“If You Tell the Truth, You Don’t Have to Remember Anything”

Parents commonly used this famous Mark Twain quote in the upbringing of their children decades ago. The idea is that if you lie, you must work to remember the details of the lie you told. As a rule, lying takes more brainpower than telling the truth does. You may have noticed, that doesn’t really stop some people! The TRUTH is the human brain is an AMAZING organ and it is capable of many different functions and activities including, memory and learning, speech and language, intellect (including problem solving, judgement, and the ability to recognize appropriate behavior), muscle strength and coordination, maintaining attention, emotions and personality, and visual and spatial ability.

Your mind is especially AMAZING!!! The very fact that we can think a thought is AMAZING! The soft tissue of our brains consists of 86 billion nerve cells!!! (I’m thinking that’s an estimate because who would count that many!?!) These cells and the chemicals that go between them allow the cells to communicate. This allows you to use your brain to process and record thoughts. But you also have an immaterial aspect to your brain where thoughts originate. Together your material brain and your immaterial aspect make up what we call your mind. It’s like a computer. It records and processes thoughts but the thoughts themselves come from the writer not the computer.

In addition to being able to think, one of the most AMAZING functions of our minds is that we can remember. Isn’t it incredible that somehow recorded in our brains are experiences we’ve had years or even decades ago? Friends we’ve had, places we’ve been, smells, tastes and sounds we’ve experienced, all just waiting for us to think about them. And we can recall them in an instant allowing the experiences of the past to cheer us, comfort us, or impact decisions that we must make in the present.

Of course, changes can and will occur in our brains over time, but what is really AMAZING is not that our brains can fail but that they ever worked in the first place. But even as our brains age, they are still able to learn new things, record new memories, and process vast amounts of information. As we age, we may become frustrated with our ability to remember things, especially nouns and names. But often, it is a simple part of aging not a serious problem and nothing to worry about.

Just like any other organ though, the brain requires the nerve system to function at its best and most efficiently. Misalignment of spinal bones can distort the vital communication within the body and keep it from working the way it was meant to. Your family chiropractor checks your spine for vertebral subluxation and adjusts you when necessary. This ensures that your nerve/communication system, including your brain, works as efficiently as possible. This will  help you to think great thoughts and to remember as much as possible whether you’re telling the truth (or not.) AMAZING!! —By Judy Nutz Campanale, DC, ACP