Detox is a big word today. But have you ever thought about detoxing your brain? No, I am not joking. It is not only possible but also necessary if you want to live a healthy and happy life. Dr Caroline Leaf in her book Who switched off my brain? states that ‘research shows that around 87% of illness can be attributed to our thought life, and approximately 13% to diet, genetics and environment.' Can that be true? Many people think that since thoughts are invisible they have no substance. The opposite is true. Thoughts release chemicals - positive thoughts release chemicals beneficial for the body, negative thoughts release toxins to the body (chemicals that harm the body). The mind is like a flow of information and it moves among the cells, organs and systems of the body in the form of different chemicals.
‘Thoughts do cause illness and should be studied and controlled. If they are powerful enough to make us sick, they are powerful enough to make us healthy as well.'
So, what does it mean to detox your brain? It's not that dissimilar to any other detox. You need to have a closer look at the organ you want to clean and what you are doing to it.
‘Your thoughts can de-stress you, making you more clever, calm and in control of your emotions, or they can do just the opposite! The choice is yours.'
Detoxing your brain is a process of replacing toxic (unhelpful, hurtful and unrealistic) thought and feelings or even memories with helpful ones. It's not trying to rewrite your own history or deny that sad, unfair and painful things happened in your life. It is looking at them, learning what is possible from them but not allowing them to hinder you from full living (by fear etc.)
Surprisingly, the three most toxic thoughts/beliefs seem quite innocent:
I must do well
You must treat me well
The world must be easy
They sound like harmless thoughts, don't they? But in real life, no one does well all the time, everyone is mistreated sometimes, and life is not always easy or fair.
Demanding unrealistic performance from yourself and others puts your mind and body in stress mode and thus has a negative effect on your health.
From today, start to recognize and reject unrealistic thinking. You need to be aware of what you are thinking about, not allowing your thoughts just mindlessly wonder. Our mind is like a fertile soil into which both good and bad thoughts fall. Guess what grows better, even without your help.
Keep in mind that:
thoughts create your mood
when you have negative emotions your thoughts will be negative
a negative thought linked to emotional turmoil will be distorted
Make a decision to accept the thought, if it is good for you, or reject the thought, if it is bad for you.
Once a thought is received, a memory is built. The more the memory is revisited, the easier it is to access it. You know where we are going with this: if the memory is a bad one, it hurts you every time you access it. But a positive, healthy, interactive thinking will literally detox your brain, because it forces integrated networking, new growth and growth of links between stored memories.
‘Until you have your thoughts and attitudes under control, no amount of knowledge, skill or medication can help you to truly detox. You will need courage and perseverance to confront and control your thoughts.' Consciously controlling your thoughts is not just the first step in the detox process; it is the main step.
Even as you grow older, you can continue to increase your intelligence, as long as the input is positive and healthy.
Brief summary based on dr. Caroline Leaf's book ‘WHO SWITCHED OFF MY BRAIN?' with quotes from the same book. For simplicity reasons theoretical background of memory formation and recall, interaction between thoughts and feelings were not explained in this article. Also, the detox suggestions were only briefly mentioned and not explained in enough depth. You are strongly encouraged to refer to the above mentioned book.
Dandy Health Group
Second and final part of this article includes the remaining 12 steps:
Other detox steps are:
2/ Be careful what you say - Your words have influence on you
3/ Express your emotions in a safe way - what's buried alive, suddenly resurrects
4/ Take responsibility
etc.
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