Have you ever wondered where a thought comes from? From the mind, of course, but what are the chemical, emotional, physiological and postural combinations that generate what we think during the day? Thoughts, and consequently the actions that spring from them, are a dense network that we could define as a kind of fractal in which neurons, consciousness, blood pressure, breathing and bodily mobility contribute to making our life pleasant and effective or, on the contrary, can generate frustration and discontent with related repercussions on our health. The wonderful capacity of our brain to weave infinite possibilities for neural exchanges and synaptic cross-talk allows us to “train” the broad range of our thoughts and, consequently, our different actions.
The knowledge, the study of various subjects, the learning of a craft, research in different fields, specializations in musical/choral/theater domains and not least the development of one’s motor potential (physical activity) that each individual lays out in their life, can be a useful and valuable tool for keeping the brain’s plasticity trained.
The uniqueness of the personal neural potential
Let’s proceed in order. We are conceived by two living beings who already possess their own thoughts, then we step onto this planet and, day after day, our neural system begins to learn and store information, stimuli and conditioning from many sources: parents, teachers, the environment, the territory, the body with its changing mobility and relationships. What makes us unique is precisely the individual development of our neural potential and our full capacity to express it through the body’s actions. “Cogito ergo sum,” someone once wrote. [Descartes] “The one who speaks does not know, the one who knows does not speak [but thinks and acts],” someone else wrote. [Lao Tse] These quotes, belonging to the history of our cultural and philosophical evolution as a Western and Eastern human species, provide great leverage to highlight some details of “how we function.”
Take Descartes: he uses thought as evidence of our existence, as the certainty that by affirming a particular reality through our thoughts then it necessarily exists. Think of our language (i.e., our thought that translates into words) and the way we use words to express ourselves, think of the power of the words we use in everyday life, and how they can affect the mood of our day or our relationship with others. The words that shape our reality are capable of creating, transforming and in some cases healing some of our uncomfortable, if not sick, situations.
One word can have the power to affect the health state of our cells because the word starts from our thought that originates in our brain, which helps govern the biological and physiological functions of our being. The use, but especially the learning of new and functional words and thoughts for our evolving life depend greatly on the brain’s plasticity and on the training we are able to offer it. The term plasticity denotes that extraordinary capacity to adapt, take on a new shape, transform and evolve toward the best and most functional version of ourselves so that the entire human biological organism can live at its best and in health.
Neuroscience research
Researchers from the Istituto di Neuroscienze del CNR (IN-CNR), the Università Politecnica delle Marche and the IIT Italian Institute of Technology have uncovered a new mechanism of synaptic plasticity that controls the activity of specific neurons in a small region of the brain (named the Ventral Tegmental Area; VTA). The researchers highlighted that these neurons play a fundamental role in complex brain processes, such as reward and the learning associated with it, aversion, motivation, attention and locomotor activity. The study results show how brain activity is tightly linked to our emotional and physical side.
The research team, using a multidisciplinary approach that includes electrophysiology experiments, calcium imaging, chemogenetics and electron microscopy, highlighted that the activation of astrocytes in the VTA induces a long-term potentiation (a form of plasticity) of the glutamatergic synaptic transmission and that this modulation is present in females from early development stages while in males it shows slower maturation. In particular, the selective activation of VTA astrocytes increases the activity of dopaminergic cells and this stimulation fosters hyper-locomotor activity associated with the increased phasic activity of dopaminergic cells. [1]
“Grounding” a thought
Reading Lao Tse, we can encounter another interesting concept that expresses the brain’s ability to enact our thoughts through actions that complete our psycho-emotional expression. Sometimes what’s in our head doesn’t manage to express itself fully through the actions we carry out in daily life: a reasoning, a thought, a dream, a desire, a project needs not only to be thought but at the same time to be realized to help rebalance the body’s health state, including hormonal (serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins are all factors that help the body and mind regain a serene balance).
Our mind is not always connected to our body 100%: sometimes it juts ahead of the body’s needs to express itself according to cues from the neuromuscular system. Creating an “inner discipline” through moving meditation methods like Tai Chi enables the mind to bring the thought that drives us into physical action, regaining our center and balancing thought with action, mind with body.
By training the body daily through a routine of exercises that develop our motor potential through proper breathing (Tai Chi and Qi Gong), we are helping the brain’s plasticity stay active and, above all, foster the creation of new functional and vital synapses for our overall well-being.
Consistent practice
Exercises need to be practiced with consistency, bilaterally (thus expressing the two different but complementary functions of our two brain hemispheres), with calm breathing, paying attention to posture [2], so as to allow the body to recognize “an oasis of tranquility” where it can return whenever life presents us with challenges. Plasticity, i.e., the ability to generate different results in response to the same stimulus, represents one of the brain’s most fascinating properties and is fundamental for learning and memory and is also one of the protagonists of living healthy and in harmony with our body.
The aim is to live our lives fully through the correct movement of the body that feels and follows the inputs the mind gives it: to move with pleasure, to act with serenity, to speak with dialogue, to relate to others with respect, to express ourselves creatively, to show our talents and to transform everyday actions into joy, all of which can be a healthy and functional tool for keeping brain plasticity trained and maintaining lasting health.
The cruciality of the “here and now”
In his book “Even if I don’t think, I am” Itsuo Tsuda emphasizes the progressive drift of our sensitivity [the intuitive part] away from the needs of the body that seeks to live with more naturalness [and fewer misleading thoughts]. Without giving them a negative connotation, we highlight how sometimes thoughts can lead us astray: a misunderstanding, a quarrel, a misinterpretation, a disappointment, can be the cause or not of our behaviors in the here & now.
Thoughts can stay in our lived experience for days, months, years (think of a grievance we cannot forgive) and the body, day by day, changes and is never, biologically and emotionally, the same: yet the thoughts of that given event keep it blocked in a “memory” from long ago that is objectively no longer current for the life happening in the present. From here “conflicts” emotional can arise that can, in the long run, lead to more or less serious pathologies [3]. In this case neural plasticity is as if it partly freezes into a kind of loop that repeats to the body information that is not functional for transforming distress and, above all, blocks the innate biological solution that wants to resolve the problem.
What Tsuda suggests is to remind the Mind that the Body “feels” and to give more space to that biological sensation that makes us alive even without too many thoughts. “On one hand there is knowledge, research, theories, doctrines, opinions, interventions. On the other hand, only sensation to guide us. Wake the sensation that slumbers and set it on a natural path, and that is all I can indicate. And this, to the extent that you sincerely desire it. For the rest, it is up to each person to handle according to the development of their own abilities. […] The divorce between intellect and body has lasted too long. The situation could change the day each person begins to initiate a silent dialogue with their own organism.” [4]
References
[1] The article titled “Astrocytes mediated long-lasting synaptic regulation of ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons” was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Press release, November 18, 2022. [2] “Tai Chi and Posture” by Barbara Malinverno, Tecniche Nuove, 2022. “Tai chi and Posture in everyday life” by Barbara Malinverno, video course created by Accademia Tecniche Nuove, https://youtu.be/K0A5oai04cM?feature=shared [3] cf. “The Biological Conflict, between illness and healing” by Fabrizio Camilletti, founder of MBE© Emotional Biological Medicine. [4] Itsuo Tsuda, “Even if I don’t think, I am” School of Breathing, Luni Editrice.
Abbonati a Karla Miller
