Care to raise your confidence and boost emotional well being with visible results? Studies show gum chewing as stress reducers and more. How so?
Chew Away Stress
Dr. Hollingworth at Columbia University attributes one key benefit to muscular tension reduction. And increasing studies show gum chewing to reduce stress and boost better moods.
It makes sense when you consider how an increase in blood flow to the brain adds alertness and boosts focus.
Who’d have thought chewing impacts moods? Yet sugar-free dessert gums add delicious new flavors if you consider how chewing improves moods. Has it happened to you?
Chew Past Stress’ Stalkers?
When daily stressors race you to depression’s door, how do you fight back? Why not refuel with serotonin’s well being through chewing. Why so?
Good moods come from reducing cortisol’s toxic attacks, before you slip into depression’s trap. Research shows how gum chewing can prevent mental toxins that work against moods and can even damage your heart.
Chew Awake Your Frontal Cortex
Moodiness cuts creativity, stifles proactive responses, and blocks memories of better times. Trigger mood disturbances and you decrease serotonin’s mental gains within the brain’s frontal lobes. How to trigger better moods?
Expect the simple act of chewing to reshape plasticity and rekindle your brain. Enjoy a more active, hopeful perspective when stressors strike, by awakening your brain to focus more on moving ahead. Gum chewing offers a doable serotonin strategy that changes your perspective and allows you to win in several ways.
Scientifically it’s about engaging more bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. Practically, it’s a bit like shifting your view from rear-view-mirror-passivity to a gaze forward through the front windshield. See why you move ahead?
Chew Beyond Brutal Moods
From a brain’s perspective, improving moods can be brutal for adults. Adopting a new practice such as chewing gum at work requires massive rewiring of vast cortical connections. Same is true for letting go of myths that gum chewing is bad.
It’s about choosing a new path and practice to access better moods. Every time you slip into sluggish moods, your brain grows neural pathways for more negativity. The opposite is also true. Ready for a new taste and a finer view?
Imagine moving from current quagmires financially or emotionally progress to filled your day with new hope. Then try chewing to reboot neural networks from workplace ruts into rejuvenation.
The brain orchestrates over 200 kinds of cells with trillions of neural signals communicating hope or despair in your cortex. Activate chemical and electrical circuitry to improve chemicals that seep through clefts in your brain and convert to electrical impulses.
Moods Relate to Choices
New neural connections – from increased brain activity – foster good moods. A choice to chew’s more vital when you consider how moods impact what you think and do. An active frontal cortex sways your reactions to life through healthy mental movement much like an atmosphere sways an ocean.
Do your moods reflect smiles or sneers? Chemicals called neurotransmitters act as biochemical messengers, which act as stimuli to excite active neurons which suppress through inactivity. Chewing gum has been proven to stimulate synapses, another name for communication and electrical activity among neurons. Check out gum chewing studies below and see how your brain builds natural chemicals for well being even with placebo effects.
Research Holds Game-Changing Clues
It takes good moods to produce dopamine and other natural drugs of choice, that enable you to take game-changer risks. Chewing gum increases oxygen, and offers other serotonin builders that impact moods positively. The how and why moods brighten becomes more obvious when you consider how the brain produces serotonin and how it’s activity aids focus for wellbeing at work or home.
Determination alone is rarely enough for serotonin laden well-being, since poor moods come ruled at times by gene pools we carry, and at times by lives we lead. Not surprisingly, brain researchers disagree on cures and causes for these two common causes for moodiness. Luckily we can manage moods better now that we know how DNA can be overridden by actions we take in the opposite direction, by building new more active neural pathways to mental health.
Chew before Hope’s Light Dims
Could gum chewing help before a toxic workplace tanks your moods? Chew when a friend lets you down, when you feel too tired to work, or when you lack money to pay your bills. For best benefits try a sugar- free-dessert-gum before you slip into the blues today and try out research findings for yourself?
Regardless of why poor moods strike, chew gum to regain the moods you deserve. As Leslie Hart said in Human Brain and Human Learning: “With our new knowledge of the brain, we are just dimly beginning to realize that we can now understand humans, including ourselves, as never before, and that this is the greatest advance of the century, and quite possibly the most significant in all human history.”
Since brains rewire daily – why not transform despair into a brighter purpose by simply chewing away stress?
YOUR TURN! Join our Brain Based Circles! Would love to meet you at any of the following!
Brain Leaders and Learners Blog
Mita Brain Center Facebook
efweber on Pinterest
@ellenfweber on Twitter
ellenfweber on Instagram
Ellen Weber on Google+
Ellen Weber on LinkedIn
Created by Ellen Weber, Brain Based Tasks for Growth Mindset
Further Reading:
NPR study on Gum Chewing that Boosts Brainpower
Chew Gum to Boost Brain Power and Memory
Chew Gum to Stimulate the Brain
Gum Chewing that Boosts Brain Performance
Gum Chewers Score Higher in Tests
Teen Brains Powered by Gum Chewing
BBC Report – Chew to a Better Brain
Increase Health – Lower Anxiety by Chewing Gum
Wrigley’s Benefits of Chewing Research
Pingback: anxiety and girls
I’ve heard about this and I think it’s true. However, chewing always makes me thirsty so that makes me nervous!
Thanks Robyn, the great flavors are definately part of the motivation to chew gum – so it’s delightful to learn newways that benefit the brain at the same time.
Like you I too recently discovered that I can chew gum when I work – and thet prevents me from snacking since it satifies hunger.
My own bias shows though when folks crack and chew with mouth open and in distracting ways. Or I tend to dislike gum placed on sides of plates, behind ears or under table tops.
Think the disadvantages hold back the research advances for hum chewing?
Just the other day I read the machine to remove gum costs organizations more than $3000, for instance. Ouch! That cost alone would likely work against serotonin gains for most employers:-)
Still, it seems such an easy and enjoyable way to fight a sluggish brain when used well, don’t you agree?
You give us much to “chew on,” Ellen. After discovering the amazing flavors of dessert gums, I have had some fun experimenting with these. I am finding that it is more “fun” to use different flavors throughout the day. This brings novelty to different events. Since the human brain “relishes” novelty, it makes gum chewing more of an adventure.
One bonus I have found is that at times I crave some dessert, the dessert gum satisfies my craving and I am able to do without all the sugars that can make us “sleepy” an hour or so after consumption. I also see this gum as a great way to avoid some of the foods that are not good for us.
Robyn
Marianna, thanks for the wonderful exchanges and I’m still “chewing” on the delightful puns!
Yes, this post relates especially well to your thoughtful post and following discourse at http://changeofheartstresssolutions.blogspot.ca/2011/04/bruxism-grind-of-stress.html.
I was also intrigued by our mutual friend’s Dorlee’s well stated comment: “The hard part is that you may not feel up to doing these “good for you” things when you are in the midst of the chaos!” Yes, true!
Loved your response to cultivate habits against stress before the stressors hit. That too fits well with this new research and its refreshing “flavors” for those who hope to head off anxiety before the day “loses its taste.”
Thanks for your excellent work, and for the honor of knowing you and learning from your insights, Marianna!
This post is packed with flavour, Ellen. (I have to keep up our repartee from Saturday! 😉 )
In fact, it adds more punch to a post I wrote about our dog and her nervous habits: http://changeofheartstresssolutions.blogspot.ca/2011/04/bruxism-grind-of-stress.html
As mentioned in our Twitter talk, one of the reasons I stopped chewing gum was because of learning that the process of chewing signals the brain to produce stomach acid in preparation for digestion. When there is not digestion to be had (unless you swallow your gum!) the acid “has nothing to do”. However, it’s interesting that I’ve read conflicting reports about that, as well.
The other reason I don’t chew gum is because of the joint damage from RA, which includes my TMJ.
Know thy own body and see what works/doesn’t work. Experiment.
Pingback: Serotonin – Miracle Drug at Work – Brain Leaders and Learners