Today we will learn to manage our hypersensitivity and its high potential thanks to Cathy Assenheim's book "My Brain is Hyper". If you are a hypersensitive person or with high potential, we will discover many techniques that will help you calm down.
My name is Paul and my high potential was discovered more than ten years ago now. And today, on Connect The DotsI share what I read in my The gifted library to help the new kids get better.
NB: This article is the transcript of the above video.
Book Presentation
In his book "My Brain is Hyper", Cathy Assenheim addresses both hypersensitive and high intellectual potentials. It groups them under the name "hyper".
High Intellectual Potential (HIP) or hypersensitive?
She makes a difference between these two hypers (the HIP and hypersensitive). It estimates that around 1 HIP 5 east Highly Sensitive Person. So a vast majority of people with high potential In her view, she would not be hypersensitive.
This opinion is somewhat different from that of several people, including Jeanne Siaud-Facchin She says that all high intellectual potentials are hypersensitive. In his book, Cathy Assenheim first talks about the brain High Intellectual Potential. There's a lot going on, I'm not teaching you anything! I'll give you a few points I found interesting.
Response to stress in zebras
She starts talking about the stress reaction. When I talk about stress it's the neurophysiological reaction, not the negative stress before an examination. We have thousands of small stress reactions a day. Except the high intellectual potentials who have even more.
Basically, this reaction happens when something happens. It's the explosion in my drawing. It can be hunger, or when we see a car running into us. This action will cause a change in our body which is usually a release of hormones or a nervous flow. For example, when you see the car coming at you, you suddenly have a big nervous flow going into your legs and running on the sidewalk. Once this reaction has passed, it is the end of stress. Better. We're calming down.
This cycle occurs thousands of times a day, and it consumes a lot of resources. It's also something that often goes unnoticed. When the car that goes down on us we realize, but not the whole process of releasing hormones from hunger.
There I represented the stress level throughout the day for a neurotypical person. You can see that you first have warning phases: it goes up. Then phases of relaxation. And then a new alert, a new relaxation, and so on.
Now we see that the HIP has much more of these curves, much more cycles. His brain is constantly excited by the information that reaches him. He's always on alert. He has a very special brain awakening. This large number of stress reactions makes him more likely to have brain saturation. That's why, according to her, high intellectual potentials are more anxious.
Cortisol in the gifted
The second very important thing she talks about is cortisol. It is a hormone that plays an essential role in energy production. I drew you his scientific/chemical form for fun.
She's involved in the circadian rhythm. It's the awakening/sleep rhythm. We have a cortisol peak in the morning between 6:00 and 8:00: it's the one who wakes us up and pulls us out of bed. Then this rate of cortisol decreases throughout the day so that we arrive in the almost empty evening not to be too excited. The cortisol leaves room for the melatonin that comes to take over for the night. This is how these two hormones regulate themselves and that we have our awakening cycle – sleep.
What we need to know is that cortisol is also produced when we have moments of stress because, as we have just seen, these moments of stress require a lot of energy. And cortisol provides this energy. We also just saw: the High Intellectual Potential has many peaks of stress throughout the day, which means that its cortisol rate does not really drop – or at least it drops less well and slower. This, according to her, could cause sleep problems. When the evening comes and the time to go to bed, we're still too excited and we think of everything, we have ruminations in our heads... Finally, we don't sleep.
The sympathetic and parasympathic system
And finally, I wanted to talk to you about the friendly system and the parasympathic system. These are two systems of functioning of our bodies and organs. The sympathetic is more in action, and the parasympathic is more in relaxation and rest.
For example, the sympathetic system will activate brain function and all energy hormones while instead the parasympathic system will slow down the same brain function and release hormones from well-being. The friendly one accelerates the heart rate and blood pressure while the parasympathic will slow down all this. The sympathetic activates the respiratory function and especially the inspiration (we take energy) while the parasympathic slows down this respiratory function and we exhale, relax. And finally the sympathetic stimulates liver activity by slowing down digestive function while the parasympathic inhibits liver activity by increasing digestion.
The "problem" is that people High Intellectual Potential tend to be much more in the sympathetic system and in action. They have a lot of difficulty tipping over their parasympathic system that is linked to relaxation. It's a job you have to learn to do.
The hypersensitive brain
Then the second part of the book focuses on the brains of hypersensitive people. When I read it, I realized that it really matched what I had said in a previous article. So I invite you to go read my article on the functioning of the hypersensitive brain.
Then, the entire end of the book Cathy Assenheim gives plenty of techniques to help the high potentials hypersensitive in everyday life. It's really very concrete and frankly it's not bad at all. There's plenty. I'm not gonna tell you all because it's not cool for her. You have to go buy the book if you want to know everything!
Diet in Hyper
But I wanted to talk to you about one that I loved very much and that talks about food. I love feeding. I'm a fan of all this.
It offers a menu that is good for hypers.
This menu includes protein to be taken all day long and early morning. Their amino acids are essential for brain function.
Then you have to have a rich iron diet. It is mainly present in red meat, whole grains and dried fruits. Iron will help oxygen go into the blood and thus to the brain.
We must also consume quality carbohydrates (but with moderation, and at the right time!). Prefer slow sugars in the morning and at noon, and quick sugars at the snack to prepare a hormonal chain that will be responsible for sleep. When I say sugar fast it's not soda, coca, or pastries. Rather, it is fruit and chocolate with at least 70% cocoa.
After that, good fats (such as virgin oils) must be given priority because fat represents 60% of the brain mass.
Then drink a lot of water, it's classic. It's the basis of everything.
Prefer also the consumption of magnesium and saffron. We just saw him, hypers are people who are prone to the overexcited nervous system. Magnesium and saffron will help calm this nervous system.
And last but not least, take good care of your microbiota. For those who do not know the microbiota, it is all the microbes that we have inside our digestive system and that help to consume, digest, cut, etc. It's a real ecosystem, it's an amazing thing! If you're as passionate as I am by this I really invite you to go see Arte's report " Microbiote, the fabulous powers of the belly" . He's amazing! It lasts about an hour and frankly it's crazy! I love it so I'm a bottom but if you really like it, it's great done. It has nothing to do with the High Intellectual Potential I'm just giving it to you because I loved it.
Conclusion on the book « My brain is hyper » by Cathy Assenheim
What differentiates this book (and I find that is very good) is that it talks a lot about the reactions we have in the brain, our hormones, etc. I love all this. He also talks a lot about the techniques of everyday life that can be put in place and it's really well done.
If you want you can order it. You have a link to buy directly on Amazon. For info (to be transparent) it is a link that is affiliated. It doesn't cost you any more. I'm getting a little commission from Amazon. It helps to live, be nice!
And I'll tell you next time!
