UNDERSTANDING HOW THE BRAIN WORKS

UNDERSTANDING HOW THE BRAIN WORKS It's important to understand the complexity of the human brain. The human brain weighs only three pounds but is estimated to have about 100 billion cells. It is hard to get a handle on a number that large (or connections that small). Let's try to get an understanding of this complexity by comparing it with something humans have created--the entire phone system for the planet. If we took all the phones in the world and all the wires (there are over four billion people on the planet), the number of connections and the trillions of messages per day would NOT equal the complexity or activity of a single human brain. Now let's take a "small problem"--break every phone in Michigan and cut every wire in the state. How long would it take for the entire state (about 15 million people) to get phone service back? A week, a month, or several years? If you guessed several years, you are now beginning to see the complexity of recovering from a head injury. In the example I used, Michigan residents would be without phone service while the rest of the world had phone service that worked fine. This is also true with people who have a head injury. Some parts of the brain will work fine while others are in need of repair or are slowly being reconnected. AN ELECTRICAL AND CHEMICAL MACHINE Let's start looking at the building blocks of the brain. As previously stated, the brain consists of about 100 billion cells. Most of these cells are called neurons. A neuron is basically an on/off switch just like the one you use to control the lights in your home. It is either in a resting state (off) or it is shooting an electrical impulse down a wire (on). It has a cell body, a long little wire (the "wire" is called an axon), and at the very end it has a little part that shoots out a chemical. This chemical goes across a gap (synapse) where it triggers another neuron to send a message. There are a lot of these neurons sending messages down a wire (axon). By the way, each of these billions of axons is generating a small amount of electrical charge; this total power has been estimated to equal a 60 watt bulb. Doctors have learned that measuring this electrical activity can tell how the brain is working. A device that measures electrical activity in the brain is called an EEG (electroencephalograph). Each of the billions of neurons "spit out" chemicals that trigger other neurons. Different neurons use different types of chemicals. These chemicals are called "transmitters" and are given names like epinephrine, norepinephrine, or dopamine. Pretty simple, right? Well, no. Even in the simplified model that I'm presenting, it gets more complex. IS THE BRAIN ONE BIG COMPUTER? Is the brain like a big phone system (because it has a lot of connections) or is it one big computer with ON or OFF states (like the zeros and ones in a computer)? Neither of the above is correct. Let's look at the brain using a different model. Let's look at the brain as an orchestra. In an orchestra, you have different musical sections. There is a percussion section, a string section, a woodwind section, and so on. Each has its own job to do and must work closely with the other sections. When playing music, each section waits for the conductor. The conductor raises a baton and all the members of the orchestra begin playing at the same time playing on the same note. If the drum section hasn't been practicing, they don't play as well as the rest of the orchestra. The overall sound of the music seems "off" or plays poorly at certain times. This is a better model of how the brain works. We used to think of the brain as a big computer, but it's really like millions of little computers all working together. GETTING INFORMATION IN AND OUT OF THE BRAIN How does information come into the brain? A lot of information comes in through the spinal cord at the base of the brain. Think of a spinal cord as a thick phone cable with thousands of phone lines. If you cut that spinal cord, you won't be able to move or feel anything in your body. Information goes OUT from the brain to make body parts (arms and legs) do their job. There is also a great deal of INCOMING information (hot, cold, pain, joint sensation, etc.). Vision and hearing do not go through the spinal cord but go directly into the brain. That’s why people can be completely paralyzed (unable to move their arms and legs) but still see and hear with no problems. Information enters from the spinal cord and comes up the middle of the brain. It branches out like a tree and goes to the surface of the brain. The surface of the brain is gray due to the color of the cell bodies (that's why it's called the gray matter). The wires or axons have a coating on them that's colored white (called white matter). TWO BRAINS--LEFT AND RIGHT HEMISPHERE We have two eyes, two hands, and two legs, so why not two brains? The brain is divided in half, a right and left hemisphere. The right hemisphere does a different job than the left. The right hemisphere deals more with visual activities and plays a role in putting things together. For example, it takes visual information, puts it together, and says "I recognize that--that's a chair," or "that's a car" or "that's a house." It organizes or groups information together. The left hemisphere tends to be the more analytical part; it analyzes information collected by the right. It takes information from the right hemisphere and applies language to it. The right hemisphere "sees" a house, but the left hemisphere says, "Oh yeah, I know whose house that is--it's Uncle Bob's house." So what happens if one side of the brain is injured? People who have an injury to the right side of the brain "don't put things together" and fail to process important information. As a result, they often develop a "denial syndrome" and say "there's nothing wrong with me." For example, I treated a person with an injury to the right side of the brain--specifically, the back part of the right brain that deals with visual information--and he lost half of his vision. Because the right side of the brain was injured, it failed to "collect" information, so the brain did not realize that something was missing. Essentially, this person was blind on one side but did not know it. What was scary was that this person had driven his car to my office. After seeing the results of the tests that I gave him, I asked, "Do you have a lot of dents on the left side of your car?" He was amazed that I magically knew this without seeing his car. Unfortunately, I had to ask him not to drive until his problems got better. But you can see how the right side puts things together. The left side of the brain deals more with language and helps to analyze information given to the brain. If you injure the left side of the brain, you're aware that things aren't working (the right hemisphere is doing its job) but are unable to solve complex problems or do a complex activity. People with left hemisphere injuries tend to be more depressed, have more organizational problems, and have problems using language. VISION--HOW WE SEE THINGS Information from our eyes goes to areas at the very back of the brain. We've all seen cartoons where the rabbit gets hit on the head and the rabbit sees stars. This can actually happen in human beings (trust me, not a good thing to do at home!). If you take a hard enough blow to the back of the head, this brain area bangs against back of your skull. This stimulates it and you can see stars and flashing lights. Remember those two hemispheres? Each hemisphere processes half the visual information. Visual information that we see on the left gets processed by the right hemisphere. Information on the right gets processed by the left hemisphere. Remember, wires that bring in information to the brain are "crossed"--visual information from the left goes to the right brain. MOVEMENT The area of the brain that controls movement is in a very narrow strip that goes from near the top of the head right down along where your ear is located. It's called the motor strip. If I injure that area, I'll have problems controlling half of my body. If I have a stroke in the left hemisphere of my brain, the right side of the body will stop working. If I have an injury to my right hemisphere in this area, the left side of my body stops working (remember, we have two brains). This is why one half of the face may droop when a person has had a stroke. HEARING AND LANGUAGE In the general population, 95 percent of people are right-handed, which means that the left hemisphere is the dominant hemisphere. (For you left-handers, the right hemisphere is dominant.) With right-handed people, the ability to understand and express language is in this left temporal lobe. If I were to take a metal probe, and charge it with just a bit of electricity, and put it on the "primary" area of my left temporal lobe, I might say "hey, I hear a tone." If I move this probe to a more complex area of the temporal lobe, I might hear a word being said. If I move the electrical probe to an even more complex area, I might hear the voice of somebody I recognize; "I hear Uncle Bob's voice." We have simple areas of the temporal lobe that deal with basic sounds and other areas of the temporal lobe that look at more complex hearing information. The right temporal lobe also deals with hearing. However, its job is to process musical information or help in the identification of noises. If this area is damaged, we might not be able to appreciate music or be able to sing. Because we tend to think and express in terms of language, the left temporal lobe is more critical for day-to-day functioning. The vision areas and the hearing areas of the brain have a boundary area where they interact. This is the area of the brain that does reading. We take the visual images and convert them into sounds. So if you injure this area (or it doesn't develop when you are very young), you get something called dyslexia. People who have dyslexia have problems that may include seeing letters backwards or have problems understanding what written words mean. SKIN SENSATION If something lands on my left hand, this information will be transmitted to the right side of my brain. It goes to the area of the brain next to the area that deals with movement. The tactile area of the brain deals with physical sensation. Movement and feeling are closely related, so it makes sense that they are next to each other in the brain. Because movement and tactile areas are located close to each other, it is not uncommon for people with a brain injuries to lose both movement and feeling in parts of their body. Remember--tactile information from the left side of the body goes to the right brain, just like movement and vision. FRONTAL LOBES--Planning, Organizing, Controlling The biggest and most advanced part of the brain is the frontal lobe. (It's called the frontal lobe because it's in the front part of brain.) One job of the frontal lobe is planning. You have probably heard of "frontal lobotomies." At the turn of the century, this surgery was done on people who were very violent or who were in a psychiatric hospital because they were very agitated. Doctors used surgery to damage this area of the brain. Following this surgery, people became very passive and less violent. At first, scientists saw this as a great thing. Neurosurgery could stop behavioral problems such as violence. The problem was that the patients stopped doing a lot of other things. They didn't take care of themselves and they stopped many activities of daily living. They basically sat there. In head injury, individuals with frontal lobe impairment seem to lack motivation and have difficulty doing any task that requires multiple steps (e.g., fixing a car or planning a meal). They have problems with planning. The frontal lobe is also involved in organizing. For a lot of activities, we need to do step A, then step B, then step C. We have to do things in order. That's what the frontal lobes help us do. When the frontal lobe is injured, there is a breakdown in the ability to sequence and organize. A common example is people who cook and leave out a step in the sequence. They forget to add an important ingredient or they don't turn the stove off. I've met a lot of patients who've burned or melted a lot of pans. Additionally, the frontal lobes also play a very important role in controlling emotions. Deep in the middle of the brain are sections that control emotions. They're very primitive emotions that deal with hunger, aggression, and sexual drive. These areas send messages to other parts of the brain to DO SOMETHING. If you're mad, hit something or someone. If you're hungry, grab something and eat it. The frontal lobes "manage" emotions. In general, the frontal lobe has a NO or STOP function. If your emotions tell you to punch your boss, it's the frontal lobes that say "STOP or you are going to lose your job." People have often said to me "a little thing will set me off and I'm really mad." The frontal lobes failed to stop or turn off the emotional system. On the other hand, we have talked about how the frontal lobes plan activities. The frontal lobes may fail to plan for some types of emotion. For example, sexual interest involves some level of planning or preparation. Without this planning, there is a lack of sexual interest. A lack of planning can also affect the expression of anger. I've had some family members say "You know, the head injury actually improved him, he's not such a hot-head anymore." If you listen very carefully, you're also going to hear "he's not as motivated anymore." Remember, the frontal lobe plans activities as well as controls emotions. ......to be continue

Fountain Flows: Oh Lord, I don’t want a good spouse…

Fountain Flows: Oh Lord, I don’t want a good spouse…

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DURE'S CORNER: PICTURE OF NIGERIAN UNDER WEAR BOMBER ABDUMUTALLAB...

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PREACHERS OR MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS

PREACHERS OR  MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS

Today, you walk into a new generation church and the preacher tantalizes your mind with mesmerizing words and catchy phrases. Lines from philosophers are used more the scriptures. There is no insight or depth  in the scriptures taught; every line is tailored towards exciting the congregation, meeting their emotional needs and boosting the financial status of the church. The question I dare to ask is do we still preachers or they have been replaced by motivational speakers?!

Churches now employ preachers not because of the level of anointing they carry, but choose by how well they can convince and carry a congregation. The church is run like it’s a business enterprise, ‘HAPPY CONGREGATION, HAPPY CHURCH’ or better still, ‘HAPPY CONGREGATION & THE CHURCH SMILES TO THE BANK’.

For the most part, Christian motivational speakers concentrate on two areas that may overlap. The first is spreading the gospel. This does not mean that they are training for the priesthood. It means that they apply the Bible’s teachings to anything and everything going on in the world today and they speak about it at whatever opportunity arises.

In the past several years, with the country leaning more and more to the right, popular radio and TV shows have sprung up, and Christian motivational speakers are invited to present their views through the media, to a large audience of viewers or listeners. They are not preaching. They are discussing current events or trends from a Biblical or religious perspective. For example, recently there was a man who sued the Federal Government to have the words “under God” removed from the pledge of allegiance. This prompted many discussions in churches and schools as well as on radio and TV. Some of the people who were discussing the religious side of the conflict were Christian motivational speakers known for their ability to articulate a discussion in a clear and concise and “winning” manner.

The other focus for Christian motivational speakers is speaking face to face with groups of people with the sole intent of converting as many of them as possible over to whatever particular group they represent. In order for any particular religious group to survive and prosper into the future it must constantly be growing. That means people must join them, or at the very least, people must be persuaded to donate money or other assets to the group.

Religious figures often employ the services of well-trained Christian motivational speakers to bring people into the fold and increase donations. While the men at the top of these organizations concentrated on weekly preaching and prayer services, they actively trained and sent out speakers to convince the masses of people to join their groups. It is combination of the message offered by the particular leader with the skills and talents of the motivational speakers that will bring people on board. The motivational speakers who perform the best, and who bring in the most donations or new members, are very highly paid for their services.

Where is the love of God in all this? We are having a form of Godliness and denying the power thereof. Him that thinketh he stand should take heed lest he falls, cause these days the love of many are waxing cold. Hold on to the truth. The world awaits your manifestation.

BE A LIGHT TO YOUR WORLD!!!

UNTIE THE ROPE

So, I just finished filming a really good movie called GOOD DEEDS. It’s me like you’ve never seen me before. It comes out in February, brace yourself.   There were a lot of long days on this shoot, so I wanted to take a break.  I decided to do some traveling and since I still have 20 more pounds to lose before I start my next movie, ALEX CROSS, I thought I would go to the Grand Canyon and do some hiking, climbing and so on.  At one point in the climbing, I was over a steep drop and was tied to a safety rope, while a buddy’s safety rope was tied to me. It was my responsibility to help him up, since I was bigger and weighed more.  I told him, “I’ll hold on to you to help you up but if you start to pull me over with you, I’m going to untie this rope.” We had a good laugh about it, but I was serious…

I started thinking about that moment a few days ago. How many times are we tied to a person, people or things that are pulling us down and we won’t untie the rope?  For whatever reason, be it family, friends, society, or just the feeling of being obligated, trapped or that if you don’t, no one else will.  I have watched so many people go over a cliff with a person that they are trying to help up, it’s sad.  YOU MUST UNTIE THE ROPE!!!

This is your life and you are wasting it being tied to someone who is destroying his or her opportunities and yours. If the person that you are trying to help does not know that they are worth being saved, how do you expect them to put any value on you saving them? You’re not worth it to them.  They can’t get it! SO YOU NEED TO! Listen to me, untie the rope and don’t lose yourself trying to hold on to someone who can’t survive on your level. You hear me? Maybe they have gone as high as they can go.  Just because you can survive on that level doesn’t mean that everyone else can. Stop trying to help them, UNTIE THE ROPE! I know you may feel this is cruel, but what is more cruel is dying a death that’s not your own. Letting your destiny go to hell because someone else pulled you there. Are you kidding me? That isn’t God!

Here is what I have learned over the almost 20 years that I have been in this business. Let me tell you, I have seen and worked with some of the most talented people you can imagine and I used to wonder why they never got any higher than they are. You know, the kind of people who always seem to be at the door, but never can go in.  It used to blow my mind until I got a revelation from God.

For many years I was the same way, I would get close and things would fall apart. I couldn’t get any traction, not in my career, not in my personal life and not in the pursuit of happiness. I just couldn’t move forward. Through much prayer and self-discovery, I found out that I used to be, notice I said “USED TO BE,” a self-saboteur. I would find a way to subconsciously destroy every good thing that was in my life and I didn’t even know I was doing it. Most self-sabotaging people don’t know that they are doing it.  I don’t think there is anyone sadder than a person who blames everyone else, but themselves for their situation.   The very revelation that I was causing my own problems was one of the greatest blessings God could have allowed me to see. Once I realized the behavior, I was able to change it. That is why my life is in such a great place right now.  I realized that my very thoughts were keeping me from being successful at everything.  “So, as a man thinketh, so is he.”

Many times a lot of us sabotage subconsciously because of what mamma or daddy said, traumatic childhoods or any number of things that happened growing up that made us feel that we shouldn’t have or that we didn’t deserve it.  I’m here to tell you all, that misinformation was wrong. You do deserve it! You are worthy of it! For me, knowing that Jesus died and rose again makes me know we are all worthy.

Why am I saying this? I’m just tired of people being upset with people who have realized their dreams.  The only difference in someone who is living their dream and someone who can’t get it to come to pass is they don’t feel they deserve it. They don’t feel they are worthy of it.  So many of us have dreams, dreams that the world is waiting for, talents that will help heal and change nations, but we keep destroying our own successes. I know for a fact that if I had not figured this out, you wouldn’t be reading this email right now. Nor would I be a happy soul.

The world is waiting for your gift. Give it to yourself and you will give it to them, but first you have to UNTIE THE ROPE.