PRACTICAL SCIENCE

Hey Stoics. We Have 3 Brains. Let’s Use ‘m!

Only when we align our three brains can we survive and thrive

Stoics are good at explaining the world. Using our rational brains to the full to create an ethical world in which we understand stuff and start to act upon that knowledge. Mighty useful. And very necessary.

But some things just cannot be grasped fully with our heads. We have to flow like rivers between mind, heart, and gut to understand life completely.

For about 45 years, I’ve been an ignorant being. Just rational. And burning out in the process. Luckily, my life changed. And now, 10 years later, I know how to combine all my neurons. How to unleash the natural power of my body for full productivity and full enjoyment. And live a healthy, balanced, and mighty adventurous life.

And upon becoming an expert on complexity theory, systemic design, and nature’s laws, I learned how to deal with the complexity of my own personal life as well. Because, oh my, how complex can we make it…

Since the 1970s, our scientific insights are changing, you know. And with the scientific realization that everything is connected, comes a whole bunch of insights that can serve us well.

It is proven now. We have brains in our head, in our heart, and in our gut. And only when we learn how to align those three brains in our decision making, will we survive as a human being. And learn how to thrive.

Our Rational Brain

The brain in our head is what our whole Western society is based on. Science knows a lot about this rational brain. René Descartes shaped our thoughts about it from the 17th century onward.

“Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.” — René Descartes.

We have 100 billion neurons in our brain, so we’d better use them wisely. But to think that we are only a brain with rational thought is exactly where it went wrong. Bankers, economists, and marketers say we are Homo Economicus. And as a result, we built all of our human systems, like economies, societies, and laws on scarcity and control.

We, humans, want to control the world. We, humans, think reductionist thoughts. We, humans, want to quantify everything. We say, if you cannot measure it, it doesn’t exist.

Well, think again!

Can we quantity love?

Can we quantify health?

Can we quantify life?

Heart-Brain

In science, the real breakthrough findings come about when seemingly separate fields of science combine their research. It’s logical. When everything is connected on this planet, as Stephen Hawking describes in the theory of everything, we need to combine different fields of science to find the gems of knowledge.

And, we need to embody them to grasp them fully. We have to dance our science, feel all wisdom in our veins to get to the one and only truth that we are humans on a planet, with natural laws to govern us.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, a group of cardiologists joined forces with a group of neurophysiologists and neuroanatomists to explore areas of mutual interest. And that’s when the beginning of the new discipline now called neurocardiology started.

The group of scientists came to the conclusion that the heart is a complex neural network that can be characterized as a brain. In common language, it is also called the heart-brain. Formally it’s called our intrinsic cardiac nervous system. Our heart houses 40,000 neurons.

Imagine, a thinking heart. What does your heart think? Put both feet firmly on the floor, put a finger in the region of your heart, and relax. No thinking. No worrying how it looks. Just feeling. What wisdom does your heart want to share with you?

You can ask your heart questions and you’ll feel the answer in your body. Closed questions (yes or no answer) will be most simple as a start. Later, you’ll learn how to interpret your body reactions, like appearing aches or tinglings. And if you’re a writer, you can start with the prompt: my heart tells me…

Okay, she’s not as big as our head brain. But nevertheless, she is mighty valuable for our full wisdom. My own experiential research has taught me that when I align my head-brain with my heart-brain, wonderful things start to happen. Serendipity. Synchronicity. Or whatever you call it.

• I can deal much better with uncertainty and anxiety. Not an unimportant characteristic when we have to deal with a virus wrecking our lives as we know it
• I am super-productive without to-do-lists because my focus is sharp and I can easily switch tasks
• I can take the next steps towards changing my life for the better because I can see very clearly what is really important to me. I learned how to overcome thought-addictions and stupid cravings
• And by making my life simple and living with little stuff, I have loads of time and space in my life for love and connection. Aligning my head with my heart helped me find the love of my life.

Gut-Brain

The third brain in your body is your gut-brain. A very important factor in your body because the gut is also the center of your immune system. Your gut is called the third brain because there is a direct link between your gut and your brain. It’s called gut-brain-axis.

And when there’s an axis, energy needs to flow along it. From head to gut. From gut to head. Imagine to be a river, my friends, and get the energy flowing…

One of the first physiologists to do a lot of research into the gut-brain function was Pavlov. You might remember him from your marketing classes. Well, at least I do. Pavlov proved that animals (and also people) are wired to salivate not only while eating food but also in anticipation of getting food.

So, patterns of your past will trigger a reaction in the future. That’s brain-activity, alright!

Sometimes, a saying is as wise as science and quantitative proof. We all know the saying that we have a gut-instinct or gut-feeling. Well, that’s another word for intuition.

In 2016, a team of psychological scientists published their proof of the existence of intuition in Psychological Science. Team member Pearson explains:

“Many people use the phrase ‘intuition’ to describe a sensation or feeling they have when making decisions, but these are only descriptions, they don’t provide strong evidence that we can use unconscious information in our brain or body to guide our behavior. This is the first time we have been able to show strong evidence that something like intuition does actually exist.” — Psychological Science

And to add some of my own experiential findings to it: intuition is located in a place beyond thought and beyond emotion. I really feel that the gut, full of my friends, the symbiotic bacteria, is a fine place for it to be located.

My role model and biology scientist, Lynn Margulis, explains very clearly that the bacteria in our guts have a very useful function. We are living in symbiosis with the 2 kg of microbes in our gut and that means we are mutually dependent upon each other.

“There are 10 times the number of microbial cells in the human gut than in the whole human body, totaling roughly 100 trillion microbes representing as many as 5,000 different species and weighing approximately 2 kilograms.” — US National Library of Medicine.

And please, don’t mix up bacteria and viruses.

To make it simple, bacteria can be divided into two groups. The pathogens are often obligate parasites and are unable to produce their own energy or synthesize proteins. They are the takers without giving back. But many other bacteria are our symbiotic friends who are adding lots of value to our lives.

Viruses on the other hand are all obligate parasites. They are only taking our energy and proteins and never giving anything back to the bodies of their hosts.

How to Use Our 3 Brains?

So, what does it mean to balance our three brains? How do we align them?

“As soon as we start to feel with our heads. And think with our hearts. Our hands will automatically do the right things.”

— Engbert Breuker, Dutch regenerative change maker

To all rational thinkers I want to say, please learn to use your body for wisdom. We have gotten a body for a reason. It is our #1 tool for a good life on this planet.

Here are 3 practical ways to balance our brains:

Head-Brain

For most of us, our head-brain is dominant. We are taught in our schools to think thoughts and forget about our bodies. Some people even limit their brain-use to the left half. The quantifying, analyzing, list-making brain.

And I want to say to them, learn to switch brain halves. Learn how to deal with the right side of complexity and chaos. Learn how to unleash the non-linear ways of creativity that unfold from this half of our brain. Creative endeavors such as painting, dancing, music-making will help here. Find your own flavor of creativity. Be your own muse.

And learn how to calm your thinking with meditation. Perhaps an app will do. I don’t have experience with meditation apps. I do mean use your breath, feel your body, and learn to focus. Many different techniques can do the trick. Find yours.

Heart-Brain

Training the heart-brain will involve a lot of embodying. Dance. Be in nature. Use all your senses to the max.

Train for instance by taking silent walks in nature. Open all of your senses and be sure to minimize your sight (normally your dominant sense) when you stand still or go sit on a tree trunk. You want to train the other four. Smell. Taste. Touch. Hear.

Meditation and creativity will strengthen your heart-brain as well. Personally, I have progressed a lot by doing long deep-breath meditations, such as Quantum Light Breath or Wim Hof Method. To me, it felt like it flushed all the bullsh*t out of me. And a cleansed body open to personal health and the world was what remained. But there will be many other ways to achieve it.

Just start somewhere. Experiment and find out what works for you.

Gut-Brain

Your gut-brain consists of an estimated 500–1,000 different kinds of bacteria. Your microbiome. And the 2 kg have to remain fed. The health of your gut-brain is dependent on diversity and is very important for your immune system.

One method of feeding your gut is eating diverse foods and drinking enough water. If you don’t like just cold water. Try tea without tea. Just hot water. My body needs warm foods (soup is my favorite) and warm drinks. Everybody is different. Find out what works for you.

Using healthy vegetables that belong to the season in your country. Our bodies are made for a certain place on this earth. And they are connected to a certain cycle in time (season). So feed her accordingly.

Another piece of advice is to add fermented foods to your diet. Miso soup, yogurt, sauerkraut, or kimchi. There are many varieties of fermented foods and they all contain healthy microbes for your gut.

Happy balancing your 3 brains! And happy embodying your life. It’s all we have, my friends. Life is all there is…

Thank you, Mike, for adding your wise energy to my words.

If you want to connect, you can find me somewhere on this beautiful planet. My hands in the soil and my gaze focused on the stars. Or you can find me via Linktree.

© Désirée Driesenaar