will take a look behind the scenes and see the chemistry of stress.
Are you one of the 121 million people worldwide suffering from depression? Research shows that depression is due to an imbalance in neurochemistry. Can the brain be brought back into balance? We will take a look.
Addictions are at epidemic proportions, the newest being sexual and internet addictions. These are forms of emotional hijacking. Why are we driven to certain behaviors? We will look at the neurochemistry involved that reinforces not only these behaviors but many more.
We all have a story to tell and I must tell you mine, how—from childhood, well up into my twenties—I suffered from many different diseases, including a bout with severe depression and a battle with obesity, and how I found healing. Is there a root cause for disease? We will take a look at what I discovered.
Did you know that there is an all-out assault for your mind and that the mind is the site in which the greatest battle to ever take place begins? We will look at the weapons of warfare needed to succeed in this mental combat.
Throughout this book we will look at spiritual applications which will bring the mind and the body into balance. “For in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). He (the Creator God) is the vital connection that leads to complete healing—physical, mental, and spiritual.
1
The Human Brain
Worldwide there are approximately 6.8 billion people, and a quick mathematical calculation tells me that there are 6.8 billion brains—and no two are alike, even twins. My father is totally different from his twin brother. Although they share the same genes, they have different experiences. They perceive and process information differently, which makes their brains unique.
When we look at the human brain, we can truly say as David said in Psalms 139:14: “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” This magnificent structure—only two percent of the body’s total weight—controls our entire being. All of our actions, good or bad, have their origin in the brain.
Our Origins
In 1994, a Time magazine article titled “How Man Began” raised questions about the various theories of our origin and stated that there were many inconsistencies, but the quest to know continues. The article states:
Starting with a Neanderthal skeleton unearthed in Germany in 1856, archaeologists and anthropologists have sweated mightily over excavations in Africa, Europe and Asia, trying to find fossil evidence that will answer the most fundamental questions of our existence: When, where and how did the human race arise? During a 1974 expedition, archaeologists thought they had found a crucial piece of evidence—Lucy, “the missing link between apes and humans,”—and the search continues. (Lemonick & Dorman, 1994)
This book that you hold in your hands is not just a study of the brain and the body, not just information to improve your emotional IQ. No! It’s much more. For we are on a journey to wholeness, with complete restoration in sight, and in order to embrace this future we must have knowledge of our past. So, where did we come from, what was our beginning, and when and how did it happen?
When Jesus walked the earth, He asked one of His disciples: “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew16:15, NIV). I asked the same question: “Jesus, Who do You say I am?” The account of our origins is found in the book of Genesis, in the beginning when He created the heavens and the earth. “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’” (Genesis 1:26), and God tells us how He made us. “Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7, NIV).
God’s breath gave life to a lifeless body, in which the brain, the command center, began to send electrical signals to 100 billion nerve cells, setting into action the functioning of the human brain and body.
We are made in the image of the Eternal God. I don’t know about you, but that just blows me away! Perfection in form, symmetry, and intellect! To have a mind akin to the living God! Imbued with His thoughts! This was no evolutionary process. We are no accidental blob that resulted from a big bang. There were no random atoms that accidently assembled. Only the Divine Being, the Supreme and Eternal God, created the human mind to do what it does.
Straight from the hand of God, Adam and Eve were perfect, but as we all know, something happened along the way, and as a result we are in a terrible mess. The first few chapters of the book of Genesis reveal a perfect world. The last chapter of the book of Revelation shows a restored world. But between these two books, we see chaos, confusion, and devastation. It reads like the evening news broadcast, when the television anchors report violence, crime, and debased passions, and we wonder: have we lost our minds? Our mandate is to have the mind of God. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
Brain Development
Let’s take a short journey through brain development, an experience we all have had. It is indeed a wonderful and miraculous process. Within eighteen days of conception, from just a few cells, we see the beginning of the neural tube which will eventually become the brain and spinal cord. In this process timing is everything. There are critical periods—windows of opportunity for certain events to take place. And if one step fails during these critical periods, it throws off the process; the opportunity is missed and can never take place again.
Examples of missed opportunities are anencephaly and spinal bifida, neural tube defects in which the brain and spinal cord, which should be a continuous unit, fail to close. If this happens, the baby may be born without a brain or have spinal cord abnormalities, known as spinal bifida. The critical period for neural tube closure is within the fourth week of pregnancy. According to the Centers for Disease Control, neural tube defects affect 1 in 1,000 births (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010, August).
Dana and Paul’s baby was unfortunate to be that one in 1,000. The parents were young, newly married, and excited about their life together. Dana received prenatal care, and all was progressing well. However, upon delivery, it was discovered that the baby did not have a skull, and she died shortly after birth. As you can imagine, the couple was devastated, a memory that haunts Dana to this day.
But in the normal developing embryo, we see phenomenal processes taking place. Between the 12th and 20th weeks of gestation, during another critical period something amazing happens. There is an exponential explosion in the amount of cell division. Also during this time, some of the nerve cells in the neural tube begin to migrate, heading for the brain. These nerve cells move toward the outer cortex of the brain as if they were climbing a ladder. They keep inching up until the brain is six layers deep. At this time they have reached the outer region of the brain. They then take on a specific function, a process called differentiation. For example a nerve cell may differentiate into a motor cell that enables me to move my arm, or a visual cell that enables me to see.
Incredibly, the cells know when to go and where to move (Nash, 2002; Norden, 2007b). Each neuron takes its orders and does its job. What an object lesson for us! I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can get a “little” attitude. Just imagine for a second what would happen if some of the nerve cells copped an attitude and decided, “I don’t like that neuron. I don’t want to be next to him; I’m not moving!” Or what would happen if a nerve cell said, “You know, I’m just not feeling it today. I’ll take a rain check”? If this were to happen, we would have birth defects on a scale of epidemic proportions! But this process is out of our control. We have no say so in this matter. God genetically programmed our nerve cells to do a specific job at a specified time.
When
