Software Update for Your Brain

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Hey, are you ready to change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule.

You have to change your mind first.

And my friend, there's a place where the neuroscience of how your mind works smashes together with faith,

and everything starts to make sense. Are you ready to change your life?

Well, this is the place, Self Brain Surgery School.

I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and this is where we go deep into how we're wired.

Take control of our thinking and find real hope.

This is where we learn to become healthier, feel better, and be happier.

This is where we leave the past behind and transform our minds.

This is where we start today. Are you ready?

This is your podcast. This is your place. This is your time, my friend. Let's get after it.

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Good morning, my friend. I hope you're doing well.

Dr. Lee Warren here with you on the Self Brain Surgery podcast.

We are here to change our minds and change our lives.

I hope that you had a great weekend and we are about to get after it today

on a little bit of Mind Change Monday.

Okay, lots of us here, we've been taught in school our whole life

that our bodies and our lives and our baselines

are all determined by the genetic material that we got from our mom and dad, right?

But how you are is pretty fixed, pretty limited to your genes.

You can't rise above it. You're stuck with your genetic material

and all that stuff, what if that wasn't true?

What if it turns out that your genes are only a very small part of the story of your life?

And what if it turned out that some of the things that we blame on our genetics don't.

Actually turn out to be the fault of our genetics, or at least not 100% unchangeable and immutable

because of our genetics, like we always thought?

What if that turns out to be true? Well guess what?

It does turn out to be true. It turns out, if you're old enough to remember the Human Genome Project in the 1990s, everybody

was so excited because they were learning how to sort of decode DNA and you could map

out the whole genome of a species.

And they got after the Human Genome Project and they expected to find about 120,000 genes.

The biologists, all the smart people, thought that it would take around 120,000 genes to

code for all the 100,000 proteins that the human body makes and the different ways that

that they're combined to create you,

to create a person with all its complexities and intricacies and wonder.

I thought it would take about 120,000 genes, but what was interesting is it turned out

that there's not 120,000 genes in the human genome.

There's 23,688 genes. There's not a fraction of enough genetic material

to directly code for everything that you are.

Every protein required to turn into who you are.

And so what they realized as they were going through is it's not a question of how many genes you have,

it's a question of what parts of each of those genes are turned on and turned off

in order to combine in different ways to create the proteins that make somebody happen.

So then it wasn't actually just that your genes code for who you are, it's how those

genes are switched on and switched off and what happens to them in the context of their

environment that turns out to be the important thing.

The huge sort of pile of genes that they thought they were going to find turned out to be about,

a fifth of what they expected.

And so what they realized is they needed to shift the project, not from just mapping out

off the genome, but from trying to figure out

what it is that controls that dance of assembling all these different proteins to turn into organs

and turn into bones and turn into thoughts and feelings and memories and reproductive organs

and all those things that turn into a human being.

So they realized as they went along, it's not about how many genes you have,

it's how they work together in the context of an organism, this state of systemic cooperation where every part knows,

where every other part, what every other part is doing.

So every atom, molecule, cell, and tissue in your body is being controlled and driven by a complex interplay,

of switching on and switching off genes.

And that, my friend, is how you turn somebody from a pile of carbon into the person

that's listening to this podcast right now.

So the central dogma of biology for all those years was that whatever happens in your genes is what you are

and you can't really control it.

And now we know that the genes are actually controlled by your thoughts, feelings, emotions, experiences,

and all those things.

And your baseline that you're set for by your parents is only a small part of the story.

And so no longer do we have the ability to say, I'm sorry, that's just how I am.

Because guess what? You can change how you are.

The field of neurobiology is now understanding, so we have this whole complex ability that

our brains and our minds can control how our genes are switched on and switched off.

And I've given you the example before. This is fascinating to me, but there's a study done in mice where they exposed these

male mice to the smell of cherry blossoms, which apparently is a really powerful smell for mice.

And as soon as they could see that the mice are reacting to the smell, they would shock

them, to give the mice a painful stimulus in response to the smell of cherry blossoms.

And before long, of course, the mice would begin to react with fear when they smelled

cherry blossoms because they knew they were about to get shocked, right?

So we taught that the researchers taught those mice that cherry blossoms produce something painful.

Well, then they discovered that the offspring of those mice, down to four generations, would,

exhibit the same fear response in the smell of cherry blossom, even when they weren't shocked.

So they would separate the offspring from the parents and expose them to the smell and

they saw the physiological consequences of being afraid in the offspring, even though

they hadn't been around their parents and even though they hadn't had a painful stimulus

in response to the smell.

And so what they learned then is that you can inherit some of the things that you're

afraid of, and by extension, some of the other things that you have emotional reactions to

to from your parents.

And then they found that there were gene differences in the sperm cells of the mice that had been shocked

compared to control mice that had not been and that those gene changes, those expressions

of genetic material in the males that had been shocked were passed on and were found in the same cells

in the offspring down to the fourth generation.

And the Bible talks about how the Lord punishes the third and fourth generation for the father's sins.

He's not saying that if your dad stole something, he's gonna punish you.

What he's saying is, if your dad's life influences your life for three or four generations genetically.

That that bad decisions or bad experiences or harmful things that happen to your parents get passed on to you in a way to sort

Of protect you if you think about it that way, so you're sort of afraid of some of the things

They were afraid of but that turns out to be in our society sometimes really harmful, right?

You're afraid of things that you don't understand you back away from things you experience things and negatively,

Because your parents did and you think that's just how you are. You're just fated to be that way

you're stuck with that behavior, but the bottom line in the research was that they could train

those mice, the second, third, and fourth generation, not to be afraid.

They could desensitize them to that smell over time, and the genetic changes would go away.

This same research has been borne out in looking at Holocaust survivors from World War II.

They have cortisol and stress response differences in their genetic material down to three and

four generations, so that grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Holocaust survivors

Handle stress differently than somebody whose grandparents were not exposed to those things and they saw the same thing in looking at Vietnam

PTSD and prisoner of war patients their,

Offspring and grandchildren and great-grandchildren handle things differently than people that have not experienced those things,

so your genetic expression those 23,000 genes that you have are highly influenced not just by your genetics by your baseline from what you got from mom and dad but by

experiences, thoughts, behaviors, patterns, memories, and interactions with other people.

That's amazing, right? So this doctrine that you were taught in school that you're sort of stuck with your genetics,

turns out not to be true.

Now, why does that matter to us? Because it's Mind Change Monday, okay?

You can literally change your brain by changing how you think.

We talked last week about the fact that the hippocampus and other areas change their volume.

You grow your brain differently in response to the things that you think about.

When people did research on mindfulness meditation practitioners, they found that 30 days of

directed mental force in a particular area can literally change the volume of certain

areas of your brain over 20%.

You literally can change the structure of your brain by changing the things that you

choose to think about.

Why is that important? Because as we ponder our lives, we create synapses all the time that basically route

thinking and automate it to make it either a more baseline way of thinking or a more.

Less baseline way of thinking and this is like a highway Let's say there's a road in your town that goes out to the outer

outskirts of your city and it's not very highly traveled and then somebody some developer buys some land and decides to build a neighborhood in a

Shopping center out at the end of that road and becomes a popular area and before long there's a lot more traffic on that road,

Then the city developers are gonna say wait a minute that roads not big enough to handle all this traffic

Let's go widen that road, right?

They're gonna divert resources to cut down trees and widen a highway because it's getting more traffic,

And it's gonna make it easier for people to travel on that road, right?

It's gonna get more efficient for traffic to flow into that new area because the road is wider

That's exactly what you do with synapses in your brain You automate things eat the things you think about more

Become wider and more deeply ingrained and more and more automated and before long you've got a superhighway

As one of my listeners recently wrote in said I'm on a trauma superhighway I don't even know how to get off of after she lost a child,

Shout out to you Dana for that great mental picture. It's exactly right you create,

synapses and you automate them and you widen them and you ingrain them and you make them deeper and deeper and deeper like ruts on a

Trail that before long you can't even get out of and you don't even know how they got there and you think you're just stuck

Feeling and thinking that way but the fact is you've created a mental pathway,

That turned into something in your brain that's real and that turns into proteins that you express and that turns into genes that you turn on

And off and that turns on turns into what your children inherit is Their way of looking at and feeling the world at their baseline.

But they're not stuck with that and you're not either Isn't this fascinating it turns out to be true Dawson Church's amazing book genie in your genes the genie in your genes,

It's not a Christian book, it's a neurobiology book, but it's exactly right.

He says, we take facts and experiences and assign meaning to them,

and the meaning we assign mentally, emotionally, and spiritually is often as important

to genetic activation as the facts themselves.

We're discovering that our genes dance with our awareness. Thoughts and feelings, church says,

turn sets of genes off and on in complex relationships, science is discovering that while we may have a fixed set of genes in our chromosomes, which

of those genes is active has a great deal to do with our subjective experiences and how we process them.

Isn't this fascinating? Now let me give you a couple thoughts from scripture.

So, Psalm 139 is this long passage about how we think and how remarkable we are.

And David says, You have searched me, O Lord, and You know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise, You perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down.

You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, Lord, You know it completely.

You hem me in behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Friend, it's a wonderful and lofty understanding that your brain is so incredibly created that,

you can literally think about something and change the structure of your brain.

Do you know what your brain is?

Your brain is the most powerful supercomputer in the world, but it's the only computer in,

the world where the hardware can be upgraded by the software.

What does that mean? So you put your phone on the bed stand at night and you plug it in,

and overnight there's a software update frequently, right?

They keep improving the software that the designers and developers from Apple or Google

or whoever makes your phone, they keep improving the software.

Well, eventually what happens?

The software gets so good and so powerful that it makes the hardware out of date, right?

It sort of invalidates the hardware and eventually your phone starts slowing down,

it gets hot, the battery doesn't last as long because it can't keep up with the software

that the developers have improved and eventually you have to upgrade your hardware right you got to go down to the store and get a new phone because the

The new phone will be able to handle the software.

That it's that it needs to run. We had a friend in Pittsburgh when I was a resident

I had a buddy named Mick who worked for Intel.

And his job Was to develop new Software that the current generation of computers couldn't run they literally have a division inside their company,

That's in in charge of making software that will create a market for new hardware,

So they literally were like you guys go write some software That'll be so great that the current computers can't run it. So people have to go out and buy a new computer.

That's frustrating but it's true So with with cell phones and with computers,

The software cannot upgrade the hardware and eventually the human has to go out and buy new hardware to run the software

Well in your brain, it's not that way You can think about something so much that your brain gets bigger,

So that the hardware gets better able to handle the things you need to think and feel and do,

Your software can upgrade your hardware.

That's too lofty for you to understand. It's too lofty for me to understand.

That's why David, when he ponders the incredible human bodies,

his such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It's too lofty for me to attain.

I can't get it. I can't even imagine it. I'm beyond my own genes even.

You've created this system that's even bigger and more powerful than the incredible DNA in my cells, God.

How incredible is that? He says in 13, for you created my inmost being,

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Friend, you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

And you know what else the Proverbs says, Proverbs 23 says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

So the way that you think is how you are. When you think about things,

It changes the structure of your body.

Susie Larson said it like this, what happens in your soul happens in your cells.

And we know now from lots of studies that the more stress you're under,

The more you worry, the more anxious you are.

More cardiovascular disease you get the more osteoporosis you get the more gastric distress you get you your body,

Response to your brain and it's not a magic trick,

It's that you change the things the chemicals that your brain makes you change the synapses in your brain you turn on and off genes

That code for the way your body handles stress and before you know it you're wrecking your body,

by You're thinking and that's my friend that my friend is why Romans 12 says I appeal to you

Therefore by the mercies of God to present your body as a living sacrifice

Holy and acceptable to God which is your reasonable?

Essential act of worship Romans 12 1 says in the voice translation,

The English Standard Version says it's your spiritual worship

You can worship your God by saying I am going to change the way I think I'm gonna present my mind,

Not just my body. Not just my muscles. Not just my sexuality. Not just my,

Service my ability to work I'm gonna present my every thought to my God is a living sacrifice because I know that what I think about turns into how my

Body is turns into how my children.

Behave at their baseline turns into my how my grandchildren handle stress and what more could I do?

How much better can I serve my God and my fellow man? What better story can I tell than being willing

to stop blaming my genetics on everything and start being responsible for the things between my ears?

That is why David said in Psalm 1914, "'May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

"'be pleasing to you, O God, my rock and my redeemer.'" Not just the things you say, not just the things you do,

with the meditation of your heart. Remember I told you.

30 days of directed mindfulness meditation can change the physical size of your hippocampus,

which is the part of your brain involved in emotional regulation. So if you say, gosh,

I'm so tired of being stressed out all the time. I'm so tired of being triggered and set off by

everything that happens around me in the world. What could you do about it? Pray more, worry less,

let God handle the rest, spend more time meditating and say, God, help me get my brain under control

Because I know that's how I'm gonna get my brain more resilient get my thinking under control

So I can grow my brain to help me become more emotionally resilient to make better superhighways.

That stopped taking me down this rabbit hole of anxiety and stress and fear and cardiovascular disease and diabetes and reaching for alcohol and reaching for pornography and reaching for,

Text messaging the wrong person and all those things that I do to numb myself

So I can finally stop thinking and feeling all this hurt and all this pain and why is everything so hard all the time?

Friend, no matter what massive thing you've gone through, no matter what trauma or tragedy

or massive things happening around you, no matter what your goals are, what your drive is,

what your purpose, what you think your purpose is, the bottom line is you can get your brain

under better control.

You can upgrade your hardware by changing your software, by changing the things you think about.

Let's go back to Dawson Church for a second. He says this.

Our emotions and behavior shape our brains as they stimulate the formation of neural pathways,

That either reinforce old patterns or initiate new ones. This is mind change Monday

We ready to initiate some new patterns or we were happy with the ones that were.

Stuck with from our genes. We're gonna keep blaming our mom and dad for the way that we think we're gonna blame

What happened in the ninth grade? We're gonna blame what that uncle did to us

We're gonna blame the fact that our baseball coach said something had unhappy some some mean thing to us when we were nine

We're gonna blame our first husband

We're gonna blame the economy and we're gonna just keep ruminating on those negative things and let them turn into super highways,

Taking us down all these pathways that will produce the same behaviors and thoughts and feelings and actions and offspring that we've always had,

Or we're gonna say no this far and no farther. We're gonna sever those six synapses and we're gonna take control,

We're going to make our brains our essential act of worship, and we're going to fully engage in Romans 12 to therefore my friend

Stop conforming to the way the world wants you to think to the way your past wants you to think to the way your ex

wants you to think to the way your.

Alcoholism wants you to think stop conforming and start transforming by the,

Renewing of your mind and then you will be able to test and improve what is God's good, pleasing, and perfect will.

That Romans 12 too is the self-brain surgery nugget, the mantra that we wanna have.

That what got you here to this place on this day, on this Mind Change Monday,

what got you here won't get you to the place that you feel like you're gonna get to be.

You've got to change something if something's gonna change.

That sounds so silly, but it's exactly right. If you don't change it, you're choosing to accept it.

Here's what Dawson Church says, And just the way our muscles bulk up with increased exercise, the size of our neural

networks increase when those pathways are increasingly used.

So the thoughts we think, the quality of our consciousness, increase the flow of information

along certain neural pathways.

There's a scientist named Ernest Rossi that says, we can say that the meaning is modulated

by the complex dynamic field of messenger molecules that continually replay, reframe,

and resynthesize neuronal networks in ever-changing patterns.

Another medical pioneer Said this Norman Cousins said this beliefs become,

biology in our hormonal neural genetic and electromagnetic,

Systems and all the complex interactions between them You are not stuck with the genes you have just like a Mexican restaurant. You ever go to a Mexican restaurant.

If you really pay attention, there's only about six ingredients. There's lettuce and tomatoes corn cheese

cheese, chicken, beef, there's six or seven ingredients.

And everything on the menu is a combination of those six or seven ingredients, right?

A crispy taco, a soft taco, an enchilada, a chalupa, whatever.

Most of them are just, how do we combine these six or seven ingredients to make all these

different wonderful tasty meals, right?

Same thing with Italian restaurants, there's six or seven ingredients.

Combine them in different ways.

23,000 genes and a hundred thousand proteins and the way that they turn on and turn off is highly influenced by the decision you make when you're pondering

the menu of the different things that your brain could do with your life today.

And isn't it time to taste and see some of the things that are better instead of

the same old things you've been chewing on and the same old outcomes that you've,

been having for your life. Friends, what got you here on this day at this time on

on Mind Change Monday, won't get you there.

Because you can't change your life until you change your mind.

And you are not stuck with the genes that you have.

You are stuck with the genes that you have, but you're not stuck with the way that they change

and produce and encode and combine to turn you into you.

And if you're not happy with the things that you've been feeling and experiencing,

and you're not happy with the results you've been getting from your life,

then test me and know my innermost thoughts, David says.

Search me, see if there's any offensive way in me. Help me renew my mind.

Say it just think about that for a minute friend say it may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart,

Be pleasing in your sight because when you change the things you think about,

You are changing the software and you're upgrading the hardware And you're gonna find yourself better able to become healthier and feel better and be happier and friend

That's how you change your mind, and that's how you change your life and the good news is You can start today.

Hey, thanks for listening. The Dr. Lee Warren podcast is brought to you by my brand new book, Hope is the First Dose.

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and go to my website and sign up for the newsletter, self-brain surgery every Sunday since 2014, helping people in all 50 states

and 60 plus countries around the world. I'm Dr. Lee Warren and I'll talk to you

soon. Remember, friend, you can't change your life until you change your mind and

The good news is you can start today.

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