November 4, 2021 - EyeClarity Podcast
This episode is all about Neuroplasticity. It starts very early in life, infants contain a whole web of wired connections and as children’s brains grow certain brain maps get activated, while other brain maps begin to disappear if they are not developed or cultivated. This is how neuroplasticity begins to develop. With this understanding, we can start to learn how we can utilize neuroplasticity to better ourselves today. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
neuroplasticity, nervous system, experiences, brain, infants, trauma, cataracts, self-regulation, spaciousness, create, repetitive movements, develop, fluid, explored, adults, gestation, regulate, circuits, cranial-sacral therapy, talk
Hello, everyone, it’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting-edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to hello@drsamberene.com. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode.
So nervous system when you talk about neuroplasticity, we talk about the brain we talk about the nervous system. And as young people, we get customized based on preferences based on our environment, based on how we respond to experiences externally. So we need to bring in the conversation of the in utero, we call that gestation, birth, and bonding. These are very important, early experiences that actually shape our brain health and our neuroplasticity potential.
So neuroplasticity starts very early in life, infants contain a whole web of wired connections again, those of you that are parents or grandparents, and you see, you know, the infants crawling around and exploring, they are in a neuroplasticity soup. And certain brain maps get activated, other brain maps begin to disappear if they are not developed or cultivated. This is how neuroplasticity begins to develop. And one of the most important aspects of neuroplasticity is our social engagements. And these begin to shape our nervous system. So for infants, toddlers and children here is a picture there’s a lot of spaciousness in the synapses in the axons. Now, with adults, we don’t have that kind of spaciousness anymore. But as young, young children, this is what they’re doing in terms of their neuroplasticity. Social Engagement is very important.
Now, in neuroplasticity in this certain circuits in the brain, fortunately, there’s some that are hard to change, like our heartbeat, our breathing or digestion, even our pupil response to light. So this is an important distinction that some circuits we don’t want to change. We want to support our nervous system to help us with these autonomic experiences. So in the child’s brain, there’s an incredible potential for neuroplasticity. Now, if we bring in trauma, and all of us have experienced trauma in our life, it’s an imprint that affects us and in studying things like Somatic Experiencing Peter Levine’s work cranial sacral therapy, continuum movement, perinatal, and prenatal therapy. These are all things that I’ve explored around how does trauma affect our eyes, our vision, our brain, all have our sensory systems or motor experiences. So the thing about experiences and trauma is it’s the way we respond to the experience. If you have support, you’re not going to be traumatized.
But if you were abandoned or you didn’t get the treatments or the experiences that you needed, you didn’t get the social connection, then this is going to shape your nervous system and it creates that trauma response. So, in my I practice working with kids over the years, congenital cataracts, lazy eye strabismus, you know, these are all conditions that you know, regular doctors say well, there’s not much you can do we do surgery. If you don’t catch it early. There’s there’s not much happening here. But in applying many of these neuroplasticity techniques and protocols. These kids have been able to dissolve their cataracts, reduce their lazy eye, reduce strabismus and so on and so forth. So, there is this neuroplasticity potential that we all can come into. And as the infant we’ve got these web of connections and certain experiences affect us and can access the neuroplasticity while others other interactions.
04:36
Well, maybe they don’t access our neuroplasticity and this is kind of what we’re dealing with in the dance of the development of our nervous system. Okay, this is important slide because over the age of 25, the neuroplasticity capability changes and it does become more challenging to access neuroplasticity. So what are the things that you can do to create this healing this opening in your brain and nervous system? But before we go deeper in neuroplasticity, I want to bring in the fluid potty body.
That was a question that was posed in the chat. And, as I said earlier, the infants are about 90%. Fluid as adults, we’re about 70% fluid. And one of the trends that I see in aging is the loss of hydration and fluidity on a cellular level we talked about in the brain facts, how it’s very easy to lose the hydration in the brain. And also that the brain sits in, say, 73% water and just losing a very small amount of hydration, creates problems in the brain. Now, what are some other things that create dehydration and the body, repetitive movements, being in a closed system, unable to take your system far from equilibrium, meaning that you’re not doing new experiences, but you’re kind of in the same track over and over and over again, we call this the Industrial Revolution syndrome, you know, where in the industrial revolution, this is where we began to develop this robotic roboticized consciousness. And in being in this roboticized consciousness, this creates a closed system.
And when you create a closed system, there isn’t exploration, there is an inquiry, there isn’t curiosity. We’re not doing new things. But we’re staying in the same, the same trap over and over again. And then another key point is something called self-regulation. self-regulation is defined as well, I’m under a lot of stress. Maybe my lifestyle isn’t so good. Maybe my diet isn’t great. How can I regulate my nervous system better, change my diet, improve my lifestyle, so that my nervous system comes back into balance? It’s a very important health practice that I teach with all of my students, clients, workshop participants, and I want to introduce this concept to you of how can you learn to regulate yourself in a better way? While you’re going to learn today.
Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.
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