I know this is an ASD site and this is, for the most part - off topic.
But this is important.
It is mind tricks - simple ones - and they have changed my life in many ways. if you can learn this ONE trick and "put it in your tool belt as a tool to be used when you need it" it will be useful.
This mind trick has totally solved my hypersensitivity to sound. That will be another post.
Sorry for this long post.
My specialized interest is backs.
So sue me.
This came about because of car accidents. Side collisions - two of them. And I ended up permanently disabled though it took a couple of decades to get there.
About 10 years after the first accident - I decided that nobody else had answers so I went out on my own.
It has been a 16 year journey since then. I have had some success.
The greatest success was in two parts - one is to realize that the problems with my back were in the mind.
The second was the ability to turn from right handed to left.
Don't laugh or tell me it is impossible. I can give you chapter and verse why it is impossible. It IS impossible. And yet ...
The problem with backs is that once the posture is changed, it cannot be restored.
And you ask "what is posture" and get "the way we move."
That is the wrong answer.
The correct answer is "How we have TRAINED and TAUGHT ourselves to move."
That puts posture within the mind, with the body reflecting our training.
To change our posture, we have to understand how we learn, how we re-learn (something quite new) and the outcome of the "mind training" is to cause our body to learn to move again as it "ought to do."
Changing posture (the brain) rather than treating the body has led me to mind tricks.
One mine trick is well known - biofeedback.
The way we learn is feedback. We learn how to use our limbs in the first place because, as a baby, a bauble is in front of us - a nice, shiny bauble.
And we desire to reach for it, to touch it, to taste it.
But we do not know how to use our arms and legs so we wave them about.
Occasionally we hit the bauble and get a "reward" ooh I touched it.
And if we do not - we get frustration.
As we continue to try - the hits become more common and slowly we lean how to use our arms and legs.
The experts (of the day) stated that this was reinforced neural pathways. With a reward when we hit (reinforce) and a frustration when we did not (don't reinforce).
Biofeedback is just a form of "learning." A desire, and feedback.
But how do we relearn?
We do not go back to being a baby and learn how to move our arms and legs again.
If you are hurt and find that your normal way of picking up a cup of tea with your elbow out is painful, - you start to lift the cup, feel the pain, and try to find "another movement" which does not hurt, in this case lifting the cup with your elbow down.
But when you look a bit closer - you find you are telling your brain TWO things at once.
One is to lift the cup.
The other is "not the old way - I want this OTHER outcome ... I do NOT want to hurt."
It is only when you do TWO commands that you relearn.
Then you change what you have already learned - just subtly - a refinement so to speak.
Which is why a baby takes months and years to learn, but we usually relearn very quickly.
The second mind trick is to realize what you are doing.
Decide to change.
Have a SPECIFIC outcome for feedback so it knows when it has succeeded.
And it is when you achieve this outcome that you have relearned.
Stop yawning.
This is "little Professor" (as one person describes aspies) lecturing you.
This little mind trick has allowed me to do things that are considered impossible.
Take right handed or left handed.
I was/am right handed. I spent most of my life right handed. If I throw a ball, my training says right handed as I have spent many hours learning the skill. If I write, I use my right hand because I have the training.
But I am now left handed - if I want to be - and that is 99% of the time as I am forcing my back to change. Posture change takes a LONG time.
Rotate your shoulder.
If you are right handed, you will rotate it clockwise.
You can rotate it anticlockwise but you find it is not natural and you have resistance.
It is an intrinsic, automatic movement by involuntary muscles.
But if you concentrate in the brain - you can picture a switch - and if you throw the switch, your rotation is reversed - counter-clockwise.
And our little mind trick works. You reverse the pattern.
When you do, you do NOT suddenly write with your left hand.
But you find that your "reach hand" becomes the left - it becomes natural.
So when you decide to throw a ball to the dog, you find it natural to throw left handed.
Except you do not know HOW - you have a lifetime of experience learning to throw right handed.
But you can learn.
I doubt I would even be as good left handed as right handed - but then I am not interested in throwing balls or writing.
The fact is that I COULD learn as NOW it is natural to reach with my left hand..
You can change back just as easily.
It is a really ... cute little mind trick.
And as I said - I used it on many things - including hypersensitivity to sounds.
13 Apr 2015, 7:47 pm
