As seen on BBC Future…
The brain’s miracle superpowers of self-improvement
We used to believe our brains were hardwired at birth. Now we believe we can will them to change. Is that true? Will Storr analyses the truth and hokum about ‘neuroplasticity’.
“For years she had tried to be the perfect wife and mother but now, divorced, with two sons, having gone through another break-up and in despair about her future, she felt as if she’d failed at it all, and she was tired of it. On 6 June 2007. Debbie Hampton, of Greensboro, North Carolina, took an overdose. That afternoon, she’d written a note on her computer: “I’ve screwed up this life so bad that there is no place here for me and nothing I can contribute.” Then, in tears, she went upstairs, sat on her bed, swallowed her pills with some cheap Shiraz and put on a Dido CD to listen to as she died. As she lay down, she felt triumphant.
But then she woke up again. She’d been found, rushed to the hospital, and saved. “I was mad,” she says. “I’d messed it up. And, on top of that, I’d brain-damaged myself.” After Debbie emerged from her one-week coma, her doctors gave her their diagnosis: encephalopathy. “That’s just a general term which means the brain’s not operating right,” she says. She couldn’t swallow or control her bladder, and her hands constantly shook. Much of the time, she couldn’t understand what she was seeing. She could barely even speak. “All I could do was make sounds,” she says. “It was like my mouth was full of marbles. It was shocking, because what I heard from my mouth didn’t match what I heard in my head.” After a stay in a rehabilitation center, she began recovering slowly. But, a year in, she plateaued. “My speech was very slow and slurred. My memory and thinking were unreliable. I didn’t have the energy to live a normal life. A good day for me was emptying the dishwasher.” Read more
Interview on The Jenny McCarthy Radio Show – Dirty, Sexy, Funny – on Sirius XM
Elevating Beyond Podcast: #81 I Crushed Depression w/ Debbie Hampton
The Oneness Approach Podcast
BodNog Radio interview
InformationWeek’s Business Matters: Change Your Brain interview
Brain Injury Radio interview
Creating Purpose From Brain Injury Brain Summit Interview