Whole Health by Dr. Mark Mincolla Page A

What about your dog’s hair or the pollen from the grass in your front yard? These all represent exposures that generate a response from your biofeedback system. Where an attack by a wild animal in the woods will prompt the same negative nerve feedback for nearly all of us, only some of us exhibit a negative reaction to dairy, wheat, pollen, and so on. This reveals two very important things: First, the biofeedback loop is a very reliable system designed as a priority survival system by nature. Second, it helps us to gain access to and adapt to the needs of our mutable constitution. At this subtle energy level, we all react very uniquely to more than half of the potential stimuli we are confronted with.
    Our nervous system is an extended network of nerve endings and nerve pathways, like a telecommunications grid system that runs through the entire body. Because it runs through all of the muscles, whenever we are asked about or confronted with anything, our brain initiates a communication response to the body throughout the entire nerve network, ultimately talking to the muscles.
    The science of psychoneuroimmunology has mapped out this messaging sequence. As the stimuli (dream, stress, food, a question, etc.) enter into your mind and brain’s field of awareness, an immediate sensory “sizing-up” process is engaged.
    The first brain stop on this journey is a ping-ponging of thought volley between your emotional centers in the amygdala and the hippocampus. Here is where your brain is trying to emotionally sense whether or not the stimuli feel safe.
    The next stop is the prefrontal cortex. Here is where your brain settles down to some good old-fashioned logic. After both centers have had their say, a final decision is made. If your mind/heart feels unsafe, things are directed back to anxiety ping-pong until it is determined that you’re out of danger. If things are okay, the prefrontal cortex helps to organize your thoughts and stabilize your entire system.
    Keep in mind that while all this communication is taking place, your muscles remain the most responsive nerve medium. All stimuli are reacted to and interpreted as safe or unsafe, positive or negative. The earliest detection response is muscular, because muscles activate fight and flight. Simply stated, whenever you feel safe, happy, and positive, the brain sends a
steady, even flow
of neural electricity to your muscles, giving them an abundance of controlled strength. Whenever you feel unsafe, anxious, and negative, the brain sends a highly charged nervous flow of electricity to the muscles, greatly reducing
controlled
strength.
    Communication between the body and mind, or
in
the body/mind, if you will, is constant and the muscles remain the perfect biofeedback system. Try this simple experiment: Ask a friend to simply lift up his arm and resist your attempt to gently push it down. Now ask him to close his eyes and to continue to resist your efforts as you call out contrasting words and images. Compare his resistance responses to words such as
love
versus
hate
,
warmth
versus
cold
,
fun
versus
boredom
, and
joy
versus
agony
. Next, call out a dozen or so foods and see how the responses vary. You will be amazed.
    Science has understood this complex form of communication since the late 1970s, but has yet to be convinced that it can be consistently trusted. When I began my practice, in 1982, I was determined to find out just how trustworthy this communication process was. The theoretical debates continue to this day. Those with a mechanistic bias will never believe, but those with a more vitalistic persuasion will never have to be convinced. I thought that it needed development and ongoing testing over time. Now, nearly thirty years and tens of thousands of patient appointments later, I believe that the constant flow of communication in the body/mind is ever trustworthy. I believe it is a perfect biofeedback resource, provided the “listener”