This past weekend my wife and I participated in a Qi Gong retreat, which we found quite energizing and healing.

Ever since my decision to train as a physician acupuncturist, I’ve worked to learn more about bodywork. In addition to my Chinese medicine studies, I’ve dabbled in movement-based healing practices. I’ve done more yoga in the past year than ever before, I’ve tried a few Hindu-derived breathing techniques, and I’ve joined a Feldenkrais class.

Qi Gong is a natural extension of this exploration, and is more relevant to acupuncture since it is based on the same meridian theory. I’ve tried it a few times before, and I’ve also practiced a little bit of Tai Chi, which is a subspecies of Qi Gong.

None of these activities come easily to me. Years ago, first as a graduate student and a little later in medical school, I took yoga and dance classes in alternating sequences. However, neither became regular practices. As I think back on why, it seems likely that my brain demanded too much dominance in my life. I had no problem reading or studying for hours, but even a fifty minute movement class felt like too much effort. And no way was I going to exert myself physically when no one was watching. My life seemed too busy to allow what I imagined an unproductive use of time.

Partly because of a comment that came through on my other site (WillSpirit.com), I’ve been toying with the difference between emotional and rational judgments.

You might expect me to dismiss the former as undesirable and the latter as the mature choice, but that’s not my take on these evaluative methods. As has become my wont of late, I believe a sensible approach requires that we see the advantages and disadvantages of all possible styles.

Emotional reasoning gets a bad reputation because it is viewed as primitive and impulsive. There is truth to this appraisal, but mitigating factors are at play. For instance, if you are on a date with someone you might want to make part of your life over the long run, you would be foolish not to consult your emotional reactions. And if someone approaches you at night and you feel threatened, it would be a mistake to override your emotional unease and drop your guard.

On the other hand, emotions can be so intense and rapid as to overwhelm caution, leading to impulsive and possibly destructive behavior. Obviously in these cases emotional reasoning can be problematic. On a more subtle level, we may jump to conclusions because of unconscious memories or high sensitivity, and so unfairly judge the intentions of others.

Does brain science help us? In times past, I never doubted it. Then, yesterday, I attended an all-day seminar about the neuroscience and clinical management of destructive habits. Afterwards, I found myself wondering how much our massive research into the brain’s activities is really benefitting human life.

The neurophysiology of addiction has been studied in depth, and the lecturer talked a lot about it. Dopamine secreting neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) send messages to the nucleus accumbens apprising it of opportunities in the environment. The accumbens integrates all of its inputs and either releases the basal ganglia (e.g., the striatum and substantia nigra) to indulge in a habitual action, or restrains them to abstain. Drugs of abuse, especially those that act directly on dopaminergic neurons (e.g., cocaine) are acutely habit forming because they trick the brain into thinking a tremendous payoff will result from their ingestion.

This brief sketch belies an enormous amount of investigative work. Countless scientists now study addiction, mental illness, and brain science in general. Pharmaceutical marketing and popular media have celebrated how this huge and costly investigative effort has yielded many advances for treating psychiatric disease, substance abuse, and neurologic problems. But has the clinical payoff really been that high?