SID: Hello. Sid Roth here and welcome to my world where it’s naturally supernatural. I have been so looking forward to my guest. Why? Because I have been studying the promises of God for many, many years, and I believe them because they’re God’s word. But now science has just figured out the words of Jesus that they’re true. Now my guest, Dr. Caroline Leaf, has spent 25 years researching the brain. When you started researching the brain, they were really in the Stone Age as far as brain understanding, weren’t they?
DR. LEAF: They really were. There’s been a Dark Ages in brain research for a long time, and it’s only in the last 10 to 15 years that people are really starting to get an understanding of the brain, and the more we understand about the brain the more we realize we don’t understand about the brain.
SID: But when you told me that we could change our genes I wish every doctor in the world would understand this cutting edge research because, you know, you go to a doctor and say your cholesterol was high, and they say, well, exercise, change your diet, but it could be your genes and there’s nothing you can do, so take this medicine that will have a zillion side effects. But you say, according to the latest brain research, if you follow what Jesus said you can change your genes. That’s just so amazing.
DR. LEAF: I know. It is phenomenal. If you think of it, it’s logical too, Sid, because we’re spirit, soul, body and it’s our soul area, which is literally the brain insulating the will and the emotions that is processing and boding all these thoughts into real things, so structural changes are happening in the brain. And whatever is going on in the soul will affect the spirit and will affect the body. So if our mind is filled, our thoughts, our mind is all filled with chaos, chaos will reign in our bodies. So, you know, the science of finding out that 87 to 95% of current of mental, physical and emotional illnesses come from our thought life.
SID: You know, Jesus put it very well.
DR. LEAF: Yes.
SID: He said, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” So you’re saying that these thoughts, as you say in your book, take up mental real estate. They’re real. It’s not just a fleeting thing.
DR. LEAF: No. It’s a real thing. And even in science we call them the magic trees of the mind because the nerve cells in the brain look like trees. So your brain, which is the size of your two fists, this is a little bigger than a normal brain, is made up of all these nerve cells or neurons, and they look like trees. And I’ve got some props that I brought along just to help us understand. Literally, we have these forests in our mind of all these trees branch. And as you are listening to me now your brain is processing at 400 billion actions per second. And during that–
SID: Whoa, whoa, whoa. If I heard it right, 400 billion actions per second and someone wants to say it was a coincidence creation? I mean, I don’t have enough faith to believe that it was a coincidence.
DR. LEAF: No. Exactly. I agree with you. More faith is needed for that. That process in an unconscious mind is building memory as we’re speaking. So every single thing that you hear, everything that comes into your brain through your five senses converts, we think about it and then we make choices, and it converts into a structural thing in your brain, which is a thought, and they look like trees. And that’s why the scientists refer to the forest of the magic trees of the mind because that’s what it looks like in your mind. Now you have about a hundred billion nerve cells in your brain. That’s a lot of nerve cells. But each nerve cell can grow up to 200,000 branches. So that means we have around three million years plus worth of space in our brain to build memories.
SID: That’s better than any computer I know of.
DR. LEAF: Exactly. That’s just what we understand from our basic understanding of the brain, and it would probably be even more than that. But the point that I always like to make with people and to emphasize is that because we can’t see a thought out here, it’s not like my hand, people tend to think their thoughts are harmless. But a thought is real. It occupies mental real estate. It looks like a tree. As you’re listening to me now you are causing the trees of your mind to change shape. You are growing branches as we are speaking. So every time we listen and think about things it results in choices that you make, which will result in thoughts or memories that we build, and that’s what they look like. They look like trees.
SID: Okay. This is green and this is nice. I like to see the green where ever, a golf course or trees. I mean, this is beautiful. I want my brain on the inside to be beautiful. You want your brain on the inside to be beautiful. But show me what happens to a lot of people with toxic thoughts.
DR. LEAF: Well what happens is that this is the norm. This is how we’re wired. And if you think of it, we’re made in God’s image and He’s wired for love and God is love. So therefore, all of the processes that we go through to build thoughts is all wired in a positive direction, in a healthy direction. But God gave us the choice, free will. So it says I lay before you life and death, choose life so that you and your descendents may live. But if you choose death you and your descendants won’t live. So if we choose life, good choices, we’re going to build those trees. But if we make bad choices, we build toxic trees.
SID: I saw that in the lobby of the hotel this morning, and I was wondering, what is that? What is that?
DR. LEAF: Well this is just a visual image that I use to try and demonstrate the fact that when we think a bad thought, when we make bad choices and we hang on to anything that is negative: anger, abuse, irritation, frustration, all the negative sides of emotions, that’s not just a harmless thing, it is a physical change that occurs in your brain. So we are designed and wired that every time we think we will build thoughts and as we are thinking if we choose to think in a negative direction we are still gonna build thoughts, but because we are wired for love, that’s what the scientists said, that we are wired for love. That’s what they found in the laboratory.
SID: Finally, they’re catching up with the Bible. Maybe, is this why Jesus said only say things that are good and pure, and lovely and of good report, because if you don’t, if you do the opposite this is the way your cells are gonna look.
DR. LEAF: Well exactly. There’s a consequence. You know, God is very conditional. He’s a God of grace. But if you do this then this will happen. So our bodies are designed and aligned like that. So if we’re going to choose the negative it’s not the norm for the body. It’s the highjack. So whenever we build the highjack into our body it’s a choice that we make God has given us that ability to choose.
SID: Okay. I have a problem. I became a believer at age 30, and even after a believer I did not have my mind renewed like I do today, and have got close to 70 years of building that. What am I gonna do about that?
DR. LEAF: Well here’s the good news. These things, as God, as we know in the Word it says renewal of the mind, like you’ve just said, that’s a lifelong process. So these, fortunately we build these, but we can rewire them. And that’s what I love about science. Science is a tangible way of showing the truths that God teaches us.
SID: You have a word that you describe, neuroplasty. What does that mean?
DR. LEAF: Neuroplasty. What that means is that your brain can change. These things can change. In fact, what I always say is that God made you an authority. You’re a neuroplastician. I don’t know if you realize that, but you are neuroplastician. So am I. So is everyone. God designed us with the ability to change our own brains. So when He says renew our mind, He would give us the ability to do that. So scientifically we find now that these ugly toxic trees that we build through bad choices and physical realities occur can be rewired.
SID: You’re gonna show me how to rewire my brain. Okay. And I want you to eavesdrop so you can rewire your brain. We’ll be right back after this word.
