"As seen on Oprah", over 12 years ago Jill Taylor had a stroke. Hers was caused by an artery-vein weakness in the left hemisphere of her brain after years of undiagnosed migraine headaches. At age 37 the vein ruptured and hemorrhaged throughout her motor cortex, her sensory cortex, her brain's areas controlling her ability to speak & understand speech and to do math, and her orientation cortex. It required surgery to remove a golf-ball-sized blood clot and repair the blood vessels.
It would have killed anyone else, but Dr. Taylor is a neuroanatomist at the Harvard Brain Institute. She conducts brain research and teaches at medical school. She diagnosed herself and eventually managed to figure out how to place a phone call for help-- before she lost those abilities. Even with her understanding and experience, and arguably the world's best stroke care/rehab, she spent eight years regaining all of her mental capabilities. Every year, with continuous therapy & effort, her brain would gradually relearn another skill. It wasn't just a matter of reconnecting disrupted neurons-- it was also a challenge of teaching different neurons to replicate skills that had been lost as other neurons died.
Unlike other "brain books" I've read, this one is written by a left-brain thinker for other left-brain thinkers. It's an engineer's guide to the structure & function of the brain that even explains all that squishy new-age right-brain gobbledygook in technical vocabulary. She doesn't just list her feelings-- she describes her stroke & recovery in terms of human brain design & function. As her left-brain cells began to die (red blood cells are actually toxic to neurons) her right brain took over and put her in a "state of rapture". She'd occasionally realize "I'm having a stroke" or "I have to get help!" while the right side of her brain would overwhelm her with the emotional surges of "Wow, this is so cool!!" Once her left brain shut down, leaving her right brain "in charge", she found it very hard to leave "Nirvana" to have to bother to return to interacting with the rest of the human race.
Her insights are dramatically changing stroke treatment & therapy. She's very clear about what worked and what didn't, and her descriptions make it easier to understand how to communicate with and help a stroke victim. Half of the battle was dealing with overstimulation-- for the first two weeks after the stroke she could barely stay awake for 90 minutes before she'd need six hours of sleep. (For most of her recovery she had to sleep at least 11 hours/day.) She'd lost the ability to deal with light & noise, to understand color, to separate perception into three dimensions, and even to parse speech. Before her experience, many medical experts regarded excessive sleep as a sign of withdrawal or even depression so they'd stimulate or medicate the patient. She believes that many left-brain stroke victims just gave up on conflicting treatment/therapy and withdrew into their right brain. Without a persistent effort to rehab the left brain, they eventually lapsed into that status quo and became "disabled" instead of "wounded but recovering".
As she recounts her recovery, she also describes how it helped research into brain function. Various imaging techniques can actually track the brain activity of monks and nuns as they consciously quiet their left brains and enjoy meditation or "unite with God". She's much more aware of her left-brain/right-brain dichotomy, including the analytical voice in her head and her ability to sense emotion and intuit social situations. She knows now that her emotional reactions will last for about 90 seconds of biochemistry, but any feeling beyond that is a conscious decision of her left brain that she can control. She's much more aware of herself, her emotions, and her behavior. She's also a lot calmer and less critical. As her analytical intelligence has returned (or "redeveloped"), her other aspects of intelligence (especially emotional and artistic) have soared with understanding and skilled practice.
I've read lots of books on brain function and left/right behavior, and I've even tried to understand "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", but Dr. Taylor explains it with incredible detail and demonstrates the changes. As she describes the shutdown and recovery of her left brain, it's much easier to appreciate how the right brain functions and how the two hemispheres can either cooperate with each other or perpetually struggle. It also gave me a much better appreciation for people dealing with stroke rehab and mental conditions. Even more intriguing, it may be possible to control many types of "involuntary" reactions.
If you're not impressed with her public appearances, it's worth giving her another chance. When I saw her on Oprah she came across as a bit of a Suze-Orman zealous whacko. I think she overperforms that character to call attention to her avocation and the need for further brain research. I found her book much better than her sound bites.
One caveat-- if you're in your 20s-30s and coping with migraine symptoms, this book will scare you straight to a brain-scan appointment.
It would have killed anyone else, but Dr. Taylor is a neuroanatomist at the Harvard Brain Institute. She conducts brain research and teaches at medical school. She diagnosed herself and eventually managed to figure out how to place a phone call for help-- before she lost those abilities. Even with her understanding and experience, and arguably the world's best stroke care/rehab, she spent eight years regaining all of her mental capabilities. Every year, with continuous therapy & effort, her brain would gradually relearn another skill. It wasn't just a matter of reconnecting disrupted neurons-- it was also a challenge of teaching different neurons to replicate skills that had been lost as other neurons died.
Unlike other "brain books" I've read, this one is written by a left-brain thinker for other left-brain thinkers. It's an engineer's guide to the structure & function of the brain that even explains all that squishy new-age right-brain gobbledygook in technical vocabulary. She doesn't just list her feelings-- she describes her stroke & recovery in terms of human brain design & function. As her left-brain cells began to die (red blood cells are actually toxic to neurons) her right brain took over and put her in a "state of rapture". She'd occasionally realize "I'm having a stroke" or "I have to get help!" while the right side of her brain would overwhelm her with the emotional surges of "Wow, this is so cool!!" Once her left brain shut down, leaving her right brain "in charge", she found it very hard to leave "Nirvana" to have to bother to return to interacting with the rest of the human race.
Her insights are dramatically changing stroke treatment & therapy. She's very clear about what worked and what didn't, and her descriptions make it easier to understand how to communicate with and help a stroke victim. Half of the battle was dealing with overstimulation-- for the first two weeks after the stroke she could barely stay awake for 90 minutes before she'd need six hours of sleep. (For most of her recovery she had to sleep at least 11 hours/day.) She'd lost the ability to deal with light & noise, to understand color, to separate perception into three dimensions, and even to parse speech. Before her experience, many medical experts regarded excessive sleep as a sign of withdrawal or even depression so they'd stimulate or medicate the patient. She believes that many left-brain stroke victims just gave up on conflicting treatment/therapy and withdrew into their right brain. Without a persistent effort to rehab the left brain, they eventually lapsed into that status quo and became "disabled" instead of "wounded but recovering".
As she recounts her recovery, she also describes how it helped research into brain function. Various imaging techniques can actually track the brain activity of monks and nuns as they consciously quiet their left brains and enjoy meditation or "unite with God". She's much more aware of her left-brain/right-brain dichotomy, including the analytical voice in her head and her ability to sense emotion and intuit social situations. She knows now that her emotional reactions will last for about 90 seconds of biochemistry, but any feeling beyond that is a conscious decision of her left brain that she can control. She's much more aware of herself, her emotions, and her behavior. She's also a lot calmer and less critical. As her analytical intelligence has returned (or "redeveloped"), her other aspects of intelligence (especially emotional and artistic) have soared with understanding and skilled practice.
I've read lots of books on brain function and left/right behavior, and I've even tried to understand "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", but Dr. Taylor explains it with incredible detail and demonstrates the changes. As she describes the shutdown and recovery of her left brain, it's much easier to appreciate how the right brain functions and how the two hemispheres can either cooperate with each other or perpetually struggle. It also gave me a much better appreciation for people dealing with stroke rehab and mental conditions. Even more intriguing, it may be possible to control many types of "involuntary" reactions.
If you're not impressed with her public appearances, it's worth giving her another chance. When I saw her on Oprah she came across as a bit of a Suze-Orman zealous whacko. I think she overperforms that character to call attention to her avocation and the need for further brain research. I found her book much better than her sound bites.
One caveat-- if you're in your 20s-30s and coping with migraine symptoms, this book will scare you straight to a brain-scan appointment.
