Switch on Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health (24 page)

THE 21-DAY BRAIN DETOX PLAN

to reject the presently activated thoughts and the incoming

information, or you can let the information make its way

into your mind, soul, and your spirit, eventually subsiding

in your nonconscious and becoming automatized, dominat-

ing who you are. Even though you can’t always control your

circumstances, you can make fundamental choices that will

help you control your reaction to your circumstances and

keep toxic input out of your brain.

QUESTION: Do you feel like a victim of or a vic-

tor over what is swarming through your mind at

the moment from the external and internal signals?

Brain Structures and Circuits That Help You Make

Good Choices

amygdala

hippocampus

The amygdala and hippocampus, and their connected circuits,

can help you make good choices. The amygdala deals with

the passionate, perceptual emotions attached to incoming

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thoughts and all the thoughts already in your head. The hip-

pocampus deals with memory and motivation.

This is where you consciously step up to center stage; you

need to choose, and decide whether or not these incoming

thoughts will become part of who you are. Let’s look more

closely at how you control this decision to accept or reject

information.

QUESTION: Did you know you are able to accept

or reject the thoughts flowing through your mind?

The Amygdala: Perceptual Library

The amygdala, a double almond–shaped structure located

in your brain, is designed to keep you emotionally alert. When

you become toxic in your thinking, it steps up to protect you

from any threat to your body and mind—such as danger or

stress. It puts the passion behind the punch of memory forma-

tion by influencing another structure that is very important

to memory formation, the hippocampus, enabling you to

give more focused attention to your existing memories. The

amygdala is basically designed to deal with positive love-based

emotions like joy and happiness, but it doesn’t work as well

when you are in a negative state of mind.

The Thalamus Acts Like a Transmitter Station

The thalamus (deep in the middle of the brain) functions

like a transmitter station, alerting the amygdala of any incom-

ing information from the five senses. How does it do this?

The amygdala functions like a library, storing the emotional

perceptions that occur each time a thought is built. In other

words, every time you build a memory, you activate emotions.

The endocrine system in the brain has to release the correct

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THE 21-DAY BRAIN DETOX PLAN

thalamus

chemicals—the molecules of emotion and information—

necessary to build healthy or toxic memories. Because the

amygdala is in constant communication with the hypothala-

mus, which secretes chemicals in response to your thought

life, you are able to feel your body’s reaction to your thoughts.

These physical reactions—rapid heartbeat and adrenaline

rushes—force you to decide whether to accept or reject the

information, basing your decision on how you feel physically.

To help you even more, the amygdala has lines of com-

munication connected to the frontal lobe, which controls

reasoning, decision-making, analyzing, and strategizing—all

executive-level functions. This connection enables you to

balance the emotions you physically experience in your body

and allows you to react reasonably. Here is the exciting part:

At this moment you can choose
not
to think about this issue

anymore, and those temporary thoughts will disappear.

QUESTION: You do not have to be dominated

by your perceptual library—in other words your

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emotions. Do you feel dominated by your feel-

ings that have arisen out of the thoughts active

in your mind?

The Hippocampus: Memory Converter

If you don’t manage to stop thinking about the issue, how-

ever, all the information, including the awakened toxic or

nontoxic attitude, will flow into a sea horse–shaped structure

called the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is a sort of clearinghouse for thoughts.

It classifies incoming information as having either short- or

long-term importance and files it accordingly, converting tem-

porary thoughts into permanent thoughts that become part

of who you are (a lot of this happens at night while you are

sleeping). To do this, the hippocampus has to work with the

central hub of the brain—a group of structures with circuits

that integrate all the activated memories and work with the

hippocampus to convert information into your permanent

memory storage.

hippocampus

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THE 21-DAY BRAIN DETOX PLAN

This is where you begin some serious reflection in order

to make some life-changing decisions.

QUESTION: Ask yourself, “Do I want this infor-

mation to be a part of me?”

Stress

A good point to remember is that toxic memories create the

negative stage two and negative stage three of stress. Stage

one of stress is good and keeps you alert and focused. Stage

two and three are normal stress gone wrong.

The hippocampus is extremely vulnerable to stress because

it is rich in stress hormone receptors that are normally used to

reinforce memories. These receptors are like tiny doorways on

cells that receive chemical information. For these brain cells,

excessive stress is almost like an explosion, causing the hippo-

campus to lose cells and shrink. This affects the communica-

tion between the hippocampus and the central circuits of the

brain, keeping it from building new good thoughts (memories)

as well as causing memory loss. This is seen a lot in depression,

Alzheimer’s, dementias, and other neuropsychiatric disorders.

QUESTION: Toxic thoughts are the result of bad

choices. Stress stages two and three are your body’s

reaction to toxic thoughts. Can you feel the stress

reaction—heart pounding, adrenaline pumping,

or muscles tensing up in your body?

1. Sensory information flows into the brain through the

five senses.

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2. Existing memories in the nonconscious are activated.

3. This activates memories to move from nonconscious

to the conscious mind and attitudes are invoked.

4. The hypothalamus responds to the attitude by releasing

chemicals necessary for memory building and emotions.

5. This activates the amygdala to recall linked emotional

perceptions and to start building in new emotional

perceptions.

6. All this information enters the hippocampus, which is

involved in converting short-term memory to long-term

memory.

7. All this electromagnetic, chemical, and quantum physics

activity moves to the front of the brain.

Let’s move to the reflection stage and see how the hippo-

campus works with the central hub circuits of the brain in

building thoughts.

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12

Focused Reflection

Step 2

It is always fun to see science catching up with the Bible,

as we discussed in part 1. Focused reflection is an example

of this. It is an ancient biblical principle most of us know.

But it is also the current rage in neuroscience, and there are

hundreds of studies with headlines like

“Mindfulness Meditation May Relieve Chronic Inflam-

mation”1

“Evidence Supports Health Benefits of ‘Mindfulness-Based

Practices’”2

“Breast Cancer Survivors Benefit from Practicing Mind-

fulness-Based Stress Reduction”3

“Don’t Worry, Be Happy: Understanding Mindfulness

Meditation”4

“Mindfulness Meditation Training Changes Brain Struc-

ture in Eight Weeks”5

You get the idea.

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THE 21-DAY BRAIN DETOX PLAN

It Always Boils Down to One Thing

Although a lot of these studies talk about Eastern medita-

tion techniques, what it boils down to every time is deep,

intellectual, disciplined thinking with attention regulation,

thinking, body awareness, emotion regulation, and a sense of

self that changes the brain positively. Consequently, people

gain health, happiness—and peace—exactly the instruction

and consequence of Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and

sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,

whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—

if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such

things” (NIV). In fact, throughout the book of Proverbs we

are instructed to gain wisdom and meditate on knowledge

until we understand.

Getting Out of a Toxic-Thinking Block

If you are going to get out of any toxic-thinking block, you

need to think, understand, and apply the wisdom you gain.6

Thankfully, you have all the structures and physiological

processes at your disposal to do this. Neuroplasticity (key 3)

and quantum physics (key 7) are for your benefit and can help

you enjoy every day. Don’t forget that, as a neuroplastician,

you can do your own brain surgery. This means no thought

should ever be allowed to control you (see chaps. 1 and 2).

So once you have gone through the whole gathering aware-

ness step above—which disciplines you to be careful of what’s

going into your brain as well as what is coming out from

inside—then you need to go deep and focus your reflection.

As you apply keys 4 and 5 in this step (catch your thoughts

and enter into directed rest), an incredible change happens

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