People’s words and actions can actually shape your brain — a neuroscientist explains how 

Right from childhood, the people we interact with and spend time with are rewiring and shaping our brains at a neurological level.

Slowly and slowly, our brain is ‘pruned’ and tuned according to the people who are with us, like our family, friends, neighbours and even strangers.

If we are with someone we care about, our breathing synchronizes with them, along with the beating of the heart.

This ‘two become one’ phenomenon happens between infants and their caretakers, between therapists and their clients, people singing together, or taking a yoga session.

• If we raise our voice or even change our facial expression, we can affect what happens in other peoples bodies, brains and neurological systems.
• If someone is in pain and we hold their hand, it can lessen their suffering. One tends to have a long and healthy life if their partners are supportive and caring and if the relationship with others is supportive.
• Even if one has a serious disease, the power of love can increase the likelihood of getting better.

• People die years earlier if they are lonely, as no one is there to ‘regulate’ their body budget.
• Losing a loved one feels like losing a part of oneself for the same reason: One loses a regulation mechanism of their body budget.
• Our feelings of empathy vary according to how well we know and understand the other person’s problem.

A comforting word can calm us, and a hateful word can make our brain rush towards a fight or flight mechanism.

People create ‘echo chambers’ where they only see and hear what they want to because it reduces the cognitive and metabolic load on the brain while having a side-effect: They learn nothing new.

Words are powerful keys due to the wiring of our brain. A word can heal us from a great distance. If a loved one sends us a beautiful message from across the world, it will change our heart rate, breathing and metabolism.

Ancient texts like The Geeta or The Bible can comfort us now even though they are centuries old. Books and podcasts have words that penetrate us and tweak our nervous systems.

Words are tools for managing our bodies, even if we are not aware of it.

The words we listen to and hear all day have a wide-ranging effect on our brain, which in turn manages our organs and our body budget. The language network controls our heart rate and adjusts the glucose entering our bloodstream to power our cells.

• Toxic words and language are harmful to our health if given in large doses and like chronic stress, can eat away our brain. This includes verbal aggression, neglect and rejection.
• Our bodies are already having a lot of stress due to the environment, wrong nutrition, lack of sleep or exercise, hormonal imbalance, and the problems in our working lives.
• Long periods of chronic stress of any kind is harmful to our brain.