Emotions can cloud decisions

[Guest guest]

'Rational' Decisions Clouded By Emotions

Decisions that we make every day, such as whether to take a hot bath or use a seat belt, have an emotional component. This may explain why it's difficult for people with certain types of brain injury to make so-called rational personal decisions.

The circuits are very intertwined. There isn't just one separate part of the brain that drives us in emotional decisions and another part that drives us in rational thinking. In fact, when decisions are personal even if they are not emotional, the emotional part of the brain is actively involved.

The old concept of the brain and decision-making divided the concept of thinking into very separate "rational" and "emotional" components, while the current view is these components are integrated and overlapping.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in volunteers to scan brain activity during the decision-making process, the researchers found the part of the brain typically involved in emotions, the ventromedial frontal lobe, was highly active even when the volunteers were making what typically would be considered rational decisions.

In the study, six men and five women underwent two fMRI scans each. During each scan the participants had to perform two tasks: choosing the better of two desirable events, such as taking a warm bath or eating a good meal, or choosing the worse of two undesirable events, such as being in a car accident or getting robbed.

In the first scan, people were asked to make their decision based on how it would affect them personally. In the second, people were asked similar questions, but told to base their choices purely on cost, not on how the decision would affect their lives.

On average, the fMRI scans showed significantly more activity in the ventromedial frontal lobe when the people were making the simple personal decisions than when they were making the choices based on cost.

It gives some insight I think into our psychological process in everyday life that perhaps we are not aware often of how we make decisions. Our rational decisions are more biased than we may think.

If you eliminate the emotional guiding factors, it's impossible to make decisions in daily life. Even while making a decision, such as 'should I put on my seatbelt?' you intuitively realize that, without the seatbelt, you might get hurt in a crash. That's an emotional image. If you can't envision that, you can't make the decision to wear the seatbelt.

The researchers suggest that in the future it may be possible to use fMRI during psychotherapy. This could involve imaging the parts of the brain involved in decision-making.

87th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago, Illinois November 26, 2001

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:

This is fascinating information that documents how vitally important our emotional health is. If we have unresolved stresses, the evidence seems quite clear that it will interfere with our logical and rational thought processes.

This is why energy psychology tools are so vitally important to maintaining health.

I will likely be contacting the researchers to see if it would be possible to use the exciting technology of a functional MRI screen to actually document the healing effects that are occurring in EFT.

As many of you know I have been using EFT for the last six months and have been witnessing miracles nearly every day in my office. I held an EFT workshop on December 1 that was absolutely incredible. We had 50 incredible people who participated and the interactions and healing that occurred were nothing less than spectacular.

I am just sorry you all couldn't have been there to witness this. Fortunately we were able to capture the entire event on video. I would strongly recommend obtaining a set of tapes as there is a no questions asked one year 100% complete money back guarantee. We hope to have the tapes available prior to Christmas.

There is no way I want you to keep these tapes if you aren't absolutely convinced that this tool is one of the most amazing healing methods you have ever learned in your life.