What follows is an email I received that offers a neurological therapy you can do while lying in bed. It is based on the principles of neurological diplomacy, an approach used by some therapists that makes the “good” side as “bad” as the “bad” side when a person has more difficulty with one side of the body than the other side.

Robert Rodgers PhD
Road to Recovery from Parkinsons Disease

“Lying in bed when I wake up and stretch I may feel the right leg is more dead. Or, maybe I try to send golden or white light to the right arm or leg or right side and it feels darker and not so receptive as the left side. So I pretend the left side is that way, the whole drill. Basically anything I happen to notice at any time day or night that involves a difference in what is happening left vs right side of body, I use Neurological Diplomacy.”

“Doing yoga my right side may feel differently than my left side in a pose. I make the “good” side identical with all the limitations of the “bad” side using neurological diplomacy. A whole yoga set is done that way. This approach offers an approach to healing that is gentle and kind.” 

“Instead of trying to make the harder pose (left or right) better by stretching harder I do the other side less to make both sides even. That facilitates healing. I feel it. This feeling is not there when I do ordinary “stupid” yoga as I call it where we try to work harder on the “bad” side. The difference between the left and right sides of the body in any event is usually caused by skeletal mal-alignments. To work harder on the “bad” side may create deeper and more chronic adaptions to a difficult body situation. This would not be a welcome outcome.” 

“When taking a bucket shower, my right shoulder is more sensitive to cold than my left shoulder. So, I pretend to be sensitive to cold just in that same way on the left shoulder.”

“If nothing else, the practice of neurological diplomacy confuses the hell out of the brain, which is good, as it makes the brain more pliable and responsive to do what needs to be really done.”

Steve