Fertilize Your Brain
Ketamine is a legal medication traditionally used for anesthesia which at lower doses has psychedelic properties and is utilized by health practitioners to promote healing and ease emotional suffering. It’s important to understand the effects of ketamine and how it works in your treatment.
Understanding the Neuroscience of
Ketamine Treatment
High levels of cortisol can wear down the brain’s ability to function properly. According to several studies, chronic stress impairs brain function in multiple ways. It can disrupt synapse regulation, resulting in the loss of sociability and the avoidance of interactions with others. Stress can kill brain cells and even reduce the size of the brain. Chronic stress has a shrinking effect on the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for memory and learning.
Ketamine can not only deliver rapid relief of symptoms, but can also aid in creating long-term holistic change through inLIGHTen’s programs.
How Ketamine Aids in Healing:
The Mind
Research into Ketamine has shown a complex pharmacological action on the brain. Ketamine interacts with multiple neuron receptors with the glutamate receptors seeming to have the most important role. Glutamate is a very important neurotransmitter for normal brain function. Ketamine seems to induce certain glutamate receptors (AMPA) while blocking others (NMDA) creating the effect of neuronal production and the release of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) which is aptly called fertilizer for the brain. BDNF promotes the growth, maintenance, and survival of neurons creating neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. It includes the remarkable capacity to reorganize neural pathways, create new neural connections, and even create new neurons. This in turn helps us to learn new things, enhance our existing cognitive abilities, recover from stroke or brain injuries, and boost brain fitness. Ketamine has also been shown to decrease activity in the DMN (Default Mode Network). This is the part of our brain pathways that contribute to repetitive thoughts and behaviors. This can include self-criticism, worry about the past or future, and focusing on things out of our control. By decreasing the DMN, Ketamine gives a person freedom from their ordinary patterns of thoughts and fixations.
How Ketamine Aids in Healing:
The Body
Many of the physical symptoms that occur in the body are a direct result to unresolved traumas that are stored in the body. When a trauma occurs the body actually stores memories of the event at a cellular level. The longer these traumas remain without being resolved the more physical symptoms can start to occur. These symptoms can present as chronic pain, cancers, or numerous other diseases. Ketamine helps by being able to shut off the ego allowing a person to reexamine old traumas in their lives from a different perspective and to resolve them which can then also resolve the physical symptoms that were attached to them. Ketamine also helps the body by helping to release stored up tension created from everyday stressors, poor body postures related to sitting at computers or cell phone usage. This tension builds up in our neck, shoulders, and back causing restrictions in our muscles and connective tissues. Ketamine causes complete relaxation of the muscles releasing these restrictions removing the strain from the body.
How Ketamine Aids in Healing:
The Spirit
Depending on the dose, Ketamine can produce a spectrum of sensations from a trance to an out-of-body experience. This in turn leads to what is termed a non-ordinary state of consciousness. There can be distinct types of these states that can range from empathogenic, out-of-body, near death, and ego-dissolving transcendent experiences. An empathogenic experience is a sub-psychedelic state, involving reductions in ego defenses, and a sense of understanding and compassion for oneself and others in their lives. At the highest psychedelic doses, a person feels complete dissolution from their body and unity with all people, nature, and the universe, and other profound shifts. Gaining this awareness outside of the confines of one's body allows other domains of information to give you novel insights about your relationships to others and to the environment, insights into who you are, why you are alive, and what your purpose is. It can also shed light onto why you are suffering and how to live differently in your daily life. Ketamine helps to facilitate greater awareness of a person’s ability to heal themselves.