The Gardener in Your Brain

Good morning my friend, I hope you're doing well. It's Dr. Lee Warren here with.

You on, I don't know what we'll call it today, Microtubule Tuesday.

We're going to talk about two specific parts of the brain, microtubules and microglia.

I'm going to teach you how your brain is a living, active, vibrant mass of constant change.

I'm going to give you one idea from science, one idea from scripture.

We're going to smash them together

in a way that will help you change your mind and change your life.

We're gonna give you one song from my friend Tommy Walker called look what happens

because I want you to look what happens when you put your mind on the right stuff.

I'm gonna give you an opportunity today to become healthier and feel better

and be happier and with that said my friend there's only one question.

You know what the question is? Let me give it to you.

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 for 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.

Music.

Ready to go. Micro to build Tuesday.

I know you'd be all these silly things. I just want you to remember that there

are all kinds of things that are happening in the universe around you that we've

never understood from science.

Sometimes these things manifest in the real world, and people see phenomena,

and in times past they thought it was magic or some kind of crazy thing,

and it turns out to just be a scientific thing happening in front of us.

And as we develop our ability to test and understand what's happening in the

world around us, we have two choices.

We can either think, look how smart we are, we figured this thing out,

or we can give honor and glory back to the Creator and say, man,

that was amazing that you made that, and thank you for letting us be able to start to understand it.

That's what science was originally about, by the way. Stephen Meyer's book,

The Return of the God Hypothesis, is a great look at what science really is from the beginning,

which was smart people using their brains to try to figure out and understand

and bring glory and honor back to God by understanding the depth and,

amazingness of the things that He's created.

That's what science is for, to give us insight and how we're wired so we can

become healthier and feel better and be happier. How cool is that, right?

So I want to tell you about two parts of your brain. There's a thing called

microglia. These are little tiny cells in your brain. There's billions of them.

And when I was training in school, neuroscience school in college and then in

medical school and then in residency as a neurosurgeon, we were taught that

microglia didn't have much purpose.

People thought that maybe they were involved in sort of scavenging cells that

were broken down and helping to clean things up and provide support.

And that turns out to be true. But now we've developed this understanding of

what microglia really are.

There was a neat paper that just came out, a big review of what microglia do.

I can link that to you if you're interested. Shoot me an email,

lee at drleewarren .com if you want to know more about these tiny cells in your brain.

But what turns out that microglia are like little gardeners and they go around

and they prune synaptic connections in your brain.

So that's interesting. It's going to be important in a minute when we talk about

microtubules. What synapses are, of course we've talked about it a lot,

we talk about these synapses are these connections between neurons.

So you have all these cells in your brain, neurons that are the nerve cells

and they're supported by billions and billions and billions of cells like astrocytes

and oligodendrocytes and microglia and ependymal cells and all kinds of other

cells that support the neurons.

And the neurons are the ones that send signals either out towards the spinal

cord and peripheral nerves to help you move and all of that or in towards the

brain from sensory cells and help you to sense things.

So motor and sensory nerves for the most part are what neurons are.

But around neurons there need to be a communication network and that's what

synapses are. So synapses are these little connections between cells.

There are trillions of them in your brain, probably hundreds of trillions,

more than there are stars in your universe.

You truly, friend, are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Now, when I was coming up as a scientist, we were taught that the brain is stuck.

We were taught that the brain is fixed, that you're basically after a certain

age, you've made all the brain cells you're going to make and you're stuck with the brain that you have.

This is why genetics have been almost worshipped in our society,

in our culture, by the way, that once you understand your genome,

you got it, you know who you are, you know what you're fated to be,

there's not much you can do about it, you just better live within the confines of your genes.

If your parents were bad, if your parents had bad genetics, then so be it,

you're stuck with it. Well, it turns out that's not true.

The human genome only contains a fraction of the information that it would require

to create somebody like you with the brain that you have.

The genome doesn't tell the whole story.

What makes the difference is how those genes are turned on and off in real time

and what proteins are switched on and off and how those genes are expressed

and how they combine with one another to create trillions of possibilities.

And the interesting thing about that is it can be changed and one of the most

important influences on what happens with genes and their expression is how you think.

This is all well understood now that the way that you think changes the hormonal

and neurotransmitter environment in your brain and that sends signals to the

glands and organs and cells in your body which then turns genes on and off in different ways.

Your mind really does create your brain and your brain really does create your

body and my friend it's true that thoughts become things.

Whether or not you're a spiritual person this is actually 100 % true.

We can see it in functional brain imaging now and you can change the way you live.

You can change the way your body works. You can change how your offspring work,

frankly, down to three and four generations by changing how you think.

This is relevant in the trauma space. If you've been injured,

you've gone through trauma,

tragedy, or massive things, you can change literally how you respond to that

and you can pass those changes on to your children so that you can understand

that children whose parents have been exposed to major trauma are born with

a set of things that they're afraid of or that they learn how to handle better

by how their parents handled it,

which then puts a great responsibility on us, right?

But the bottom line is the teaching that I grew up with that you're fixed and

stuck with the brain that you have Turns out not to be true.

Now, let me bring it back to tell you about microtubules Microtubules are these

little like scaffolds that are formed in your brain and they form sheaths.

Around neurons as they're developing synapses and what we know now is that microtubules

change dynamically in about 10 minutes between birth and death.

They are rapidly evolving and changing. Your brain is constantly looking for

opportunities to repurpose the scaffolding.

So the microtubules grow, they die, they're scavenged, they're repurposed,

they add new scaffolds to areas that are being needed in higher quantities.

And what happens is the things you think about and the neural circuits you choose

to exercise direct the deployment of the resources to make and tear down and

rebuild new scaffolding.

Which means that in real time these are the cells that are involved in creating

new synapses, shaping your brain, and forming what's going to happen in response

to your thought process. Why is that important?

Well, there's been some really interesting studies on meditation,

for example, mindfulness.

This is this idea that you can calm your mind and learn how to stop listening

to all the outside noise and you can decide what you're going to think about,

which is what we call the thought biopsy, right?

So without any spiritual information at all, this is just mindfulness and learning

how to control your brain.

And Eastern meditation and metaphysics says just calm the noise and put some

space in between the thing you think about and what you do.

And these studies have shown clearly now, a major review showed that multiple

areas of your brain, the cingulate cortex, the striatum, the prefrontal regions,

limbic regions, corpus callosum,

insula, medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate gyrus,

all these important areas of

your brain that are involved in attention control, emotional regulation,

limbic regions and self -awareness can be significantly improved or changed

by the things you think about.

One study showed after 30 days of meditation that there was a 22 .8 % increase

in the volume of the areas of your brain involved in emotional regulation.

22 .8 %! So

that means that literally learning how to calm your mind for

just 30 days can increase Certain areas

of your brain involved in emotional regulation by almost 25

% That means that you can choose to

improve how agile and resilient you are

in things like getting triggered at work and knowing things that your partner

says being startled by sudden noises or Problems with your kids or worries about

politics or what happens with your money all these things that can stress you

out You can become twenty two point eight percent more able to handle them in

30 days of learning how to get your mind under control,

That's fascinating, isn't it?

So it brings down the point that I've heard many people say,

you can either shape your brain my friend or it will be shaped for you.

How is it shaped? It's shaped by microtubules, the scaffolding of your brain. How are they handled?

Well, just like if you were building a room in your house.

I got this idea from Dawson Church in his book Mind to Matter,

which is really a cool book about the neuroscience of how thoughts become things.

By the way, Dawson Church said, imagine if you're building a house and you decide

to tear an old room down and add on a new room.

Well, you could take the copper wiring and the building materials and all the

stuff from that room and you could move it to the new room and repurpose it

for the new construction.

You wouldn't have to go out and buy all new building materials.

You could use the stuff that you already had and repurpose it.

And that's exactly what microtubules do. they break down and they're broken

down by microglia and then that stuff, the building blocks is used in other

parts of your brain to make new synapses, okay?

So you're constantly being pruned and refined and reshaped.

We know now from these studies on neuroscience, on neurophysiology and neuroanatomy

of how synapses are formed that you can literally increase the volume of brain activity,

volume of brain regions involved in emotional regulation and other areas within

a month of direct meditation and the actual physical changes happen within minutes.

There's been several studies now showing that 30 minutes of directed mental

activity can create new synaptic connections, but they start to fade and go

away within three weeks of disuse, which means when you use something,

when you do something for over an hour or 30 minutes to an hour,

you make new synapses and those new synapses will begin to fire and form new

pathways in your brain, but if you don't revisit them and reuse them,

they start to wither and fade away within three weeks.

Now that's why when you're studying for a test, if you study really hard one

day and then you just review your notes quickly the next day and the day after

that, you have better recall than if you only study one time.

That's why Deuteronomy chapter six, by the way, goes over and over about what

you're supposed to do with the word and teaching it to your children.

He says these commandments, it's Deuteronomy six, starting in verse six.

These commandments I give you are to be on your hearts, impress them on your

children, talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road

and when you lie down and when you get up, tie them as symbols on your hands

and bind them on your foreheads, write them on your door frames. What's he doing?

He's teaching you that you need to rehearse truth.

Mark Rogap said, hope springs from truth rehearsed.

This is the prehab part of the treatment plan for how you deal with the massive

thing of trauma and tragedy and all the difficulties that life brings along.

You bind them on your hearts. You bind true things on your hearts. You write them down.

You talk about them. You put them in there so that they make solid,

strong, synaptic connections.

You shape your brain so that TMT doesn't shape it for you.

And the way you do that is using the architectural, structural support system

that God put in your brain.

Microtubules and microglia are the nuts and bolts of how this happens,

my friend. Isn't that cool?

Now, what does Psalm 4610 say? Cease striving and know that I am God.

Stop, be still, listen to me, think about me.

Why does he say that? Well, we talk about how directed meditation,

mindfulness can create powerful opportunities to change the way your brain is

formed, but Eastern meditation and metaphysics are all about not hearing,

about calming the voice.

Spiritual, if we wanna really add in and smash together the spiritual brain

surgery of what we're talking about here today.

Biblical meditation is not about not hearing, it's about hearing the one voice

that can really help you.

It's about God saying, hey, I'm gonna come to you in a still,

small voice. I need you to be quiet and listen for the whisper.

And I'm gonna tell you how to turn your brain into something that's gonna help

you become healthier and feel better and be happier.

But you gotta stop striving so hard and you gotta listen. and that's what meditation's about, right?

Calm yourself, stop striving, relax, let things settle down,

and then you can start to not hear so much noise.

Well, Jesus said, hey, cease striving, and I'm gonna tell you what you really need to be hearing.

And that spiritual practice of Lectio Divina is like this chewing on the cut

of the word over and over and over.

That's the idea on neuroscience is shaping your brain, putting something true

in there, truth rehearsed.

Hope springs from truth rehearsed, as Brogab said. And that's how you form powerful

synapses to change your brain and change your life Listen, there's a lot of cool stuff,

Microglia are the gardeners of your nervous system and they are pruning Synapses

that aren't in use so that you can use those materials to form new synapses

and look what Jesus happened to say about pruning,

John 15 to every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away and every

branch that bears fruit.

He prunes it so that it may bear fruit bear more fruit This is talking about

your mind to my friend The parts that aren't getting used are going to get smaller

the parts that are being used are going to get bigger So here's the question for you.

Okay? Here's the question for me today.

It's not a matter of whether some parts of your brain are getting bigger and

whether some are getting smaller that is happening Whether you are an active

participant in it, or you are just passively letting the world conform you to

the way it wants you to think,

Romans 12 2 is our is our handbook our primer on self -brain surgery.

Don't be conformed Any more to the world but rather be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Why? the back half of that verse, then you will be able to test and improve

what is God's good, pleasing, and perfect will.

My question for you today, my friend, my question for you today is do you want

to be passively shaped and have the cells and synapses and microglia and microtubules

in your brain be formed by outside forces,

things that you mirror and mimic from the culture around you,

or your own traumas and tragedies and massive things and your own ruminations

of your thoughts over and over that have gotten you to this place where you

are today listening to this podcast.

Do you want to continue to be a victim of the circumstances around you,

tossed about by everything that changes and happens in your life around you?

Or do you want to be a self -brain surgeon and take control of that process? Because you can.

Directed mental effort and rehearsing truth over and over will engage those

microglia and reform those microtubules to make better synapses to help you

become more resilient and become healthier and feel better and be happier.

And then you can say with my friend Tommy Walker, look what happens when I finally

get my mind going the right direction. Look what happens.

I become better able to handle what's happening. I become better able to test

and improve what's good and pleasing and perfect out there.

I get better. I get stronger. I get healthier.

I get happier when I learn to direct

what happens inside my own brain don't

commit self -malpractice anymore my friend Once you

know it that James says once you know what's right and

you choose not to do it That's what sin is Don't get all

caught up in the shame part of that sin basically is something that separates

you From the plan that God has for your life And his plan for you is that your

brain gets smarter your brain gets more bulletproof your brain gets more resilient

so you can start living in the way that you were created and not in the way that culture and,

Life and trauma and tragedy and massive things are trying to force you into

you can make it different You can make it happen You can change your mind and

you can change your life and then look what will happen next But you know what

the good news is my friend you can start today.

Music.

Hey, thanks for listening. Please subscribe to the show so you automatically

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feeling better and being happier through the power of faith and neuroscience

smashing together via self brain serving.

Drleewarren .substack .com. And if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at

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Tommy Walker, graciously provided for free by the great folks over at TommyWalkerMinistries .org.

Check it out and consider supporting them.

TommyWalkerMinistries .org. Remember, you can't change your life until you change

your mind, and the good news is you can start today.

I'm Dr. Lee Warren. I'll talk to you soon. God bless you, friend. Have a great day.