Women’s Health Week
Woman. You. Are. Awesome.
In a year of ‘weeks for this and that’ we couldn’t start to unpack all your wonders.
So, we thought we’d begin with just a handful. How perfect that there happens to be five topics being explored for Women’s Health Week.
Rather than reinvent the week, we thought instead we’d be cheerleaders for remarkable work in this women’s wellbeing space and take each of the days developed for this awareness week and explore them in a brain-based way.
Photo by Ahmad Mohmmad on Unsplash
CHECK ME OUT
Health checks at every age.
There is so much of gorgeous you, inside and out, to check out...where do we start?
There are self-check resources and advanced medical screens that can check us out from our tops to our toes, from the walls of our cells to the skin we are in. Preventive medicine has never been so proactive and available, and as science advances we can only hope everyone’s access to life saving check-ups grows.
Have you ever thought about getting a health check for your brain?
QEEG Brain Scans are safe well-known assessments used in scientific research and clinical practice.
Unlike standard CT and MRI scans which provide information about brain structure, QEEG Brain Scans provide information about how the brain is working by directly measuring the electrical activity of the brain, known as ‘brain waves’. Specialised software is used to analyse an individual’s brain waves and produces detailed ‘brain maps’. These highly specific maps help us understand how the brain is working showing precise areas of under-activity or over-activity. These brain maps can show us how the brain may have changed the way it is functioning every day in response to the experience of ADHD, anxiety, depression,
experiences of trauma, migraine, and chronic pain. These comprehensive scans can then be used to develop targeted, specific, and highly personalised brain training programs.
Photo by Tracey Hocking on Unsplash
MENOPAUSE MATTERS
Menopause and Perimenopause.
Menopause can impact a multitude of brain-based goings on…from brain fog to other changes in memory, even to alterations identifiable in brain structure, connectivity, and energy metabolism. The transition through this phase of life is all encompassing, it is - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Menopause, though, is far from the only transition we endure. So, how can we nurture ourselves and grow through transitions across our lifespan?
We can build our resilience.
One way to consider building resilience, is from the ground up. There is a lot to be said for a good foundation, a base that you can always come back to, some solid cornerstones. You may find some of them come from looking inward and getting to know yourself at a deep and compassionate level.
We can get to know the inner workings of our own nervous systems through biofeedback technologies. Biofeedback is an active practice that works with the deep ways our brains and bodies communicate with one another. The vagus nerve, the long wandering nerve, that runs from our brains right through your body (even through your diaphragm muscle that controls your breathing), is a vital part of this brain-body network. You can influence deep feeling and thinking parts of the brain by acting on this nerve. We can get better at calming down our nervous systems stress response when we get help to tune into what our body is telling us through things like our heart rate variability, temperature, and the way we breathe. Biofeedback training can provide us with bespoke active practices that we can always come back to.
You can explore your sense of self, your motivations, how you derive happiness, even your purpose on this planet with lifelong learning. Did you know universities ranked in the top 10 in the world offer massive open online courses for everyone? They are called MOOC’s, most are free, and some of them cover the science of a great life, things like…
Wellbeing: https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being
Happiness: https://www.edx.org/course/the-science-of-happiness-3
Fulfillment: https://www.coursera.org/learn/happiness
Purpose: https://www.coursera.org/learn/finding-purpose-and-meaning-in-life
Photo by José Ignacio González Pansiera on Unsplash
PELVIC POWER
Pelvic floor health and pelvic pain.
There is a fascinating link between our brains and our pelvis (and it’s not the way we think about Elvis). It is nothing short of phenomenal what a woman’s pelvis can do to give birth. It’s insightful to look back and understand that as we have evolved so to have our pelvis’, to the point where significant changes in shape and size have allowed us to have babies with increasingly larger brains. As women, though, when our thoughts turn to birthing and babies with big brains, naturally it can veer us toward thoughts of pain.
Advances in research over the past decade have fundamentally changed scientists' understanding of chronic pain. Experts now acknowledge that pain (including pelvic pain) is 100% of the time produced by our brains.
Neuroplasticity is a term used to describe the ability of our brains to change throughout life. Brains change because of what we do, what happens to us, what we feel and what we think. Whilst neuroplasticity can result in helpful changes in our brain such as mastering a musical instrument, it can also work against us and can result in our brains mastering pain – which is the last thing we want them to do. Chronic pain experiences are associated with this unhelpful or ‘maladaptive plasticity’. Fortunately it is now possible to map pain centres in the brain with special brain imaging which can help increase our understanding of chronic pain and guide specific treatment.
This astounding and wonderful shift in the scientific knowledge of the complexity chronic pain and the brain is now becoming so realised, it has even reached the conversation tables of the Australian Government. This short video from Pain Australia is a simple summary:
VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_3phB93rvI
MIND HEALTH
Mental wellbeing and brain health.
Mental wellness is more than the absence of mental unwellness, in fact true mental wellness can often come through our journeys with mental illness. The Global Wellness Institute captures dynamically in the following points that mental wellness can co-exist with mental illness; and that it is an active process that can see us moving between languishing, resilience building and flourishing; that understanding mental wellness in this way can be a vital catalyst to shift stigmas and swing humanities perspectives to one of shared experience and shared responsibility to each other; also that gaining mental wellness is a multi-dimensional, holistic and intensely personal journey that can see us accessing resources from our primary health care providers alongside diverse innovative modalities that resonate with our unique selves. Whatever our journey exploring mental wellness, it is absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, more than OK to prioritise our selfcare. Even if we need to take a moment to quiet our inner - guilt ridden, time poor, and super critical -Judgy McJudgerson. She can sushhhhhhhh! It’s about more than just us, it’s global girl.
Photo by Helena Hertz on Unsplash
MOVE AND IMPROVE
Physical activity.
Exercise is a source of a surplus of benefits for every single one of us, we should all try and move and groove every day. Physical activity is known to be a protective factor against ADHD, Alzheimer’s Disease, Anxiety, Cancer, Depression, Diabetes, Heart Disease, and our Resilience. One brain chemical raved about is BDNF – Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor - and we make a heap of it when we exercise. BDNF promotes neuroplasticity, health-associated behaviours and quality of life. When weather permits exercise outside in green environments is best for brains.
We encourage all women to subscribe to Jean Haile’s Women’s Health Week this year, the resources are not just stunningly beautiful and engaging they are a distillation of the work of this incredible organisation, and its partners, ambassadors and champions.
If you feel you might benefit from some support and further brain health assessment with truly personalised treatment plans, please explore and find the best fit for you. You can watch, scroll, read, call or email, to find out more today.
About the author - Ms. Emily Goss (Occupational Therapist, Senior Clinician, The Perth Brain Centre)
September 5, 2022