"Do you practice BBH?"

Are you a health professional? Most of us were trained to think about health problems based on pre-neuroscience paradigms. We looked past the neural circuits in the emotional brain that control our physiology and thought in terms of problems and differential diagnoses.

Yet the new neuroscience-based healthcare is radically different and based on neurophysiology. The treatment involves learning how to shut off errant wires that cause problems, and, with more training, how to reconsolidate harmful wires into healing wires. This is self-directed, targeted neuroplasticity, the science and practice of updating the very wires that are the modifiable root cause of most health problems.

It's a simple question

If you are a health professional, consider learning more about the science of brain-based health. If you are a patient, be a good consumer. Ask your health professionals, "Do you practice brain-based health?" What can follow is an exchange between you and your healthcare provider in which you, the consumer, assist them in joining the movement.

By being good healthcare consumers, the system can change. Without our nudging, doctors could continue with the old paradigm. They have not been trained to support their patients in using their own biggest asset – the prefrontal cortex – to its highest and best use, which is knowing our brain state, and when we are stressed, saying to ourselves, "Wow, this is a moment of opportunity! I can switch off that Stress Circuit, and not only will I feel GREAT, but I will deliver healing chemicals to every cell of my body."

Speaking up to health professionals is not always easy, and when we're hurting, being a BBH activist may not be at the top of our list. I noticed that in myself this week. A close friend referred me to a much sought-after orthopedic surgeon to evaluate my hip issue.

My resulting clinical experience put me in rapture. Every step of the way, the staff, the nurses, the fellows, and the doctor delivered more thorough, thoughtful, and comprehensive care than I've ever experienced. Now, I have a plan and a great healthcare team!

However, after the visit, I realized that I had dropped the ball a bit. Granted, I had brought up BBH, telling my physician that I was involved in the movement and researching the tools to help fulfill its mission. However, in all honesty, I could have done a better job of it. I am learning!

Using your own style

In the best of all worlds, I would have asked the simple question, "Do you practice brain-based health?"

They probably would have responded, "What's that?"

If they had, I could have said various things, whatever struck me at the time as sensible and potentially effective, such as:

• The BBH Movement is trying to make healthcare align with neuroscience.
• BBH supports giving all people the fundamental tools to exert control over their entire physiology, reduce stress, and provide a new pathway to well-being.
• The BBH Movement addresses the root cause of 90 percent of health problems: Stress Circuits. People learn how to shut them off in the moment, and, over time, rewire them.
• The goal of the BBH Movement is to give us more control over our momentary impulses and therefore, the quality of our lives.
• It's time to stop the excessive and ineffective use of medications, diagnostic tests, and procedures. The BBH Movement can help us do that!
• Brain Based Health is a practice that helps us reverse the age-related increase in brain stress load and, over time, begin to raise our brain's set point.

A revolution whose time has come

You may have other ways to talk about the brain-based health movement, but by asking the question, "Do you practice brain-based health?" you will have made an important contribution.

Your practitioners will remember what you said, and it might just begin to change how they think about healthcare and how they practice it.

We are all learning together, and it takes a village (a very big village) of individuals who are doing their small but important part! Chat about the idea with friends, mull it over, and day in and day out, when you talk with your health professionals, ask the question: "Do you practice brain-based health?"

This may be a revolution whose time has come. We might just surprise ourselves, and revolutionize healthcare rapidly. It is time!