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A useful picture: the parts of your brain are sections of an orchestra. In dysregulation they are playing different tunes at different speeds. The aim is timing, not repair.
This is a kinder frame than damage, and a more accurate one. Nothing is broken or missing. What has gone is the coordination between parts that used to work together, and coordination is the sort of thing that can be practised. It also explains why change can arrive suddenly after a slow start.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'He made the sun and the moon to a precise measure' (Quran 6:96). Things running in time with one another is the picture the verse gives, and it is the one this aims at.
فَالِقُ ٱلۡإِصۡبَاحِ وَجَعَلَ ٱلَّيۡلَ سَكَنࣰ ا وَٱلشَّمۡسَ وَٱلۡقَمَرَ حُسۡبَانࣰ اۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَقۡدِيرُ ٱلۡعَزِيزِ ٱلۡعَلِيمِ
He makes the dawn break; He makes the night for rest; and He made the sun and the moon to a precise measure. That is the design of the Almighty, the All Knowing
Qur’an 6:96read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A systematic review and meta-analysis found meditation practitioners differ from others in several brain regions, including areas involved in body awareness, with moderate effect sizes and mostly cross-sectional studies, so it cannot show practice caused the differences. Brains do seem to differ with what people repeatedly do. The orchestra picture is a teaching image rather than a description of a measured mechanism.
Fox KC, Nijeboer S, Dixon ML, Floman JL, Ellamil M, Rumak SP, Sedlmeier P, Christoff K. (2014). Is meditation associated with altered brain structure? A systematic review and meta-analysis of morphometric neuroimaging in meditation practitioners.. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Treating the problem as timing rather than damage makes it something that can be relearned.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Most of the traffic on the nerve joining your gut, heart and lungs to your brain is heading upwards. When your stomach turns or your chest tightens, your body is reporting in.
Long histories of unresolved stress show up in bodies: inflammation, gut trouble, broken sleep, conditions that end up labelled unexplained. Being told it is all in your head is both wrong and useless.
Irritability, a hot face, itchiness, a mild earache or feeling slightly off balance are common while doing this. People often say it feels like getting off a long flight.