THE POWER OF VISUALIZATION, STRESS AND NEUROASSOCIATIVE CONDITIONING - MASSAGE-TECHNIQUES

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The power of visualization, stress and neuroassociative conditioning

Edited by Dr. Giovanni Chetta

The power of visualization

The studies of the American psychiatrist dr. Milton H. Erickson pointed out that the brain does not distinguish between reality and "excellent visualization. Mental images respond to the same laws and processes as real perceptions. In fact, the brain functions largely in images (the linguistic modality is of little relevance compared to to the imaginative one) and it is through this main mechanism that the psychosomatic effects demonstrated by psychoneuro-endocrine-immunology (described below) are manifested. Various studies have shown the possibility of influencing different physiological parameters through guided visualizations: heart rate, blood pressure, electromyographic activity, pain perception, healing and rehabilitation processes, etc.

Effects of imaginative relaxation are: increase in the amplitude and regularity of alpha waves, decrease in oxygen consumption and heart and respiratory rate, regulation of cortisol hormone production, nocturnal increase in melatonin hormone production (with consequent improvement in quality sleep and synchronization of biological rhythms).
Further research on the motor cortex has shown that it is organized not so much according to body topographic areas, but rather in relation to specific complex body movements directed in space towards a defined goal (Graziano et al, 2002). From this it follows that a movement performed by imagining (visualizing), for example, to grasp, reject or draw an object involves the nervous system much more than the same gesture performed only mechanically, thus stimulating and developing the proprioception of that specific joint or body area (Reed, 1996).
Preserving and developing the ability to visualize is therefore of fundamental importance for man.

Stress and neuroassociative conditioning

It should be emphasized that the same stimulus is capable of producing both a more or less positive stress and a more or less negative stress, based on our interpretation, aware and unaware, of it; and this depends on our experiences, prejudices, beliefs, etc. Furthermore, the emotional aspect is the main factor in determining the physiological and biochemical processes of the stress reaction.
With neuroassociation or neuroassociative conditioning or psychobiological imprinting we mean the state of mind associated with a certain stimulus. The response to this stimulus is a determined conditioned behavior, associated with physiological changes of the organism, based on the characteristics (type, intensity) of the conditioning itself. Suffice it to add, to reiterate the "importance of neuroassociative conditioning, that, as MS Gazzaniga, director of the" Program in Cognitive Neuroscience "at Dormouth College states," 98% of what the brain does is outside the domain of consciousness ".

Environmental inputs → Reception (visual, auditory, olfactory, kinesthetic) → Modulation through experiences, beliefs, generalizations, neuroassociations etc. Internal representation → Physiological reaction → State of mind → Behavior

From these studies all the therapies and techniques based on neuroassociative conditioning (cognitive-behavioral, modern hypnosis, strategic therapy, NLP etc.) were born which aim at an expansion of the limits of reality created by each of us and at a voluntary management of neuroassociations.
Thus, for example, by training the subject to bring himself to low cerebral rhythms during the treatment session, a neuroassociative conditioning will be created with the lying position or the one assumed on the massage table, which will lead to an improvement in sleep, with all the benefits that ensue. Not only that, if during the session we use a pleasant music, always the same, even here we will determine, with the passing of the sessions, a positive conditioning that the person can exploit at will at home: he will just have to listen to the same music. The same can be achieved by using the perfume or the essence present in the massage oil. The person, for example, will be able to feel the same essence, therefore the sensations associated with it, by adding it to his bubble bath or simply by nebulizing it in the environment (the respiratory tract allows a direct effect on the hypothalamus, thus representing a privileged, therefore particularly effective way of neuroassociation).