Page 7 - 2017 August Voices

Toastmasters: A Healthy Choice

by Cari Corbet-Owen, DTM

I wonder what a doctor would say if I listed Toastmasters keeps my brain young
Toastmasters as a health measure. Yes really!
For about the cost of a large packet of chips a Learning literally changes your brain.
week, it gives me priceless and incredibly cost- Toastmasters constantly exposes me to topics I
effective health benefits. (Bonus—I now have know nothing about. Every week, I’m listening
something that feeds me way more nourishment intently, expanding both my horizons and my
than any packet of chips!) Seriously, if I had to general knowledge and learning. Seriously, where
choose between ‘going to the gym’ or going to else could you learn about the geological factors
Toastmasters, as an expert in aging well, I know that triggered the mudslides and buried a village,
that Toastmasters would win hands down because how magic tricks work, new ways to garden, how
my club is the health gift that keeps on giving. to inspire better productivity, or the lessons you
In the old paradigm, medicine is viewed as can learn from your cat?
something to fix illness. In the new paradigm Ongoing learning is something that cente-
everything is medicine. Simply put, our cells are narians (those people who live to 100+) have in
eavesdropping on our thoughts and emotions, common. Learning anything new improves your
and producing matching biochemistry. Feeling neural connections. Which in turn, improves the
good is literally our body revving up, firing on flexibility, integration and co-ordination of your
all it’s health cylinders and producing happy, brain. All these improve how fast your brain can
health-enhancing hormones like Oxytocin, process and retrieve information.
Dopamine, and Serotonin. Feeling stressed Ongoing learning is literally a way of keeping
produces health-eroding biochemistry like our brains young. The creative thinking that
Adrenaline and Cortisol. goes into tackling table topics also changes the
structure and functioning of your brain—that
In a nutshell, Toastmasters provides me with
a healthy environment in which my immune nimble thinking keeps it young too.
system can sing, my cells can dance. and my heart
and brain can flourish. Here’s why:
Dr. Bruce Lipton, a cell biologist, in his book,
The Biology of Belief, says a professor once told
him that if he was incubating cells and the cells
started looking sick, he was to look not to the cell
for the problem, but to the environment. Well,
we’re no different. We’re simply a community
of 52 trillion cells (okay, I’ll ‘fess up, I honestly
don’t know who counted them) immersed in
an environment that is continually, moment-
by-moment impacting our biochemistry and
our health. Our health has a lot to do with the
environment in which we surround ourselves.
For me, Toastmasters is one that is extremely
health enhancing. Learning anything new improves your neural connections

Cari Corbet-Owen

VOLUME 4 ISSUE 1 JULY, 2017 7