entire regions work separately and in opposition. Like a house divided
against itself, the brain no longer communicates in an organized, holistic
fashion. As stress chemicals force the thinking brain/neocortex to become
more segregated, we may function like someone with multiple personality
disorder, only we’re experiencing it all at once instead of one personality at
a time.
Of course, when disorderly, incoherent signals from the brain relay
erratic, mixed electrochemical messages through the central nervous system
to the rest of the physiological systems, this puts the body out of balance,
upsetting its homeostasis or equilibrium, and setting the stage for disease.
If we live in this high-stress mode of chaotic brain function for extended
periods, the heart is impacted (leading to arrhythmias or high blood
pressure), digestion begins to fail (causing indigestion, reflux, and related
symptoms), and immune function weakens (resulting in colds, allergies,
cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and more).
All of these consequences stem from an unbalanced nervous system that
is operating incoherently, due to the action of stress chemicals and high-
range Beta brain waves reaffirming the outer world as the only reality.
Sustained High Beta Makes It Hard to
Focus on Our Inner Self
The stress I’ve been discussing is a product of our addiction to the Big
Three. The problem isn’t that we are conscious and aware, but that our
focus in high Beta is almost exclusively on our environment (people, things,
places), our bodies’ parts and functions (I’m hungry ... I’m too weak ... I
want a better nose ... I’m fat compared to her ...), and time (Hurry up! The
clock is winding down!).
In high Beta, the outer world appears to be more real than the inner
world. Our attention and conscious awareness primarily focus on
everything that makes up the external environment. Thus, we identify more
readily with those material elements: we criticize everyone we know, we
judge the way our bodies look, we’re overfocused on our problems, we
cling to things we own out of fear that we might lose them, we busy
ourselves with places we have to go, and we’re preoccupied with time. That
leaves us little processing power to pay attention to the changes that we