Biology of Belief: Promoting Growth Instead of Protection, Part 2 (Breather Episode with Brad)

As I discussed in the previous breather show, Dr. Lipton asserts that we spend 95-99% in daily life operating from subconscious programming. This show is going to get a little science-y as it’s extremely important to understand just how your thoughts are directing your genetic and cellular function. Each of our cells has extremely thin membranes with receptors that extend from the inside to the outside of the membrane. These receptors process signals from the environment and influence cellular and genetic function. I offer up my favorite example of a traffic jam, where you can perceive the experience to be miserable, thereby triggering a protection response and flooding the bloodstream with stress hormones; or alternatively taking the opportunity to relax, listen to a good podcast, or squirt nearby cars with window washer water. This show will help you make the important connection between your thoughts and your cellular function, and the extreme urgency to become conscious as often as possible so you are not a victim of your flawed and negative subconscious programming.  

This is contrary to flawed and dated notions that the nucleus and the genetic coding contained inside the nucleus are the “brains” of the cell, with the membrane as a passive bystander enlisted to merely contain cellular material. Rather, the membrane and its receptors are the true brains of the cell. As Lipton explains, “The cell membrane is an organic information processor. It senses the environment and converts that awareness into ‘information’ that can influence the activity of protein pathways and control the expression of genes.” 

If the perception switches in your cell membranes detect that you are having a lousy day (like being the victim of a traffic jam or having a mean boss), then they will consult the blueprint’s instructions for making stress hormones and tears of anguish, and gene transcription factors will manifest your tearful reality. But if your perception switches detect that you are taking the opportunity of a traffic jam to engage in deep, diaphragmatic breathing and listen to a great audio book, good vibes will literally permeate your being. You will instead produce mood-elevating hormones like serotonin and dopamine, along with a smile and a lightness in your step when you finally arrive at your destination. Lifting a simple insight from Einstein’s general theory of relativity, your perception of time itself will alter such that the hour in traffic either flew by or dragged along, and you will be literally correct in both cases. And while the fancy atomic clock at the military base can measure one hour perfectly as 60 minutes of 60 seconds each, time has no significance without a perception from the individual.  

As Lipton explains, we have three fundamental categories of perceptions:  

1) Those that promote a growth response (moving toward a stimulus) 

2) Those that promote a protection response (moving away from a stimulus) 

3) Those that do not trigger any response (Lipton calls these perceptions, “elevator music”) 

Love is the most powerful trigger of the growth response, while fear is the most powerful trigger of the protection response. The HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis carries out both growth and protection responses in the body. When threatening environmental stimulus hits the hypothalamus (the brain’s control tower for assorted hormonal and metabolic functions) it signals the pituitary gland (the master gland coordinating activity in trillions of cells) to mount a protective fight or flight response, including directing the adrenal glands to flood the bloodstream with stress hormones. As you have already learned in depth, repeated and prolonged stimulation of the fight or flight response wears you down and accelerates aging. Cells are either in growth mode, protection mode, or listening to elevator music — they can’t multitask. 

Hence, when our perception switches trigger the protective response on account of a traffic jam, mean boss, argument with a loved one, or fearful thought about your own cancer prospects as you depart from visiting a stricken relative in the hospital, it literally has life or death repercussions. In The Primal Prescription, co-author Dr. Doug McGuff references research published in the Annals of Family Medicine in 2013 about women who receive false-positive results on mammograms and have to sit in fear for a while until the accurate diagnosis comes through. These women experienced the same level of psychosocial harm as those with cancer for a full six months after they were cleared. Furthermore, negative health repercussions traced to the ordeal continued for three years. They don’t call it a cancer scare for nothing!  Whatever the circumstances that generate our negative thoughts, we might as well have a tiger chasing us for the level of destruction it causes to our “renewal” potential. The Biology of Belief  is not only a fascinating and highly compelling read, but most importantly it will change your life when you have such an in-depth understanding of just how powerful your thoughts are. 

TIMESTAMPS: 

Our thoughts can manifest a new reality. [04:26] 

Environmental signals of all kinds affect genetic function. [[06:32] 

We have three fundamental categories of our perceptions.  [12:14] 

If you get a negative report regarding your health, the repercussion lasts for years. [17:17] 

Your thoughts are the source of all your pain, not what's happened to you, but your thoughts about what's happened to you. [19:40] 

Learn from other shows how to come to your relationship with an open heart. [20:45]