New Year, new brain!? Mind-blowing mental health hack: make your new year resolutions stick! 🌀
Happy new year and welcome to our new subscribers! It’s always lovely to hear good feedback about the information we’re sharing with you, so thank you for your lovely comments recently.
I am writing from Bali as I am over-wintering in warmer climes again this year. It hasn’t been the best start as I had a nasty encounter with some poorly cooked chicken (hence the late newsletter)! Still, I seem to be recovering finally, and at least the sun is warm and shining here!
I hope Christmas and the turn of the new year was a positive and happy one for you. I trust that you found joy where possible, maybe even in the small things, and the new year brings fresh hope.
Resolve to change
I don’t believe in making new year’s resolutions as I think we should make changes as we see the need arising, and always be open to introspection, self-development, learning, growing and improving. Many people find this challenging and often new year’s resolutions are dropped quickly. Habit-change is a hard nut to crack!
Habit-stacking
I believe in habit-stacking, which involves attaching a new, desired habit to an existing one. For example, if you want to exercise daily, try doing it before or after brushing your teeth or whilst boiling the kettle for your daily cuppa. It may take time to establish, and reminders can help, but it will soon become second nature.
No matter how you find a way to implement and maintain any changes you desire, you’ve got to really want to change and be able to see, and even feel (before it arises) the benefit. Otherwise you won’t be committed and will likely fall off the wagon! If you need help, please book a call.
In our current newsletter, we’ll cover another way to help you change your mind…
Psyched up
Before Christmas I was invited, by a company called Roxiva, to experience their RX1 audio visual brainwave entrainment. It involves ‘watching’ a stroboscopic light display whilst music is simultaneously played into a headset. The light is delivered through LEDs and experienced with your eyes closed. Your brain interprets the light as shapes, patterns and a kaleidoscope of beautiful colours, much like a psychedelic experience. The music has been orchestrated in synchronicity with the light display.
The result of the combined audio-visual journey is a truly immersive experience that stimulates your brain and causes the release of beneficial neurotransmitters including serotonin and dopamine. This release alters your emotions and therefore your mental and physical state. We discussed the effects of sound and light on mental experience here. With continued use, the system changes your neural (brain) connections.
The RX1 system has the power to take you on an intense psychedelic experience, or simply to encourage relaxation, meditation, or relieve anxiety and depression.
According to studies it may also reduce the impact of trauma, decrease addictive behaviour, improve memory, halt cognitive decline, improve dementia, aid brain detoxification and ameliorate autism. It could also be a substitute for hypnotherapy.
The variety of pre-installed programmes, which deliver different frequencies, can be selected for specific desired outcomes.
Master your psyche
As the wise man Gandhi said:
“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny - MK Gandhi.”
Much of our attitude to life, our thoughts, beliefs and our future experiences, are formulated from our neural wiring based on past events. If we can change the way we perceive any negative or unhelpful past events, we can change our current experience and go forward with a new perspective.
Therapists, coaches and performance experts help us to reframe our perceptions to resolve past trauma and to illicit change or improvement. The ability to choose, and maintain, a different feeling that serves you better and allows a new perspective is the absolute mastery of the human psyche.
Health brain, healthy mind
Previously, Doctors and mental health professionals have not considered the health of the brain. Until recently, we believed the brain could not be altered. Nowadays, we know that it has ‘plasticity’ i.e. it can be changed, or rewired. It can be changed positively and negatively.
We also know that our lifestyles play a key role, including that any amount of alcohol is damaging to the brain and that environmental toxins (like heavy metals) can become lodged in the brain causing dysfunction such as dementia. We also know that many mental health problems are linked to poor nutrition.
Exercise for the brain
Brainwave entrainment has been used since the late 1800s, but at that time we couldn’t measure, or show, physical results. As we are now able to image the brain, we can measure the energetic and physical changes. The scientific studies are very promising. [1]
Brainwave entrainment is about brain optimisation and can be considered as a gym for the brain. As you work your muscles on a regular basis, they become stronger. As you notice, observe and realign certain behavioural or thought patterns, so these can also be changed and reinforced. The brain takes the least energy-hungry path, which is the one that is most ingrained, and therefore has the strongest associated neural connections. Changing patterns can be hard, but as we have discussed, is entirely possible.
As brainwave entrainment rewires the brain, it provides the opportunity for change that will transform your life whether it be personal, professional, relational, physical, emotional or spiritual allowing transformative self-growth and development.
The ability to rewire the brain, and therefore alter our perceptions, can also be improved through regular meditation practice.
Great minds
Some of the greatest inventors and high-achievers in this world, like Edison (who invented the light bulb, amongst other ground-breaking technologies) and Steve Jobs (who founded Apple), have been long-standing meditators. Those who meditate regularly know that it can be truly transformational, opening up creativity and entrepreneurial pathways in the brain.
With this stroboscopic light and sound therapy technology, we could transform our human capability.
Those who meditate are said to experience greater synchronicities, or coincidences, as characterised by Karl Jung in the 20th century, and have a higher capacity for gratitude and mental well-being.
As I was searching for a solution for my clients, Roxiva’s email popped into my inbox! A true Jungian synchronicity. I responded immediately with keen interest. I had heard of the company before, through my Functional Medicine contacts, but wasn’t aware of what they do.
Mind-blowing
My experience of the Roxiva RX1 was truly psychedelic; it absolutely blew my mind! It was one of the most electrifying experiences of my life, and I was able to rest in the knowledge that I could snap out of it at any moment, should it be too much. Instead, I was left wanting more.
Get in quick!
As a result of the profound positive effects, I will be offering this treatment to my clients in the near future, starting at £69 for 30 minutes. For a huge, 50% early-bird discount on your first 30-minute light experience (only £34.50), please drop me an email before 31st January 2024. The experience will be offered in Gloucestershire in the UK.
Please feel free to respond to this email to ask any further questions about how it works. I’m also happy to set up a 1-2-1 call if you’d like to hear more about it.
Why is it the best treatment?
We are living in a time where people are seeking experiences. Perhaps this is because our brains have been numbed by dopamine-triggering technology like computer games, social media and films. These are designed to cause a release of dopamine when we get a ‘like’ or ‘follow’ on social media, win a computer game, or follow the emotions of the storyline in a film. As our brains are flooded with dopamine, they become less responsive to the neurotransmitter because the receptors for it in the brain are down-regulated over time.
This is a protective mechanism in the brain and is one of the reasons some antidepressants become less effective after a while. This results in us requiring a higher and higher buzz to illicit a similar stimulatory effect.
What I love so much about brainwave entrainment is that there are no negative side effects, as associated with psychedelics or medication. There is no potential for overdose, nausea, toxicity or come-down. Instead, you experience all the benefits of psychedelics including rewiring the brain in a more positive, calm, less-anxious or depressive state, and possibly the other benefits previously mentioned like releasing trauma. Not to mention the creativity, entrepreneurialism and synchronicities that can be derived from it. It can also be helpful for people who say they can’t meditate, or who aren’t inclined to try.
So as we start 2024, after a bit of introspection, why not try meditation or some habit-stacking to help yourself align to your new goals for 2024? Or just book an early-bird offer for a brainwave entrainment session with me and see how life-changing and mind-blowing it can be! It’s one new year’s resolution you’ll have no problem maintaining!
Well wishes,
Andie. x
References: [1] A comprehensive review of the psychological effects of brainwave entrainment
Huang and Charyton, Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 2008 Nov-Dec;14(6):18
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18780583/
Image: courtesy of Krencin and Pixabay