Walking with Bob

The brain, the gut and the mind

As we enter the season for eating too much stuff, let us do some serious thinking. This will require the use of the brain, the gut (belly) and the mind. So, shut off the negative garbage on CNN and Fox, get comfy and read this heavy stuff. It just might extend your life.

The brain is an organ of soft tissue stuffed in the skull.  From birth, it is fed with sensations, emotions, attitudes and information. It does not know right from wrong or good from bad. It is like a massive computer that processes data. It does not like changing the data. Change is critical to growing as individuals so give it a try. If you are a right hander, write left handed for one hour. That brain will fight you all the way. It will send alerts to the belly that could give you headaches, heart burn or other stress related sensations. You will get stressed out.

The gut is a series of tubes that start at your mouth and end at your other end. It is a massive network of organs, chemicals, hormones, tubes and sensors that keep us blowing and going. It requires two fuels; water and food. It requires us to do two functions; motion and sleep. We have feelings in our gut. If we are short of water the gut tells the brain it is thirsty. We make a choice. We can put a sugar drink or water into the mouth. The brain has data that says too much sugar causes obesity and a major cause of sugar diabetes is sugar drinks. Ultimately it will be up to you to make the choice.

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