How to use Spatial Thinking to target emotional triggers
How to use Spatial Thinking to target emotional triggers
ways to protect your mental health after a concussion and other Traumatic brain injuries
One reason mental wellness after a concussion declines may be do to the fact that concussions have invisible injuries, so sometimes the needed help and support gets overlooked.
Post concussion syndrome can make the simple everyday things in life a bit more difficult. Post concussion symptoms may include, headaches, dizziness, problems with concentration and memory, fatigue, sleep problems, balance issues, excessive drowsiness, blurry vision, ringing in the ears, and noise and/or light sensitivity.
For anyone saying, “oh your fine”, or “you’ll get better” without knowing what a concussion does to the brain chemistry could cause isolating feeling for those who have experienced a concussion. Many people who have suffered from a Traumatic Brain Injury or a concussion are not familiar with facts about these types of injuries themselves.
The symptoms I described, without proper awareness of why they’re happening may start to cause, anxiety, depression, mood swings, and even personality changes.
If you have a frontal lobe injury,
Damage to the frontal lobe may cause a variety of effects such as impaired muscle movements, personality changes, and impulsive behavior. Fortunately, many individuals are able to recover functions affected by frontal lobe damage and improve their quality of life.
What is Spatial Thinking?
Spatial thinking is defined as the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind to use concepts of space, tools of representation like maps and graphs, and processes of reasoning to organize and solve problems
Spatial intelligence is the concept of being able to successfully perceive and derive insight from visual data. This cognitive process is known as an aptitude for understanding visual information in the real and abstract word as well as an innate ability to envision information.
I’m going to make up an example of Spatial Intelligence.
Person #1 and #2 look at a picture of (two people sitting at an empty table)
Person #1 sees: two people sitting at a table
Person #2 see: A couple waiting on friends to join them for dinner. ( This is Spatial Intelligence)
Both are correct, however person #2 took a visual and envisioned information on a cognitive level.
Spatial thinking is if no picture was shown to person 1 and 2, but only verbally told two people are sitting at a table.
Person #1 with eyes close, will stare at two people sitting at a table.
Person #2 with eyes close, will create a journey to the vision in their mind.
How to use spatial thinking for emotional intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to manage both your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you. There are five key elements to emotional intelligence:
self-awareness
self-regulation
motivation
empathy
and social skills
When you are faced with an “in the moment” challenge, use these five keys to envision the journey of the outcome that moment.
What you can do if you or anyone you know have had a concussion
I am not a doctor, I am one of many people who have suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury and live with post concussion syndrome.
If you need medical attention, please go to your nearest hospital or dial 911 on your phone for help.
If you have been diagnosed with a concussion, you may be in the rehabilitation process with your doctor’s guidance and may want to maximize the use of additional support along your journey.
If you had an injury that was unreported, undiagnosed or happened many years ago and haven’t connected the injury with the symptoms, the first step is awareness.
Ask your doctor about…
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a popular treatment for these patients at the best brain injury rehabilitation centers. CBT focuses on challenging and changing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. As a result, patients learn emotional regulation and healthy coping skills.
Enact these practices into your daily life. This is how you develop spatial intelligence
Practicing Mindfulness. We all want to feel more calm, focused, regulated, and happy, especially when faced with adverse situations and moments.
Positive Affirmations. Think about something or someone you are thankful for. Start there and add to the list.
Journaling. You can say want you want to your journal and it won’t judge you. You can tell your journal your hopes and dreams.
Practicing Coping Strategies. Evaluate people you interact with and take deep breathing breaks with those you must interact with.
Brain Breaks. Anything you find relaxing that engages the brain like going for a walk.
Relationship-Building Chats. when you have people around you that you trust, ask them how would they describe you as a person. For those who are introverted, can find a community of like minded interest. There are in person and online communities on websites like meetup.com. They have local communities in every city in the U.S. I think.
Friends and family support
Help them break down their tasks.
Learn their triggers.
Monitor their overstimulation.
Help them slowly expand their comfort zone.
Support them during treatment.
A Mindful Practice that increase multi-level intelligence is the art of knitting.
Spatial Thinking in action is Knitting!
Example: You think of a luxury pair of gloves that fits you perfectly. Then you take a long piece of yarn and create a stitch and another stitch and then gloves appear. Because of the thought out process and action, you get what you thought.
While thinking about this post I designed a knitting pattern that is unusually beautiful, and nothing like I’ve seen until I created it.
The Journey of the Oomingmak Trigger Mittens
These are a light-weight, all-season trigger mitten set with sharp lines, keyhole i-cord details and fasten buttons layered over hand spun qiviut fingerless gloves.
Called trigger mittens because they were originally used by hunters, they are part-glove, with a separate thumb and index finger, and part-mitten, with a hand to keep the other three fingers toasty.
The yarn
The muskox owes its ability to function normally in temperatures of -40°C in high winds and blowing snow, in large measure, to its amazing coat. The coat has both a woolly layer and a hairy layer.
The wool, or "qiviut," is stronger than sheep’s wool, eight times warmer, and finer than cashmere. The coarser hairy layer that covers and protects the wool grows to be the longest hair of any mammal in North America. The Inuit name for muskox is omingmak, "the bearded one."
This knitting pattern includes the trigger mittens and fingerless gloves
Oomingmak Trigger Mitten Knitting Pattern
More knitting patterns from The Neuronknit Series
Thank you for reading and Happy knitting!
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