Neuroplasticity & ACE - 051

SPEAKER A The following program presents principles designed to promote good health and is not intended to take the place of personalized, professional care. The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speakers. Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about the information presented. Welcome to healthy living. I'm your host, Margot Marshall. Scientists have discovered that our brains are continually being reshaped. It's called neuroplasticity. So what effects do adverse childhood events have on the brain? Things like abuse, neglect, household dysfunction, like losing a parent to divorce or prison, and so on. Stay tuned. SPEAKER B Healthy Living is a production of 3ABN Australia television focusing on the health of the whole person, body, mind, and spirit. You'll learn natural lifestyle principles with practical health solutions for overall good health. SPEAKER A Discussing adverse childhood events may be a very painful subject for many viewers, but my guest, Dr. Eddie Ramirez, will be handling it with care and sensitivity, as well as giving hope. Welcome, Eddie. So lovely to have you on the program. SPEAKER C Thank you very know this is a very common issue. This is something that happens very often, way too often. And we have a saying in Spanish that says, we see the faces, but we don't see the heart. And there are many people struggling with that pass inside of them, that marked them and had an effect. And see, this also has an implication in something that is called emotional intelligence. And emotional intelligence measures different factors. And what happens to us in the past and is currently happened to us in the present has an effect on that emotional intelligence. And we can see in the screen a little bit of those components of the emotional intelligence, which is knowing your emotions, learning to manage your emotions, recognizing emotions in others, managing relationship with others, and motivating yourself to achieve those goals. Now, this has to do with your behavior. This has to do with your ability to get along with others. I don't know if you have them here in Australia, but we have them in America. Some people that just cannot get along with others. SPEAKER A No, I don't think there's any in this country. SPEAKER C Those people have low emotional intelligence. In fact, you can have a higher than average IQ and have a low emotional intelligence. It's possible to have such things. SPEAKER A Yes, very possible. SPEAKER C So some people struggle with this. The good news that we have today is that you can improve that emotional intelligence. SPEAKER A Well, that's a good thing, because it's not so easy to improve the IQ. But this EQ or emotional intelligence can be improved. That's good news. SPEAKER C That's right. Things like motivation, for example. We saw that motivation is an element there. There are people that have tremendous potential, tremendous talent, yet their emotional intelligence is too low, and they don't have the motivation side of the equation. So that's why this is such an important subject that even secular companies invest time and money into trying to improve the emotional intelligence of their employees because they know very well productivity is going to go up. Instead of wasting your time with personal issues and so forth, you can help actually focus these people into producing better. And so magazine, you know, this tremendous business magazine around the world had an article recently that said basically don't hire people with high intelligence, hire people with a high emotional intelligence. Fascinating, isn't it? SPEAKER A Yes it is. It definitely is. SPEAKER C So yes, the high IQ brings creativity and all these things with them. But if you cannot get along with others, you're just going to be a liability instead of being a blessing to the company and so forth. And not only that, also if you go back and try to remember people from your childhood, you may have thought about some of them like wow, this kid is so intelligent, I'm sure he's going to be such big thing in his future and they don't do much in their lives. See, when there is low emotional intelligence, your ability to leadership gets affected. So their ability to climb up the ladder and so forth is affected when the emotional intelligence is low. And let me ask you this. Suppose think about in your head when is easier for you to lose your patience, to get in an argument and so forth. When you are well eaten and you have drank enough water and you have slept enough or the opposite, when is more probable that you're going to get into an argument with somebody? SPEAKER A Well, that's a no brainer really, isn't it? It would have to be. SPEAKER C When you're tired and hungry, physical conditions have an effect on your emotional intelligence. That's why we need to be temperament. That's why these principles that we promote here at Healthy Living, the exercise and the diet and the rest and the temperance and so forth, they do make a big effect on your health and your emotional health. So by having a more temperament, leaving your motions can be more stable and. SPEAKER A So forth because there's a lot of connection between the mind and the body. Those things that concern the body affect the mind and in turn affects the body and our behaviors. SPEAKER C There is definitely a very well documented link with each other. So that's why we need to understand that what happens to us right now and our behaviors have implications in our mental health. Now there was a very interesting study that was done in Southern California in which more than thousands of people participated on this study. And what they did, they started asking some very pointed and good questions. And I want to share those questions with you to try to identify some of those adverse childhood events. So what I want you to do, I want you to go ahead and try to answer these questions. If you're with somebody else, don't answer them. You're talking to the audience audible. That's right. I want you to answer them only inside of you. So let us go to some of those questions. Let's go to question number one. This is from the published study. Question number one says, before your 18th birthday, did a parent or an adult in your household often or very often swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you, or act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt? So that's question number one. I want you to just go ahead and answer it in your head. Question number two before your 18th birthday, did a parent or an adult in your household often or very often push, grab, slap, throw something at you, or even hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured? As you notice, these are yes and no type of questions. Question number three before your 18th birthday, did an adult or a person at least five years older than you ever try or did sexually abuse you? Question number four before your 18th birthday, did you often or very often feel that no one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special, or your family didn't look out to each other, feel close to each other, or support each other? Question number five before your 18th birthday, did you often or very often feel that you didn't have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, or had no one to protect you, or your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you, or take you to the doctor if you need it? Question number six before your 18th birthday, was a biological parent ever lost to you through divorce, abandonment, or other reason? Question number seven before your 18th birthday, was your mother or stepmother often or very often push, grab, slap, or had something thrown at her, or so sometimes? Often or very often kick, bitten, hit with a fist, or hit with something hard, or ever repeatedly hit or at least a few times or threaten with a gun or a knife? Very sad questions, isn't it? And unfortunately happen to be common. I'll show you with you. SPEAKER A That's a wide spectrum of things, and I'm just trying to think. There's a lot of opportunities for people to identify, at least with some of them. Yeah. SPEAKER C Question number eight before your 18th birthday, did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic or who used street drugs? Question nine before your 18th birthday, was a household member depressed or mentally ill or did a household member attempt suicide? And finally, question number ten before your 18th birthday, did a household member go to prison? So as you can see, this is the last question. As you can see, these are things that are very traumatic. You don't go through one of these things and say, oh, there's nothing they do leave a mark on the person. And these are called adverse childhood events. And this explains a lot of the problematic that we see in the clinical practice. For example, there are people that come to you with unexplained symptoms. You go ahead and check everything, everything is fine. You do laboratories, everything is fine. Yet the person claims there is this physical issue that they are facing but we cannot find anything wrong physically. And as we start exploring and digging a little bit deeper, sure enough adverse childhood events usually are present that explain this. SPEAKER A So they're carrying with them all of the trauma that took place in their lives earlier. Is that what you're saying? SPEAKER C That's right. They carry with them that trauma and they are able to manifest that later on in their lives through unexplained physical symptoms and so forth. Now, this type of adverse childhood events you can classify them into three big groups. You have the abuse type physical, emotional, sexual. You have the neglect in which the person didn't receive the care and need they needed. Physical, emotional. Or you grow up in a very dysfunctional type of household, okay? In which there were drugs, in which some of your family members were incarcerated, in which you had witnessed substance abuse, in which there was somebody mentally ill in the household, in which there was a divorce. And that creates very traumatic memories in them. Now, as we have talked in other programs, our emotional consequence depends on our belief system. So what? These type of things happen. They have an influence on those belief systems that we have and so forth. In fact, we notice in our depression program many people struggle with the wrong image of God. They had negative experiences in their childhood. The parents that were supposed to be an example of who God is a little reflection of that because they were abusing, because they were doing wrong things to them. In their head, the image of God has a wrong implications and he is a tyrant and he is unforgiven and he is somebody with vengeance that just wants to hurt me and so forth. Because of the experience that they had as small children, that starts marking them and they start getting this wrong image of God. Yet as you read the Bible, you start seeing that the Bible presents another type of God a loving, caring, healing type of Creator that wants the best out of you. And as I tell my patients, look, think about this way. For those people that have a negative image of God, suppose there is a family of five children. Four of the children are doing really well. They have their jobs, they're economically stable, their relationships are going good. But there is one that is struggling. He has some substance abuse issues. He cannot keep a job. The relationships are just in a cycle. Abuse and dump and abuse and dump and so forth. Let me ask you this who do you think the parents think more of often throughout the day? Are they thinking about those ones that are doing really well and are stable and so forth? Or are their thoughts and concerns for that one that is not doing well? Who do you think they think more about? SPEAKER A I think that's clear, isn't it? That their concern and would be for the one who's not doing well. SPEAKER C That's right. They are concerned about them all the time. They're thinking what can I do? What can I provide, who can I bring so that he can do better? And so forth. In the same way, if we are not doing good, god is thinking about us as that caring parents are thinking about that person. God is also he wants the best out of you and you are in his thoughts. So therefore, what we need to do, we need to come to Him for healing. Now, this questionnaire that I just read to you, we can see in the screen a little bit on the details on how this questionnaire was applied. And we can see that this questionnaire was applied to 17,421 members of the hospital healthcare system in Southern California. SPEAKER A Well, that's quite a large scale study. SPEAKER C That was a big number of people, white, middle aged, upper class, college educated type of people. So you can see this is not people that are unemployed, this is not people that didn't have opportunity of getting education and so forth. You would think these are stable people and so forth. Well, in the study, look at the findings of the study, pretty shocking. And we can see that on the screen. They found that they were very common. 66% experienced at least one type of trauma among the huge group of 17,000. SPEAKER A So that's more than half. SPEAKER C That's right, more than half. And usually if there was one of those questions that were positive, there was an 87% chance that there was going to be two or more questions. And also it was found out that the more of those childhood events that were present on number three, the likelihood of having negative effects at the long term was very likely. And number four, they were able to trace people with chronic diseases, mental diseases, economic problems, social problems, health problems they could actually predict. You show me somebody with many of these adverse childhood events. I'm going to show you somebody that probably has some issues in the present. SPEAKER A So what's going on in the mind has this profound effect even to the point of major illnesses. SPEAKER C And that's what we're talking about, how these type of things create neuroplasticity in the brain. And unfortunately there is positive neuroplasticity and there is negative neuroplasticity. So these traumatic events in the life of these young people do have that type of negative effect. That has implication. And we can see also in the screen the fascinating facts. Those people that had those adverse childhood events were twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer. 460% more likely to have depression. SPEAKER A That's incredible. SPEAKER C 20% more likely at each of those additional adverse childhood events to be hospitalized with an autoimmune disease. They had 20 years less lifespan and they had 360 more likely the probability of ending up with heart disease. SPEAKER A That is incredible. SPEAKER C So is this a minor thing? This is a big deal. That's why we're talking about it now. Here comes the good news. We talk a little bit about the bad news. SPEAKER A Good news. SPEAKER C The good news is that the brain is plastic. The brain can change. So what we just read is not a prophecy. It doesn't mean that if you in the audience, unfortunately had to suffer some of these things, that doesn't mean that that's definitely going to happen to you because again, our brain is plastic. So things that happened to me in the past, by changing the way that we think, by coming to things like the spiritual resources, there is help available. As somebody that has an issue with alcohol somebody that has an issue with alcohol or drugs, they are able to overcome. It's possible to overcome. We have different programs in communities like Alcoholic Anonymous helping people in the communities and as they change their thoughts, as they do the behaviors, as they come to that. God in those twelve steps of Alcoholic Anonymous says that you need help from somebody more powerful than you. And you come to them saying not my will, but your will be done in my life. As you do these type of behaviors, then the brain is able to change and you're able to overcome those issues. So for God there is nothing impossible. SPEAKER A We're talking about the Creator God here, the One who created us that's right in the world. He can recreate us exactly same creative energy that he brought the worlds into existence can recreate us in his image. It's incredible when you think about that, isn't it? SPEAKER C And we're able to come to Him. That's the beauty of this, to receive that type of healing that he wants to give to us. And you know, it's interesting that the Bible is full of these type of stories in which there was a big problem and how can we solve that? For example, let us go and see that Adam and Eve see, even though Adam and Eve had committed a big mistake, he doesn't abandon them. He doesn't say, I am never going to talk to you ever again. He rather goes and tries to solve the root cause of the issue. He could have destroyed them. It was on his potential, but on his mercy and on his love. Even though they felt ashamed, even though they felt unprotected and so forth, he came to them. Maybe we can read that story. Genesis three. Genesis three verses seven to ten. For those that may not be familiar with this story, we can see that after Adam and Eve do the wrong type of behavior and God comes and confront them. Genesis three, verses seven to ten. SPEAKER A Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. But Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. SPEAKER C So we can see there a God that goes and seeks those that are in need. So when you're feeling ashamed, you're feeling that there's no help for you. Yes, there is. And we just read it there. They felt naked. They put this artificial type of clothes so that they could somehow cover themselves. And that's what happens when somebody goes to those traumatic childhood events. There is many implications. For example, the person that they were supposed to trust and so forth lets them down. So then they have problems with authority. They have problems trusting in others. Those that they did trust hurt them and so forth. And now they cannot trust anybody or even themselves. They start representing this in things like bad behaviors and they end up addictive behaviors and so forth to try to anesthesize that pain of that trauma, their self worth, it goes down. They think they're not important. They think they're not valuable. They think that if they were not here, it would be better for this world, which is a lie of the devil, because you are special, you are unique, you are needed. There's a reason why God made you and he's not going to leave you in the state that you are. And another thing that ends up happening, they start having a disconnect between their head and their body as a way of dealing with those, especially the physical and sexual type of trauma. They start creating this disconnection. And these people are more likely to start representing what I was explaining at the beginning, these physical symptoms that when we go and check there's nothing wrong with them. And it has to do with that disconnection that starts to happen between the head and the body. Again, the good news is that we have helped so many people with these type of problems. And God doesn't let the person that did the abuse continue with that behavior. He goes and confront them. And we can see in the next slide on the screen some of those things. For example, let us read John eight three to eleven. SPEAKER A John eight three to eleven to eleven. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to him, teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act. Now, Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say? They said this testing him, that they might have something of which to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger, as though he did not hear. So when they continued asking him, he raised himself up and said to them, he who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it being convicted by their conscience went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone. And the woman standing in the midst, when Jesus had raised himself up and saw no one but the woman, he said to her, woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? She said no one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. SPEAKER C And I think those are the best words to finish this program. Go and sin no more. SPEAKER A Beautiful. Thank you so much, Eddie. This has been a very enlightening program. We look forward to having you join us next time for more secrets of healthy living. And remember, you can watch our programs on demand at our website 3abnaustralia.org.au And just click on the Watch button. God bless. SPEAKER B You’ve been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia Television.