THE OTHER BRAIN - WHO’S REALLY IN CONTROL HERE

Have you ever had a thought, and wondered to yourself, now where did THAT, come from?

Or perhaps something came out of your mouth unexpectantly, and you said to yourself, now that was WEIRD! Why did I say that?

Have you had a time when you said to yourself, why am I doing this? Or why am I feeling this way? You could tell that something was a little off.

It was almost as if those thoughts came to you from somewhere else.

Maybe they did! Maybe they came to you from the “Other Brain”

You might be asking yourself, what do I mean by “The Other Brain”.

Conventional knowledge has told us there is only one brain, right, the one that is in our head or skull.

The brain located in our head is responsible for making all the decisions. But, what if that’s not the whole story? What if there is another brain?

Now before you go off thinking, I’m getting weird, and going all (Si-Fi) Science Fiction on you, allow me to explain.

What I’m sharing with you is from Science, not Science Fiction.

In the early 90’s, as surgeons were performing routine cardiac surgeries they noticed something different that wasn’t previously made apparent.

They noticed that the heart has a very complex nervous system, and this discovery shaped a new understanding of how the heart functions.  

They noticed that the heart had an intrinsic cardiac nervous system that was quite similar to that of our brain, and some much so, that they dubbed the heart, the “mini-brain” or the Other Brain.

Hmmm, that’s interesting, right! Who knew we had another brain?

Now don’t let the term “mini-brain” throw you off target.

This “mini-brain” or “Heart-Brain” has some 40,000 neurons in its neural network.

Furthermore, the Heart-Brain is believed to have significant influence over our thoughts and perceptions.

Well, what is significant influence, you might be wondering.

Scientists estimate that around 80% of the signals in the Vagus nerve travel from the Heart-Brain to the Head-Brain. 80%, that’s significant.

The Vagus nerve is not the nerve that makes you want to go to Vegas.

The Vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the nervous system of our entire body. It is one of the cranial nerves which plays a crucial role in our autonomic nervous system which is where thoughts travel through.

The Head-Brain controls the entire nervous system, but the Heart-Brain has neurons that can learn, remember, and make decisions on their own.

One example of the independence of the Heart-Brain is that it sends more signals to the Head-Brain than it receives from it.

Research indicates that the Heart-Brain play a direct, major role in shaping thoughts, decisions, and memories rather than just simply following the Head-Brains commands as we were once led to believe.

The Head-Brain thinks what the Heart-Brain feels. And that feeling based intelligence is what influences all our mental processes long before ever reaching the state of our conscious mind.  

Simply put, the Head-Brain processes what the Heart-Brain tells it.

The Head and Heart have a bidirectional communication relationship that regulates body functions, emotions, and overall health.

Each one features its own separate extensive neural network wiring.

In other words, the sensory cells in the Heart act just like Brain cells.

Which brings us back to the question I asked earlier.

Who knew we had another brain?

GOD! God knew we did, and he let us know it as well.

The Bible attests throughout that the “Heart” is the definitive core of a person, which is comprised of the mind, emotions, and will.

“What comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart” Matthew 15

It goes on to tell us that the Heart is the source of all our thoughts and intentions. Otherwise known as the Seat of Thoughts.

“As a person thinks in their heart, they will do” Proverbs 23:7

This lets us know that the Heart does more than just carry blood throughout our body, it also transports our motives into actions.

Every trigger memory that the mind reacts to, was pulled by the orders from the heart.

With this new additional information regarding the Heart, perhaps we should rethink and expand our definition of Heart Health as well as Mental Health.

Maybe what was believed to be a Mental Health issue was actually a Heart Health thought gone awry.

Next time we will be taking a deeper dive into this statement.

“Keep a vigilant watch over your Heart, because that’s where life starts”

By the way. If you are wondering what your Heart is thinking, just listen to your words and then you will know for sure.

Until we meet again, remember this quote, “Never let success get to your head, and never let failure get to your heart” - Unknown

This is a Thompson Truth