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9/6/08: And then we do go "up an down!" 8/24/08: This is absolutely the best thing that has happened to me: *****It really works, my Dr is Great at recommending this**** ‘Brainswitching’ Learned association...Great Stuff ‘Brainswitching’ is a cognitive behavior therapy that uses mind exercises to manipulate neural activity in the brain during a depressive episode. Simple techniques power down the heightened neural activity in the ‘emotional brain’ (areas of the subcortex) and enhance it in the ‘logical’ or ‘rational’ part of the brain (the neocortex). Brainswitching differs in principle from other cognitive therapy techniques. Most cognitive therapy trains people to change habitual thinking and reasoning strategies; to question emotionally reactive, negative, and irrational thoughts, and to restructure them to be more pro-active, positive and self-affirming. Helpful though it is, regular cognitive therapy is not as ideally suited as Brainswitching to full-blown episodes of depression. During full-blown depression, ongoing neural activity in the ‘rational’ brain (the neocortex) is overwhelmed. Brainswitching can be effective at any point in a depressive cycle, even when the emotional brain is fully agitated and the rational brain, has in effect, gone ‘off line.’ During depression, Brainswitching switches this increased neural activity from the subcortex to the neocortex. By doing so, it also immediately lessens the pain of depression by continually interrupting the thought that you are depressed. If you break up or eliminate that thought, you interrupt a negative feedback loop to the emotional areas that are running in high gear, taking away some of the fuel for the depressed feelings. In that it focuses attention on internal experiences, Brainswitching is similar to the cognitive behavior techniques of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). But while ACT emphasizes accepting these experiences as opposed to avoiding them, Brainswitching can also quickly improve one’s internal experiences. Brainswitching and ACT both involve maintaining one’s focus on moving toward positive behavior changes while accepting some temporary psycho-physiological discomfort. Both approaches address the habitual avoidance of internal experiences as a root cause of problems in functioning rationally during emotional upset. Brainswitching is based on five scientific principles • Depression is a function of the emotional part of the brain, the subcortex. The thinking brain (neocortex) does not have the capacity for depression. • Some thoughts stimulate neural activity in the subcortex while different thoughts stimulate neural activity in the neocortex. • Due to the limitations of our attention span, we can only concentrate on one thought at a time. • We can choose to think any thought we want at any time. • All physical and emotional pain is produced in the subcortex. Signals from the subcortex must travel upwards and be acknowledged in the thinking part of the brain (the neocortex) before a human being is able to feel any pain or emotion. In Brainswitching, you choose a nonsense or neutral thought in advance, to have ‘at the ready’ whenever depression hits. It could be a mantra, a repetitive word like yes, yes, yes, or a song like ‘Row, row, row your boat.’ When depression attacks, when you feel yourself sliding into gloom, you immediately start saying the exercise repetitively, over and over to yourself. You insist on this chosen thought. You continually substitute it for the thought ‘I am depressed.’ Brainswitching does not involve cognitive judgment or reasoning. Rather, it is a very simple rote mental exercise that you can grab onto when stress occurs. As you repeat the chosen word or thought over and over, you accomplish four things: • You increase neural activity in the neocortex, withdrawing activity from the subcortex, because thought involving words is a function of the neocortex. • You distract or ‘thoughtjam, ’ in the neocortex, the acknowledgment of the emotional pain occurring in the subcortex. You literally disconnect the message that you are depressed from one part of the brain to the other. • Since you can only concentrate on one thought at a time, you turn off the anxious thoughts that were producing the stress chemicals leading to the chemical imbalance that was feeding your depression. You break the feedback loop from the neocortex to the subcortex, and the depressive activity in the subcortex subsides. • Thanks to the brain’s neuroplasticity, every time you do this you are also physically building a neural pattern out of depression that becomes stronger and stronger with use. By doing the exercises repetitively, as soon as you feel a bad state coming on, or even when you have already slid deep into one, you build get-out-of-depression neural patterns which soon become as habitual as the old get-into-depression ones. Scientific proof of the brain’s neuroplasticity has been demonstrated by several studies in recent years. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to re-wire itself as a result of new thinking and new behavior. But A. B.Curtiss, author of BRAINSWITCH OUT OF DEPRESSION, is the first person to document the significance to depression of the natural process of pain perception, and how to manipulate the neocortex to get out of a depressive episode. ‘All suffering, depression included, can be and should be understood in the larger terms of utilizing healthy brain functions, ’ says Curtiss, ‘not just brain pathology. Especially when research shows that 25 percent of depression diagnoses are wrong. One out of four people are diagnosed with depressive disorders who are simply experiencing normal reactions to grief and loss. Brainswitching, however, works in either case.’ Brainswitching does not replace the legitimate mourning of loss. However, at the point when grief and mourning cross the line and become merely the repetitious chemical reaction of depression, Brainswitching exercises are extremely helpful to regain physiological balance. As you do the exercises, you make the get-out-depression neural pattern dominant over the depressive neural pattern. When you exercise a muscle you make it strong. When you exercise a thought you make it dominant. The brain always follows the direction of its most current dominant thought. It is important for anyone struggling with depression to know the physiological components of how they feel what they feel. For instance, the moment of neo-cortical pain perception is such a tiny event, brain-wise, that it happens beneath our level of awareness. But this small instantaneous process is what makes hypnosis for heart surgery possible, is what makes any depressive disorder cyclical, and is the reason Brainswitching can get you out of depression. The switch in increased neural activity from the subcortex to the neocortex happens naturally, sooner or later, even in the worst depression. At some point the brain naturally shifts neural activity from the subcortex to the neocortex and the depression passes. But with Brainswitching, you can learn to do it as a matter of will and alleviate the pain of depression or anxiety immediately. You can be in control of your emotions in a way you may never have believed possible. 3/14/08 I HAVE DELETED MY JOURNAL FOR REASONS AS OTHER HAVE, TOO CONCERNED ABOUT WHO WOULD READ IT. I'LL BE BACK TO SEE HOW MY FRIENDS ARE DOING. I'VE HAD A LOT OF CHANGES LATELY, MOSTLY GOOD. WILL WRITE TO MY FRIENDS IN A HUG MESSAGE. LOVE TO ALL I have had anxiety for a good 20 + yrs.. recently can not work any longer, have real bad ibs and a number of other issues, accupunture along with meds and seeing my accupunture who is also a pysc once a week for the past 12 months (updated 11/07)is helping, i'm so bad though, a lot of times i have a hard time leaving the house.

9/6/08: And then we do go "up an down!" 8/24/08: This is absolutely the best thing that has happened to me: *****It really works, my Dr is Great at recommending this**** ‘Brainswitching’ Learned association...Great Stuff ‘Brainswitching’ is a cognitive behavior therapy that uses mind exercises to manipulate neural activity in the brain during a depressive episode. Simple techniques power down the heightened neural activity in the ‘emotional brain’ (areas of the subcortex) and enhance it in the ‘logical’