The discovery of the enormous influence that chemical substances in the brain have on our behavior, and the simultaneous discovery that humans can easily and consciously regulate the levels of these neurochemicals in their own brains, have been two of the most exciting, even earthshaking scientific discoveries of the last decade. The brain is no longer what it seemed to be. Dr. David Baltimore, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology, writes of a friend of his who had devoted many years to intense study of the brain, but then one day decided to give it all up. Baltimore asked why, and the scientist replied that he’d made a wrong bet. He had bet that the brain was a computer and had now seen that the brain is, in truth, an endocrine organ.9
An endocrine organ is one that releases internal secretions, and the message of science over the last few years has been that the chemicals secreted by the brain—known as hormones and neurotransmitters—have a profound effect on behavior. Scientists have discovered chemicals associated with sleep, anxiety, aggressiveness, concentration, learning, and so on, right down to fear of the dark.
One revolutionary result of recent findings is that the once-sharp distinction between hormones (substances produced by various organs and carried in the bloodstream to other parts of the body where they exert their action for an extended period) and neurotransmitters (which as their name implies are chemicals that carry messages between nerve cells, the messages being various moods, emotions, and “states of mind”) has become so blurred that it has almost completely broken down. This realization that states of mind (neurotransmitters) and long-lasting chemical actions that control slow processes such as growth and reproduction (hormones) are almost one and the same, says David Baltimore, “gives us some knowledge of the mind/body problem. It says quite clearly that processes within the brain that trigger a hormone release can cause enormous effects on the body.” It says, that is, that what we think can change our bodies, that there is a quantifiable chemical link between mind and matter, spirit and body, imagination and reality. Spiritual leaders, great thinkers, artists have been saying this very thing for ages, but the fact that hardheaded, hard-research oriented neuroscientists are not just saying it but actually identifying and measuring the very neurochemicals that link idea with matter adds a new legitimacy and urgency to the idea.
For example, biochemists have discovered that certain brain chemicals will tend to make us to feel shy, competitive, afraid, anxious, happy, sleepy, depressed, irritated, and so on. Brain chemicals play a major role in schizophrenia, heart attacks, sleep, stress, and adaptation to stress. Neurochemicals cause us to be sexually aroused, determine the strength of our all-important immune system, cause us to have youthful vitality or feel old and sluggish, help our bodies repair themselves, determine whether we fall in love. By altering or regulating the amounts of these brain chemicals, we can alter and regulate all those behaviors, processes, and mental states.
The remarkable effects of these brain chemicals, and the ways in which floating can help dramatically alter the levels of these chemicals in the brain and body, will be discussed in appropriate chapters of this book. For now, however, the important points are:
Direct Biochemical Benefits. Tests on the effects of floatation on neurochemicals demonstrate both that floating does have a significant effect on the release of these natural substances, and that the effects have been uniformly beneficial. For example, tests by neuroendocrinologist John Turner and his colleague, psychologist Thomas Fine, of Medical College of Ohio, show that floatation lowers the levels of norepinephrine, epinephrine (also known as adrenaline), cortisol, and ACTH, among others. Elevated levels of these chemicals are directly linked to high levels of stress and stress-related illnesses. Since these neurochemicals have an extraordinary range of effects, let me use cortisol as an example. Among other things, high levels of cortisol have been conclusively linked with “Type A personalities,” i.e., people who are aggressive, impatient, and susceptible to heart disease and heart attacks. (Such people produce forty times as much cortisol as Type B personalities—those who are relaxed and virtually immune to heart attacks.) High levels of cortisol have been linked to a number of ailments; they depress the body’s immune system, increase the effects of adrenaline on body tissues, and cause fat to be released into the blood and subsequently deposited in the heart (thus contributing to heart disease). A component of the body’s fight-or-flight response, the release of cortisol is a reaction to stress, and high levels of the chemical can lead to many stress-related ailments, including depression.
Increased Biochemical Self-regulation. Scientists are now discovering that there is an intimate relationship between consciousness and brain chemistry. To an extent that most scientists would have found unbelievable only a few years ago, we now know that your attitudes and thoughts change, and can determine, your brain chemistry and your brain chemistry determines what happens in your body. This revolution is, in essence, a breaking down of the age-old distinction between mind and body, spirit and matter. If wrong mental states beget wrong chemicals beget wrong behavior and disease, the equation can be restated: Right mental states beget beneficial chemicals beget high-level health and well-being.
Candace Pert, a neurochemist at the Biological Psychiatry Branch of the National Institutes of Mental Health, had a part in shaking the scientific world when in 1973 she helped discover the opiate receptor in the brain. Her current work includes creating synthetic drugs and determining their effect on the brain. “In the last twenty years,” she says in an interview with science writer Judith Hooper, “psychiatry has come out of the Dark Ages. We know that many forms of mental illness are associated with an imbalance in brain chemicals, and we have drugs that are closely related to those chemicals to treat that imbalance.” Such views might seem to tend toward reductionism, the view that the mind is “nothing but” mechanical and chemical interactions. But on the contrary, what she calls her “tinkering around” in the brain’s “juices” has convinced her that “consciousness is before the brain.”
“It’s all in the mind anyway,” she says. “Perhaps what this is telling us is that drugs can never be as subtle as our own neurochemicals, which can be released in one spot and not another. Drugs assault the whole brain at once. Who knows, the future psychiatric treatment may consist of auto-hypnosis, meditation, exercise, diet modification, and so on.”101
The extraordinary thing to take note of here is that the most knowledgeable neuroscientists today are excitedly emphasizing the power of pure consciousness to change the chemistry of the brain. Dr. Pert mentions meditation and auto-hypnosis specifically, but numerous recent studies have clearly shown that floating is far more powerful in influencing brain chemistry than either of these. All current evidence indicates that through effective use of the tank, floaters will be able to alter and influence the chemical secretions of the brain, and thereby affect every aspect of their behavior, including moods, emotions, immune response, and more.
To state this more clearly: We can, through a proper program of floatation, learn how to inhibit the release of certain harmful or unwanted biochemicals and stimulate the release of other highly desirable biochemicals. Just as body builders increase the size of their muscles through systematic use of those muscles, so we can develop our ability to release certain chemicals at will, in a process that one scientist calls molecular self-improvement.4
Some might find this the stuff of science fiction, but it is well known among neuroscientists that some people are more neurochemically “developed” than others: Each person has an individual body chemistry, with differing amounts of neurotransmitters and hormones available, and larger or smaller numbers of the receptor sites where these neurotransmitters “fit” and are thus able to communicate their messages. Studies show, for example, that heroin addicts have low levels of the body’s natural opiates, known as endorphins, in their bodies, and fewer receptor sites where the endorphins can have their pleasure-causing/pain-relieving effects. As the addict continues to take opiates, the number of receptor sites continues to shrink; he or she has to take more and more of “the drug” simply to achieve the same effect, running like crazy to stay in the same place. Thus, one reason for the addictive nature of the opiates (as well as of alcohol) is that they cause the addict’s pleasure pathways to deteriorate or wither away. All indications are that some people are born with lower levels of endorphins, or a lower than normal number of endorphin receptors—so their subsequent addictive behavior, whether it involves overeating, smoking, drinking, drugs, sex, or other compulsions, can be seen as a desperate and instinctive attempt to compensate for a certain emptiness, or lack of pleasure, that derives from endorphin deficiencies.
Other people, however, have high levels of endorphins, and/or numerous receptor sites. “All other things being equal,” writes Yale biochemist Philip Applewhite, “the differences among people in how happy they are may well reflect differences in how the pleasure center of the hypothalamus functions.” Or on differences in the amount of endorphins secreted in certain brain centers: “Those with more endorphins released with certain activities may be happier about any given situation or event in their lives than those with fewer endorphins,” according to Applewhite. “That is, doing the same thing may be more pleasurable to one person than another because for that person, more endorphin molecules are released in the brain. Happiness, then, lies not outside the body, but within. Happiness is not an illusion; it is real and has a molecular basis.”4
People with a greater ability to secrete endorphins experience more pleasure from the same stimulus—be it sex, food, or a beautiful vista—than do those whose pleasure centers and pleasure pathways are less developed. And one way to develop these pleasure centers and to increase the amount and effectiveness of the pleasure-creating neurochemicals is through frequent conscious use. We might say you can “pump endorphins” as a weight lifter pumps iron, with parallel effect.
In addition to demonstrating the chemical basis of addictive behavior, much recent research is revealing that there are neurochemical bases to depression, anxiety, and our ability to fight off disease. Discoveries of direct links between state of mind and the body’s immune response have spawned an entire new field known as psychoneuroimmunology currently one of the hottest areas of medical research. Float tank researcher Thomas Fine recently told me he believes the most exciting possible use for floating is in developing the strength of the immune system: “One area I’m most interested in is using the tank and mental imagery as a link to pumping up the immune system. We need to look at direct links between mental processes, or at least subjective experience, and changes in the immune system.” Could a person use the tank to increase directly the power of his or her immune system through increased control of hormonal secretions? “It’s highly possible,” says Fine.
Weight lifters don’t grow such monumental muscles naturally, nor through random heavings of heavy weights; they use a sophisticated program of regular efforts, exercising again and again the muscles they wish to build. Similarly, it is now clear, the way to mold our body chemistry, stimulating or pumping up our positive chemicals and inhibiting the unwanted ones, is through a consciously applied program of self-regulation. It’s now apparent that the floatation tank is an ideal environment and tool—at this time the ideal environment and tool—to employ for such a program.