Tanzi: Too much intellect can be just as dangerous as too much emotion. You don't want to be
a drama queen- that leads to disaster. You don't want to just be intellectual because
that also leads to disaster. Emotion and intellect are just responses, reactions of the brain
to you outside world. The fact that you can be self-aware of the fact that you're having
feelings and thoughts means that you are more than just the automatic thoughts and feelings
going through your head. Too much intellect can also be dangerous just like too much emotion.
Use them wisely.
[Music]
Chopra: So Rudy, there's been of course over a thousand papers only in the last two decades
on the beneficial effects of meditation on our biology, on our biochemistry. We know
that the metabolic rate goes down. We know that the immune system seems to optimize.
We know that cortisol levels decrease, adrenaline decreases. Overall there's a general sense
of well-being. But I think what meditation also does in the brain anyway, it increases
what I've heard is gamma synchrony. It increases the coherence in the brain other than decreasing
the metabolic rate in the body. And that has beneficial effects. I want to ask you first
of all, does quietening the mind enhance our ability to remember, to memory, and does sleep
do that as well because recently I've heard a lot about how you need to get out of the
default mode in order to repair your body. So you have to reboot the brain. Talk to me
a little bit about delta waves, default, meditation, sleep; how is this so important?
Tanzi: Well, most of us experience at any moment an internal dialogue or monologue in
the brain. In other words there is a conversation. This is framing your ego. So on one hand you
have emotions. You have desires, you have fears that are driving you at any moment.
So that those desires don't turn into addictions, so that those fears don't turn into pathological
phobias, your ego is quelling everything. It's happening all the time. In fact it short
changes your existence really because you're limited to these words. So with meditation...
Chopra: You call this the default mode?
Tanzi: Yes. When this is happening, your intellect is keeping your emotions in check. There's
a constant internal monologue or dialogue going on in the brain. This is the default
mode or default network of the brain.
Chopra: So the computer's buzzing even though you're not using it.
Tanzi: Yeah. You don't even know what's going on. Even when you daydream, that internal
dialogue is working together, feelings and thoughts. All part of this system of your
ego that keeps you sane so to speak. Now when you meditate, what you're doing is you're
turning off that internal dialogue. You're quelling the emotions. You're quelling the
thoughts that come along with those emotions. You're clearing the brain into a quiet space
so that your mind can be quiet. At this point, everything's going to be much clearer. It's
going to be opening channels of intuition in your brain which many would argue is the
next big part of the brain that's evolving. You know beyond the original instinctive brain,
the emotional brain, the intellectual brain; now the intuitive brain. To get to that, turn
off the bandwidth. Meditation allows you to do this, so you will have just a much clearer
set of channels, whether you're recalling or recapitulating memories from the past or
whether you're trying to imagine what you might do in the future, you're in the now.
You're in the present, quiet mind, and everything will be much more acute in terms of awareness,
and now you're allowing intuition to bloom in your mind through your brain.
Chopra: So you're rebooting your brain.
Tanzi: You're rebooting your brain..
Chopra: More than that.
Tanzi: ...but you're also- it's more than that. You're allowing your brain to blossom
into what many would argue is the next stage of evolution for the brain as it ties to mind.
And that is promoting intuition by turning off the noise.