Wired for Healing Quotes

“In post-traumatic stress disorder, the protective brain pattern is triggered by a crushing psychological trauma. The brain is simply unaware that the impending threat is no longer present.”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses

“You are not alone, your suffering has not been in vain, and you can live the life that you once dreamed of, even if you stopped dreaming a long time ago.”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses

“Studies show neural dysfunction or neuronal loss in the hippocampus and the anterior cingulate gyrus in patients with PTSD, which contributes to limbic system dysfunction”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses

“What most people don’t know is that when they think about a highly charged emotional experience the brain will fire in the exact sequences and patterns as before; they are firing and wiring their brains to the past by reinforcing those circuits into evermore hard wired networks. They also duplicate the same chemicals in the brain and body (in varying degrees) as if they were experiencing the event again in that moment. Those chemicals begin to train the body to further memorize that emotion (Dispenza, 2012).”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses

“Patients who are undiagnosed slowly adapt to this state of poor health and change the way in which they live in order to accommodate the illness. Patients’ survival and safeguarding of energy becomes a full-time job. They become shadows of their former selves. The brain and body adapt to this heightened level of threat and, over time, this inevitably changes their view of the world. Understandably patients become depressed. When forced to live in survival mode, their basic sense of trust in themselves, in others, and in the world feels shattered. No longer the happy-go-lucky people they once were, many turn into bitter pessimists. Happiness seems like a luxury that is only available to people who are still naïve about the world.”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses

“Moving into a positive emotional state activates the communication between the heart and the brain and can influence function of higher brain centres involved in perception, cognition, and emotional processing. In the past, communication between these two organs has been thought of as one way – brain to heart. Research now suggests this is a two way dialogue and that the heart actually influences the brain in significant ways. Research suggests that initiating positive emotional states causes the heart and the brain to become synchronized, and this process can alter information processing in the brain in a positive way”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses

“the ability to identify distorted reactions and to change our emotional state is pivotal in creating more positive neural networks.”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses

“Toxic trauma can also cause disruption in neuro-immune signaling, that is, in the connections between the brain and the immune system. When in a chronic stress response, the brain’s immune cells, microglia, overreact. Microglia are basically white blood cells in the brain that represent the body’s first line of immune defense, and their overreaction triggers the excessive secretion of cytokines that can cause pain and neural degeneration, increase inflammation, and alter gene expression”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses

“Systemic inflammation is implicated in many chronic diseases and, not surprisingly, is also involved in limbic system conditions. While an acute trauma may cause the initial inflammation, it is the maladapted stress response involved with limbic system dysfunction that keeps the brain and body in a state of chronic inflammation. Psychological, emotional, and physical responses to stress are equally as important and can cause the brain to release a specific chemical cocktail that causes a chain of reactions in the body.”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses

“My state of health rapidly started to change when I understood that a faulty protective mechanism in my brain was triggering a chronic stress and inflammatory response in my body that also caused heightened sensory perception.”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses

“The other truth is that limbic system trauma has a profound affect on the central nervous system and on brain function, and as a result, it can alter our sensory perception. While complete avoidance of triggers may prevent symptoms temporarily, in the long run, avoidance can actually reinforce the pathological neural pathways that are in play with these conditions. In the “neurons that fire together – wire together” model, every time a specific encounter is avoided out of fear, the threat response to that stimulus is heightened.”
― Annie Hopper, Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses