Health Quest – The Brain Exercise For Greater Health and Love

In 2008 I formed Tribe Of Blondes, not around a hair color, but for the resilient optimism we need to bounce back from tough challenges and experience great love.  These qualities also strengthen your brain and promote health benefits like less depression, lower blood pressure, an improved ability to deal with financial strain and physical pain, better overall health and a longer life.

Are you thinking these are lofty claims?

They’re not mine.  They are backed up by brain science, proving that maintaining a resilient, optimistic outlook and believing in great love can confer health benefits by reducing stress, improving resistance to diseases, enhancing memory and mental function and helping you sustain healthy vitality.

What happens to pessimists, who don’t believe the best is yet to come or who harbor feelings of fear, anger, resentment?

A pessimistic outlook can activate the most primitive part of your brain, the limbic “fight or flight” system, while damaging those parts of your brain (the frontal lobe and the anterior cingulate) that are attuned to logic, reason, positive emotions and compassion.  This was discovered during brain studies lead by Andrew Newberg, M.D. at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Medical College in Philadelphia.

You may have discovered this in your own life.  Think of the times when life slammed you down and you were hit by a tidal wave of fear, anger, bitterness, frustration.   If you’ve ever suffered through a betrayal or gone through a devastating divorce or breakup, you’ve probably felt your primitive brain (the amygdala) try and take over your life and turn you into someone you don’t recognize.  If left unchecked, a grim outlook can rewire your brain, reduce regard for others and deactivate compassion. 

How?

Dr. Newberg reported in The Mind Health Report (October, 2011) that anger and irritability can derail activity in the brain’s frontal lobe, which governs reasoning, language and cooperative communication.  When this happens, your ability to resolve conflicts all but vanishes.

What’s the antidote?

Dr. Newberg’s studies proved you can strengthen your brain by using the power of meditation and prayer to help deal with many trials and tribulations you face. As a co-founder of neurotheology, Dr. Newberg studies the affect of religious and spiritual phenomena on the brain.

He does not evaluate or question underlying religious beliefs or spiritual practices. He uses brain scans to observe how prayer and meditation activate the more “human” (anterior cingulate) and rational (frontal lobe) parts of the brain and deactivates the more primitive region (the limbic system). This brings about a sense of comfort and reduces stress, anxiety and other painful emotions.

Does meditation and prayer also slow signs of aging?

Shrinking of the brain’s frontal lobes is associated with aging, loss of memory and dementia. Dr. Newberg reported that brain scans of people who meditate for years have larger frontal lobes that their peers who don’t meditate.
He found that participants in his study who practiced meditation for 12 minutes daily for 8 weeks experienced significant improvements in their memory and mood.

Studies proved that when prayers are spoken silently or outloud or sung, your brain becomes highly engaged. Such prayers also exercises your mind. “The brain is like a muscle,” says Dr. Newberg. “The more you use it, the better it works.”

Dr. Newberg’s research proved that:

* experiencing doubts or conflicts about your faith increases stress and can damage health of the brain and body, but resolving these and pursuing spiritual activities that have meaning for you will have beneficial effects.

* saying prayers that focus on gratitude, celebration or a positive vision of the future, as well as rejecting anger and resentment, will increase compassion, reduce depression and anxiety, relieve stress, lower blood pressure and heart rate and eventually extend life.

How will you use this news?

If you spend only 12 minutes each day either meditating or saying prayers that focus on positive ideas and optimistic visions of the future, you will deactivate the brain’s limbic system which can damage your health. You also will activate positive parts of the brain that can lower stress and enhance well being, compassion, understanding. These qualities promote even greater health and happiness in life and love.

And if you and your beloved partner want to enjoy even greater passion, romance and undying love, I’ll be your love guide in www.TribeOfCouples.com

And if you or your single friends are seeking Great Love, I’ll help you choose your perfect match in the dating site I created for positive, accomplished singles who believe in great love. Take a FREE look around as my guest at www.TribeOfSingles.com

Get the red-hot love life you deserve,

Hadley Finch

P.S. Know someone who’d like these great love and health tips? Please share them now, by clicking SHARE and TWEET. I appreciate you!