Category: FND (Functional Neurological Disorder)

A Week of Self-Care – Day 3 – Nourishment

‘Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.’ I think Hippocrates got it right over 2000 years ago. It’s the underlying principle I follow and I am a firm believer that food can either fuel health or feed disease.

I’ve always been one for little often, a ‘grazer’ as I remember my Paediatrician once commenting. When I’m particularly unwell, my digestive system shuts down as energy is diverted elsewhere and I quickly lose weight. I turn to mini meals that are as nutrient dense as possible.Read More

A Week of Self-Care – Day 2 – Meditation

Meditation is at the heart of my self-care. It brings me peace and stillness, whatever turbulence may be happening outside or within. It grounds and settles me. It is key to my symptom management. It enables me to tune into my needs and it informs all other aspects of my self-care routine.Read More

A Week of Self-Care – Day 1 – The Call to Self-Soothe

Three weeks ago I woke up, went to get out of bed and veered violently to the right. With FND, my body can make some interesting moves, but this was a new one. I was unable to sit up or even transfer into my wheelchair. I had completely lost my sense of balance, my head hurt, I felt sick and I was utterly exhausted. My GP came out and diagnosed viral labyrinthitis, an inner ear infection. She prescribed medication to help with the acute phase and warned me that the illness was unlikely to mix well with my FND.Read More

Walking Meditation

People often believe that meditation has to be done in a rigid, seated position, but even Buddhist monks practise mindful movement in the form of walking meditation. Formal walking meditation can look (and feel) a bit strange. The idea isn’t to reach a specific destination, but to walk intentionally, often back and forth. It tends to be a slower, more deliberate pace than ‘normal’ walking, as you guide your awareness to the movements you usually make automatically, for example how your feet move and the feeling of your body weight shifting from side to side, as well as paying attention to your breath and surroundings. As with other mindfulness practices, when you notice your mind has wandered, you gently guide it back to the focus of your attention.Read More

An Evening With Jon Kabat-Zinn – Part 1

My formal mindfulness practice began five years ago when I read ‘Full Catastrophe Living’ by Jon Kabat-Zinn, ‘the father of mindfulness’. I quickly discovered the positive impact this had on my health and wellbeing. It was a large part of my jigsaw puzzle that until then had been missing. It is perhaps no coincidence that it came during the same year when the rest of my life had been taken to pieces; I was being forced to contemplate a new way of being in light of a neurological diagnosis and complete change of life circumstance, and Jon’s work opened the door to what continues to be a wonderful, nourishing and inspiring journey. Jon’s presence can be felt even through his books and recordings, and it has always been a dream of mine to experience it in real life, to meditate with him and have the opportunity to thank him for the profound influence he had on me at an incredibly difficult time.Read More

When Waves Become Ripples – A Sign of Progress in Mindfulness

Practising mindfulness is a process. It’s not about trying to get something, but about living and being, allowing the practice to unfold just as life does. There is no end point but that doesn’t mean we don’t make progress. Every so often, something happens that makes me realise just how far I have travelled. It’s a moment to acknowledge, to explore and to celebrate.Read More

A Lesson In Patience

There’s a lady in the bed opposite. She’s waiting patiently with such elegance and poise. Later today she is having surgery to remove a tumour from her brain. She’ll be awake during the operation. She’s been warned of possible complications; loss of function and changes in personality. She waits, calmly. “It’s okay for me,” she says, “this is a one-off. It’s you I feel for having an ongoing condition.”

There’s a lady in the bed alongside me. She’s been waiting for hours, days, for tests she desperately hopes will reveal answers. “I just want to know what’s wrong,” she says, jumping up every time someone approaches her bed. I don’t know what’s tormenting her more, the waiting or the unknown.

As for me, my bags are packed and I’m waiting to go home. My face lights up as I think of seeing my kitties and being in the peace and quiet of my little oasis. But here I find myself, waiting.Read More

Self-Soothe

I was becoming invisible, my body paling to the white sheets. As I lay on the hospital trolley, unable to move or speak, all I had was my mind. The strength of my thoughts and the images they created could take me anywhere. As I felt my heart sinking and tears pooling at my eyes I knew I needed to change direction. I focused on my breath. It gave me perspective. What was I feeling and where was it coming from? I felt utterly worthless. The actions, or lack of actions, by others during a time of acute illness in A&E had triggered an inner story; a deep seated belief that I knew to be untrue, yet at that moment I was compelled to believe.Read More

The Cortical Homunculus – Reshaping the Brain through Movement

cortical-homunculus-image

The cortical homunculus is a physical representation of our body in our brain. There are two types of these neurological ‘maps’; one for sensory pathways, the other for motor. The area a body part takes up on the map depends on how innervated it is, not how large. If our bodies actually looked like our brain’s representation, we would look very strange indeed. What these maps look like also varies from person to person as they are dependent on the information the brain receives. My hands probably have a larger representation than average due to my music and crafts, whilst my legs are likely to have a smaller representation than average as a result of the movement symptoms of my FND.Read More

‘What do I need?’ – A Technique for Self-Care

Consciously Connected - what do I need?

George is a middle-aged man who lives in the States. He has a severe, progressive condition that affects all aspects of his day to day life, yet he is functioning on a higher level than many others with comparable disease. George practises mindfulness and is included as a case study in ‘Full Catastrophe Living’ by Jon Kabat-Zinn. ‘Within the limits of his disease, he is actively meeting life’s challenges rather than sitting at home and bemoaning his fate. He takes each moment as it comes and figures out how he can work with it and stay relaxed and aware.’ An example of this is how George does the weekly grocery shop for himself and his wife. He takes his time. He rests. He asks for help when necessary. He gets the shopping packed into light bag loads which he is then able to lift from the trolley to the car. The daily tasks he completes in this way bring value and meaning to his life as he is able to contribute to the running of his household, whilst self-managing his condition. Read More