Switch on Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health (25 page)

Focused Reflection

in your brain. Let’s look at some of the technical side in-

terspersed with some focused questions to help you digest

the science.

Just a quick reminder here: Each of these 5 steps that you

do daily for 21 days are simple, yet there are profound par-

allel and simultaneous neurophysiological things going on

in your brain that are so marvelous you cannot help but be

one who “admires God’s work,” as Thomas More put it. So

don’t let yourself get overwhelmed by the science; instead,

look at it with fascination and admiration of our gracious

God. Science is pure evidence of grace.

The Rush to the Front of the Brain

After the gathering stage, the electromagnetic signals—your

thinking and those existing memories that have been brought

into consciousness—speed through the hippocampus, mov-

ing toward the front of the brain—the basal forebrain and

orbitofrontal cortex, which are behind the inside corners of

corpus callosum

ACG

PFC

insula & claustrum

basal forebrain

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THE 21-DAY BRAIN DETOX PLAN

your eyes and above your eyebrows respectively. The infor-

mation flows through in the hippocampus for twenty-four

to forty-eight hours, constantly being amplified each time it

cycles to the front.

Free Will

The amplification sets in motion a delightful string of

events so magnificent that it can only reflect the work of your

Creator. This string of events is your free will and decision-

making ability, a true gift. (Before you go on, please look

back at the summaries of keys 1, 2, 3, and 7.)

The Thought Becomes Vulnerable to Change

This amplification means the thought is conscious and

becomes “labile,” which means it is unstable and changeable.

In fact, it must change (see chap. 3). The science of thought

demands that change must occur either by reinforcing the

thought as it is or by changing some or all of it.

The memory cannot sink back as part of your attitude

into your nonconscious mind without being changed in some

way. This is marvelous news for you, but it also emphasizes

the responsibility you need to take for your thought life. No

thought is harmless, nor does it stay the same—it constantly

changes. As I said in part 1, you are constantly changing

the landscape of your brain moment by moment. You are a

thinking, creative being—quite brilliant.

QUESTION: Now that you are aware that thoughts

are unstable and changeable when they are in your

conscious cognitive mind, can you focus on one

in particular and experimenting with changing it?

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Focused Reflection

When You Think, You Change

This constant change means that the deeper you think, the

more change you can make. This change is real and hap-

pens via electromagnetic and quantum forces as well as

neurotransmitters activating genetic expression and protein

synthesis (see chaps. 2 and 3).

As a reminder, proteins are made and used to grow new

branches to hold your thoughts. So if you don’t get rid of

the thought, you reinforce it. This is phenomenal because

science confirms that you can choose with your free will to

interfere with genetic expression, which is protein synthesis

(chap. 2). If you say you can’t or won’t, this decision will

actually cause protein synthesis and change in your brain

into “I can’t” or “I won’t.” Remember: mind controls mat-

ter (chap. 1). Now “bringing into captivity every thought”

(2 Cor. 10:5 KJV) becomes a lot more important. Thoughts

are constantly remodeled by the “renewing of your mind”

(Rom. 12:2 NIV).

QUESTION: You have to make a decision. Do you

want to build memories out of this new informa-

tion coming into your mind?

When you do this, as you saw in chapters 2 and 3, you actu-

ally change the physical structure—neuroplasticity—of your

brain. This is because thinking causes important neurotrans-

mitters—chemicals in the brain that carry electrical impulses—

to flow. These neurotransmitters plus electromagnetic and

quantum activity cause changes deep inside the cell, affecting

genetic expression and protein synthesis, as I have described

earlier.

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THE 21-DAY BRAIN DETOX PLAN

Imagining Builds Physical Thoughts

Research has shown that mental practice—imagination, visu-

alization, deep thought, and reflection—produces the same

physical changes in the brain as would physically carrying out

the same imagined processes. We see this principle in the Bible:

“Nothing they have imagined they can do will be impossible for

them” (Gen. 11:6 AMP). Brain scans show that the parts of the

brain activated by action are the same parts of the brain acti-

vated by simply thinking about an action. This sheds new depths

of understanding for the Scripture, “Faith is the substance of

things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).

Rehearsing things mentally is a great everyday example of

how you can think and more deeply reflect on daily actions,

because each time you do this, you change the memory. For

example, if a surgeon is about to perform an operation, he first

mentally rehearses each precise step, as would an athlete before

a game or a student about to take an exam. As you mentally

rehearse it, the newly built memory becomes increasingly stron-

ger and begins to grow more connections to neighboring nerve

cells, integrating that thought into other thought patterns. This

leads to automatization, which I spoke about in chapter 8.

QUESTION: Have you ever found yourself re-

hearsing something over and over for days on end,

almost like you couldn’t get it out of your head?

How did that make you feel?

A healthy thought and a toxic thought can both be built

with mental rehearsal. But you can tear toxic strongholds

down by choosing to bring the thought into conscious aware-

ness for analysis and then changing it through repentance and

forgiveness—which causes protein synthesis—and replacing

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Focused Reflection

it with the correct information, using Philippians 4:8 or a

similar Scripture guideline.

QUESTION: How do you tear down the toxic

stronghold?

The Contribution of the Heart

When talking about thinking, free will, and understanding,

you need to also consider the exciting contribution the heart

makes to thinking and decision-making. Your heart is not just

a pump; it helps with decision-making and choices, acting

like a checking station for all the emotions generated by the

flow of chemicals from thoughts. In fact, every single cell is

connected to your heart and, because your heart responds

to and is controlled by your brain, every single cell in your

body is affected by your thoughts.

Your heart is in constant communication with your brain

and the rest of your body, checking the accuracy and integrity

of your thought life. As you are about to make a decision,

your heart pops in a quiet word of advice. It is well worth

listening to this advice, because when you listen to your heart,

it secretes the ANF (atrial natriuretic factor)—a hormone

produced by the heart that regulates blood pressure and can

give you a feeling of peace.

QUESTION: What role does the heart play in

focused reflection?

Expertise

When you think deeply to understand, you go beyond just stor-

ing facts and answers to storing key concepts and strategies

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Inside the Brain

heart

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Focused Reflection

that can help you come up with your own answers. These

thoughts have been consolidated and stabilized sufficiently so

that you have immediate access to them. When this happens,

you have achieved a level of expertise. But this can happen in a

negative or positive direction, with all the contributing effects.

You should be aiming for that which you were naturally de-

signed—deep, intellectual, nontoxic thought (Matthew 5:48).

Focused reflection helps with this process, but for protein

synthesis to consolidate, stabilize, and become part of you,

repetition and rehearsal in frequent, spaced intervals is neces-

sary. The next three stages in thought formation—writing,

revisit, and active reach—show you how to take advantage of

this to stabilize your protein synthesis or bring your memory

back up again to retranscribe or change it.

1. Focused thinking is specifically focusing on one thought

with its interconnections.

2. It is a directed and deep, intellectual process.

3. It is a disciplined way of thinking that has the elements

of attention regulation, controlling raging, and prevent-

ing chaotic thoughts from moving through the mind.