After the Invisible Brain Injury: What It Is and Different Modalities to Heal

Copyright © 2017 Sheryl Gallo, PsyD & Elaine Billy, BS, CHHT, OB.

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There are certain parts and ideas in this book that we are uncertain of the source. It may be we heard it in a lecture, read it, had a class that covered it, saw it on television or received it in a meditation. None of the information was meant to be plagiarized. We have been using these theories and concepts in our practices for many years.

The authors of this book do not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the authors is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the authors and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-7086-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-7087-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016920057

Balboa Press rev. date: 10/22/2018

CONTENTS

1. Biology of the Brain

2. The Brain Applied to Everyday Life

3. The Brain in Emergency Situations

4. The Injured Brain

5. How The Brain Heals

6. The Use of Tools and Compensatory Skills to Heal

7. How to Revitalize and Rewire the Brain

8. How to Use your Brain to Promote Healing

9. The Brain: Emotions and Memory

FOREWORD

The beginning of this book was written to describe the brain and its functioning. This may help you or your loved one who has suffered a brain injury understand the mechanism we call our brain.

The later portion of the book was written to give you hope and inspiration in dealing with injuries of any kind. We hope that the information we are including helps you and the injured party recover more quickly by providing the confidence and the knowledge to assist you in realizing you are not alone. We invite you to share the information.

CHAPTER 1

Biology of the Brain

The brain is the main control system for our bodies. It seems that we take our brain for granted because we don’t realize how much it controls our everyday functioning. The brain’s physiological functioning is comparable to a fully stocked library. The brain has unique areas that categorize functioning. It archives a lot of information so that we retain the gathered information. The brain also has fuel to maintain its daily functioning, including the automatic nervous system which controls things like breathing, heart rate and automatic survival functions.

The brain consists of the following areas: frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, the occipital lobe, the cerebellum and the brain stem. The frontal lobe is responsible for our daily executive decisions, problem solving, planning, organizing, manipulating information, attention, focusing, sustaining attention and our abstract thinking (defined as those tasks we perform like math and puzzles). The parietal lobe regulates our senses such as our hearing, touch, vision, taste and smell. The temporal lobe