Brain cycle revisited - Gillespie Approach–Craniosacral Fascial Therapy

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The Brain Cycle Revisited

Dr. Barry Gillespie February 10, 2022

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I see a lot of questions on our Facebook page around the brain cycle, something I named years ago. The brain has a normal expansion and contraction (we call it breathing) in a continuous lifetime cycle.

When my father passed in 1995, I held his head about 60 minutes after his heart stopped, but his brain was still breathing. At one point, it took one final expansion and stopped, an emotional moment for me. I was present at his true moment of passing.

The first thing I will do for a new patient is to check the brain cycle. Almost every new patient presents with no motion or zero seconds. Zippo.

As far as I know, no other health professional does this, setting us a part from everyone else. The root of the patient’s problem probably reverts back to trauma(s) creating this zero-second cycle.

Over a series of visits, the cycle hopefully will open to around 200 seconds, and the patient will feel better. We found in our Lancaster research that babies became happy at around 200 seconds, which became our general benchmark.

The head is probably tight because the fascial web is restricted from a lifetime of trauma. Once the web loosens, the brain starts to expand and contract better. The looser it gets, the longer the brain motion—not rocket science.

So everyone wonders why we get results that no one else can. It is pretty simple. We are working directly with this tight fascial web that is holding the brain motion. We want the world to see this concept too.

The beautiful thing about therapy is that the body remembers the old traumas and naturally revisits them in healing. The therapist’s job is to just listen to the body and trust what it is saying.

This is especially critical for newborns. We want the brain moving well and the fascial web free for all systems to work optimally. When you leave the hospital, your baby needs to breathe well, nurse well, digest well, poop well, and nap well. That is the hallmark of a happy baby.