Neuroplasticity, codependency and Minfullness.
Read an article on this site yesterday and this piece stood out to me. "Furthermore, an ACOA may also gravitate towards other compulsive behavior such as gambling, binge eating or codependency".
It fascinates me that what we see in our homes growing up really impacts our adulthood. So seeing parents or other figures in our lives who are alcoholics and/or not able to emotionally meet our needs really does affect how we are in our adult life in terms of our attachment styles( secure, anxious or avoidant), in terms of our behaviours and compulsions such as overeating, drinking, over exercising or whatever it may be and all the while these compulsions, behaviours, beliefs are firing off neurons in our brains that wire together laying down pathways of behaving that we repeat over and over.
Been reading books on neuro plasticity lately (because of a course I'm on), and the good news is that our brains can change and we can change our behaviours/beliefs as our brains are plastic. Interestingly the part of our brains responsible for "fight or flight" called the amygdala is something that many of us in here will recognise. It fascinates me that many of us will have been on that stress related fight or flight mode, probably from a young age, and guess what the more we use it the bigger it is in our brains. That state of anxiety, that releases cortisol into our body is so familiar that we can even seek out situations that will trigger us. (I know I have). Addicted to the drama because its familiar.
All the new research is showing that this part of the brain can be made smaller and less active by guest what, mindfullness, meditation and yoga techniques! Makes sense to me that these techniques relax and calm our minds, but that they can reduce the size of the amygdala is amazing and really motivates me to want to do them more. I can see now why yoga is recommended for trauma sufferers. (Obviously therapy and other techniques are part of recovery).
Thought I'd share this as I'm sure, like me, some of you will have insights into this fascinating new research that's coming out. Helps me understand why I do some of the things I do and have done 😀