Secrets of Your Cells: Discovering Your Body's Inner Intelligence (12 page)

If you were to assign a different color to each of the receptors that scientists have identified, the average cell surface would appear as a multicolored mosaic of at least 70 different hues—50,000 of one type of receptor, 10,000 of another, 199,000 of a third and so forth.

— CANDACE PERT
Molecules of Emotion

Masquerading Molecules

Our bodies produce thousands of different molecular messages, and drug developers have taken advantage of this fact by synthesizing “impostor” messages that mimic the chemistry and shape of our natural molecules. In fact, many drugs used in medicine today achieve their results by preventing natural signals from engaging their receptors. For example, drugs known as beta blockers—frequently given to lower blood pressure—fit some of the adrenaline receptors and prevent our own adrenaline from sending its information. In so doing, they prevent or lessen the adrenaline’s signal to “get ready for action” and keep the heart from racing.
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These imposter molecules can have wide-ranging effects. When I was getting ready to give my first talk to the American Heart Association, my boss, a cardiologist, asked whether I wanted to take propranolol, a beta blocker, to ease my nervous, racing heart; people who are terrified of speaking in public or taking exams sometimes resort to popping one of these before the stressful event. Though I chose to use natural methods—I meditated beforehand instead of medicating—it is fascinating that altering communication on a cellular level can both ease the physical condition of hypertension and powerfully impact our emotional experience.

Call for Rescue

The continual ebb and flow of molecular messages is essential to life and survival. When in danger, the cell calls for help, alerts its allies,
and demands energy. Equipped with a chemical repertoire of molecular messages, it engages neighboring and distant cells in common action. When stress places demands on our energy, our cells can burn up their resources too quickly. When this happens, we can bring them replenishment and ease them back toward a state of peace through collaboration between mind, molecules, and cells.

They are incredible communicators, these molecules, speaking their myriad languages in simultaneous chorus within us. If you feel threatened by something in the present moment, or if a thought about the future worries you, your cells are called to immediate active duty to protect and defend your home turf, mobilizing resources to ensure survival. Moment to moment, we and our cells share the ability to move away from danger toward safe haven. And knowing that our cells listen to all messages—what we’re thinking, imagining, or physically experiencing—gives us pause to remember how important it is to
be present in the now.

Body Clues of Cellular Communication

Many years ago, Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who transformed the field of psychology, became aware that some emotional states were accompanied by corresponding physical reactions, such as a rapid heartbeat or sweaty palms.
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Since then, many physiological signals have been harnessed into useful emotional measurements that can be detected by machines such as the polygraph (lie detector). Yet we’ve had machines for only a blip in human history. What about our own sensing abilities? Let’s take some time now to become aware of our body’s innate emotional signals.

The easiest molecular change to notice in our bodies comes from the cocktail of stress hormones. We fear a man walking down the street—he seems menacing. We narrowly avoid a traffic accident. We imagine awful things that will probably never come to pass: we worry. At the cellular level, adrenaline, the preeminent stress signal, prepares us for flight or
fight.
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Remember that it ensures that our blood sugar is elevated, which requires our heart to beat faster—a body clue that emotional and molecular change is taking place. Circulation shifts to fuel the big muscles in the legs, enabling us to run away if we have to. When blood moves to the legs, it moves away from the hands; this is why icy, clammy hands signal that we may be experiencing stress or fear. We breathe faster and shallower. The jaw clenches and muscles in the shoulder and neck tense. All these physical changes result from the communications between molecules and cells; in this case, molecules of adrenaline (along with other stress hormones) connect with receptors on heart, muscle, and lung cells—and in the case of long-term, sustained stress, immune cells.

When our cells broadcast a signal of danger, the whole body responds with detectable evidence. The same is true with the opposite signal: the all-clear that comes when we realize the “menacing” man is smiling hello as he passes by, or our near-accident has been avoided. We relax. Our breathing slows down; our clenched jaw and tight muscles release their tensions, and our hands warm up. Just as our cells listen to their surrounding environment, so can we listen to the echoes of their activity within us. And as our awareness of these responses increases, we can learn how to manage and, if need be, influence them intentionally. As we get better at reading our body’s clues, we can learn to respond in healthier ways.

Set aside a few minutes now to tune in to how your body is feeling in this moment.

EXPLORATION

Body Scan

Close your eyes. Notice whether there are any places in your body that feel tense or tight.

Notice the temperature of your hands.

Now put one hand on your chest and the other on your belly and become aware of the rhythm of your breathing. Which has more movement: your chest or belly?

Notice how you are holding your jaw and shoulders.

These observations give you a sensory picture of
now.
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If you are inclined to carry this exploration further, remember a particularly stressful time or a frightening moment. Hold that memory in your mind and notice whether there are any physical changes from the earlier
now:
Are you breathing faster? Have your shoulders tensed? Let that memory go and imagine a restful scene or a peaceful moment to bring your cells back into balance.

Your thoughts and your cells have just had a conversation about danger and safety. Appreciate the miracle this represents—the sacredness of the interplay of mind and molecules. Be aware that it is not simply physical events that trigger our “stress cocktails”; our minds play an important role in our chemistry.

Body clues can make you aware of your inner emotional state, and they are with you always—you can pay attention to them anywhere and at any time. For example, next time you’re in a meeting and find that your hands are freezing, note that your cells may be saying, “Danger.” Now that you have received their message, what action do you want to take?

Cells Speak Their Truth

In the late 1880s, a patient complained to her physician of electric tingling in her hands and feet whenever she caught a whiff of certain unpleasant odors. Her French physician was later to discover that electrical properties of the skin changed with fluctuations in emotion. Ultimately, from this discovery modern psychophysiology was born. Electrical activity of the skin became known as the galvanic skin response (GSR), and machines were developed that could measure it, such as the lie detector mentioned earlier. GSR, a measurement of sweat gland activity, is an index of events in the brain that are carried to the surface of the skin. Carl Jung, one of the first students of the skin’s electrical response, viewed this as a physiologic window to the unconscious.

Imagine the excitement in those early days. You’re sitting in a musty old lab, your fingers attached to an elaborate set of wires connected to a huge machine. Every time you imagine a friend’s face, the needle on the machine moves. You realize that the friend doesn’t have to be there for you to react emotionally and physically: she is present only in your imagination, yet she is changing you physically.

Fast-forward to the late 1980s when psychologist James Pennebaker was invited to teach the psychophysiology of stress to technicians who administered polygraph tests. They wanted to know what was occurring in the body and mind when a person was being questioned about a crime. Typically during the test, a person telling a lie reacts with a measurable stress response. In addition to the GSR and skin electrical conductance, modern polygraph measurements can include heart rate, muscle tension, voice changes, and other links to emotional discomfort. Pennebaker could explain the physiologic mechanism underlying each of these changes—yet he was to learn something that would transform his life’s work and our knowledge about our cellular selves.

The revelation came when those experts administering the lie detector tests asked Pennebaker to explain this surprising observation: when a person actually confessed to a crime, they exhibited relaxation responses, not stress. As a result of their admission, they now faced a future of upheaval and turmoil, possibly even incarceration. How could they possibly respond by
relaxing?

Pennebaker had no answer at the time, but he would later make a startling discovery that now informs what we know of personal well-being and telling the truth. Following up at the University of Texas with his psychology students, he began exploring confession itself. He asked his students to “confess,” in writing, to a secret or a trauma they’d never told anyone. He discovered that following this disclosure, his students’ immune health improved and their levels of stress hormones decreased.

He explained the phenomenon this way: When people hold back a painful or fearful story (a crime committed, an abuse suffered or
inflicted on another, a secret fear), the very experience of holding back is stressful, and their cells respond accordingly with classic symptoms of discomfort and anxiety. When the story comes out, there is a wave of release and relief. In other words, revealing their well-guarded secrets enables them to let go of the associated upsetting thoughts and allows them to return to a state of well-being. Now their cells have the opportunity to initiate the chemistry of peace—and they do.
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For nearly twenty years now, Pennebaker has been giving people a simple writing assignment, which you will find in the next exploration exercise. Many who follow his suggestions find their immune systems strengthened. Students see their grades improve. Sometimes lives are completely changed. People of all kinds benefit: those grappling with everyday worries, those who have lost their jobs, people dealing with a terminal illness, victims of violent crime, even Holocaust survivors.

In his initial research, Pennebaker was most interested in health problems, so he turned to people with powerful secrets such as a history of abuse, who were more prone to illness. He wondered, if he could find a way for people to share those secrets, would their health improve? Yes, it turned out, it would, and it wasn’t even necessary to reveal a word to anyone else. The simple act of writing about those secrets, even if the paper they were written on was immediately destroyed, had a positive effect on health. And it worked for people with an array of health challenges: people with asthma had better lung function; those with arthritis, less joint pain. A key finding of the study was that even though people wrote for only four days, fifteen to twenty minutes at a sitting, their symptoms continued to improve for the entire six months the study ran.
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This is a potent tool in our medicine bag of cellular strategies, one that allows us to influence what we ask our cells to listen to.

Pennebaker’s exciting research demonstrates that our cellular sanctuaries instinctively live by the New Testament declaration, “The truth will set you free.”