How Neuroscience Has Helped Me Through A Broken Fibula
- Oct 26, 2022
- 5 min read
Written by: Rachel Marie Paling, Senior Level Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Seven weeks ago and what a roller coaster ride! Since I rolled my ankle over the garden path causing a fibula break, the last seven weeks have been packed with phenomenal lessons and beautiful moments, despite the situation.
Here are my top 7 takeaways:
1. My intuition was bang on even when everyone was calling me crazy the first week after the fall, when the first hospital wanted to operate on my ankle and I refused. The Oxford English Dictionary states that intuition is "the ability to understand or know something immediately, without conscious reasoning.” Doctor Keiji Tanaka from the RIKEN Brain Institute researched intuition and discovered three major players in the brain; the precuneus, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the caudate nucleus. Who is to say that these three were not screaming silent messages to me that day at the first hospital? As Einstein once said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” I am so glad I trusted my gut!
2. My optimism was my driver – despite the circumstances I filled myself with optimism and had immense gratitude that the break did not displace the bone, so in fact it was not a “problematic fracture”, even though at the beginning it was painted as doom and gloom. Optimism has also been shown to be connected to physical and mental resilience. (Carver, Scheier, Segerstrom – Clin Psychol Rev. 2010 doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2010.01.006)
3. Never underestimate the power of the mind and imagination. Right from that first week, I began with constant imagery of me walking, moving, exercising the affected leg. Now, definitely, neuroscientific research is setting out a new trend for rehabilitation with the power of Motor Imagery. That first week I was also in touch with various osteopaths who were using these techniques with their rehab patients with amazing results! (Motor imagery, performance and motor rehabilitation, 2018 DOI:10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.09.010)
4. Gratitude changes the brain too. By expressing gratitude we activate the hippocampus and the amygdala and dopamine and serotonin are also released. It also relieves pain as demonstrated in a study by Emmons & McCullough, 2003 whereby 16% patients who kept a gratitude journal reported lessened pain symptoms. Gratitude activates the hypothalamus so it improves sleep quality (Zahn et al., 2009). Research from the UCLA has found that gratitude changes neural structures in the brain. From the start I was grateful for this new experience, for the opportunity to learn more from this, to meet new people, in particular one amazing person crossed my path and now grateful to be training and learning from him over the next months.
5. Never ever underestimate the SWIMMING POOL! During the pandemic, swimming became a way of life for me – most days doing 50-100 lengths as my daily routine. With my broken fibula, during the first week I contacted Cori who is a physiotherapist in and out of the water. (Fisioterapia Cori Amoros). As soon as I could, I got my wheelchair down to the swimming pool and with my orthopedic boot off, I was in the water. Pretty strange to be swimming crawl with only one leg flapping away and then having physio sessions with Cori in the pool has been incredible. Firstly, trusting someone enough to really take the weight of your body in the water, is a “let-go and let-flow” feeling, and Cori knows exactly how to focus the attention on the area that needs rehabilitating plus the areas of my body that were strained (especially my back!) from having to do the extra work that my poor left calf and foot could not do. Cori was also in tune with neurology and the importance of getting my left foot standing on jet sprays to start to feel the sensations of walking again, to get me to center and feel my toes and my heels on the floor of the pool to really connect brain and body again. The pool really helps therapists focus on reteaching lost motor skills, as there is approximately 60% weightlessness. On the other hand, Cori has also been holding me back as she is also amazed that after six weeks I am walking again and she is keeping me in check with what I should be careful with.
6. So glad that I am a Meditator and right from day one after the fall I stepped up the hours of meditation. I had in fact resigned myself to potentially being 6 to 8 months laid up as that was the first prognostic. Daily I went into hemi sync meditations between 60 to 90 minutes and other meditations to heal and focus the mind and body. Perhaps daily I was meditating day and night on and off 5 to 6 hours in those first weeks. Evidence shows that meditation can in fact, rewire brain circuits to produce beneficial impacts on the mind and the brain and also on the entire body.
7. Humility revisited. After my fall, the various stages made me rethink a lot about humility. Walking on my knees the first days, shuffling around on my bottom, hopping with crutches, moving in a wheelchair, hobbling on an orthopaedic boot to now shuffling with an ankle support has taken me through various stages of immense gratitude to the people who have supported me near and far and also increased my awareness of how it feels to be injured and/or disabled. I will definitely always be grateful for this consciousness and always ask myself the question how I could help someone in these same circumstances, if I ever encounter someone with an injury or disability on my path. It has increased my sensitivity and empathy immensely.
This has definitely been a 7 week period packed full of intense emotions and learning and I am still on the road to recovery. The never-ending lessons in life, which sometimes take us by surprise and take us on an unexpected road of roller coaster experiences. The most important question is how we affront these situations and how we “live” through them.
Rachel Marie Paling, Senior Level Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Rachel Marie Paling is an International Game Changer in Education, in particular, the education of languages. She has created the method and approach Neurolanguage Coaching, which incorporates professional coaching and neuroscience principles into the learning process. She coaches and trains teachers worldwide, transforming them into certified and ICF accredited Neurolanguage coaches and has created the Neurolanguage Coach network with over 1000 NL Coaches in just over 100 countries worldwide and is now bringing the approach to schools and institutions over the world through her licensed trainers and in nine languages. Rachel started teaching language at 17 and has a BA Honours in Law and Spanish, MA in Human Rights. She is a qualified UK lawyer, MA in Applied Neuroscience, and a PCC ICF Life Coach. She is the author of the books Neurolanguage Coaching and Brain-friendly Grammar and has written numerous blog articles about learning, coaching, and neuroscience. She has spoken at many international conferences, and her company was awarded the Bronze Award at the Reimagine Education Awards 2019 in the Science in Education category. She is dedicated to the shift in education and is currently establishing an educational foundation to bring coaching, neuroscience, and heart science into educational processes.
