#22 Train Your Brain: Neuroplasticity Tools for Jewelers with Anna Gieselman

Join us in Episode #22 of The Jeweler's view with Courtney Gray, we dive deep into the fascinating world of neuroplasticity with expert Anna Gieselman. As a neuromobility coach, Anna brings a wealth of knowledge on how simple, practical 15-30second exercises can make a significant difference for jewelers and creatives. Host Courtney and Anna explore specific techniques like peripheral vision drills, gaze stabilization, and sensory input methods that can help you alleviate chronic pain, improve mobility, and sharpen your focus. Learn how to measure the impact of these exercises immediately and integrate them seamlessly into your daily routine. By the end of this episode, you'll walk away with actionable steps to reduce vision strain, tension in the neck and shoulders, and even carpal tunnel symptoms. Whether you're new to these concepts or looking to refine your approach to health and wellness, this episode is packed with valuable insights to help you thrive in your craft. 

Transcript

# Episode \#21- with Anna Geisalman

[00:00:00] you know, we talk a lot on this show about things like habits,

**Courtney:** Now not only is she an expert in neuroplasticity, mobility, and brain body performance, but she's also an old friend. And former student of mine, as [00:01:00] well as a fellow jewelry maker, and today we're going to dive into some practical, simple techniques. That we can do to feel better, move better, and focus better while we work on a, I'm so excited. You're here.

**Anna Gieselman:** Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure to be here. It's good to see you again after so long.

**Courtney:** I know it's been, four or five years at least, 

it's so good to see you. And, I understand you've retired from the jewelry world. Yeah. But I'm so excited about the world that you've entered, I knew you as a yoga teacher and meditation coach, as well as massage therapist back in the day. How did we meet? Remind me,

**Anna Gieselman:** when I started beekeeping and my bees made some queen cells cause they were going to swarm. So they were making new queens. And I found your class casting from nature or found objects. So I brought all my queen cells to cast them. And that was my very first pendant that started the entire be a more line, which went on for like a decade.

so yeah, that was the very start.[00:02:00] 

**Courtney:** Yes. And you were fine tuning honeycomb castings did you get it down to a science? I remember we were troubleshooting,

**Anna Gieselman:** Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to where I could tell right away if something was going to work or not work. 

**Courtney:** You're focusing now , as a neuro coach, is that the best way to describe what you do? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Anna Gieselman:** Yeah. A neuromobility coach. where I spend most of my time now. , I don't really teach yoga anymore. every once in a while when I'm teaching someone, I might throw in a down dog or something, but I don't teach a full asana class anymore. now I mostly work with people one on one. So people come to me for really specific issues like post concussion syndrome or, you know, headaches that they just can't get rid of, or insomnia, um, some people with

**Courtney:** Wow. 

**Anna Gieselman:** cause everybody's different and everyone's brain is unique. So it's never the same thing. It's not like I'm teaching a routine. I get to really run a bunch of assessments [00:03:00] and see, okay, what are your deficits? what, what does your brain need more of what areas might be too active, need to calm down and, , test out a bunch of different neurodrills specific.

Neuro targeted exercises and see how they respond. and hopefully after a little while they don't have headaches anymore or they're not having the same outputs.

**Courtney:** . so, but before we get hands on, let's talk about why this matters for jewelers specifically. I know in previous episodes, we've talked about consistency leads to mastery, and that applies here too. If we're constantly reinforcing bad posture, tension, or discomfort, we're basically training our bodies to stay in that pattern.

**Anna Gieselman:** I wouldn't say you're training your body. I would say you're training your brain because that is your governing system. So, whatever you do regularly, your brain gets better at doing for better or for worse. and also I would add that posture and the amount of muscle tension or relaxation you have is also governed by your brain.

It's important to [00:04:00] know that your brain's main job is to keep you alive. That's its number one priority. if it's taking in information that it predicts you're not going to be safe with, then it produces what we call protective outputs, such as headaches, muscle tension, anxiety, all the things we don't really like to experience.

That's something to just keep in mind. If you're having a lot of tension in your neck or headaches or pain, those are all signs that your brain is saying, I don't think we're safe. And that's your call to action. Basically, it's your, your brain's cry for help saying, Hey, I need different sensory inputs.

It's a big signal. Yeah.

**Courtney:** So what you teach is, techniques that we can do throughout the day, throughout the week, of start curbing some of these signals or symptoms, correct?

**Anna Gieselman:** Well, you're giving your brain new inputs and the nervous system speaks in the language of sensory inputs. So we're working with different sensory input systems. So you might be working with your vision, maybe working with your body, your [00:05:00] proprioception. there's all sorts of different sensory inputs that you can work with.


say, for instance, you have one eye that doesn't see very well, and your eyes are your brain's main way of assessing threat visually, you know, taking in what's around you, what's happening, and so if one of those eyes is not giving good information, it's just checked out, your brain is constantly aware of that ongoing threat, like, I can't quite see out of the right eye, that's a little bit of a problem ongoing every day, so that creases your brain's perspective.

**Anna Gieselman:** Protective outputs. So you're going to have more pain more often or more tension more often. basically the work is identifying what are your deficits? Cause everyone's are unique, but then training those deficits. So you heal them basically

**Courtney:** Okay. Wow. Pretty in depth, Anna. I mean, it's so interesting that our brains literally are in control of everything. 

**Anna Gieselman:** of everything you've ever experienced or done, like us talking, your hands, moving your eyes, taking in color and depth and shape and knowing what those shapes are [00:06:00] being able to take an idea from that. Like, oh, I have this piece of jewelry I want to design, and then actually actualizing it. that's your brain.

You couldn't do it without your brain.

**Courtney:** It's our best friend organ, right? 

**Anna Gieselman:** Absolutely. 

**Courtney:** All right. So let's talk about the areas where most jewelers struggle. all can identify with neck and shoulders. We spend hours hunched forward, looking down at our work a lot.

Some of us work, you know, more elevated. Some of us try to work on the level, right? At the 90 degrees, hands and wrists, like holding tools, hammering, engraving. All this adds up over time, I would think,

**Anna Gieselman:** Yes.

**Courtney:** and focus, which is a big one, we want to talk to you about today, staring at fine details let's focus on vision, Because

**Anna Gieselman:** Yeah.

**Courtney:** that the gateway to our creativity is our eyes.

And, , I think preserving those precious organs is probably one of the most important things we could start with, I know you always say it's important to assess something

**Anna Gieselman:** Yeah.

**Courtney:** after. So can you walk us through that a little bit?

**Anna Gieselman:** For sure. So, like I was saying before, your brain [00:07:00] governs muscle tension, it governs the experience of pain or relaxation, it's really helpful to take a measurement within your body. for me, Historically, my neck is where I hold tension I can almost guaranteed if I turn my head right to left, feel like, oh, yeah, it's a little tight to the right.

I'm not looking for pain. I'm just looking for a measurement of tension for some people. Their neck is fine. And so I might say, okay, you know, test your shoulder rotation. See how it feels to rotate your shoulder, how it feels to raise your arm. how does it feel to do a pushup, something, that you can measure to see like, okay, it was kind of hard to do a pushup or wow, I just did 10, no problem.

So then that's your measurement. So you just need some sort of physical measurement as your baseline. Then we provide your brain with some specific inputs, such as a vision drill. And then immediately afterwards you go back and do the exact same thing. So I'll check my neck right to left. Does it feel tighter?

Looser or the same. [00:08:00] And if it feels the same, it basically means your brain doesn't really care about what you just did. It wasn't, the input wasn't interesting enough or dynamic enough to get its attention. So it's like, yeah, whatever. That wasn't special. If you have more range of motion, less tension, that's a big thumbs up from your brain saying like, ah, I needed that input.

And then if it goes the other way, where you have more tension, that's your brain finding that threatening. So that's a signal like too much. Maybe too fast, maybe too many reps, but I didn't like that. you can really apply this concept of assess and reassess to everything in your life. say you wake up and you're like, well, I feel great.

And then two hours later, you're like, wow, my neck is seizing up. What happened in those two hours? Cause the seizing up is an output of your brain. So you can kind of. play with this throughout your life. we'll be doing this before and after every vision drill so that you have a measurement to know, does my brain find that threatening?

Does it like it or does it not care? 

**Courtney:** Oh, I love this. I'm so excited. , just to [00:09:00] mention, I am adding all of the episodes now to YouTube at the jeweler's view. Definitely jump over there. If you get a chance or want to follow along with Anna and I, we're going to do this together.

I'm going to do some vision

**Anna Gieselman:** Nice.

**Courtney:** if that's okay.

**Anna Gieselman:** Absolutely.

**Courtney:** sure I need it and I would love to do an assessment and stay on top of just what's going on with my body. I've learned a lot about that in the last few years and how important it is our health. And I know you've had a similar life. I am your host, Maja Krupa. Experience on. I don't know if you wanted to share a little bit about that. 

**Anna Gieselman:** Sure. so I had been making jewelry and also teaching yoga and doing massage for a long time, many, many years. And I had a fair amount of joint pain all the time, but I sort of chalked that up to the fact that I was doing so much with my hands, like massaging people, making jewelry. It's probably just wear and tear is what I told myself.

And then when I was 36, I had really large lymph nodes swollen in my neck, like beyond normal size and found out that I had multiple autoimmune diseases [00:10:00] happening, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and Sjogren's and that my levels were very, very high. So that was the start of this whole journey kind of slammed the brakes on a lot of things in my life.

And, I was taking all the natural approaches I could one of my friends who also works in this field, she was like, you know, pain is an output of your nervous system. Inflammation is an output. Autoimmune is an output. You need to work with your nervous system. At the time, I was already meditating and doing yoga, so I kind of felt like, well, what do you mean?

Work with my nervous system. I am. And that's when I went to my first conference with a school called Z health. It's run by a man named Dr. Cobb. that weekend we just did a few drills and I was getting instant relief where it was like, wow, all I did was this one little thing with my ankle and my entire body has less pain.

That's weird. Like, that's very strange. And so that was the start of it. I was like, this is wild. I just need to know what is this, how I needed to know [00:11:00] the underlying mechanisms. so I got into it for my own self healing first . then the more that I worked with it, the more I started to share it with my yoga clients at the time.

And then, it just became its own thing. And now that's what I do.

**Courtney:** Yeah. It's so interesting how we get directed on our path, isn't it? And some, it's not always easy.

**Anna Gieselman:** Yeah, I

**Courtney:** It's.

**Anna Gieselman:** wouldn't mind a different route.

**Courtney:** I know. It's like, okay, I'm here now. Thank you so much. But did we have to, did it have to be that difficult journey the deep dark forest to walk through to get here to the other side? I have to assume it's part of the training 

**Anna Gieselman:** I think also, you know, I never had children. I chose not to have kids. I think the path of chronic sickness, I was really, really sick for five years, just like chronic, chronic pain that sort of grew me up in a way that I think a lot of people having the responsibility of children changes them in a way that grows them forward.

that I never chose that. But then this other thing came through and it changed me as a [00:12:00] person. It made me much more empathetic, much more humble. Just, the good things that you want to shift from a your previous version. Yeah.

**Courtney:** Yeah. the more I research all of this, the personal growth and go through it myself and the more I learned that Sometimes it just has to be a big shake up, you know,

**Anna Gieselman:** Yeah.

**Courtney:** a child or a big life altering event, like illness or loss

**Anna Gieselman:** Yep.

**Courtney:** clarity. gosh, I would, if I'm going to spend my life trying to find a work around, you know, like there's gotta be a work around here cause man, it can be difficult. Well, I'm so impressed with you for finding this calling, through all of that hardship. It's. really impressive thank you for sharing that. Let's get into some eye drills. Are we, are we ready?

**Anna Gieselman:** Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay. So you need to take a baseline assessment. so sit up tall and turn your neck right to left, if that has any amount of tension that you can measure, or you're like, Oh, to the right, it's a little funky to the left. It's fine. That's all we need is a measurement.

[00:13:00] And you really need to be present with yourself. If you're vague, like, oh, I don't know, I can't tell, then that's going to be vague afterwards too. So be really clear with yourself. And if your neck doesn't give you good information, another one you can do is to cross your arms across your chest. Like you're gonna jump in the water like a scuba diver and rotate your torso right to left so you just twist and Notice number one how it feels but also when you get to the end of the twist How far are you going?

Like what are you looking at when you go to the left versus the right? And once you have those measurements, then we'll do a drill.

one is a peripheral vision drill. So if you're, like for you right now, you might, your camera might have a little green light on the computer. You can look at that, or you can look at something else that's right in front of you that your eyes are going to stay focused on, but your hands out to the side of your face, you're going to do a little bit of like jazz hands.

And so you're going to be moving your [00:14:00] arms around , 

while focusing. So you're still looking forward at one point, your fingers are doing jazz hands around almost about the size of like a beach ball in front of your face. You don't want them to be too obviously in front because that's not peripheral vision.

You're out to the side and you're going to do this for about 30 seconds, maybe a minute at most. As you go through this, if you find that there's blind spots where they're not as clear, then stay there and do more jazz fingers and see if you can clear it up. this is training your peripheral vision.

You're looking for movement. And if you can't see it in certain areas, there's like a blind spot, then stay there and try to just clear it up and get your eyes to see without looking. then after that, you can relax your arms. And then once again, if you would check your neck, turn your neck right to left to see if it feels easier or if it goes farther. If you did the torso twist, you can check your torso.

**Courtney:** Okay. I [00:15:00] did

**Anna Gieselman:** So if you did that and nothing changed, you didn't feel any change,

**Courtney:** do two.

**Anna Gieselman:** is pretty rare in this particular drill, I would say try it lying down because that's less complex. So we're always working on a spectrum and everyone's brain is different. So for me, my brain and my nervous system are very sensitive. It does not take much.

Whereas my partner, he's an athlete, a former professional athlete high cognitive capacities, never had any major health issues. . Doesn't have a lot of big deficits. So for him to have a change in his nervous system. We have to stack multiple drills in once he has to do him standing.

It has to be so much harder because his brain is used to a higher load. It really depends on the person. So if you got a neutral from that, just know that it means your brain wants a higher demand of [00:16:00] input. if you got a negative, it means your brain is like saying, Whoa, that was a little much. And then I would try that lying down instead of sitting.

Yeah. How did that feel for you? Did you feel a change?

**Courtney:** a little bit. Yeah. I want to focus on it more, but my left was a little tweaked when I turned to the left and now it feels much more open.

**Anna Gieselman:** Good.

**Courtney:** how did a beach ball do that though? 

**Anna Gieselman:** Well, I just say beach ball as far as like the shape, because sometimes people go way far out with their arms and that's not wrong, but you don't have to, you don't even have to do jazz fingers. So for instance, if you're outside, you can just look at a tree that's right in front of you, but then try to take in everything else around you without looking like, oh, there's a lady walking over there to the right and there's a red car over to the left and there's some clouds up above.

And so you're seeing with your peripheral vision. so if you don't want to look at doing jazz hands, then very much.

**Courtney:** it more like, okay, I'm doing this now, you know, like it kind of helps you zoom [00:17:00] in now, what are the results that we're looking for is just more range of motion.

**Anna Gieselman:** More range of motion, less tension. So if,

you're like, Oh, every time I turn my head to the right, there's this one little spot that's got a little tweak or funkiness. then we're looking for a change in that area. Less pain, less tweak, less tension, more range of rotation, greater ease in the body. 

So then we're still going to stick with the same assessments, either your neck or your torso twist as your assessment. So for this next one, this is a really great, foundational eye drill, which is gaze stabilization. And jewelers are doing this all day, but they're only staring at the one range that they're pieces in, whereas your eye has six muscles that take it around in all these different directions, and they need to be worked, just like you need to, you know, Do a bicep curl every once in a while, or, lift, squeeze something.

Your muscles need activation. this one trains those muscles, all the six eye muscles. there's a lot of ways to do this, but we'll just do it [00:18:00] in three sections. Your head is going to stay still. You might even take your hand to your chin. To keep your head from moving.

And you're going to take your eyes slightly upward, not so high that your eyebrows raise up into your forehead or it strains, but kind of about as if you were looking at someone who is about a foot taller than you. So your eyes are going to hold slightly upwards on a target, whatever it is. It could be a speck on the wall or anything that's slightly up and you're going to hold it for about 20 seconds.

You can blink while you're doing this. Thanks. But your eyes are going to stay locked on a target that's slightly taller than you.

And then you can relax your eyes for a sec, take a breath, and then reassess your neck. So see if it feels any different, right to left.

**Courtney:** hear things popping. Is that good?

**Anna Gieselman:** I don't really have a problem with popping. I don't see it as a bad thing. I'm more looking [00:19:00] for, is there a pain or more tension? sometimes people have more range of motion, so then their neck kind of adjusts and pops and that's really fine. Crunchy sounds are fine. so we're going to do the exact same thing again, except this time your eyes are going to look slightly to the right.

Not so far that the left eye can't see, but just enough. as if someone were standing about a foot to your right, and you're going to find a target and look at it. Don't let your head move off of center though.

**Courtney:** And these all we hold these all for about 30 seconds, right?

**Anna Gieselman:** It depends. Um, if you're, if your eyes feel like, Oh, that's exhausting, then I would do 10 to 15 seconds. Um, if you're used to using your eyes in different ways, then maybe 30, probably at most. I usually shoot for 15 to 20 seconds. then reassess your neck after holding to the right,

and then our last one will be looking to the left.

and all three [00:20:00] of these could have different results, so your brain might really like it when you look up a little bit, Maybe one time, a long time ago, a soccer ball hit you in the head from the right side. So looking to the right has like an old threat pattern. just know that that's why we're measuring between each one, because certain directions can be threatening, while other ones are really positive.

So you always want to measure.

then the last one on this particular drill, your head stays neutral, your eyes are going to look to the left, and you're just going to hold steady for 15 to 20 seconds.

Relax your eyes and check again.

**Courtney:** Again. I didn't do the proper assessment between each though. each time do an assessment, right?

**Anna Gieselman:** Every time. Yeah, because each time is a different input. So, you got to test because everyone's brain is different and All the different inputs can [00:21:00] be perceived differently by your brain. So your brain might like one thing and like totally hate another thing. So if you don't measure and you just do them all at random,

have no idea if it's working or not.

**Courtney:** Yeah.

Okay.

**Anna Gieselman:** is called a smooth pursuit. And this one, it's really helpful to hold your chin still. So your head will want to move and you don't want it to move. you're going to have your hand out like thumbs up in front of you, your chin stays still. You're going to look at your thumbnail and you're going to draw a circle with your hand.

And the circle is really only about as big as the frame of your shoulder. So it's not huge. And you're going to track your thumb around. Don't go too fast because your eyes will jump ahead where they know the thumb is going. So you want to stay laser focused and then reverse the direction of the circle.

And take it around the other way.

**Courtney:** And we're just, for those of you listening, not watching our arms are just [00:22:00] straight out with a thumbs up. Right.

**Anna Gieselman:** Yep. And your eyes are following your thumb around in a circle

your head is in neutral. 

**Courtney:** It's hard to, it's like the, mainly it's the focus part, 

**Anna Gieselman:** and you might find as you're doing it, that there's certain sections of the circle that feel harder to look in. Like for me, it's the upper left corner has always been a little weird. okay. So then after doing that, reassess and see how does it feel to rotate your neck or your torso? Looser

means your brain liked it. Tighter means your brain didn't like it, and neutral means you need more load. you're probably a higher load person.

You're used to, always spinning lots of different plates and having numerous things in the fire, you know, so you're, you're used to handling higher stress load, which does matter.

**Courtney:** Okay.

**Anna Gieselman:** work with people who

**Courtney:** Okay.

**Anna Gieselman:** stress jobs and they're, Functioning pretty well, they're not getting a ton of pain, their brain is used to processing many different things at once. so those people, [00:23:00] usually they need to do, like, in this case, you would do all of these standing instead of sitting.

You might do them for a longer amount of time, higher reps. You might even hold a weight in your hand at the same time. So you're increasing complexity and adding actual literal load.

And then for other people, Those drills, all three of these back to back might be a lot. So in that situation, I would say you should lie down 

**Courtney:** can we just do one? We could just,

**Anna Gieselman:** Oh, totally.

**Courtney:** you three kind of quickly, , but, I wanted to, give you a few things to walk away with this week and try on. maybe we do one a day or one every other day. What do you

**Anna Gieselman:** Um, I would do. Basically let your reassessment guide you. So if one of those was like, Oh, wow, my neck feels so much better. That's your gym for right now. and not just once a day, like three to four times a day. So, if you're working on a piece and you spend two hours nonstop looking at this piece, when you get up to go get a drink of water, go to the bathroom, take 10 seconds, [00:24:00] take 30 seconds to do a vision drill.

And then go back to work. all of these tools are way more effective when you sprinkle them in throughout your day, rather than doing one big, long session your brain. when it's predicting your threat. It's doing that every single second of every day. If you do something in the morning that your brain likes, by the evening, that's long gone.

Your brain has taken in so much information throughout the day that it needs new, fresh inputs. it's more effective to do little, small doses of drills than to just overload your system in one session.

And then the more that you do these things, the more inputs that you give your brain that it likes, the more you're training, like going back to what you were saying with consistency.

If you do this often, you're training your brain towards safety. Just like if you do things that are high stress and increase your pain more often, you're training your brain towards threat and more protective outputs. necessarily more in volume is better, but more in frequency and consistency is better.

**Courtney:** I love [00:25:00] it. That's just like a good life rule right there and a good studio rule too. Show up and, and do it, consistently so that it starts to become a thing that's easy to, to attach to your life. and also I think it would probably help you gauge the results a little bit more to do it subtly rather than trying to throw everything on.

**Anna Gieselman:** Absolutely.

**Courtney:** on you at once. Okay.

**Anna Gieselman:** like how do you know what's working if you're doing 20 things and you're not assessing? So, yeah, there's also a concept that we use in applied neurology, which is minimal effective dose. You just want enough stimuli to create an adaptation in your nervous system. You don't want to overload your nervous system.

You only do enough exercise to create the adaptation in your muscle tissue. If you do too much, you're not going to be walking the next day, so you have to dose it , minimal effective dose.

**Courtney:** Okay. , I love these things because it makes it doable It makes it possible. if I had to try to get my butt to the gym every day, I would probably fall off that wagon pretty quickly just because my [00:26:00] life isn't always going to allow that time. So I love these techniques. Thank you so much for sharing , 

**Anna Gieselman:** very welcome. 

. So beyond underscore functional is where I'm on Instagram. I give tons of free tips and stuff. And then beyond functional. net is my website, I mostly work with people, individually, I see people online all over the world. I was just working with someone in India last night. It's worldwide. I basically run an assessment the first time when I see someone.

So we go through the vision, vestibular proprioception, cerebellum, frontal lobe. we check out all these different areas of the brain to see, What's really working well? What's not? Where are the deficits? And then, you walk away with, about a dozen techniques that are for you and your brain. And then it's on you.

Then it's on you to practice. 

**Courtney:** I talked to a lot of jewelry makers when I coach and I'll just in public and networking, et cetera, but. Yeah. One of the most common things I hear is vision strain and neck and shoulder issues.

I have a lot of friends and colleagues who [00:27:00] are suffering too from the wrist

**Anna Gieselman:** Mm hmm.

**Courtney:** some carpal tunnel in their arms. And they're getting fearful

**Anna Gieselman:** Yeah.

**Courtney:** how long can I do my job? we, we're hands on, we're, we're eyes on and we're hands on. so helpful. I'm going to have on a back next week and we're going to talk more, About this because it's so important.

Ana's coming up with some things that are just for jewelry makers and creatives, so we can keep ourselves freaking healthy we only get this one body we've got to take care of it, especially if you're in this for the long haul. Let's, take a few minutes, a few seconds extra a day , and do these little basic things that can help us thrive longer. 

**Anna Gieselman:** It doesn't have to be hard. That's the thing. Like there's so many really simple techniques like for carpal tunnel specifically or for neck tension that take less than five minutes. So it doesn't have to be a whole big deal little minimal effective dose throughout your day can change your life.

**Courtney:** Let's change some lives, girl. I love your approach. I love what you're doing now. I'm sorry it had to be the hard [00:28:00] way to get there, but I'm grateful that you're there. 

**Anna Gieselman:** It's lived experience, 

**Courtney:** Onward and upward, and we will see you next week. Thank

**Anna Gieselman:** thank you so much.

**Courtney:** Thank you,

**Anna Gieselman:** Bye.
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