Do you function to your best potential?
The value of having your brain and nervous system wired to its full potential.
By Veronica van Nierop B.Sc; D.C; N.E.T; A.R.T; Berard A.I.T.
The Ferrari is a symbol of high performance and elegant efficiency. By elegant I don't mean pretty and sleek, although they are that, I mean the elegance that comes with minimal effort and maximum efficiency. In human performance terms this means that getting results in life is easy and natural. In this article, let's look at how integrating your nervous system (having your brain and nervous system process efficiently) gives you this 'Ferrari Factor'
How do each one of us 'know' what the world is like. Imagine our inside world, the who we are deep down, that confidence that comes form knowing that we are more than just OK in the world, that we are in fact having fun with life and achieving our goals and desires. We understand the world and work well in it. This is the Ferrari Factor.
I will liken this internal world to the cockpit of a Ferrari formulae one racing car, sitting close to the ground, enclosed in the cocoon of the cockpit; In this cockpit the only way you can get a picture of what is out there is via the instruments you have on dashboard. The quality and range of these instruments and how well they are functioning will determine how correctly you will navigate the racetrack. The efficiency and sophistication of your instruments and steering are a major part of your racing success experience. Your understanding of the racetrack, and your safety and success on it are completely down to your transmitting equipment and your responses to it. These instruments are your senses, your hearing, sight, touch, taste, and balance.
Now, let's liken the outside race course to the world we inhabit. It is that racecourse that our cars' equipment constantly monitors, gathers information on and feeds to us in data you can understand, so that you can make good decisions and so successfully achieve our racing goals and journey (life).
If our equipment is not working well; has crossed wires, is wired to the wrong decoder, maybe only able to process 40% of incoming information before it gets overloaded, or poorly transmitting wiring, I think that we would agree, that our chances of success are greatly diminished.
Analogy complete.
This is how we all make our way through life. Our inner perception; the Ferrari cockpit from which we view the world, can only make decisions about our course in life, the risks we face, and the creative and innovative strategies we use to negotiate obstacles, by the quality or our nervous system and brains' ability to process the incoming information through our senses (our human interface with the world outside).
The more of our bandwidth we have available to us and the more efficiently it is organised, for receiving and processing, the more clearly and focused our mind is, and the more naturally we exercise the resilience we need to go the distance.
From early life in utero, and as life continues, we go through our developmental milestones, each of which brings with it physical developments, like learning to walk, as well as emotional milestones, like learning to trust and bond or to develop independence. We also have intellectual milestones such as reading, writting, and developing insight and abstract thought.
If the major factors like our genes, environment, nutrition, positive human engagement are not optimal, the process can be hindered and not come to full completion. This leaves a legacy of mixed results and incomplete information. In other words our internal view of the world becomes incomplete or unclear, and our ability to understand and act are diminished as we experience difficulty in processing and responding to our full advantage.
Sensory integration, is a process which helps the neural pathways from the individual senses, connect from their starting point at the sensory organ (nose, eyes, ears, skin, body, tongue) to the decoding centres of the brains cortex in a more robust and efficient way. Strengthening neural pathways is like building a trickle into a river by having more and more stimulus course along the pathway. This means that the individual can now use more of their neural 'bandwidth' to get a fuller and more detailed picture of the world around them and how to navigate it.
Children with sensory processing disorders grow up to be adults with sensory processing disorders. Usually they have learned over decades to limit their lives, due to those sensory processing disorders. Non of us want to think that we are destined to spend life living the limitations of the disorders that may be easily and markedly improved.
From the time I graduated from university, when neuroscience was in its infancy, my career has been about the maximising the way the nervous system and brain function. Initially I worked in the area of pain relief and as the field of neuroscience developed, thanks to leaps and bounds in technology and scientific method, it shifted to behavioural change, peak performance and fulfilment in life.
I have worked with people with genetic conditions, not to change there genetic makeup (we all know that without the brilliance of sciences' gene shearing and engineering, this cannot happen), but to maximise how what they have, can work as best as it possibly can. Having fuller function by not being so easily overwhelmed, or being able to think more clearly, can change someones' life and how they function and belong in the world.
I have also worked with elite athletes and business leaders, not on their sporting or business strategies or techniques, but on their mindset, and maximising how well they process the world around them, how they perceive their performances and how they come back from a difficult mind set, to victory. Any top athlete or business leader will tell you that at this level of performance, it is not about fitness or techniques as much as mindset and resilience.
I have worked with people with sensory processing disorders whose lives are taken up with just coping with the difficulties this presents. There is no room left for anything but coping from day to day. Having an improvement in functioning opens up a whole new and less stressed or limited world.
Sensory integration cannot change who you are, your genetic personality, what it does do is mature your system and develops emotional, physical and intellectual intelligence. As a result it greatly reduces your susceptibility to stress factors and your ability to bounce back on course to your goals. Our personalities show the best aspects of us because they are not functioning from a stress reaction of fight, flight and freeze mindset. An integrated brain and nervous system allows you to express the best possible you that there is, and live a life of fulling engagement and experiences that makes being human such a delight.
Best of all, because the brain is Neuro plastic - it can change it wiring up until we die. It is never too late to get an improvement. To come form a place of contentment knowing that you are the happiest person you know no matter what life brings.
So think how you would like to go through life, as an old V W or a Ferrari. Which would bring you most joy?
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