" Children's brains have neurons that mirror the brains of adults in their surroundings. These so-called mirror neurons are responsible for the way children learn new behaviors, so the theory goes. As they develop, young children don't have to imitate their parents in order to learn something new; they only have to observe them, and certain brain cells will fire in a way that mirrors the activity. For example, a baby being weaned from breast-feeding watches how her parents eat. As they reach for food and put it into their mouths, certain areas of their brain light up. Simply watching this activity leads the same areas to light up in the infants brain. In this way the newly forming infant brain learns a new behavior without ever having to go through trial and error.
This model has already been tested in monkeys and theoretically extended to humans. It provides a physical explanation for something as mysterious as empathy, the ability to feel what someone else is feeling. Some people have this ability; others don't. A few saintly individuals have so much empathy that they can hardly bear it when someone else is suffering. Research with MRI's and CAT scans suggest that brain function plays a major role in empathy. A child's neurons mirror the emotions of the adults around him, leading the child to actually feel what their parents feel. So if a youngster is surrounded by unhappy adults, his nervous system will be programmed for unhappiness, even before he has any cause for unhappiness himself.
Why doesn't every child learn empathy? Because brain development is wildly complex and never the same for two babies. When we were infants, all kinds of brain functions were being programmed at the same time, and for some of us empathy was only assigned a minor role. This is a troubling inequality, and it extends to happiness. When you see the brain has a set point for happiness, traceable either to genetics or childhood influences, it's all too easy to conclude that nothing can be done about it. However, this would be a mistake, because neither the brain nor your genes are fixed structures; instead, they are in process every minute of your life, constantly changing and evolving. You are still being influenced at the genetic level by new experiences. Every choice you make sends chemical signals coursing through your brain, including the choice to be happy, and each signal helps to shape the brain from year to year.
In the overall picture, research has shown that the brain's set point can be changed by the following:
Drugs that act as mood elevators, which work only in the short term and have side affects.
Cognative Therapy, which changes the brain by helping us change our limiting beliefs. We all tell ourselves stories in our heads that provoke unhappiness. Repeating the same negative belief over and over, ("I am a victim, I am unloved, Life isn't fair, something is wrong with me. etc" creates neural pathwayss that reinforce negativity by turning it into a habitual way of thinking. Such beliefs can be replaced by others that are not simply more positive, but are a much better match with reality (I may have been a victim in the past but I don't have to remain that way; I can find love if I chose better places to look for it, etc) In treating patients whose lives are dominated by negative beliefs, psychologists have found that altering really fundamental beliefs can be as effective in changing brain chemistry as prescribing drugs.
Meditation, which alters the brain in many positive ways. The physical effects of sitting quietly and going inward are amazingly extensive. it took a long time to unravel the puzzle. Researchers had to work against the Western assumption that meditation was mystical or at best a kind of religious practice. Now we realize that it activates the prefrontal cortex the seat of higher thinking- and stimulates the release of neurotransmitters, including dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and brain opiates. Each of these naturally occurring brain chemicals has been linked to different aspects of happiness. Dopamine is an antidepressant; serotonin is associated with increased self-esteem; oxytocin is now believed to be a pleasure hormone (it's levels also elevate during sexual arousal); opiates are the body's painkillers, which also provide the exhilaration associated with runners high. it should be obvious, then, that meditation, by creating higher levels of these neurotransmitters, is the more effective way ofchanging the brain's set point for happiness. No single drug can simultaneously choreograph the coordinated release of all these chemicals.
Deepak Chopra – book "The Ulitmate Happiness Prescription"
Tag: neurons
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