Learning New Skills

As the years have passed since the onset of my personal trauma, learning new skills has been difficult for me. I have been forced to focus on unique and individual single-action tasks to provide a source of comfort within my everyday healing. I tend to make short lists, use Post-it notes, and keep an up-to-date calendar.

Looking at many different areas of my life simultaneously is often daunting and serves minimal purpose. As I see it, there are all of these avenues (people I’d like to connect to, tasks I’d like to accomplish, and skills I’d like to learn) all encumbered by potholes, stop signs, and ending in roadblocks. 

What is it, though? What is it about mental health disorders that limit our brain’s ability to understand information quickly? How is it that our burdened brains are now lined with a protective cover that does not allow the ability to learn new skills?  

A More Professional View

To gain a more thorough understanding of the brain chemistry associated with this learning deficiency, I spoke with Dr. Ramon Diaz, Clinical Complex Trauma Specialist (and CPTSD Guest author), who offered: 

“The human brain changes when a mental health disorder occurs. Trauma often influences an area of the brain called the Broca’s area.  Trauma can damage the area, which can lead to a person not being able to ‘explain’ what happened when he/she suffers a traumatic experience. Deficits in language processing inhibit individuals from developing a new lexicon or ‘updating’ a new one for future operations. Over time, however, a damaged Broca’s area creates negative feedback loops: loops that are unhealthy in the brain compound the acuity of symptoms, further generating a mental health illness.” 

Dr. Diaz recommends the following to help the brain “learn” again:

• Meditation: Increases gamma waves in the brain, which help with happiness, contentment, and agreeableness;
• Executive function exercises:  Helps increase grey matter where neurons group together to develop and maintain memory, critical thinking, and analytic thinking (a popular, inexpensive option is crossword puzzles);
• Intimate emotional conversations: With friends, loved ones, and/or support groups, learning new neural-based behaviors like increased empathy, improved self-esteem, increased positive communication towards peers, and enhanced compassion is an important way to learn.
  

These neural-based behaviors allow the brain to learn more effectively. The cortex, or “logic” part of your brain, can remain online more often to help build new neural-based neurons to help the brain learn new cognitive tasks.

For the moment, I am stuck with short lists, post-it notes, and calendar reminders. Thankfully, it is never too late to open the neural pathways to understand better how each of us learns. That, if nothing else, allows for hope.

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

Paul Michael Marinello

Paul Michael Marinello serves as Chief Staff Writer and Blog Manager for CPTSD Foundation. Previous to this role he managed North American Corporate Communications at MSL, a top ten public relations firm where he also served on the board for Diversity & Inclusion for a staff of 80,000. Paul Michael grew up in New York and attended SUNY Farmingdale before starting a ten-year career at Columbia University. He also served as Secretary and Records Management Officer for the Millwood Fire District, appointed annually by an elected board of fire commissioners from 2008 – 2017.