When we use awareness to intensively focus on anything, we not only change the function of the brain, we change its structure, writes BAlVINDER KUMAR
When mind is engaged with negative thoughts and emotions, there is a noticeable negative impact on healing; even medicines and other interventions won’t work. This is called the “nocebo effect”, the opposite of the “placebo effect”. Science tells us that positive and negative beliefs impact not only our health and well-being but all other aspects of life as well. There are innumerable instances wherein a patient died due to negative beliefs coupled with fear because they were misdiagnosed by doctors. Similarly, when patients are given just sugar pills or some other placebo, this approach may be equally effective in healing the patients. We have to realise that mind and body are “two sides of the same coin,” and the way we think and feel has tremendous impact on well-being. To summarise, what we think and believe has an amazing ability to heal psychosomatic conditions through mind-body interactions.
We now know that intelligence is not located in the brain/mind hut throughout the entire body; the traditional concept of mind-body separation has been thoroughly invalidated. The brain houses various kinds of chemical transmitters, one of which is neuropeptides. According to Dr Candace Pert, neuropeptides also transmit signals throughout our body. If someone is happy, sad, or disgusted, then certain neuropeptides would carry those particular emotions to every area of the body. These very chemicals connecting emotions and receptors are present in all cells of the body. Dr Pert concludes that “since neuropeptides (information molecules) and their receptors exist in the body as well, hence the mind is in the body, in the same sense that the mind is in the brain.”
Although we come into this world with genetically predetermined body, yet we have enormous potential to change our thinking, behaviour and actions through the working of neuroplasticity (changes in neural pathways and synapses which are due to changes in behaviour, environment, etc) in the brain. The mind can change the structure of the brain. When we use awareness to intensively focus on anything, we not only change the function of the brain, we change its structure. In other words, our brain is plastic and we have the power to mould it structurally and functionally.
According to neuroscientists, when we think about love and compassion for others, or God as a benevolent force, a tiny area in the front part of the brain (prefrontal cortex) called Anterior Cingulate Cortex is stimulated. Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman in How God Changes Your Brain (2010) suggested that this part also helps in generating feelings of empathy toward others who are suffering or hurt and moreover, that this is the true “heart” of our neurological soul. When, this part of the brain is activated, we feel greater tolerance and acceptance toward those who hold different beliefs. This part can be strengthened by meditation and other spiritual exercises. In this way, love, compassion, concern, and tolerance for others are all hardwired in our brain. God resides within each one of us.
Excerpts taken from Man’s Spiritual Journey
published by Full Circle Books