Can Add Be Cured? Clues From The Mind Body Connection
Posted on June 3, 2008 - Filed Under Education
Can ADD be cured? Recently my work in and around the nature of the minor physical rituals therapists call “stims” led me to some pretty interesting clues. And yes, in theory, ADD can be cured. However to see why I am making this admittedly provocative statement, we’ll have to look briefly at what may seem like an unrelated phenomena; stims. And at how the mind body connection explains these odd habits.
What are stims? “Self stimulations.” Things like mindlessly rubbing the back of your hands or playing with your finger rings. Or absently twirling strands of your hair or humming to yourself.
What makes us do these things? To be honest, like most things in human personality, they’re a bit of a mystery actually. Not so much “that” they happen. Many people self stim. Rather, “why” they happen.
Why do they happen? To see we’ll first have to digress a bit into what I see as a rather significant discovery; that there is an actual mechanism through which the mind and body interact. And no. I’m not merely referring to the obvious, that our minds and bodies do interact. I’m referring to that there is an actual mechanism by which this interaction occurs.
What is the mechanism? Our dualistic sense of time. The body’s sense of the speed at which life is passing versus the rate at which the mind senses life.
Not sure what I’m saying? Try this. Try imaging yourself as a world class ballerina dancing on stage. Now consider how your ability to dance would depend on how well you could keep your mind and body in sync.
In other words, what would happen to your ability to dance if your body’s sense of time were to fall even slightly behind your mind’s or visa versa, perhaps because you were thinking about where you should move next then moving your body, or perhaps because you were moving your body then critiquing how you had just moved?
In these two examples, you have the essence of ADD; the two ways we can lose our ability to focus. We also have a good way to see we have two senses of time, and how their being in sync affects our ability to focus, in effect, by experientially connecting the mind to the body and visa versa.
Not sure what I am getting at? I’m saying that we have each have two ways in which to sense time. One in our bodies. And one in our minds. Moreover, that in order to be able to be clear and focused, these two senses of time must be in sync.
Want to see this hypotheses in action? It’s easy. Just sit with someone and speak to this person while deliberately slowing down your words. Now ask this person how your slowing down affected his or her ability to focus on what you were saying.
What this shows is that we have two senses of time, moreover that as you slow down, people whose body clock normally runs ahead of their mind clock will be more able to focus on what you’re saying, whereas people whose mind clock runs normally ahead of their body clock will become less able to focus on what you’re saying.
Now try the alternate speed change. Try speaking faster than you normally speak. What you’ll find is that the faster you speak, the more Mind First people will feel clear and focused while at the same time causing Body First people to increasingly lose their ability to focus.
The interesting thing to see here is, these experiences parallel something very important. They parallel the symptoms of ADD. Moreover the only variable in all of this is the speed at which you speak.
Still not seeing the point? Try this. Ask someone to give you spoken directions while at the same time drawing you a map. Now watch
What this shows is two things. First, that the mind and body each have their own separate sense of time, words coming from the mind and drawing from the body. Second, that our ability to focus depends entirely on how well these two senses of time line up.
How often do our mind and body clocks run in sync? Actually, not often. Which accounts for how rarely we feel clear and focused.
At the same time, rarely do we sense ourselves as being out of sync. Why? Because most of the time, we are unaware of at least one of these two senses of time.
Unlike ballerinas, then, who must be aware of both senses of time lest they falter and fall on stage, people normally sense time in only one way, either through the mind or the body. This then amounts to that we each have a default sense of time, similar to our preference for right or left handedness.
Are you having a hard time seeing the significance here? If so, I can certainly understand. And at the risk of confusing you more, there are actually three, not two points, to be aware of here. One, that the mind and body each have their own sense of time; that we have a dualistic sense of time. Two, that we each have a preference for one of these two ways in which we can sense time; from the mind’s perspective, or from the body’s. And three, that it is built into us to want to be clear and focused, so as to experience things like the beauty and grace of dancing ballerinas.
Where do our two senses of time come from?
Start with that our central nervous system is in essence a vertical column of nerves, ranging from the top of our brain to the base of our spinal column. In addition, unlike what most of us have been taught about having one brain, we actually have two. Two literal physical brains, one in our heads, the other in our gut.
Not familiar with this idea? Try googling the work of Dr. Ron Gershon. His research actually proves we have two physiological brains; a brain in our head and a brain in our gut.
Sound crazy? To be honest, you’d have to read Dr. Gershon’s work to get the whole picture. But I mention this here mainly because of his work in and around neurotransmitters. You know, our brain’s physiological chemical messengers. And for those unfamiliar with them, allow me to remind of a few things.
Actually, all you need to know is that we have four primary neurotransmitters in our brains. Acetylcholine, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. And that ninety five percent of the one most associated with mood, serotonin, exists not in the brain in our head, but rather, in the brain in our gut. Ninety five percent! Which begs the question, if Prozac and the other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors currently being used to treat depression work mainly by altering serotonin levels, where is the Prozac working?
Where do our two senses of time come from then? From the physiological fact that the faster life comes at us, the higher up on this vertical column we try to sense it. Really fast, thoughts come first. Really slow; feelings come first.
Thus what I’m saying is, the speed at which we sense life is directly tied to the point on this vertical column at which we physically sense life. The higher on this column of nerves we sense life, the faster we sense time and the faster we process life. Conversely, the lower on this column we sense and respond to life, the slower we sense time and the slower we process life.
In addition, because we literally have two physiological brains, not just one, we have two literal senses of time. The mind’s sense and the body’s. And because we normally focus on only one of these two senses of life, we each have a default preference for the rate at which we sense life. Either we sense life first through the mind, as a Mind First person (someone who senses life primarily at about the brain / mouth level of this vertical column), or we sense life first through the body as a Body First person (someone who senses life primarily at about the diaphragm level of this vertical column).
How does this affect us in real life then?
Well if you are a Mind First person (someone who senses life first through the mind), then you will talk, read, think, eat, and communicate at a significantly faster pace than if you are a Body First person (someone who senses life first through the body). Moreover, rather than these preferences being either good or bad, right or wrong, they are simply a default we each have programmed into us similar to our tendency for handedness; either for right or left handedness.
Still not convinced? Try the test I mentioned earlier. Ask someone to simultaneously give you oral and written driving directions. Mind First people will tend to speak first then write, while Body First people will tend to write first then speak.
Even easier still, try the other test I mentioned, the one wherein you sit with someone and deliberately slow down the speed at which you speak to them. The slower you speak, the more Body First people will experience a comfort and clarity they rarely feel, while at the same time, making Mind First folks increasingly unable to focus.
What causes this to happen?
Mind First people literally become unable to process their thoughts when in the presence of too much physical stimulation. Thus listening to someone speak slowly causes Mind First people to experience higher than normal amounts of physical sensation. The physical sensation of sound. This increase in physical sensation then literally makes them go out of their mind and into their body. Why? Because the amount of body stimulation they experience quickly exceeds their capacity to process, causing them to become unable to process thought.
Want to see this happen for yourself? Here is another quick test. Ask a Mind First person to take a mouthful of water and hold it in his or her mouth. Now ask this person questions while he or she monitors his or her ability to think. What will you see? You will see the main cause of overeating. The idea that when Mind First people have food in their mouth, it interferes with their ability to think. Thus they swallow quickly in order to get rid of this interference.
What is happening here? In essence, these folks are intelligent people who, when they eat, experience eating from a Mind First perspective. Thus they experience the physical sensations present as a distraction to their ability to think. In fact, the better food tastes to them, the more they are distracted. Thus the tendency to feel urges to eat better tasting food in a hurry rather than to savor it.
The point here is, Mind First people experience the physical sensations of eating as distractions. And these distractions then interfere with their ability to think. Including their ability to mentally manage their eating.
The result? Mind First folks, more times than not, eat unconsciously and at a more than healthy pace. Moreover the source of these symptoms lies not in any psychological defect. Rather it lies entirely in the distracting imbalance created between the person’s normal mind body preference. In other words, eating food physically stimulates these folks in ways which interfere with their ability to think. This makes eating literally as distracting to a Mind First person as learning is to a Body First person.
In a way then, we could say that Mind First people have “body ADD,” in that physical sensations literally distract them, impairing their ability to think. And conversely, Body First people have “mind ADD,” in that thoughts literally distract them, impairing their ability to sense life physically.
What am I saying? I am saying that folks who get distracted while thinking, those once said to have ADD, are all Body First people who are trying to sense life through their body. Unfortunately our educational system is biased toward a Mind First world. Thus to them, mental stimulation acts as an unbalancing agent to their normal preference for sensing life through the body and interferes with their ability to learn.
Said in other words, thoughts interfere with the normally good physical focus of Body First people. Just as the physical sensations of eating food interfere with the normally good mental focus of Mind First folks. Hence the stereotypes for that athletes are physically adept but “slow mentally” while mental wizards are quick minded but physically inept.
Obviously all this would be meaningless were I to have no pragmatic results. And while it is far too early to offer wide ranging proofs (and at the risk of inciting a whirlwind of naysayer’s), what I can say is that I am well on my way to curing ADD in several adults. Two have almost reached the point at which it is all but completely gone. And yes. I said, curing.
As for how all this applies to physical rituals, it turns out stims are a natural human defense built into personality. Moreover, the nature of this defense is simply that it is our defense against living with the discomfort of feeling a significant imbalance between the speed at which we think and the speed at which we feel. Between our mind’s sense of life and our body’s sense of life.
In a sense then, with stims, we are using repetitive physical stimulation to bring our body’s sense of time more in line with our mind’s sense of time. And by making this stimulation repetitive, we quickly overcome the distractive qualities present in this physical stimulation and temporarily sped up our body’s sense of time while at the same time, slowing down our mind’s.
Finally, for anyone suffering from ADD, hopefully what I’ve said will provoke some healing possibilities for you.
Warmly,
Steven
[P.S. For articles on similar topics, click here]
Steven Paglierani is a writer, teacher, personality theorist, and therapist whose work on learning and human consciousness is read weekly by thousands all over the world. He is the author of Emergence Personality Theory, and his mission is to make the world better for children by restoring and deepening their love of learning.
He can be read or reached at his site, http://theEmergenceSite.com
Tags: Curing ADD, mind body connection, overeating, physical rituals, stims
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