It may seem strange but within your brain there are many different “you’s” that are battling for dominance until one of them comes out the victor. The corpus collosum allows these different sides to speak, which for the most part, is a very positive thing. The corpus collosum is a thick set of nerve fibers that connects the two sides of the brain. This allows the right hemisphere of the brain which focuses on emotions to communicate with the left hemisphere of the brain which focuses on rational thought. In rare cases, some people have had their corpus collosum cut by surgeons in order to avoid epileptic seizures. After the surgery you can then ask the patients left and right hemispheres the same question but get totally different answers. For instance, you could ask each hemisphere the question of what it would do when it saw a tiger at the zoo? In response, the emotional right side of brain might say it would want to run away in fear and the rational left side of the brain might calmly respond that it would want to study the animal to understand it’s behavior. Each side showing their bias in how they perceive a situation. The corpus collosum is thus very important to overcoming stress because it allows your emotional right brain to calm itself down when it opens up a line of communication to the rational left brain that can help it relax.

• FACT: Right hemisphere of the brain thinks cyclically (it happened once it will happen again) instead of in a linear fashion (thinking of past, present, future) like the left hemisphere of the brain.
• TAKEAWAY: This is why its so important for people with anxiety, substance abuse, and depression to move away from right brained thinking because it feels like it will never end. Once the corpus collosum is strengthened and the left rational brain comes online then they can correctly place things in an order of events and see that it has a beginning, middle, and end if it is addressed.