The UltraMind Solution (88 page)

The monks practice these techniques to develop habits of mind and perception that allow them to have a different experience of their world.

But this alteration in perception isn’t available only to Tibetan monks. Others have it too.

Dr. Kenneth Pelletier studied the effects of perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs on health and reviewed them in his book
Sound Mind, Sound Body
. He examined, not the sick, but the well. What are the characteristics of people who are successful in life in their work, relationships, and ability to be happy?

They did not necessarily practice stress management techniques, although practicing active relaxation is essential for health. Rather, they possessed a sense of purpose, meaning, and connection to what was important in life.

There are two high-tech ways to turn off the stress response and activate the parasympathetic nervous system. You can cut out your adrenal glands. Or you can get a pacemaker that stimulates the vagus nerve. Neither of those options is too attractive.

Studies show that the hippocampus shrinks because of an adrenal (or pituitary) tumor that produces too much cortisol (Cushing’s disease), which leads to depression and impaired memory and cognitive function.
¹²
But the researchers found that by removing the adrenal gland tumor and lowering the cortisol levels, the hippocampus increases in size
¹³
and memory and mood improve.
¹⁴

While studying rats, Heather Cameron, from the National Institutes of Health, found that she could increase the rate of neurogenesis and improve cognitive function in old rats to the same level as younger rats in just a few days simply by removing their adrenal glands.
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You can improve your memory and learning, relieve depression, lose weight, and boost your immunity by cutting out your adrenal glands. But then you would be unable to respond to any real threat or danger. So that doesn’t seem like such a great idea.

Or you can have a pacemaker implanted in your neck that stimulates the vagus nerve every few seconds. This is now being prescribed to people with treatment-resistant depression.

However, I don’t think that is the major point to be taken away from the studies above.

Clearly, they tell us that stimulating the vagus nerve and reducing the amount of work your adrenal glands are doing may improve everything
from memory to depression. But wouldn’t it be better to learn how to activate the vagus nerve on your own.

You can, in fact, do this easily—in just a few seconds.

Right now take a deep breath into your belly to the count of five, pause for one second, then breathe out slowly to the count of five. Keep your belly soft. Put down the book and do this five times. Notice how you feel in your body and mind. Then keep reading.

You have just activated the vagus nerve, which flows from your brain through your neck, right into your chest, and through your diaphragm. So when you take a deep breath and relax and expand your diaphragm, your vagus nerve is stimulated, you instantly turn on the parasympathetic nervous system, your cortisol levels are reduced, and your brain heals.

This whole experience is called the relaxation response. The opposite of the stress response, the relaxation response is necessary for your body to heal, repair, and renew. There are
many
ways to activate the vagus nerve and turn on the relaxation response.

The Tibetan monks used meditation, which is very easy to learn (see
www.ultramind.com/guide
for resources), and also activates the vagus nerve. In fact the deep softbelly breath you just did is a form of meditation that you can do almost anywhere. In Part III you will learn how to incorporate this into your daily life.

The ability that the vagus nerve has to help you relax, turn off your automatic stress response, and stem the tide of cortisol in your blood is only one of the effects it has on your body.

It turns out, it also has a major impact on inflammation.

How does this work?

Remember, any type of stressor has its impact through your hypothalamus and its wide-ranging control over the autonomic nervous system’s dual functions of stress or relaxation, as I discussed above.

Even the health effects of pollution register through the autonomic nervous system and can be measured by higher stress and lower heart rate variability.
¹⁷
Many of the negative effects from stress are, in part, related to increased inflammation.
¹⁸

How does this work? Remember the key neurotransmitter, acetylcholine? This neurotransmitter is responsible for learning and memory. It is also calming and relaxing, and is the neurotransmitter your vagus nerve uses to send messages of peace and relaxation throughout your body.

It is also a major factor regulating the immune system.

As we have discussed, brain inflammation is linked to every known mood, behavior, attention, memory, or neurodegenerative disease. New research has found that acetylcholine is a major brake on inflammation in the body.
¹⁹

Relaxing is anti-inflammatory. Stimulating your vagus nerve sends acetylcholine throughout your body, not only relaxing you but also turning down the fires of inflammation.

The body is a beautifully balanced organism working in the natural rhythm of everything in nature—day and night, yin and yang, moon and sun. Too much relaxation and you will end up in a blissful puddle. Too much stress and you will be an inflamed, aging, demented, and depressed wreck.

So activating the vagus nerve and balancing the sympathetic nervous system on a daily basis are critical to keeping your brain and body healthy.

By activating the vagus nerve you can reverse or stop all the negative effects of stress noted above.

But the good news doesn’t end there. Exciting new research has linked the vagus nerve not only to improved neurogenesis, increased BDNF output (brain-derived neurotrophic factor is like super fertilizer for your brain cells) and repair of brain tissue, but to actual regeneration throughout the body.

Stem cells are directly connected to the vagus nerve. It appears that activating the vagus nerve can stimulate stem cells to produce new cells and repair and rebuild our own organs.
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No need for placental injections, embryos, or fetal research. Just relax and you will stimulate your own stem cells to create a new you!

While thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions can trigger a stress response, so can any physical or chemical insult. One of the biggest stress triggers can be the food we eat.

Most of us think of food as just calories. But new findings make it clear that what you put in your body is much more than just energy. The quality and type of food directly influences your genes and the stress response.

In his movie
Super Size Me
, Morgan Spurlock ate three fast food meals a day for one month. Most of us recognize that eating a lot of fried, processed food, full of trans fat, high-fructose corn syrup, and calories will make us gain weight, promote heart disease and diabetes, and even give us fatty livers.

But what struck me the most was not that his cholesterol or blood sugar went up, but that his personality changed. He became aggressive, depressed, restless, foggy, and felt “good” only when he was eating the food. He became addicted to the food and felt drugged.

The explanation for this may be that our current food supply—which is genetically modified or engineered; grown in nutrient-depleted soils and fertilized with petrochemicals; shipped in boxes across thousands of miles; filled with antibiotic-, hormonally pumped livestock or farmed fish that is
fed grain rather than grasses or algae, which are its native foods—can send the wrong signals to our bodies.
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Our cells see these foods, which are a far cry from what we evolved to eat, as foreign.“What’s this?” our cells say.“Something foreign? Something dangerous? Let’s get in gear by activating the stress response.”

The stress response in our body created by “foreign” molecules in food is called xenohormesis. The concept of
xenohormesis
²²
describes the effect of these foreign molecules on our biology. They produce a stress response triggering the whole cascade of stress-related cellular signals that makes us sick.

This causes obesity and brain dysfunction. And it appears that there is a close connection between the obesity epidemic we are seeing and the epidemic of ADHD and behavior problems in children.
²³

Not only do we need to think of the nutrients in our food, but we also need to think about its quality. Are there “stress” molecules in our food that is raised on industrial feedlots and farms, which make us fat, depressed, and inattentive? What kind of information does the food we eat send to our bodies?