In Balance

31/12/2025

Writing doesn't just help you process your thoughts.

Neuroscientists have found it physically changes your brain in ways that build resilience and help you handle everyday stress and challenges.
https://theconversation.com/writing-builds-resilience-by-changing-your-brain-helping-you-face-everyday-challenges-265188

26/12/2025

Intentional breathing

Cyclic sighing, also known as the physiological sigh, is a controlled breathing technique that involves a short inhale, a second quick inhale, and then a long, slow exhale.
This pattern helps fully expand the lungs and release carbon dioxide more efficiently, which signals the body to relax.
Research has shown that this breathing method can quickly reduce anxiety and improve emotional calm by activating the parasympathetic nervous system.
A randomized controlled study conducted by Stanford Medicine found that practicing cyclic sighing for just a few minutes daily led to greater reductions in anxiety than other breathing techniques or mindfulness practices.

21/12/2025

This is such a good book. ❤️

This book doesn’t start by asking, “What’s wrong with you?”
It asks a far more humane question: “What happened to you?”

That single shift is the quiet power behind Scattered Minds. Gabor Maté doesn’t treat Attention Deficit Disorder as a personal failure or a broken brain to be “fixed.” He treats it as a story, one shaped by early experiences, emotional environments, and unmet needs. Reading this book feels less like being diagnosed and more like being understood.

Rather than reducing ADD to labels and symptoms, Maté widens the lens. He invites you to see attention not as a switch you either have or don’t have, but as something deeply connected to safety, stress, connection, and self-worth. For many readers, that realization alone is healing.

It’s especially powerful for adults who were labeled late, misunderstood early, or quietly learned to feel defective for struggling with focus, organization, or emotional regulation.

Lessons that stay with you:

1. ADD is not a character flaw.
Difficulty with attention is not laziness, lack of discipline, or low intelligence. It’s a coping response, often shaped early in life.

2. Attention develops in relationship, not isolation.
Children learn to regulate focus through emotional attunement. When stress or emotional disconnection is present, attention suffers.

3. Trauma and stress affect the brain’s ability to focus.
Chronic stress, especially in childhood can wire the brain for vigilance instead of sustained attention.

4. Medication can help, but it’s not the whole story.
Maté doesn’t dismiss medication, but he makes it clear that healing also requires emotional understanding and support.

5. Healing begins with self-compassion.
Shame worsens ADD. Understanding softens it. Growth happens faster when blame is removed.

6. The goal isn’t “normal,” it’s wholeness.
ADD minds often come with creativity, sensitivity, intuition, and originality. The task is learning how to support these traits, not erase them.

Scattered Minds feels like a long exhale for anyone who has spent years feeling “too much,” “too distracted,” or “not enough.” It replaces harsh self-judgment with clarity, and confusion with context.

This is not a quick-fix book. It’s a deep-repair book. One that reminds you that attention struggles are not a personal failure, but a signal asking to be understood.

If you’ve ever felt scattered and blamed yourself for it, this book doesn’t just explain your mind.
It treats it with dignity.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/3KBY0i1

Enjoy the audio book with FREE trial using the link above. Use the link to register on audible and start enjoying!

12/12/2025

Psychologists and pediatric neuroscientists agree that the single most harmful habit in a baby’s first year is chronic unresponsiveness to distress, often described as repeatedly letting a baby cry for long periods without comfort. MRI studies on infant brain development show that when a baby’s stress signals go unanswered again and again, cortisol levels rise and begin to affect the growth of the limbic system, the region responsible for emotional safety, trust formation, and long term stress regulation.

This does not refer to brief crying or normal daily challenges. Instead, research focuses on patterns where a baby’s emotional needs are consistently overlooked. Studies from major developmental labs show that lack of responsive caregiving disrupts neural wiring in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, shaping how the child will process fear, connection, and emotional resilience later in life.

Experts stress that babies are biologically wired to expect comfort. Responsive caregiving strengthens emotional security, lowers stress hormones, builds healthy attachment, and supports stronger cognitive outcomes. The goal is not perfection but presence. Simple acts like picking up a crying baby, making eye contact, or soothing during stress create powerful protective effects on the developing brain.

Understanding this helps parents shift from pressure to connection and gives babies the emotional foundation they need for life.

07/12/2025

07/12/2025

I have started following The secure Relationship page If you are looking to improve or stregnthen your relationship, I encourage you to follow Julie Menanno. 🤩

06/12/2025

I wonder how many people really need to hear this very poignant piece of advice. Feel free to change out the pronoun…

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO_dIQTDK9c/?igsh=MTgwZmsydDY4aHdtdw==

06/12/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/1WghWAe7GZ/?mibextid=wwXIfr

This book explains why you can't just "Get Over It." For years, I struggled to understand why certain memories, long past, could still trigger a physical reaction, a racing heart, a knot in my stomach, a feeling of shutting down. I, like many, thought trauma was a psychological issue, a problem of the mind. Then I read Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's "The Body Keeps the Score," and it didn't just change my perspective; it fundamentally changed my understanding of what it means to be human.

This book is a monumental work, part scientific revelation, part compassionate manifesto. Dr. van der Kolk, a leading trauma expert for decades, lays out in devastating detail how trauma rewires the brain and gets trapped in the body. It's a challenging read, not because of the prose, but because of the hard truths it presents. Yet, it is ultimately a book of profound hope.

Here are the lessons that reshaped my thinking:

1. Trauma is a Physiological Injury, Not Just a Memory.
This is the book's central, groundbreaking thesis. When we experience overwhelming terror or helplessness, the brain's alarm system (the amygdala) goes into overdrive, and the rational part of our brain (the prefrontal cortex) can shut down. The memory isn't stored as a narrative; it's stored as fragmented sensory fragments—sights, sounds, and, most importantly, physical sensations. The body, literally, keeps the score long after the event is over. You're not "crazy"; your nervous system is stuck in the past.

2. The Logic Brain and the Emotion Brain Become Disconnected.
Van der Kolk explains that trauma severs the connection between your "rational self" and your "feeling self." You can know you're safe in a room, but your body still feels under threat. This is why telling someone (or yourself) to "just calm down" or "forget about it" is not only useless but insulting. The part of the brain needed to follow that logical command is offline. The trauma response is happening at a brain-stem level, below conscious thought.

3. You Can't Talk Your Way Out of a Trauma Response.
Traditional "talk therapy" can often be re-traumatizing for survivors because it asks them to access the memory through the language center of the brain, which was offline during the trauma. The book powerfully argues that healing must involve the body. You have to access the physiological imprint of the trauma to release it.

4. Trauma is About a Loss of Control, So Healing is About Regaining It.
At its core, trauma robs you of your sense of agency. Therefore, the healing process must be centered on choice and empowerment. Any effective therapy must help a person feel like the author of their own life again, to be able to say "no" and have it respected, and to make decisions about their own body and treatment.

"The Body Keeps the Score" is more than a book; it's a public service. It provides a language for the unspeakable and validates the experiences of millions who have felt broken by their past. It is heavy, and I recommend taking it in small, manageable sections. But if you or someone you love has been touched by trauma, this book is an essential, illuminating, and ultimately empowering guide out of the wilderness. It proves that while the body keeps the score, it can also learn the music of safety and connection once again.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4pJN5Si

Enjoy the audio book with FREE trial using the link above. Use the link to register on audible and start enjoying!

03/12/2025

Very interesting

Most parents assume that yelling is harmless, just a way to get attention. But a toddler’s brain doesn’t hear it that way. Loudness and perceived danger travel the same neural pathways, triggering an automatic stress response before the child even understands what is happening.

What looks like defiance, ignoring instructions, or freezing is often a survival reaction. The heart rate rises, muscles tense, and emotional centers take over while learning centers temporarily shut down. It is an intense, biological response far beyond what many adults expect.

Studies show chronic exposure to yelling can shape emotional processing, increase anxiety, and heighten sensitivity to tone. This is not a reflection of parental intent, but of the brain’s early wiring. Toddlers process volume as a threat long before reasoning develops.

The good news is the opposite is true too. Calm, consistent responses lower cortisol, strengthen neural pathways, and build emotional intelligence, self-control, and resilience. Simple acts like apologizing sincerely after losing your temper teach repair, empathy, and safe relationships.

Children learn best in safety, not fear. Calm parenting is not weakness. It is the most effective way to guide a child’s brain and nurture healthy development.

02/12/2025

Know your love languages... 🥰