Manning Pastor Sam Livingston: Our superhero brain
Every living individual has a personal superhero. Yes, that means you, too! We are blessed from the womb with superpowers. At a certain point in our lives, both girls and boys may have had a superhero, mostly comprised of action figures. Believe it or not, we all have a superhero on board.
Our minds are superheroes to our bodies. The brain is so complex that it can coach the entire body through the healing process. The process begins with thinking that the result is possible. Every living creature is blessed with intelligence, but humans take the cake. "One of the fastest supercomputers globally is the Tianhe-2 in Guangzhou, China, and has a maximum processing speed of 54.902 petaFLOPS. A petaFLOP is a quadrillion (one thousand trillion) floating-point calculations per second. That's a huge amount of calculations, yet that doesn't even come close to the processing speed of the human brain. In contrast, our miraculous brains operate on the next order higher. Although it is impossible to calculate precisely, it is postulated that the human brain operates at 1 exaFLOP, equivalent to a billion billion calculations per second" (scienceabc.com).
The brain to the human body is like a superhero cartoon character that can do almost anything. We often underestimate the awesome power of the brain within our head. The brain is the central processor for the healing that we need within our bodies. I believe we have for the most part neglected the full use of the brain to guide us through the healing processes within our bodies.
"The mind can also affect physiological functions such as digestion, circulation and the immune system, and again there's nothing mysterious or magical about this. All of these processes are controlled by the brain, via the autonomic nervous system. Feeling stressed or afraid can cause your heart to race and your bowels to empty, for example, and triggers an immune response called inflammation. These processes aren't usually under conscious control - we can't will changes to occur - but there are indirect methods we can use to influence them. Reducing stress is an obvious example" (the guardian.com).
I believe that the mind can coach the body through the above theory of the Guardian and even more. In fact, I am so intrigued by this belief that I plan to engage in additional research for the next decade. We have too many people spending their life savings paying for medication. The pharmaceutical industry is getting wealthier while people are getting sicker. I pray that the outcome of my research along with other research will prove that the mind is truly capable of healing the bulk of diseases and sicknesses that plague our bodies. This is an area that lacks funding because it has the potential to affect the bottom line in the medical industry.
I encourage you to spend some time reading about the possible natural medication and other holistic approaches that are available to assist you along with your faith. Everybody deserves the right to live a healthier life, so why not start today? We are not receiving all of the health benefits that we can from our superhero, called the brain. It is safe to say that if a person is taking 10 or more pills a day, he or she probably doesn't need a few of them.
"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Philippians 4:8
It all starts in the mind; open it up and live better!
In God We Trust.
Sam Livingston is pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Manning.