Meditation and Memory: Cutting Edge Research

Can the cognitive side effects of cancer treatment be improved or lessened by daily meditation? This is the question we are attempting to answer by studying Kirtan Kriya, a kundalini yoga meditation, through the Brain ABC Study (Improving Brain Function after Breast Cancer) at the University of Texas School of Nursing.

Ashley Hennehgan, PhD, MSN, RN is the researcher leading the study as part of her valuable work studying survivorship after cancer.

I met Ashley when I participated in her prior study on chemobrain in breast cancer survivors several years ago. Dealing with “chemobrain” myself, I wanted to understand and contribute to the data being collected.

I helped her recruit more participants from my classes and groups and then asked if she’d be interested in studying a kundalini yoga meditation, Kirtan Kriya, that was found to reduce inflammation and improve memory.

Fast forward a few years and I’ve been collaborating with her on a PILOT study of the effects of Kirtan Kriya on the cognitive functioning of breast cancer survivors. The results are just beginning to come in and they are very interesting.

 

It’s funny how many full circle moments you experience with the privilege of getting older and emotionally navigating the cancer experience.

11 years ago, I was completing 12 months of chemotherapy and Herceptin. Perhaps the most devastating side effect of a difficult journey was how cognitively impaired I felt. My questions and concerns about chemobrain were dismissed.

I was told that chemotherapy did not cross the “blood/brain barrier” and that any cognitive symptoms must be due to depression or anxiety. I remember looking in the library at MD Anderson for anything I could find on chemobrain.  There was very little.

I was used to having a great memory. I could remember all the details of my client’s stories, plan and strategize my work, speak with confidence in workshops and yoga classes.

But after treatment, my ability to plan or prioritize was noticeably impaired, as was my short term memory. I would forget conversations I’d just had and could no longer remember people’s names or simple words.

Recently, a yoga class student shared her sorrow and fear about memory problems as she goes through chemotherapy. I told her that the cognitive challenges were among the most difficult part of treatment for me. While I have never gone back to how I was before cancer, my executive functioning and memory have improved tremendously over the years.

What’s more, I’ve learned to treat the challenges with patience instead of fear and alarm. Meditation certainly helps!

Stay tuned to learn more about our chemobrain research in upcoming months and for the possibility of an expanded PILOT program that will include survivors of many different cancers.

You can find information on the current study here:https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03696056

Are You Easily Shocked?

Learning that you or a loved one has cancer is a shock. Most survivors measure their lives as before and after cancer, often commemorating the day of diagnosis as their “cancerversary,” the day their lives changed forever.

The word cancer itself, until very recently, was whispered and avoided for the fear it could inspire.

People who were very ill were sometimes not even told their diagnosis for fear that

the truth would create unbearable emotional distress.

What does emotional shock look like? It can vary:

  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Memory lapses
  • Confusion
  • Feeling shut down or numb
  • Inability to function
  • Fear, anger, difficulty controlling emotions
  • Feelings of helplessness
  • Feeling outside of your body
  • Difficulty remaining in the present moment
  • Laughing, crying, screaming
  • Being in denial and moving along as though nothing has happened.
  • At a moment when you most need to be clearminded in order to make complicated decisions on treatment, you may feel foggy, overwhelmed or emotionally disregulated.

It’s a challenge, but this is the time to get grounded.

Getting grounded means taking measures to feel connected to your body, your breath and the present moment.

In a moment of overwhelm, here’s what I recommend for getting grounded:

  1. Rely on your community – start talking and sharing what you feel with safe people. Do not try to go it alone if you can connect with others. Get and give hugs and healthy touch (try a massage!).
  2. If you don’t have much social support at diagnosis, reach out immediately for support groups in person and online. Find spaces that are encouraging and uplifting at this point in the process.
  3. Do practices for connecting to your body and breath , and through your body to the earth and nature. Walking, running, swimming, meditation, yoga, connecting to pets or children.
  4. Check out this video for one guided practice:http://www.kellyinselmann.com/monday-morning-videos/move-the-body-balance-the-mind-warm-ups/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Art of Saying No

So you want to say no, but you don’t know how?

If you are unsure whether you should make others comfortable at your own expense, read last week’s post here http://www.kellyinselmann.com/monday-morning-videos/can-boundaries-improve-your-relationships/?fbclid=IwAR2H7X9QkWEv137hzdRV6AmBgPTQuIDU-ABZBLb5ozbGeFzydbukQ-4AC7Y

Many people don’t get early training in saying no or asserting yourself. That’s ok-but there’s no time like the present to start!

In the service of your health and emotional wellbeing, you must be willing to take the time and space you need to heal.

And that means being willing to choose to prioritize your peace of mind and energy and to reclaim your time. Giving yourself this permission can be the hardest part for some people.

Does this mean never help or be there for another person? Of course not!

But I will wager most of you are already well trained and adept in the art of putting others first.

Allow me to share a few of the phrases that make it easier for for me to protect my energy:

  • I’m so sorry to interrupt, but I’m going to have to hang up now. Talk to you later. Then hang up!
  • I really want to hear more about this, but I’m going to have to call you back (take a nap, get on to my next activity). Then move along.
  • I wish I could sign up, but I’m still healing/resting/receiving treatment.
  • I wish I could, but I can’t.
  • I’m not in a position to volunteer right now.
  • No thank you.
  • “No.” It can be a complete sentence!
  • I’d love to, but let me think about it. I’m still healing.
  • Do not raise your hand or sign your name if it’s not going to bring you JOY (or save an actual life).
  • Try to avoid giving long explanations that will tempt others to keep asking.

It’ s crucial to get used to the idea that you may not receive as much (or any!) praise and thanks for saying no.  Some people may even push back with annoyance or hurt.

But as you stop overcommitting, you are making space for joy, delight, and healing.  You are preparing for the moment that you can say YES and mean it.

It is your right and responsibility to keep setting limits on activities that drain your energy.

They may not thank you for saying no, but that’s OK!

Can Boundaries Improve Your Relationships?

Do you ever feel depleted by relationships that are draining? This can be a signal to notice whether you are maintaining healthy boundaries.

When you hear the word boundaries, what comes up for you?

Boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits about how you want to spend your energy and how you will allow others to treat you. They can be either explicitly stated or simply understood by the parties involved.

Healthy, appropriate boundaries create more safety and enjoyment for everyone in the relationship. Expectations are clear and the needs of both parties are more likely to be understood and met.

For example, Sandra had friend who was eager to “cheer her up” but her way of doing so felt intrusive. She called too much and seemed to want a lot of reassurance and attention from Sandra who was fatigued at the end of chemo. She acted hurt or offended if Sandra couldn’t connect with her as often as she wanted.

Boundaries can be tricky during the cancer experience. On the one hand, you may need assistance more than ever. For some, learning how to ask for help and be the recipient of assistance feels very vulnerable even with kind hearted people who could potentially be uplifting in your moment of need.

Sometimes, though, you may end up relying on people with whom you have a complicated relationship. You may even question whether the “assistance” is worth the interaction.

Part of taking care of yourself emotionally and physically is having healthy boundaries. You may not realize this, but there is no relationship or dynamic that you cannot stop and re-evaluate.

Another common challenge is Rebecca’s experience of family and friends wanting her to “get on with life” and “embrace the new normal” when she still needs time and space to heal, eboth physically or emotionally. You may not yet be ready for lots of social activities or to resume family or community responsibilities that aren’t urgent.

When thinking of which boundaries (and relationships) to maintain, I like the questions posed by yoga teacher Donna Farhi:

When attempting to determine what is a healthy boundary for yourself, feel in your body and ask these questions:

 

When I consider doing xyz, does this cause energetic discomfort or uncomfortable feelings to arise in my body?

 

When I consider not doing or allowing xyz, what feelings arise in my body?

 

Am I unable to assert my boundaries because my primary concern is about protecting, not hurting, or offending the other person?

 

When I honor how I feel in an unqualified way and imagine the outcome that would allow me to respect my boundaries, how do I feel in my body?

 

This week, experiment with noticing your own boundaries in relationships.

Where might an adjustment need to be made so that you feel freer energetically?

Stay tuned for next week’s post about strategies for speaking up!

 

Befriending Discomfort and Each Other

The cancer experience almost invariably brings discomfort. From initial diagnosis through treatment and after, physical and emotional discomfort can be a side effect.

I’ve been invited to present on my work at the International Yoga Therapy Conference and plan to share 3 healing elements from trauma psychology (which derived them from eastern mindfulness practices) to address working with discomfort. I teach these in every class and group to address side effects, anxiety and depression, and PTSD.

These Elements of Befriending Discomfort are:

Getting “Grounded”

Becoming the Observer.

Allowing Everything to Be (just as it is in this moment).

All of this is easier said than done. That’s why we need places to practice!

How can you learn these practices with me?

  1. Join the JoyBoots Community List and receive a free weekly Monday newsletter with meditations and inspiration for emotional recovery after cancer.
  2. Try the Tuesday online LIVE JoyBoots Sanctuary Community from the comfort of your own home.
  3. Attend the Wellness Warrior Yoga class on Wednesdays at noon at YogaYoga Westgate (open to women and men)
  4. Schedule an individual session with me at Cancer Rehab and Integrative Medicines. Office hours are Thursdays or online.kellyinselmanntherapy@gmail.com
  5. Get on the preregistration list for my 6 week online course, Healing Well: Reconnect with Your Life After Cancer which begins again in July.kellyinselmanntherapy@gmail.com

My groups and classes are lively and full of smart women who have made strong friendships and support one another as well as welcome newcomers. All programs are open to women who have experienced any type of cancer.

Befriending discomfort is an ongoing practice of bringing light and compassion to yourself and your human experience.  It’s also allowing others to connect with you, even through the pain.  Sharing the burden can mitigate the pain.

 

The Benefits of Interrupting

Is interrupting always rude? Raised in Texas to have good manners, I learned never to interrupt, to be a good listener and to make a lot of space for others.

But having survived cancer and hit the half century mark, I’m starting to think differently about interrupting.

Particularly when it’s in the service of my mental, physical and emotional health.

If you are like me, it’s easy to operate on automatic pilot, attending to the same tasks, driving to the same places, cooking the same meals, distracting yourself in the same ways, listening to the same people, even thinking the same thoughts.

Do you have any thoughts that are repeated over and over? How are they serving you?

Cancer and other difficult situations can shock you right out of your everyday illusions, waking you to appreciate what you have taken for granted, challenging you to deepen your awareness of the present moment.

Difficulties and tragedies awaken your ability to more clearly see the patterns in your life and make different choices.

What are the patterns to interrupt?  For example, our pattern of shallow breathing which reinforces anxiety, ruminating negative thoughts about the past or future, restricted range of movement, repressing emotions, making others comfortable at your own expense, isolating yourself,  and ignoring your own intuition.

I love to teach yoga and meditation, breathwork and mantra as tools that disrupt the status quo inside of you.

These practices create a space outside your normal pattern, even if for just a moment. It is in these moments that you begin to observe your patterns. By becoming the observer, over time, you are able to choose different habits of movement, thinking and breathing. And meanwhile you are experiencing moments of greater calm and openness.

These moments have a cumulative effect and over time can strengthen and stabilize your mind and energy.

You don’t have to only behave according to the cultural customs you learned. As long as you are alive, you can try new things if you can momentarily disrupt how things have always been.

Can I get a Witness?

When I was in the middle of chemo, I looked in the mirror with great curiosity. Sometimes shocked. Sometimes incredulous.

“This is me?”

No hair, no eyebrows, deep pain and fatigue. But also beauty, depth, surviving against the odds, making it through each day even when there was fear or suffering.

I hadn’t spent much time in front of the mirror before, barely wearing makeup, and not interested in the latest fashions. But now I did.

And I could see my soul.

I had no outer defenses. Sometimes I would cry at how changed I was on the outside. Deep lines had appeared out of nowhere and there were dark circles under my eyes.

But I also felt great empathy and love for this Self I was looking at. How amazing her life experience was and how hard she was trying.

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You go through cancer alone.

Even if you have supportive community around you, which I did, there are still many moments that you feel profound aloneness. Everyone else’s life is going on around you. But you are going through uncertainty, procedures, tests, waiting for results, blood draws, infusions, surgery, radiation, medications, hiding your fear and fatigue so you can still participate in parts of your life.

After treatment, when the “emergency” is over for everyone else, you move forward with side effects, both physical and emotional.

And if you are in ongoing treatment? My understanding is that your aloneness can become a companion.

You feel most alone when you feel marginalized. When you are trying to hide your anger, feelings of loss at “what was,” and fear of death, so as not to make others feel uncomfortable.

In my online Winter Sanctuary Series session, I shared that when trauma occurs, you feel fragmented.

Fragmentation happens when feelings get pushed aside in favor of survival. Parts of your experience are forgotten, the changes in your body create unfamiliar and unwelcome sensations. Your identity shifts as well as your sense of who you are.

As uncomfortable as it is, fragmentation is a normal response to a traumatic, life threatening experience.

The problem is that you don’t always re-integrate.

And Integration = Healing

 

What does “integrated” feel like?

Settled. You have access to your emotions (i.e.you don’t feel numb). You are more in charge of how you act and react. You can talk about your experience in a coherent way.

What creates a feeling of integration?

Feeling truly seen, heard and witnessed by a caring other person is one way. Personal reflection through meditation is another. Both of these invite “the witness.” When you include others, they are your witness. When you are meditating and/or being the observer of your own experience, you are your own witness.

A feeling of compassion, either from another human or from yourself, are key ingredients of Integration.

This may be controversial, but I would submit that you cannot truly recover emotionally and feel whole and integrated UNLESS you are seen and heard and feel cared about and understood.

You can survive, yes. But we are social creatures and to really thrive, you need people and places to be yourself and connect more deeply.

Who is this new person you are becoming? How will you integrate the different parts of yourself? Where can you open and be witnessed in your pain and joy, change and growth?

I Think It’s Brave

 

I Think It’s Brave

 

i think it’s brave

i think it’s brave that you get up in the morning even if your soul is weary and your bones ache for a rest

i think it’s brave that you keep on living
even if you don’t know how to anymore

i think it’s brave that you push away the waves rolling in every day
and you decide to fight

i know there are days when you feel like giving up but
i think it’s brave
that you never do

by Lana Rafaela