“Healing the Brains Limbic System”

“What We Think Does Change Our Body”

Every time we have a negative thought there are parts of our brain that react to bring about certain chemical changes which change our body completely. We have the amygdala, hypothalamus, thalamus, cingulate gurus, hippocampus, and the basal ganglia which produce different chemicals depending upon what kind of thinking we have going on… and in general these areas are called the limbic system. And we can heal our limbic system and body by changing our thinking.

Take for instance if we have a stressful event happen and we think “I almost died” those words are powerful and start the limbic system creating chemicals that are released into the body (All of this has been documented with lots of scientific studies showing exactly how this happens). Thus we have a stress reaction and our body reacts accordingly. And if a is lion chasing us or a negative thought it all works the same. Take for instance lie detectors, they work great for detecting negative thoughts. When we tell a lie our heart rate goes up, our blood pressure goes up, our breathing changes, we start sweating just a little bit, and we tense up. And this process is no different for all the negative thoughts we say to ourselves all the time.

Negative thoughts such as blaming, feeling guilty about things, having strong negative feelings with no evidence to back up the reality of those feelings. Also always looking into the future and making a negative forecast. Or getting trapped in “This Always Happens or This Will Never Happen” scenario creates havoc with our brain and body. And trying to read the minds of others, making everything in life about “Me” when most of it doesn’t have a thing to do with the one we see in the mirror. And just holding on to negative thoughts in general.

A study was done with women with— sad thoughts, average everyday thoughts, and happy thoughts. And during the happy thoughts the limbic system produced less stress chemicals. While with the sad thoughts lots of chemicals where emitted from the chemical producing areas of the brain… thus changing the body in powerful ways. Whenever we have a thought our mind in general believes that thought and thus our body reacts accordingly… this is all automatic.

Here is a great way to start healing the limbic system. Just write out all the negative thoughts and then refute those thoughts with positive answers. Such as “Everyone Hates Me”… then write down, “I have lots of friends and they love me”. Or “Tomorrow is Going to Be Terrible”, then write down “Tomorrow might be challenging but I will get through it and feel good about my accomplishments”. And perhaps “My Coworker Hates Me”, the write down something like this, “He is just another person who has good and bad days”.

This process will take time to heal the limbic system, it may take as long as a year, or it might be just a couple weeks. It all depends upon each and ever person, we are all different… but everyone us can heal and feel happy again.

May we all start the process of uplifting out thinking and changing mankind.

Dr. Paul Haider - Master Herbalist