Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind

by Joe Dispenza

One of the main jobs of the neocortex, apart from its intellectual, cognitive, problem-solving, self-awareness, learning, and communicative skills, is to use all five senses to stay conscious and aware of the external world. Aside from its innate abilities (to learn, reason, analyze, concentrate, dream, remember, use language, invent, and embrace abstractions), it has the propensity to be aware of the environment through all our senses. When the neocortex is not learning or processing data for higher thinking and reasoning, it shifts into its inherent nature and engages mechanisms to constantly evaluate the external environment, gathering important information to determine which stimuli or inputs from the environment could be potentially dangerous or threatening.

Remember, the bigger the neocortex, the greater the ability to learn and remember. Therefore human beings have a better ability to predict, prepare for, or expect a future moment. When the neocortex notices interruptions in the familiar external environment through its internal representations, it immediately gets prepared for activity. That way, it can be ready to respond, and then afterward, return to its state of balance.

The neocortex looks for patterns of familiar stimuli so that it knows what to anticipate and how much it needs to be prepared for what might happen. Therefore, it is always using what is scientifically termed pattern recognition: we use our neural nets of associative memory to match what we’ve learned and experienced with some stimulus from the external world. Once any one or all of our senses perceive the trigger from our environment, that stimulus will activate an associative memory mapped from past experiences as a neural net in the neocortex.

The brain and the body are hardwired to achieve homeostasis, or internal balance. In survival, the unknown always threatens that balance. And when that balance is compromised, we become uncomfortable. Comfort, familiarity, and predictability are what we are hardwired to desire and achieve in survival.

In the animal kingdom, this fear or reaction to the unknown is a means of preservation.

In humans, we have the same mechanisms for survival. We fear the unknown. We become chemically prepared for what our brain cannot neurologically or chemically predict. And the unfamiliar or the unknown turns on our survival responses. Most often, that survival response will result in fleeing. The principle is “better safe than sorry.”

Therefore, if we are afraid of the adventure of the unknown, chances are that we are living in a state of mind that replicates survival. In survival mode, if we can’t predict how an experience will feel (because we lack any related past memories that have already been experienced as a set of feelings), we will avoid engaging in that experience. How, then, can we ever experience anything truly unknown without fear?

Knowledge removes the fear of survival.

good rule of thumb is that survival usually means the following: • Sexual procreation for the continuation of the species • The avoidance of pain and predation for the immediate survival of the body and its offspring • Dominance through power and through control of the environment for securing the greatest evolutionary opportunity

Living in stress is living in survival—they are one and the same.

The hypothalamus is a kind of factory that takes in chemical raw materials and assembles them to produce peptides. A peptide is a chemical messenger that signals the body to turn on in some fashion. In the stress response, the peptide made from the hypothalamus is called corticotrophin releasing hormone (CRH). Once CRH is released, it delivers a chemical message to the pituitary gland. When the pituitary gets the signal from the hypothalamus, it makes another chemical peptide called adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). The new chemical message is now “acceptable” to the receptor sites located on the cells of adrenal glands in the body.

just thinking about the stressor creates the same stress response. This is what begins to create the more harmful result called chronic stress.

EXERCISE AND STRESS A Yale University study conducted over 20 years ago involved actors and exercise. The researchers used actors because of their ability to access emotional states. The actors were divided into two groups. The first group was asked to make themselves angry. They worked themselves up by imagining frustrating and disturbing situations. The second group was asked to remain as calm, peaceful, and stable as possible. Both groups were monitored for physiological functions, including heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration. They were then asked to engage in various forms of light exercise, such as climbing a set of stairs. The so-called angry group maintained or showed less-healthy levels in each health function. For the placid group, however, the benefits we usually associate with exercise were truly evident. Only in this group, despite both of them doing the same exercise, did the exercise prove advantageous. Common wisdom held that exercise reduced stress, but our state of mind and state of being while exercising are just as important as the number of repetitions and sets we do to improve our health.2

Recent estimates indicate that as many as 90 percent of the people seeking medical care are doing so because of a stress-related disorder.3 More and more, researchers are establishing links between physical illnesses and extreme emotional conditions and reactions.

what gives humans a superior evolutionary advantage is our ability to predict what might happen.

Our bodies are not designed for long-term stress.

And it’s not like we’re spending time with our partner in acts of procreation, when we should be sleeping in bed. The reproductive process is also affected by stress. Ovulation, sperm production, and growing a fetus all take a backseat to fight-or-flight, whether we have a literal tiger or a figurative one (like an impending divorce) on our tail. Impotence, infertility, and miscarriages are all common side effects of chronic stress.

How well can our immune system detect early tumor cells and discard them, when we are fighting an emergency elsewhere requiring all our energy?

Even though they were no longer being subjected to the nausea-inducing drug, their anticipatory thoughts so weakened their immune system that they were defenseless against their environment. In a very real way, their thoughts killed them.

The stress response impairs our basic cognitive functions. When we are in chronic stress mode, most of the blood flow to the brain is diverted to the hindbrain and midbrain and away from the forebrain, which is our higher cognitive center. We unconsciously react instead of consciously planning our actions.

Recent evidence suggests that cortisol, one of the chemicals produced during the stress response, is responsible for degenerating brain cells in the hippocampus.

Once the hippocampus had been rendered incapable of functioning through exposure to radiation, the animals were placed back into their surroundings. Instead of eagerly and enthusiastically exploring new regions of their environment as they had done before, they stayed in the same region of their surroundings in which they had been placed. Curiously, it was as if they were no longer curious. We know that the hippocampus is involved in making known the unknown and in processing novel experiences, and without one, these animals stopped craving new experiences entirely.9 What are the implications for humans? Chances are, our hippocampus won’t be irradiated. But stress chemicals like glucocorticoids, which are released when we have an emotional reaction in response to our environment or during long-term stress, do break down the neurons in our hippocampus. Typical of our behavior as humans, when we are stressed, we resort to doing what is most familiar to us—we seek out routine, the ordinary, the everyday. Yet, for many of us, the routine and the ordinary means being stressed and responding emotionally. Behaving in that manner produces more chemicals of stress, which further damages the hippocampus, which makes us crave the routine experiences and avoid novel ones.

Una de las razoned para la pérdida de memoria o enfermedades degenerativas del cerebro

neurogenesis (the production of new neurons) takes place very actively in the hippocampus. 11 Regeneration in the hippocampus implies that when we break out of living life in survival mode, we may get a second chance. It is entirely possible that if the machinery that is essential in making new memories repairs itself, our sense of adventure should return. The organ that is designed to make new memories should now spur our motivation for new experiences, instead of craving the familiar and the routine. Antidepressants have been shown to be effective in spurring neurogenesis in laboratory animals. Interestingly, in a recent study, it typically took one month for the antidepressant medication Prozac to elevate mood in human beings, and that is about the same time neurogenesis takes.12

Chronic stress allows our body no recovery time. This is when our body starts to steal energy from other vital processes.

if we cannot predict the feeling of a situation, more than likely we will not be interested in engaging that experience. In fact, if we can predict that a potential experience is likely to have an unpleasant or uncomfortable feeling associated with it, we will tend to avoid that situation.

And so, given the opportunity for a new experience at this stage of our life, we typically try to predict the outcome based on how it might feel. This is when we say things like, “What will it feel like? How long will it take? Will it hurt? Do I need to bring something to eat? Do I have to walk a lot? Will it be raining? Will it be cold? Who will be there? Will we be able to take breaks? Who are these people?” All these concerns reflect our anxieties about the body, the environment, and time. This is a sign that youth is slipping away and we are beginning to age. To continue this line of reasoning, now we become further trapped within the limits of our box. We hesitate to step outside the familiar to experience anything unknown or new to us because we will not be able to identify a feeling to go along with that potential experience. The box of our limited thinking creates the same “frame” of mind.

The most basic, baseline information we need to remember is this: every time we fire a thought in our brain, we make chemicals, which produce feelings and other reactions in the body. Our body grows accustomed to the level of chemicals coursing through our bloodstream, surrounding our cells, and bathing our brain. Any interruption in the regular, consistent, and comfortable level of our body’s chemical makeup will result in discomfort. We will do nearly everything we can, both consciously and subconsciously, based on how we feel, to restore our familiar chemical balance. Just as we did when we initiated the acute flight-or-fight response, we do a similar thing every time we fire a thought—we respond by producing various chemicals. The three means by which we communicate chemically are neurotransmitters, peptides, and hormones. Thus, whenever we have a thought, neurotransmitters are at work in the synaptic space, firing the neural nets connected to that particular concept or memory. Any memory has an emotional component attached to it, which the peptides reproduce chemically.

La razon de la adicción

Scientists used to think that we demonstrate four basic primitive emotions, based on how we are wired in a particular part of the midbrain called the amygdala. In initial testing, researchers electrically stimulated the amygdala and observed the feelings or actions of different species. The basic reactions were always anger, sadness, fear, and joy. In a more primitive sense they are aggression; submission; fright or surprise; and acceptance, bonding, or happiness. Presently, due to much work in neuroscience, the model has evolved to add three more to the original four: surprise, contempt, and disgust. It is pretty easy to see that surprise is related to the reaction of fear, and that contempt or disgust can be easily connected to anger and aggression.3 Many sources say that the subjective experiences that are unique to humans involve some combination or blend of each of these primary emotions. Secondary emotions or social emotions are then created from the primary ones, comparable to mixing paints. These secondary emotions include embarrassment, jealousy, guilt, envy, pride, trust, shame, and many others.

Shame actually produces another emotion—in this case, anger. If we like, we can think of the emotion that Partner B is feeling as “shanger.” I’m not calling it this to be funny; instead, I want to illustrate the point that our emotional states are often a combination of feelings.

Our body produces different proteins through the expression of our genes, and this makes us who we are.

If the cells are getting the same chemical orders from the same emotional states, our genes will start to wear out—

Studies at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that people who are depressed see the world equal to how they think and feel. If we show two different pictures rapid-fire to depressed people and to a control group of normal people—one a scene of people feasting at a table and one a funeral scene—and ask them which they remember, the depressives will remember the coffin scene at percentages greater than chance. They seem to perceive their environment in a way that continuously reinforces how they feel.6

Our cells send a signal back up to the brain, notifying it that they need those chemicals. In order to get the body to produce the desired chemicals, the brain turns on its associated circuits—those neural nets that contain the past memory of an experience that produced anger/shame.

how our internal chatter serves to keep our chemicals at their usual levels.

El dialogo interno sirve para mantener los niveles químicos de nuestra mente

Anxiety attacks are created when someone has thoroughly trained their body to become vigilant and prepared in anticipation of the next stressful experience.

We now know that when we respond to the feelings of the body by thinking the way the body feels, the brain will manufacture more of the same chemicals, feeding the body the same chemical signals for it to experience. This is how we maintain a “state of being.” Any repetitive feeling, whatever that feeling is, creates a state of being—be it happy, sad, confused, lonely, unworthy, insecure, joyful, or even depressed. A state of being means that the feedback loop between the brain and the body is complete. When the feedback loop is cycling over and over again by chemically endorsing the brain and the body, we are in a completely fulfilled chemical state of being.

Every person, place, thing, time, or event that is consistent in our life will define us more lastingly as a personality by its repetitive exposure. We become neurologically wired to an association with every one of these elements, and the effect is that they become part of our neural processes and reaffirm who we are. For every known element in our life, we have an existing neural representation in the form of people, things, times, places, and events, and each neural representation connects every person, place, thing, time and event to a specific feeling. We can begin to see why change is so difficult. Changing a person, place, thing, time, or event in our life means that we are breaking the neurochemical circuit that we have kept intact by continuous stimulation.

The lack of stimuli from the environment (not seeing, touching, smelling, feeling, and hearing that person) will no longer fire the neural nets associated with that person. That stoppage prevents the release of specific chemicals from the brain that feed the body to make a feeling. Regardless of whether a feeling is positive or negative, it results from the release of certain chemicals.

We’re not consciously thinking those thoughts; they come from our body telling us what to think and do. As soon as our body becomes chemically stimulated by the sight of the dessert, it causes us to think about what it wants.

Once the homeostatic continuity of our body is altered because we no longer think the same way or react to the same set of circumstances, the cells of the body get together and gang up. They send a message to that particular neural net to fire a certain level of mind, so that we can make the right kind of chemicals to keep the body in balance, controlled, and moderated. If the receptor sites are not getting the regular peptides of familiar emotions and those cells sense a change in normal balance, they will send a message through the peripheral nerves to the spinal cord to the brain. They will be calling to say, “Hey, what’s going on up there? It’s been a little too long for you to not feel like a victim. Can you start firing those thoughts that will make the chemicals so that everything returns to normal?”

And if we are feeling really bad (which, due to its dependency, may actually be interpreted as really good by the body),

Our limited thinking is literally our limited frame of mind. We become the product of our own environmental responses, which make us become more rigid in our own “neuro-habitual” ways, and less free. Unless we can break the habit of “self,” we are destined to endlessly repeat these cycles. Our uniquely different personality becomes predictable because we have consistently wired ourselves to become our “self.” And our brain follows suit.

As the person with PTSD continuously relives the past event, the chemicals created by that recall ultimately produce in the body a state of homeostatic imbalance.

the most common insight I have noticed in people who are in the midst of change is that it does not feel good and it is uncomfortable. If you remember one thing about change, remember that it causes the “self” and the body to go into complete chaos, because the self no longer has any feelings to relate to in order to define itself. If we stop having the same thoughts, feelings, or reactions, we stop making the same chemicals, which sends the body into a state of homeostatic imbalance.

La razon por la que los cambios son complicados

our identity wants to return to the feelings of the familiar, and our body is trying to influence our brain to return to a recognizable state of being, so that the body can recalibrate itself with past feelings.

We did not like the way that felt; we like the way we usually feel, so we returned to the familiar set of conditions in our life, and now it all feels better and right.

The future has no feelings because we haven’t yet experienced it. Remember that all our episodic memories are stored ultimately as emotions. The past has that emotional component, but the future does not. The future has only the sense of adventure we initially started with, but that easily gets lost in the feelings of our body and the memories of the past. The neuro-synaptic self gets homesick, and when this happens, it wants what it can predict and depend on in the next moment. Dreams of a different future usually get smothered by the feelings connected to the feedback loop of the body. When our identity (which is made of past memories) and the feedback loop of the body reign, we can easily rationalize returning to the familiar. We think that we’re making the right choice because it “feels” like the right choice to make in the moment. This is how we resist change and constantly rechoose the familiar. All the associations that are connected to change have now insulted the chemical continuity of how our personal identity feels, and the “somebody” who is connected to past memories is absolutely challenged. The old identity that has defined “the self” just wants to return to familiar, routine circumstances, the normal feelings that define it. If we give in to these urges, we are making choices only with our body, never with our mind, and we will never change. Our life will always be a mirror of how we feel and how we are wired neurologically. In order to have any new experien...

Una razon mas para evitar el cambio

But if we are having the same feelings every day, this means we’re not having any new experiences.

Without learning and experiencing, we never upgrade our neural architecture.

Being in survival is not evolving our brain. It is only activating a more primitive neurological/chemical part of our gray matter that then drives our conscious neocortex to a state of unconscious behaviors, mapped within it, so that we react with the body in mind . . . and the mind in the body.