The Neuro-Protective Lifestyle

The brain is an electromagnetic powerhouse. Just to keep the “lights on” requires twenty percent of all the calories you consume. Start doing advanced math or even sudoku and the cost goes way up. Fortunately we can measure this tremendous energy output in the form of electromagnetic wave activity. The EEG (electroencephalogram) has been around since 1875 but is just now coming into its own thanks to better filtering software. EEG topography, neurofeedback and more recently the “MEG” (magnetoencephalogram) provide even greater detail of our neuronal landscape.

The electromagnetic waves generated by the brain and revealed by EEG are divided into five main categories based on amplitude and frequency. They are the same regardless of culture, gender or country of origin.

Here are some classic brainwave patterns:

BETA - 12-30 cycles per second - active conversation, logical thinking (sudoku puzzling)

ALPHA - 8-12 cycles per second - restful alertness, quiet focus, hypnosis

THETA - 4-7 cycles per second - day dreaming, creativity, insight meditation, out of body experiences, mystical experiences.

DELTA - 1.5-4 or less cycles per second - deep dreamless sleep

GAMMA - 26-100 cycles per second - perception, neural synchrony, consciousness

By combining fMRI with our understanding of brain wave activity, researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have produced convincing neuroimaging evidence that meditators grow bigger brains. Measurements of cortical thickness confirm it. But how is this possible? How is the brain able to “pick itself up by its own bootstraps”, so-to-speak?

neural networks are established with repeated behavior patterns
say it again
neural networks are established with repeated behavior patterns
say it again…you get the idea.

We’ve known it all along. Every culture, every world religion teaches it:

“as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” Proverbs 23:7

“all that we are is the result of what we have thought” Buddha 563 BC - 483 BC

“unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled” Titus 1:15

Jon Kabat-Zinn, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts established the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine to this very end.

In short, like the blog says, “forget what you’ve heard-you CAN change your brain!”

Developed in 1979, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, has been featured in the Bill Moyers’ PBS documentary Healing and The Mind, on NBC Dateline, on ABC’s Chronicle and in various national print media and is the subject of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s best selling book, Full Catastrophe Living and Saki Santorelli’s book, Heal Thy Self. Since its inception, more than 17,000 people have completed our eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program and learned how to use their innate resources and abilities to respond more effectively to stress, pain, and illness. The central focus of the Clinic is intensive training in mindfulness meditation and its integration into the challenges/adventures of everyday life.

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