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The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science?
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I think this is a wider trend in the research. 20 years ago the idea was that the brain was fixed after adolescence and neurogenesis did not happen. We are now discovering that the brain is highly neuroplastic and continues to grow and develop based upon experience. (https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=nodl_) This means there is a good chance that we may find there are various kinds of neurodevelopment over the courses of a life time. This also means that any impact of a few beers can be countered by lifestyle changes, particularly exercise which stimulates Brain-derived neurotrophic factor, also known as BDNF or abreneurin...Of course if you really push the limit you can pretty much poison yourself with anything you ingest if you over do it...there are limits to our power of Neuroplasticity.
There’s at least one facility I think in Texas and they specialize in rehab for neurological impairments like stroke and TBI, they have an Instagram account but I can’t remember their name.
This is a great book I recommend:
https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100
I think it has other facilities like that listed in the back.
Found it!!!!!! 😁
The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge
I hope this makes you happy! (Literally.)
The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge
One of my favorites that I read after my spinal cord injury. I'm also a psych major and minored in behavioral neuroscience. Good luck with everything!
Go read about neuroplasticity in relation to porn
There’s a whole chapter on it
You can already recover from brain damage, people do it all the time.
Are you unfamiliar with neuroplasticity?
The brain is already plastic and can recover from a TBI or a stroke. We do not need this FrankenScience. For anyone who wants more info:
I actually read a book to help him with this and it really helped. Sunlight was a suggestion that helped tremendously and this is before I knew it was mold. We basically did our own occupational therapy. Here’s the book:
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143113100/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_SFNFVMZPF6W3EGJXWR3F
I don't think so. This (I'm not sponsoring anything lool) proves that whenever you have fun doing something the adult brain is potentially capable to learn as the child's brain. Just keep surfing.
While the lingual interface would work fine for optic nerve damage, I agree that your situation sounds less suited to it. I suppose no one strategy will work for all situations, which answers the rhetorical question in my original comment.
Have you read The Brain that Changes Itself? (There's an audio version.) It deals substantially with stroke recovery. I imagine you're under the care of people who would be aware of such possibilities, but just in case....
As a guitar player (but not one who's experienced a stroke), I came here to propose this book exactly. Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. He has a more recent book out as well. I've also read My stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor and This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer is also a fascinating read about the evolution of language and memory (the author himself eventually became the 2006 U.S.A. Memory Champion).
The reason I propose any or all of these and more, is that it will leave you encouraged of what is possible with retraining your brain compared to the old school attitudes surrounding brain injury and more specifically to you and your desire to return to guitar playing.
Yeah, it's lingering in your subconscious. But you can definitely rewire the aspects of your brain to get over it. Don't lose hope, dude.
Just continue to educate yourself and treat your mind and body right.
I have AIED (autoimmune inner ear disease), which is a similar to Meiniere's disease, and until I get it properly treated, my auditory sensory input is completely out-of-whack…can't tell where sounds originate, loud sounds are soft, soft sounds are loud, it feels like I'm 40 feet underwater, and there's a audio balance decrement one ear vs the other. What your BF is going through is I think understandable, given the circumstances; and because it's sort of similar to my experience this last week, I can tell you this sort of thing is incredibly uncomfortable, so much that it has a bit of an (adverse) psychological impact in addition to the basic technical screwiness of it.
It probably just takes a little while to get used to and then "rewire" for. People have adjusted to far greater sensory and/or brain changes and come out on top, as is evidenced by the many amazing case studies in The Brain That Changes Itself.
I don't know of any books on this subject in particular. What I normally do is browse the reviews for books on Amazon. I just know that for me, a book inspired me to change my life.
The book that inspired me is The Brain That Changes Itself. I had a lot of anxiety and physical symptoms, and although I desperately wanted my life to be different, I didn't really believe that there was a way for me to get better. After reading this book, I realized that I could change. After that I started seeing a therapist and really did completely change my life.
I don't know. Floksy talked about Lumosity. She knows that lumosity is fake, and she aims to succeed where lumosity fails. Her company consults real neuroscientists, reads published papers on neurology and psychology, and even reads books on neuroplasticity in order to design mini-games that have a real cognitive benefit. I mentioned the book "The Brain that changes itself" by Norman Doidge as a book filled with neuroplasticity research that she could incorporate into Cerevrum and she told me that she could teach that book, not only has she read it, she loves that book.
On the other hand if a cognitive benefit cannot be proven at least she is giving the software away for free. If a person can try it and they have nothing to lose, financially speaking, from using the app. http://www.amazon.com/The-Brain-That-Changes-Itself/dp/0143113100
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Brain-That-Changes-Itself/dp/0143113100
The author talks about three patients who were deeply affected by their habits regarding pornography, how they recovered, and the scientific basis behind why porn affected them and their recovery. It's a very interesting read for more than just that, but porn can definitely change your brain.
The Brain That Changes Itself is all about Neuroplasticity and how while your brain can get messed up on everything from addictions to seizures, it is plastic. Meaning, it can reform itself. The 90day milestone is encouraged to let this process happen.
I recommend the book to any NoFapper interested in the brain and porn as well as general neuroscience. Its stories have given hope to someone with a crushing near daily habit for 10-12 years. I found out about nofap in 2012 and my longest streaks are 7-14 days. Haven't had one over 5 in months, and the relapses are now daily. This willpower thing really isn't working for me.
I just started reading The Brain That Changes Itself and while I have not finished it I think it fits what you're looking for.
Check out neural plasticity and the book The Brain that changes itself
She has wired her brain in a very specific way, if she is open minded and wants to move together as a partnership. Ask her to read the book. Try and communicate more, explain to her how it makes you feel when that is the only form of sexual communication you experience. Drill into the reasoning of how she got into that form of sex and what she feels when she does/doesn't experience sex that way.
My favourite book on neuroplasticity is "The Brain That Changes Itself". It definitely talks about the brain science behind language (specifically, recovering speech after a stroke) but it also covers much more.
I highly recommend The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge: http://www.amazon.com/The-Brain-That-Changes-Itself/dp/0143113100/ since you are a man of science.
Also married here, confessed to the wife about the PMO issue and my nofap challenge, and we agreed to undertake hard mode (no sex during the 90 days). There are pluses and minuses to hard mode so it's a personal choice.
As for what to expect, read stories here, but don't go into it anxiously awaiting your problems to be solved--it may take time or it may not work. But lots and lots of people have very positive things happen if they stick with the challenge.
Dude, it's never too late! 34 here and though I wish I had been honest with myself about this addiction earlier in life, I'm already feeling a lot better after just two months.
I have some reading for you: http://www.amazon.com/The-Brain-That-Changes-Itself/dp/0143113100/
There is a lot of research to support brain plasticity in adults. You can replace bad habits with good ones. Now, I'm also of the belief that this is an addiction I'll have my whole life, and I need to stay on my guard, but I can say in my experience the urges have decreased dramatically since going cold turkey.
Grab a badge counter. Welcome to the party!
> I was just wondering how many people have CPTSD as a result of emotional abuse and neglect as a child.
My father was a narcissist. My mother was a sociopath. So the entirety of my childhood was lost to narcissistic and sociopathic abuse, which left me with CPTSD.
> I’m worried that as it’s gone untreated for 20 years that I may never get better.
This is factually incorrect. You might want to check your local library for the book titled The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. This book is rife with verified medical examples of the neuroplasticity of the brain. Neuroplasticity means the brain changes throughout life. The brain does not solidify like concrete once we reach adulthood. This is very good news for people like you and I, because it means the trauma we suffered in our childhood does not have to rule us for the rest of our lives, because our brain literally does change throughout our lives. We can assist it via several methods, such as psychotherapy, meditation and even exercise.
> I’d really like it if people could share their experiences with me and whether they’ve made any headway, recovery, partial recovery.
So if a psychologist with a PhD, who had practiced psychotherapy for the past 3+ decades terminated your therapy, telling you you have nothing left to resolve, would you consider yourself recovered? I do.
> How long did it go on for before you got a diagnosis?
I was diagnosed with PTSD at the age of 21 in 1985. CPTSD wasn't even on the radar in those days. All total, I have spent 22 years of my adult life in therapy. However, that does not and should not mean you will require as much time in therapy to recover.
The science has advanced so far from 1985 when I first began therapy. Back then, psychology wasn't considered a hard science like chemistry or biology. Today, psychology is getting closer to a hard science. From viewing a brain scan, brain injuries like PTSD, or disorders like OCD & ADHD can be diagnosed now. Additionally, trauma therapy did not exist in 1985. It hadn't yet been conceived. So if you have CPTSD, get to a trauma therapist and get to work, because they KNOW what they need to know to help guide you out of CPTSD.
As far as how the therapy works to free you, there will be MANY moments in your life that you will look at in therapy. Each moment will be discussed & analyzed until you fully understand what happened in each moment. After a certain period of time, you will have hundreds or thousands of these analyzed and understood moments in your life which, when chained together, will reveal the entire story of your life. This is when you will understand every moment that you lived & EVERYTHING will make sense. That is when you will know you are free. Or at least, that has been my experience. DO NOT GIVE UP. It is so worth it in the end.
I read this book 2-3 years ago "The Brain That Changes itself Self" super fascinating all about neuroplasticity and how the brain can re-wire itself. One chapter talked about porn regarding people losing their jobs, relationships, social life etc. Because of porn, it can also lead to impotence. I will just take some quotes:
> [A 2001study] found that 80 percent felt they were spending so much time on pornographic sites that they were putting their relationships or jobs at risk.
>When I asked if this phenomenon had any relationship to viewing pornography, they answered that it initially helped them get more excited during sex but over time had the opposite effect. Now, instead of using their senses to enjoy being in bed, in the present, with their partners, lovemaking increasingly required them to fantasize that they were part of a porn script.
I can't suggest this book enough. My recommendation would be to combine through that chapter if you are interested.
EDIT: This book is on amazon and is well worth the cash side note I realized when I ordered it was in 2012....time is strange
Beginner: The Brain That Changes Itself - by Norman Doidge
Intermediate: Nature Via Nurture- by Matt Ridley
Advanced: Fundamental Neuroscience - by Squire, Berg, Bloom…
Forget about Kandel’s Neural Science. Fundamental Neuroscience is a much better.
(One of the best books about neuroplasticity, the principle that NoFap is based upon. It goes into detail about how the brain can rewire itself.)
(A great book about neuroplasticity and the details of how the impulses of your brain are not always truly "you". It makes a great companion-piece to "The Brain that Changes Itself".)
As for fiction, almost anything by Ray Bradbury. There's something about many of Bradbury's books and stories that just give you the urge to live life to the fullest, something that many of us here struggle to do. A lot of people assume that he was just a sci-fi writer, but there's so much more to him. He's one of the great philosophical novelists or our time. I'd especially recommend the following:
Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales
(Some of these stories are just heart-achingly beautiful and haunting. I'm jaded and feel dead inside half the time, but some of these stories managed to make me cry, but in a "I've been missing out on life, and this story is making me really feel" sort of way, not in a "this makes me miserable" sort of way. Really, any collection of some of his short stories will have some great stories, but I'm recommending this one because it has a full 100 stories, many of which are among my favorites.)
(A wonderful ode to small town life and what it truly means to live.)
This is great! Thank you so much! Congratulations on your recovery. I bet you will be back to normal in a few months. Our minds are so powerful, what we tell ourselves affects our bodies. These symptoms are for real but you can change how your brain functions by the way you think. I believe a lot of these neurocognitive symptoms are caused by poor blood perfusion to the brain and is stroke victims can regain physical function through brain training, LC patients can too. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=sr_1_1?crid=33AF30YGFCRFE&keywords=the+brain+that+changes+itself&qid=1660488358&sprefix=The+brain%2Caps%2C100&sr=8-1
You can't win by just trying to "resist"
You have to know what you're moving TOWARDS.
So build your brain. Build your mind. Build your commitment to this process. Build your understanding and faith in the results you're creating. Build connection to the other aspirations that are more important than the urges.
Honestly, START READING. Read things that will make you greater than this problem.
The Brain that Changes Itself really puts in perspective how much you're changing your underlying brain structure with all your activities. For better. Or for worse.
Dopamine Nation is another good place to start for somebody trying to understand this addictive modern world and how to recover their strength in it.
If you don't want the worst of this suck to last, NOW is a good time to act.
- REST! It's not BS advice, for brain injury REST is freaking essential!
- Try audiobooks, or ask your wife to start educating herself while you rest on books like The Brain that Heals Itself and The Concussion Repair Manual
- Now is a good time to try eating a greenish Keto diet (to cut neuro-inflamation)
- Now is a good time to consider red-light therapy known as photobiomodulation, think about buying a ProNueroLight helmet or a Vielight
LATER:
- Look into PoNS treatment (mentioned in The Brain That Heals Itself)
- Get your hormones tested (testosterone and growth hormone can be out of whack)
- Become an expert on healing brains.
- DON'T.GIVE.UP.
Here's a good book: The Brain that changes Itself
The science of "rewiring your brain" is somewhere between neuroplasticity and psychology.
The trick to having aspergers not to focus on what your weaknesses, but your strengths. Find your strength, and use that to overcome your weaknesses.
For example, I have no innate ability to read social cues. I'm great at analysis. I learned to read body language. I did that enough that it became second-nature. It became innate, and I'm arguably better at it than NT's.
I obsess over things. Sometimes it's video games, sometimes it's work. I don't fight it anymore. I'll take my 3~6 week obsessions in waves, and I just ride it out. When I'm obsessed with work, I don't worry that I'm not relaxing enough - I know I'll relax eventually.
Don't beat yourself up: you're not broken. Like most of us, you've probably spent your whole life with people telling you what you're doing wrong, so much so that's now your "inner voice." Start by looking at all the things you do right, and move forward from there.
Neuroplasticity is in our side. I do weekly infra slow fluctuation neurofeedback, which helps your brain train itself for more optimal regulation, it's a game changer. I'm very lucky to have access to this treatment modality.
Before I realized I was traumatized one of my friends bought me The Brain that Changes Itself all about neuroplasticity. It helped me start my brain training in my own.
We go through four stages of knowledge and skills leveling-up:
unconscious incompetence - we don't know what we don't know
conscious incompetence - we become aware of knowledge and skills we are lacking in. This can be a mild, oh! Or a crushing realization, as my abuse awareness was.
conscious competence - we can consciously practice strategies to level up our lacking skills and knowledge. It take intentional practice to level up. This is where we can use neuroplasticity to help us level up.
unconscious competence - we practice so much that our subconscious is leveled up to the point it can execute competently without out conscious awareness. Many people have bike riding and car driving leveled up to this point.
Having an awareness of these levels helps us keep practicing as we are gaining competence.
I layer a ton of modalities to involve the most neurons possible in my healing. Original hot yoga, talk therapy, ISF neurofeedback, trigger point/myofascial release massage, float tank meditation, sound bath meditation, reiki, internal family systems meditation, infared sauna, lots of reading, etc.
Build a tool box full of strategies that help you do your best under the circumstances. And keep in mind that your best and the circumstances are always changing. You got this! I believe in your ability to heal yourself.
Most "anti-porn" material reads like an opinion piece, or self-help material.
Most "It's not and addiction" material are well written, informative articles, with links to source material, that don't placate to your emotional opinions.
​
- Two of the primary researchers that are easy to find information on this subject are Deborah Soh, and David Ley.
- A few interviews about the topic
- A few articles
​
The Problem with "Internet Research"
- One of the problems with accessing the actual "research" is that it is typically behind a Pay-Wall. That goes for both sides. The biggest problem this presents is the presentation of the information we typically have available. Tracing source material, performing actual research with Internet based material... Takes a LOT of time and effort.
- For example... this is a test you can perform on your own. FIRST, and this is VERY important... you will need to install an internet browser that you don't already use. For example, If you have a Mac, you probably use Safari, if you have a Windows PC, you probably use Edge or Google. In either of those cases, you could install FireFox, and then Open a "Private Window" so that it doesn't cache you search information. Then you need to use a Private Search Engine. Most people use Google, or Bing (not private)... so I would recommend DuckDuckGo.
- The importance of using a different browser and private engine... is that the one you use all the time is already filtering your search results to set your top results in accordance with material you already look at the most. Google, YouTube, FaceBook, Bing, NETFLIX, HULU... they ALL do it... because they want to provide the best chance possible for you to keep clicking on the Ad Links generated by their engines so that they can get more money.
- If you are serious about claiming to value real efforts for "Research", then this should not be considered too much effort... performing the comparison of data is WAY more labor intensive. That's why I'm giving you some places to start...
Comparing the Information
- So... if you've gone through the efforts I suggest, your search results should be much less biased. Now just search for opposing articles. "Porn Addiction Study" vs "Porn Addition Pseudoscience" ... etc etc...
- Now compare the "Articles"... Not THE CLAIMS being made, or the "Summaries" being offered. But, compare the STRUCTURE of the articles.
- First... Is the article long enough to actually provide any information?? Or is it 4-5 two-sentence paragraphs broken up with Internet Ads to make it seem like a "long article". If you feel like you can read it in less than 2 to 3 minutes... it's probably worthless.
- Next... are there any "actual" sources provided?? Are the links valid? Do they actually link to a real scientific study? Is the study presented by a reputable journal?
- Links to the Studies... Most Reputable Journals will provide the full summary pages of the studies being performed. A good summary page will provide a premise, summary, methodology, demographics about study participants , information about the research center, researchers, and funding sources. Typically, these should feel like they took some amount of mental acuity to read through.
- Do the topics of the studies actually match the information being claimed in the article?? Many Pseudoscience sources are funded by For-Profit Organizations who stand to make a buck. In the case of anything that is "anti-porn" in it's conclusion, Religious sources are a big problem. Here is a prime example of VERY Popular "porn is addictive" source material that is simply presenting bullshit information. (keep reading and I'll explain why)
- https://fightthenewdrug.org/4-studies-that-prove-porn-addicted-brains-can-return-to-normal/
- Look at the title of each of their "Four Studies"... then search for the studies. NOTICE... they didn't provide "links", you have to do that on your own, and they know that MOST people WONT make that effort.
- 1. Once porn is left behind, the brain pathways it created will start to fade.
- Doidge, Norman. The Brain that Changes Itself. New York: Viking, 2007.
- https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100
- This IS NOT a "Study"... It's a book about Neuroplasticity... Nothing about pornography addiction
- 2. When a brain that has become accustomed to chronic overstimulation stops getting that overstimulation, neurochemical changes in the brain start happening. As a result, many users report withdrawal symptoms.
- Avena, N. M. and P. V. Rada. “Cholinergic modulation of Food and Drug Satiety and Withdrawal.” Physiology & Behavior 106, no. 3 (2012):
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4361033/
- This is about how VERY SPECIFIC receptors respond when you stop ingesting certain foods or drugs. Nothing about pornography addiction
- FYI... THIS IS A GREAT EXAMPLE Of what a Very Good Summary Article looks like.
- 3. The brain can regain sensitivity to healthy, everyday activities.
- Lisle, Douglas and Alan Goldhamer. The Pleasure Trap.
- https://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Trap-Mastering-Undermines-Happiness/dp/1570671974
- NOT A STUDY... Its another book. Primarily a self-help style book about HEALTHY DIET. Not porn addiction
- 4. Research indicates that damaged frontal lobes can recover once constant overstimulation stops.
- The MOST absurd association this site makes..
- “Prefrontal Grey-matter Changes in Short-term and Long-term Abstinent Methamphetamine Abusers.”
- Seriously??? Do I even need to link the study? It's about Recovery from ACTUAL, CHEMICAL INDUCED, PHYSCIAL BRAIN DAMAGE. It's not even on topic with neural pathways of habitual activity, Which itself... does NOT cause PHYSICAL Brain Damage. Again, nothing about porn addiction
I would also recommend this awesome book https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100 it's about Brain's plasticity.
Lots of interesting stuff about this in this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100
If you like reading. They did a lot of awful things on monkeys to test how the brain reacts to limb removal.
This doesn't deal with MS, but you may find it interesting. https://www.amazon.ca/The-Brain-That-Changes-Itself/dp/0143113100
> Why do you want to work in neuroscience? What do you find exciting?
I have read maybe four books relating to neuroscience and the psychology of the human brain and they completely captured me. I just find the information fascinating!
This was the first book I read and one of my favorites. This is the book I am reading now and I can't put it down. So to answer your question I just love learning how the brain works and I think being able to build prosthetics that interface with the brain would be something that I'd enjoy.
> Given your background, maybe start by looking for labs and companies doing brain-machine interface work? Or neural prosthetics? Or rehabilitation?
This pretty much hits the nail on the head. Brain-machine interface and neural prosthetics both get me excited!
Have you heard of the University of Rochester? From my little understanding they are a giant research institution (in my back yard). Maybe they do some type of neuroscience research, I am almost positive I have seen neuroscience articles on reddit from UofR.
This gives me a lot more to go on! I am going to reach out to someone at UofR, if they have a neuroscience department I will contact the department head.
Shaynoodle is damn sexy.
You should get The Brain That Changes Itself. A teacher recommended it to me and I've had it on my WL ever since.
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
http://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100
I have just started using Lumosity, looking forward to the benefits.
Here is another program I use http://www.wholebrainpower.net/
Have you see this page? I'm straight, but attracted to transexual or gay porn. What's up? http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/ask-us-iam-attracted-to-gay-transsexual
The brain is highly malleable. I also suggest The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge http://www.amazon.com/The-Brain-That-Changes-Itself/dp/0143113100/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_1
Fascinating book on this topic. Haven't finished it yet, but I'd definitely recommend it.
I'm just finishing up <em>The Brain that Changes Itself</em>, by Norman Doidge. It's mind-blowing (no pun intended).
The Brain That Changes Itself. Non-fiction.
Fascinating book on how people can actually change/rewire their brains. It's mostly a science book, but it feels kinda like a self-help book as well, because you learn a lot about how you can change how your brain works.
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