The Activity and Power of our Brain

1000 trillion connections so they estimate…

Our brain is made up of 100 billion nerve cells called neurons so Scientists tell us.  A nerve impulse is a wave of electrical activity that passes from one end of a neuron to the other.  Neurons communicate with each other at special junctions called synapses.  The signal may be directly transferred at electrical synapses or, if there is no physical link between adjacent neurons, the signal is carried across the gap by chemicals called neurotransmitters. Each cell is connected to around 10,000 others that all communicate with each other. The total number of connections in your brain is about 1000 trillion connections they estimate – I wonder who counted that?

Its all about how you use it…

The brain is an electrochemical organ so the Researchers claim, and that our brain generates enough electrical power to light a flashlight bulb. “Whilst that doesn’t seem like much power, and whilst a 5 -watt light bulb won’t light the inside of a refrigerator, a focused 5-watt laser would easily burn right through the metal door of that same refrigerator”, so Mind Researcher and Personal Achievement Coach, Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler says.

Definitely helps to have a laser focus…

When thinking about the above, it makes me think that it could be likened to our state of  ‘Desire’.  If our desire is weak, we would hardly generate enough electrical power to stimulate our neurons into action to achieve that desire.  But, if our desire is strong, the electrical power is so focused, that like that laser, it can power through all that is required to obtain our desired result.

The New and the Old are coming together…

Whilst history has shown that people have known for thousands of years that the brain is able to be influenced to alter bodily reactions and functions, it was not until the 1950’s that scientists were able to scientifically prove this through biofeedback experiments.   Today we know almost everyone is capable of learning to control their brain waves, and people are able to access states of relaxation, creativity, productivity, stress management, and emotional expression.  The brainwave state during hypnosis or self-hypnosis is the major facilitator to these states. And whilst EEG machines can now show us that different parts of our brain light up to different stimulus, how the brain decides to organize these happenings is still largely a mystery.

Newer research is finding some answers…

Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity.  In a research study, participants were asked to freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their left or right hand.  They were free to make this decision whenever they wanted, but had to remember at which time they felt they had made up their mind.  The researchers found that it was possible to predict from brain signals which option participants would take up to seven seconds before they consciously made their decision.

More than 20 years ago experiments by American brain scientist Benjamin Libet, found a brain signal that occurred a fraction of a second before a conscious decision.  Many scientists of the day argued that if our decisions are prepared unconsciously by the brain, then our feeling of “free will” must be an illusion.  In contrast, the new experiment predicts subconscious decision even up to 7 seconds ahead of time – how a person is going to decide.  Although the study shows that decisions are unconsciously prepared much longer ahead than previously thought, it is not yet known where the final decision is made.  It could that the conscious mind can still reverse the subconscious decision.

One might also say this can work the other way…

When it comes down to people making the changes that they desire, we know that sometimes there are stoppers that prevent them from doing so.  One of those stoppers is the power of their ‘belief system’ or another name for that might be ‘past programming’.    One of the most powerful ways that a person can overcome their subconscious past programming stimulus is by releasing any negative thoughts that may be preventing the desired change and replacing these with Positive Thoughts. Not an easy thing for anyone to do, you would no doubt agree.  However, in the state of hypnosis with assistance from a well -trained Hypnotherapist, we know there are techniques that are able to facilitate these changes.

Suggestion is a necessary element…

“That no matter how you look at it, SUGGESTION is the necessary element to healing. Getting the subconscious to ACCEPT the suggestion is the problem.” says Loren Parks from Psychological Research Foundation, Inc.

Parks says one of his frequent admonitions during therapy is. “I want you, the person you are today to be in charge of yourself, not the little girl/boy within you. So when I clap my hands (squeeze your hand, shoulder or whatever) and say DISCONNECT! It will disconnect you completely from that younger girl (woman)/boy (man) within you and YOU will be in charge of your own emotions.”

He reminds us that the subconscious mind is child-like and non-reasoning and that the mind can respond to commands from an outsider (such as parent, teacher or hypnotherapist) much more readily than it responds to commands we give ourselves.

I can remember my grandson having been stung by a bee.  I told him to feel my finger go around the outside of the sting, and by doing that the pain would go away. Which it did. This is exactly the way parents trigger change!   (When I do this, then that will happen.)

Then when we become adults, Parks cites as examples of suggestions: the ritual of prayer, rituals by witch doctors or shamans and other religious rituals such as the ritual of exorcism, the ritual of the laying on of hands, the ritual of  “psychic surgery”, the ritual of chants and others.  In Park’s view, the basic element in all these rituals is “suggestion.”   Put another way, they all reprogram the person’s subconscious mind and it is this trigger that the hypnotherapist can also access to help their client change an undesired behaviour or belief.

References:

Anatomy of the Brain,  http://www.neurosurgerytoday.org/what/patient_e/anatomy1.asp

How does your brain work?  http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/brain/1.asp

Loren parks, How this simple therapy works, http://www.psychresearch.com/

Dr Jill Ammon-Wexler, The Power of a belief, 13.11.2005, http://www.quantum-self.com/ezine.htm

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (2008, April 15). Decision-making May Be Suprisingly Unconscious Activity.
ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 23, 2008 from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm