Have you ever thought if you said "That just burns me up" would induce fever, or even worse, the flu in your body?

A woman went into the hospital for the flu--an uncommon long running fever--and the doctors could not figure out what to do for her. Conventional medicine was not working. All the while they had her under observation, she would keep repeating off-handedly "That just burns me up."  As a last resort, one of the doctors suggested to her to try not using the metaphor; her temperature had dropped and flu symptoms had cleared by two days; no recurrences were documented after a week follow-up.

Dr. Caroline Leaf (forgive the pun), a neuro-metacognitive learning specialist, discusses the form of our interworking thoughts in explicit detail:

    Thoughts have physical structure and nature. They look like trees in a forest with a gentle rain of chemicals falling on them. They are called neurons or nerve cells. There are approximately 100 billion nerve cells in the human  brain. These neuron cells  grow 100 trillion connections amongst each other in a dynamic, integrated network. Each nerve cell (or tree) has the potential to grow up to 70,000 branches or more per nerve cell. This means that if we had to unravel all the nerve cells in one human brain, we could make a rope that would take us to the moon and back! We have about 3 million years worth of storage in the brain.

Three million years worth of storage in the brain? Well, that equates to an average of 37,500 life-times!! This infers that our bodies, while not immortal, were probably designed to bring up the road to immortality.

What happens if we go around thinking bad thoughts all of the time? Well, Dr. Leaf continues to explain in her own words that essentially "garbage in, garbage out:"

     What we think will determine how we function spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically:

     There is a dynamic information network linking mind and body that is both provactive and revolutionary.  Many may find it surprising that their attitudes, habits and emotions could be responsible for their mental and physical health.  Yet, these minute biochemicals working their way through the neurons--the magical forest of the mind--have a huge impact on emotional and physical wellness.  These biochemicals carry these emotions and a photocopy of the thought throughout your whole body thus affecting many areas.

     This means that a thought can actually change your system--your neural circuitry with chemicals--according to how you are thinking.  As you are reading this article, you are rewiring your neural circuitry.  Each time you speak, listen to somthing or watch something on T.V., you are altering and growing neural circuits--and sometimes not always for the better.

     If someone has repeatedly verbally abused you, the negative chemicals that form the thought will make the thought look like a thorn tree.  Complicating matters even more, chemicals attached to the development of the thought will cause stress chemicals to flow through your body, altering the shape of the cells' lining.  For example, negative thoughts can actually cause damage to the heart, making one susceptible to cardiovascular disease.

     The converse is also, of course, true: If you have been repeatedly recognized and praised, this will cause the development of a beautiful memory that looks like a luscious green tree, which in turn releases postive chemicals that enhnace the ability to build memory and develop intelligence.  This will also foster a postivie stronghold, which will strengthen postive feedback loops that release biochemicals such as endorphins into the body.  This is good for you.

Personally, I can attest that these facts are unequivocal; the science supporting these facts, infallible.  When I was a child growing through my adolescent years and even on into my early twenties, I thought I was an indubitable moron--My I.Q., ASVAB, SAT and ACT scores all corroborated upon this single thought too. What changed? Well, I saw that it was only what people and tests were saying about me and not what I was saying about me. So, I began to change what I thought about myself--I re-envisaged my self-image; I began to find self-worth in places I never knew existed. The going was'nt easy because there were plenty of circumstances that would tell me to "SIT DOWN! and mind closely your lowly estate--you'll never rise above it." When those times came, I had to look the cirumstance dead in the eye and say "This problem is not insurmountable and I will rise above this!" For me, this change was not fully manifested until I had sat down to take a high-range I.Q. test when I was 33, the results reported percentile at the 99.63 of the unselected population. This means-- yeah I'm actually the opposite of a moron and, yeah you change your life on a grand-scale but just starting to change one single thought about yourself--good or bad.