This is the place where you’ll be able to read interesting articles about neuroplasticity, brain’s connections, how your brain functions and how it interferes with your mental or physical health.
It gives a solid and scientific background, backing up the tools we use in the Lightning Process.
We are really excited that Phil Parker will be visiting New Zealand in September 2017 to talk about the Lightning Process. His free afternoon talks will include:
Explaining how the Lightning Process works
Theories behind the Lightning Process
Teaching some Basic Tools
Opportunity to ask questions about the Lightning Process
The dates for these free talks are:
Auckland – Friday 8/9/17
Wellington – Tuesday 12/9/17
Christchurch – Thursday 14/9/17
Timaru – Friday 15/9/17
Dunedin – Mon 18/9/17
A second date may be added in Auckland on the 19th September, depending on demand. The venues are yet to be confirmed.
Please register your interest by emailing: fiona@philparker.org. Fiona will be away from her desk until 16th August. However, she will respond as soon as possible after that to confirm your place and details.
Why some of us develop back pain and why others don’t?
Silje Endresen Reme’s talks about the common phenomenon of back pain; why some people develop chronic pain and disability while others don’t, and what psychology has to do with it. Silje is a PhD. from Uni Health, Uni Research, Bergen & Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.
During her studies, she considered all the people having back pain but having no organic findings that could explain the amount of pain seen in this group. She realised that there is little corroletion of what we see on the scan of the back and the pain intensity experienced by the patient. Neither can the biomechanical and anatomical findings.
In 10-15 % of the case, there is a specific cause but for the vast majority of them, there is no physical cause that can explain this amount of disability or pain.
So what is going on? Is it all in the mind? And do we deal with it?
Silje decided to get a better look at these people, 600 workers, who are they and what are the factors in the transition from acute to chronic back pain.
Her findings (working with a smaller group) show that back pain is actually one part of the problem. She observed that the occurrence of additional complaints (other problems in their life) was very high. 99% of them mentioned other health problems with an average of 10 complaints in average (from work problem to emotional: job stress, conflict at work, social anxiety, chronic fatigue, depression, low work coping, sleeping problems, loneliness, activities limitations, migraines and… mother in law).
She then decided to explore a little bit more what was going on and which factors are most able to explain why people develop back pain and go on sick leave while others don’t. The group was 500 people suffering from chronic pain.
Surprisingly, the strongest predictors were not what we could have expected. They are anatomical or biomechanical but psychosocial factors! It’s all about how you are doing emotionally or socially at work or at home.
She gives an example of a construction worker, struggling with back pain who told her that, although he had a heavy job, the insecurity in the job market, the instability, resulted in a constant fear of losing his job. That was the anxiety that kept him up all night.
Consequently, at the end of the research, she could predict with a very high accuracy, just few days after the pain had started, who will develop chronic pain and who won’t! And more than that, she was able to say what characterised them, if it’s because of the job, the activities limitations or the emotional distress that was making the pain worse.
In that way, they can tail a treatment even before they develop the vicious circle they will be trapped in.
Finally the studies mentioned here are coming to light and there is more openness than there was. The interest in the brain and the mind in chronic pain has meant that more studies are published every week. We keep learning so much.
The Lightning Process is the result of those findings. It is a tool powerful and simple, using the neuroplasticity and encompassing all the predictors in your life.
Working the field of neuroplasticity and chronic pain induced by stress (an article will be soon posted on this same blog about the stress/Flight or fight response and the endocrine system), we have regularly observed those predictors and their harmful influence. We know how to reduce significantly their affect.
If you have chronic pain, then don’t hesitate to contact us. I’ll explain what we do and how this tool work, no stings attached!
Fibromyalgiashould in fact be called fibromyalgia syndrome. A syndrome is a set of symptoms and clinical signs that a person presents during illness or a pathology.
Let’s begin with a brief tour of the general knowledge which we have today on the subject.
Then I will explain to you what I’ve done to cure the fibromyalgia that was with me for 10 years. Because breaking free from Fibromyalgia is possible!
There are so many aspects we could develop about the mind body connection. For example, how you can control your thoughts, or how you react to your environment and how you can influence the neurophysiology (Physical Emergency Response).
One of them is the placebo and nocebo effect. The term “placebo” is familiar to doctors and lay people and is often used as a synonym for ineffectiveness, as in the phrase “only a placebo effect”. Continue reading The mind body connection – Placebo and Nocebo→
A belief is a constructed and very personal thought of which we are firmly convinced that it is valid, true, real, authentic and genuine. It serves as a guide in our daily decisions and actions, our vision of the world, our judgments about others or ourselves. Sometimes, or even often, our resistances, blockages, and daily difficulties stems from some of these beliefs, which we can then qualify as limiting.
When you help people to improve their health, at some point, you have to work on values, perspectives and beliefs.
You may think that when beliefs are challenged by facts, one revises their point of view and adjust this information into their mindset and thinking.
Neuroplasticity, when used with techniques like the Lightning Process, helps you overcome certain conditions but, because the brain never stops changing, does it mean we cannot define when someone is mature or immature?
In this article, you’ll find interesting information about the difference between the age of maturity and the real maturity of the brain.
In this article, Dr Norman Doidge explains that neuroplasticity reaches beyond synaptic connections or dentritic growth. It occurs at a DNA, molecular and protein level as well.
It shows us as well how neuroplasticity is giving our brain a competitive advantage to a particular way of doing things (i.e. behaviour, thoughts or emotions).
At the end of this article, you’ll also read about Michael Moskowitz, MD, a chronic pain specialist. Dr Moskowitz got badly injured and broke his femur in several places. Norman Doidge explains how Dr Moskowitz got control of the pain by stimulating his neuroplasticity and using visualisations.
Neuroplasticity, visualisations, hormones are few of the tools the Lightning Process uses to help you get better. There is much more to it and if you want to understand and know more, please, don’t hesitate to contact me and read about the Lightning Process.
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to form new synaptic connections between neurons. It’s what enables us to learn new things.
We’re at our most neuroplastic as babies, but as we get older and become more efficient at doing things we already know how to do, we get less neuroplastic. In recent years, however, scientists have discovered that adult brains are far more malleable than they’d previously thought.
WHY DOES IT MATTER TO ME?
Because it means you’re able to improve things that you didn’t realise you could. Whereas before you may have thought there was no point trying to improve because you were congenitally unimaginative or irredeemably scatterbrained, now you have no excuse.
‘Neuroplasticity is happening anyway, we don’t have to do anything to make it happen,’ explains Dr Jenny Brockis, author of The Future Brain: The 12 Keys to Create Your High Performance Brain.
‘If you are exposed to new stimuli, your brain will rewire itself in response. But if you choose to, you can literally upgrade how well your brain functions in areas like memory or focus.’ Continue reading Neuroplasticity: How to upgrade your brain.→
A second date may be added in Auckland on the 19th September, depending on demand. The venues are yet to be confirmed.
In 10-15 % of the case, there is a specific cause but for the vast majority of them, there is no physical cause that can explain this amount of disability or pain.
In this lively article, Anna-Paria Tosco explains very clearly how neuroplasticity shapes your mind. It’s simple and accessible to all of us.
There are so many aspects we could develop about the 
