| Copyright 2006 Cole's Poetic License | | | | wish I could understand physics!) |
| If you are in good health, you're balanced. If you are | | | | Brain research shows three major parts to the |
| sick, you've lost some balance, temporarily I hope. | | | | human brain: reptile, limbic, and neo-cortex. We use |
| Hang with me here. | | | | our reptile brain whenever we feel our survival |
| Picture yourself swinging between Yang and Yin over | | | | threatened. (Explains continual warfare.) The limbic |
| a precipice. When you stop swinging you see a ledge. | | | | system, our midbrain or early mammalian brain, stores |
| You stand on it, safely. | | | | our emotions. We use the neo-cortex for thinking, |
| Now, if you're unfamiliar with Eastern medicine, | | | | forward planning and problem solving. All three brains |
| consider the Aristotelian Mean. Aristotle advocated | | | | are interdependent and function together. The |
| following a path between two extremes. If you | | | | neo-cortex houses the right and left brain. When |
| swing too far in either direction you are apt to get | | | | either of these is too far out of balance we suffer. |
| sick. | | | | You may know, slightly, an accountant or computer |
| Since I have skimmed the surface of Eastern | | | | programmer who is so left-brained he is practically a |
| Philosophy, Aristotle, Stephen Hawkings' string theory, | | | | hermit. Or you may know an artist who is so |
| brain research, religions, meditation, and Western | | | | right-brained he forgets to pay his rent and is often |
| medical science, I am no authority, but I can show | | | | in some kind of trouble. |
| you how they relate to good health. | | | | I think most physicists use all three brains in balance. I |
| First, Yang refers to the masculine, left-brained | | | | may be wrong. |
| energy in everyone and Yin the right-brained, | | | | Experiments with meditation have shown some |
| feminine energy. When these two are out of balance, | | | | amazing results. Dr. Richard Davidson of the W.M. |
| things go awry. Acupuncture is the medical practice | | | | Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and |
| of releasing blocked flow of energy to regain balance | | | | Behavior studied the brain waves of some Tibetan |
| and good health. Obviously, it works. | | | | Buddhist monks, including the Dalai Lama. He found |
| String theory, I think, says everything in the universe | | | | unusually high amounts of gamma brain waves |
| consists of strings of energy. Nothing is solid. (Phew, | | | | |