How To Change Your BodyMind, According to Neuroscience

How the nervous system makes physical and mental habits the same

Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash

How do I eliminate toxins from my body, so it can operate optimally?

We must look at how we introduce toxins into our body and mind, as well as what options we have for removing toxins.

To stop ingesting toxins we must change our mental and physical diet.

When we habitually think about negative things, we reinforce particular thought patterns in our brain. Continually giving these patterns attention sends blood flow to the corresponding neuron connection, which strengthens it.

We must upgrade our awareness, mindfulness, and consciousness, such that we notice these habits. Then we address them in the present moment with conscious thought, sending blood to other neural connections. We don’t reinforce reactionary negative patterns. 

These patterns are thoughtless because repeated use of the neural connection strengthens them to the point it is the most efficient use of energy or blood for the brain. In moments of stress, the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight mode) activates, and the body diverts blood from the brain. Familiar thought patterns are easiest to follow for the limited blood left.

The brain needs conscious awareness to direct its use. Otherwise, it will use the pathway requiring the least energy or blood, because that’s most efficient.

Your brain doesn’t differentiate between negative thought patterns and positive ones, it seeks to save energy. Your conscious awareness allows you to decide which thought patterns are beneficial or not.

Something that helps me, is viewing my emotional reactions as reflexes, similar to when the doctor strikes your knee. Your mind responds to external stimuli the same way and makes decisions unconsciously, just how your knee moves without your direction. Discovering what spurs your mind’s reflexes can give you great insight into your own self, your ego, what you feel the need to react to and why. Eventually you can figure out how you developed those emotional reflexes..

In the past, the brain decided a negative thought pattern answered the issue you faced. It kept going back to this answer and created  an unconscious reaction or belief. This is why it takes conscious awareness of the negative habit to change it. Your brain reinforced this habit repeatedly. Those neuron connections were sent blood and energy time and time again. You can consciously reinforce positive thought patterns in order to balance and eventually replace the negative ones. 

The same principle holds for physical dysfunctions. Your body, not knowing any better and simply adapting to its environment, started deviating from optimal movement patterns to make up for a lack of strength and/or flexibility. Over time you settled into dysfunctional, non optimal movement patterns that lead to pain and injury.

Each of us are physically and mentally unique. Optimal movement patterns for one individual might differ from the next, but there are general guidelines for how the human body should operate, with wiggle room depending on physical characteristics. It’s important to find your optimal movement patterns, using the general guidelines of how physics and the human body interact.

For most, dysfunctional movement occurs because society has us sit so often, our glutes and core become inactive and weak. The body has to compensate for the lack of strength and flexibility in what should be two of i’s largest, strongest, and most heavily utilized muscle groups. To accomplish this, it puts more stress, aka greater forces, on smaller, less capable muscles, starting a pattern of compromised movement unsustainable over time.

As we continue to move dysfunctionally, these same muscles receive our energy/blood, and become strengthened in a way that leads to muscular imbalances. These imbalances inevitably lead to pain and injury. When muscles are strengthened unevenly, the body goes further and further from the number one source of its protection, balance. The even distribution of force through the muscles means less stress on individual muscles, joints, tendons, and bones.

Blood will flow into the muscle that’s activated and be devoted proportionally to the side experiencing greater force. Over time one side becomes stronger, while the other weakens in comparison. The greater stress on one side leads to popping, snapping, and tearing, all those actions that cause pain and serious injury. Some body parts are meant to move primarily  in straight lines. A lack of strength and flexibility introduces rotational force into these body parts and causes injury.

Whether addressing physical or mental dysfunction, the answer is the same . We must become consciously aware of our negative habits, stop reinforcing them and then act consciously in order to strengthen positive habits. We must address our weaknesses and come back to physical and mental balance.

This process also relies on sending blood to where we want to engrain positive habits, whether thought patterns or patterns of movement.

With the body, it is the same as the mind. Stop strengthening negative patterns by sending them blood, while making a conscious effort to send blood to the patterns that will bring you balance.

Disclaimer: Not a doctor or psychologist. Just someone interested in what it means to be human. And how to use our human nature to our advantage, not our detriment. So we can choose happiness, rather than wait on it to be provided for us. Feel free to critique, educate, add opinions or ideas in the comments. I’m ready and willing to learn.