Re-Training Your Brain: Strategies to Reduce Migraine Symptoms

0:00 [Music]
0:05 okay so um we’re going to get started um
0:09 make sure we have enough time for
0:10 tonight as we said we’re very excited
0:13 for tonight’s
0:14 presentation um this wraps up our Mind
0:19 Body Connection Series so tonight we
0:22 have Kelly Hayes crook
0:27 presenting and before we begin we just
0:30 let you know that we’re proudly
0:32 supported by the sponsors we have listed
0:36 on the
0:38 screen somebody else joined from Arizona
0:41 as
0:42 well all right and tonight uh our agenda
0:45 is first I will provide an introduction
0:47 of myig gr Canada I’ll then introduce
0:51 Kelly um Kelly will then follow with her
0:54 presentation on retraining your brain
0:56 strategies to reduce chronic migraine
0:59 symptoms
1:00 and at the end we will do the question
1:03 and
1:06 answer so Migra Canada who we are we are
1:09 a federally registered charity
1:11 supporting the 4.5 million Canadians
1:13 living with migraine and headache
1:15 disorders our mission is to improve the
1:17 lives of Canadians with migraine and
1:19 headache disorders through are five
1:20 pillars advocacy awareness education
1:24 research and
1:26 support um as I said tonight our
1:29 presentation it concludes our very
1:31 successful Mind Body Connection webinar
1:34 series we’re so excited um how many
1:37 people are interested how many people
1:39 join the webinars live and have since
1:41 watched the
1:42 recordings and just to let you know our
1:45 Q2 webinars are now posted on our events
1:49 page so please uh check it out and you
1:51 can register now for
1:54 them um as we do with every webinar we
1:58 provide the following disclaimer
2:00 that this webinar provides information
2:02 and not medical advice please note that
2:05 the information presented and discussed
2:07 might not apply to your own medical
2:09 situation and always discuss Medical
2:11 Treatments with your own healthc care
2:12 provider who knows your personal medical
2:16 history and just some general webinar
2:19 etiquette um we really do appreciate
2:22 your questions they inform our advocacy
2:24 priorities and they just add to the
2:26 general webinar
2:27 experience um for this present ation we
2:30 ask that you put your questions in the
2:33 Q&A um try not to put them in the chat
2:35 because it can get lost within the chat
2:37 so I’ll be monitoring the Q&A throughout
2:41 and after Kelly’s
2:43 presentation um we’ll ask we present the
2:46 questions to her to answer and any
2:49 questions that we don’t have time to get
2:51 to or she’s not able to answer this
2:54 evening um you can email us at info@
2:57 migrain can.org and we will will get the
3:00 answer to you for any healthc Care
3:02 Professionals joining us tonight you can
3:04 also follow up after the presentation
3:07 with a request for a participation
3:09 certificate and just so you know this
3:11 webinar is being recorded and we will
3:14 email you a link within 48
3:21 Hours okay oh for some reason Kelly your
3:24 picture didn’t come up here sorry about
3:26 that it’s okay right here just in the
3:30 corner everybody so as I said tonight
3:33 our presenter is Kelly hay Crooks Kelly
3:36 has experienced migraine for more than
3:38 30 years a retired school teacher for
3:41 the past six years Kelly has devoted
3:43 herself to patient advocacy volunteering
3:45 with the world migraine Summit and
3:48 migraine Canada after her own Deep dive
3:51 into brain retraining and the
3:53 life-changing success she experienced
3:55 Kelly founded brain retraining for
3:57 chronic pain to help others incorporate
3:59 the brain training modality into their
4:01 own migraine treatment
4:05 plan and with that I’m going to stop
4:08 sharing my screen and hand it over to
4:10 Kelly
4:13 okay great thank you very much kayy and
4:18 I’m just going to bring up my
4:21 screen and put it on
4:26 slideshow great hopefully this works out
4:29 and look it’s already started way ahead
4:32 of things here there we go great uh
4:35 thank you so much Kaye for the
4:37 introduction and thank you Migra Canada
4:40 for the opportunity to share my
4:43 experience of the last couple of years
4:46 with brain retraining I am very
4:48 passionate about this topic because
4:51 retraining this brain has allowed me to
4:54 enjoy a much Fuller life in terms of
4:57 both feeling good and the ability to
5:00 participate in things that I had given
5:03 up and perhaps I thought was never going
5:05 to enjoy
5:06 again I know this is a really different
5:09 topic and I do hope I can present it in
5:11 a way that is inviting I’m sharing it
5:14 through the lens of my experience with
5:17 migrain and brain retraining so it’s a
5:19 very unique experience for
5:22 everyone brain retraining is an addition
5:26 to my other treatment strategy so it’s
5:28 not an either or
5:30 and it is really important to note that
5:32 pain research has exploded much like
5:34 migraine research over the last 10 years
5:37 this is revolutionary for people with
5:40 chronic pain a specifically neuroplastic
5:43 pain which we will be talking about I
5:46 hope this becomes common knowledge in
5:48 the coming years a simple overview of my
5:52 experience is that I went from someone
5:55 with chronic pain of chronic symptoms of
5:58 pain brain fog fatigue and frequent
6:03 attacks the month before I started brain
6:06 retraining was one of those months many
6:08 of us have experienced with 18 intense
6:11 migraine days previous to starting main
6:13 brain retraining I was doing pretty good
6:16 I was having an upd down I was starting
6:18 to incorporate a lot of Lifestyle
6:21 strategies but I was still having some
6:24 pretty rough
6:25 months fast forward to today 2 years and
6:29 3 months later I have had one intense
6:33 attack from the 1st of January to now
6:37 that is astonishing I’m still my my
6:40 whole family is still shocked to see the
6:42 change that I’ve
6:44 experienced so I will first briefly
6:47 touch on the science and then I will
6:50 share my strategies some stories as well
6:54 as a couple of exercises to give you a
6:56 feeling of what brain retraining is
6:58 about
7:01 okay so what is brain
7:07 retraining so it is strategies that you
7:10 use to help
7:12 regulate the autonomic nervous system
7:15 that sympathetic and parasympathetic
7:17 system that in many of us has become
7:21 disregulated and so we regulate it to
7:24 perceive symptoms and triggers and
7:27 thoughts and feelings as safe we use
7:31 brain mind and body to learn new
7:34 patterns to regulate our disregulated
7:37 autonomic nervous systems using the
7:40 principles of neuroplasticity so the
7:43 autonomic nervous system regulates our
7:45 involuntary physiological processes
7:48 heart rate digestion breathing all of
7:50 those things that are happening without
7:52 conscious thought if you when you start
7:55 doing your own research with brain
7:56 retraining which I hope many of you do
7:58 it can be called called lots of names
8:00 lyic training brain rewiring neural
8:03 retraining and there’s a specific
8:05 program called pain reprocessing the
8:08 pain reprocessing therapy which is a
8:11 very specific program that was started
8:13 by Alan Gordon and the boulder study
8:16 team okay so that is the start to brain
8:22 retraining so
8:25 neuroplasticity that is the ability that
8:28 our brain can change and adapt through
8:31 life in both positive and negative ways
8:34 and that’s important because it was
8:36 believed for a long time that once you
8:37 got to this age you were stuck with the
8:40 brain that you have but that is not the
8:42 case our brains can change and that’s
8:45 powerful so the brain learns from
8:48 behaviors that are practice and creates
8:51 neural Pathways to shortcuts so a lot of
8:55 the behaviors that we now do without
8:57 even thinking about like sitting here
8:59 you’re talking at one point you have to
9:01 learn all of that but your brain creates
9:04 shortcuts for these complex tasks it
9:08 becomes easy and automatic so the
9:11 neurons that fire together wire together
9:14 we hear that saying and that’s what it
9:16 means Pathways that are created in our
9:18 brain and that’s not really the
9:19 scientific terminology but when they
9:22 they they work together they start
9:24 creating patterns in our brain that our
9:26 brain follows this repetition leads to
9:30 automatic
9:31 processes so the automatic processes
9:35 that are that we’re talking about right
9:36 now is the pain symptoms that we
9:39 experience but this means that neurop
9:42 Pathways can change that’s
9:48 important so pain what is pain well it’s
9:53 gotten a pretty bad wrap but it is
9:57 essential pain is a comp Le Lex process
10:00 involving many parts of the brain that
10:02 protects us and allows us time to heal
10:05 acute pain produces an alarm signal from
10:08 an injury or dis or or
10:12 disease so if you were to put your hand
10:15 near a hot object you wouldn’t have to
10:17 actually touch that object for you to
10:19 pull away because you have learned over
10:22 your lifetime that that is hot and that
10:25 alarm is going to happen that pull it
10:28 away will happen even before you you get
10:31 too close to get burnt that is a learned
10:35 neural pathway so for persistent and
10:39 chronic pain that
10:42 continues after the injury has healed it
10:45 is a very simple description of what
10:49 neuroplastic pain can become so chronic
10:52 pain is often
10:55 neuroplastic pain when pain pers this
11:00 the nervous system becomes sensitized we
11:03 talked about Central sensitization
11:05 you’re probably hearing that in various
11:07 places related to migraine that means
11:10 the alarm keeps going after that area
11:13 has healed or a problem is solved
11:15 nervous systems also then become very
11:18 Vigilant they’re hunting for danger
11:20 signals and are really quick to send
11:22 alarm symptoms now we have hypervigilant
11:26 and a hyper sensitive danger warning
11:28 system
11:30 the brain develops a pattern of
11:32 mistaking safe signals as dangerous and
11:36 that results in pain sensation in my
11:39 case I knew know at least part of what I
11:42 was experiencing was neuroplastic
11:49 pain
11:52 so pain is from the
11:56 brain so when I first first heard this I
12:01 I had a lot of difficulty buying it
12:05 which is interesting because I studied
12:08 biology I love anatomy and Neuroscience
12:11 and there was part of me that knew that
12:13 and even part of my experience I knew
12:16 that but I did struggle with it so I got
12:20 to say right off the bat all
12:23 pain all symptoms are real pain is
12:27 complex but it is always determined by
12:31 the brain the brain determines if we
12:34 experience pain the perceptions of pain
12:36 whether due to injury disease or
12:39 neuroplastic pain are all real that was
12:43 a really big question that I got stuck
12:45 on when I first started looking into
12:48 brain retraining and I think I got stuck
12:51 for more than a year because of that
12:52 question I was How Could my attacks in
12:56 the middle of the night when I wake up
12:58 and so much pain and I’m vomiting and
13:02 every part of my body is aching how can
13:04 that be due to my
13:07 brain but it is it’s due to a complex
13:10 interaction of many systems that are
13:13 designed to protect us so it can be due
13:17 to
13:18 that there are many examples of the
13:21 brain deciding when to send pain
13:24 signals we often hear of heroic acts
13:28 while the person person is Gravely
13:30 injured this is the brain deciding based
13:33 on the situation it is not going to send
13:35 a pain signal we hear of mothers or or
13:39 parents being able to get their children
13:41 out of a unsafe situation with broken
13:43 Limbs and that’s because their brain is
13:46 determined this is not a good time for
13:50 pain and it will not send the pain
13:52 signal inversely the inverse can also
13:56 happen there’s a really famous story um
13:58 of a construction worker jumping on a
14:00 nail that goes right through his Boot
14:03 and in great pain he is rushed to the
14:06 emergency however when that boot is
14:08 removed the nail is gone right between
14:10 his toes all aspects of the situation
14:14 screamed danger so the brain sent pain
14:17 symptoms his pain was
14:23 real so what is the main idea of brain
14:27 retraining in relation to
14:31 migraine the underlying source of
14:34 neuroplastic pain is danger and fear in
14:38 our brain working to protect us any
14:42 input perceived as negative so internal
14:46 which is thoughts feelings emotions even
14:49 positive ones if they’re really intense
14:51 which I experience with exercise or or
14:54 sorry or external like exercise or minor
14:57 injuries can can have an impact on our
15:00 hypers sensitive unconscious processing
15:03 in our brain so danger or fear is very
15:07 individual what one person experiences
15:10 and what I do are very different scary
15:13 movies are they do it for me but they
15:16 don’t bother other people at
15:19 all so chronic pain and symptoms may be
15:25 neuroplastic the great news is we can
15:28 retrain our brain
15:29 we have a sensitive or I do I shouldn’t
15:32 speak for others but people who brain
15:34 retraining works for have a sensitive
15:36 excited excitable autonomic nervous
15:39 system that is hypervigilant for danger
15:44 signals so last year I had a very
15:47 profound example of this um of how
15:51 excited ere excited and hypervigilant my
15:54 nervous system is I was out walking my
15:56 dog and she took off across in front of
15:59 me and her leash tripped me and I
16:01 fell I experienced a full sympathetic
16:05 nervous system response I was nauseous I
16:09 was fainting my heart was pounding I had
16:11 to sit down or I would have fallen and
16:13 this was from this little fall I mean it
16:17 was nothing I scraped my knee but my
16:19 brain read danger and it went into full
16:22 lockdown mode
16:24 so yeah I’m pretty sure I have a very
16:27 hyper excitable nervous
16:29 system so we’re going to take a
16:31 breathing break which I really need um
16:35 breathing is something that we have as
16:38 such an amazing readily available easy
16:42 easily accessible tool we can use
16:45 anytime so I use little
16:49 breathing um episodes times all day long
16:53 it might just be two or three breaths
16:55 just to calm my nervous system so for
16:57 this one we’re going to breathe gently
17:00 in and on the exhale allow the shoulders
17:04 to drop and the body to completely relax
17:08 the E extended exhale is a cue to the
17:11 autonomic nervous system that you are
17:14 safe and relaxed so yeah just be really
17:17 gentle with the breathe in so we’re just
17:19 going to do
17:27 three
17:55 thank you I needed that I do that them
17:59 like I said several times a day I’ll
18:01 find Opportunities or times when I just
18:03 start to feel my symptoms are unop that
18:06 I’ll just stop and do a a couple lazy
18:10 breaths so my experience with brain
18:13 retraining that was the little science
18:16 portion as mentioned I volunteered with
18:18 migraine World Summit in migraine Canada
18:21 and that exposed me to new strategies
18:24 and really opened my mind Central
18:27 sensitization was a term that really
18:29 resonated with me because it felt like
18:32 my brain was sensitized it felt like it
18:34 was always looking for signals when mind
18:38 and body strategies like meditation
18:40 breath work and yoga were recognized as
18:43 helpful that resonated with me when I
18:45 made the time when I learned lifestyle
18:49 factors can have significant impact on
18:51 my symtoms so sleep eat exercise um
18:56 staying hydrated that was also really
18:59 empowering this was all new information
19:01 at the time and I was really interested
19:03 in finding what I could do to help
19:07 myself although trip tan and Botox did
19:11 previously help I still experience
19:14 significant life debilitating impact
19:16 from migraine I’m one of those people
19:19 that most medications have not helped or
19:22 my side effects were too severe to
19:24 continue with so I learned about brain
19:27 retraining on the Cure curable app and
19:29 although the app didn’t really work for
19:32 me I was intrigued and once I moved past
19:35 the my brain did it thing that I got
19:38 caught up in which is understandable I
19:41 was really interested in finding out
19:42 more so I spent a year reading research
19:45 watching YouTube videos reading the work
19:47 of John Sarno who was kind of the
19:49 inspiration for the app and many others
19:52 in the field and after a year of
19:55 pondering and and research I found
19:59 um this little gem called the way out uh
20:03 book I strongly recommend in fact I have
20:06 gifted it to many
20:10 people sorry um I think I jumped one did
20:14 I
20:15 yes oh it went missing okay um
20:20 so the way out by Alan Gordon uh with
20:23 Alon ziv seemed to relate more to my
20:27 experience uh the prct IAL tips made
20:29 sense and
20:33 um yeah it was just something I could
20:35 really relate to I’m sorry something
20:37 went missing here let me
20:42 see I have a missing slide oh well it
20:49 happens okay so this uses the principles
20:54 of somatic
20:57 tracking okay okay here we
21:00 go um and I found it really effective so
21:04 what is somatic tracking somatic
21:08 tracking has been used for a very long
21:11 time in meditation and mindful practices
21:13 but this one was design designed more
21:15 specifically for pain it was a brain
21:18 retraining hook for me when I tried
21:20 somatic tracking and I
21:22 felt um the impact of it I was
21:27 in um I knew the pain that I experienced
21:30 with migraine moved around um would go
21:32 from one eye to the other to my sinuses
21:35 into my temples but having it happen
21:38 while I was gently observing it was new
21:41 I had observed my symptoms before I
21:44 don’t know about you guys but I would
21:46 lay there with my migraine and I would
21:49 observe my symptoms but it was not
21:52 gentle it was in Anger it was in Fury uh
21:57 the things I would say to my myself
21:58 regarding the pain were not things I
22:00 would say here it was not nice I was
22:03 very unkind to myself so this was a
22:05 really different
22:08 approach it’s about just observing the
22:11 sensations but without judgment
22:14 describing it with gentle
22:16 words before I would say stabbing in my
22:20 eye now I would talk about pointy
22:22 pressing I would talk about being hit in
22:25 the head with a hammer but now I would
22:27 say pulsating pressure difference in the
22:30 words I’m using one’s really aggressive
22:32 and danger one’s gentle and descriptive
22:36 looking at it from the perspective of my
22:38 very hypervigilant brain now looking for
22:40 danger s signals I am not so surprised
22:43 that some of my attacks escalated with
22:46 what I was saying to
22:47 myself probably things I would never say
22:50 to another person so four sematic
22:53 tracking You observe symptoms without
22:56 judgment or expectation
22:59 of change you describe the symptoms with
23:01 gentle words like pressure stretching
23:04 tight pointy shape so as you hear
23:07 they’re not words that sound aggressive
23:09 or
23:10 dangerous you remind yourself that you
23:13 are safe and the message from my brain
23:15 is a mistake as there is no injury or
23:17 disease there it shouldn’t be a long
23:20 process and it shouldn’t feel like work
23:22 it should be relaxed and
23:24 easy somatic tracking is also meant to
23:27 be used when there is some pain but not
23:30 too much because when the pain is too
23:32 intense it is really difficult to be
23:36 gentle and to focus
23:40 on doing calming things it’s just too
23:43 intense so it’s best to just work on
23:45 calming the getting through that that
23:48 migraine attack and then trying somatic
23:50 tracking when the symptoms aren’t so
23:53 severe so if you are comfortable with it
23:56 I would love to do a sematic tracking
23:59 exercise this is just a short one if you
24:03 are not wanting to do it it’s a good
24:04 time for a little
24:11 break so if you’re comfortable with it
24:14 close your
24:16 eyes you can do this with your eyes open
24:19 but it is somewhat easier with your eyes
24:23 closed take a couple of slow relaxing
24:27 breaths allow allowing your shoulders
24:29 and jaw to
24:33 relax bring your
24:35 attention to the area of pain or
24:41 sensation gently observe the
24:45 sensation without expectation of
24:49 change and without
24:52 judgment you are just an
24:56 observer try to describe the sensations
25:00 using gentle words where is it
25:03 located is it
25:05 tingly
25:08 pressing
25:09 pulling
25:12 stretching
25:14 pointy does it have a
25:17 color
25:20 temperature is it in a small area or
25:25 large does it
25:27 spread
25:29 is it steady or does it
25:34 pulsate continue to gently observe and
25:38 take a relaxing breath
25:40 in and a long slow
25:45 exhale remind yourself that you are
25:49 safe and that your brain’s unconscious
25:52 processes can get mixed up and misread
25:57 messages that you are
26:02 safe without expectation and without
26:05 judgment go back to the sensations and
26:08 notice if the sensation has
26:11 changed it may be the
26:13 same it may be somewhat
26:16 different and both are
26:19 okay you are
26:22 safe take a long slow
26:26 inhale and a relaxed exhale to conclude
26:30 this somatic tracking
26:37 exercise so this is an example of a
26:40 sematic tracking practice when there
26:43 were very few available online I made
26:47 one on YouTube for a friend hi Peggy and
26:50 myself uh but there’s many excellent
26:53 ones out there now if you do want to
26:55 check it out it’s on YouTube it’s called
26:58 9 Minute somatic tracking and it’s got a
27:00 sunset picture I don’t use somatic
27:03 tracking um that long anymore it was
27:07 really helpful in the beginning but now
27:10 I can do little mini sematic tracking as
27:13 I’m going through the day earlier today
27:15 I I got a a sharp pain here and I just
27:19 pause for a couple seconds and take a
27:21 look at it said yeah hi see you there
27:24 thank you for the warning and it went
27:27 away so it doesn’t seem to be if I was
27:30 having a um needing to do a bunch of
27:32 them I would but I don’t tend to need it
27:34 so much so it’s an interesting thing
27:36 that’s happened over two
27:38 years so after I read that book I did
27:40 more research I attended courses um I
27:44 read uh this book which is called
27:47 explain pain it’s a much more scientific
27:51 uh view of
27:52 things same end result but coming at it
27:55 from a different angle it’s by uh Butler
27:57 and Ley who also has a lot on YouTube um
28:01 Nicole Sachs has Journal speak if you’re
28:04 someone who likes to write and it’s also
28:07 really interesting stuff she’s got
28:09 YouTube website and courses um Shu
28:12 scher’s what is pain animated videos are
28:16 fantastic and he’s also got websites and
28:19 programs so I pulled from all these
28:23 different sources and I have found a few
28:26 key things that are really important to
28:30 me thoughts and words really
28:34 matter I started
28:37 observing see my next one’s there I
28:39 started observing my thoughts my
28:42 feelings and my emotions around migraine
28:44 and my
28:45 symptoms I had a very visible reminder
28:50 of the impact stress can have I’ve lost
28:53 all of my hair I have alopecia
28:56 universalis it is called and in my case
28:59 it is due to
29:01 stress so I thought I was pretty tuned
29:04 into that I’d had the stress part under
29:07 control over the last few years I
29:09 thought I practiced my meditation and
29:11 yoga pretty regularly I used journaling
29:14 um when some big issues rolled around I
29:18 rarely got really upset about
29:21 things so I thought I was doing the
29:23 stress part but there was a huge part I
29:25 was
29:27 missing
29:29 you may have heard the term catastrophic
29:32 thinking
29:33 so I heard it but I couldn’t relate to
29:36 it I didn’t do catastrophic thinking
29:40 maybe during attack during an attack it
29:43 wasn’t pretty I I can agree with that
29:45 even during an attack now um I can say
29:49 I’m okay my brain is sensitized I need
29:52 to let it calm down there is no danger
29:54 so even during attack now all of that
29:57 language is changed but perhaps I did
30:00 catastrophic thinking before during
30:02 attack however the minute to minute
30:06 thoughts about migraine were a very
30:09 different story once I really started
30:13 paying
30:13 attention there were hundreds often
30:17 almost continuous little niggly thoughts
30:21 were going through my mind about
30:22 migraine I was living in a constant
30:25 state of migraine fear just back here a
30:29 little bit and my brain that was always
30:32 listening for
30:33 danger was getting a lot of danger
30:36 messages from
30:38 me so I’ve also learned it is really
30:41 important to draw a connection between
30:43 our thoughts in our physical symptoms
30:45 because I think they’ve been kind of
30:47 pulled apart that they don’t go together
30:50 and again we know they do so have you
30:52 ever experienced where you’re away from
30:55 home and you suddenly think did I leave
30:57 the stove on I get this thing where I
31:00 get a flesh of color my heart starts
31:02 pounding I feel like I’m going to be
31:04 sick is this I’ve just had a thought and
31:09 I get that kind of an intense reaction
31:12 or another one that we can relate to is
31:14 when there is a person that we’re very
31:17 attracted to and we get that same or
31:20 different wonderful feeling that we can
31:22 relate to we just have a thought and you
31:24 get a very strong physical response
31:28 I think it’s a really important thing to
31:30 relate to with what I’m talking about I
31:33 also have another story with that one
31:36 about the importance of
31:39 um how important it is to realize how
31:42 powerful my thoughts are in terms of
31:45 physical symptoms so I was out again
31:49 walking my dog I do that a lot and I was
31:52 over stopped over visiting a friend and
31:54 there with a yellow jacket it’s a kind
31:56 of wasp and it was buzzing me I’d
31:59 already
32:00 been uh stung at least twice that summer
32:05 and they are nasty they really hurt so
32:09 this yellow jacket is buzzing me and
32:13 dang the thing got me and I raced home I
32:16 could feel the Stinger got home lifted
32:20 my pant leg and there was nothing there
32:23 I had not been stung but my brain was
32:27 doing doing a really good job of
32:30 protecting me it thought I was in danger
32:33 and it wanted me out of there is how I’m
32:36 interpreting it and um yeah it worked
32:41 thank you brain so now
32:45 um at that time I was constantly
32:49 assessing every aspect of my life this
32:52 is before I started brain retraining I
32:55 was looking for triggers preparing
32:57 before and even predicting migraine
33:01 symptoms and attacks my thoughts were
33:03 often really quiet almost like Whispers
33:07 background noise did I do it wrong last
33:10 time did I eat too much did I eat too
33:13 little is that a storm coming is that a
33:16 low pressure system I better check the
33:18 barometer what did I eat last night did
33:22 I have peanut butter all day long I had
33:25 these continuous little
33:28 vigilance going on regarding migraine
33:31 without even realizing it in an effort
33:34 to prevent migraine symptoms I was
33:38 sending a barrage of danger and fear
33:40 warnings not loud these weren’t
33:42 catastrophic thoughts these little
33:45 negative thoughts anger guilt regret
33:49 frustration were all danger or fear
33:51 signals sent to the Vigilant protective
33:55 part of my brain when I realized this it
33:58 rocked my world this was something I
34:02 could change I started paying attention
34:04 and I redirected or challenged as many
34:07 of these little thoughts as I
34:09 could
34:10 triggers I no longer think of triggers
34:13 it is a tricky one as I understand uh
34:16 that the medical professionals want that
34:19 info and if I had to do it before seeing
34:22 a neurologist um I would do it to a
34:26 degree but it does doesn’t help me at
34:28 all to think about migraine all the time
34:32 so that was really interesting so as an
34:35 example today when I was out walking my
34:37 dog first thing in the morning as the
34:39 sun was Rising there was a red sky and
34:43 my grandma’s voice comes in my ear red
34:45 sky in the morning sailor
34:48 warning if that had been two years ago
34:51 my brain would have G went straight to
34:54 barometric pressure there’s weather
34:56 coming oh my goodness I would have gone
34:59 straight instead today I was like boy we
35:01 could use the rain and it didn’t
35:04 actually we were supposed to get rain
35:05 today uh so I’ve just completely changed
35:10 the way I view my world I think about am
35:14 I sending a danger signal am I sending
35:16 fear signals signals now if I sleep too
35:19 little I’ll just think I’ll have a nap
35:22 or I’ll get to bed earlier I don’t tend
35:26 to stress about it
35:28 word choices as my brain is always
35:32 listening I think of Sensations or
35:34 discomfort instead of pain episodes
35:37 instead of attacks because I no longer
35:39 believe my brain is attacking me it’s
35:42 protecting me any words that put me at
35:44 war or in battle with my body brain and
35:47 mind I don’t see as helpful and they no
35:49 longer make sense I also don’t use
35:52 migraine most of the time in my thoughts
35:55 as well because it has been such a
35:57 Negative EXP experience for me I now
35:59 just view myself as having a highly
36:01 sensitive
36:02 brain with patience time and
36:05 consistency I have changed that language
36:09 and I’ve changed those conversations
36:11 that were going on in the little
36:14 recesses in my mind and the migraine
36:16 symptoms
36:18 decreased I change now how I frame my
36:20 choices I look at my world in terms of
36:22 healthy choices versus doing it or not
36:25 doing it to PR migraine attacks complete
36:29 change in how I frame things I recognize
36:33 recognizing warning signs is also really
36:36 important our world is full of danger
36:39 signals so I had to make some choices to
36:42 reduce the ones that I could I’ve
36:45 reduced how much I read the news I’ve
36:47 reduced time on social media I’ve
36:50 reduced screen time I don’t watch movies
36:53 with suspense mu music I can I can watch
36:56 them with a music off but there’s
36:58 something about that music that I cannot
37:00 do these are danger signals and we each
37:03 have our own they’re going to be unique
37:04 for everybody and it takes a little bit
37:06 of detective work to figure out what
37:07 they are I have a couple wearables like
37:10 an Apple Watch and it has Health Data
37:13 and apparently I cook and I vacuum like
37:16 I’m training for an Olympic event uh my
37:20 phone will say are you running and nope
37:23 cutting veggies so clearly I do have
37:26 more work to do in this this area I need
37:28 to pay attention to this heart rate that
37:30 is going up and I don’t need to I need
37:33 to do a bit more breathing and relaxing
37:35 when I’m vacuuming and cutting veggies
37:38 unless I guess I want it to be my
37:40 workout time being more aware of it I
37:43 guess is my point with migraine uh
37:45 symptoms noise quieter I can notice my
37:49 signs and symptoms that my nervous
37:51 system is excited so now I pay attention
37:54 my signs are I get kind of a vibrating
37:56 thing in my head a bit of low grade head
37:58 pain my eyes might ache I talk and I
38:02 move fast I get really hyper that’s when
38:05 my family can notice and then I get the
38:08 inverse I can yawn I might get brain fog
38:11 and fatigue but they are all signs that
38:14 my nervous system is disregulated at
38:17 that time now I accept it I even say
38:20 thanks for the warning and if I can I
38:23 will stop or pause and take a break if I
38:27 can
38:28 I slow down I remind my brain that I am
38:31 safe and that I will take a pause or a
38:33 break soon I try really hard to avoid
38:37 pushing through as the warning signal
38:39 will just keep getting bigger if I reach
38:43 that crucial point of no return I will
38:45 have an
38:47 episode this
38:49 January um or the one the one episode
38:52 that I had um in
38:55 January um my brain gave me a lot of
38:58 warnings it gave me head pain brain fog
39:03 we were traveling at the time and it had
39:05 been a big day and we’d been lost and we
39:08 hadn’t eaten and we hadn’t had anything
39:10 to drink in a while so you know my
39:12 body’s probably getting a little cranky
39:14 with me but the spark was when we sat
39:17 down to sit with some people um while we
39:20 were waiting to get our hotel room she
39:23 shared a story about being carjacked and
39:26 it was so vivid my brain I could I could
39:29 visualize it so well that it hit me with
39:34 an instant attack instant I instant
39:37 full-on head pain I had to go straight
39:39 up to my room and I was down for two
39:41 days and it was from that story the
39:44 danger signals that my brain picked up
39:47 from that story was enough to give me a
39:50 full-blown
39:52 attack interesting just so interesting
39:55 now I pull back instead of pushing
39:57 through before I was at war with migrain
39:59 and determined to win guilt shame anger
40:02 at symptoms I would just take meds push
40:05 through so the alarm got louder and in
40:08 inevitably I would have an episode and
40:11 as mine were often 3 to four days I’d be
40:13 out for an extended
40:16 period I believe the time I spent with
40:19 an attack was far greater than the time
40:22 that I needed to calm my system had I
40:25 known and understood what I understood
40:28 Now understand now and that my brain
40:31 thought it was in danger
40:35 everything um is in
40:38 hindsight and I’m sorry everything at
40:42 that time was a must do I must do this I
40:46 must do that and in
40:48 hindsight I think a lot of them maybe
40:51 were want to do that I turned into must
40:54 do I hope that makes sense but I was
40:56 putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on
40:58 myself when I probably just needed to
41:01 pull back regulating strategies so these
41:04 are again very individual and I had to
41:07 trial and error uh to figure out my
41:09 things so you need to either calm or
41:11 elevate your nervous system and that
41:14 depends on need and and
41:15 individuals for me I’m a cold shower and
41:19 cold plunge girl been into the the lake
41:21 this week warm bass might be better for
41:24 some uh frequent pauses short breaks or
41:28 longer when needed without guilt we have
41:31 to stop guilting ourselves for doing
41:34 what our bodies need us to do a friend
41:37 of mine I was actually just uh chatting
41:38 with her today a friend in Chicago said
41:40 that giving herself permission
41:44 guilt-free to take a rest or a pause has
41:47 made an unbelievable difference in her
41:49 life she just got back from she went to
41:52 Las Vegas she just finished another trip
41:54 she’s going on a big bike trip in Europe
41:57 all things that she was dreading but she
41:59 said now I will just take a break I
42:02 won’t apologize I’ll just tell my
42:04 friends hey I need to take a little
42:05 break and she said I never would have
42:07 done that before and it has been
42:09 lifechanging for
42:11 her reading walks vigorous exercise for
42:15 some for me I need to hang upside down I
42:18 love that one a time with my critters
42:20 time with friends I love finding
42:23 Creative
42:25 Solutions I love putting no up for
42:28 myself reminding me to do things I had
42:31 pictures of the brain and I would um
42:34 color it blue to change the color from
42:37 red to blue be
42:39 creative visualize I did that because I
42:42 don’t visualize so well but visualizing
42:44 is great breath work meditation and yoga
42:47 Yep they’re great breathing strategies
42:50 you can use ones to calm and ones to
42:53 energize whm Hof is great for energizing
42:56 but calming breast throughout the day it
42:58 doesn’t have to be an episode it can
43:00 just be you know two or three toilet
43:02 breaks I always do a little bit of extra
43:05 deep breathing when I have a toilet
43:07 break breathing is the only part of the
43:10 autonomic nervous system we can
43:12 consciously
43:14 control you’re going to breathe without
43:17 thinking about it but you can think
43:18 about it and control it it is a powerful
43:21 Tool uh I want to recommend insight
43:24 timer it is the only it was re to
43:27 recommended by a friend and it has a
43:30 vast array of meditation practices and
43:33 mini courses I do just working on
43:36 several mini courses right now they’re
43:38 great it is the only one that I’ve
43:41 actually splurged and
43:43 bought I understand that I am retired
43:45 and I have a lot of time for this I know
43:48 it’d be a lot harder to justify um if I
43:50 was working full-time or raising or
43:52 having kids or other responsibilities I
43:54 am very busy but I was busier before but
43:57 I think I really do believe I would have
44:00 had more time if I’d been trying some of
44:02 these
44:03 strategies okay we’re getting pretty
44:05 late here so yeah so I’m going to move
44:10 on um reintroduce things gradually I’ve
44:15 been slowly reintroducing great exposure
44:18 it’s called means gradually bringing
44:20 activities back in some believe you can
44:23 just jump back into everything but that
44:24 didn’t work it for me I just brought it
44:26 in very
44:28 slowly diagnosis if you buy that book
44:31 you go online you’ll find there’s
44:33 certain things that seem to look or or
44:37 seem to indicate that you have
44:39 neuroplastic pain your chronic pain is
44:41 neuroplastic pain meaning it does not
44:44 have um disease or injury as the cause
44:48 of it it doesn’t have a definitive
44:50 diagnosis it has Clues but the
44:52 strategies can be helpful to anyone it
44:55 even helped me when I broke my my wrist
44:57 and there was injury it really helped me
45:00 deal with the
45:01 pain I have had migraine for 32 years
45:05 pain had a very very well-worn path for
45:09 me and I am enjoying incredible changes
45:14 so what I’m saying with that is it will
45:17 take
45:18 time I have several friends that are
45:22 experiencing amazing changes by trying
45:24 brain retraining and there are it is
45:27 exploding experiencing and learning
45:30 about brain retraining has completely
45:33 changed how I perceive my brain and body
45:36 and how I relate to my symptoms and my
45:38 hyp sensitive easily excited wonderful
45:42 brain this is just a little introduction
45:45 to a very big topic it is exploding now
45:49 if you have if you Google brain re
45:51 trining you are going to see there is a
45:52 multitude of practitioners programs
45:55 sites um I don’t believe you need to
45:58 spend a lot of money to see some success
46:00 with this but it does take
46:03 commitment uh to see some
46:06 changes and I think I just I do have
46:09 some slides here with some
46:12 resources um I think those are going to
46:14 be posted if there is enough interest um
46:18 I do have a little website which I don’t
46:20 tend to do much on um but I would be
46:23 happy to put my teaching skills back to
46:25 work and create a mini brain retraining
46:28 starting course if people were
46:30 interested in one if you’re interested
46:32 please send me an email and likewise if
46:35 there are specific topics of interest
46:37 that I can share let me know and I will
46:39 do the research and add it to my
46:42 blog so here are some of the programs a
46:45 Gupta has a free 28 a 28 day free trial
46:49 lyel used to do used to be for anybody
46:52 in the world but uh they aren’t anymore
46:54 but they do have excellent resources and
46:56 a new podcast curable Health which has
46:59 the app and programs pain processing
47:03 therapy is uh reprocessing that should
47:05 be pain repr processing therapy there’s
47:08 some practitioners in Canada um I found
47:10 it really expensive it’s like $220 a
47:13 session but maybe if you’re covered by
47:15 private healthc care I think some of the
47:17 programs might be better there are some
47:19 out there that are really expensive
47:22 they’re not worth it there are so many
47:25 reputable ones that are affordable
47:27 prices and that is it I hope I hope uh
47:33 it has at least intrigued you to
47:35 consider brain
47:38 retraining that’s it are you there
47:41 kayy I am thank you sorry just had to
47:45 find my mouse just unmuting everyone I
47:48 hope you weren’t um scrambling to jot
47:51 down uh Kelly’s
47:52 recommended resources we will include
47:55 them in our post webinar email so you’ll
47:57 have that all in your
47:59 inbox and before we move to our Q&A we
48:05 do have several questions submitted um
48:08 that I’ll be posing to Kelly again put
48:10 any questions in the Q&A um but before
48:13 we get to the Q&A um we hope that you
48:16 found this webinar and this entire Mind
48:18 Body Connection series um
48:21 informative um valuable uh we’re really
48:26 as I said said before impressed with the
48:28 the number of people who registered and
48:30 joined um who are just open to learning
48:33 about this new
48:35 experience um and should you be
48:36 interested in donating to migrant Canada
48:40 I am just I was and then I lost the chat
48:44 I was including a link in the chat which
48:46 I’ll include again in a few moments ww.
48:50 migrant can.org or you can just visit
48:54 our website as well as a nonprofit
48:57 charity all money that is donated go
49:00 directly back into our programs such as
49:03 these webinars so we hope that you would
49:05 consider donating and with that I am
49:08 going to start with the questions Kelly
49:13 um so the first one I thought we should
49:16 start with this it’s a comment not a
49:19 question um from someone I’ve been using
49:21 Kelly’s sematic tracking exercise daily
49:24 for almost two months and it has been
49:26 very helpful thank you oh that’s so nice
49:29 that’s
49:31 awesome that’s really really wonderful
49:33 to hear it’s good feedback all right
49:36 next real question I have been attending
49:39 physiotherapy for another issue there
49:43 we’re taught or trained to Exhale engage
49:47 then inhale relax and that’s the
49:50 opposite of what you said is there a
49:53 time for both seems there should be only
49:56 one one if we are retraining our
49:59 brains well that’s a great question and
50:03 I mean I’m I have done a lot of
50:05 breathing courses and I will do more
50:07 there are there is a multitude of
50:10 breathing techniques so if that one is
50:12 specifically designed for helping with
50:15 healing with something it might be it
50:18 may be very specific to that but I’m
50:21 just talking about like when I finish
50:23 here I’m going to go upstairs and I will
50:25 do some gentle inhales and some long
50:29 exhales because long exhales tell your
50:32 body you’re in relaxed mode um there’s
50:35 one called the psychological sigh which
50:37 is a you do it one normal inhale and you
50:41 top it up with a little bit extra and
50:43 then a long exhale so there there’s so
50:46 many yeah I can’t speak specifically to
50:50 it okay I do recommend though this book
50:54 by James Nester brilliant brilant Brant
50:57 book we’ll make sure that that’s
50:59 included in the post webinar yeah and
51:01 take a deep breath is my favorite one on
51:03 YouTube he has a lot of really really
51:06 fun stuff and interesting F it’s called
51:08 take take a deep breath I need
51:12 to um we had somebody um let us know
51:15 that they’re currently reading the brain
51:17 that changes Itself by Norman do oh
51:21 that’s a Canadian author yes um and then
51:25 um this person is thoroughly enjoying
51:27 the book and ask if you have any
51:30 recommendations um for other books on
51:32 the science behind brain plasticity so
51:36 yeah it um the way out is a really great
51:40 one to start just because it has so many
51:42 stories you can relate to and it will it
51:46 has a checklist of neuroplastic pain
51:48 that you can see to because neuroplastic
51:50 pain can’t be diagnosed but it’s things
51:53 like do your do your symptoms move mind
51:56 do this eye that eye here my back it’s
51:59 moving all over um is it brought on by
52:02 stress so there’s a list of things
52:04 actually I have it right here pain
52:06 started out of nowhere uh pain symptoms
52:09 are
52:10 inconsistent delayed pain then there’s
52:14 some possible personality traits I don’t
52:16 know what I think about that part but
52:18 anyway I just went ahead and gave it a
52:20 go and it worked for me and I explain
52:23 pain is is the book that is much more
52:25 scientific
52:27 and the research the research is
52:31 unbelievable what is happening right now
52:33 there is an extensive amount of research
52:36 like just in this one if this book is
52:39 really expensive but even in the way out
52:42 there’s an extensive amount of um
52:45 research articles and then you just
52:47 start putting in the words and it will
52:49 bring up all of the new research that’s
52:52 going on you can spend a lot of time
52:55 just going through the research it’s
52:58 incredible okay thank you um another
53:02 comment my favorite part in the sematic
53:05 exercise is when Kelly says you are
53:09 safe yeah I say that to myself all day
53:14 long just when I can feel those little
53:16 bubbling up it’s starting you’re safe
53:19 it’s just your brain brain we’re good
53:23 thank you got the message like I talk to
53:25 my brain all day long
53:30 um Kelly what about we talked about
53:32 brain retraining for pain so what about
53:35 other non-pain migraine symptoms such as
53:38 oh yeah vestibular symptoms fatigue
53:40 swelling eyelids yeah I use it for
53:43 everything I I I don’t discriminate pain
53:47 is is it’s pain is the one that seems to
53:49 knock us out um but once I dug through
53:52 the pain then I had all these other
53:55 symptoms and um yeah
53:58 absolutely pain is kind of easier to
54:01 zero in on but um uh we can see my
54:05 cheeks are going red right now I get
54:06 this this like nerve sensation so when
54:09 I’m done here I’ll go up and I’ll lay
54:11 down for 10 15 minutes and just you know
54:15 do some sematic tracking on that area to
54:17 calm things down I do it on my neck um
54:21 and that’s more like a bit of a nerve
54:23 pain um yeah I I don’t think you can go
54:28 wrong by trying it on
54:31 anything oh what what do you think about
54:35 during the the tracking with closed eyes
54:38 and
54:39 breathing um what’s your advice about
54:42 softly touching or rubbing the spot that
54:45 you’re focused on oh that’s really
54:48 interesting because um I don’t know
54:51 about rubbing but I I do something like
54:54 this sometimes because
54:56 what I can do and I don’t necessarily do
54:59 it when I’m actually in the middle of
55:01 somatic tracking but my sessions are
55:03 very short but if I lose touch of what
55:06 the sensation is so I’ve got a little
55:09 bit of something starting here I will
55:11 push somewhere else and say that’s what
55:13 pressure feels like and it will remind
55:17 me that that’s exactly what this feels
55:19 like this is pressure and so this one
55:23 because it’s been there so long starts I
55:25 my brain says it’s it’s pain but it’s
55:28 pressure because I can relate it to
55:29 something else but I do also sometimes
55:33 just do
55:34 softly uh touching an area to help bring
55:37 my my brain to it and to change the
55:40 sensation but I kind of do it at a
55:42 different
55:44 time okay thank you um someone else has
55:48 asked is the intention of these
55:50 regulating practices to prevent a full
55:53 migraine reaction once you’ve recognized
55:56 the warning signs or is it to reduce the
55:59 intensity of the overall symptoms all of
56:02 the above my symptoms so even if I do
56:07 have a migraine episode and I don’t get
56:09 them so often now if one manages to
56:13 break through I I will um continue to
56:18 use it until it gets bad but my symptoms
56:21 now are less intensity and less frequent
56:26 I I’m always trying to find them
56:29 now in the very early stages and that’s
56:33 what happened is once I realized all
56:35 this background talk was going on as I
56:37 said the
56:39 noise the noise went away and I could
56:42 start feeling things that were hidden in
56:46 this more intense pain it was kind of
56:48 like pulling back the layers I feel like
56:51 I’ve gone back 30 years and this is
56:53 probably what I started with um yeah I
56:56 don’t know did I answer that
56:59 question think
57:01 so um I don’t know if you would know
57:05 this what percentage of migraine
57:08 patients does this apply to um what if a
57:11 symptoms person symptoms are generated
57:14 by an actual physical cause within the
57:17 brain and nervous
57:19 system um
57:22 so what what the logic is behind behind
57:26 this and the Sciences behind it is if
57:28 you’ve had an injury and that injury has
57:31 healed there’s been time for the injury
57:34 to heal there’s a really good chance
57:37 that neuroplastic pain is playing a part
57:39 in it so there’s some things um with
57:43 certain like um Rheumatic uh rheumatoid
57:46 arthritis and things that it doesn’t
57:49 relate to but many things if the injury
57:51 is healed so mine may have been from
57:53 bunge jumping in in a car accident it
57:55 was also a really stressful Year my mom
57:58 died I moved to another country I had
58:00 all of this stuff happening and I think
58:02 my brain just went um but the neck pain
58:06 has stayed and I am still working on it
58:10 because I believe it is sensitized and I
58:14 but I didn’t I didn’t I believe there
58:16 was something wrong with my neck because
58:18 I do have a diagnosis of arthritis in my
58:21 neck
58:23 but 60 70% of my age group have
58:27 arthritis in their neck and many feel no
58:30 pain so I’m not buying it anymore I
58:33 think it’s it’s neuroplastic so it’s
58:36 it’s worth getting the book and taking a
58:38 read but I think I like I said I even
58:41 used it on my broken wrist here’s a
58:43 great one my daughter closed her fingers
58:46 in the garage door we’ve been talking
58:48 about this neuroplastic pain but I’ve
58:49 been talking about strategies to deal
58:51 with pain she closed her fingers in the
58:54 garage door and she had to hurry get
58:56 somewhere and she went I don’t have time
58:57 for this she said the pain just went
58:59 away so it came back later so do I think
59:03 you can use it anywhere I really do I
59:05 think you can use it a lot of times but
59:09 the big idea is to calm our nervous
59:13 system and help our brains to
59:19 desensitize and to be less Vigilant so
59:22 stop feeding the the vigilance stop
59:25 feeding the sensitivity calm yourself
59:28 down and allow all of it to start
59:32 feeling
59:33 safer I think that’s yeah thank you
59:37 Kelly um somebody else has asked can we
59:41 start some kind of support group for
59:43 people with migraine who are working on
59:45 brain
59:46 retraining I’d love to do that through
59:48 we could do it through my website or I
59:51 mean I could set up a Facebook page or
59:53 if somebody wants to set something up
59:56 I’ll moderate it I don’t see I did I set
59:59 up this great little website thankfully
01:00:01 my daughter helped me but I haven’t been
01:00:03 really great at adding it because I
01:00:05 don’t know what people want and I kind
01:00:08 of feel like I’m out there in the dark
01:00:10 and I’m doing all of this I’m I’m not
01:00:12 doing it at any cost but I would love to
01:00:15 see that I think people chatting to each
01:00:18 other about this and supporting each
01:00:20 other is a fantastic idea I’m on side
01:00:24 and I would help in any way I can
01:00:26 in our post weinar um email that we have
01:00:30 the recording and the list of all the
01:00:31 resources that Kelly has referred to
01:00:33 tonight we’re also going to include a
01:00:35 link um for a survey for any feedback um
01:00:39 and maybe we can include a question in
01:00:42 the survey if you’d be interested and
01:00:45 then they can provide their contact
01:00:48 information all right next question
01:00:51 Kelly do you know of any resources
01:00:52 available in
01:00:54 French great question
01:00:57 question I
01:00:59 don’t I
01:01:01 don’t I don’t speak
01:01:03 French um but I wouldn’t be surprised
01:01:08 there’s great research going on France
01:01:10 is really on top of a lot of this stuff
01:01:13 um sorry I don’t know that and I do have
01:01:16 an email address uh will you be sharing
01:01:19 the email address as well
01:01:21 kayy if you’d like it included in the
01:01:24 post webinar email we can as well as my
01:01:27 website my website has my email on it
01:01:29 and so if people you know we want to
01:01:31 work together to figure out how to do
01:01:33 something with that support group I’m
01:01:34 I’m on board
01:01:37 okay um what do you recommend is the
01:01:40 most affordable and effective way to
01:01:43 learn brain retraining you’ve already
01:01:45 mentioned some apps and products can be
01:01:48 expensive here start here I really like
01:01:51 I had spent a year I’m reading
01:01:54 everything I could get my hands on and
01:01:57 this kind of brought me to okay I’m
01:02:00 ready to give this a go and I feel like
01:02:03 this is so much faster what’s
01:02:05 interesting is I listened to him on a
01:02:07 podcast and uh at that particular time
01:02:10 his symptoms had come back so he was
01:02:12 he’s gotten into this because he’s had
01:02:15 he’s had them all he has got this list
01:02:17 of every symptom he has had it’s been
01:02:19 his legs his knees his neck his um and
01:02:22 he was back in trouble and he was trying
01:02:25 to work on his own brain I think what
01:02:27 happened is he got so popular because of
01:02:30 this book that he became overwhelmed and
01:02:34 then those danger and fear mechanisms
01:02:36 kicked in um but that is where if it was
01:02:40 me I would start curable I think for
01:02:43 some people is great it just didn’t
01:02:45 resonate for for with
01:02:50 me what other resources um I would say
01:02:54 YouTube there’s some really great
01:02:57 interesting uh webinars Laura Mosley has
01:03:01 some really interesting ones and you’re
01:03:02 going to get one for there’s a little
01:03:05 video series it’s six videos called what
01:03:07 is pain and it’s a really really good
01:03:11 Kickstarter as
01:03:14 well oh there we go somebody said Alan
01:03:17 Gordon has a podcast called tell me
01:03:18 about your pain there you go um the L
01:03:21 the young lady who’s got the curable app
01:03:23 also has a podcast so there’s
01:03:27 there is all kinds of resources out
01:03:29 there the thing is you just have to
01:03:31 start putting the time in and make it
01:03:34 consistent that’s the trick it’s got to
01:03:36 be consistent so you can’t you when
01:03:40 those little thoughts sneak in that are
01:03:42 really negative you got to challenge
01:03:44 them you’ve got to say nope nope that’s
01:03:47 nope my brain is just protecting me when
01:03:50 you feel the symptoms you got to back it
01:03:52 off for a minute and breathe for a
01:03:54 second or do I mean for me I’d pop in
01:03:56 and have a cold shower you got to find
01:03:59 your calming strategies and then you’ve
01:04:01 got to use
01:04:04 them um what do you think about the next
01:04:07 question Kelly um how do we apply brain
01:04:10 retraining strategies as a preventive
01:04:12 measure without developing an obsession
01:04:15 or creating just another type of
01:04:19 hypervigilance yeah absolutely um so I I
01:04:23 talked about so like if I go out for
01:04:25 dinner I’ll eat what I want to eat now
01:04:28 and the so what you’re saying is looking
01:04:30 for these little thoughts um you’ll
01:04:33 start feeling them you will start
01:04:34 because as I said they were kind of
01:04:36 background noise for me but once I
01:04:38 started looking I would see them and so
01:04:41 a pop would thought up and I’d go my
01:04:43 brain would say storm clouds and I’d go
01:04:45 yep storm clouds cool millions of people
01:04:47 around they have storm clouds we’re all
01:04:48 good and so it it wasn’t like an
01:04:50 argument or it wasn’t telling it was
01:04:52 just really gentle and um just if they
01:04:56 come up and they just you start you
01:04:59 start hearing them they will just come
01:05:01 to you because you’re now paying
01:05:04 attention and that is the difference
01:05:06 before I was pushing them away oh shut
01:05:09 up I can’t haven’t got time for this
01:05:12 whereas now I’m like I want to hear it
01:05:14 I’m listening okay I got the message I’m
01:05:16 going to calm down yeah yeah that that’s
01:05:19 fine so I had a bit of peanut butter I’m
01:05:22 fine that make sense
01:05:26 thank you okay so it’s getting pretty
01:05:29 late I’m
01:05:29 gonna um there’s somebody who says they
01:05:32 have the curable app and really enjoy it
01:05:34 and I used it um two and a half years
01:05:36 ago so I’m thinking it has probably
01:05:38 changed a lot since then so yeah there
01:05:42 you go and there’s a like like mind like
01:05:45 body podcast fantastic I love these
01:05:49 things okay um from another uh attendee
01:05:53 I often have moments of
01:05:54 depersonalization
01:05:56 when my migraine symptoms become very
01:05:58 prominent despite believing I’m quite
01:06:00 attuned to my symptoms and Body
01:06:02 Sensations and feel I’m quite able at
01:06:04 reassuring my brain that it’s safe and
01:06:06 we are not in danger the symptoms are
01:06:08 temporary however it still happens a lot
01:06:11 how long did it take you to notice a
01:06:13 significant decrease in the number of
01:06:15 migraine symptoms and would having
01:06:17 professional assistance be useful in my
01:06:20 case of chronic daily
01:06:22 migraine I would say if there has been
01:06:25 in um Adverse Events especially in
01:06:29 childhood that maybe haven’t been deal
01:06:31 dealt with that is a seems to be a
01:06:34 really common one that you hear at my
01:06:36 green World Summit coming up often or if
01:06:38 there’s there’s things
01:06:40 that yeah find a professional if you
01:06:43 think that’s possible it I started when
01:06:46 I started seeing when I did some sematic
01:06:48 tracking I then was like okay I think
01:06:51 I’m on to something for me and it was a
01:06:54 couple months later before before I
01:06:55 started noticing the thought stuff so
01:06:57 then I started working on it and as I
01:07:00 said it’s been 2 years and 3 months but
01:07:03 it was gradual and then I would have a
01:07:05 month where I wasn’t getting attacks but
01:07:08 I was getting The Chronic symptoms a lot
01:07:11 so just a a lowgrade headache that was
01:07:14 quite annoying or my jaw would ache or
01:07:16 these things so it was a roller coaster
01:07:18 ride um that has taken time and
01:07:22 everyone’s experience is going to be
01:07:24 different but I would never say no to
01:07:27 getting professional help or doing one
01:07:29 of the programs the goop to program is
01:07:32 is
01:07:33 30 50 oh it’s 28 days for free right
01:07:37 now that might be worth trying it’s a
01:07:39 good program it’s very consistent I like
01:07:42 things that change up a bit it’s a
01:07:44 consistent one but it’s uh I believe
01:07:45 it’s free right now for 28 days that’s
01:07:49 pretty
01:07:50 good well thank you Kelly um I’m just
01:07:55 going to put share my
01:07:59 screen um your present there’s so much
01:08:02 information in your presentation we’ve
01:08:04 had a lot of uh positive feedback in the
01:08:07 chat and people really enjoyed hearing
01:08:10 your personal story and understand it
01:08:12 this was your journey and it’s it’s
01:08:15 inspiring that you found relief through
01:08:19 this path um so thank you very much and
01:08:22 thank you everyone else for registering
01:08:24 for tonight
01:08:25 session uh just a reminder that um you
01:08:29 can go to our events page all of our Q2
01:08:31 webinars have been posted we have four
01:08:34 webinars in the next three months um
01:08:37 again please consider donating to
01:08:39 migraine Canada to support our programs
01:08:42 if you find this information valuable
01:08:44 and you can follow us on Facebook
01:08:47 Instagram Twitter @ Migra Canada join
01:08:50 our community I’m sure most of the
01:08:52 people attending tonight are already
01:08:54 members and they receive our
01:08:56 eblast and for any Healthcare
01:08:59 professionals email us at info@ Migra
01:09:02 can.org to request a participation
01:09:06 certificate and that’s it for tonight
01:09:09 everybody uh we went a little bit over
01:09:11 but uh we can see most of you were able
01:09:14 to keep with us for the entire
01:09:16 presentation
01:09:18 tonight thank you very much everybody
01:09:21 for showing up it’s great to hear that
01:09:24 uh this is this is
01:09:26 spreading excellent have a good night
01:09:29 everybody thanks
01:09:32 [Music]