Mind Your Head Co-Op

The best way to recover from brain injury is to enter life as fully as possible, going “as fast as we can, as slow as we must. These shifts in how we live help us access God’s engineering, which is the mechanism that helps us heal and function as much as possible, no matter what our capacity is. They are radical only in the sense that you won’t hear these ideas from most doctors or society in general. They are all based on the simple, profound idea that when we restore our bodies to the way they were meant to function God’s engineering helps us heal as much as possible, including our brain.

We are what we eat
Let’s start with diet. Perhaps the simplest way to describe the diet that has benefited me and my brain (much more stable brain energy and far fewer rage bursts, among other improvements) so significantly is I eat no processed foods, either in what I eat or what the animals I eat ate. None. The eliminates veggie oils, sugar, grains.

What do I eat? By calories, roughly 70-80% grass fed or wild caught fat, with the balance coming from grass fed or wild caught protein and safe carbs (potatoes, yams, white rice, veggies and some fruit).

In general, I eat once a day. When we fast for 16 hours or more in a given day, our body shifts into a ketogenic state, a fat burning state. Being in this regularly, daily if possible, gives our brains ketons for fuel, a fuel that is much better for the brain than glucose (sugar) for all but a small portion of our brain (which gets the glucose it needs from the body’s natural processes). So, if you can eat all your meal within an 8 hour window, then you are fasting for the next 16. THis ketogenic diet consisting of zero grain or veggie oils or sugar helps the brain heal as much as possible. I’ve been on a version of this diet for the last 6 years, and for the last 2 1/2 years on this exact diet. My brain and entire body function much better because of it.

A great source for understanding this diet, the source that helped me get onto it is the Perfect Health Diet.

Lose the Shoes
More and more studies are revealing the strong connection between our feet and our brain. Modern shoes block this connection in multiple ways. They are cushioned, which prevents the nerves in our feet from experiencing the world. They nearly always have a raised heel, which messes with our posture and our gait. They are not foot shaped, but have a narrow, constricting shape that binds our feet and prevents them from functioning properly. They usually have support of some kind, which further prevents our feet from being strong and functioning as God engineered them to.

For the last 4 years I have gone either barefoot or in simple, flat sandals or moccasins. Despite having constant neurological vertigo, I am able to run mountain trails and ride a bicycle, both of which help me recover when I am able to get out. How? A process called proprioception, in which my feet (unencumbered by the constriction and false support of shoes) tell my body where I am in space, so my brain doesn’t have to try and figure it out.

Taking off your shoes helps stimulate new neural pathways in the brain on throughout your body. Everything functions smoother.

Live on the floor
Furniture needlessly puts our bodies in positions they were not designed to be in and needlessly supports us. Cushie chairs and sofas and beds prevent us from feeling when it’s time to shift position and automatically doing so. The result is atrophied muscles, and patterns of movement that are unhealthy.

Floor live. All the time. Sit on the floor. Eat on the floor. Sleep on the floor. Work on the floor. It’s great! You always have a place to sit, because there is always floor. You will discover your body is both stronger and more limber and agile all the time.

What’s the brain benifit? Far, far less noise from the body’s disfunction. The less our brains have to overcome to interact with our own thoughts and the world, the more our limited brain energy can be spent on what we are doing, on healing, on living. We are much more free to enter life as fully as possible.

Breath Less
Most of us over breathe. At rest we should be breathing about 6 shallow breaths per minute. Breathing more than we need to ironically make our blood oxygen full by expiring out the carbon dioxide. The trouble is, we need CO2 for our cells to access the oxygen. CO2 is part of how the gaseous exchange happens at a cellular level. So when we over breathe, our blood is oxygen rich but our body (including our brain) has no access to it.

When I learned the Buteyko Method for breathing, I stopped having allergies and increased brain energy. My capacity to handle situations that overstimulated my brain increased. Why? Because my brain and entire body now had access to the oxygen I’d breathed in. The individual sessions are expensive. I learned simply by getting and reading their PDF book.

Create Sanctuary
Animals do it. They find a nice quiet place to recover, rest, and in our case as humans, create. Our recovering brains need sanctuary to heal. Yes, we need to engage the world and life as fully as possible. That’s made significantly more possible when we have a place that is distraction free, noise free, and allows us to rest, recover, or create as we need to.

Set aside a room in your home. Insulate it from noise and distractions. Give yourself space to lie down (on the floor of course). Create a desk with a kneeler to work on the computer, write, draw, read, etc.

This space is were you go when you feel your brain getting tired or when the world is bombarding you. It’s where you go to create.

Accessing God’s Engineering
There are countless other ways we can access God’s engineering and maximize our brains capacity to heal and our capacity to enter life as fully as possible. What ways have you found effective?