Your brain can learn to trigger your symptoms. Over time, chronic conditions create neural pathways that fire in response to specific triggers like heat or social situations, even when your body isn't actually in danger. Breaking the cycle means rewiring those pathways with new, healthier responses.
So one of the things that's interesting about chronic conditions as it relates to the brain is that the brain actually changes when unwanted sensations are chronic. So obviously if it's acute, it doesn't apply. But when a condition is chronic, what happens is that the brain makes a habit of your symptoms. And that's because the brain likes to habituate everything, right? Like we get up, we brush our teeth, we just do things on automation. And that's because the brain's efficient. So with symptoms, the brain essentially latches onto trigger response, whether like the trigger is being around a lot of people heat, or for some people it's sitting down, or whatever it might be, and it habituates those symptoms. So if you are struggling with severe symptoms over a period of time, it's really hard to know what is actually still happening in the body and what is neuroplastic, meaning what has your brain actually just habituated over time. And it's one big reason why so many people stay stuck, because they're doing the right things but their brain is— hasn't— it's a maladaptive response, essentially. Regardless of what you're doing, You have to include this neuroplastic piece because this is really how I feel you get to this place of fully healed, right? You don't snap back when there's a trigger because you've actually weakened those pathways and created new ones.
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