How cultivate internal resources to improve physical and brain health

Abstract

Our mind can be used in positive way, it is powerful, and the neuroplasticity, typical of our brain, allows to our mind to change if our behaviour and our reactions change. When we become aware that our behaviour and reactions can change, neuroplasticity modificationscan be relevant and they can influence our emotional and physical health, and pain perception. In the last 25 years ago many reports on different roles of emotions on our brain and physical health have been published, due to the work of Her Holiness the Dalai Lama and a group of neuroscientists, demonstrating how our brain health can influence brain circuits involved in pain perception, anxiety, and physical health. J Kabat Zinn was the pioneer in this field, taking to the West the meditation practice, finding out that it had many clinical applications. His work by cultivating mind was  a precious support and a good starting point: freeing mind from conditioning, rumination and judgment is a powerful resource to find adequate solutions in some critical situations and to cultivate kindness and generosity. Mindfulness is an important alternative to take care of us and of patients, improving the results obtained from pharmacological therapies when we treat pain or other pathological conditions. The combination between western and eastern disciplines has never been more adequate and important for our physical and brain health.