Mind Body Connection W/Learning This Thesis

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Everything came together including previous experience, memories, brain signals, and emotion to produce that churning in the stomach that told them, in an instant, to go. Those who hesitated and waited for more input signals, unfortunately, perished. If you follow that leap of faith into intuition and gut feeling, then you realize that their brains had "learned" that it didn't need layers of data to reach a decision. It had learned, through previous intuitions and/or gut feelings that it had could rely on those feelings.

Learning and the Mind-Body Connection

Dr. John Ratey, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, noted that "neurons that fire together, wire together." That, he says, is that way we learn. Enough said? Not hardly. Ratey calls two natural brain chemicals -- nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain-derived neuroropic factor (BDNF) -- "Miracle Gro for the brain" (Weiss, 2001, p. 1). When we are in a quandry over something, the brain releases these chemicals, and since we are evolutionary beings, the brain adapts to how much "Miracle Gro" is required for certain troublesome, or learning, situations. As we learn new things, the correct amounts of the chemicals are released.

And, if you recall the two-way street we talked about earlier, that plays a part in what happens when these chemicals are released. There are neurological, biochemical, electromagnetic, and biophysical pathways between the brain (mind) and the heart (body) (Weiss, 2001). Were there not a mind-body connection, the body could not function, nor could the brain. The heart influences such brain functions as decsion making, mental clarity, communication skills and productivity through these pathways.

Thus, learning isn't really all in our heads.

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The things we do with our bodies affect our brains. Anyone who exercises intuitively knows, or has a gut feeling that during and after strenuous exercise, particularly cardio-vascular, their thinking is somewhat clearer. In other words, through these pathways, what we are doing for our bodies and our hearts is also positively affecting our brains as well. The movement and exercise enhance our optimal learning activity.

Says Ratey:

"New research indicates that these kinds of exercise also affect the basal ganglia and corpus callosum, sharpening memory and increasing the capacity to master new information. Maintaining memory and repairing weakened brain connections depend on stimulation. To improve our brains, we have to move our bodies, take action, get going" (Weiss, 2001, p. 3)

Conclusion

In 1493, Paracelsus, known as the father of modern medicine, declared that the whole body must be treated, not just the part displaying a disease, and that "the human mind will eventually be viewed as being a part of the whole person (the body)."

For well over 500 years, the mind-body connection has been known and studied. The learning connection does not imply just enhancing the academic experience, but rather the change in our overall knowledge capabilities, understanding and behavior. The mind-body connection's affect on learning includes our body and brain functions as they adapt to the pathways of communication between heart and brain. Learning applies to our body's adaptation to experiences, memories and emotions that create gut feeling and intuition, and its use of each of those situational moments to further adapt and learn to react to ordinary or life-and-death experiences. Indeed, it is the mind-body connection that allows us to.....

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