How much influence do our thoughts and emotions truly have on our health? As a personal journey of overcoming conflict avoidance and the toll it took on my health unfolds, you'll discover the fascinating science of epigenetics and the profound role it plays in gene expression. The dogma of genetic determinism is challenged and the power of thoughts and emotions in disease creation is revealed.
In this enlightening journey, we'll delve into how belief systems can sway the expression of high-risk cancer genes, even examining studies that link emotional traits with diseases such as breast cancer and ALS.
We'll discuss practical strategies to harness mindfulness for better emotional control and disease management. We'll also explore the balance between kindness and truth, and the importance of not sacrificing our emotional health in the process.
So, let's take a step towards a healthier future.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If this podcast has benefited you, imagine the value of a one-on-one meeting with me! Click below to schedule your FREE consultation. Discover solutions with no obligation.
https://www.islamiclifecoachschool.com/appointments
How much influence do our thoughts and emotions truly have on our health? As a personal journey of overcoming conflict avoidance and the toll it took on my health unfolds, you'll discover the fascinating science of epigenetics and the profound role it plays in gene expression. The dogma of genetic determinism is challenged and the power of thoughts and emotions in disease creation is revealed.
In this enlightening journey, we'll delve into how belief systems can sway the expression of high-risk cancer genes, even examining studies that link emotional traits with diseases such as breast cancer and ALS.
We'll discuss practical strategies to harness mindfulness for better emotional control and disease management. We'll also explore the balance between kindness and truth, and the importance of not sacrificing our emotional health in the process.
So, let's take a step towards a healthier future.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If this podcast has benefited you, imagine the value of a one-on-one meeting with me! Click below to schedule your FREE consultation. Discover solutions with no obligation.
https://www.islamiclifecoachschool.com/appointments
Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast. Apply tools that you learn in this podcast and your life will be unrecognisably successful. Now your host, dr Kamal Uttar. Hello, hello, hello everyone. Peace and blessings be upon all of you.
Speaker 1:Today's podcast topic has been a long time in making and I feel like it's still not perfect, but in my effort to recover from my perfectionism, I decided to put this work out there. The topic of this podcast is extremely personal to me and before I tell you why it's extremely personal, I want to start with a caveat that we're having our roof done so if you hear a lot of banging in the background, that's what it's about. So this podcast topic is very personal for me because before I found mind management and coaching work, I could not stand up for myself. It was very hard for me to handle conflict. I had no healthy role models for dealing with conflict while growing up, so the only thing my brain and body would offer me during a disagreement is that ship is sinking. Life is going to end as we know it. Better jump off in abandon ship, while the real situation might have been that somebody was not respecting my boundaries or they were not respecting somebody else's boundaries and I wanted to stand up for them. But since it involved difference of opinion, me asking them to treat me or other people nicely seemed like it was going to be the end of the world. This level of conflict avoidance, for obvious reasons, was extremely detrimental because, like I said, I could not hold boundaries. People that might have met well were walking all over me and I could not sustain a healthy lifestyle. And that is not to say that I now seek out conflict, but I also don't think that I am a pacifist. Currently I don't avoid disagreements like a plague, like I did before. So how does this lead to the topic of this podcast, how thoughts can cause disease? It's linked, because all the suppression of your emotions and your inner conflicts leads to the increased risk of actually developing diagnosable disease. By the end of this podcast, you'll know how the mind creates the perfect environment for disease or health within your body organs. The answer actually really lies within the science of epigenetics, otherwise translated as above the genes For the longest time, which in this context, to me means starting from the human genome project in 1990.
Speaker 1:The reason this project was taken under way was because scientists thought that the human genetic code held the secret for the expression of the complex human life, all the diseases and all the health and everything in between. Meaning the way genes were sequenced resulted in what you see as a human physical form. But soon after starting the project they realized that actually that's not the case. They finished enough of the project in April 2003 just to call it complete, but they actually finally finished it just now, in March of 2022. So why was there a gap since April 2003 to March 2022? What took them so long to finally actually finish it? That's because they realized that originally they were predicting 120,000 genes within the human genome.
Speaker 1:Imagine that a roundworm has 24,000 genes, but what they discovered was human beings only carry about 25,000 genes, only a thousand more than a roundworm. In a roundworm, 24,000 genes code for 969 cells that comprises of the entire worm but in human beings only a thousand more genes. 25,000 genes code for 50 trillion cells and, by any comparison, rodents also have the same number of genes. So if the genes or the DNA controlled all the complex expression of what a human being was supposed to look like, then according to that explanation, we should not be any more complex than a roundworm. Then the natural question becomes if the DNA is not as important, then what's so important about our genes that creates the human being to be such a complex creation? And the answer again lies in epigenetics. According to, the answer does not lie with your DNA, but with how the DNA is translated. This translation is what determines how a small amount of DNA is coded, copy pasted, rearranged, spliced, and it is done in a way where it creates an exponential number of variations and unimaginably large number of complex proteins, where, in a case of a roundworm or a rodent, this process of translation is not as complicated. That's why approximately same amount of genes creates such different outcomes. Epigenetics, or translation of the genes, is what decides what part of the script gets highlighted, which gets a little bit translated, which gets whispered, or completely muted or silent.
Speaker 1:While genes serve as the foundational, fundamental blueprint, the true power lies in the translator, the mechanism that determines how these genes are expressed. This translator is heavily influenced by the cocktail of neurochemicals flowing within us. These neurochemicals are the basis of our emotions, meaning. These are the feelings we experience, like the thrill of excitement as we experience with the adrenaline, or the connection of love that we experience with oxytocin, or the withdrawal of sadness that we experience with the lack of serotonin. And of course, it's not that simple, and many more scientific studies are needed to be done, in finding out exactly what the makeup of each of these neurochemicals state is as it relates to emotions. And even then, this science cannot be exact, because the same makeup of neurochemicals might be experienced as thrilling to some and as sheer terror in others. It goes to show you that the subjective experience, meaning the interpretation of how these neurochemicals make us feel and what feelings we label them as, is extremely subjective and individually dependent. So even if we found out the exact ratio of what makes up happiness or sadness, or adventure or amazement, awe or desire, even if we find out the exact makeup of the neurochemicals that's responsible for these emotions, the way each human experiences it could be completely different.
Speaker 1:The reason I emphasize understanding the neurochemical makeup of these emotions is because that's what directs the expression of your DNA. That's what determines if your genes are going to be translated into healthy or diseased proteins or if they're going to remain silent and unexpressed. The expression of a gene makes a huge difference when you're carrying a high-risk cancer gene. There are a lot of genes out there that are highly correlated with cancer, like the Braca gene that runs in the family, and if a woman has it she is highly likely to develop breast cancer. But it is safe to say that even such a high likelihood cancer carrying gene does not cause cancer, meaning this translation of this potentially cancer carrying gene is what causes cancer. Caring the gene itself does not mean you will develop cancer. So when they say the gene causes cancer, that's actually a very wrong statement, because there are women that carry these genes that never develop cancer. There is a high likelihood that you will develop it, but there isn't a 100% chance. So what's the difference between the person who develops cancer and who does not? And so far this has been the science of speculation.
Speaker 1:But in my humble opinion, we have enough evidence that we can logically conclude what's the right way to live your life and be healthy and live a relatively physical, disease free life. And the answer lies with you experientially living an authentic life, creating and managing emotions with your mind, feeling the wonders of joy and serenity as it comes to living your life, because the neurochemicals of these emotions is what determines if your genes get turned on or off. So every situation we face outside of us sparks a chain reaction. It triggers thoughts, which in turn, stir up emotions, and these emotions cause actions. The emotions influence our genetic responses, meaning how our genes adapt to our environment, either by amplifying, muting or modifying their functions. This is the dance between our environment, thoughts and emotions, and our genes showcase this dynamic as a response to our nature of biology.
Speaker 1:Epigenetics is the study of how cells control gene activity without changing the underlying DNA sequence, meaning how the gene codes on our DNA are expressed. While this gene expression can be inherited, it also can be modified based on your mindfulness practices, and this is what we don't take control over, which is the biggest tragedy of current science. So I want you to imagine this. We all start out as a single cell, which multiplies and grows into a collection of cells, eventually becoming into a human being. Since each cell came from the same cell, the DNA contained in each cell is the same, the DNA being the piece of information that tells the cells what to look like, the building blocks to make. So how is it that the same cell can turn into something as soft as an eyeball or as hard as a hip bone? The cell contains the same information, the same DNA. Why are the outcomes so different? That is the interesting question here, and I have to give you some biology background, more than I've already given you, just for it to make sense.
Speaker 1:I'm going to try my best not to turn this into a biology lecture. I'm just giving you the foundation of the very, very important point. I'm making Same cell with two different final results, having the same DNA but an extremely different outcome of becoming soft as an eyeball or hard as a bone. It all depends on how the underlying DNA is expressed, the information taking from the code, the DNA, the blueprint, and then translated into proteins that create soft organs or hard bones, that create cancer or healthy cells, that creates your immune system, and all of the above. Even though this blueprint is the same, how this blueprint is read is what makes the difference. The difference between a blueprint that an architect makes is that every architect reads it to be the same and creates the same building out of it. The blueprint, when it comes to DNA, is that each architect, each translator, reads it for its own purpose and for its own function. The way DNA information is read is entirely different, based on what signals this cell receives, and these signals are the neurochemicals of our emotions? Being that our emotions are more in our control, with our thoughts, than previously believed, wouldn't it make sense to take charge of these thoughts? Wouldn't it make sense to engage in more mindfulness practices, so then we can take control of our emotions?
Speaker 1:A lot of this science is extracted from the work of Dr Bruce Lipton, a stem cell biologist who is the father of epigenetics. He has been working on this field even before it was called epigenetics. He really laid the foundations of this fascinating science. On his website, bruceliptoncom, it says he found a deeper understanding of cell biology and how the mind can control the bodily functions, as well as the possibility of an immortal spirit. What in the world? That sounds a lot like the soul, but that's a topic for another day.
Speaker 1:According to the old dogma that revolved around genetics, dna controlled your life and you had no say in it and you couldn't do anything to change it. This view of genetic determinism had extremely self-limiting implications because since the time of Darwin, evolutionary theory, survival of the fittest and all, a major mistake being made is that there's no difference between causation and correlation. In the book the Biology of Belief, dr Bruce Lipton gives an example that, if you think, you can control your car with your keys, then you wouldn't want to leave your keys in the car, because the keys will then just drive the car away. But if you think that your keys are related to controlling your car, then you would be more accurate in making this correlation If your keys did not cause the control of the car. The person who is holding the keys is controlling the car.
Speaker 1:The narrative of genes controlling the outcome has been repeated so many times that we've forgotten genes controlling biology is a hypothesis. It's not a fact, a hypothesis that is actually being disproven more and more, and what is being discovered is that gene activation is more important, and this gene activation depends on the environment of the cell. The environment of the cell is soaked into neurochemicals. By the environment they don't mean the room you're sitting in, or if it's a cafe or your living room. What he means by the environment is the environment of the cell that is responsible for expressing disease from the DNA. So the healthier mind frame is to leave behind the age of genetic determinism, which tells us that you're bound by the genes you're born with and there's nothing you can do to change that Versus if you do find out that you carry a high-risk cancer gene, then how do you feel about it?
Speaker 1:What perspective do you give it? What thoughts are you having about carrying this gene? Are you living in regret, victim mode? Are you living in constant fear of developing cancer Because that high stress state of constantly circulating cortisol is what makes it more likely that that gene will develop into cancer, that actual cancer will be expressed and translated out of it? Or is it that after you are told you carry a high-risk cancer gene, you stay in resourcefulness, you continue to create the life you want out of joy and with the time and resources you're given? What you believe about this high-risk cancer gene is what's going to determine the outcome. To a very high extent and again I don't want to make the same mistake as the rest of the science has been making there is a correlation. It is not a causation, meaning if you feel joyful, happy and serene about cancer-carrying genes, that does not guarantee that you will never develop cancer from that gene. It's not a cause, it is a correlation. You can help yourself about managing how you think about the circumstances you're given. At least you will not be living your life in constant stress and you will decrease the chances of that gene being expressed into cancer.
Speaker 1:In the study psychological identification of breast cancer patients before biopsy, which was published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, the author Wishing et al investigated the psychological profiles of 56 women all undergoing breast biopsies. The study identified a psychological syndrome unique to patients whose biopsies confirmed cancer. This syndrome included traits like emotional suppression, sudden outbursts, rationalization, optimism, over-rationalization, constant optimism and ulceristic behavior. The accuracy of diagnosing cancer based on these psychological traits was remarkably high when an interviewer correctly identified 83% and a blind-rater correctly identified 94% of cancer cases. Just based on these traits. It still does not show causation. It only shows correlation, and this is exactly what we have to be cautious about. This breast cancer study patients that were waiting biopsies shows they were exhibiting emotional shielding, overwhelmingly burdened, they had suppressed emotions. They preferred strict logic to emotion. They concealed their anxiety. There was a forced optimism and they had significant conflict avoidance Exactly the topic I started this podcast with Meaning. With these traits, a person who didn't know the outcome of the biopsy was able to correctly identify, 83% to 94% of the time, which woman would have cancer. All they were looking at were these emotional traits, these difficult emotional experiences, emotions being the neurochemicals absolutely enhance or hinder your gene expression.
Speaker 1:In another study published in Brain and Behavior titled, patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, are usually nice persons. They approached physicians to categorize and rate different traits of niceness in their ALS patients, and they found that ALS patients scored significantly higher in the traits of agreeableness compared to any other group. This trait being characterized by warmth, kindness, helpfulness, was particularly notable in ALS patients. Again, this research doesn't establish a direct cause and effect relationship between agreeableness and you having a disease of ALS, but it does show a correlation All of these studies are pointing out is a connection between adopting people-pleasing attitude and the risk of diseases like breast cancer and ALS, and many other studies have observed similar correlations. The significance of me mentioning this is in the potential for change, because all of them relate to the aspects of our personality, our repeated behavior, that we can control and change towards healthy outcomes.
Speaker 1:This entire idea opens up a new perspective on disease management, diverting from the traditional allopathic approach of treating disease with medications and surgeries after its surfaces. It suggests that by altering our core beliefs and personality traits, we might influence our health outcomes. This concept is a major departure from the conventional wisdom in disease management and it tells you the importance between genetics, neurochemistry and emotional states. For example, constantly being in a state of stress or adopting a self-sacrificing, people-pleaser demeanor creates neurochemical environments in the body that are conducive to disease. This is also supported by the studies like the ACE study and I've talked about this study in the previous podcast which stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences. It links adverse childhood events to a higher likelihood of adult diseases such as cancer, heart disease and COPD. On the other hand, by understanding and modifying the emotional and neurochemical patterns that these kids go through after going through such adverse events, we can apply mindfulness methods, like seen near algorithm that I teach in this podcast, just to be able to equip them with better emotionality, better control, better thinking approaches to these adverse childhood events and help people become more proactive and holistic when it comes to taking charge of their own health outcomes.
Speaker 1:You have a lot more control of your emotional and psychological state than you are led to believe, despite of what kind of past you had, and exactly these states is what we optimize during coaching. The correlation here is that thoughts can cause disease, especially if they lead to unhealthy emotional patterns. We can call them being nice, we can call them people-pleasers, we can call them perfectionistic tendencies. All of these states just indicate we not taking control of our emotions and avoiding conflict and going with the flow, even if it's at the cost of our own health. And all of this work needs to be done just so you can heal for yourself, as I did for myself. The invitation here is learning to be nice without being overly analytical or without suppressing emotions or without artificially enhancing altruism, especially if it causes your internal emotional turmoil, because that can trigger expression of disease. And this list of diseases can include chronic pain, autoimmune diseases, cancers, heart disease, stroke, which heart disease and stroke is based on inflammation and plaque formation which is related to chronic stress. And you guys, if you can't see the power in this correlation, then I don't think my work is for you, because this is so extremely powerful.
Speaker 1:When, in Islam, we are told to love your brother in Islam for the sake of Allah, or to make 70 excuses for your brother in Islam, that does not mean at the cost of your own emotional health, it does not mean sacrifice yourself. It just means those are all excuses for you to create healthy emotional states as it relates to your connection with others, and that is the true art of health and spirituality. With that I pray to Allah swt, the most merciful and compassionate. Guide us in balancing kindness with truthfulness, with our emotions. O Allah, help us navigate through this life's challenges with wisdom, courage, avoiding the pitfalls of artificial altruism that harm our soul and body. O Allah, protect this nation from ailments that stem from emotional turmoil. O Allah, grant us the ability to love others without neglecting ourselves. O Allah, you being the ultimate healer, grant us the insight to dedicate our life to other services, while we keep the longevity and the health for ourselves, because you, allah, can make all the beneficial outcomes possible for us. I am燕yaа tragedy or naturalwealth*).