Secrets of Your Cells: Discovering Your Body's Inner Intelligence (13 page)

EXPLORATION

You and Your Cells, Telling the Truth

You do not have to be suffering from a major trauma or illness to discover how this simple strategy might benefit you. Take fifteen to twenty minutes each day to write your thoughts and feelings about what is presently bothering you: your biggest stressor or hidden shame. Commit to writing for four consecutive days—no more or less. Don’t write the facts about the story; rather, express your emotions about them. It’s not necessary to reread what you have written or show it to anyone. You can tear it up or burn it if you like. This is an exercise for you and your cells, an invitation to release and let go.

There is a profound lesson within the dynamics at work in our inner sanctuary: our cells know the truth. Our physiology responds to what we’re thinking, including what we don’t want people to know. We can hide something from friends and family, our neighbors, and coworkers. We cannot hide from our cells. They are listening to all the conversations in our head, every word we whisper to ourselves. And because of this, when we release the stories and feelings that torment us, our cells respond with great relief. They become havens of safety once again.

Our Cells Listen—Do We?

Because of what I have learned about our cells, it is plain to me that they listen to what we are thinking and respond accordingly. This has prompted me to watch my own listening behavior, which recently led to a fresh insight—see if you recognize this in yourself. I’m walking with a friend who’s telling me a story I’ve heard before, more than once. Internally, I react to her words and start judging what she’s telling me. Then—an “aha!” moment: a little inner voice asks,
How about just listening to her now instead of reacting? What would happen then?
I am prone to reacting, at least internally, to what people say to me. In fact, I can send
my entire physiology into doldrums or wars depending on what I hear. What about you? Just as when we hold in secrets, our cells respond when we have an internal conversation judging or criticizing someone; they hear that too and react with stress or anger. So there is no need for our inner critic to do anything other than disappear. Being reminded of
now
by my inner voice, I simply listened to my friend; my body relaxed, and I felt more deeply connected to just being with her. What a difference it can be to listen without the internal judge being turned on.

Since that epiphany, whenever I find myself beginning to react while listening, I remember my cells and recall that I have a choice to simply listen. I feel better as a result, and so do my relationships. This is not to say that I don’t interact in a conversation; I am simply alert for a shift into reactive mode, and I consciously bring my awareness back to hearing what is being said. I am learning to consider my cells: they are listening to my inner conversations as well as to the external world, and I can choose not to feed them unnecessary information, such as negatively judging a friend internally or even criticizing myself.

This lesson from our cells holds wisdom for us. We all need people to listen without judgment as cells do: our loved ones, our coworkers, even our governments. It is important for our survival and our well-being.

The Company We Keep

So now we have seen that our cells are in relationship with our thoughts, feelings, and each other. How do they factor into our relationships with others? Listening and communicating clearly play an important part in healthy relationships. Can relationships play an essential role in our own health? More than fifty years ago there was a seminal finding when the social and health habits of more than 4,500 men and women were followed for a period of ten years. This epidemiological study led researchers to a groundbreaking discovery: people who had few or no social contacts died earlier than those who lived richer social lives. Social connections, we learned, had a profound influence on physical health.
⁹

Further evidence for this fascinating finding came from the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Epidemiologists were interested in Roseto because of its extremely low rate of coronary artery disease and death caused by heart disease compared to the rest of the United States. What were the town’s residents doing differently that protected them from the number one killer in the United States?

On close examination, it seemed to defy common sense: health nuts, these townspeople were not. They didn’t get much exercise, many were overweight, they smoked, and they relished high-fat diets. They had all the risk factors for heart disease. Their health secret, effective despite questionable lifestyle choices, turned out to be strong communal, cultural, and familial ties.

A few years later, as the younger generation started leaving town, they faced a rude awakening. Even when they had improved their health behaviors—stopped smoking, started exercising, changed their diets—their rate of heart disease rose dramatically. Why? Because they had lost the extraordinarily close connection they enjoyed with neighbors and family.
¹⁰
From studies such as these, we learn that social isolation is almost as great a precursor of heart disease as elevated cholesterol or smoking. People connection is as important as cellular connections.

Since the initial large population studies, scientists in the field of psychoneuroimmunology have demonstrated that having a support system helps in recovery from illness, prevention of viral infections, and maintaining healthier hearts.
¹¹
For example, in the 1990s researchers began laboratory studies with healthy volunteers to uncover biological links to social and psychological behavior. Infected experimentally with cold viruses, volunteers were kept in isolation and monitored for symptoms and evidence of infection. All showed immunological evidence of a viral infection, yet only some developed symptoms of a cold. Guess which ones got sick: those who reported the most stress and the fewest social interactions in their “real life” outside the lab setting.
¹²

We Share the Single Cell’s Fate

Community is part of our healing network, all the way down to the level of our cells. A single cell left alone in a petri dish will not survive. In fact, cells actually program themselves to die if they are isolated! Neurons in the developing brain that fail to connect to other cells also program themselves to die—more evidence of the life-saving need for connection; no cell thrives alone.

What we see in the microcosm is reflected in the larger organism: just as our cells need to stay connected to stay alive, we, too, need regular contact with family, friends, and community. Personal relationships nourish our cells, ourselves, and our souls. I can well imagine that a physician of the future might write this prescription on her pad: “Take two friends out for dinner or a walk and call me in the morning.” But we don’t need to wait for that enlightened doctor; we can prescribe this for ourselves. Let’s get past vague promises and best intentions: let’s
really
do lunch.

The great sage Hillel taught: “If not now, when?” There is only one now. The past is a memory and the future is a dream. . . . Only the now is real—make each second of your life count.

— RABBI DAVID AARON
The God-Powered Life

The Cell and Now

Of course, the
quality
of our communication and relationships also influences our cells. Fascinating studies of newlyweds by Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and her husband Ronald Glaser at Ohio State University give us a look at how our cells are influenced by the nature of how we deal with conflict. Newlywed couples were monitored over a twenty-four-hour period during and after they had a heated disagreement. Throughout this time, their blood was evaluated for changes in stress hormones.

It was not surprising that researchers found elevated stress hormones in both men and women during and right after the argument. What
was more remarkable was that the disagreement caused different physiological and psychological responses depending on gender. The women’s stress hormones remained elevated for some time afterward, while in general, after the argument was over, the men tuned it down—and tuned out their wives. The women continued to relive the argument, and to make matters worse, now they were angry at being tuned out too. This study is a great reminder to let go of a stressful situation once we’ve experienced it in “real time.” If we relive it over and over, we put our bodies, and their trillions of cell sanctuaries, in great distress. We risk illness and fatigue when our cells are thrown out of balance in this way. And we have a choice.

While our cells are always in the now, our thoughts can sentence them to reliving
yesterday’s
now. As the mind reacts, our vigilant, ever-listening cells respond to its call. That is why it is important to nudge the inner kvetch into a more peaceful state.

The next time your mind is sweeping you off to stressland, consider your cells as the sacred vessels of your life, and give them the present they deserve. Shift your attention from past or future, leave the realm of “Why did . . . ?” and “What if . . . ?” and let your mind rest in what is right in front of you, around you, within you. Be a friend to your cells. Bathe them in the molecules of peacefulness and contentment, in the chemistry of love. Now.

A few years ago I was driving to the California town of Sonoma to give one of my Cells and the Sacred workshops at the Science Buzz Cafe. Along the way, my mind was jumping back and forth between money worries and boyfriend angst. Instead of enjoying the blissful vineyard scenery, my awareness was elsewhere. And then, “aha!” A thought leapt into my consciousness:
Your cells are
always
in the now.

Message received, loud and clear. I was creating my own, unnecessary discomfort and tension, mentally barreling down a road to nowhere I wanted to be.

Wow, thank you, cells!
Now.

Love Messages—Molecules That Bind Us

We have looked at the effects in our cells and bodies of danger, threat, and stress. Yet we have an internal pharmacy that can also deliver molecules of love and connection, empathy and relaxation. In fact, love and affection form the perfect bridge from science to the sacred.

We have investigated a major stress hormone, adrenaline, to illustrate how our cell receptors work. Yet during a stressful event, a slew of other chemical potions are released to ensure our survival. And this points to an interesting molecular difference between male and female responses to stress.

In addition to our cells releasing stimulating molecules such as adrenaline and cortisol, during stress both men and women release another molecular medicine: oxytocin, a bonding and calming molecule.
¹³
A hormone and neuropeptide produced in the brain and pituitary gland, oxytocin is typically associated with pregnancy and childbirth; it increases at the end of a woman’s pregnancy to promote labor, uterine contractions, and lactation. A synthetic form of the molecule, Pitocin, is often used to induce labor, and in animals it initiates maternal behaviors. Distressing as it is to contemplate, a virgin female rat will actually cannibalize newborns of her species unless given a dose of oxytocin. Receiving oxytocin brings about an abrupt change of heart—she begins to behave like a kind mother rat and will now care for the babies. Oxytocin is the molecule that initiates bonding between mom and baby; in fact, it is the molecular message that initiates bonding behaviors in all warm-blooded animals.

Studies at UCLA showed that in response to stress, women typically “tend and befriend,” and researchers provided a molecular explanation for this bonding behavior: oxytocin.
¹⁴
It was once thought to be only a female hormone, but we now know that both men and women make it—though its calming influence is amplified by estrogen and hampered by androgens, the male hormones.

Consider that in our earlier tribal days, men went off to hunt while women guarded the homestead, cared for the children, and attended to
the creature comforts of the community: preparing food, maintaining structures used for shelter, and fashioning clothing and other useful items. Sharing these considerable responsibilities with other women ensured the survival of the entire group.

The cellular impetus for women to share remains in the present day. When women are going through a stressful time, their urge is to protect and nurture, tend and befriend: bake cookies, feed themselves, attend to their children’s needs, call someone they trust. The female seeks to bond, wants to be heard and held by the people in her life. For example, during the newlywed fights researchers studied, if the husband had tuned back in to his wife, her stress response might have quickly tapered off. The same might have happened if she had the opportunity to call a friend. In contrast, though men also turn to buddy groups, in times of stress they tend not to be as upfront about their need to connect as women are.