Scientists Finally Show How Your Thoughts Can Cause Specific Molecular Changes To Your Genes
With evidence growing that training the mind or inducing certain modes of consciousness can have positive health effects, researchers have sought to understand how these practices physically affect the body. A new study by researchers in Wisconsin, Spain, and France reports the first evidence of specific molecular changes in the body following a period of intensive mindfulness practice.
The study investigated the effects of a day of intensive mindfulness practice in a group of experienced meditators, compared to a group of untrained control subjects who engaged in quiet non-meditative activities. After eight hours of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice,” says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs,” says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted.
The study was published in the Journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
Mindfulness-based trainings have shown beneficial effects on inflammatory disorders in prior clinical studies and are endorsed by the American Heart Association as a preventative intervention. The new results provide a possible biological mechanism for therapeutic effects.
Gene Activity Can Change According To Perception
According to Dr. Bruce Lipton, gene activity can change on a daily basis. If the perception in your mind is reflected in the chemistry of your body, and if your nervous system reads and interprets the environment and then controls the blood’s chemistry, then you can literally change the fate of your cells by altering your thoughts.
In fact, Dr. Lipton’s research illustrates that by changing your perception, your mind can alter the activity of your genes and create over thirty thousand variations of products from each gene. He gives more detail by saying that the gene programs are contained within the nucleus of the cell, and you can rewrite those genetic programs through changing your blood chemistry.
In the simplest terms, this means that we need to change the way we think if we are to heal cancer. “The function of the mind is to create coherence between our beliefs and the reality we experience,” Dr. Lipton said. “What that means is that your mind will adjust the body’s biology and behavior to fit with your beliefs. If you’ve been told you’ll die in six months and your mind believes it, you most likely will die in six months. That’s called the nocebo effect, the result of a negative thought, which is the opposite of the placebo effect, where healing is mediated by a positive thought.”
That dynamic points to a three-party system: there’s the part of you that swears it doesn’t want to die (the conscious mind), trumped by the part that believes you will (the doctor’s prognosis mediated by the subconscious mind), which then throws into gear the chemical reaction (mediated by the brain’s chemistry) to make sure the body conforms to the dominant belief. (Neuroscience has recognized that the subconscious controls 95 percent of our lives.)
Now what about the part that doesn’t want to die–the conscious mind? Isn’t it impacting the body’s chemistry as well? Dr. Lipton said that it comes down to how the subconscious mind, which contains our deepest beliefs, has been programmed. It is these beliefs that ultimately cast the deciding vote.
“It’s a complex situation,” said Dr. Lipton. People have been programmed to believe that they’re victims and that they have no control. We’re programmed from the start with our mother and father’s beliefs. So, for instance, when we got sick, we were told by our parents that we had to go to the doctor because the doctor is the authority concerning our health. We all got the message throughout childhood that doctors were the authority on health and that we were victims of bodily forces beyond our ability to control. The joke, however, is that people often get better while on the way to the doctor. That’s when the innate ability for self-healing kicks in, another example of the placebo effect.
Mindfulness Practice Specifically Affects Regulatory Pathways
The results of Davidson’s study show a down-regulation of genes that have been implicated in inflammation. The affected genes include the pro-inflammatory genes RIPK2 and COX2 as well as several histone deacetylase (HDAC) genes, which regulate the activity of other genes epigenetically by removing a type of chemical tag. What’s more, the extent to which some of those genes were downregulated was associated with faster cortisol recovery to a social stress test involving an impromptu speech and tasks requiring mental calculations performed in front of an audience and video camera.
Biologists have suspected for years that some kind of epigenetic inheritance occurs at the cellular level. The different kinds of cells in our bodies provide an example. Skin cells and brain cells have different forms and functions, despite having exactly the same DNA. There must be mechanisms–other than DNA–that make sure skin cells stay skin cells when they divide.
Perhaps surprisingly, the researchers say, there was no difference in the tested genes between the two groups of people at the start of the study. The observed effects were seen only in the meditators following mindfulness practice. In addition, several other DNA-modifying genes showed no differences between groups, suggesting that the mindfulness practice specifically affected certain regulatory pathways.
The key result is that meditators experienced genetic changes following mindfulness practice that were not seen in the non-meditating group after other quiet activities — an outcome providing proof of principle that mindfulness practice can lead to epigenetic alterations of the genome.
Previous studies in rodents and in people have shown dynamic epigenetic responses to physical stimuli such as stress, diet, or exercise within just a few hours.
“Our genes are quite dynamic in their expression and these results suggest that the calmness of our mind can actually have a potential influence on their expression,” Davidson says.
“The regulation of HDACs and inflammatory pathways may represent some of the mechanisms underlying the therapeutic potential of mindfulness-based interventions,” Kaliman says. “Our findings set the foundation for future studies to further assess meditation strategies for the treatment of chronic inflammatory conditions.”
Subconscious Beliefs Are Key
Too many positive thinkers know that thinking good thoughts–and reciting affirmations for hours on end–doesn’t always bring about the results that feel-good books promise.
Dr. Lipton didn’t argue this point, because positive thoughts come from the conscious mind, while contradictory negative thoughts are usually programmed in the more powerful subconscious mind.
“The major problem is that people are aware of their conscious beliefs and behaviors, but not of subconscious beliefs and behaviors. Most people don’t even acknowledge that their subconscious mind is at play, when the fact is that the subconscious mind is a million times more powerful than the conscious mind and that we operate 95 to 99 percent of our lives from subconscious programs.
“Your subconscious beliefs are working either for you or against you, but the truth is that you are not controlling your life, because your subconscious mind supersedes all conscious control. So when you are trying to heal from a conscious level–citing affirmations and telling yourself you’re healthy–there may be an invisible subconscious program that’s sabotaging you.”
The power of the subconscious mind is elegantly revealed in people expressing multiple personalities. While occupying the mind-set of one personality, the individual may be severely allergic to strawberries. Then, in experiencing the mind-set of another personality, he or she eats them without consequence.
The new science of epigenetics promises that every person on the planet has the opportunity to become who they really are, complete with unimaginable power and the ability to operate from, and go for, the highest possibilities, including healing our bodies and our culture and living in peace.
Article sources:
wisc.edu
brucelipton.com
ts-si.org
Michael Forrester is a spiritual counselor and is a practicing motivational speaker for corporations in Japan, Canada and the United States.
Source: preventdisease.com
Great article! Any insight on how to start reprogramming the subconcious?
Try Emotional Freedom Technique Tapping (EFT Tapping). It combines eastern and western medicine; basically you meditate on a limiting belief or trauma and tap on predetermined pressure points on your body, resetting your nervous system and amygdala to no longer feel stress about certain thoughts. I can personally attest to its power and try to spread the word to everybody I know!! I recommend getting a book or two about it, and you can self-administer the practice.
J.J. I was part of an MRI/Meditation study at Harvard-Mass General Hospital. The mantra referred to in the below article is one we used. Very powerful technology for ‘hacking the mainframe”.
http://breakingmuscle.com/yoga/kirtan-kriya-yoga-meditation-reduces-inflammation-and-stress
The subconscious is really just a set of programs, habits of thought, a belief is just a thought you keep thinking, it’s a mindfulness thing, you need to be aware in the moment the limiting belief arises, and stay with it, challenge it, question it, in order to move past it.
Questioning its basis in reality, the effects on how that thought makes you feel, who you’d be without the thought, what are the opposite thoughts, what type of mindset is bringing about the thought, ie. growth vs fixed.
You don’t have to think about driving a car, it’s subconscious, you still have the power to be mindful that you don’t always use your indicator lights, and thus bring about a new habit that must be focused on in order to always use the indicator light, until it becomes habit.
Yes and other research studies such as those involving “biofeedback” are showing similar results (UNT in Denton, TX is one university campus that investigates biofeedback through research).
First, I am curious about your background in this discipline.
Secondly, I have introduced a simple terminology for n=my kids hoping they will share and work with it on their own kids. It is “self-talk. ” Self talk is that noise we hear below the din or normal daily life.
The point being that if and when you can catch yourself talking to yourself you then have the ability to question if what you are saying to yourself is true or not. Very difficult but along the lines of meditation I would say.
I was pointing a little deeper than self talk, more to repressed feelings, automatic skills, subliminal perceptions, thoughts, habits, and automatic reactions, which is Freud, Jung. however I should have mentioned it, shad helmstetter has been writing about the topic since ’90, most recently and much more popular is Eckart tolle.
Bill you’d be very interested in Marva Collins, her ideas are referenced quite frequently in the Harvard positive psychology course, she is very focused on helping build a solid foundation for children, I’ve integrated many of her ideas into raising my son.
Your feelings are your indicators of what is going on in your subconscious. They are the vibrations that you are putting out at any given moment. These vibrations create your reality experience. Meditation breaks the patterns of subconscious babble and allows you to connect to the higher, lighter vibrations of peace, joy, contentment, sweet solitude and beyond.
Try John Hagelin for TM training for orderly brain functions at http://www.hagelin.org/
Good suggestion. For people interested in getting the most out of meditation, what’s important, in my opinion, is to understand the distinction between the process of “transcending,” as occurs effortlessly during TM practice, and the various other approaches. Here’s a link that explains transcending: http://meditationasheville.blogspot.com/2008/06/transcending-4th-state-of-consciousness.html
The emergent paradigm in meditation research is that the different meditation practices do not all produce the same results. Mindfulness, concentration and contemplation have been found to not have the same effects as one another. Peer-reviewed research also shows that these practices, while beneficial, do not have the same range of benefits as the TM technique: http://meditationasheville.blogspot.com/p/how-tm-compares.html
Thank you for the weblink!!
Yup—rewire the connections between your prefrontal cortex and your limbic system.
Depending on how well you walk, all roads can lead to Rome, but Vipassana meditation is the most “scientific” method I have come across. I believe EFT probably works on the same principle (retraining your stress response by intentionally triggering it and meeting the experience calmly), and while I know EFT helps some people, I have not heard of anybody who got enlightened practicing it, whereas Vipassana has produced many buddhas.
Talk therapy and other techniques can be useful for building self-awareness and intention, but it does not do the groundwork of subconscious reprogramming. That you have to do moment by moment, and meditation is the most cut-and-dried method I know of.
Wouldn’t it be better to allow subconscious develop normally during the first 6 years of life? During the first 3 the warp of counscious ( subconscious) is being traced, the next 3 allow for repair. Like with a cloth, you cannot see the warp, just the fabric, but the quality and strengths of it stays in the integrity of the warp. A ”mind-warping” process needs a special prepared environment and freedom to develop…See: Maria Montessori- The Absorbent Mind
Along with those mentioned below, another one is utilizing “hemisync,” “holosync,” and other similar nomenclatures which refer to inducing the brain to go into a specific wavelength (ie.: delta, theta, etc.) for various purposes including reprogramming the subconscious to move beyond negative programming. Extensive research has taken place for war veterans returning home who experienced events that were extreme shocks to one’s mental and/or emotional statesAnother avenue is a website: http://www.happify.com that provides both free and paid for exercises that are simple, quick, and fun to do that also assist an individual to eliminate negative subconscious or brain chatter thoughts. More correctly stated, happify’s exercises do not necessarily eliminate negative thoughts, but rather provide a path that naturally allows a shift in one’s focus that generates positive thoughts. There is one area I am still researching that I am not sure if it can be mended by these same techniques and that area deals with thoughts that come from “conditioning,” as conditioning is a response arrising more along the autonomic nervous center. I do tend to believe that this form of negative subconscious brain chatter can also be mended by the various techniques; but it is mostly my own belief (which if our thoughts create our reality – then for me it is a “YES” but not necessarily for all).
Dr. Shad Helmstetter’s Self-Talk – get the Lifetime Library of Self-Talk!
Thank you for bringing the focus back.The most effective way to first FIND your subconscious issues is to learn about shadow (Jung), to identify the reactive parts of yourself. Because by definition, if you know about it, it’s conscious. It is a difficult thing to trap and work with the subconscious. Mondo Zen (www.mondozen.org) is the best tool I’ve found, along with Integral Spirituality (Ken Wilber). Good luck!
Wouldn’t it be better to allow subconscoius develop normally during the first 6 years of life? During the first 3 the warp of counscious ( subconscious) is being traced, the next 3 allow for repair. Like with a cloth, you cannot see the warp, just the fabric, but the quality and strengths of it stays in the integrity of the warp. A ”mind-warping” process needs a special prepared environment and freedom to develop…See: Maria Montessori- The Absorbent Mind
Go to http://catherinecollautt.com/blog/marie-forleo-interview/ to watch an interview of Catherine Collautt, PhD. She’ll make it perfectly clear. Best wishes.
You could read Bruce Lipton’s book “The Biology of “Belief”. At the back
he explains that a technique called “PSYCH-K” developed by Rob Williams
works very well to tap into your subconscious and re-programme it to
what YOU want. You can Google it
The ticking clock method http://www.articlesbase.com/goal-setting-articles/mind-power-techniques-talking-directly-to-the-subconscious-mind-6001873.html
J. J. That is an easy one. Please contact me only if you are serious in your request and prepared to follow through.
Seems logical this – on a cellular level. All depends on all and details not coherent will do no good.
I like this article because it gets people talking about what they think and feel about what is true and possible. The more we share ideas–both rational and idealistic– the more we can truly learn and discover. I think we are all helping each other in this way. Here are my responses to this article:
I like how this article talks about the importance of the “subconscious,” which I prefer to call the “unconscious.” I recommend checking out a type of music therapy called the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music that was developed in the 70’s. I have been studying this method and having personal sessions as a way to explore my unconscious and personal imagery. The basic premise is going into a relaxed state of consciousness while listening to classical music programs designed for imagery and exploration, and chosen to fit the specific needs of the traveler in that moment. The guide or therapist who is trained, assists the traveler in interacting with their imagery (thoughts, feelings, images, etc.) as they experience the music. The material is then processed after the music program has ended through drawing mandalas (non-verbal) or journaling or discussion. The material is processed and integrated before the next session. I think it is great to explore this way, and it helps me to connect to my unconscious beliefs and inner world. Making contact with the inner world (through dreams, meditation, art, Guided Imagery and Music, etc.) is the best way to find out what is there, to benefit from this wealth of material, and to possibly find out how the inner world is manifesting in the outer world. The best part is that I never know, and I am often surprised and uplifted by the messages I find. Connecting to my unconscious through dreams and GIM has been one of the most exciting processes of my life!
On a side note, if we are mostly made of bacteria, and bacteria has been shown to be empathetic (in the documentary “I Am”), wouldn’t that mean that our bodies (or the bacteria that makes them up) would naturally resonate empathetically with our dominant vibrations — whether those are conscious or unconscious? This is just a thought and theory I came up with the other day.
Leah – I find your last topic very interesting. Thank you for sharing it. Another avenue of better healthy living is accomplished through the utilization of water and its ability to have memory. That is what holistic medicine is based upon. It is also what multi million and billion dollar corporations have been focusing on during the past ten to twenty years as the implementation of “healthy” water eliminates the problems of BLACK MOLD that shows up quite commonly these days in various refrigerant and other cooling machines. But my most recent and maybe favorite one deals with one’s “BREATH.” My massage therapist back on Maui trained my body to respond to my breath and it is simply amazaing how I can be laying down and within just a few minutes through the utilization of my “breath” I can adjust my whole back while liing there, inhaling and exhaling!! Moreover I recently discovered further information on the BREATH which completely excited me: SCIENCE OF BREATH by Yogi Ramacharaka; 1905; Yogi Publication Society; ISBN 0-911662-00-6. Another book is just as great but I am not certain if I remember the title correctly, but I think it is: INTERNAL BREATHING EXERCISES.
Thank you for sharing, Jan! I have been wanting to find more information on breath! I will look for these books. I know the breath is an amazing thing! Wow! This topic provides so many avenues for discussion! I hadn’t thought about water in this way for some time, either.
I can’t help but mention a book I found called “behaving as if the God in all things mattered,” or something like that. I only read part of it during a training I attended, but it was about a woman who connected to the god spirit/spirit of nature in her garden. It was very interesting.