Читать книгу Your Journey to Success: How to Accept the Answers You Discover Along the Way - Kenny Weiss - Страница 15

Our brains are small, but mighty. Besides doing the physical things like regulating our body’s temperature and heart rate and giving us the ability to see, feel, taste, and touch, the brain controls our emotions and how we think. Up until the late 1970s, we didn’t know much about the connection between our brains and body when it came to stress and trauma. Candace Pert, a molecular biologist, helped identify a fundamental element of brain chemistry as a graduate student. While working at Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, she and a team of researchers discovered the opiate receptor, which is the brain’s receptor that opiates like morphine fit into and bond with cells in our body. This helped change the way the scientific community looked at how the human body functions. As it turns out, thoughts and feelings release chemicals throughout our bodies that cause actual chemical reactions, proving that the mind-body connection is real.

Think of our brains as a complex computer system that continually sends and receives information. The biggest portion of our brain is the cerebrum, which is divided into two hemispheres and has three sections known as the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain. In our midbrain, our thalamus, which is part of the limbic system, takes in information. This is where almost all nerves that connect our brain and body meet. The thalamus diagnoses different sensory information transmitted to the brain through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. It acts like a traffic cop directing all incoming information. In addition, the thalamus is the emotional control center of our brain. In any situation, it sends signals to our body when a physical response is required. The thalamus also sends information to the prefrontal cortex, whose job is to assess, plan, and make choices. Most importantly, it sends a signal to the hypothalamus, which monitor’s critical internal body functions like temperature, hormones, blood sugar, appetite, sleep, thirst, blood pressure, immune system response, and metabolism. Consider this our state of balance—the “norm” of our brain, body, and mind.