Allan Gardiner Home / DoD Warrior Games Updated 2026-09-25
What Forty-Five Minutes Can Undo
Veterans at the 2025 and 2026 DoD Warrior Games, and what their sessions at the Healing Hut showed about speech, sensation, and grief that had been stuck for years.
“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”
Lord Kelvin
This page documents outcomes, not promises. None of it replaces speech-language therapy, physical therapy, or grief counseling. It is a record of what changed, in real time, during single sessions at the Healing Hut, and what we still do not know about why.
The Idea, in Plain Terms
What happens when a body that has been stuck for ten, twenty, even seventy-five years suddenly isn't? Aphasia, numb feet, and paralyzing grief look like unrelated problems. Watched closely, in real time, they can behave like the same problem wearing different clothes: a flow of information in the body that stalled somewhere and never resumed.
Aphasia can be an interrupted flow from thought to the muscles that speak. Numbness in the feet can be an interrupted flow from the feet to the centers of the brain that notice them. We call the general problem a failure-to-update, the same way a phone misbehaves when it fails to install an update it downloaded long ago. The information needed to fix the problem is already there; it simply never got applied.
Signs and symptoms downstream get a name, such as aphasia or neuropathy. The name describes what is stuck. It does not explain why it cannot unstick, and it should not be mistaken for a ceiling on what is possible.
Why “Chronic” Doesn't Mean Never
Words like chronic, persistent, new normal, and plateaued describe a pattern so far. They are not a biological verdict, but they are often heard as one, by clinicians and by the person living with the condition. We prefer delayed healing: it says the same thing about the pattern without foreclosing what happens next.
Think of a car stopped at a signal. It is far easier to notice the moment it starts moving again than to measure small changes in a car that is already rolling. Conventional chronic thinking expects the car to stay parked indefinitely. The cases below show that it does not always.
The Methods work by giving the body an environment in which it notices its own failure to update. The rest happens on its own. Not everyone responds. Tissue damage and other factors can mean there is nothing left for the body to update, and that possibility should be shared honestly rather than glossed over.
Watch It Happen: Seven Examples from the Healing Hut
Grouped by what changed: speech first, then sensation, then grief. Within the speech group, the fastest examples come first, then Luis's four-day arc as the deeper case.
SPEECH AFTER YEARS OF APHASIA
Jeremy
Jeremy had lived with long-standing aphasia and apraxia. He could sing, but not intentionally put his own thoughts into words. In a single session using the Relaxation Mask, with no formal speech rehearsal or stepwise training, intelligible, self-initiated speech emerged the same session.
Lt. Col. Stefanie Shaver, who had known Jeremy for years, observed part of the session. Around the 6:40 mark of the recording, her surprise at how clearly his words were forming is audible.
Jeremy: Single Session, First Words
Session recording, 7:33
ICF SUMMARY
Body Functions: Rapid change in speech-motor.
Activities: Voluntary spoken communication.
Participation: Immediate functional interaction with people who know him.
Jose
Jose had lived with aphasia and apraxia for two and a half years after his stroke, limited to single words, though he understood everything said to him. In a single session, ten minutes with the Relaxation Mask plus mouth-touching preceded two prepared sentences: “I had toast and butter for breakfast” and “I had meat and vegetables for dinner.”
He read both aloud. Limited, intelligible, self-initiated speech extended beyond single words for the first time in two and a half years.
Jose: Reading Two Sentences Aloud
Recording: 5:25
ICF SUMMARY
Body Functions: Rapid change in speech-motor initiation.
Activities: Voluntary spoken communication beyond single words.
Participation: Immediate functional interaction.
Vanessa
Vanessa had lived with aphasia and apraxia for two and a half years after a traumatic brain injury, limited to single words despite that time in training, though her comprehension was intact. She received the same ten minutes with the Relaxation Mask and mouth-touching, and the same two prepared sentences as Jose.
Then she went further, spontaneously saying, “I love Camille and Benny,” the names of her pets. Her mother confirmed it was Vanessa's first multi-word sentence in two years, and the first time she had used a connector word like “and” on her own.
Single Session, (3:46) Session clips showing Vanessa reading sentences and voluntarily speaking a full sentence naming her pet animals.
Vanessa: A Sentence of Her Own
Recording: 3:46
ICF SUMMARY
Body Functions: Rapid change in speech-motor initiation.
Activities: Voluntary spoken communication multi-word speech
Participation: Spontaneous communication of her own content, not a prepared script.
LUIS: FOUR DAYS, LONGER ARC
Luis
Luis came to the Healing Hut with phantom pain as his main concern. He had lived with aphasia and apraxia for about ten years since his stroke, his speech largely unintelligible and interpreted by his wife, though he could still sing recognizable melodies and understood everything said to him. Day 1 focused on pain, not speech: using the Relaxation Mask while he sang, with varying wavelengths and frequencies and tactile lip contact for cross-sensory feedback, his phantom pain fell from 9/10 to 4/10, later essentially resolved. His first voluntary attempts to speak his own thoughts followed that physiological settling, not a speech drill.
Luis, Day 1: Baseline
Day 1, clip 1 (0:42)
By Day 2, Luis arrived without mentioning his phantom pain at all. Practicing lip contact while attempting speech, he said the days of the week and his own birthday, progress a staff member who had known him for years confirmed against his ten-year baseline.
Luis, Day 2: Practicing Aloud
Day 2: (0:30)
By Day 3, Luis wasn't even in a session. A chance conversation in the cafeteria area showed what had carried over: a security staff member with no idea what to expect could follow him discussing his medal count and doing math about hypothetical additional medals, a naive listener understanding him for the first time in a decade.
Luis, Day 3: Describing Medals
Cafeteria encounter, clip 1 (3:54)
Luis, Day 3: A Stranger Understands Him
Cafeteria encounter, clip 2 (1:57)
By Day 4, Luis was speaking without his wife's interpretation, had mastered the alphabet, and worked through a poem emphasizing ordinary conversational speech rather than the sung, rote patterns that had remained available to him all along.
Luis, Day 4: Consolidation (1:46)
ICF SUMMARY
Body Functions: Speech-motor coordination and initiation improved across four days.
Activities: Voluntary spoken communication, unassisted by an interpreter.
Participation: Functional conversation with unfamiliar listeners.
Link showing the Methods helped Luis release his phantom pain in his amputated left leg.
SENSATION RETURNING TO NUMB FEET
Charles
Charles arrived with ten years of pain and numbness in both feet. Acupuncture had eased the pain without restoring sensation; gabapentin had not been enough. Variable-wavelength light was applied to only one foot in a single session.
Both feet returned to near-normal sensation, with reduced pain, including the foot that received no light at all. The untreated foot never needed its own session.
Charles: Both Feet, One Treated
(4:37)
James
James had lived with pain and neuropathy in his feet for twenty years, without significant relief from conventional treatment. Variable-wavelength light was applied to one foot for about four minutes.
Sensation returned to nearly normal in both feet, again without treating the second foot directly. James and his wife, astonished by the change, volunteered on the spot to share their experience with others weighing whether to try a session.
James: Twenty Years, One Session
(1:57)
GRIEF AFTER 66 YEARS TOGETHER
Susie
After 66 years of marriage, Susie had spent a year in paralyzing grief since her husband George's death, grief severe enough to affect her digestion, for which she used a gastroparesis device. Using the Relaxation Mask with guided imagery, she was invited to picture a forest picnic with George.
Controlling the wavelength and frequency settings herself while recalling the memory, Susie communicated her final thoughts to George internally, then let the moment go. As with the PTSD cases elsewhere in this work, an experience relived and released in the present tends to settle back into ordinary memory rather than staying paralyzing.
She reported her breathing normalizing and her calm returning, and expected to remove the gastroparesis device the next day. In the same session, she also learned to quiet an involuntary head shake simply by directing her attention to the sensation at her face.
Susie: A Forest Picnic, Once More
Day1, (3:06)
Susie: Impact On Her Family
Day2, Clip 1 (4:04)
Susie: Her Head Stopped Shaking
Day2, Clip2 (1:12)
How a Session Works
Every case above used some version of the same Methods built around the Relaxation Mask and present-moment attention rather than talk therapy or rehearsed drills. A session runs about 45 minutes.
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Arrive without a performance expectation. Note the current pain rating, speech attempt, or emotional state as it is, without asking the person to perform it.
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Settle into the Relaxation Mask. Variable wavelength and frequency light runs while the person relaxes, with the settings adjusted by the participant when they are able.
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Layer in the target gently. A sung phrase, a touch cue at the lips, or a guided image is introduced while the mask is already running, not announced beforehand as a task to complete.
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Notice the shift as information, not distraction. A changed breath, a flinch, an unprompted word, a wave of calm are treated as the body reporting something, and are followed rather than interrupted.
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Let the moment stand. The session does not stop to explain what just happened or ask the person to repeat it on command. New capacity is given room to settle rather than being tested immediately.
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Build on it next time without repeating it. A later session continues in the same present-moment style rather than rehearsing or narrating what happened in the last one.
Reactions like a flinch, a gasp, or sudden tears partway through are common and are usually a sign that something is updating, not a sign of harm.
Allan Gardiner and his team developed the Methods aimed at alerting the body to its failure-to-update flows of information. The body, not parameters of the Methods determines the response and outcomes.
Allan used similar methods to help more that a dozen veterans release significant PTSD (aka PTS in the military) during a single session without asking for a replay of the problem that was regularly refreshed in cognitive behavior therapy. The sessions were not recorded to help the veteran relax which is integral to a rapid release of the painful recall.
What This Does Not Claim
Not a cure for aphasia, apraxia of speech, or any underlying condition.
Not a replacement for speech-language therapy; it is designed as an adjunct to it.
Not currently supported by controlled trials. What is here is case observation in a non-clinical, field setting, not a clinical study.
The outcomes seen in Luis, Jeremy, Jose, and Vanessa should not be read as typical or expected.
Thank You, Warrior Games
A few more voices from the Healing Hut: a veteran describing improved vision after using the Relaxation Mask; another thanking Dr. Shaver for building the Healing Hut in the first place; a third surprised by the foot pain relief a session gave him.
For Clinicians and Program Directors
If any of this is relevant to your caseload, the offer is simple and low-commitment: a 30-minute video conversation to review case materials relevant to what you see in your clinic, and to talk through whether a small pilot might make sense there. No cost, no obligation.
Contact Allan Gardiner to set up a time.
This page is for educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not a substitute for diagnosis or treatment by a qualified healthcare provider.