 How breathing consciously can influence your rational and emotional brain for best outcome/result. Every cell in our body is connected to a nerve, and every nerve is connected to the brain, and the brain can be influenced by your controlled breathing, and your breathing calms the mind, and the mind creates changes. The richness of our thought and imagination is affected by our breathing. To control any emotion or ourselves we must learn to control our breathing. Our breathing is the most important regulatory activity over which we can have direct control. Our three important brain centres: The cortical (rational brain) : the left hemisphere The thalamic (emotional brain) : the right hemisphere The brain stem (cerebellum) : regulates breathing and pulse.
The emotional brain is the right hemisphere; it receives and acknowledges emotions. It deals with crises. The limbic system is all?important to much of the behaviour. It manages, or fails to manage, the whole range of our emotional reactions and conveys our raw feelings to the more thoughtful cortex (the rational brain) for processing. It is responsible for the physical accompaniment to strong emotional feelings, such as shaking of the knees when afraid, and dry mouth. The limbic system, in lower animals as well as humans, is also closely associated with the olfactory senses, which may account for the emotional effect produced by many smells. |
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| Book Title: A Mind to Crime
by Anne Moir and David Jessel Ref: ISBN: 0-7181-3768-x |
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The limbic brain, we know, can make its own primitive, impulsive decisions, but is kept under control by the cerebral cortex, the more rational part of the brain. But control can only be maintained through good communications, and that is the specific job of the neurotransmitter serotonin – to link the emotional, impulsive limbic system to the sensible, civilised cortex (the rational brain). As long as those pathways are fully operational, as long as the brakes (the serotonin) are working properly, with an optimum amount of available serotonin, there will be healthy, normal communication between the rational and emotional brain. In one sense, the more transmissions there are between the rational part of the brain in the cortex and the emotional brain in the limbic system, the more rational – and less animal – our behaviour will be. The limbic system, variously called the ‘emotional’ and ‘motivational’ brain, is the centre of feelings such as anger, rage, sadness and love. The limbic system implements our gentlest as well as our wildest reactions. When we are emotionally upset, our breathing becomes upset. In this case, breathing rhythmically and calmly as far upward into the roof of your nose as possible for a minute or two will directly stimulate the olfactory bulb. The stimulation of the olfactory bulb in turn calms the emotional brain in the limbic system, provided there is ample serotonin in the brain to link the emotional to the rational brain. When the emotional brain is calm, the rational brain with its positive inner dialogue brings the mind and the body back to harmony, back to composure for further self-reflection. Conscious calm rhythmic breathing has transformed our wildest reaction from the limbic system into a gentlest reaction. |
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| Book Title: A Mind to Crime
by Anne Moir and David Jessel Ref: ISBN: 0-7181-3768-x |
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| NB: When there is an optimal amount of serotonin in the brain, you have a: • Greater self-confidence • Greater self-control • Greater calmness of mind. Be optimistic, look on the bright side, focus on the positive and be happy. “If you view all the things that happen to you, both good and bad, as opportunities, then you operate out of higher level of consciousness”. Don’t waste your serotonin – optimise it by maintaining a positive mental attitude toward yourself, and minimise your unhappy moments and angry moments. Anger and unhappiness burns your serotonin very fast. Unless we train our minds and work hard to reduce their negative force, they will continue to disturb us and disrupt our attempts to develop a calm mind. Anger and hatred are our real enemies. These are the forces we most need to confront and defeat, not the temporary 'enemies' which appear intermittently throughout life. |
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| The picture above shows how information from the heart finds its way
to the amygdala. In fact, the cells in the amygdala exhibit electrical
activity that’s synchronised to the heart beat. As the heart beat
changes so does the electrical activity in the cells of the amygdala.
This may explain why positive changes in feeling and perception occur
when the heart rhythms becomes more coherent as people use the Heart-Math
Solution tools and techniques or breath focussed coping techniques of
Saeed’s. |
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| Book Title: The Heart Math
Solution by DOC CHILDER & HOWARD MARTIN with DONNA BEECH Ref: ISBN 0-7499-2027-0 |
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 Controlling anger or controlling impulsive behaviour is about inhibiting the amygdala in order for the frontal lobes of the brain to take charge. The limbic system regulates our emotional states and drives, our motivations and our needs. Parts of this system make us look for food when we are hungry or water when we are thirsty or a mate when we need sex. The limbic system controls the fight or flight response necessary to survival and perhaps because of this, it has the ability to override the neo-cortex (the ‘thinking’ brain). This is why our emotions are so much stronger. In a moment of crisis when we perceive a threat or when we are emotionally upset, our emotions drive the neo-cortex and it is this design, which has helped us survive to this moment in history. One of the ‘power houses’ of the limbic system is the amygdala. The amygdala seems to be involved in the extreme ends of passion, anger and violence. Recently it has been shown that even when human beings express love and affection this engages the amygdala and it plays a part in regulating and controlling the activities of other parts of the brain to direct the need into a constructive action. |
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| For further reading, Book Title:
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE by Daniel Goldman Ref: ISBN 0-7475-2830-6 |
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Each hemisphere of the brain contains an amygdala driving emotional impulses. Sometimes these impulses do not get into the higher centres of the brain, where you get time to think about your feelings. These feelings are high jacked by the amygdala, and this is what happens when we lose control of ourselves, get angry and end up doing things we later regret, for instance hurting someone’s feelings. This primitive response very often gets us into trouble. It is an amygdala high jack, you have a sudden emotional reaction which is very strong and intense, and when it settles you realise it was very inappropriate and you regret what you may have said or did. When it starts to happen to you, control it. Control your temper whilst it is inside your head. No one else is aware of your temper but you. Only you know that you are loosing your temper. Make every effort to transform it into clarity and calmness. Controlling and transforming your anger is not going to hurt anyone, including yourself. This is wonderful for you and for your immediate environment. If you did not manage to control and transform this anger you will be hurting yourself firstly, and at the same time burdening others with your temper. |
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| For further reading, Book Title:
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE by Daniel Goldman Ref: ISBN 0-7475-2830-6 |
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Stop, reflect and reason. This technique can help us not to react aggressively. This can help us to choose our behaviour. The two most fundamental amygdala skills that all people young and old need are self-management/anger-management and impulse control. Both of these are involved in the same super highway between amygdala and frontal lobe, to the extent that we can educate this circuit and help people acquire these skills, which in turn will make them better at keeping their eye on the goal (stop and reflect). |
