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CHAPTER 1
The Human Brain and Mind
"The human brain, then, is the most complicated organization of matter that we know."
— Isaac Asimov
You, the reader, own the most complex object in the universe, the human brain. Your brain is the center of your thoughts and all higher functions such as imagination, memory, and creativity. It is the home for your consciousness, and the mind forms in your brain.
The human brain weighs about fourteen hundred grams and has a soft tissue consistency like tofu. It is very soft and delicate. I observed how small traction or pressure on the brain caused neurological deficits for the patients after surgery. The brain is located in the cranium (the top portion of the skull), and it is protected more than any other organ in the body. The brain floats in cerebrospinal fluid. Our brain receives information from the outside world through our sensory organs.
The brain contains hundreds of billions of neurons with trillions of connections which, through a complex electrical and chemical activity, allows us to think, feel and experience the world. All life experiences and memories are stored in the brain.
Your brain is the center of everything you do such as breathing, storing all your memories, talking and walking, feelings, learning any skills and making any decision. Simply, your brain makes you, you.
Damage to the brain can affect a part of or an entire person's life. I have seen many patients with trauma or stork in the frontal lobe where their whole personality has changed. They literally can become a different person with a different personality. Their family sometimes blames the patient and asks why they are behaving so differently, but it's the patient's brain that does that.
These changes could be temporary until the brain returns to normal or, it could be permanent if damage is severe and the structure of the brain has changed. I remember a patient who was an accountant. When she had a fall and developed a blood clot over her brain, she was not able to calculate simple addition or subtraction, things that an elementary student can do. If our brains do not function properly, it can affect every part of our life from simple actions like talking and moving, to higher functions, such as thinking and decision making.
Your brain wants to learn anything you experience, such as reading, hearing, seeing and doing. Your brain is essential for everything you learn. Your networks of neurons, unlike the computer electrical connections, are flexible and you can change the network. When you learn, your brain learns. Your brain learns with change in chemical and electrical activity in its huge network. When you become a master at any skill, the structure of the brain permanently changes and you will not be able to unlearn it easily or at all.
That's the reason why it is so difficult to change. When you want to change, your brain structure has to change; otherwise the change is temporary as long as it is in the working memory. This is the reason that a lot of people promise to do or not to do something and then they act just like before; because their brain has not changed yet, and blaming them would not be helpful. They need to persist and act the way they want to be and, over time, their brain will rewire and become a new brain, and as the result, they become a new person.
Thoughts
Thinking is an essential function of the human brain. Each animal has an essential function that helps it survive and become proficient at what it does. For humans, our special function is thinking.
What are thoughts? The act of thinking about something that produces an idea or opinion is called a thought. When we have a thought, electrical signals travel back and forth between the neurons related to that thought. Every time these neurons communicate with each other, it becomes easier for them to communicate in the future.
What thought is going to be in your brain at each moment? It depends on your attention. Your mind flits from one thought to another. This thought could be related to internal or external stimuli. For example, when you look at a picture, you have thoughts related to that picture. If you hear a noise, your brain will start thinking about that noise. You can also think about an idea in the past or the future. It seems as sensations and ideas are constantly fighting to get your attention. Your thought at each moment therefore depends on the dominant neuronal network in your brain that you pay attention to.
To make my point clear, I am going to do a short test to see whether I can get your attention and therefore control the kind of thought in your mind over the next few seconds as you read the next few sentences. Think about each question for a few seconds before going to the next.
• What is the color of your front door?
• What did you do last New Year's Eve?
• What are you going to do tomorrow?
During the time you were reading the above questions, your stream of thoughts went from present to past and then to future.
The neuronal activations in the brain fluctuate as waves. These electrical activities can be displayed in brain waves in EEG (electroencephalogram). Brain waves are measured in cycles per second or Hertz. These waves from high to low speed are as follows;
• Gamma waves: gamma waves are the fastest brain waves. They are as the result of simultaneous information processing from different parts of the brain. They have the subtlest frequency and pass the information rapidly and quietly. These waves exist continually in the brain in all mental states, except during deep, non-dreaming sleep.
• Beta waves: beta waves are dominant during waking hours of our life when we are having a cognitive task. For example, when we think intensively, as in, having a serious conversation or giving a speech.
• Alpha waves: alpha waves are slower than beta waves and are dominant when the brain is at rest and calm and at present moment. Examples are some meditative states and activities like gardening when thoughts quietly flow.
• Theta waves: the next slower-frequency brain waves are called theta waves. Theta waves occur during sleep, deep meditation and daydreaming.
• Delta waves: the slowest brain waves are delta waves. They occur during deep, dreamless sleep. In this state there is no external awareness.
These brain waves will never go down to zero, because that would mean the brain is dead. This would result in a flat EEG, which shows the absence of brain waves.
Why information about brain waves is important? As you noticed above, the brain has different brain waves in different external and internal states. Balance in brain waves is important for emotional health and behavior. Over arousal in certain parts of the brain can cause anxiety and under arousal can lead to depression.
The dominant thoughts that flow in your mind depend on your experiences and your attention. Most of the time, due to your habits, you pay attention to familiar situations. You have thousands of thoughts a day which are called stream or train of thoughts. These thoughts are mostly similar thoughts to ones you had the day before, because most of your thoughts are also habitual. You pay attention by habit and do the same things over and over.
"All thinking is based, in part, on prior convictions."
— George A. Kelly
The good news is that you don't have to be a creature of your habits.
You can change and choose different thoughts. You are the master. You can control your mind, and it is up to you to either use this amazing power or let your mind control you. With this power, you have control over your happiness, peace, health, healing, relationship, and finances.
The Mind
What is the mind? There is no single, agreed upon definition of the mind. From a neuroscience and biology standpoint; the mind is the flow of thought that is the result of electrical and chemical activities of the neurons and between them in the brain.
The mind is a result of the function of the brain. Therefore the mind is a state that occurs when the brain is alive and at work. An injury to the brain affects the mind. When the brain is not alive and is not working, there is no mind.
In this book, when I talk about the brain, I refer more to the physical brain in the cranium, but when I talk about the mind, I refer to the functional aspect of the brain.
When does your mind control you? When you let the beliefs and thoughts in your mind determine your behavior, your feeling and emotions without effort to change them.
How do you control your mind? You basically control your thoughts. You do not have to think about something that you do not want to think. You start thinking about something else. You can get some help from outside like music, a picture, talking to somebody, making a phone call, anything that changes the state of your mind.
What does it mean to change the state of your mind? It simply means you change your thought by thinking about something else. You use a different neuronal network in your brain. You can choose which neuronal network to use and you can do it with attention to things you want. The more you use a neuronal network, the easier it becomes to use it next time. Sometimes, after mostly thinking about the things you want, it becomes easier to bounce back to positive if your thoughts become negative.
Consciousness
Consciousness implies awareness of experiences of the external and internal world. Consciousness is essential to understanding and making decisions regarding your free will and your choices. Your view of reality, of the universe, and of yourself depends on consciousness. The conscious mind is the thinking mind.
Consciousness has different levels.
A person in coma or deep sleep has no consciousness, then to drowsiness, that has some consciousness to alert that he/she is conscious.
What are the content of our consciousness at any moment?
At each moment, the content of our consciousness depends on our perception. Our perception depends on our expectation and sensory information that our brain receives. Our expectations affect our conscious awareness. For example, when you are looking around, you are not conscious to everything in your visual field.
It depends on your visual expectation. You only see what your brain expects or wants to see. It is the best guess of reality.
What is self-consciousness?
Self-consciousness is the awareness of oneself. It has several components; for example:
• Bodily self-conscious; that means we are aware of our body.
• Narrative self-conscious; that I am aware of my past, present and future.
• Social self-conscious; I am aware of me and others are separate from me.
We are conscious because of the complex electrical activities among the neurons. Consciousness is not related to one part of the brain; it is the coordinated activity of many parts of the brain.
Because consciousness comes from the complex activities of neurons, the process of consciousness is slower than the process of unconsciousness. How the biological machine inside our head gives us the consciousness is not well known.
Unconsciousness
Unconsciousness is a much larger part of the mind. About 80 to 90 percent of the mind is unconsciousness.
Unconscious mind is beyond our awareness. Most of our mental life is unconscious. The heartbeat and breathing and other automated activities in the body are unconscious. All habitual activities are unconscious and most of our activities during our lives are habitual.
The unconscious is the storehouse for all your memories and experiences. These memories and experiences make you who you are. These memories and experiences form the beliefs and habits that run your life. When we do something habitually and unconsciously, the brain does not use that much energy and effort. It is a short cut neuronal circuit. The habit has already been programed in the brain. This is the reason it is much easier to act habitually; unless we pay attention and be conscious to what we are doing, otherwise we will continue to act based on our habits, just like we have done before.
There is no chance to change, unless, consciously, we choose different behaviors and become committed to act on the new behavior for about 60 days without interruption.
Every new activity that we learn initially is conscious, but after being learned, it will go into long-term memory and the unconscious. This process frees you up to be able to pay attention to the next things you need to learn.
For example, when you first wanted to drive, initially, it seemed difficult to think about how to do many things at the same time; use the brakes, look around, and turn. The reason it was so difficult is that you had to do all these activities consciously.
But after some time spent driving, most people not only drive, but also talk, eat, drink, and put on their makeup (bad idea) without any problem. At this stage, most of these activities are done unconsciously. This process is necessary for the brain so it will be more efficient. That's why routine activities are stored in the unconscious part of our minds, leaving our consciousness and thoughts free to learn new skills.
The Emotions and Feelings
In this section, you will find out where is the center of emotions and feelings in the brain.
Is there any difference between emotion and feeling?
The emotions such as fear and anger reflect and interplay between cortical areas, such as prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, and subcortical regions, such as the hypothalamus and amygdala. The stimuli may integrate by subcortical structure like amygdala, and trigger immediate autonomic and endocrine responses. These responses are such as facial expressions and muscle contractions, and prepare us for a physical response.
These immediate responses are at an unconscious level. When the cerebral cortex becomes involved, it results in a conscious experience of emotion, and that is feeling. The cortex also sends the signal to the subcortical area and enhances or suppresses the somatic manifestations of emotions. This is a level of conscious control and we regulate our response to the stimuli, therefore we can control our responses to what bothers us. This is important in stress management and avoids violent behavior when, for example, we are angry.
Most scientists believe the primary emotions are fear, anger, sadness, and joy. Neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio, adds surprise and disgust to the primary emotions.
The other emotions are secondary; these are learned emotions, like guilt or shame.
Feelings
Feelings are private and inward; they register at a mostly conscious level. Feelings help you deal with the problem that is signaled by emotions. It means you feel the emotion. When a stimulus produces an emotion by activating amygdala, for example, fear, then when the cortex becomes activated, we feel the fear.
CHAPTER 2
Healthy Brain and Mind
"There is no health without mental health."
— David Satcher
The Importance of Brain Health
The brain controls every moment of your life (of course, mostly unconsciously). Beyond automatic (unconscious) activities, all your conscious work comes from the brain. All higher functions like thinking, decision-making, memory, and creativity happen in the brain. Therefore, for having a productive life we need a healthy brain.
The brain is the most special organ in the body. Life continues as long as the brain is healthy and functioning. Death happens after the brain stops functioning. The lungs or heart may stop, but the patient dies because oxygen and glucose do not get to the brain.
We have an amazing brain, but at same time it is fragile and we need to take care of it. The health of the brain affects its performance and as the result, our performance in all areas of our life. It will affect our learning, our job, decision-making, and our relationships. The health of the brain is very important at any age. It even becomes more crucial and obvious at old age. I have seen many patients who suffer from the diseases and conditions that have affected their brain from depression, substance abuse, to dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease, stroke and head injury.
I have seen the significant loss as the result of brain damage. I have seen many patients with dementia who were very smart and highly accomplished people when they were younger. They were engineers, businessmen, teachers and many other jobs. They had successful lives, but now, with dementia, they may not remember the name of their grandchildren or even recognize them.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Mind Medicine"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Dr. Mahmoud Rashidi, MD, FRCSC, FACS.
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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