Brains are overrated. They have an essential function as a kind of Grand Central Station of linking, integrating, storing, and retrieving. At the same time, we are not our brains. My I centers in a complex neuromuscular process that integrates with tissues out to the boundaries of my skin. Then there's the whatever of our microbiome that contributes to my I as bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea, and single-celled eukaryotes -- some within the boundaries of my skin, and probably some trillions in a miasma floating loosely around me.
But all that's not for today, and even on my best day -- which might be today -- I can't help any of us understand the microbiome.
Where I'm going is that we think with our bodies.
We've been able to measure three ways we derive cognitive force to think with our bodies. We call these Mover, Reader, and Talker. What we've been able to measure is when we put any and all of these processes in motion, we generate a neurostimulus. The neurostimulus is complicated. We used to think it was endorphins, but it turns out to be more complicated. What's more, I stick with what we can observe in the outer world. I'm not going to tell you something happens in the left pial cortex or what the current hypothesis is about the nature of the organic chemical soup that makes this stuff happen. I've read about it, and I can send you links to reliable folks researching in that space. My job is to help you observe how it manifests in your body and in the bodies of the people you engage.
The first one we learned about was Mover. We first learned about it when marathon runners talked about a runner's high. When they should have been reaching maximum exhaustion, they were talking about a feeling of euphoria coming over them. We learned they were experiencing a flood of neurostimulus we might produce to support our continuing through the exhaustion. What's more, we've learned not everyone experiences this release of neurostimulus to this level, and nearly all of us get a release to some degree.
This neurostimulus does several important things. It helps us think more clearly, store in memory more durably, retrieve more reliably, and it generates some sense of calm and focus.
Someone who notably recognized this in himself was Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1951. There is a set of steps near the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where Dr. Seaborg did his work. They're called the Seaborg steps. Seaborg regularly reset his attention and energy through movement.
Seaborg recognized before neuroscience that when he put his striated muscles, the muscles we use to move our skeletons, into motion, he generated the neurostimulus that supported his ability to reapply force to his thinking.
Try out putting your body into motion and watch for the cognitive refresh. As noted, my regular vigorous activity is swimming. I reliably feel the neurostimulus kick in at 200 yards. Maybe for you, it's a number of steps. For others, it may be a certain number of repetitions of an exercise in the gym.
We don't have bodies: we are bodies. We don't have brains: we are brains.
Put your brain in motion, and see what happens.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper
REFERENCED IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
archaea: https://microbiologysociety.org/why-microbiology-matters/what-is-microbiology/what-are-archaea.html
eukaryotes: https://www.nature.com/scitable/definition/eukaryote-eucariote-294/
Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg: https://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/seaborg-tribute.html