Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for Healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. Now, if you've been following along since January, you know that I committed to bring to you a series we're calling Mental Health Mondays. We are living in a world where we are seeing increasing rates of anxiety and depression and stress and overwhelm and we are here to help you with that today on this Mental Health Monday. So if you have ever felt like life was spiraling, you just can't catch your breath because you're living at the, at the speed of a smartphone. You are not alone. I know because I feel that way sometimes. I hear from so many listeners who feel that way many times. And today's guest is here to remind you that you are not powerless either. Dr. Caroline Leaf is a renowned cognitive neuroscientist, She's a best selling author and she's a mental health expert with over three decades of experience helping people renew their minds and reclaim peace. And her latest book, help in a Hurry is the emergency toolkit you probably have been waiting for. It's a compassionate and science backed guide for anyone feeling overwhelmed, anxious or stuck. So today we're going to dive into some practical strategies that you can use right now to calm, calm the chaos, regain control and lean into growth even in Life's Messiest Moments. Dr. Leaf Caroline, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: Oh, thank you for having me on the show, Jessica. It's great to meet you.
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: It's so great to meet you too. Listen, I've heard about you from a lot of my listeners and I know we have one listener in particular who's shared with us how much your work has really helped her in a healing journey in her own mental health. So I know she's going to be so excited that you are here. In particular, I know she's probably already giving us some positive feedback, which is great.
You have been studying the mind brain connection for decades
But you have been studying the mind brain connection for decades. This is so important to me as a nurse practitioner. I really embrace the holistic health model that we are, mind, body and spirit. And I would love for you to tell us what first sparked your interest in that mind brain connection and why are you still talking about it today? What have you learned?
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: Well, I've been in the field for 40 years. So that's a long time. And I was always interested in the mind and the brain. And I got into medicine and decided that wasn't really the angle. And I did a series of four different degrees dealing with the whole sort of neuroscience and communication pathology and, and a lot of sort of that angle and understanding the psychoneurobiology, all those sort of areas. And it grabbed my, attention because it really does. It's an area that needs a lot of attention. It needs a lot of focus. We, as you, with your background, we live in a world that focuses very much on the physical, which is fine if you also focus on the mind, but it's very much a neuro reductionistic environment or a materialistic environment, which means that, in my specific area of work in neuroscience, people focus, it's neuroductionism, focused on the brain, brain, brain. But if you just focus on the brain and the body, you are going to lose out so much. People also think that the brain and the body is the same thing, but they're not. So my work for the last 40 years has been to show people the difference between the mind, brain and body, to understand what a thought is, what is thinking, what level of control do we have, what does self regulation mean, how do we manage things from neurological issues like Parkinson's and stroke and heart attacks and to things like autism and learning disabilities, to trauma. And I've developed systems and theories and research and written lots of books and published lots of papers and done clinical trials. I have all my materials now, books and apps and so on, to help disseminate this complex stuff for people so that they can be empowered one on one to be able to help themselves to manage their mind.
Your research has helped bridge the gap between science and faith
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Caroline, I can't imagine what it has been like for you to have this 40 span decade of your career. Because I've been in pediatrics for about 30 years and even looking at that, I see how much has changed and how much we have learned. When I graduated with my nurse practitioner degree, we had not even completed mapping the human genome. And I feel like we've learned so much about science and in particular your research has helped bridge the gap between science and faith. How does your faith influence the way that you approach neuroscience and mental health? Where's the connection in all of that and what you see as this advancing body of knowledge?
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: I don't see any difference. So basically spirituality and science are two sides of the same coin. And the word science comes from the word sclera, which means knowledge. So it's Essentially understanding the knowledge of how we as humans function. So it's just the most natural link. you know, it's always con. It's always been, sort of interesting to me how the church split it. And in the, in the world of science, there's been a split as well. But if you have a look at the largest, a large body of research and a large body of philosophy going back not only the last hundred years of neuroscience, but also the last thousands of years of spiritual and philosophical and science in the way that it, you know, initially the initial, beginnings of knowledge and development of knowledge. And as we've learned things over the years and philosophers and so on, we see so clearly that the two are intermingled. There's so much research showing that there's reality beyond just the physical. There's so much research and philosophy confirming, as I say, even the hundred years of neuroscience confirming that the m. Mind and the brain and the body are three separate things. And the mind I use to refer collectively to spirit and soul, just so that people, your listeners, are anchored in that. But mind is collective term I use for consciousness and then different parts of levels of mind, but basically spirit and soul. So it's essentially very complimentary. I have some of my most spiritual moments when I'm doing my research, when I'm writing scientific papers or doing. Analyzing results from a clinical trial with my team, or just doing basic research for books or whatever. It's so incredibly exciting just to see the depth of knowledge that we. And the power that we have as humans and what the concept of bringing a thought into captivity actually means and where phrases like, like renew your mind and, and it's not just in the, in the, in the Christian faith, but in. Across faith, different faiths. The concept of mind has always dominated as the fundamental and the brain and the body pretty much follow suit. So yeah, that's, it's complimentary and it's just works together beautifully.
Romans tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, let's talk a little bit more about those two scriptures that you just brought up, that renewing your mind. What do you. Now that you know what you know about science and how the brain works, how do that in the light of scripture from Romans that tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: Well, essentially we need to understand what mind is and what it's not. And then from there one can talk about, you know, thoughts because it's linked to the capturing of a thought. So when you think of mind, people often think of brain, but that's not Correct. And that's especially in the last 50 to 70 years. The word mind and brain have been used in the same as though they synonyms of each other. So they're the same thing, but they radically different. The brain is a physical organ, as we know, and it's part of your physical body. And when you die, the brain and body disintegrate, but the mind carries on. Spirit and soul carry on. So in, in an, in a nutshell, the mind, brain, mind, brain, body, connection is, in essence the core of who we are in understanding our humanity. So, and understanding the power that we have. So if we look at, Gosh. Okay, I started going off on a tangent. Do you edit this? Is it live streamed?
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: this is live, yes.
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: Okay, we're live.
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: We're live right here.
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: Are we live? Okay, so you should do podcasts that are edited. Okay, so just, just coming back to that question. Just reorientate me back to that question. my study, I was thinking of this big answer that I want to just break down and not make it too complicated.
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: No, that's okay. So I'm connecting it back to our faith because I think that science always supports scripture, and scripture, you know, support science too. Right, Exactly. Renewing of the mind and taking every thought captive.
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: Yeah. So. Thank you. so basically, as I said, those, those two, those two scriptures, they're not only exclusive to Christianity, you'll find those concepts throughout every religion and every philosophy. So it's a, it's a human thing to be able to do something with your mind and to do something with our thoughts, because that's what's driving us. So our mind is literally our aliveness, our ability to think, to feel, to choose, to abs, to reason abstractly, to be creative, to imagine, to have intelligence, to intuit, to connect with spiritual part of us, to connect to the greatness of, I, like to say Godness, all of those amazing things, those are mind functions. They're not brain or body functions. So. And the mind has different levels, and the different levels lead to the concept of renewing the mind. So to understand the idea of renewing the mind, we need to understand the different levels of mind. Because if I am my mind, if my mind is this all powerful spirit and soul thing that keeps going on beyond the physical body's death, then what does it mean? If I'm renewing my mind, how do you capture thought? What's doing the renewing and what's doing the capturing? And so those are the kinds of questions that, that I asked as a scientist in terms of helping people and helping myself and so on.
We talk about your conscious mind, your subconscious and your non conscious
So mind has got different levels as we know this spirit and soul. And in terms of science we talk about that as your conscious mind, your subconscious and your non conscious. And I'm saying no, non conscious. I'm not talking about the unconscious. The unconscious is not a state of mind. It is what is, It's a brain state. So it's a physical that the brain goes into when the brain, when you're asleep, when you're under anesthesia, when you've got, when you're highly medicated, that kind of thing. So it changes the brain state. We find that in, in the general, sort of vocabulary of people, they'll talk about unconsciousness. So that's not, that's the brain state. So when you're really talking about this thing of renewing the mind and capturing thoughts, we need to think of the levels of mind, our conscious mind or subconscious and our non conscious. Very simplistically. The conscious mind is awake when you're awake. So it's obviously awake now because we convers and people are listening and watching. And I'm going to jump to the non conscious. The non conscious. N o n. That part of your mind is always awake. It never goes to sleep. Your conscious mind goes to sleep. Your non conscious mind never sleeps. It's awake 24 7. It works 24 7. It's where every single experience that you've ever had is stored. It is your intelligence, your wisdom, your best friend. It's always searching for the patterns that we've, habits we've built into our lives that are disruptive. It has the solutions. Where wisdom is, it is connected to the source of wisdom. It is the source of intuition, creativity, imagination, etc. So it's always there in the background, guiding. We have to learn to listen to it. When we listen to the depths of our nonconscious, we then have a direct access to listening to the wisdom of God. So it's kind of that root. So the conscious mind is slow, only awake when you're awake. It's brilliant. Its main role is to gather data, the words we say in your experiences and to process and to make choices. But it is always guided, it needs guidance. So the conscious mind has this kind of messy part that is absorbing what you're hearing and experiencing and then it has a guiding part, that is, is like a parent. So often I explain the conscious mind as having two sides, like a seesaw or a balancing scale. And for those of you that are just listening, I'm holding my two points of my hands together touching at the fingertips. So one side would the messy conscious mind that just absorbing this data and processing it and then the other side would be the guiding part of our conscious mind. So we consciously aware of processing data and we consciously aware of. Well we're not always consciously. We need to be consciously aware of guiding the principle operating then is easy to understand if I give you an example. So if you think of the conscious messy part of the mind that's gathering and processing data as the toddler, those of you that have had children who have seen a toddler. A toddler is hungry to learn and they're up and down and their moods are up and down. But they need the guidance of a parent. We all know that a toddler left to their own devices won't get up too much good. And will hurt themselves and so on. So the parent guides the toddler. So it's a learning relationship. So consciously we need to be processing data in this kind of messy way which is really great. But messiness alone, just gathering data and processing will lead to, to, to, to bad choices. So we want the guiding part, the parent part to always be activated. And we activate the guiding part through choice, through choosing to stand back and observe ourselves and, and, and literally watch how we are functioning. So it's like it's called the multiple perspective advantage. The, the technique. So it's not just to bumble through life but to be very self regulated and to be able to observe how am I reacting. So someone makes me angry and I snap back, observe myself snapping back and thinking what could I do instead of that? Or how can I time so I don't snap back when I'm angry or don't get stuck in that regret cycle or whatever it is. Just to give you an example. So the messy mind needs to always be balanced by the guiding part. Now the minute that we do that, we open the door to the brilliant non. Conscious. The non conscious mind is extremely fast where the conscious mind can only handle one conversation at a time. Just to give you an analogy or something to hang on to to understand this. The non conscious can handle an infinite number of conversations. So the not limited, it's absorbing your whole environment, neutralizing a lot of it. Finding the disruptive things has the parallel solutions connected to the source of wisdom. But we need to get access to that. We need to tap into.
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: I'm going to stop you right there because we're at our first break and I'm sure there are probably some people out there going, wait, what was all of that? Well, we will explain when we come back. And you know, sometimes I think the complexities and the intricacies with, with which God made us, sometimes we get a little peek at that. And that's what you're getting today. We'll be back with some more from Mental health Monday and Dr. Caroline Leaf when we come back.
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Dr. Caroline Leaf offers actionable steps to stop mental spirals
Welcome back to this Mental Health Monday. And we are talking today about, well, when life feels like it's falling apart, most of us don't have time for long lectures or complicated solutions. We just need help in a hurry. And that's what Dr. Caroline Leaf delivers in her brand new book by the same name. She has 30 years of work in neuroscience and mental health, and she offers clear, actionable steps to stop mental spirals and regain emotional control. Reset your mindset fast. And whether you're a parent, a student, or, just any human being who's facing burnout, we're talking about some simple tools for complex problems and the hope that even when life gets messy, transformation is still possible. Now, as I was sharing before the break, when I was in school to become a nurse practitioner, the human genome had not yet been mapped, and that has now been mapped. And we have learned so much about the way that our bodies work. And especially in the last few years, technology has really exploded. For me, that is always grounded back to the fact that God designed us. God is an intelligent designer, and it's amazing how complicated our bodies work. I've seen that as a nurse from new life growing in the womb, and what an absolute miracle that is. And if you look at the complexity of how your body works, it can be a little overwhelming. So if you were listening to the first segment and hearing Dr. Leaf talk about the brain and how it works, you may be thinking, where. Wait a second, put that a little bit slower. Sometimes I think it's important for us to remember that if we worshiped a God who is small enough to be understood, he wouldn't be big enough to be worshiped. And sometimes I feel like he gives us grace through the work of science to understand, to just begin to understand the intricacies and the complexities and the way that he has fearfully and wonderfully made us as a creator with intelligent design. So, Caroline, before the break, you were, you were explaining to us some differences, and we're talking about anchoring this science back to the scriptures of renewing your mind and taking every thought captive. It can be really overwhelming for me as a nurse. I see patients who are unconscious yet wake up and they remember conversations that were happening in their subconscious mind. And we always, ah. And we wonder what will happen when, when we die. And we know that if we, are believers in Christ, we'll be reunited. And what will our minds look like? Like, we don't really know. But you're starting to talk about some of your work to do that. So I'm going to let you pick it up where you left off and, and continue.
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Dr. Jessica.
The mind is not the brain. The mind directs the brain and the body
So essentially, when we talk about renewing the mind, that's something that we doing, but you can't renew something that you don't understand. So we need to understand what the mind is. And the first thing you need to understand is that the mind is not the brain. So if you get nothing else out of this conversation, get this, that the mind is not the brain. And you and your mind is the most powerful thing. It's your superpower. And when, I talk about mind, we're talking about spirit and soul. So when you talk about renewing the mind, we're talking about literally fixing up how our mind is working. So that's the one part is to understand mind is not brain. The other thing that my research over these almost four decades now has shown, and it's not just mine, it's thousands of scientists in this field, is that we've statistically shown that the mind is, is pretty much 99% of who you are. But your brain and body are only about 1% of who you are. That doesn't mean that you don't pay attention to the brain and the body. It's very important that we do because your mind uses the brain and the body. So your mind directs the brain and the body. The brain responds to the mind. The mind is how we think and how we feel and how we choose and how we build thoughts. Thoughts capture all our experiences, all the memories of our experiences clustered together into thoughts. And that's all the work of this 99% mind, which is the spirit and the soul, these, these elements that we. How we function. And the mind tells the brain what to do. The brain and the body collectively respond to the mind. The mind isn't generated from the brain. The mind is itself the power and is working through the brain. So this conversation goes in your mind first, because your mind is fundamental. And then you process this. And then it gets put into the brain and there's a whole reaction and neurons, proteins form and you actually wire it into the brain and the body. And that's basically a memory network. And we call this whole concept of mind to br. To body. Mind, brain, body, psychoneurobiology. Now, the mind side, you don't have to remember that fancy word, but the mind side has got these different levels. The conscious, when you're awake, the non conscious, that operates 24 7, where your brilliance and intuition and connection to God is. And then you've got your, in between, you have your subconscious. The non conscious is so fast, can have multiple conversations at a time. It works at 400 billion actions per second. But your conscious mind, like we see now, we can only have one conversation at a time. So we're working on different, different levels at the Same time. In fact, by the time you actually process what I'm saying, which is it doesn't feel like there's any time gap but there's actually stuff happening milliseconds and milli milli milliseconds before you actually process each word that I'm saying. And that's happening in your non conscious mind. And that's where we need to get to. We need to get to that level of intuition and wisdom which is always accessible to us because that's the part that's connected to God or Godness as I like to say, because God is so big as I mentioned in the last segment, so we don't reduce it down. So basically consciously we need to be deliberate and intentional about how we are self regulating every moment. So if we're supposed to bring all thoughts into captivity, that requires regulation. It means that you don't just let thoughts just fly through your head and not, you know, just react to everything and just get chaos going on. You actually can. We need to self regulate those thoughts. We have somewhere we, we estimate as scientists somewhere between 8,000 and 50,000 thoughts that will be made and will come up from existing networks in any one day. We supposed to control all of those. And that sounds like a of order but that is what science and spirituality tell us that we need to capture all thoughts and we need to renew them. Because thoughts are creative. Thoughts are what we build with our mind in response to life experiences. And if so if we are getting irritated or angry or worked up about what's going on in our environment and politics and socioeconomic or family or relate whatever it is work and we just letting that will come in, we process that and we build that inner into this big toxic network. And that toxic network strains the brain and the body. Because the mind, brain and body are wired for love, made in God's image. So if we don't manage our mind, if we don't self regulate what we, how we are processing things, how we're reacting, we then create literal toxic thoughts that damage the brain and the body and increase our vulnerability to disease and mental health challenges and so on. The good news is that whatever we've done, which we've all done and we're all going to still do what I've just described. The good news is that our brain, brain is neuroplastic, which means it can be changed, our body can be changed and our conscious mind can be changed and guided by, with the influence of the non conscious mind. So the conscious mind which is awake when you're awake has this sort of messy part and it has this, this guiding part like a toddler and a parent. And when we are self regulating, when you are saying okay, wow, I just reacted, oh gosh, I've just got stuck in regret. if only I did this and I'm going round and round with all these scenarios. Or, or maybe it's oh my gosh, I'm people pleasing again, I'd that or you feel imposter syndrome or you just feel so under pressure that you just can't handle anything anymore. Or you're getting mad at yourself by saying, saying something like I wish I had got X done and I didn't get it done and I'm useless. And what those kind, whatever scenario those are, those things have happened, they've come into, into our mind levels and consciously we are reacting initially in that messy part. Self regulation or capturing a thought and renewing the mind means I don't stay stuck in that oh, I'm getting mad and regret cycle. All those things. I can actually connect with the guiding part of my conscious mind by deliberately and intentionally capturing that thought. Capturing that thought means I stand back and I say okay Caroline, you've just got irritated or Caroline, you're stuck in a regret cycle. So you literally talking to yourself when you do that, you step into the guiding part of your conscious mind and immediately access the wisdom of your non conscious mind via the subconscious. Because the unconscious is very fast and the conscious is slow. So it has to be channeled through so it has to be slowed down to so that the two can talk to each other. The minute I tap into my wisdom of my nonconscious, I can connect with the wisdom of God. So now I'm not stuck in messiness, I'm not stuck in a reactive cycle. I am able to exit that reactive cycle and step back and acknowledge, okay, I got irritated, I got stuck in a regret cycle. I got upset with this person. I'm mad at myself. So let's look at this objectively. Let me calm down my neurophysiology with some breathing or whatever and let me me now mind shift. Let me shift and see change how I'm going to look at this. And there's various different techniques. You mentioned my book Help in a Hurry, which is actually coming out tomorrow. It's releasing tomorrow, so we're very excited. This is our launch week. I have 18 chapters and they're broken down into the main areas that really catch people feeling under pressure, totally exhausted, people working you up, people pleasing, technology, labeling yourself, all these kinds of things that people strictly stress, burdened, overwhelmed, exhausted, and how we can actually train ourselves very quickly within a 60 second time block. And at minimum 60 seconds, you can take longer if you want, but we can literally catch ourself, catch that thought. This is the thought I'm thinking. I'm about to get mad at that person. You can catch that thought and you can stand back into your guiding mind, tap into your wisdom, tap into the wisdom of God and you can mind shift, you can renew the mind. You can say, okay, so I am irritated. I'm valid being irritated because that person has said something over and over again. But I can choose to get irritated. They can't force me to get irritated. No one can force me to get angry or irritated or regret. I choose to do that. But if I choose to do that, I'm actually creating more of a mess. I'm not going to have access. I close the door to the guiding part of my conscious mind. I close the door to the beautiful wisdom of my non conscious. I close the door to the leading of God with this extra wisdom and I get stuck in this mess. And that mess then creates this mess in the brain. And we have this. A loop is being set up, a pattern that increases inflammation. You're a nurse, so you know that there's very strong links and research. I've done this with my research too, or demonstrated this with my research that there's so much link between unmanaged toxic stress, unmanaged toxic thoughts and inflammation and responses in your immune system and problems with your heart, etc, etc over time. An unmanaged mind, which is an when we just let thoughts roam and we don't renew our mind, lead to these vulnerabilities. So what I've done with my work is to work out how do I as a person look at these signals that literally God is sending me through my mind, of my emotions, how I feel in my body, my behaviors, how I'm looking at life, how can I pay attention to those, how can I acknowledge those? How can I step back in that moment of a minute or so, get that guidance going and then shift? Then if I see that that is a pattern in my life, I get this moment under control. The rest of the meeting goes well, the rest of the day goes well, I get irritated. Another time I do it again, but then I see, oh my goodness, I got irritated 10 times today. In fact every day I'm getting irritated 50% of the day. This has been happening for a while. So what I do is I see that there's a pattern. Whenever we have a pattern in our life, that means that we have spent a lot of time literally practicing getting stuck in our messy mind, brain, body loop without the guidance of the w mind and the spiritual, nonconscious mind and the wisdom of God. And when I do that, I'm wiring all this toxic networks that are real physical things into my brain and making bad decisions. But I don't have to stay there. I can actually see this. This is a pattern. I'm going to have to rewire this network. And this is where science comes in as well. You can't change a network overnight. You can catch the network, you can catch the pattern and you can exit that pattern. So you can control the moment. But you are going to have to calm down. And then if you see it's a pattern, you're going to have to rewire. And that is where the 63 days comes in. So I've spent a lot of research over the last 40 years and a lot of my colleagues and a lot of people in this field and we've seen that to rewire a habit, to rewire those patterns, those ways we keep reacting and responding and the way the past traumas have influenced us, all these things, these bad habits we've built, et cetera, et cetera, you're not going to get rid of that in a moment. You can exit the reactive mode in a moment and you can then find the patterns. But to rewire the pattern, you need to work at this daily for around about 63 days, not 21, around about nine weeks, around about 63 days. That's the time we've seen from neuroscience that it takes to rewire that network so that we have a healthy network. So what I've just described is literally living a lifestyle of capturing those thoughts through the self regulatory process, identifying the patterns and then rewiring them, over time periods. That's renewing the mind. The renewing the mind is not an instant process. The capturing of the thought is. So this help in the hurry is how do I catch the thought? Then my other work, I have an app called the neuro cycle. I have another book called cleaning up your mental mess. I have 19 books, but those two books are very relevant for this conversation. And the app that I have called the neuro cycle app, those will help you then renew your mind over, over time. Because your mind doesn't just renew. You've got to get that discipline and train that conscious mind to work properly, and then with the tapping into intuition and rewiring the networks.
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Caroline, this is where I see spiritual disciplines coming in. So they're so important. And when you're talking that connection, it's so intricate. And it's very easy to be overwhelmed with the intricacy of our bodies. But they do work like that. And as a nurse, I can see that. We know when we invite that toxic pattern of thinking, it does impact our immune system. We become more susceptible when we're chronically stressed, we are more susceptible to infection and to illness. There's higher rates. We looked at. I, I've talked often about the adverse childhood experiences study. That was a landmark study that was, by researchers Anda, and Felitti that said that if you experience adverse childhood experiences, it increases your risk of things like cancer and high blood pressure and all kinds of physical things and thinking. How is this psychological stress related to our bodies? Well, it's all connected just as you were describing. And it can be hard. And for my own family, I learned we had a generational pattern that was of, communication that was related to addiction. And there were lots and lots people in my family who were very well intentioned, who thought, well, if you take away that addictive substance, then everything's fixed. But you've got to unlearn and relearn ways of thinking. And just as you're describing, that doesn't happen overnight. And in a world of instant gratification, I think when we struggle with negative patterns of thinking, we want it just to be gone right away. But it's not. And so as we're talking about this, it's, it's so important, all of these connections taking every thought captive. We are encouraged to do that. In scripture, we are told that we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And today you're getting a sneak peek at some of, the scientific discoveries that are talking about how our minds work. When we come back. We'll have more on, Mental Health Monday with Dr. Caroline Leaf.
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>> Still by Hillary Scott: You'Re parting waters, making a way for me? You're moving mountains that I don't even see? You've answered my prayer before I even speak? All you need for me to be is still? I bring my praise before I bring my need? There's no fear you've not already seen? I rest my heart on all your promises? Cause I have seen and know your faithfulness? You're parting waters, making a way for me? You're moving mountains that I don't even see? You've answered my prayer before I even speak. All you need for me to be is still? And know that you are God. Be still and know that you trust that you are.
Research shows how thoughts directly impact our physical health
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is still by Hillary Scott and we are, here talking about a mental Health Monday. Now, the mind body connection isn't just a modern wellness trend, in my view. It is a scientific reality and one that scripture has affirmed all along. Research in neuroscience continues to show how how our thoughts directly impact our physical health and they influence everything from our stress hormones to our immune function. But long before science caught up, the Bible spot spoke of this truth. A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. That's from Proverbs 17:22. God designed us as integrated beings and we're woven together in complexity and purpose. And when we align our thoughts with truth and we do things, things that are encouraged to us in scripture, like practicing gratitude, we don't just feel better emotionally, we heal more deeply physically and spiritually. And in my view, there are so many ways science and scripture are not in conflict. They are beautifully in sync and they reveal the wisdom of a Creator who made us wonderfully whole. One of my favorite scriptures comes from Philippians, and this is Philippians chapter four. And it says, says, be, do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This is one of the reasons it's so important for me to hide God's word in my heart and to memorize scripture and Many of you who write in or who I speak to, you notice that that is one of the biggest game changers that I had as a parent is hiding those words in my heart because then they will appear in my mind and remind me when I'm saying things that are untrue, when I'm holding on to worry, when I'm holding on to unforgiveness, when I'm holding on to things that are not healthy. In that way I can start to take every thought captive. And Dr. Leaf, Caroline has been sharing with us some of her work and to how the brain works. Now again for some of you, this is, you're going to think what in the world are we talking about? And I will re emphasize if God was small enough to be understood, he wouldn't be big enough to be worshiped. And I've seen so many miracles happen in the ways that God has created us. And it is fascinating that we only know just a little bit. We are, we should, we're knowing so much more, but we're only just knowing a little bit. And so Caroline, I really would like to talk.
One of the things that you talk about is the role of forgiveness in overcoming emotional challenges
One of the things that you talk about is the role of forgiveness and over overcoming some of those emotional challenges. And you talk about taking every thought captive and how we were just talking before the break about how the emotions that we have, if we allow that toxic sludge to continue, we know that it impacts the way that our DNA is read and transcribed. There's hope and healing. What role does forgiveness play in that?
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: Well, every experience that we have which, so someone says something to you or does something to you which requires some level of forgiveness is an experience that gets translated by your mind into a physical thought. And a thought is made of memories. So the experiences, all the conversations, all the details, everything that happened that becomes a thought with it's like literally like a tree has roots and branches and leaves and so on. That's what a thought is like. A thought's got all these details. So you build this experience, but it's real. It's processed by your mind literally into these clouds of energy, which is all physics. It's nothing weird. It's the same stuff that makes your, makes your cell phone work, it's electromagnetic energy, so on. And then it becomes physical protein structures in your brain and networks throughout your body made of proteins and these chemicals. And so this is real. So that that experience with that person that, that you need to forgive or they need to forgive you or whatever it is, whichever way around it is, it's a real. It becomes part of you. It's not something out there. It is part of you. And because you are wired for love, quite literally, which is survival, which is made in God's image, et cetera, that goes counter, counter that wired in network that's toxic, goes counter to your physical health. And this is why as you mentioned we were discussing before the break. That becomes a toxic thought which creates toxic stress which then affects our entire physical system. So like for example, some of the research that we've done and I'm going to show you how this links to forgiveness in a moment shows that even down to the level of our DNA, we. It's something called telomeres, which are the ends of chromos, which are the ends of chromosomes, in our DNA are very involved in making the cells that body needs. And we're making 800,000 to a million new cells every second. But the quality of those cells which determine the quality of the health of our body are determined by the quality of our mind. So if I've had a toxic experience and I've and I've wired this in which I have which is what we do, that's automatically if I don't forgive that person. I am growing and I'm thinking about it. I'm actually growing the level of toxicity because whatever you think about the most grows. Then there's another law in quantum physics which is called the law of entanglement. And it's had a lot of research behind it. and it shows that the minute that you have some kind of experiential relational relationship with someone, whether it's good or bad, there is an entanglement that is set up. It's a connection. It's almost like this invisible connection that it's not actually invisible. It's all energy and it's all science and so on. But you connect it, which means that you're impacting each other. Which means healing is not taking place. Everything's kept raw. So when we forgive, we're not excusing what that person did. We're not excusing their behavior. It's more that that we are cutting the tie. We are releasing and letting go so that we can heal inside of ourselves. It's not forgetting what they've done, but it is making sure that we can heal that toxicity in ourself. Because we showed that with when, when you don't manage your toxic thoughts, like for example, have keep unforgiveness. That thought is growing and growing the that that energy is affecting right down to the level of your DNA and the cells that you form. So you increasing health, toxic health, your health is, is going to be affected and health by keeping it in you, you physically are getting sicker and more mentally challenged by keeping that, that, that forgiveness and keeping that toxic unforgiveness in you. So it's important to disentangle, to disconnect, to break that. And it's, it's almost like a release. Sometimes it's easier to think of, okay, I'm going to release that. Because sometimes the word forgiveness is hard. When someone's really, really, really, really hurt you and done something bad, it feels like you, that they're getting off scot free. But no one is because they've done that. So they've got that toxicity inside of them. And if they don't deal with that, that's damaging their psyche and other people will be damaged. So it's really important that you get into a healthy place so that you can block off that toxicity and not perpetuate that or increase it or between you and that other person, increase that entanglement and that sort of tied in nature that we have.
There's a difference between stress and toxic stress
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Caroline, let me, let me stop you and ask you a question here because I think this will be a new concept to many of our listeners. You talked about the differ. There's a difference between stress and toxic stress. And this is something that, you know, I teach my students and it is something that is important to, to differentiate and I'll just, I'll say it simply and then I'll, I'll let you take it from there. But stress is just kind of, everybody's going to experience stress. But when you have a healthy response to it, when you have stress in the presence of protective factors, then it's different than toxic stress, which is just completely unmitigated. It is running crazy. And this was something that was so shocking to me when I started to learn about. You've mentioned it already about the way it impacts our DNA. And Caroline, this is important for me because our show here is all about prescribing hope for healthy families. And one thing that I think that parents need to know is that when you carry something like unforgiveness and you carry that toxicity forward with you because we're thinking back to where we have a biblical mandate. I believe that's why God commands us to forgive, because he knows it's good for us, it is the right thing to do, and because he knows that unforgiveness will destroy us, will really destroy us from the inside out. And so I think we, but if we don't pick up that healing journey as parents, there's so many times we've experienced somebody who's really, really hurt us, something toxic, something traumatic, something that's tragic. If we do not pick up that healing journey journey, you are talking about that impacting our DNA. Now the converse is true in healing. We can pass that on.
So I would love for you to give some thoughts about toxic regular stress versus toxic stress
So I would love for you to give some thoughts about toxic regular stress versus toxic stress and how forgiveness plays a role in that.
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: Absolutely. So stress is very normal. We need stress to function. Stress actually keeps our system activated. It keeps our mind clear. It's a way to keep our body in a state that it can actually follow the instructions of the mind and reflect the correctly what we're supposed to be, how we're supposed to be functioning, keeps us alert, focused, clear thinking, etc. But when there's a balance. So the hypothalamic pituitary axis is what we, when we talk about the stress axis, we're talking about this connection in the mind, brain in the brain and the body and driven by the mind. But when we don't manage something, when we don't self regulate, when we don't capture the thoughts, then the stress tips out of balance and instead of it being good for us, it becomes bad for us. So these, instead of being the right amount of cortisol and the right amount of the different hormones and neurochemistry, there's the wrong amount and it, so it tips and it's all driven by mind. It doesn't just tip because of it, because of some random thing what you, how you choose to react in that moment. I mean you can literally prevent a toxic spiral and going into toxic stress in that help in a hurry moment. That's literally one of the reasons why I wrote this book was to try and help people to catch stress from going into the toxic state. Because once it goes down that road, you can always catch it again. But it becomes so much harder. So we can learn to self regulate in that moment. Now when you haven't forgiven someone and they've done something terrible to you, you still connected as I mentioned already. So that keeps you in a state of toxic stress. So instead of stress working for you, it works against you. So all the balance is thrown off. So we want to forgiveness restores balance and gets us out of toxic stress and flips the scales back and gets balance again. And that helps us move forward more Effectively.
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, it just takes me back to to scripture again in 2 Corinthians 10 because starting in verse 3 says, for though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every potential that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And we take every thought captive to make it obedience to, obedient to Christ. That is the, the full context of that scripture there.
How can readers of your book identify when they're falling into toxic thought pattern
And so I want you to tell Caroline, how, how can readers of your book learn to identify, identify when they're falling into that toxic thought pattern? Because so often when we have it, it's so ingrained to us. We, we. It's almost a comfort to go to that toxic spiral and start to think that way. How can we start to identify, okay, I'm falling into a toxic thought pattern. And how do you take that thought captive and what are practical ways that you make it stop?
>> Dr. Caroline Leaf: So the, it's practice. First of all, it's a learned, it's a learned response. So your body is only one brain and body, 1%, 99%. But because we live through our nervous system, our mind works through our nervous system, the 1% brain and body can become so dominant. We can get so caught up in the physical reactions of, and the sensations of, of the emotions that have been activated and the sensations that those create in our body that we can think that that's it. But by having the knowledge that this is my body responding, this is my brain being triggered, this is a loop, that's a pattern that's been set up in the brain and the body and that the mind can actually change it. I can step into my wise mind and actually change this. That knowledge is fundamental in recognizing that we need to how we need to change. So that. That is an absolutely critical first step is to recognize that I have this ability to stand back. So how do I recognize it? Well, our non conscious mind that I spoke about earlier on will find that pattern because it's on our side. I mean it literally. Your brilliance. You, you find the disruptive issue and toxic thought. But not only do you is it is the toxic thought there in your nonconscious, there's also a solution. And that solution is, is pure wisdom. So what the, what the sub. What the non conscious mind does is it puts that that disruptive. Maybe it's the toxic unforgiveness. Whatever it is, it puts it into the Subconscious. The subconscious, which is like a waiting room, then sends signals to our conscious mind. And those signals are your emotions. Anxiety, depression, frustration, jealousy, envy, Etc. Those are not illnesses. They're not labels, they're not symptoms. They are signals with information. They never work alone. Emotions never work alone. They always work with. Where are they? In your body. Body. So the subconscious sends the signals up. The first one's emotions. The second one is bodily sensations. We.
>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Caroline. Caroline. We are already at the end. Live radio can be so rude sometimes. No, we are here. But listen. There is a difference, as Caroline says, between quick strategies and quick fixes. There are quick strategies that you can use, but as Caroline said, you have to practice them. And there are. None of these things are changed overnight. So be patient with yourself. Have grace and space to be human. You've just gotten a little peek today in the intricacies of the human mind. Thank you, Caroline, for joining us. And wherever you are and whatever you're thinking, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and that he will be gracious to you and help you to take every thought captive. We'll see you now right, right back here tomorrow.
>> Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
