Power Up Your Brain (3 page)

After many years, I also learned to
sense
this luminous field and to comprehend the shamans’ concept of all life being interconnected through strands of light. In the beginning, my scientific mind had to grasp this notion by explaining to myself that we eat animals that eat grasses that feed on sunlight. I reminded myself that chlorophyll turns light into carbohydrates, such as wheat and other grains, and that we turn carbohydrates back into light inside our cells for fuel through a process known as the Krebs Cycle. With time, my logical brain relaxed its vise-like grip on my awareness, and I was able to perceive more directly the luminous weave of all creation.

With time, I learned that trauma leaves an almost indelible signature that a healer can perceive in her clients’ luminous field. Healers believe that this marks a person’s experience of health or disease for their entire life, like a cross that each of us has to shoulder. A shaman can help people to lighten their load, perhaps even help them understand the lessons they needed to learn from the original trauma they experienced, but it is up to each person to choose whether they carry their cross lightly, discard it altogether, or become burdened and overwhelmed beneath the weight. According to the shamans, the way to clear these marks and shed this burden that defines our personality and our health is by healing our toxic emotions via energy medicine.

I learned the practice of energy medicine during my years with the shamans and now teach it to students in the United States and Europe. Our graduates learn to use timeless healing techniques to help friends, family members, and clients. As modern shamans, we also know that if a person wants to be healed of disease and be truly free and enlightened, then it is essential to strengthen the feminine life force within. This requires fasting, prayer, and meditation, combined with the use of healing herbs and plants.

During my years studying with the shamans, I learned about their belief in the Divine Mother, which we each have the potential to discover in nature. This was not the bearded old man whose image I had come to associate with “God.” Rather, this was a force that infused all of creation, a sea of energy and consciousness that we all swim in and are part of. I came to understand that our Western notions of the divine are perhaps a masculine version of this life force that infuses every cell in our bodies, that animates all living beings, and that even fuels stars. The shamans helped me to develop an original and fulfilling relationship with the power of Pachamama.

In 2006, on one of my yearly expeditions to the Andes, I met David Perlmutter. He first caught my attention as we were hiking up the ancient Inca stone steps to reach the Temple of the Winds, near the village of Ollantaytambo. He was short of breath but was greatly helped by chewing the coca leaves that the local people consider medicinal. His pace and demeanor picked up, and later we struck up a comfortable and easy conversation, as if we had always known each other.

I had heard of David and his work over the years and was delighted to hear he was also interested in indigenous healing practices. As we talked on that first day of our encounter, I mentioned the shamans’ notion of how important it is to restore the feminine life force, and his face immediately lit up. “Yes,” he remarked, “it’s the mitochondria.”

On hearing this, I nearly fell off my chair. Here was the link between the ancient shamanic practices and modern neuroscience. I remembered that our mitochondria are inherited only from our mother’s lineage. Here was the source, inside each cell of every living creature, of the feminine life force that sages speak about. I became very excited when he mentioned how these energy factories seemed to be breaking down under the continual barrage of stress in our fast-paced lives and from biochemical toxins, including mercury, pesticides, and water and air pollution. David hinted that the ancient shamanic practices, including prayer, fasting, and meditation as well as dietary supplementation with special herbs, help restore mitochondrial function.

The more we conversed, the more obvious it became to both of us that there are many elements of
ancient
healing and spiritual practices that can be described in
modern
neurological terms.

The feminine life force of Pachamama could be found in our mitochondria; the marks of trauma in our Luminous Energy Field correspond to neural networks in the brain that produce toxic emotions and define our personality.

I was overjoyed. Here was the missing element that had eluded me in the Amazon but that had been all around me during my days at the laboratory, ensconced between shelves stacked with chemically preserved brains.

The fact is that, although I had succeeded in translating ancient shamanic healing methods into scientifically sound practices and my students at the Healing the Light Body School and patients reported extraordinary life transformations, some found it very difficult to break free from their destructive beliefs and emotions. It was also impractical for my students to do what I had done during 25 years in the Amazon and Andes; namely, to fast for many days in the wilderness while eating only special barks and berries.

David had knowledge of rich brain nutrients that could accomplish the same thing—perhaps even more finely and certainly more conveniently than the rigorous diets the shamans prescribed. He understood how to repair the mitochondria and restore the feminine life force. He knew how to prime the brain for enlightenment. I, meanwhile, had studied in depth the shamanic and yogic practices that would help to switch on the higherorder functions of our brain to help it heal from trauma and experience joy.

What if we could bring these methodologies together to help our students and patients heal their brain, restore their health, and experience freedom from destructive emotions like anger and fear?

INTRODUCTION

Enlightenment. This elusive state has been the focus of some of the greatest minds throughout history. Thousands of people have dedicated their lives to its pursuit. We see images of monks sitting peacefully on meditation cushions . . . nuns kneeling in prayer . . . shamans living in the wilds of the Amazon. And while these representations of enlightened individuals may be accurate, they also imply that this desired state is reserved for a privileged few.

We believe, however, that enlightenment is available to all those who are willing to dedicate the time and effort necessary to attain it. Finding this state does not require a lifestyle that is incompatible with surviving in the modern Western world. And the rewards of enlightenment are not limited to the attainment of spiritual knowledge enjoyed by the contemplative mystic. They can also be reaped in the discovery of DNA sequencing by the innovative scientist, the preparation of a mouth-watering meal by the inventive chef, or the creation of an inspiring masterpiece by the insightful artist. We believe that enlightenment promises everyone the possibility for innovation, extraordinary creativity, and inner peace.

We also believe that the search for enlightenment can be accelerated by following a practice focused on awakening the power of the higher brain. When our higher brain functions are engaged, we have the potential to change our lives both spiritually and biologically.

But to achieve this desired state of consciousness, we must not only master ancient enlightenment techniques but also restore the brain’s health at the cellular level. These two goals are inextricably linked.

YOUR OPTIMAL BRAIN

Anger, fear, jealousy, greed, and worry, while commonplace, undermine our inner peace and sense of self-worth. But even on a weekend meditation retreat or during a walk in the quiet and stillness of the woods, the mind continues to chase thoughts, compose to-do lists, and fret about activities not yet completed and situations not yet resolved. Hard as we might try to sit quietly and empty our mind of thoughts, it continues to gravitate toward the unfinished business of our past.

Power Up Your Brain
helps you understand why, instead of operating at its optimal level of functioning, your brain instead relies on the neural networks created by the prehistoric, survivalat-all-costs brain regions—the reptilian brain and the limbic brain. It also shows you how to overcome the toxic emotions of your old wiring, the conditioning based on negative experiences from the past. By healing that prehistoric brain, you engage newer, higher, more evolved brain structures—the neocortex and, specifically, the prefrontal cortex—which will help you eliminate fear, poverty mentality, and anger from your life. This is done through the creation of new neural networks in your brain.

Until quite recently, most brain researchers held that, even though the brain is malleable in the early years of a child’s development, the window of opportunity for changing its wiring slams shut by around the age of seven years. While it is true that the brain of a fetus or a young child is like a dry sponge, with the potential to soak up all the knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors it needs to survive in its new worldly environment, the premise that the brain can no longer be rewired past a certain early age has now been upended.

Leading-edge neuroscience research now confirms that we can grow new brain cells and change the actual networks in the brain. Once we provide our neurons with specific nutrients lacking in our everyday diet and embark on stimulating new activities, we can establish new neural networks that help transform limiting beliefs and behaviors and recapture long-lost feelings of joy, optimism, and tranquility.

To achieve these benefits, you must start by learning how the brain functions and how your mitochondria have become compromised.

A HEALTHY BODY

In the language of neuroscience, enlightenment is the condition of optimal mitochondrial and brain functioning that allows us to experience both well-being and inner peace
and
the urge to create and innovate. Mitochondria are the energy factories at work within your cells. They impact your moods, your vitality, your aging process, and even how you might die. They are also in charge of the elimination of old cells and replacement with new cells, a function that occurs automatically, without your conscious awareness.

The mitochondria are influenced by the foods you eat, the amount of calories you ingest, the extent to which you exercise your body, and the inclusion of specific nutrients.

Power Up Your Brain
will give you access to keys encoded in your mitochondrial DNA that, until now, have been passwordprotected due to an inability to reverse the damage caused by freeradical damage to the brain. When you unlock this code, you break free of the illness-ridden journey that many Westerners suffer from cradle to grave. With your mitochondria restored, your cells will be able to express the genes that promote brain health and physical longevity, and you won’t have to continue perpetuating the ills and traumas of your family of origin.

THE POWER UP YOUR BRAIN PROGRAM

Blue Zones are regions on the planet where ten times more people reach the age of 100 compared with people in the United States. Dan Buettner, a
National Geographic
writer and researcher, wrote a book about this phenomenon and reported that these individuals have certain traits in common, including calorie reduction (they eat 25 percent less than what you would need to feel full), avoiding meat and processed foods, and living lives that have meaning and purpose.
¹
Buettner cites a Danish scientific study of twins that indicates that genes dictate less than 25 percent of a person’s health and longevity. The remaining 75 percent is determined by lifestyle factors: what you eat, how you love and are loved, how much you exercise, and how you discover meaning in your life.

Lifestyle factors actually modify our genetic expression by shutting off the genes that predispose us to malignancy and disease. Our mitochondria regulate the switching on or off of these genes. Therefore, to live long and live well, we need optimally functioning mitochondria.

At our facilities—the Center for Energy Medicine in Los Lobos, Chile, and the Perlmutter Health Center in Naples, Florida—we help our clients restore their mitochondria to repair their brains. Our protocols utilize intravenous glutathione and hyperbaric oxygen to optimize mitochondrial function as well as foods and supplements that help undo the damage done to the brain by years of stressful living. We find that mitochondria, the mind, and the brain respond extraordinarily quickly to these interventions. Then, through shamanic meditation practices, we can heal from toxic emotions and discover inner peace.

But you do not have to take part in one of our seven-day intensives to accomplish this. In
Power Up Your Brain,
we present a program to help you do the same things: heal your mitochondria and rewire your brain for peace and joy instead of suffering. We combine two complementary strategies: brain-specific nutrients used in conjunction with fasting and enlightenment practices. The neuronutrients recommended by Dr. Perlmutter work to repair regions in your brain that have been affected by stress, psychological trauma, and degenerative brain disease to help grow new brain cells and turn on the genes responsible for longevity, improved immunity, and enhanced brain function. And the enlightenment practices pioneered by Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., help awaken brain regions that allow peace, compassion, innovation, and joy to arise naturally. Together, they will enable you to establish new neural networks for joy and well-being.