.
That's why I'm quoting it so much. Because when you can start to see that this is normal, this is part of the process, then the fear goes away much more quickly. The frustration goes away and you'll actually be able to resolve your symptoms in days or hours or minutes, depending on how you're reacting.
But this process of rewiring these neural pathways and regulating your nervous system is not one that you can force. Trust the process when things do come up, if you have a resurgence or new sensation, stay in the present moment, remind yourself you're safe. Notice if you start catastrophizing, which is basically thinking of the future or the past.
They actually say the best thing to do if your pain is at eight, nine or 10 is distract. Do something completely different. And that could even be taking some pain medicine if that fills in alignment with what would help you.
Or it could be watching a TV show or taking a nap. When we have the symptom and we know these things that normally work, but we're doing them urgently, and that's exacerbating the symptom, the tendency again is to just want to work your way out of it and force and do all these things. It's counterintuitive to go into it, to acknowledge it, to relax when this is going on, to trust that this will be okay.
But seeing that this is part of healing, this is part of the process can help. And each time your nervous system gets dysregulated and you bring it back to home and you regulate it again, you build your window of tolerance, you build this capacity to tolerate more and more. So sometimes you're only moving the needle 1% at a time, but that is still progress.
And that's better than trying to force the nervous system to change 100% all at once, and then all of the resistance that causes with the change. Your body has this natural intelligence. The more you understand it and work with it, the easier these sensations will be.
If you are interested in learning more about how this applies in your life, please check out my group coaching membership, Alignment Academy. There are two weekly coaching calls, that's eight calls per month, where you can join Get Live Coaching or Get Written Coaching through Slack. There are modules that you can watch that teach all of these concepts, and you're able to get real time feedback from me about how you're applying it in your life.
Enrollment is ending November 16th until next year. So if this is calling to you, you can find more information in the show notes today. Have a good week, bye.
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review.
And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an Unstoppable Body and Mind.
Wednesday Oct 19, 2022
Wednesday Oct 19, 2022
I know some of you are not on my email list or following me on social media (Why not?!?)
But if you aren't, you may not have heard yet about my amazing "Founder's Special" for Alignment Academy.
Alignment Academy is my group coaching program with 2 calls per week, modules, and resources for healing.
Normally it's $99 per mo, but for the first 49 it will be a fixed rate of $49 per mo for as long as you are in Alignment Academy.
9 spots are gone in just the first few days, so be sure and click on the link for more information if this is calling to you!
Alignment Academy information:
https://betsy-jensen.mykajabi.com/alignment-academy-membership
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA
Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
Predictive coding is like a brain's subconscious shortcut.
Predictive coding is the #1 reason for chronic pain symptoms. Especially for people who tell me they feel calm, but their pain is related to a movement, food, time of the month, etc.
I give you a few examples of how predictive coding works in our bodies to produce symptoms, and how it can be reversed! Be sure and listen to find out more
Want help with applying this into your life? Check out Alignment Academy (my group coaching membership). Click here:
https://betsy-jensen.mykajabi.com/alignment-academy-membership
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA
Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543
Transcript-Automatically Generated:
This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 104, Predictive Coding.
In this podcast, we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life. Become unstoppable body and mind.
Hello, my loves. Today's topic is predictive coding, which I have to say is probably the number one way that people keep themselves in chronic pain, is by looking at what I would call predictive coding, the way that the brain predicts what's going to happen and actually generates pain based on beliefs. When pain comes and goes, and it seems related to stress, it's very easy to see, oh, there's an emotional component.
But sometimes people will tell me every time I bend over, I feel this pain, or it's just when I'm typing, or it's a certain food that I've eaten, or when the weather changes or bright lights, or it's that time of the month. And they tell me about this predictive pattern that they have seen for months and maybe even years. But what they found in neuroscience is that our brain is very efficient.
There are many things that we subconsciously assume that change our body. Think of the example of food poisoning. You could have food that you ingested and then you got very, very sick.
So in the future, just thinking of that food has a physiological response on your body. Your stomach may tighten up. If you actually tried to eat that food, you might physically not be able to even swallow it, or you might get sick.
Your brain and your body want you to remember that time that felt so horrible. So any traces of that now, your brain can actually create, recreate some of those symptoms. When a car next to you moves, you may feel your body feel like it's moving when the car next to you moves.
Nothing actually moved, but because of the environment and what your brain has put together as this is what this means, your brain creates a sensation in your body. What they found in neuroscience is that our brain is very efficient. So it can very easily form some subconscious thoughts about what happened and what is going on.
And then our reticular activating system, this part of our brain that's designed to back up our beliefs will actually cause us to only find those things in reality that back up our beliefs and remember those and forget the rest. So an example is someone might tell me that their back pain is related to their periods. And every time they have their period right before they have back pain, for example.
And then when I question them a little more, sometimes they'll say, yeah, when I was on vacation, that one time I didn't have it. Or out of the last four months, three out of the times I had it and one I didn't. And that is actually showing that it is not something structural, right?
If it was something structural, it would happen every single time. And so just by that alone, you can see the brain tends to kind of overgeneralize to see the patterns it's familiar with. It happens at this subconscious level.
So we're not even consciously aware of it, but it's like Pavlov's dogs. When he would ring a bell repeatedly right before he gave them food, they came to associate the bell with food, and physiologically their body changed. So if I injured my back at one point and bending over hurt, then my brain would associate that bending with pain.
And there are a lot of people that would verify that, yes, bending, there's these structural things that happen, and so that increases your pain, and your back has this damage. So there are a lot of fearful things that you could also hear about bending. So long after the injury is healed, typically three to six months is the longest it takes an injury to heal.
And after that time, it's fair to assume that there are a lot of predictive coding pathways that your brain has generated. Right? It wants to be efficient.
Your brain saves time. It's like a shortcut by having this predictive coding. So after your injury has healed, you may still feel that pain with bending forward.
And if you felt that pain for 10 years, every time you bend forward, you have a lot of evidence gathered of times that you've bent forward and it's hurt. And again, your brain might have even had sometimes that it hadn't hurt, but it will quickly not remember them or not even realize that they ever happened. We know our bodies will subconsciously prepare for movement.
For example, if we're going to go from sitting to standing, our blood vessels constrict before we go to stand up so that our blood pressure regulates. So the same thing can happen, for example, with our muscles, when we have a pattern of, I've had this before myself, that's how I know, when my back has been very tight, and then I know, you know, with a certain movement, that that's when I feel pain, I prepare to go from sitting to standing, and I actually, before I even do it, feel my back tighten up and then go to standing. So it's like the brain believes there's this area to protect, it has to tighten up, and in doing that, it is actually causing pain.
It's causing the pain that I feel that reinforces that there is damage that it needs to tighten up to protect. One example of predictive coding in the body that happens physiologically is that when we drink water, we stop feeling thirsty. Now, it would take 20 minutes for ourselves to actually register that the hydration level has changed.
But our brain through experience and through what people have told us is that when we have that thirst signal, that when we drink water, that will solve it. So instead of drinking water for 20 whole minutes until we stop feeling thirsty, we actually drink water, stop feeling thirsty, and then the body goes on doing what it needs to because that task is taken care of. You could think of predictive coding and the reticular activating system, like when you buy a new car and all of a sudden, you notice all the same cars that are out there that are like yours that you had never noticed before.
So this can happen with pain, with these patterns. I know for me, I associated drinking coffee with my stomach hurting or drinking caffeine with urinary urgency. But once I started questioning that maybe this is just some predictive coding that my brain is using as a shortcut, I started to see examples of when it wasn't true.
And this is what we do when we think there might be some predictive coding. We want to really lean into detective or the opposite. So this is where you look for any examples of how your belief is not true.
So if you say, you know, every time I drive for more than an hour, my back hurts, but then you notice, you can sit in the passenger seat for two hours, and your back doesn't hurt. Or you notice that you can sit in the movie seats for two hours, and your back doesn't hurt. So you start to look for, like a detective, you know, making its strongest case.
You want to look for every shred of evidence, every time that you feel better than you think you're going to, any time that it possibly might be a different pattern than what you expect. Doing this does two things. First of all, you start building this effort and building this evidence for yourself that you can look back on in times of doubt.
You could even write it down, get a notebook and be a detective. The other thing it does is it shifts your brain, that reticular activating system that is used to being focused on looking for pain and what creates pain, it shifts it to looking for when you're feeling better, things that feel good when you're distracted. So shifting your focus there, it's like a gratitude journal.
When you start focusing on just three things you're grateful for each day, by the end of 30 days, you have a whole shift in how you see the world and your happiness level, because you start to look for things to be grateful for each day, and then that becomes the habit of your brain, the habit of that way of thinking. So looking for, ah, that's interesting. This feels slightly better.
Ah, when I was distracted, that's usually when it happens. When I was distracted, that felt better. And when you notice pain, notice those stories that you have around your pain.
There have been so many stories of people that have evidence, they have medical evidence of this research study or this person, what they said, that this causes their pain. And when they start believing differently, I've experienced it myself with foods, with exercises, with movements. When you start to believe differently, amazing things can happen.
So just have some curiosity. I urge you to be that detective for the opposite. And notice any times you see yourself getting stuck on some kind of belief that you just believe is true for you, it might just be predictive coding.
All right, thanks you guys. Have a good week.
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today. That helps you in your life, like it helped me.
Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an unstoppable body and mind.
Monday Sep 19, 2022
Monday Sep 19, 2022
In this episode I talk with Lifecoach and former client, Dr Katrina Ubell.
Today we talk about Katrina's journey as a weightloss coach, and getting out of chronic pain.
And we talk about Katrina's new book, out tomorrow- September 20, 2022!
Get the sneak peek on "How to Lose Weight For the Last Time- Brain Based Solutions for Permanent Weight Loss", and how it relates to coaching on chronic pain.
For more information on Katrina Ubell and her new book, check out her website here: https://katrinaubellmd.com/
To hear my original podcast episode with her on her "Weight Loss for Busy Physicians" Podcast in Oct 2020: https://katrinaubellmd.com/how-i-cured-my-chronic-pain-and-acid-reflux-with-betsy-jensen/
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA
Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543
Tuesday Sep 13, 2022
Tuesday Sep 13, 2022
Today I interview Torie Henderson- Lifecoach for exhausted, overwhelmed moms.
She talk about how teens can trigger survival brain, but the concepts here can apply to close family members or friends too if you aren't a parent of teens!
Torie also struggled with chronic pain- vulvodynia starting at age 21, then lower back pain and TMJ. She talks about how she learned not to carry stress in her body.
Join to listen to the insidious ways we cause ourselves nervous system dysregulation when we have teenagers or chronic pain.
AND if you want to practice nervous system regulation with us, be sure and join our "Relaxation Challenge" September 26-30!
Each day we will go over different techniques together so you can try them out for yourself and see what works for you!
****The Relaxation Challenge will be on Torie's "Supermom is Getting Tired" Facebook page, and you can sign up here:
Facebook Group - Supermom is Getting Tired https://www.facebook.com/groups/Supermomisgettingtired/
Torie Henderson is a master certified life coach, teacher and owner of LifeCoachingforParents.com. She has helped thousands of overworked and exhausted Supermoms release self pressure so they can more fully enjoy their life as mom. Torie is host of the Supermom is Getting Tired Podcast and is devoted to helping moms release the burdens and the guilt so they can enjoy raising their great kids all the way into adulthood.
Website https://LifeCoachingforParents.com
Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/LifeCoachingForParents/
Supermom is Getting Tired Podcast https://lifecoachingforparents.com/podcast/
Time for The Talk - Sex Education Class https://timeforthetalk.com
Leading Your Teen Group Coaching Program https://LeadingYourTeen.com
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA
Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543
Wednesday Aug 17, 2022
Wednesday Aug 17, 2022
This episode is all about how your brain functions in survival mode, and how survival brain actually changes your thinking.
The idea from the podcast was from a clip on Youtube by Jacob Ham called "Learning Brain vs Survival Brain." So since it's back to school time, I thought about how these survival states even affect our ability to learn.
In survival brain you do not like ambiguities and are prone to black and white thinking. You have a hard time seeing another perspective and you are afraid to make mistakes.
In learning brain you are able to see the big picture, and accept nuances in thinking. There is more receptivity, creativity and ability to connect.
And learning brain is the parasympathetic/calm state which is the "rest and repair" state for your body- where it performs at ultimate health.
So check out this episode for more about detecting survival brain and how to get to the learning brain state more often!
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA
Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543
Sunday Jul 31, 2022
Sunday Jul 31, 2022
In today’s episode I want to tell you about how I coach on healing chronic pain.
I merge PRT (Pain Reprocessing Therapy) with Life Coach tools and Nervous system regulation, for an amazing mix of learning and application into real life.
PRT teaches us to reframe and rewire the brain’s signals of pain, because pain signals are either amplified or decreased depending on how we react to them.
When the brain and nervous system do not interpret sensations in the body as dangerous, the brain produces less and less of them and chronic pain can be extinguished. (This is shown in the latest neuroscience research).
PRT tools include somatic tracking, detective for the opposite, graded exposure, and outcome independence. You can read more about them in detail in “The Way Out” by Alan Gordon, or listen to my Somatic Tracking and Graded Exposure Meditations on my previous Episodes.
The way I coach applies PRT tools by understanding your nervous system.
You can have all of the best tools, but if you are applying them in a way that puts you into a survival state, you add a lot of resistance to your healing.
I teach you to regulate your nervous system by finding those things that distract or feel fun. Finding calming thoughts or actions will help you get to the parasympathetic/calms state where your body can heal.
By learning to neutralize pain, process emotions, feel positive emotions on purpose, and read your body’s cues, you can become more embodied and intuitive.
You can use your body and your emotions to tune into your internal guidance system. This will help you make decisions and trust yourself.
If this approach is calling to you, I have amazing group options going on now! Check out Alignment Academy here:
https://betsy-jensen.mykajabi.com/alignment-academy-membership
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA
Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543
Wednesday Jul 13, 2022
Wednesday Jul 13, 2022
Today I have a special guest on the podcast, Dr Aimie Apigian.
Dr Aimie is a leading medical expert on how life experiences get stored in the body and how to restore the body to it's best health.
We talk about the chronic effects of trauma on the nervous system, and ultimately the health of the body.
Dr Aimie sees all chronic health conditions relating more to dysregulation of the nervous system, rather than genetics or other factors.
"The nervous system is what drives our health"
Listen in for how trauma is stored in the body, what types of health concerns are most common, and what to do to heal trauma from the somatic and biological approach.
If you want more information about bridging the biology and somatic work in trauma, be sure and register for the upcoming "Biology of Trauma Summit" Aug 8-14, 2022. It's free and online, and has an amazing panel of speakers!
Register here: https://biologyoftrauma.byhealthmeans.com/?idev_id=31259
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA
Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543
Wednesday Jun 29, 2022
Wednesday Jun 29, 2022
Here is a question that I heard a lot this weekend at the coaching retreat I went to- "What if it's not?"
The survival brain will want us to focus all of our energy on figuring out all of the bad things that could happen and to prevent them.
So it quickly forms habits of what foods or activities, physical things, or situations to avoid.
The Reticular Activiating System in our brain is designed to focus on only seeing things in the environment that fit our beliefs, and ignore what doesn't.
So by asking "what if it's not", it's like taking off the blinders you have been wearing that you think are keeping you safe.
If you want to move out of survival mode and in to purposeful living, healing, and creating, start asking more of the question, "What if it's not?"
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA
Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543