This is why we practice qigong at Kokolulu
Starting the new years out right breaking bad habits:
YOUR BODY CALLS THEM MEMORIES (The battle with breaking habits.) by Tiffany Rowan
www.myspace.com/wholewellness
Do some of you find yourself off your New Year’s resolutions and back to your old ways and old habits? Did some of you find it a real battle to quit your bad habits? Did you give up, calling yourself weak, and just decide that it was easier to keep the bad habit even though you knew it is bad for you?
Well, let me assure you that you are not weak. There is a scientific explanation of why you find it a real battle to quit a bad habit. There really is a battle taking place within you on a cellular level. Once you understand how your body works on a cellular level, you can take this knowledge and apply it literally to everything you will ever do.
Your nervous system creates a memory of everything you do. The recall of this memory is called a neurosignature. Today we will isolate the bad habit of soda drinking to demonstrate this. A neurosignature for the bad habit of drinking sodas is created by the nerves in your fingers, hand, arm, mouth, amygdala (emotion center of your brain), throat, stomach, pancreas and other body parts that you use when you drink a can of soda. Every nerve in your fingers and hand required to lift the can, bottle, or glass of soda creates a memory of the cylinder it lifts, the feel of the condensation on the can, the weight of its contents, and the direction it takes to get the can to your mouth.
Every nerve in your arm records a memory of how to support the hand muscles so they can clasp around the can, and the angle needed to lift the soda to your mouth.
Every nerve in your mouth records a memory of your lips closing around the can, the temperature of the soda on your tongue, and the “ahhh” feeling you get when the fizz hits your throat.
Every nerve in your throat records which muscles are used for swallowing. Every nerve in your stomach remembers the awful sting of this acidic drink upsetting its membranes. The nerves in your pancreas remember to pump more insulin to save your blood from the excess sugar you have injested at a rate the body can’t keep up with.
Your amygdala remembers the false sense of satisfaction you get when the cortisol levels rise in your body .
If your nerves didn’t recall these neurosignature memories, your eyes wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a can of Dr. Pepper or a can of Coca Cola. Your fingers, hands and arms wouldn’t remember how to lift that can of soda to your lips. Your lips wouldn’t remember how to close around the can so that you don’t pour soda on your chin and down your chest. Your tongue wouldn’t remember how to press into the roof of your mouth for each swallow. Your throat wouldn’t remember to flex certain muscles and relax others for you to swallow. And your pancreas would just sit back and let you die from all the sugar and carbon dioxide you poison your cells with if it didn’t remember to secrete insulin.
We would all be 20, 30, 40, 50, 60+ old babies lying on the floor flopping our limbs around if our nerves didn’t recall a neurosignature for literally everything we do. As babies we reached for what interested us. Let’s use our mother’s face as an example. Each time we flopped our arm toward her face, our nerves recorded a memory for every step that took place. They not only recorded what body parts we used, but also interpreted this information and communicated it to other cells. Our nerves actually created more dentrite endings to record how that flop did not reach her face. With every lift of our arm, our cells recorded what was wanted and what was still needed to reach her face. Our cells are nothing but pure intelligence. With more practice, we were able to control the specific muscles, bones, and nerves needed to finally touch her face as she nuzzled us close and looked deep into our eyes.
For your body to act as proficiently as it does, it has to recall the memories recorded in each body part in order to perform that task flawlessly again. For your arm to reach forward and grab a can of soda without dropping it, it has to call upon the nerve cells to bring up their files on “can lifting” so that you actually aim correctly for the can, clasp it, rotate your wrist at the correct angle, and close your hand and fingers around the can. This is intelligence!
With every soda you drink, with every cigarette you smoke, with every cup of coffee you injest, with every snack you indulge in, with every pill you take to keep you awake and give you energy, your nerve cells create more dentrite endings to make that memory stronger and interpret the information so that you will get more proficient at the task you wish your body to perform.
Not only that, but when your nerve cells split, they give these neurosignature memories to their daughter cells. As long as you keep requiring your body to use its parts for your bad habit, your nerve cells will continue to grow dentrites to remember how to efficiently do so. WOW!
This is why psychologists tell you that you can’t just quit a habit, you have to replace it. You can’t just quit drinking soda or coffee; you can’t just quit smoking; you can’t just quit the energy pills, and so on. You have to replace your bad habit with a good one. Let me explain how it is impossible to quit a bad habit otherwise.
Your body actually records that you like to start your day with a soda or coffee at such-and-such time. Your cells remember to tell you to go to the fridge and take out a can of soda around the same time every day. Your cells remember to tell you what time of day you need to clock out for a smoke break. Your cells remember to tell you how many packages of energy pills to purchase on the next pay day so you don’t run out by the following check.
These neurosignatures remember everything! They remember everything you have required of them. All you had to do was wish it, and your body obeyed. It did exactly what you told it to do.
So take the expert’s advice and replace your bad habits with good ones.
When your body wants to reach for something that you know to be harmful, tell your body,
“This time I want an orange. This time I want water. This time I want chewing gum. This time I want a salad.” Then go eat the orange instead of a candy bar, drink the water instead of soda or coffee, chew the gum instead of taking a drag off a cigarette, or enjoy that salad instead of a Big Mac. Your nerve cells will create new dentrites to hold these new memories.
Just note that the battle you feel with ending a bad habit and creating a new one, is because your body is saying, “Hey…we’re confused…we’ ve been told to drink a soda at this time of day…that’s all we know…we have all these dentrites to help you be proficient at soda drinking. Are you sure you want water? You usually want a soda.” You’re confused when your goal says to drink water and your body is “pulling” you to that soda. If feels like a craving, but all it is, is lots of memories of when you used to drink soda. It seems like a battle, but its just your body reminding you of all the files you have been putting into the filing cabinet of your cells.
Once you add new files to your cell’s filing cabinet, your body will say, “Ooo, water! Wake up, sleeping beauty, it’s time for some water. Grab some out of the fridge. Oooo, that feels good on the throat! Oooo, the oxygen content feels great on the brain. Oooo, its feels good to clean out all the cells! Oooo, the kidneys are happy now with easier filtering!”
Dr. Herbert Benson, author of Timeless Healing, says you were born with factory-installed neurosignatures for things that will build you, support you, and help you thrive. You just haven’t pulled up these healthy memory files in a long time. All you have to do to pull up these memories is eat an orange everytime your body wants junk or by going for a walk instead of smoking a cigarette.
All you have to do is eat oranges more often and your body will create more dentrites to strengthen this factory-installed memory so you will be proficient at reaching for an orange, for peeling back its shell, for separating its slices, and for experiencing the burst of citric spray on your taste buds. Soon, your body will remember to tell you, “It’s morning dear, time for oatmeal. Hey sunshine, time to snack on almonds! Hey stud, you’re craving an orange! It’s time again to reach for one.”
And after all your cells have split into daughter cells (approximately 3-4 months), you will have created new neurosignatures that are proficient at helping you with your goals to take better care of yourself. But don’t get discouraged thinking it will take three months to get a break from your body reminding you of your old ways (cravings). Most of your cells will have made the change in the first two weeks. Cells are spliting and dying every fraction of a second of every moment. You will see positive results sooner than you think. It will become easier and easier.
You created the bad habit one choice at a time, and you repeated those same choices so often that your cells created a memory of them to help you be proficient at your habit. Use the same steps to create healthy habits one choice at a time, repeated over and over. Creating these new memories will help you in being proficient at remembering details quickly, by having the endurance to finish out the day, and by giving you vitality way into the older years of your life.
Your body will obey what you tell it. What are you thinking? What do you wish for? Because, your body is listening and it says, “I’ll get busy on that right away!”
The battle that you are going through to quit a bad habit is just your “feeling” for what is biologically going on in your cells. You created a strategy to partake of things that were bad for you. You may not call it a strategy, but that is exactly what you created. A strategy is a series of steps required to reach an end result. So create a new strategy, create a new line of thinking, one thought at a time.
From now on, say to your body, “This time, I choose to partake of something that will sustain me, build me, and give me vitality.”
You know you want the energy to perform your daily responsibilities. You know that you don’t want a heart attack or live the end of your life in a nursing home. You know what you want! Now tell your body! It will obey.
Resource on neurosignatures: Timeless Healing by Herbert Benson, MD, Chapter Four
Learn what the amygdala does here: http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Amygdala
Make A Positive Life Change:
contact Lew or Karin at 808-889-9893 & info at kokolulu dot com