Power Up Your Brain (6 page)

Working with my team, we therefore designed a program of specific nutritional supplements to enhance his immune system. I also added a high-dosage DHA to augment the meditation practices and affirmations he was to begin. The focus of both of these techniques was simply the thought, “I am healthy.”

Within one week, his previous sallow appearance had disappeared, and remarkably, within six weeks, his previously abnormal blood studies related to pancreatic and liver function had completely normalized. Three months later, he returned to the renowned hospital where he’d been diagnosed. His CAT scans revealed no evidence of cancer whatsoever. “What did they say when they saw your results?” I asked him.

“Well,” he replied, “they really didn’t seem interested in learning what I was doing, but they did say that whatever it was, I should continue it.”

Almost two years later, at the time of writing this book, Marvin remains cancer-free. Sure, it could be argued that this is simply a case of spontaneous remission, but that is exceedingly rare with this type of cancer, as any cancer specialist would confirm. I submit that the key intervention was the relationship he cultivated with the Divine as a result of using the two-pronged approach of neuronutrients and shamanic meditative techniques that allowed him to access the healing energy that infuses all that exists.

In contrast to the placebo, the nocebo is an insidious complement. A nocebo is an otherwise harmless substance or inert medication that can cause harmful effects due to the patient’s negative expectations, beliefs, or psychological condition—regardless of the person’s physical condition.

Alberto:
The Curse Is Real

The most dramatic example of the nocebo effect I ever witnessed occurred in the Peruvian Amazon when I met a perfectly healthy man who had been “cursed” by a local sorcerer. At the time, I was investigating the healing practices of shamans near the headwaters of the Marañón River. When the patient came in for a consultation, the healer informed the patient that his nausea and headaches were being caused by this curse, that there was nothing he could do to help him, and that he should prepare himself and his family for his passing. Within 24 hours the man was dead. When I asked the healer why he had not helped the man, he replied that the man had broken a village taboo but it was his own fear that had killed him. I immediately questioned him further, asking if the curse was all in the man’s own mind, that the sorcery was not real. “Oh no,” he emphasized. “The curse, the sorcery, is absolutely real.”

What I learned in that corner of the Amazon was the same thing that advertising agencies on Madison Avenue have long understood: that the mind can be programmed to purchase vehicles that will make us feel like we are young again and dresses that promise to make the hurt of depression go away. The mind can even be programmed to go against every instinctual survival function ingrained through millions of years of evolution. It is very difficult to override the body’s immune system. Yet that man’s belief had managed to kill him. The question that came to my mind that day was: What about the long list of disclaimers and possible side effects that come with every medication we buy? Could they be affecting our very suggestible minds in a noxious way? Rather than falling prey to nocebos—whether of the physical body or mind—how can we program ourselves for life, health, and joy?

I have since come to realize that physicians are hesitant to suggest a placebo or to recommend what were once called “soft therapies,” such as counseling, relaxation techniques, or meditation, because they believe these methodologies constitute phony medicine. They worry about the implications of “tricking” the patient into healing the body, even though the success of many medically accepted therapies and surgical interventions currently performed by those same doctors may be, in large part, enhanced or facilitated by the placebo effect.

But above all, as I have come to understand the capabilities of our mind, I realize that you and I and everyone can use these faculties consciously to create psychosomatic health. In effect, we will be able to volitionally heal ourselves from physical and emotional disorders, without having to resort to trickery. To do this, we first have to understand how the brain works, and how trauma can injure the brain regions that allow us to tap into these abilities.

THE TRIUNE BRAIN

In the mid-1950s, Paul D. MacLean, an American neuroscientist, proposed a model to help explain the evolution of the human brain. MacLean’s model became known as the triune brain, and it describes how we have three evolutionarily distinct neurocomputers, each with its own intelligence, subjective feel of the world, and sense of time and space. MacLean’s model is too general to be of value to students of evolutionary anatomy, yet it is helpful to metaphorically understand how each of us reacts differently to situations, depending on the “brain” we are responding from. It explains how, when we smell the scent of wolf, one of us may sense danger while the other may detect opportunity.

The Old Brains

The first brain is the reptilian brain, or R-brain, which is anatomically very similar to the brain of modern-day reptiles. This brain region is completely instinctual and is primarily interested in survival. It regulates most autonomic functions, such as breathing, heart rate, and body temperature; and it is involved in the fight-or-flight response. There is nothing cuddly about a reptile, and this brain region, like a cold-blooded serpent, feels no emotions.

The second brain is the limbic system, which is made up primarily of the amygdala, the hypothalamus, and the hippocampus. MacLean described this as the brain of instinct and emotion. The limbic system is also known as the mammalian brain, or M-brain. As the name implies, this is the brain most dominant in mammals, which flourished about the same time that dinosaurs were staving off extinction. As such, it represents one more step in the ladder of evolutionary complexity.

In the limbic system, signals are decoded according to four fundamental programs, known as the Four F’s—fear, feeding, fighting, and fornicating. The M-brain will interpret meeting a person for the first time as an individual to be wary of, a dinner date or a promising business partner, a potential adversary, or a possible mate. This brain also interprets color according to the cultural environment that programmed it: red, for example, means “danger, stop” in the United States, but it means “good fortune” to the people of China, and “best” or “beautiful” to Russians.

Anatomy of the Limbic Brain

To better understand how the limbic, or mammalian, brain functions, let’s look at the structures within it that evolved to ensure our survival. The limbic brain contains the seahorseshaped hippocampus and the almond-shaped amygdala. Both are involved in processing information from our environment via our emotions. If an enemy ambushes us, we become terrified and fight or flee. If a snake strikes out at us, we instinctively jump away.

The hippocampus is located in the deepest and most forward portion of each medial temporal lobe and extends into both hemispheres of the brain. The hippocampus received its name in the 16th century when Italian anatomist Julius Caesar Aranzi noted its uncanny resemblance to the seahorse and chose the name
hippocampus,
the Greek word for this creature.

Early researchers, attempting to ascribe particular functions to specific brain areas, believed the hippocampus was involved with olfaction, the perception of smell. No doubt this belief was strengthened by the location of the hippocampus near the olfactory system. Even though research later showed that olfaction was not a primary function of the hippocampus, investigators continue to explore the relationship between the memory of scents and hippocampal function. Notice how a familiar smell will remind you of your childhood, such as a whiff of sizzling bacon that evokes the breakfasts your mother used to make.

More refined research today, however, reveals that, rather than serving as a storage center for memories, the hippocampus acts more as a way station, acquiring information from the five senses and then parceling out the data for processing either by the amygdala, in the event of a perceived threat, or to the cerebral cortex for all other needs.

In effect, the hippocampus operates something like a digital camera that can process both still pictures and video. Facts, like photographs, are pieces of data that can generally be verbalized in simple terms. Recalling facts is termed declarative memory.

Events, like video, are more complex and involve relationships that are both spatial as well as temporal. This mental activity is called episodic memory. When the hippocampus begins to deteriorate, new experiences are less likely to be stored and memorialized, and this is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. Advanced imaging techniques like MRI and PET scans now clearly show that loss of physical tissue as well as loss of function in the hippocampus is an early indicator of this disease.

As you’ll see later in
Power Up Your Brain
, the hippocampus begins to fail due to free radical and chemical damage caused by trauma and stress. Basically, once the hippocampus begins to fail, school is over and learning pretty much stops. Conventional wisdom believes that the ability to process information through higher brain centers is stunted, that our emotional repertoire is diminished, and that genuine feelings become inaccessible.

Our mission, however, is to challenge that paradigm and demonstrate to you that neurodegeneration is preventable and even reversible. Ring the bell. School is back in session.

The amygdala, from the Greek word for
almond,
governs our so-called fight-or-flight response, which is our automatic and instantaneous reaction to real or imagined threats. Basically, it’s the fear center of the brain that allows us to respond to dangerous situations reflexively, unconsciously, and immediately.

The New Brain

The third brain identified by MacLean is the neocortex, which is well developed in all the higher mammals and is responsible for speech, writing, and higher-order thinking in humans. If we do not need to fear, fight, seduce, or dine with a person we encounter in any particular situation, the thalamus relays the sensory information, colored by the joys, excitements, worries, or concerns of the limbic brain, to the neocortex for reflection and appropriate behavior.