46 pages • 1 hour read
Jill Bolte TaylorMy Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Brain Trauma, Neuroplasticity and Recovery
One of Taylor’s main themes is the human brain’s ability to recover from traumatic injuries and her own experience of healing. The brain is neuroplastic, or changeable, and with the right type of rehabilitation has the potential to relearn different functions and rebuild lost neural connections. It is this quality that helps Taylor relearn a myriad of skills, from writing and speaking to mathematics and driving, after her stroke and brain surgery. While some doctors think that any possible post-stroke healing will occur within six months, Taylor posits that her recovery took eight years and that medical professionals should not underestimate the brain’s ability to recover lost neurons. She writes, “As a trained neuroanatomist, I believed in the plasticity of my brain-its ability to repair, replace, and retrain its neural circuitry” (36).
Taylor also shares insights into the factors that she believes made her brain’s rehabilitation so successful. G.G. banned distractions such as TV and radio and engaged Taylor in frequent conversations and basic tasks. G.G. did not ask yes/no questions, instead challenging Taylor to find her own words and respond with more complex answers, thus connecting more of Taylor’s neural networks. The author also learned most effectively by performing basic imitations, which she calls “monkey-see, monkey-do” behavior since her verbal communication was limited during this time.
Another crucial aspect of her healing is her penchant for sleeping long hours during the day. Instead of fighting this instinct, Taylor and her mother allowed her to sleep for long periods since her body and brain needed rest to heal. During the months immediately after her brain surgery, her cognitive challenges were limited to about twenty minutes and then Taylor was allowed to rest again. Indeed, Taylor believes that if she had been institutionalized during her recovery, her rehabilitation would not have been a success since many care centers would have restricted her sleep time and medicated her with an alertness drug, such as Ritalin, which she is convinced would have delayed or halted her brain’s healing. She writes, “For my recovery, it was critical that we honor the healing power of sleep […].I remain a very loud advocate of sleep, sleep, sleep, and more sleep interspersed with periods of learning and cognitive challenge” (112).
Taylor’s process of recovering her damaged neural networks demonstrates how the human brain is capable of complex, long-term healing due to its plasticity. Her detailed explanations of the methods that supported her healing will be of great interest to stroke survivors, their families, and medical staff alike.
Stroke Survivor Experiences in the Medical System
One personal aspect of Taylor’s work is her experience as a stroke patient receiving treatment in hospital. Taylor’s book provides a valuable perspective on medical treatment from the stroke patient’s point of view, showing how even though stroke survivors may not be able to communicate their opinions, they remain highly aware and sentient, and are especially sensitive to different stimuli due to their brain injuries.
For example, during and after Taylor’s stroke she experiences immense pain when exposed to bright light and is also irritated by loud sounds, such as television noise, both of which are frequently present in the hospital environment. She also reports feeling overwhelmed and degraded by medical staff who are brusque and demanding. She writes of one experience with an insensitive medical student, “In her haste, she was rough in the way she handled me, and I felt like a detail who had fallen through someone’s crack. She spoke a million miles a minute and hollered at me as if I were deaf…Her demands were annoying and I felt weary from the encounter” (81). These interactions not only irritate Taylor but also cause her to mentally and emotionally shut down for certain staff members and reject their presence, inhibiting their ability to acquire information and provide her with appropriate treatment.
On the other hand, Taylor shares the kind of interactions that leave her feeling mentally and emotionally buoyed. For example, some of her physicians understand her extreme sensitivity to communication and stimuli and treat her in a gentle and patient manner. She particularly praises her physician Dr. Anne Young for her personable and inclusive approach to patient care. She writes, “[Dr. Young] leaned over the edge of my bed and got close enough to my face that I could hear her. Although I could not completely understand her words, I completely understood her intention…On her way out the door she squeezed my hand and then my toe. I felt a huge sense of relief that she was my physician” (84). By including Taylor in a gentle conversation, even though she has troubles communicating, Dr. Young ensures that she feels safe and respected. This helps establish a positive doctor-patient relationship and supports Taylor’s continuing treatment. The author’s inclusion of these details helps the reader empathize with stroke survivors and provides valuable information for medical professionals who want to provide the best care for patients with brain injuries.
The Brain’s Hemispheres and Balanced-Brain Thinking
In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor explores the brain’s two hemispheres in order to thoroughly explain her own experience of stroke while also arguing that most people’s thinking favors the left hemisphere’s linear and rationalist thinking over the right hemisphere’s big-picture awareness and emotional intelligence. Taylor’s main revelation is founded on the differences inherent to our brain’s hemispheres; after suffering her stroke and coping with an impaired left hemisphere, Taylor realizes that her compassion, joy, and sense of timelessness and wonder are all rooted in her brain’s right hemisphere and should be as accessible to her as her other types of thinking.
The author argues that these positive feelings are infrequent in many people’s daily lives because they are overwhelmed by the left hemisphere’s neural circuits, which are prone to rumination and worry. Taylor claims that by allowing thoughts fueled by fear and frustration to run rampant, we are accidentally strengthening those particular neural circuits, making them more frequent and dominant. Taylor claims that everyone has the physical wiring to experience inner peace and joy, but that these experiences require our conscious efforts to monitor and change our thinking.
While Taylor acknowledges the left hemisphere’s valuable skills, such as linear and sequential thinking, logical analysis, language and communication, mathematical thinking, and more, she also feels that we need to embrace more of our right hemisphere’s perspectives, such as intuition, compassion, and living in the present moment. As such, Taylor strongly advocates for balanced-brain thinking, arguing that accessing our right hemispheres more often will make us happier and more positive people. She explains, “I believe the more time we spend running our inner peace/compassion circuitry, then the more peace/compassion we will project into the world, and ultimately the more peace/compassion we will have on the planet” (134). The differences between our brain’s hemispheres and our ability to observe and direct our own thinking to achieve a balanced-brain perspective on life are a crucial aspect of Taylor’s work and message to the reader.
