Showing posts with label epigenetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label epigenetics. Show all posts

Friday, July 31, 2015

The Truth about Mindsets

Ever been told you need to change your outlook, or adopt a more ‘resilient mind-set’?  Are mindsets even real, or are they just psychobabble?
According to brain plasticity experts, mindsets are real and the result of the interaction between our environment, nervous system and DNA. A mind-set is actually a group of neurological mind-maps that we create to perform a task, or respond to input coming from the senses.
Resilience has become a buzzword for a group of behaviours that enable an individual to withstand, or recover quickly from, adversity or adapt to changed conditions. Much attention has been paid by researchers to the study of individuals who demonstrate a resilient mind-set in the face of trauma, in the hope that a model of resilience can be developed and taught.
In my research into the interaction between behaviour, our DNA, and the environment, I was drawn to the work of neuro-plasticians (scientists who study the brain’s ability to change itself) like Edward Taub and Michael Merzenich,[i]⁠1 whose work is complementary to that of quantum biologists Pjotr Gariaev and Vladimir Popponin.
While quantum biologists, Gariaev and Popponin, investigate how environmental mechanisms switch DNA on or off, Taub and Merzenich have dedicated their lives to understanding how the nervous system responds to signals from the environment, learns new skills, and develops habits. Their research reveals a dynamic neurological process where the mind creates maps for how it responds to signals coming from the senses, and then recreates them on demand.

What do we use Mindmaps for?

There are maps for everything we do, hear, see, feel, taste and smell. These maps contain the precise sequence and location of neurones (cells) in the brain as they are fired. The more we are exposed to something, and respond in a similar way, the more defined and refined these maps become, and the more of our brain the map owns. We have maps for walking, for holding a ball or gripping a cup, and we have maps for our emotions, for what triggers feelings of love, sadness, fear, anger or arousal.
Being aware of how our behaviour is laid down in our nervous system by repetition and reward allows us to decide if a particular mind-set is productive.
Mindsets are literally groups of associated neurological mind-maps that work together, or fire together. There is a saying in brain plasticity that says: ‘neurones that fire together, wire together’ and ‘neurones that fire apart, wire apart.’[ii]
This grouping of mind-maps doesn’t just apply to physical responses, but to the secretion of brain chemicals that underpin emotion. Our brain maps our experience by creating 3D, holographic, topographical maps and then storing these throughout our cells, from the brain stem and spinal cord, down into the peripheral nerves themselves.
When a situation resembles an aspect of a past experience, this triggers the projection of the 3D mind-map almost instantaneously, and causes neurones to fire in a precise sequence, making our response feel automatic or unconscious. Every time we relive an experience, we add detail to, or amend information in the map, literally re-writing our past.⁠3  The brain then links experiences to deepen and add detail to mind-maps, making them more refined and complex.

Overcoming Damaging Mindmaps

Sometimes, however, circumstances in the environment change so swiftly that our mind-maps are no longer appropriate. 
It therefore follows that someone who is good at playing piano will have a bigger map for the movement of their fingers and hands than a soccer player. While the soccer player would have more of their brain devoted to the nuances of moving the body, legs and feet than would the pianist.
Mind maps draw on abilities we have inherited from our parents that are the best fit for a particular experience or stimulus coming from our environment. This explains why we can carry a gene for depression and anxiety, but if we do not experience sustained bullying or trauma as a child, this gene may not be called on. Meanwhile if we are taught functional ways to handle aggression and conflict, these skills will instead become the basis of a mind map that gives us an evolutionary advantage for survival and thus reproduction, and may then be naturally selected for over the generations in preference to humans with the older code.[iii]
If this mind map is reinforced over and over again by practice and experience, there is a good chance it will be laid down in the DNA as an alternative code, which can be passed onto future generations. A parent who copes well with conflict and aggression is also more likely to teach these skills to their offspring, further reinforcing the resilient behaviour. Over multiple generations, this reinforcing of a healthy response to aggression and conflict may lead to a dominant trait in descendants that predispose them to resilience.
This brilliant, new research over-turns both the ‘dominance of the gene’ and ‘brain localisation’ theories, proving the dynamic interplay between genetic material and our experience of the world through our senses.

Developing Resilience

Resilient individuals can be said to have highly functional maps that provide a strong pattern for the nervous system to rely upon, as well as the ability to be able to break these maps down when they are no longer useful and replace them with better response maps.
Positively charged emotions like gratitude, love, acceptance and joy produce dopamine and endorphins that help lay down new mind-maps, as well as oxytocin that helps dissolve the old mind-maps being replaced. This explains why it is only at the point of acceptance in the cycle of grieving that individuals are able to finally let go of what was lost and move on. Acceptance promotes the production of the very brain chemical that melts away old mind-maps and allows new mind-maps to supersede them.[iv]
Experiencing a reward for new behaviour also triggers more dopamine, helping to reinforce connections between neurones, strengthening a new map. Fear, on the other hand, shuts down the nervous system and DNA expression, leaving us with only the most primitive maps to fall back on.
This explains why fear and anxiety can render us speechless and unable to respond. Soldiers are trained to overcome this through the repetition of skills under extreme pressure, and through receiving rewards for the desired, resilient behaviour.⁠6 Even soldiers, when exposed repeatedly to stress and trauma, may experience post-traumatic stress symptoms and be overwhelmed by fear, rage or depression.
The amazing thing about mind-maps is that they are three dimensional, and stored holographically within the nervous system and DNA. But even more amazingly, they are plastic and highly susceptible to change. This new evidence is transforming the way medicine rehabilitates stroke victims and brain injury patients, leading to a virtual rewiring of damaged brains around dead cells. The key to this new model of rehabilitation is to re-learn skills for the damaged limb, motor skill or brain function as if for the first time, step-by-step, like a baby, and by providing a reward for each incremental improvement.[v]
In this way, some patients with catastrophic damage have regained almost full function of motor-skills, despite a prognosis they would never recover.[vi]
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Elisabetta is the author of the best-selling non-fiction book - The Energy Code.
She is also the author of The Infidel, Veritas and Nemesis and was the librettist for  the musical  - D'Arc, The Legend of Saint Joan.
 
Elisabetta works as a consultant to government organisations, entrepreneurs and NGOs on innovation, change management and talent retention.
 
Learn more about Elisabetta at:
 

[i] M.  M. Merzenich, 2001, Cortical plasticity contributing to
childhood devSiegler, eds. Mechanisms of Cognitive
Development: Behavioural and Neural Perspectives. Mahwah,
N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p68.
[ii] Norman Doidge, MD, The Brain that Changes itself, Scribe,
Melbourne 2010
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] 4 Sugden, Karen, Kings College Bullying Study, Kings College
2010, London
[v] Ramachandran, V.S, The Tell-Tale Brain, 2010
[vi] Doidge Opcit, p119

Thursday, September 25, 2014

The Intergenerational effects of Trauma


In my last three posts, I discussed the individual and group affects of bullying and their cost to society and business.

In this post, I'd like to discuss some of the latest updates in epigenetics that have identified the inter-generational effects of trauma, and how that is shaping the wellbeing of current and future generations.

In a study from the University of Lethbridge in Canada, researchers identified that generational exposure to stress and trauma, progressively shortened pregnancy length, leading to ongoing negative effects for both mother and child. These effects had a compounding effect, growing more pronounced with each generation:

"Gerlinde Metz, senior author of the article, says: "We show that stress across generations becomes powerful enough to shorten pregnancy length in rats and induce hallmark features of human preterm birth. A surprising finding was that mild to moderate stress during pregnancy had a compounding effect across generations. Thus, the effects of stress grew larger with each generation."*


In another study it was shown that trauma effects histone and methylation, leading genes that should be silenced to be expressed, while others that should be expressed to be silenced.

"This distinction is especially important when a cell copies its genetic material, which happens just prior to cell division. As the cell replicates its DNA, it must also preserve the epigenetic marks that delineate active and inactive areas of the genome. In fact, silencing machinery, which deposits methylation marks on H3.1, works in tandem with the replication machinery. "Because H3.3 can't carry this modification, its presence on active genes allows them to escape silencing," says Jacob. "In our research, we discovered a way for cells to protect active genes from silencing and preserve that memory through successive cellular generations.

This study also has implications for how the genetic material is copied. "We have found that replication (how DNA copies itself) and transcription (how DNA is copied into RNA) are controlled by the same highly conserved histone. Thus, these most fundamental properties of the genetic material are regulated by our chromosomes," says Martienssen.**

This study identified the mechanism through which gene expression is silenced or not, explaining a phenomenon that has been postulated for some time. Histone, it appears, is the epigenetic smoking gun.


In a further study it was shown that even two childhood exposures to bullying or psychological trauma predisposed the individual to the activation of a genetic risk factor for PTSD, Bipolar Disorder and Depression.

The question of whether the genetic risks for developing PTSD are similar in other populations that are exposed to different traumas at different periods in their lives remains to be further tested, noted Galea. "However, our findings that the ADRB2 factor might be shared by men and women, African Americans and European Americans, and military and civilians is consistent with the idea that some genetic risk factors for PTSD might be common across populations and even shared by other stress-related disorders, such as depression."***

What is the take-home message from these and other studies into gene expression and the epigenetic effects of trauma?

1. It's clear that bullying and other psychological trauma changes gene expression for the individual experiencing it. These effects can continue well into adulthood, contributing to mental and physical illness.
2. If your parents or grandparents experienced bullying or other psychological trauma, the genes you inherited from them were changed by the experience.
3. If you inherited these changed genes and experience bullying in childhood or adolescence your response will be more severe.
4. If your children then experience bullying the negative effects will be magnified.
5. If your mother was psychologically or physically abused before or during pregnancy, the downstream effects for each subsequent generation become more pronounced.

So when we bully, either as an individual, group or community, we create negative outcomes for generations to come. When an individual or group is oppressed, the effects get worse for each generation, making it harder for subsequent generations to fight for their rights.

When we stand by and do nothing while an individual or group is bullied, we contribute to this problem. The long-term effects may well create fertile ground for crime and terrorism, as the second or third generation feel themselves immersed in an inescapable sense of hopelessness and despair. Indeed population studies seem to make this link - that individuals or groups will struggle to achieve their potential and may become easy targets for radicalization.

If you've been bullied, seek help and support and as much counseling as you require to reverse these effects, so you can pass on more resilient genes to subsequent generations.

As communities, we need to provide more support for the victims of bullying and trauma, providing inter-generational counseling and opportunity to those most at risk, rather than oppressing them further and compounding the problems.




Elisabetta is an expert in human performance, specializing in the study of epigenetics. Elisabetta is an in demand speaker, writer and mentor, and the author of The Energy Code (2014), The Infidel (2013), The DNA of Bullying (2011), The Energy Bucket (2010) and D'Arc, the Legend of Saint Joan (1998), as well as the soon to be released novel - Veritas...

Visit her website

Buy her books






Citations:
 
* Youli Yao, Alexandra M Robinson, Fabiola Zucchi, Jerrah C Robbins, Olena Babenko, Olga Kovalchuk, Igor Kovalchuk, David M Olson, Gerlinde Metz. Ancestral exposure to stress epigenetically programs preterm birth risk and adverse maternal and newborn outcomes. BMC Medicine, 2014; 12 (1): 121 DOI: 10.1186/s12916-014-0121-6
** Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. "Unraveling mystery in 'histone code' shows how gene activity is inherited." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 March 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140313142612.htm>.
 
*** Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "Evidence of genetic link to PTSD in soldiers exposed to childhood trauma." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 September 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140916123636.htm>.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Pack Mentality; Why Winning Isn't Enough for the Bully...

In my last blog I shared my experience of individual bullying at the hands of a psychopathic father.

When the power of a bully is entrenched through societal privilege, political dominance or wealth, their behavior can become even more extreme. Nowhere is this more apparent right now than Scotland.

Despite a positive campaign atmosphere in the run up to the Scottish Referendum for Independence, the post election atmosphere has revealed a dark face.

This weekend video evidence has emerged within Scotland of interference in the referendum electoral process, with footage showing apparent vote stacking at polling booths and the misappropriation of YES votes into the NO count at the counting room; allegedly distorting the proportion of YES to NO votes. A petition has been signed by 90,000 Scottish voters demanding a recount. So far none of this has been reported by mainstream media.

Video footage from Glasgow on the day after the vote shows Unionists taunting YES campaigners, charging them and threatening an escalation of violence. Social media posts reveal YES voters in Glasgow are afraid to leave their homes.

So if these allegations are true, why would the victorious NO voters - a supposed majority - behave in such a manner?

My hunch is that some of the NO voters know the vote was rigged, and are now beginning a campaign of intimidation to ensure YES voters are too afraid to speak up. This is the typical modus operandi of the bully. You see, the bully knows they are not a winner, and can only win through intimidation, fear and cheating. They will do anything to win, and yet the fruits of that victory taste hollow. Because the bully is emotionally immature, the only way they can cope with this uncomfortable feeling is to lash out and ensure that anyone who suspects the deception is silenced.

My advice to anyone facing this kind of situation is:

1. Collect the evidence: take photos, video footage and note in a diary each and every incident, post these to social media, as that will provide a date stamp - this evidence will stand up in court. Do not embellish or exaggerate  incidents, the bully will use errors on your part against you, and because they have the support of mainstream media, and government on their side your evidence has to be rock solid.

2. Do not retaliate: when confronted with a bully, simply walk away, do not invite trouble and as much as you can avoid trouble spots, do not be drawn in.

3. Keep the positive movement going, energize each other with hope and positive steps to achieve your goals, no matter how steep the odds may seem right now. The bully hates your positivity. They want to drain you of that and draw you into anger, rage, fear and hopelessness - because that is where they live.

4. Withdraw your energy from the agents of the bully, and spread the word, far and wide - you are part of a bigger movement for reform in the UK, the opportunity to end an antiquated system of centralized power.

5. No matter what happens, don't give up on your vision, support each other, become as educated as you can, and help others to become more so.

Defeating a bully takes endurance and wisdom. Theseus of Greek legend had to negotiate the labyrinth to find and defeat the minotaur - the half man half bull that has come to symbolize the bully.

Our task today is no different, we must understand the foe we face, know the mind and tactics of the bully to defeat them. As powerful as they might seem, they are a minority, that is why they are so afraid, that is why they behave the way they do, that is why they can be overcome.

Elisabetta is an expert in human performance, specializing in the study of epigenetics. Elisabetta is an in demand speaker, writer and mentor, and the author of The Energy Code (2014), The Infidel (2013), The DNA of Bullying (2011), The Energy Bucket (2010) and D'Arc, the Legend of Saint Joan (1998), as well as the soon to be released novel - Veritas...

Visit her website

Buy her books on Amazon

Friday, September 12, 2014

The DNA of Bullying: Why Society Favors the Bully...


Bullying and its affect upon individuals and society has been in the news a lot this year. It's also been a hot topic on many of the interviews I've done around the world lately.

Interviewers are often surprised when I show little sympathy for the bully. I hear things like - but they are humans too - which of course is true. The issue is that serial bullies lack one important human trait - empathy. Perversely this seems to provide them with a social advantage when it comes to manipulating and traumatizing their victims and then getting away with it.

A recent study by the University of Warwick has recommended that anti-bullying policies must focus on all of society, because as long as bullies reap the life-long benefits of increased status and opportunity, bullies will thrive, while their victims suffer life-long negative health and social impacts.*

So, here is the unadulterated truth: society loves bullies. Yes, that's right, society selects bullies for promotion, leadership, wealth and position, and has done so for thousands of years. We love winners, and despite our moralistic preaching, will look to blame the victim, because we perceive them to be a loser in the competition of life.


Neil Tippett, lead author of the review, emphasized, "This hierarchy is familiar to us all from our own school days. In my view, so long as the rewards exist for bullies in the form of social status, it is difficult to make bullies to change their behaviours as there is little incentive for them to do so."*


We are fascinated by bullies, uncompromising winners and those who pursue success at all costs. The charismatic bully holds us in their thrall, convinces some of us to participate in acts of physical, emotional or psychological harm to others, and promises to share the rewards. This phenomenon contributed to the Global Financial Crisis, and resulted in those who tried to warn government and the financial sector of the impending crisis, being ostracized and victimized.

If the bully is rewarded early in life, they are unlikely to change their behavior for the better, or develop empathy, instead hard-wiring in the mind-maps for bullying and manipulation, becoming extreme narcissists. If they are one of the 3% of the human population who is a psychopath, then this bullying behavior can set them on a path that will most likely do immense harm to others. If the psychopath is bullied, then the results can be even worse. Research suggests that when a psychopath is bullied during childhood their lack of empathy can become pathological.

So what do we do?

As a society we need to stop rewarding bullies, from the playground, to the classroom, to the shop-floor to the board-room. We need to take complaints about bullying seriously, and swallow the short term bitter-pill of removing a bully from their position of power. If we observe a bully in action, submit a complaint and then remove yourself from the bully's sphere of influence. It is not your job to fix them, it is not your job to make them better, leave that to the professionals. Take your energy elsewhere and reclaim your life.




If we are serious about creating a bully-free playground, we need to stop rewarding the teenage and adult bully; we need to champion co-operation, consultation and collaboration and reward these behaviors instead.

Are we as a society prepared to walk-the-talk?

Elisabetta is the author of The Energy Code, The DNA of Bullying, The Infidel, Veritas and D'Arc, the Legend of Saint Joan.

More from Elisabetta 


*Journal References:
  1. Neil Tippett, BSc, and Dieter Wolke, PhD. Socioeconomic Status and Bullying: A Meta-Analysis. American Journal of Public Health, April 2014 DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.301960 
  2.  University of Warwick. "Anti-bullying policy must focus on all of society." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 April 2014. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140429125737.htm.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

The Tyranny of Familiar Truths



When the 'Jack The Ripper DNA' story hit the headlines today, I was interested and intrigued by the variety of responses; especially how people clung to their conspiracy theories despite evidence to the contrary. At the same time I was having an interesting conversation via The Energy Code Facebook Fan Page about the nature of ideology and dogma.

It got me thinking about how many of us have 'sacred cow' beliefs that we will defend bitterly, sometimes violently, and how the tyranny of truth has held back advances in science, the arts and philosophy throughout the ages, mainly via religion's repression of thought and freedom of expression.

Before anyone gets offended here, I would like to add that academic and scientific edifices are just as capable of repressing ideas that challenge the accepted wisdom of the age, although historically, science has been more ready to adapt than religion; with change measured in decades for science versus centuries for religion.

I believe that our attraction to holding on to cherished beliefs has a lot to do with the way our brains create mind-maps for familiar activities. Mindmaps are life-hacks, they allow us to reduce the amount of effort required to think and do. Once we have performed a task, or acquired knowledge, or taken on a belief, it is easier to rely on the existing mindmap than to edit or replace it. Think of mindmaps as being paths of least resistance, a lot like a pathway through deep snow. Once we have trod a path through the snow, it is easier to retrace our steps, making that path more obvious, and requiring less effort. The more we walk along the same path, the easier and easier it gets.

Now we may discover there is a shorter route to get to where we want to go, but it is through virgin snow, so it is going to require a lot more effort to go that way at first. Here's the caveat, however, once we have walked the new path a couple of times, it too will become ingrained and be the path of least resistance, as well as more efficient.

So next time someone presents you with evidence that challenges a cherished belief or way of doing things, don't just resist it out of habit. Sit back, take a moment and assess if this new information is useful, and then allow yourself to update your mindmaps to accommodate it. The first few times might feel like trudging through foot-deep snow, but believe me, pretty soon you will be be glad you made the effort to escape the tyranny of a familiar truth.


Elisabetta is the author of The Energy Code, The Infidel, Veritas, and D'Arc the Legend of Saint Joan.

Visit her website 

Preview or Purchase The Energy Code from Amazon 

Saturday, August 23, 2014

What is Energetic Health? Excerpt from The Energy Code by Elisabetta L. Faenza



 To celebrate the launch of The Energy Code, today's blog shares an excerpt about the very important concept of energetic health; a concept that relates to our internal well-being as well as how we interact with the world at large.


Enjoy,

Elisabetta 25th of August 2014




If we think of our bodies, cells and relationships as buckets of energy
that we can have conscious awareness of, we start to be able to better
manage our health. And by this, I am not referring solely to physical
health. The latest scientific discoveries imply that the physical, mental,
emotional and even metaphysical are intertwined via the DNA feedback
loop, and cannot be understood in isolation.


One area of our life links to another, so I use the term Energetic Health
to represent the sum-total of the health of these systems. Using the 7 Key
Principles I outline in The Energy Code, we can manage the Energetic Health of our
cells, and organs, with a flow on effect to the health of our body, mind
and spirit.

This doesn’t stop at the individual. Because of the DNA’s ability to
broadcast its health into the environment, each of us affects the Energetic
Health of everyone we interact with. So managing our own Energetic
Health, by implication, helps us to manage the health of our close
relationships; whether at home, at work or at play.

The alternative to Energetic Health is Energetic Disease - a state that
leaves us vulnerable to the over or under methylating (silencing) of our
genes, toxic overload of our organs and cells, mind-blocks rather than
healthy, flexible mind-maps, and negative feedback loops between our
peptide receptors and information/emotion molecules. Perpetuated over
time, this leads to a state of chronic fatigue or unwellness, eventually
resulting in acute illness. It is clear we are all born with the
mechanisms to self-heal; we are in fact a self-healing organism, with all
the mechanisms and back-up systems to promote health.

For some, the decline into disease, whether it be classed as mental or
physical illness (I believe the distinction is a misnomer, as the mind is
the body), leads rapidly to an under functioning in many areas of life;
for others, it leads to acute illness and death. For a great many, the path
is slowed by watching the actions of those around us and changing our
behavior to mimic theirs. If we adopt the habits of the energetically
healthy, we can return to wellness bit-by-bit.

If you think of our body’s ability to store physical and mental energy as
akin to a battery that is recharged through rest, diet, exercise and healthy
thought patterns, then just like a battery, we can be drained - in our case -
by poor diet, lack of exercise, not enough rest, and negative thought patterns.
Just like a car battery can be used to jump start another car battery that has run flat,
so the human energy system can be drained by those around us.

All too often, we charge ourselves up by stealing energy, often
learning these techniques at quite a young age. The energy theft required
is unsustainable as one-by-one those we have stolen from succumb to
illness or leave for self-preservation. Bullying is a common example that
drains the victim and temporarily tops up the bully. Countless studies
have shown that both the bully and the victim have increased incidence
of mental illness, depression and incarceration as young adults. The bully
has learned this behavior by observing adults or older children and
then mimicking it. You can often see this playing out in family groups
where a dominant, aggressive parent will berate and bully their spouse,
draining them of energy, who may then use passive-aggressive techniques
to gain pity and sympathy, from friends or family draining them in turn.

Children observe this and learn to adopt either:
♦ A passive aggressive, ‘poor-me’ style, demanding sympathy and assistance without any serious
   intention to change their situation
♦ An aloof, detached style, requiring others to spend a lot of time and energy trying to    
    connect with them
♦ An interrogating, critical style, seeking to undermine others through criticism, sapping
    all joy
♦ Or the more aggressive and overt, dominator style that seeks to overpower and intimidate
    others

I class all energy theft as a form of predation, and the thinking that
goes with it as ‘the predator’, because regardless of whether the technique
is covert or overt, it involves the theft and devouring of someone else’s
energy - their life-force.

In extreme cases, this is obvious - the work place psychopath, the
sociopath and narcissist have developed successful techniques for stealing
energy from others in a conscious, planned way, literally draining the
reserves of those around them. Do not be fooled however, we all do it to
some degree if we are not taking care of our system’s energy needs through
healthy means.

Entertainment and media, especially, reinforce these patterns by
feeding the dominant thought patterns of this predatory mind-set,
through fuelling our fears, anxieties and insecurities, prompting division
over gender, race or beliefs and draining society and the individuals
within it of energy. Ill-gotten gains are never sweet, however, and the
predatory path of energy management leads to more despair, insecurity
and ill health, leading us to consume more of the earth’s resources, trying
desperately to re-charge our batteries.

Clearly the predatory path is not sustainable and it is at the root of
many of society’s ills. It is the voice in your head telling you ‘I’m not
good enough’ that fuels jealousy, greed, anxiety, violence and addictions.
It sets in motion chemical feedback loops within the body/mind that
may persist for years, reinforcing and deepening our unhappiness, until
we believe that voice is us, forgetting that it is something we learned and
adopted. It is a false mind that prevents us from activating our natural
predisposition to living in harmony with each other, our environment
and ourselves.

Fortunately, we can free ourselves from this negative energy pattern, by following
some common-sense steps that free our body-mind to be healthy and energized, allowing
us to be the best we can be, and make the most of our time on this precious planet.*

To discover the 7 Keys to Energetic Health go to:
The Energy Code by Elisabetta L. Faenza

*Faenza, Elisabetta L., The Energy Code, Motivational Press, New York, 2014, pp88-89

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

DNA and memory



You’ve probably heard the term ‘muscle memory’ before.

Well it turns out your muscles literally have a memory, along with every other cell in your body.

The same researchers that discovered that our DNA processes light and sound waves have discovered that each cell in our body has three Gigabytes of memory storage.

They believe that what we have termed the ‘subconscious mind’ is actually the function of the DNA in every cell of our bodies.

This memory holds our inherited and learned behavior patterns, memories, experiences, beliefs and skills.

It’s like a massive database of information that makes us, well us... it makes each of us unique.

Now it is estimated we each have 70 trillion cells in our body, so with three Gigabytes of memory per cell that equates to some 210 thousand, trillion Gigabytes or 210 Zettabytes of memory per human.

That’s 210 with 21 zeros after it, worth of memory storage in your body.

In 2013 the world’s computers were estimated to have reached 4 Zettabytes of combined storage capacity, less than one fiftieth of the storage capacity of a single human being’s DNA.

The ladder of our DNA Double Helix holds enormous storage capacity
And what is even more amazing is that just like a computer, we are able to switch the biological codes on and off and re-program the behavioral software within this DNA database.

Recently scientists have discovered that the every piece of DNA code is read by the cell in multiple ways, doubling or even quadrupling the amount of information that can be simultaneously encoded.

This appears to be the reason humans don’t need nearly as many DNA codes as was previously believed to be necessary to account for our complexity.

It’s the infinite potential of DNA’s interaction with our experiences that makes us so complex.

You can learn more about how DNA and environment interact in Elisabetta's upcoming book - The Energy Code, published by Motivational Press. 

Elisabetta's other books include The Energy Bucket, The Infidel and the soon to be released Veritas.

Learn more about Elisabetta and her work at:

 elisabettafaenza.com

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

An introduction to The Energy Code by Elisabetta L. Faenza


When I began studying human performance back in the early ‘80s I was full of questions. There was in fact very little published literature on the impact of the environment on DNA, our cells and the brain, and how these influence the way we develop behaviors.

The classical literature in the field treated the brain as a black box (to borrow an analogy from my good friend Dr. Dan Diamond). We had evidence of people’s response to the environment in the form of the things they did, and we could ask them about how they felt about their experiences. Behavioral scientists could even predict certain behaviors based upon reflex and the theory of conditioned response. But we had little idea how behaviors linked together neurologically, how habits were formed, or how we could unlearn an old behavior and adopt a new one. These things were literally hidden from view inside a black box that some believed we would never be able to peer into.
Whenever researchers proposed a theory or created a new therapy to treat behavioral problems they were often guessing, and hoping that these methodologies would help people, and make a positive difference to their lives. As a result psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience were not considered ‘hard sciences’ because much of the theory was untestable.

All the while, biologists, quantum physicists, psychologists, psychiatrists and neuroscientists, assisted by breakthroughs in the technology of peering into the black box, were gathering two types of evidence:

1.    Evidence that the brain’s functions are localized and fixed and therefore would one day be able to be predicted, and controlled.

2.    Evidence of anomalies to the accepted map of brain localization that signaled the brain might be plastic - highly changeable and not fixed, and that our approach to the brain and behavior was built on a false premise.

Today, some thirty years later, science has accepted the view that the brain is plastic, and that behaviours and memories are not stored in fixed locations. The evidence is overwhelming.
This new science is starting to be taught in universities all over the world, although it will be years before high-school biology textbooks reflect it. And in the ‘real’ world where people work and live together, we behave as if the older theory is still intact. We count humans as a cost rather than an exceptional resource, and change as something to be feared and survived rather than embraced.

In our interactions with each other in our homes and workplaces, in our hospitals and communities, many of us labor under the illusion that once injured, the brain cannot heal itself, and that ‘old dogs cannot be taught new tricks.’

My own experiences and obsession to understand the deeper biological underpinnings of behavior has of course influenced my practical work as a hypnotherapist and personal effectiveness expert.
In working to improve the performance of groups and individuals in the workplace, I was aided by my knowledge of the mind, and assisted by productivity and time-management tools.
Over and again I would be asked by managers to help them teach Stephen Covey’s ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ to their teams, or embed the ideas in the latest Time Management Blockbuster into the workweek. Books like David Allen’s ‘Get Things Done’ or Tim Ferris’ ‘4 Hour Work Week,’ contain helpful strategies to more effectively manage the things we do in the limited time available to us.

These strategies cannot and should not be undervalued. They provide useful tips to getting more done in less time.

However, unless we address the workings of the ‘black box’ of the mind, all we are ever doing is tinkering around the edges of productivity. While it is important to know how to handle the ‘stuff’ of our lives - the stuff that happens to us, the stuff we experience around us, and the stuff we do - our habits do not change through intellectual realization alone.

The reason for this is that habits are laid down over time and by repetition. Any new habit has to compete for resources within the brain and is competing with well-resourced, highly entrenched older habits. This is why, for most of us, habit change is a difficult process filled with fits, starts and reversals. It’s why our old, bad habits reassert themselves so prominently when we are under pressure and most in need of newer, better ones, and why we resist change in any area of our lives.
It is when our jobs are on the line, our company is in trouble or budgets are squeezed that we should be able to rise to the challenge and demonstrate highly productive behaviors. In my experience, working with sales teams around the world, the opposite is usually the case.

Eleven years ago I met Matt Church, the founder of the ‘Thought Leaders’ community, and he encouraged me to turn my passion for understanding the ‘black box’ of the mind into a practical guide for individuals and managers. ‘The Energy Code’ is the end result of that process.

My purpose then in writing this book is to provide a practical guide for the layman: extending the influence of complex multi-disciplinary fields like epigenetics, neuroscience, quantum biology and concepts like brain plasticity into our homes and workplaces and into our schools and hospitals, so we do not miss the opportunity to revolutionize the way we work together, the way we heal after trauma and build resilience into our personalities.

The Energy Code is a very practical book designed to help people to understand how the mind works and how three things determine behavior:

1.    Our genetics,
2.    Our environment, and
3.    Our energetic health

It is my sincere wish that you, the reader, embrace the ideas and concepts in this book and question them, test them and prove them for yourself. If out of that comes a positive change in the way you interact with your family, work colleagues and community, my purpose will have been met.


The Energy Code is published by Motivational Press and due for release in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2014.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Impulse Control, Mindmaps and Behaviour Change

Recently, I've spent some time looking at habit change and the way that neurological mindmaps are formed. Mindmaps bring together all the ingredients of a habit, and do so in such a seamless, almost instantaneous way that it can make our habits appear automatic.

In this blog, I would like to share what I've learned about how we can support ourselves and the people we care about to shift unwanted, or unhealthy behaviours.

Mindmaps create physiological responses in the body that reinforce behaviour, creating a feedback loop that interacts with our environment and our DNA to lock in behaviours, even the unwanted ones.

This creates the illusion that our habits are entrenched, beyond our control and inflexible, when really any habit is like a track in the snow we have walked along many times. We could walk outside the track, but it feels easier to walk within the track, it's familiar and well trodden, whereas walking outside the track feels more difficult and unfamiliar. The more we walk along the track, the more likely we are to walk down it again. However, we can walk outside of the track, and the more we chose another path, the more familiar it becomes and the easier it feels.

The illusion that our habits are fixed leads many of us to think we cannot change, that our habits are beyond our control and that we are slaves to them. Regardless of whether a habit is a repetitive ritual, like hand-washing, or checking the locks in your house over and over, or the habit is co-dependent like tobacco, drug or alcohol addiction, over-eating, gambling, over-exercising, gossip mongering, or sex-addiction, all habits have mindmaps, and most have several that link together.

We are all the product of our mindmap driven habits. When I consult to government and industry, and conduct 360 degree profiling, over and over again I see the same patterns. Those who invest their time and energy in health sustaining habits and optimism look 10 to 20 years younger and are 10 to 20 years younger biologically than people of the same age who invest their time and energy in health-depriving habits and negativity. We are the products of what we think, say and do. It shows up in each and every one of our cells, activating the latent  potential in our DNA.

For example, alcohol and drug use have been shown in recent studies to change the way the brain assesses risk and handles impulses. The more often we drink, or the more we drink, the more we shut down our ability to assess risk or manage our impulses, and the more we fire up the area of our brain that seeks short term gratification (Researchers Link Alcohol-Dependence Impulsivity to Brain Anomalies ScienceDaily Apr. 15, 2011 / Impulse Control Area In Brain Affected In Teens With Genetic Vulnerability For Alcoholism ScienceDaily Nov. 7, 2008)

At the end of this article I've included a report from Science Daily of a study that identified the brain area responsible for impulsive behaviour, and how impulse control is implicated in many behavioural anomalies including ADHD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, Binge Eating, Gambling to name just a few. It's an interesting study and shows just how far we have come in understanding the mechanisms behind behaviour.

Impulsive behaviour is now understood to be a brain function issue; too many neurons in a particular area of the brain fire, while the problem solving area of the brain is shut down. In some individuals this triggers the activation of genes for anxiety, alcoholism, depression or violence. However, when this area of the brain is not stimulated these genes are not expressed. This is how someone with an impulse driven behaviour can appear to be two different people, depending on whether they are engaging in the impulsive behaviour or not.

The mindmap for impulsivity is now understood, and can be mapped. What is exciting is that because it is a mindmap, and not a personality trait, it can be changed. The brain's own inherent flexibility can be called upon to learn, repeat and perfect an alternative behaviour to replace the negative, impulsive behaviour, which in turn makes the associated, destructive genes dormant again.

So what does this mean for you and I? Well it means we are not the slaves of our behaviour. And even our most negative habits are not out of our control. It means that if we choose to create a different track in the snow to walk along, and take that path as often as we can, eventually it will have a stronger, richer, more dominant mindmap than the old path. This means that newer, more desirable habits do have a chance.

I think this is why it usually takes people several attempts to quit smoking, stop drinking or abusing substances. Each time they try a new track, they are creating a new set of mindmaps. When stress or environmental factors in their life draws them back to the old path, friends and family lament and fear that all the time spent creating good habits has been lost. But that's not the case. The newer path is still there, and if it felt good to walk that path even for a little while, the memory of that feeling will at some time in the future tempt the individual to try it again.

Each time the path of the new habit is attempted, it gets stronger. What we know is that if reward is associated with a behaviour, it is reinforced, so positive reinforcement will do more to draw a person back to a good habit than punishment will. Eventually the new behaviour will have a strong enough pull, and have enough positive associations to become dominant, so that even if an individual is drawn back to an old behaviour for a time, they are less likely to be stuck in the behaviour, because they know they have a choice, and they know what that feels like - they have a mindmap for an alternative life.

That being said, the longer an individual can stick to a new behaviour, the better. Returning to old, destructive behaviours can have disastrous effects. Even a short period of impulsivity due to substance abuse or gambling can shatter someone's life.

At the very least impulsivity affects an individual's performance, at home and at work. Addressing our destructive habits gives us the best chance to live consciously and end up with the things and events in our life that we desire. Turning up each day with a full, positively charged bucket of energy is a decision, not a fluke. It requires us to make conscious choices about what we consume, do and think, the mindmaps we fire up and those we shut down.

It requires us to choose which path we will walk down today...




Brain's Impulse Control Center Located


ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2010) — Impulsive behaviour can be improved with training and the improvement is marked by specific brain changes, according to a new Queen's University study.

A research team led by neuroscience PhD student Scott Hayton has pinpointed the area of the brain that controls impulsive behaviour and the mechanisms that affect how impulsive behaviour is learned. The findings could have a significant impact on the diagnosis and treatment of several disorders and addictions, including ADHD and alcoholism.

"In the classroom, kids often blurt out answers before they raise their hand. With time, they learn to hold their tongue and put up their hand until the teacher calls them. We wanted to know how this type of learning occurs in the brain," says Mr. Hayton, a PhD student at the Centre for Neuroscience Studies at Queen's. "Our research basically told us where the memory for this type of inhibition is in the brain, and how it is encoded."

The team trained rats to control impulsive responses until a signal was presented. Electrical signals between cells in the brain's frontal lobe grew stronger as they learned to control their impulses. This showed that impulsivity is represented, in a specific brain region, by a change in communication between neurons.

Impulsivity is often thought of as a personality trait, something that makes one person different from another.

Children who have difficulty learning to control a response often have behavioural problems which continue into adulthood, says Professor Cella Olmstead, the principal investigator on the study. She notes that impulsivity is a primary feature of many disorders including addiction, ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder and gambling. Identifying the brain region and mechanism that controls impulsivity is a critical step in the diagnosis and treatment of these conditions.

"In conditions where learning does not occur properly, it is possible that it is this mechanism that has been impaired," adds co-investigator neuroscience Professor Eric Dumont.

The findings were recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience.


Journal Reference:
    1.    S. J. Hayton, M. Lovett-Barron, E. C. Dumont, M. C. Olmstead. Target-Specific Encoding of Response Inhibition: Increased Contribution of AMPA to NMDA Receptors at Excitatory Synapses in the Prefrontal Cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 2010; 30 (34): 11493 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1550-10.2010



Sunday, January 16, 2011

Smart Cells and the end of the Tyranny of Genetics

I've just been reading and enjoying 'The Biology of Belief' by Bruce H. Lipton PhD. In this seminal work, Lipton introduces the concept of Epigenetics or the science of the effect the environment has on switching genes on or off.

Lipton is a Cellular Biologist and former Professor of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. After some 20 years as a pre-eminent biologist, pioneering the cloning of cells, Lipton realized that the cell tuned itself to its environment, and it was the environment, not our DNA that determined our evolution. He realized that the environment provides the cues that a cell uses to determine which codes to switch on or off. Even more startling Lipton provides proof that cells actually assemble new DNA in response to environmental conditions.

Perhaps, most startling of all, Lipton shows that cells borrow DNA from other species, and that the human body is actually a community of differentiated cells, working and cooperating with foreign species - like the bugs in our gut - to do more than survive.

All of this goes hand in hand with what quantum biologists are discovering about the way DNA codes are affected by emotions, behavior and environmental conditions.

What Lipton adds to the debate is that every cell in our body is listening to our thoughts, feeling our emotions and responding to the thoughts and emotions of others. Like ripples in a pond, the DNA within our cells organises itself according to the needs of the cell and then broadcasts this response into the environment.

Now the ramifications of this growing body of science is astounding. There is a revolution occurring in the world of the evolutionary sciences. Darwin is no longer pre-eminent with his 19th century doctrine of survival of the fittest, and the determinism of the genes. Darwin's contemporary, and the first to publish a theory of evolution - Lamarc -  was long pilloried for his belief that cells are more than factories at the whim of flight or fight responses. His thesis that an organism evolves through co-operation, is at long last being considered by modern science. In the battle for hearts and minds in the scientific community where nature seemed to triumph over nurture, the tide has turned. Nurture now seems to be the determining factor in what gets expressed by genes.

What all evolutionary scientists, cell biologists and geneticists agree upon, however, and what is often not conveyed to the general public, is that our genes are how we store and transmit the memory of our experiences from one generation to another. Our DNA is a library, one where new books are being written, old books re-read, and others edited. Our genes are the memory of our cells.

So what does this mean for you and I?

It means that we are not at the mercy of our genetics. That unless we suffer from one of a small handful of genetic conditions like aplastic anemia, our genetic make-up is far more mutable than previously publicised. The environment we live in, the experiences we have and the choices we make about our environment, behaviour and thoughts determine what gets switched on or off, or indeed constructed in our DNA.

As someone who was born with a potentially fatal genetic condition, I have experienced the power of choice in my life. The choices I have made around healthy food, to exercise regularly, avoid alcohol and tobacco, pharmaceuticals and recreational drugs has helped me to beat the odds. However, the decision to manage my thoughts and emotions has been even more profound.

By focusing on positive outcomes and commiting my energy, intent and actions to the steps that will make these outcomes a reality, I know I have changed my destiny. I did not perish at three years of age, from bowel disease, althought I was diagnosed with it. I did not die at 12 as a result of the four strokes I suffered. I was not in a wheel chair at fourteen or dead before adulthood. I am now 46 years old, the mother of four healthy children with a full and productive life. I have outlived my mother, who died at 44 of breast cancer.

In short I have made the best of a bad lot. What the future brings is anybody's guess. What I do know is that I have choices, and I will continue to exercise my ability to choose as long as I draw breath. I will continue to thank the collection of 50 trillion or so smart cells that make up my being, and send them supportive, healthy messages through the physical, emotional and mental choices I make.

For me, the quest to understand our biology and how our DNA, environment, behavior and emotions interact is extremely personal. However, you don't need a genetic condition for this to matter. It is in the interest of every person on this planet to ask themselves a simple question each day.

"What have I cast my vote for today. Through the choices I have made did I vote for health and a productive, useful life, or did I vote for something else?"

This is what I have asked myself every day since I was twelve years old and a doctor gave me a death sentence. Through my choices, I believe I proved him wrong. Thanks to scientists like Lipton, I can begin to understand why.

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