Start training your brain.
After investigations, which included experimentation on cats, scientists in the 1940s and 50s made the astounding discovery – the human brain can be programmed to be more alert and attentive in certain areas.
There is a part of the brain known as the Reticular Activating System and it has an important role in deciding your success or failure. Lori Rothstein describes it as ‘starting above your spinal cord and it's about two inches long, it's about the width of a pencil, and it's where all your senses come in.’ i
Stedman’s
Medical Dictionary defines the reticular activating system
as:
The
part of the reticular formation in the brainstem that plays a central
role in bodily and behavioral alertness; its ascending connections
affect the function of the cerebral cortex and its descending
connections affect bodily posture and reflex mechanisms.ii
The Reticular Activating System or R.A.S highlights an object, a sound, or a smell, by drawing our attention to it and bringing it into acute focus. An example would be when you go to bed at night. The subconscious takes note of all the normal, regular sounds such as the ticking clock, the squeak of the bed, and the traffic outside, and while you sleep these sounds will be filtered out as normal and unimportant. When a sound occurs that does not fall within the parameters of what is normal, the R.A.S. picks up on it and alerts the brain to a change in circumstances, i.e. there is the possibility of danger.
What scientists were enthused about was the fact that the R.A.S. can be tuned in to be on the alert for certain changes and can be stimulated to be on the ‘lookout’ for certain things, so that it can draw the brain's attention to the object of focus, for example – we make a decision to buy a car, we decide on the make, the model and the color and suddenly something wonderful happens, in the past we would hardly take notice of that type of car, suddenly we see it everywhere. The R.A.S. has been switched on and now alerts the brain and senses to what has become important.
The same is applicable to other areas of our lives in general, if we see ourselves as failures, the R.A.S. will pick up on it and alert us to all our shortcomings, highlighting our defeats and faults, and, generally speaking, keep reminding us that we are failures. As a result of constantly reminding ourselves of all the things we have failed at, projects or plans we attempt would generally fail.
Suppose we see ourselves as successful and believe we are capable of more. In that case, the R.A.S. will alert the brain to our successes and stimulate our senses to look for more opportunities that could add to our success ratio.
What is wonderful is that the scientists have validated what the Bible has been telling us for thousands of years.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. (Prov.18:21)
Solomon tells us, that if we think and speak success, we will eat the fruit of success. The opposite is also true. If we think and speak of failure or insurmountable obstacles, we will fail.
Without much fanfare, Jesus said something along these lines:
A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
For by thy words, thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. (Matt.12:35-37)
The root word for condemned means to ‘fall down or to fail’, and Jesus is saying that out of the heart comes success or failure. What you think and fill your heart with will fill your mind and your mouth and will decide your future. In scientific parlance, what fills your heart and mind will stimulate the R.A.S. and will determine whether you are a success or failure in life.
Speak what you want to achieve. Say it out loud, stimulate your Reticular Activating System, let it become part of you and you will enjoy the fruits of your words. Habakkuk goes a little further:
And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. (Hab.2:2-3)
Write it down, read it every day, activate your R.A.S. let it stimulate your brain to see your vision, feel it growing inside of you, speak it at every available opportunity, live it wherever you are, and as the Word says, ‘it will surely come.’
Acknowledgments:
i https://extension.umn.edu/two-you-video-series/ras
ii
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright ©
2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton
Mifflin Company.
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