What Is Brain Retraining? Why Is It So Impactful For Healing?

Brain retraining is a practice that can be used as a healing tool for those with chronic illness mental illness. Many people with chronic illness are actually stuck in a chronic “fight or flight” state, which isn’t conducive to healing. In order for the body to go into “rest and repair” mode, we have to regulate the nervous system and consistently signal safety to the brain.

The idea with brain retraining is to consistently signal safety to the brain, so the nervous system can begin to shift into a parasympathetic mode where healing can start to take place. One of the most common tools for brain rewiring is visualization. The brain doesn’t know the difference between visualization and reality, so when you consistently visualize yourself healthy and happy, the brain can start to form new neural pathways to allow for healing.

Important reminder: The nervous system is the control center of the body. It governs the digestive system, immune system, cardiovascular system, endocrine system, and more. When the nervous system becomes dysregulated, any system of the body can be affected and very real, very severe chronic illness can occur.

Typically when someone becomes chronically ill, they experience some sort of trigger at the onset, whether thats a physiological trauma or a psychological one. Examples include: an infection, mold, environmental toxins, stress, loss of a loved one, abuse, etc. This “perfect storm” sends the brain into crisis mode, ensuring all of your energy is focused on survival even once the trigger has passed. Being in this survival crisis affects your body on a cellular level, and is something that happens subconsciously (through no fault of your own).

The good news is, if we consistently signal safety to the brain through visualization, somatic practices, etc, people often start to see deep healing. Our bodies have an innate ability to heal. This is something modern medicine largely doesn’t embrace. Unfortunately, that’s likely because there’s not much money to be made on someone who heals themselves!

The nervous system is the key to the body’s innate ability to heal.

Because brain retraining is such a foreign concept to most, I’d highly recommend doing a course such as the DNRS Program, Gupta Program, or Primal Trust. This will help lay a really good foundation of knowledge and give you a great rewiring toolkit. That being said, no matter how valuable these programs may be, its certainly possible to recover without them. The most important part of healing comes from within!

Here are some ways you can rewire your brain for free:

1. Visualizing yourself healthy and strong
2. Let go of limiting beliefs
3. Elevate your emotional state
4. Joy, laughter, and singing
5. Spending time in nature
6. Slowing down (not just physically, but your thought patterns)
7. Redirect negative thought patterns
8. Believe healing is possible
9. Step away from researching your health so much (ex. FB support groups)

Here’s a post you can refer to that shows how a brain rewiring visualization is done:

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A post shared by Rachael Elizabeth | Chronic Illness Healing Journey (@ribeyerach)