79 Taxi Drivers And Your Brain

Continued from yesterday…

A group of 79 taxi drivers in London underwent MRI scans throughout a period of four years. The study found that the more time the cab drivers spent on the job, the more the grey matter in their brain increased and enlarged their hippocampus, the spatial memory lobe in their brain.

This is a part of the brain that regulates memories and navigational pathways. The structure of their brain changed to accommodate their vast amount of navigating experience.

Other studies indicate that our imagination can impact our DNA and can turn on and off specific genes. The simplest example of how we can influence our genes is through what has been coined the placebo effect.

Belief (especially as it relates to our imagination) in a cure (often in the form of a sugar pill) causes us to generate real endogenous molecules which change our blood chemistry, which can in turn suppress pain.

Other research suggests that practicing compassionate mindfulness meditation for an extended period will not only alter our emotional wellbeing for the better, but it actually reduces the size of the amygdala lobe of our brain that controls emotional faculties such as fear, stress, and anxiety.

Scientists are also learning more about how our thought networks are inherited and actually change the generational pattern. The implications are enormous as these findings reveal that we can alter the genetic expressions of future generations.

What I’m suggesting here is, of course, something even more profound than mere mind over matter. Your true self, which manifests during a practice such as compassionate mindfulness, is the eternal spirit that undergirds all things.

Continued tomorrow…

Adapted from Section 3 of Awakening To I Am Love by David Youngren