Whole Health (10 page)

Human bioelectricity is synonymous with the nervous system (neurology). Our nervous system is our electrical system. We react automatically at this neurological level continuously from moment to moment, without ever being aware of it.

Let's look at this system in action. Say you're having a bad dream, and in this dream you're being chased. Your neurological response generates an elevated heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and perspiration. Yes, you can produce all of these very real biological responses from a mere dream state, triggered by stimuli that aren't even real! You need only imagine or recall a potentially threatening event to set off these highly sensitive neural triggers, but there is much more than fundamental biology at work here.

Within our bodies there is a constant flow of communication taking place from cell to cell, first triggered by the heart. There is a bundle of afferent nerves (sensory receptors) in the heart called the cardiac intrinsic ganglia (the little brain within the heart) that first receive the messages from the mind that determine the degree of safety or threat posed by any given stimuli. The cardiac intrinsic ganglia then relay the message to the big brain, which in turn transmits it to the nervous system. Once the nervous system gets the “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down” on the safety assessment, it then conveys the message to every cell in the body.
Regardless of whether you are having a bad dream, listening to a negative conversation, remembering a hurtful event, watching a boxing match or old news footage of 9/11, you are going to activate your mind to heart, your heart to brain, and brain to nervous system in a biofeedback loop. Nature designed our biofeedback loop to be a failsafe system because survival of our species was clearly the ultimate priority.

Our all-important survival communication system begins with superconscious, extrasensory awareness about what is good for us and what is bad for us. It is a rapid-fire, pass/fail assessment system that judges potential stimuli as welcome or unwelcome in our world, and the reactions are universal only to a point. We all generate warning signals when confronted by potential threats, but what of more mundane stimuli? Remember that this biofeedback loop activates for absolutely everything that enters into our field of perception. What then of dairy or wheat? What about your dog's hair or the pollen from the grass in your front yard? These all represent exposures that generate a response from your biofeedback system. Where an attack by a wild animal in the woods will prompt the same negative nerve feedback for nearly all of us, only some of us exhibit a negative reaction to dairy, wheat, pollen, and so on. This reveals two very important things: First, the biofeedback loop is a very reliable system designed as a priority survival system by nature. Second, it helps us to gain access to and adapt to the needs of our mutable constitution. At this subtle energy level, we all react very uniquely to more than half of the potential stimuli we are confronted with.

Our nervous system is an extended network of nerve endings and nerve pathways, like a telecommunications grid system that runs through the entire body. Because it runs through all of the muscles, whenever we are asked about or confronted with anything, our brain initiates a communication response to the body throughout the entire nerve network, ultimately talking to the muscles.

The science of psychoneuroimmunology has mapped out this messaging sequence. As the stimuli (dream, stress, food, a question, etc.) enter into your mind and brain's field of awareness, an immediate sensory “sizing-up” process is engaged.

The first brain stop on this journey is a ping-ponging of thought volley between your emotional centers in the amygdala and the hippocampus. Here is where your brain is trying to emotionally sense whether or not the stimuli feel safe.

The next stop is the prefrontal cortex. Here is where your brain settles down to some good old-fashioned logic. After both centers have had their say, a final decision is made. If your mind/heart feels unsafe, things are directed back to anxiety ping-pong until it is determined that you're out of danger. If things are okay, the prefrontal cortex helps to organize your thoughts and stabilize your entire system.

Keep in mind that while all this communication is taking place, your muscles remain the most responsive nerve medium. All stimuli are reacted to and interpreted as safe or unsafe, positive or negative. The earliest detection response is muscular, because muscles activate fight and flight. Simply stated, whenever you feel safe, happy, and positive, the brain sends a
steady, even flow
of neural electricity to your muscles, giving them an abundance of controlled strength. Whenever you feel unsafe, anxious, and negative, the brain sends a highly charged nervous flow of electricity to the muscles, greatly reducing
controlled
strength.

Communication between the body and mind, or
in
the body/mind, if you will, is constant and the muscles remain the perfect biofeedback system. Try this simple experiment: Ask a friend to simply lift up his arm and resist your attempt to gently push it down. Now ask him to close his eyes and to continue to resist your efforts as you call out contrasting words and images. Compare his resistance responses to words such as
love
versus
hate
,
warmth
versus
cold
,
fun
versus
boredom
, and
joy
versus
agony
. Next, call out a dozen or so foods and see how the responses vary. You will be amazed.

Science has understood this complex form of communication since the late 1970s, but has yet to be convinced that it can be consistently trusted. When I began my practice, in 1982, I was determined to find out just how trustworthy this communication process was. The theoretical debates continue to this day. Those with a mechanistic bias will never believe, but those with a more vitalistic persuasion will never have to be convinced. I thought that it needed development and ongoing testing over time. Now, nearly thirty years and tens of thousands of patient appointments later, I believe that the constant flow of communication in the body/mind is ever trustworthy. I believe it is a perfect biofeedback resource, provided the “listener” knows how to “listen.”

Health care can be reduced into two divergent systems: intervention and prevention. If, as the old adage goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” our present approach to health care in America should be classified as a lightweight in the fight against disease. If we are truly committed to prevention, more reliable early detection and diagnosis methods—made available to everyone—are essential. The key to better early detection and accurate diagnosis is to include and to better equip the patient to be a diagnostic listener. The more we enable the average person to listen at the subtlest energy levels, the better the health of our nation will be.

INTUITIVE NEUROFEEDBACK

We live in a dualistic universe of opposites: yin and yang, male and female, hot and cold, old and young. With that in mind, we might do well to remember that all human beings are dualistic by nature, possessing both a logical and an intuitive mind. Our cultural
influence would have us only believe in a five-sensory world of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. We tend to overlook the fact that we have access to a sixth sense that enables us to engage our mind at an extrasensory, intuitive level. And while most of us have had experiences with lucid inner knowing, few of us are aware of just how much time our mind tends to spend on such activities.

Hundreds of cognitive studies over the past three decades have confirmed that those human brain processes that occur automatically, without our conscious awareness, constitute most of our mental life.

Consider that the conscious mind can process 2,000 bits of information per second. Pretty impressive until you realize that our unconscious mind can easily process 400 billion bits of information per second! Most of our 300 to 1,000 thoughts per minute come from our unconscious mind, and our unconscious mind is the domain of direct knowledge, immediate insight, and subliminal perception. The question isn't whether these remarkable properties are innate to us. The question is whether or not we can get comfortable with the idea of harnessing their horsepower.

So how might one consistently and reliably tap into a sixth-sensory place of inner knowing? It's really quite simple. Ask your muscles. Sound confusing? Allow me to explain. . . .

When it comes to our unconscious mind's flow of information, it goes something like this: The heart tells the mind, the mind tells the brain, the brain tells the nervous system, the nervous system tells the muscles. The most consistently reliable information system we possess is our nervous system. Our nerves and muscles make up the perfect biofeedback loop. The human nervous system is a highly sensitive alarm system, designed by nature for the survival of a species. If the mind detects trouble, it relays stress signals to the brain. The brain then transmits nerve signals to mobilize the muscles for emergency. If the mind senses safety, it relays nerve signals to the brain that tell the body to relax. The brain then
mobilizes the body for efficiency. So I say we have two distinctly different nervous systems: emergency and efficiency. Thus, your unconscious mind sends messages to you through your nervous system and muscles, based on its assessment as to whether things around you are good or bad, safe or unsafe. Moreover, it's wired to do so every waking and sleeping moment of your life. It's what awakens you in a cold sweat with an elevated heart rate following a bad dream. Your biofeedback system never turns off and is therefore ever reliable. Your unconscious mind and nervous system know everything you need to know at all times. And they're always generating positive energy during the good times and negative energy during the bad.

The next question is, how does one learn to dialogue with their all-knowing, unconscious mind via the nervous system? The answer to that question is simple—just ask your sixth-sensory biofeedback system a question. Let your unconscious mind register the question, allow your nervous system to react, and then tug on a muscle. If the muscle is strong (i.e., stays in place when tugged), consider it a positive response. If the muscle is weak (i.e., allows itself to be moved), it's a negative response. Raise your arm and ask someone to give it a tug as they call out the word
wheat
. If your arm is weak, you are likely intolerant to wheat and should consider avoiding it.

Whole Health Energy Diagnostics is based on an intuitive, neuromuscular biofeedback system intended to support natural homeostasis. This system teaches that wellness is a natural state that results from the unobstructed flow of energy to the vital glands and organs of the body. Negative influences such as allergenic foods that are not well tolerated block the flow of this health-giving energy. To restore oneself to a state of wellness, it's important to implement an intuitive neuromuscular biofeedback system to help identify energy blockages and remove them. What is the power source of this remarkable extrasensory awareness?

THE ANATOMICAL HEART OF OUR SIXTH SENSE

Our way of life here in the modern West is brain-centric. The ancient East is a heart-centric culture. In 1991, HeartMath Institute researcher Dr. J. Andrew Armour discovered the cardiac intrinsic ganglia, or “little brain within the heart,” instantly validating centuries-old, heart-centric Chinese wisdom and providing an important bridge between the modern West and the ancient East. He discovered that the heart's electromagnetic field emits 50,000 femtoteslas (standard measurement of a magnetic field), in contrast to the brain's 10,000. He also learned that the amplitude of the heart's electrical field is sixty times greater than the brain's. Furthermore, he found that it envelops every cell in the body, extending even beyond the body outward in all directions into surrounding space. Armour also established that 65 percent of all sensory awareness flows from the heart to the brain. Armour's research and the ongoing research at the institute continues to extend the bridge between East and West.

Between 2004 and 2007, HeartMath researchers performed a number of studies looking at the electrophysiological evidence of intuition, as well as precognition studies on serial entrepreneurial intuition. They've consistently discovered that the body appears to receive and respond to emotionally charged stimuli a full six to eight seconds before events are actually experienced. Once again, the heart appears to be the place of origin where intuition is operated. The researchers consistently note a higher heart rate recorded prior to the event that would cause said increase.

Similarly, a September 2012 study published in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
and performed by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, and Harvard, found that the brain's striatum and
amygdala begin processing stimuli well before they reach conscious awareness. Keep in mind that the heart talks to these two brain centers via the intrinsic nervous system. Also remember that 65 percent of all sensory awareness is initiated by the heart. Thus, there is dialoguing that takes place from the heart's brain and the “big brain” that reveals a stream of subconscious, sixth-sensory awareness. In other words, the heart's brain processes stimuli first, and then signals to the big brain's neurological reaction centers, which in turn transmit signals to the body.

Our heart, brain, and CNS mechanisms are like a radar defense system that constantly scans our environment for safety. They constantly communicate with one another formulating hypotheses as to what we are likely to soon encounter.

The East has long understood the heart's energetic ability to communicate its wisdom to the rest of the body through the body's energy channels. The ancient Chinese believed the heart to be the home of the mind—the place where quality of life and relationships were governed. They felt that if there was deep unhappiness, the heart would transmit weak ch'i to the rest of the body, forcing the body to have to compensate for the absence of vital life force energy. A joyless heart was seen as one of the chief causal roots of all disease. Like all deficient or excess organs, an unhappy heart is believed to communicate its imbalance to the rest of the body via specific energy channels. A heart imbalance can be energetically diagnosed in many ways, such as a weak pulse on the left wrist, or a visual discoloration on the tip of the tongue. I have found sixth-sensory diagnosis to be one of the more accurate and easy ways to trace heart energy imbalances.