One in five Americans is currently dealing with a mental health illness such as depression, anxiety, or substance use. Neurosurgeon W. Lee Warren told CBN News he found himself in the depths of despair and is now sharing his healing journey, which combines his Christian faith and recent discoveries in the field of neuroscience.
Like millions of Americans, he suffered from debilitating Post Traumatic Stress.
“I was deployed as a neurosurgeon to a combat theater hospital in Iraq,” he said, “and spent five months there and went through a hundred mortar and rocket attacks and did 200 brain surgeries in that tent hospital and just saw a lot of human despair.”
Then he suffered every parent’s worst nightmare, the death of a child.
“Our son Mitch was killed in 2013,” he said. “That led me to a now 12- or 13-year-long study of how to recover myself and my family after that devastating tragedy.”
He did heal and describes how others can too, from their own mental health issues, in his book, The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery: Connecting Neuroscience and Faith to Radically Transform Your Life.
Neuroplasticity
Dr. Warren’s first steps on the road to emotional wellness began by harnessing the power of neuroplasticity, a newly discovered process that rewires our brains, for better or worse, based on what we think about the most.
“And that neuroplasticity process, this is the most important part that happens every moment of your life,” he said, “whether you’re directing it or not.”
In other words, our repetitive thoughts, whether positive or negative, change the way our neurons communicate with each other, in a way that causes our brains to automatically think that way even more.
“So if you’ve always been anxious or afraid, or you’ve gone through something hard that’s made you more depressed, your brain will just keep recreating synapses, connections, that will reinforce that same thought process,” Dr. Warren explained.
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Knowing this, Dr. Warren changed his own thinking. Instead of focusing on sadness and loss like he normally did, he began counting his blessings. The more he did that, the more blessed he felt.
“And that’s the whole idea really behind Philippians 4, which says, if you want to be less anxious, be more grateful and think better thoughts and you’ll actually overcome anxiety,” he said. “And we’ve learned that that’s now true on the neuroscience side too.”
Believe in Change
Dr. Warren says too many unhappy people don’t think they can change because they believe the big lie, “This is just how I am.”
He advises them to reach 2 Corinthians 10:5, which says, “Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
“The truth is as soon as you’re ready to change what you think about, your brain is ready to change,” he said. “You’re designed to heal, and there’s tremendous hope in that.”
Dr. Warren says the Biblical pattern of grateful, hopeful thinking leads to better physical health, such as lower blood pressure and less chronic disease. It also improves our speech and behavior.
“That’s the whole point of Ephesians chapter 4 and Romans chapter 12, the idea that when you clean up your thinking, you clean up your body and your brain and your life,” he said.
Dr. Warren points out that the way we think rubs-off on the people with whom we come into contact.
“There’s a whole system called mirror neurons,” he explained. “Other people pick up on your emotional state and they begin to make structural changes in their brains to mirror how you’re feeling and how you’re behaving emotionally.”
Epigenetics
Not only can our thought patterns change us, and people around us, in the here and now, but, believe it or not, also future generations. That’s because scientists recently discovered epigenetics, which is when the emotional residue from things like trauma, is actually inherited. The good news is, we can break these so-called generational curses.
“You can actually start your life with some stress responses and some cortisol levels and some ways that you tend to react to things, based on experiences that your parents or grandparents had,” Dr. Warren said.
Scientists studied Holocaust survivors and others who’ve gone through extreme trauma and discovered their experiences triggered changes in how their genes work, which are passed down even to their great-grandchildren. However, these changes don’t have to be permanent.
“Your children and their children can be born with normal stress responses,” he said. “So what that means is we can change the future of our family, generations, and how they respond to life by getting things right and doing the work in our lifetime.”
That work, described in The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery, involves paying attention to our thoughts, recognizing the harmful ones, then replacing them with thoughts that conform to God’s will for our lives.
“Hope is defined as having agency and opportunity and you’ve got both because God has built your nervous system to be operated in a way that will help you and not hurt you as soon as you’re ready to change how you think,” Dr. Warren said.
Bible App Reading Plan – The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery: Connecting Neuroscience and Faith
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