Creating Pathways in our Brain

Probably everyone knows about the left brain vs right brain thing. Left brain controls what - science? Math? And right brain controls creativity. 

When we are babies, we learn many things that build pathways in our brains. Like crawling. It gets our body to figure out how to move the left side of our body at the same time we move the right side of our body. 

Not all children go through all the steps to integrate our brain and bodies and build those complex brain patterns. There are things we can do to help our brain build these important pathways. Here are some of the beginner things my vision therapist did with me to build these pathways: 

Carpet angels (like snow angels, but inside on the carpet)

Crawl (make sure to use opposite arms and feet)

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Put blocks in a circle or whatever in front of them. (Just put them in front.) then take a block from right side with left hand and place at the beginning of what will be a line. 

Next, take block from left side using right hand and place next to block to start the line. Continue grabbing across body and putting the blocks in a line. 

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There is a thing called “Moro reflex” that babies supposedly learn. It’s like a startle mechanism and then they calm down fairly quickly. Babies do this when they are sleeping too. 

Go to YouTube and look up Moro reflex and “Moro Splat.” Some will show you infants doing it. And others will show you how to do it as a learning exercise. 

The way I do it is simplified because I have so much trauma in my almost 50 year life. So this the beginner way of how I do it:

Lie on back 

Raise arms and legs at same time in this manner:

Knees bent and up off the floor (on a yoga mat), raising my pelvis as I am able to.

Arms straight up above me, raising my head and neck up off the floor. 

Then breathe out and let go slowly - to let my body down. 

I have to do it slowly so I don’t hurt my head. 

My vision therapist can do this very fast and make a big SPLAT noise. But I am not there yet. 

All of these exercises will help build brain connections between the left and right side of the brain.