Ben Ahrens’ Lyme Hack:

“Hey, Ben Ahrens here dropping into this Lyme Hackathon with a brain-based tip. One of the things that can make Lyme so complicated to address is the self-perpetuating nature of the condition. There is this region of the brain called the insular cortex that is responsible for perceiving our body’s internal states, including symptoms. And sometimes what can happen is our brain and body can get stuck overreacting to the symptoms themselves, which produces more inflammation and ultimately more symptoms. So how do I know this? Well, I’ve lived it myself, even gave a TED Talk called One Deep Breath. And one of the things that you can do to actually help interrupt this vicious cycle, is to pause whenever you’re feeling any level of resistance, worry, or discomfort from symptoms and take one deep breath.”