Spontaneous brain fluctuations
When our mind wanders, sleeps, or is under anaesthesia, our neurons are still firing all over the brain.
But through trauma, our spontaneous fluctuations can fall into negative resting-state patterns, almost like water that runs into a ditch. Antidepressants either cut off this water flow or reduce the functional connectivity, leaving around 70 percent of people who take antidepressants feeling an "emotional numbness".
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With record-high instances of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse in the United States, and likely elsewhere, we still think antidepressants can be used to relieve some of the damage. But this may not be true. The use of antidepressants has inadvertently left many less able to feel empathy toward others, laugh, cry, dream, and enjoy life when we need it most.
A theory of brain function involving serotonin may point a way forward for effective treatment.
Impressive results have been found by using psychedelics, such as the psilocybin found in "magic mushrooms." A 2017 study showed a decrease in depressive symptoms of treatment-resistant individuals one week after their dose.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging used during the process shows that the mechanism of action is directly related to the increase in spontaneous brain fluctuations.
Research shows that REM dreaming plays a vital role in regulating negative emotions and depression. Dreaming increases spontaneous fluctuations.
However, antidepressants, anti-anxiety agents, and many sleeping pills interfere with REM sleep and dreaming.
Neuroscientists have found that cognitive fluctuations are not only tolerated by neurons but that neurons amplify them and use the noisiness to create novel solutions to complex problems.
Researchers use studies of this noise in the brain to approach mental health treatment in new ways. Instead of reducing the noise with antidepressants, they are trying to increase them. This led to marked improvements and significant relief from depression and anxiety.
With so many people dealing with mental health issues, we need safe and reliable mental health solutions.
Getting plenty of REM sleep and having dreams unhindered by alcohol, ibuprofen can help. Even looking at natural fractals, like trees and plants, can contribute to flux therapy.
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We don't need to be able to improvise to achieve flow states. We can turn off the constant time-keeping moments when in artistic rapture or contemplation. Activities such as meditation, hypnosis, and daydreaming can also induce altered states of consciousness.
During improvisation, a performer's moment-to-moment decisions and actions may feel as if they happen outside of time and without intention. But, if performers become overly self-aware or self-conscious for too long, they can lose the flow state, and their performance will suffer.
- Scientific literature has linked loneliness to depression, anxiety, alcoholism, and drug abuse.
- Loneliness makes you more likely to fall ill by suppressing healthy immune function.
- Biochemical changes from loneliness an accelerate cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's.
- The ability to detect and measure it could help identify those at risk.
It is a myth that specific parts of the human brain have specific psychological jobs. The myth claims that the brain has separate parts, each with a dedicated mental function - one part for vision, another for memory, etc.
Today, we know the brain is a massive network of neurons with multiple jobs, not a single psychological purpose. Not all neurons can do everything, but most neurons do more than one thing.