Mind Structure

This new generation of brain research makes clear the inseparable links between the central nervous system, autoimmune system, our emotional, physical, and mental health. How we choose to deal with and cope with events in our daily lives directly affects the nervous system - it’s no secret that chronic negative emotions increases our risk of disease. Every thought produces a physical response.

Our Central Nervous System (CNS) coordinates our hundred trillion cells in a seamless whole. The brain is the command and control centre for the senses and our interpretation of our environment. It is also regulates the entire body, its operations, maintenance, autoimmune defences and stress levels. It’s not surprising that bringing balance to the CNS has wide ranging emotional / physical benefits.

Our thoughts and attitudes are like the water in which a fish swims. It’s seldom noticed by the fish. At the base of thought is the reptilian brain. It drives our search for food, for a mate, and is the master of effortlessly learned movements. It is old, efficient, and runs our most powerful and basic drives.

The structure over the reptilian is the mammallian brain. If you want to know how other mammals think, then just look inside yourself- we share the same structures, doing the same job. These give us base emotional reactions, memory, and the ability to learn. You feel it in action when frightened, aggressive, or frozen in fear. When stuck in an over-alert state, we call it trauma.

What makes us different is the large structure wrapped over the other brains – the cerebral cortex, a great mass of neural tissue that can adapt itself to do whatever we train it to. It changes itself constantly, moulding its structure to suit new tasks. It gives us the ability to learn by example or even by imagination – it plans, problem solves and forecasts. It gives us language and the ability to see in colour, a sense of self, an identity, social ability and culture, art, rational thought. This new mind is a luxury, costing us about a quarter of our food intake to operate.

What brought humans to where we are (for good or ill) is the prefrontal cortex, a small bit in the front of the brain, just above and behind your eyebrows. It’s the newest part of the brain, and as a species we’re just beginning to use it. It develops in tandem with every other part of the brain, for the role of overriding any other system. It gives us conscious thoughts, our end report for information that other areas of our mind deem important. Trained adepts (yogis, monks, martial artists) use the prefrontal cortex to best advantage, with astounding control over mind and body.

The sole function of our whole brain is to keep us alive at any cost. We learn by experience, and when threatened we refer to our learned strategies to alert us on the slightest sign of a repeat. These quickly become ‘stuck’ states, often becoming hard-wired and chronic, skewing our perception in a myriad of ways.

This is where we get into trouble. The older mind easily overwhelms the newer in times of threat (real or perceived, perception arising from personal history) causing unpredictable and primitive behaviour in even the most sentient creatures. Humans included.