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How Thoughts influence the gene expression (Epigenetics) ?

“As the man thinketh in his heart, so is he” aphorism by James Allen, he suggests a man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts. Thought can roughly be defined as a mental process of thinking according to the Oxford dictionary. Thinking is manipulating information when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reason, form ideas and make decisions. Thought - the act of thinking, in turn produces more thoughts. Everything stems first in the form of thought which is enacted upon creating an action, just as a plant stems from a seed.



So, the base or foundation originates from a thought, thus thinking leads to action and later to the corresponding result.


Every minute of every day, actions and inactions by the physical body is a response to the thoughts that run through the mind. What flows through your mind continuously also sculpts your brain in permanent ways. Eric Kandel, the winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Medicine, discovered that when an animal learns something over a period of several hours, that learning process causes signals to be transmitted into the DNA of the nerve cells.

Those signals, Kandel found, turn certain genes on and other genes off. He further concluded that you can repeat a thought or action over and over, day after day through meditation, as a result, some of your genes are turned on to make new proteins inside the neurons.

This genetic change alters the structure of that cell and changes the number of connections that cell has with other cells in your brain which leads to more awareness, more resourceful ways of thinking, acting, and feeling.

I wanted to further explore and correlate the thought process with gene expression and understand its influence. As Fabio Candotti, M.D. said, “gene expression is the process the cell uses to produce the molecule it needs by reading the genetic code written in the DNA.” Gene expression is a tightly regulated process that allows a cell to respond to its changing environment. It acts as both an on/off switch to control when proteins are made and the volume control that increases or decreases the number of proteins made. According to continuous research in the field of Epigenetics, it is evident that our biology does not influence solely our destiny, and we aren't controlled primarily by genetic makeup. Instead, genetic activity is largely determined by thoughts, attitudes, and perceptions. Epigenetics is showing that thoughts and perceptions control biology, which places us in the driver's seat. By changing/altering our thoughts, we can influence and shape our own genetic read-out.

According to Dr. Bruce Lipton, gene activity can change on a daily basis. He states, “If the perception in your mind is reflected in the chemistry of your body, and if your nervous system reads and interprets the environment and then controls the blood’s chemistry, then you can literally change the fate of your cells by altering your thoughts.” In fact, his research illustrates that by changing our perception, our minds can alter the activity of our genes. He further states “The function of the mind is to create coherence between our beliefs and the reality we experience.”

The choice is in discriminating as to what input the genes should receive. The input is directly proportional to the output - the more positive the input, the more positive the output. It is allowing lifestyle choices to be directly traced to the genetic level and highlighting the mind-body connection. It is now evident that positive self-care practices directly help maintain better physical health.

Meditation also has a huge impact on the expression of genes. A study investigated the effects of a day of intensive mindfulness practice in a group of experienced meditators, compared to a group of untrained control subjects who engaged in quiet non-meditative activities. After eight hours of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice,” says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs,” says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona and Spain where the molecular analyses were conducted. The study was published in the Journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. Mindfulness-based training shows beneficial effects on inflammatory disorders in prior clinical studies and is endorsed by the American Heart Association as a preventative intervention. The new results provide a possible biological mechanism for therapeutic effects.

I feel that thought at any level plays a huge role in gene expression and its alterations. Your mindset is recognized by your body -- right down to the genetic level, and the more you improve your mental habits, the more benefits you'll get from your body. You can't control what has happened in the past, which shaped the brain you have today, programmed your cells, and caused certain genes to switch on but you certainly can influence them now by changing your mindset in the present which will pave the way to your future destiny.





Bibliography

McLeary, Michelle. "Scientists Finally Show How Your Thoughts Can Cause Specific Molecular Changes to Your Genes." Michellemcleary.nl. 30 May 2014. Web:https://www.michellemcleary.nl/coaching/scientists-finally-show-thoughts-change-genes/



Miller, Larry R. "Can Your Brain Change Your DNA?" The Deming Headlight. The Deming Headlight, 20 Mar. 2016. Web:https://www.demingheadlight.com/story/news/2016/03/20/can-your-brain-change-your-dna/82048262/



Hampton, Debbie. "How Your Thoughts Change Your Brain, Cells and Genes." HuffPost. HuffPost, 24 Mar. 2017. Web:https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-your-thoughts-change-your-brain-cells-and-genes_b_9516176



Stetka, Bret. "Changing Our DNA through Mind Control?" Scientific American. Scientific American, 16 Dec. 2014. Web:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/changing-our-dna-through-mind-control/

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