Another book recommendation

I recently finished reading Cured: The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing by Jeffrey Rediger, M.D. I picked it up because I saw it mentioned somewhere and when I looked it up it had a recommendation from Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score). That was all the recommendation that I needed. Of course, being chock full of fairly bizarre brain-body facts means I was hooked from the beginning. But even if you aren't a brain science geek, I think you would find this book interesting. And hopeful. And a bit challenging. It doesn't hurt that it also helps to pile on more evidence for the importance of safety and connection; this time in relation to physical health. 

First a bit about what happens when you don't feel safe:

"Your autonomic nervous system has two basic modes: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sympathetic system, or fight or flight, is the gear you shift into when you're in danger or under stress. the parasympathetic, sometimes called rest and digest, is the gear you're supposed to downshift back into the rest of the time, when you don't need to be tensed and alert to deal with a threat of problem.

You absolutely need your sympathetic nervous system -- your body's natural alarm system -- to engage rapidly as soon as your perceive a threat. In that instance, it should happen immediately -- like a car engine turning over when you turn the key. It should roar to life. Stumble upon a tiger? Your amygdala, the twin, almond-shaped lobes that form the emotional control center of your brain, triggers a falling domino effect of responses in your body, releasing a cascade of stress hormones and neurochemicals into your bloodstream. Your blood vessels rapidly constrict, trapping blood in your limbs so you can swing, punch, run, or react as necessary. Your digestion winds down, your heart rate rises, your breathing becomes shallow and rapid. Your hearing may even grow muffled and your vision tunneled -- the body's efforts to shut out distractions and focus attention on the threat.

The fight-or-flight response (often called fight-flight-freeze, for the additional tendency to freeze when threatened). actually turns off certain parts of your brain -- the more nuanced, critical-thinking, decision-making parts. Your body doesn't want you mulling over decisions in a fight-or-flight scenario. This is not the time to think about the whole picture, consider how the tiger is feeling, or weigh the pros and cons of running verses fighting versus freezing. You should already be making tracks in the opposite direction before you even have the chance to process the word tiger.

The more primitive human that you once were, long ago, was able to turn fight or flight off after the threat was gone; the sympathetic nervous system would slowly wind down as the parasympathetic, or rest-and-digest system, booted up and took over. In this mode, the brain deploys acetylcholine, an organic chemical that hits your bloodstream like a drug. The vessels, capillaries, and arteries all through your body immediately begin to relax and dilate, letting blood rush back to your core. Your heartbeat slows. Digestion kicks back on, more efficiently processing the energy and nutrients essential to your immune system. Blood, oxygen, and immune resources, immediately become available for arguably their most essential function: healing. 

This is the parasympathetic system. And by design, your're supposed to be in it most of the time. but for the vast majority of us, it's the other way around -- we're caught in the sympathetic mode." (pp. 154-5)

Not only are most modern adults not ratcheting down into a more calm, peaceful, and healing mode of being, our children with a trauma history are not, either. Cannot is actually a better word. For them, life is filled with peril and their nervous system must be ready all the time. Is it any wonder that a child living in the constant state of extreme alert is pushed past their mode of functioning by the least little thing? And not only is this hyper state of constant alert difficult for learning, creating memories, functioning in a family, or attaching to others, it is also toxic for their bodily health. In order to be able to move back into a parasympathetic mode of being requires feeling safe. 

Felt safety. It is step number one. 

But there is more.

"Social connections turn out to be an essential nutrient like any other; you can't heal without micro-connections to light up your vagus just as you can't heal without nutrient-rich food to fuel your body. Love and connection are clearly among the most potent medicines [bold mine]. We should be writing prescriptions for people to spend restorative time -- those micro-moments of positivity -- with friends, family, and new acquaintances, just as we write prescriptions for pharmaceutical medications. We should be asking, How is the emotional nutrition in your life?" (p. 193)

Connection. It is step number two. 

Note that this book is not about adoption or trauma or parenting or RAD. It is about people who have experienced spontaneous healing from life-limiting diagnoses. The message from the research is the same. Safety and connection bring healing. They bring healing to the body and healing to the emotions. You cannot be well and whole without them. Our children with deep, deep hurts and fears cannot be well and whole without them. This is not a matter of finding the right prescription to make the behaviors disappear, though I will be first in line to say that medications can be extremely beneficial on the road to felt safety and connection. Helping our children to healing will take time and effort and will often look ugly and impossible from time to time. The best thing a parent can do is to learn how to move themselves out of their sympathetic state of arousal and into their parasympathetic state. It is only from this point that they can then help to regulate their child. 

I highly recommend this book. There is a lot to think about and stories that might make you a little uncomfortable because they are so at odds with how we perceive the world to work. But it is also incredibly hopeful and (I think) powerful. Read it.