Wednesday, March 16, 2011

More than beats

In fact, when our minds and hearts think separately a heavy burden placed on us. Somehow it puts us in bouts of Confusion-Bewilderment that are quite hard to switch off; we simply found ourselves trapped between mind and heart conflict for a long while to avoid ended with utter regret.

Of course, we take major decisions in different ways, some listen to their hearts blindly and others mute their hearts’ whispers and follow their brains altogether. And some attempt to make a balance in a way that makes them more comfortable.

However, for centuries it’s commonly discerned that heart is used solely as a source of sentiments and feelings but not thinking! Accordingly, when it comes to take over decisions the mind rules over the heart, when emotions like compassion, love and dislike are involved, the heart rules. Greeks are one of those who neglected emotions as a source of thoughts, they considered them as wild horses that had to be directed by intellect; on the other hand they worshiped the brain in a way that drove them to make a memory Goddess! Long before the brain structure had been discovered and the functions of the left and right hemispheres, Greeks made simple and so sophisticated methods that help memory soars successfully. But no one seriously consider the heart as a smart organ.

However, recently scientific evidence proved that heart can dictate the brain which is acclaimed as a more sensible and conventionally more realistic decision maker.

The new study shows that the heart’s nervous system contains around 40,000 neurons, called sensory neuritis “heart brain”, which send several signals like pain and other sensation feelings to the brain. Those signals have a regulatory role over many of the autonomic nervous system signals that flow out of the brain to the heart and to other body organs. They also fall into higher centers of the brain, where they may affect on perception, decision making and other cognitive processes.

Certainly, emotions are not always negative and do not always serve as enemies to rational thought. Neurologist Antonio Damasio points out in his book ‘Descartes’ Error’ that heart has rationality of emotion, where he confirmed the importance of emotions in decision making. He proved that patients with brain damage in the areas of the brain that integrate the emotional and cognitive system can no longer effectively function in the day-to-day realm, although their mental abilities are completely normal.

That study shows that the key to the successful integration of the mind and emotions lies in raising the coherence and harmonious process in both systems. This goes some way to explain the mighty power of emotions, in contrast to thought separately. When then emotion is experienced, it becomes great motivator of future behaviors and marks folks who excel in the face of life’s confrontations.

Indeed, the heart is brilliant muscle with unlimited skills that some still underestimating it. Actually, what aroused this post is a debate with a friend of mine weeks back further, when I told her somehow I’m truly yearning for certain state in U.S and I just can’t wait to go there. Her respond was a mixture of sarcasm with absolute wonder.

How could you yearn for state you never been to earlier? She said. The hearts love before we see things by eyes sometimes. I replied

Yes it does, this is a fact about our hearts, for instance; we love our creator though we did not see him and we love our profit too whilst we have never seen him before. Besides there is an important condition for being Muslim which states that we Must love our creator then our profit more than anything else!

That’s true hearts are insightful organs, we do not really listen to our hearts’ whispers attentively under the pretext of the rational thinking usually; for instance that takes place commonly for everyone when we meet those people who look very kind, they smile whenever our eyes meet, they serve us, and surprisingly when we need a help we always find them there standing by us. We approach them and consider them as a permanent gift and good friends; the ones who never simply vamoose one day. We help them back and afford them more sacrifices. We think they truly care and understand absolutely what is within us. Then suddenly we find them not the same people we used to know. We say they got changed and we attempt to find out some sensible excuses to avoid hurting ourselves, to satisfy our pride and minds. Unfortunately, that occurred because we muted our hearts’ whispers previously when our hearts rejected them from the first sight, though we get closer to be more rational depending on our former experiences. Then eventually we realize how hearts can see things we never see by eyes and how they amazingly wise!

Personally, that made a negative impact on me; I realized that I’m less social than ever before, in other words I just do not need any more friends. No additions to the ones I already call my gift.

Thus, we should not strain our hearts, although they are truly intelligent but they can’t always stand life’s tremendous pressure we put on them every once in a long while. Yes, the heart has separated intrinsic nervous system ‘heart brain’ that we can trust and control too, but we Must remember, heart can be a major source of diseases when it’s extremely stressed.

8 التعليقات:

Blue Pearl said...

Its an interesting topic - its a difficult task to balance the demands of the heart vs. the mind

rosh said...

"Then eventually we realize how hearts can see things we never see by eyes and how they amazingly wise!"

This is so true Ratio, and that phrase has a lot of depth / substance to it. I used to 'judge' people based on how my eyes see them. I rarely gave my heart to see people, their actions and the reasoning behind their words. Personally, it has helped me mature in understanding and 'seeing' people, and who they truly are beneath. And this goes both ways -- someone / something that appeal to the eyes, may not appeal to the heart.

As for you being less than social than before -- perhaps it's got to do with how your heart sees some folks around you? Personally, I smile and befriend anyone I meet, but here in this city of 8 Million people, I have just three friends, that I am truly comfortable being around, sharing my days and life with. They may not be quite appeasing to the eyes, especially in a city of fashionistas and high fliers. However they are self made folks who did the right things when faced with the toughest challenges at a very young age. There is a lot of substance beneath the unkept clothes and the thick pair of glasses. They are very beautiful people worth knowing.

I also believe, unlike our eyes, our hearts see things more clearly as we get older. I hearts also listen to the 'tone' and the 'substance' in the words and the conversations. It helps the mind make a better educated call. I think the best decisions are when the heart and the mind are in consensus. IMHO, the mind is at peace, if the heart is. So in a way, they compliment each other. The human psyche is indeed an amazing engineering feat by the good guy up there :)

Rationality said...

@bp, Hello my dear;
it’s not about seeking balance but give your heart the majority to take over decisions and judge people and things.


@ rosh ; it’s great that you see things by your heart.
“hearts also listen to the 'tone' and the 'substance' in the words and the conversations. It helps the mind make a better educated call. I think the best decisions are when the heart and the mind are in consensus. IMHO, the mind is at peace, if the heart is. So in a way, they compliment each other. The human psyche is indeed an amazing engineering feat by the good guy up there :)”

Your comment is a lesson itself :)
I used to see things and people by my eyes only but I’ve learned with time to use my heart as well.

Yes, my heart is so selective! My close friends named me the analyzer :D.
Heart can see things clearly as you said rosh. But being less social does not mean I don’t smile at people. I do; and I speak with them too, but in formal way :) because my heart did not accept them even here some bloggers I don’t really like, perhaps because of their way, can you believe it! :D
Well, right time affords lessons but not all old people are sensible and wise. I’ve seen many superficial people who are older than me :D

It’s always a pleasure to read your comments guys, thanks a lot :)

Blue Pearl said...

My dear darling, i so love challenging your posts and also reading your views because your perspective is greatly enthusing. Let me just say in response to your reply, perhaps my comment was not well explained so let me just say it like this:

If your heart was to be the one that rules over all issues hence the majority vs. minority ruling theory, it would suffice to say that you would have to make that happen by forcing one or the other into minority rule. In this case, it would be the mind. Unfortunately the mind's power is the greater in every respect so to force the hearts control in matter, one would have to strike a "balance" in his/her life to be able to corner the mind out of its rulings. Its very complicated matter and it took me a long time for me to master my balance. I rule 80% by heart but with that comes a whole lot of sensitivity because your heart is naturally emotional which is a con as the mind is evilly untethered with sensitivity of emotions.

Blue Pearl said...

Your blog won a bluepearl award. Congratulations, this is a bluepearl award that can only be given by me and hence not passed on. Please see it as an achievement towards making a difference. You welcome to display it on your blog as it is your award:) Enjoy

See your award here"

http://bluepearlfun.blogspot.com/2011/03/march-bluepearl-award-winners.html

Rationality said...

I’m flattered dear BP, that is too much. Well, keep challenging me and I will keep posting. I’m so glad that you enjoy my blog. Thank you my unique friend.

Of course when the heart rules over the brain consequently the brain would be the minor. But that does not mean they think separately, we think they do based on our desires and needs. However, many recent studies point out that heart is the one which rules over the brain and the rest of the body naturally. They made several studies proved that while we take over a decision or when we have certain feeling toward an issue; previously heart send signals to the brain to give it a logical respond toward this issue. And based on what heart see the brain takes the action so we get feelings and start thinking. Heart has over 40,000 neurons which considered as heart brain. It’s not the source of emotions as Greeks and Roman think years back. No.

However, we already knew that heart thinks and it’s the source of cognitive system in our bodies. In Quran there are several Ayat says that for instance:
" افلا يتدبرون القرآن ام على قلوب اقفالها"
Do they not ponder the Qur'an, or are their hearts locked?
Here Allah the Almighty said “Hearts” not brains, if the heart is locked the brain won’t think, Allah mentioned it at a point that hits the highest level of thinking which is ‘pondering’ deep thinking so, hearts have the key of the right and deep thoughts.

One more evidence that proved heart is so smart and has no permanent feelings within. The heart has separated intrinsic nervous system that operates information of the brain or nervous system independently. This is what allows a heart transplant “donation” to work successfully without transforming the donator’s sentiments and life experience!
Hope I persuaded you this time!

As for the very special award, it really pleased my extremely, and if I can pass it to someone it would be you for sure :) Thanks a lot for your amiable and supportive words honey. I’m honored.

Skeptical Empiricist said...

So beautiful.. loved it and enjoyed every wrod of it.
You spotted the light on a contrevertial matter. The question now is, are we smart enough to get the best of this feature (mind heart separating thinking)!
I guess we need to be more aware of it in order to be able to use it.

Thanks alot .. I have been waiting for this for long. Thank GOD you wrote it finally ;)

Rationality said...

@SE;
I'm So glad you enjoyed it:)
BTW there is new study that focused on how to block our minds and unleash the heart to think alone!
Awareness and practice is something desirable indeed.
You are welcome my dear, LOL you know I'm such slacker :D

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