The Power of Gratitude/Appreciation/Positivity

So I wanted to share with you some incredible "scientific" findings that I am learning about, that in my opinion coincide sooooo well with church doctrine that I have been taught since I was born. 

To make long story short, the heart has been scientifically proven to have it's own nervous system that surrounds it (i.e. it has in essence it's own brain). It has been shown that there are more neurologic pathways that leave FROM the heart and travel TO the brain, than there are opposite pathways. For so long science and medicine has convinced itself that the brain is entirely in charge of everything that goes on in the body, but as it turns out the heart has its own functioning body and in essence can tell and send commands/signals to the brain. So what this means for us is that the term "listen with your heart" "lead with your heart" or the description of the Holy Ghost in which it starts as a "warm feeling in your hear and spreads to the rest of the body" is entirely accurate scientifically! Something really interesting to note is that heart transplant patients do not have any neurologic connections to their brain, because surgeons do not, at this point in time, know how to reconnect the heart with the brain, so once the new heart is successfully "hooked up" via it's valves, surgeons pretty much wait for the heart to "self-initiate" and start pumping due to it's own (sometimes with a little help from paddles). 

To take this one step further... if you were to take a stressful situation or a very saddening experience and illicit feelings of gratitude or happiness (due to a remembered scenario or situation from past) and then breath in for 5 out for 5 you can change your brain wave patterns via controlling your heart rate to a point of maximal functioning. What this means is that when we are upset, frustrated, depressed, sad our brain functioning decreases drastically, but by simply taking a couple minutes and sitting still, and breathing in and out, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY focusing on something positive/something you're grateful for, within just a few minutes you can dramatically change your brain cortical functioning to a very optimal level. 

I learned this in class because we actually used software to demonstrate the principle which was hooked up to our pulses. IT IS ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE; that the stressful situation itself was not eliminated or changed, it was purely our response to the stimulus that was changed and actually started in our HEART and our heart was able to manipulate our cognitive functioning.

So remember WE ARE NEVER VICTIMS OF OUR EMOTIONAL SITUATIONS, REGARDLESS OF THEIR SERIOUSNESS, we DO have the capacity to train our minds and bodies to respond in a more positive manner and essentially, perform in the best way possible, given our situations. I do not want to make light of anyone's stress, as stress can be very difficult to handle, but please consider the idea of POSITIVITY & GRATITUDE, BECAUSE OUR PROPHET TRULY KNOWS WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT, WHEN HE SUGGESTS THAT WE BE "MORE GRATEFUL."

this science is called Heartmath, website www.heartmath.org