Page 8 - 2017 August Voices

Imagine the job your brain is doing while Toastmasters transports me to magical

standing up there getting ready to talk. In that moments
short space of time, yout brain is using multiple
interacting cognitive processes like idea incuba- Toastmasters allows me to hear simply
tion, illumination, and verification. incredible speeches that move and inspire me,
Challenging the brain with new activities or transport me to the magic of another time
helps to build new brain cells and strengthen and place.
connections between them. It’s as if you’re taking Like the recent meeting in which I was
your brain to the gym. reintroduced to a Grimm’s fairy tale that instantly
transported me back to the happy childhood
Toastmasters provides me a sense memory of my grandfather’s story-telling. For
of challenge you see, our brains don’t know the difference
between what is real and imagined. Just being in
There’s a difference between stress (which that happy childhood memory—experiencing

in chronic quantities is bad for our health) and the excited sense of anticipation involved in
the ‘stress’ created by a challenge (which wakes being a child who had a magical storytelling
us up and is good for our health). grandfather—was enough to make my body’s
Challenging ourselves is the wellspring of biochemistry hum with health.
life because it keeps us motivated and aspiring. Toastmasters expands my compassion
Imagine you’re waiting in the wings before a
presentation, flipping through your talk in your and my sense of connection
mind’s eye. You know you can do this!
Epinephrine shoots into your system; norepi- Then there are the speeches that inspire me
nephrine follows, but in lesser amounts. Your and often offer insight about how to be a better
heart rate increases, your hands get warm, your person, or spur me on to go the extra mile and
eyes light up. Cortisol inches up. This is challenge try something I might not have.
stress. You’re ready to fly. Good things come Are there speeches you’ll never forget? That
from challenge stress, including the growth of keep coming back to you? That move you—that
new brains cells. show you the depth of someone’s courage? The
According to psychologists Robert M. Yerkes speeches that rip your heart open, so that they
and John Dillingham Dodson, in Yerkes-Dodson can be filled to the brim with compassion.
Law, when epinephrine and norepinephrine A member once gave a powerful speech about
are flowing—as they do when we challenge how, even though she was homeless and it wasn’t
ourselves—performance improves. But once always easy to find a shower, kept coming to
cortisol arrives, you’re on the downward stress Toastmasters because it reminded her of the type

side of the equation. of people she wanted to surround herself with
and who she wanted to be. Wow—even now I can
remember how my heart was expanded by her
courage, and how I felt more connected to her. Or
the ice breaker I heard from a young man about
his triumph over the darkness of drugs. There
was hardly a dry eye in the place—so many hearts
all opening together, feeling more connected to
each other’s humanity and putting that beautiful
supportive energy out into the world.
Being in a state of compassion shunts our
body’s pharmacy instantaneously into the
production of health-enhancing hormones,
Taking your brain reducing inflammation and improving our
to the gym immune response. What a health gift!

8 VOLUME 4 ISSUE 1 JULY, 2017