Thursday, August 14, 2014

Kindness: Just the Opposite of Killing Us...Makes Us Stronger


REMINDER: In The Archive is all of the articles that I
have posted since I started this blog. There is TONS OF
INFORMATION there for you to learn from. It's the type
of information that not only saved my life...It also has
given me a better quality of life.

PLEASE PASS THIS BLOG ON AND PLEASE TWEET THIS BLOG.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

                   "Nature Cures Cancer" - Here are 10 examples
                                    http://bit.ly/1k1N4Bg




Kindness: Just the Opposite of Killing Us...Makes Us Stronger


By Dr. Mercola


    Science tells us that kindness directly influences your propensity for happiness. But kindness does more than that; it not only improves your health but increases your longevity. It’s a proven biological fact.

    But what happens with the opposite scenario? Research also shows that people who can’t extend kindness to others or receive it for themselves are just as unhappy as they are unkind, and the sad fact is chronically unhappy people don’t live very long.

    Kind of makes you want to get happier, doesn’t it? But if the central key is kindness, it usually involves other people, whether it’s relatives, coworkers or the cashier at the corner grocery.

Healthy Relationships Longer Life

    It should come as no surprise that that the way an individual interacts with others is directly linked to his or her mental and emotional health, and vice versa.

    A 2010 meta-analysis1 on the kindness-related-to-long-life premise combined the results of 148 studies. The conclusion is that the types of social relationships someone enjoys or doesn’t can actually put them at risk for premature death. In fact, researchers found:

    A 50% increased likelihood of survival for participants with stronger social relationships. This finding remained consistent across age, sex, initial health status, cause of death and follow-up period.

    Significant differences were found across the type of social measurement evaluated The association was strongest for complex measures of social integration and lowest for binary indicators of residential status (living alone versus with others).

    The study continued:

    Some experts think that social isolation is bad for human health. They point to a 1988 review of five prospective studies that showed that people with fewer social relationships die earlier on average than those with more social relationships.

    The study also noted that people, especially in the U.S, may be becoming more socially isolated. Isolation, by the way, means fewer opportunities to experience kindness, either through extending or receiving it.

    The social interaction studies were so precise that scientists could compare negative results of social isolation with mortality statistics produced by smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity and lack of physical activity. At the same time, affirming social relationships were found to positively affect longevity the same way that lowering blood pressure and maintaining a healthy weight do4.

‘Loving-kindness’ Meditation Opening Your Heart, Not Just Your Mind

    Another, clinical study at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, explored the question as to which aspects of social relationships are most significant in predicting whether participants are more likely to enjoy a long, satisfying life?

    Sixty-five faculty and staff members participated in the study, which looked at whether positive thoughts and focused, mental good-will exercises aimed at themselves and others might measurably combat stress.

    Each participant was randomly assigned to one of two groups: the first group joined a class generating positive emotions through loving-kindness meditation for one hour for a period of six weeks; the second to a non-treatment waiting list used as a control group for comparison.

    In the class, the participants were instructed to sit and think compassionately about others by starting to contemplate their own worries and concerns and then moving out to include those of more of their social contacts.

        People were taught to silently repeat phrases like ‘May you feel safe, may you feel happy, may you feel healthy, may you live with ease,’ and keep returning to these thoughts when their minds wandered. They were also advised to focus on these thoughts, and on other people, in stressful situations like when they were stuck in traffic.

    The results suggested that positive emotions, positive social connections and physical health influence one another in a self-sustaining upward-spiral dynamic. As psychology professor Barbara Fredrickson explained it, It’s kind of softening your own heart to be more open to others.

Vagal Tone: It’s All in Your Perception

    The vagus nerve is, the longest cranial nerve in your brain, and interestingly may connect positive emotions that flow from positive interaction with others. Increased positive emotions produces increased vagal tone, or response, described as a proxy index of physical health. The vagus nerve also mediates your parasympathetic nervous system and may also have a positive influence here.

    Before and after the meditation classes, participants were encouraged to log the time they spent meditating or praying and journal both the positive and negative aspects associated with their meditative forays. Afterward, scientists recorded each participant’s heart rate variability, which directly affected baseline vagal tone. According to Time Health & Family:

     The vagus regulates how efficiently heart rate changes with breathing and, in general, the greater its tone, the higher the heart-rate variability and the lower the risk for cardiovascular disease and other major killers. It may also play a role in regulating glucose levels and immune responses8.

    The vagus nerve itself is connected to other nerves that:

     Tune our ears to human speech, coordinate eye contact and regulate emotional expressions. It influences the release of oxytocin, a hormone that is important in social bonding. Studies have found that higher vagal tone is associated with greater closeness to others and more altruistic behavior.

    An interesting point is that the response has everything to do with the perception of the participant; the positive effect has a direct correlation to perceived social connectedness on the part of individual subjects. Participants in the meditative segment of the study exhibited increased joy, interest, amusement, serenity and hope after the six-week program. Researchers found it significant that they also discovered an important residual benefit from the emotional and psychological changes: a greater sense of connectedness to others.

When It Comes to Altruism, How Much Grey Matter You Have Matters

    Altruism can be described as an action a person performs to benefit another at the expense of himself. A firefighter is a good example of an altruistic person. An article in Science Daily related the results of another study, conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Zurich, based on the connection between a person’s brain anatomy and their altruism. Director of the Department of Economics, Ernst Fehr, explained:

    A certain region of the brain  the place where the parietal and temporal lobes meet  is linked to the ability to put oneself in someone else's shoes in order to understand their thoughts and feelings.

    Postdoctoral researcher Yosuke Morishima was even more precise: "People who behaved more altruistically also had a higher proportion of gray matter at the junction between the parietal and temporal lobes." However, Fehr added that social processes could also be taken into consideration as a reason why one person has more altruism than another. If taking the feelings of others into consideration is one of the definitions of kindness, other worthy attributes such as sympathy, empathy, compassion, thoughtfulness, gentleness and caring also fall under its umbrella. So is being humane, as kindness should also be extended to animals.

The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Being Kind to Yourself

    In my recent article, I expanded on 22 Things Happy People Do Differently, and the number two spot is Treat everyone with kindness.

    Kindness is not only contagious; it’s also proven to make you happier. When you’re kind to others, your brain produces feel-good hormones and neurotransmitters like serotonin and you’re able to build strong relationships with others, fostering positive feelings all around.

    Looking for ways to lengthen your life and spread good vibrations to others in the world? Random acts of kindness can be performed anywhere at any time. There’s even a Random Acts of Kindness Foundation at   www.ActsOfKindness.org to help you focus your kindness in ways you haven’t thought of yet. If certain issues in your life block your ability to extend  or receive  kindness, there are remedies that can help you change your life.

    Similar to meditation, focused on kindness toward others as well as yourself, the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a form of psychological acupressure based on the same energy meridians used in 5,000-year-old acupuncture. It’s an effective way to quickly restore your inner balance and healing and helps rid your mind of negative thoughts and emotions. Best of all, once you learn the technique, you can use it all by yourself, without the need of acupuncture needles or a therapist. Just remember it is best to find a professional to work with if you are seeking to resolve serious issues.



 Thank You Dr. Mercola


 God Bless Everyone & God Bless The United States of America.


Larry Nelson
42 S. Sherwood Dr.
Belton, Tx. 76513
cancercurehere@gmail.com

Have a great day...unless you have made other plans.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

13 Mind-Body Techniques That Can Help Ease Pain and Depression


REMINDER: In The Archive is all of the articles that I
have posted since I started this blog. There is TONS OF
INFORMATION there for you to learn from. It's the type
of information that not only saved my life...It also has
given me a better quality of life.

PLEASE PASS THIS BLOG ON AND PLEASE TWEET THIS BLOG.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

               "Nature Cures Cancer" - Here are 10 examples
                                http://bit.ly/1k1N4Bg



13 Mind-Body Techniques That Can Help Ease Pain and Depression


By Dr. Mercola


    Many aches and pains are rooted in brain processes that can be affected by your mental attitude and emotions. While the mechanics of these mind-body links are still being unraveled, what is known is that your brain, and consequently your thoughts and emotions, do play a role in your experience of physical pain.

    For instance, meditation appears to work for pain relief because it reduces brain activity in your primary somatosensory cortex, an area that helps create the feeling of where and how intense a painful stimulus is.

    Laughter is also known to relieve pain because it releases endorphins that activate brain receptors that produce pain-killing and euphoria-producing effects.

    This line of communication between mind and body runs both ways though, and physical pain, especially if it’s chronic, is a well-known trigger for depression. According to psychologist Rex Schmidt at the Nebraska Medical Center Pain Management:1

    Depression and pain happen to share a part of the brain that’s involved in both conditions, which means that mind-body techniques that affect those areas can be efficacious for both.

    Meditation and laughter are just two examples of a burgeoning new field looking at mind-body therapies to address chronic pain. The featured article2 reviews 11 such strategies. I’ve added two more for a baker’s dozen.

#1: Add EFT to Your Self-Help Toolkit

    The Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a form of psychological acupressure based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture to treat physical and emotional ailments for over 5,000 years, but without the invasiveness of needles.

    Instead, simple tapping with the fingertips is used to transfer kinetic energy onto specific meridians on your head and chest while you think about your specific problem -- whether it is a traumatic event, an addiction, pain, anxiety, etc. -- and voice positive affirmations.

    This combination of tapping the energy meridians and voicing positive affirmation works to clear the "short-circuit"the emotional block from your body's bioenergy system, thus restoring your mind and body's balance, which is essential for optimal health and the healing of physical disease.

    Some people are initially wary of these principles that EFT is based on -- the electromagnetic energy that flows through the body and regulates our health is only recently becoming recognized in the West. Others are initially taken aback by (and sometimes amused by) the EFT tapping and affirmation methodology.

    But believe me when I say that, more than any traditional or alternative method I have used or researched, EFT has the most potential to literally work magic. Clinical trials have shown that EFT is able to rapidly reduce the emotional impact of memories and incidents that trigger emotional distress. Once the distress is reduced or removed, the body can often rebalance itself, and accelerate healing.

   

#2: Massage the Pain Away

    Massage offers real health benefits, so much so that some conventional hospitals are making it a standard therapy for surgery patients and others. Along with promoting relaxation and improving your sense of well-being, getting a massage has been shown to:

        Relieve pain (from migraines, labor, fibromyalgia and even         cancer)
        Reduce stress, anxiety and depression, and ease insomnia
        Decrease symptoms of PMS
        Relax and soften injured and overused muscles, reducing         spasms and cramping.
        Provide arthritis relief by increasing joint flexibility.

    Massage affects your nervous system through nerve endings in your skin, stimulating the release of endorphins, which are natural "feel good" chemicals. Endorphins help induce relaxation and a sense of well-being, relieve pain and reduce levels of stress chemicals such as cortisol and noradrenaline -- reversing the damaging effects of stress by slowing heart rate, respiration and metabolism and lowering raised blood pressure.

    Stronger massage stimulates blood circulation to improve the supply of oxygen and nutrients to body tissues and helps the lymphatic system to flush away waste products. It eases tense and knotted muscles and stiff joints, improving mobility and flexibility. Massage is said to increase activity of the vagus nerve, one of 10 cranial nerves, that affects the secretion of food absorption hormones, heart rate and respiration. It has proven to be an effective therapy for a variety of health conditions -- particularly stress-related tension, which experts believe accounts for as much as 80 percent to 90 percent of disease.

    According to the featured article:

       [A] new study from Thailand suggests that traditional Thai massage can decrease pain intensity, muscle tension and anxiety among people with shoulder pain. Meanwhile, research from the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami in Florida found that when adults with hand pain had four weeks of massage therapy, they reported a lot less pain, anxiety and depression.

        Another study at the Touch Research Institute found that when pregnant women who were depressed received massages from their partners twice a week, they had much less leg and back pain and fewer symptoms of depression during the second half of their pregnancies.

#3: Remain in the Now...

    Practicing mindfulness means that you’re actively paying attention to the moment you’re in right now. Rather than letting your mind wander, when you’re mindful you’re living in the moment and letting distracting thoughts pass through your mind without getting caught up in their emotional implications. Though it sounds simple, it often takes a concerted effort to remain in a mindful state, especially if it’s new to you. But doing so can offer some very significant benefits to both your mental and physical health.

    For example, mindfulness training has been found to reduce levels of stress-induced inflammation, which could benefit people suffering from chronic inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and asthma.

    This makes sense, since chronic stress heightens the inflammatory response, and mindfulness is likely to help you relieve feelings of stress and anxiety. In one eight-week study,3 people who received mindfulness training had smaller inflammatory responses than those who received a control intervention, which focused on healthy activities to reduce psychological stress but without particular instruction on mindfulness. Similarly, according to the featured article:

      Mindfulness meditation -- focusing on your breath and each present moment -- can lessen cancer pain, low back pain and migraine headaches. Researchers at Brown University in Providence, R.I., found that when women with chronic pelvic pain participated in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program, their pain decreased and their mood improved.

    In many ways, mindfulness is similar to transcendental meditation, the idea of which is to reach a place of restful or concentrated alertness, which enables you to let negative thoughts and distractions pass by you without upsetting your calm and balance. This type of meditation is easy to try at home: simply sit quietly, perhaps with some soothing music, breathe rhythmically and focus on something such as your breathing, a flower, an image, a candle, a mantra or even just being there, fully aware, in the moment.

    Researchers report that practicing mindfulness meditation for just four days affects pain responses in your brain. Brain activity decreases in areas devoted to monitoring a painful body part, and also in areas responsible for relaying sensory information.

#4: Take Control with Biofeedback

    In biofeedback, electrical sensors attached to your skin allow you to monitor your biological changes, such as heart rate, and this feedback can help you achieve a deeper state of relaxation. It can also teach you to control your heart rate, blood pressure and muscle tension through your mind. According to psychologist Rex Schmidt:

        Through focus and mental strategies, biofeedback induces the relaxation response and gives you a greater sense of control.

    Biofeedback is often used for stress-related conditions, such as:

        Migraines and tension-type headaches
        Fibromyalgia
        Back pain
        Depression and anxiety

#5: Free Yourself from Tension with Progressive Muscle Relaxation

    Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is achieved by tensing and relaxing all the major muscle groups, one at a time, from head to toe. By learning to feel the difference between tension and relaxation, you can more actively disengage your body’s fight-or-flight response, which underlies most pain, depression and stress.


#6: Harness Relaxation with Tai Chi

    The 2,000-year-old Chinese practice of tai chi is a branch of Qigong -- exercises that harness the qi (life energy). It’s been linked to numerous health benefits, including improvements in the quality of life of breast cancer patients and Parkinson's sufferers, and has shown promise in treating sleep problems and high blood pressure.

    Often described as "meditation in motion" or "moving meditation," the activity takes your body through a specific set of graceful movements. Your body is constantly in motion and each movement flows right into the next. While practicing tai chi, your mind is meant to stay focused on your movements, relaxation and deep breathing, while distracting thoughts are ignored.

    Part of the allure is that it's so gentle, it's an ideal form of activity for people with pain or other conditions that prevent more vigorous exercise. You can even do tai chi if you're confined to a wheelchair. Even respected conventional health institutions such as the Mayo Clinic4 and Harvard Medical School5 recommend tai chi for its health benefits, especially as a stress-reduction tool. However, there are more studies available than you might think; suggesting tai chi has an impressive range of health benefits. To browse through them, please see the WorldTaiChiDay.org6 web site. According to the featured article:

        In a recent study at the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, researchers found that when people with fibromyalgia participated in 60-minute tai chi sessions twice a week for 12 weeks, they had much less physical and mental discomfort. The researchers also reviewed the medical literature on tai chi’s effect on psychological well-being and concluded that it reduces depression, anxiety and stress.

#7: Breathe Easy...

    Deep breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which induces the relaxation response. There are many different breathing practices that you can try, but here I’m going to share two that are both powerful and very easy to perform. The first one I learned when I attended a presentation by Dr. Andrew Weil at the 2009 Expo West in California. The key to this exercise is to remember the numbers 4, 7 and 8. It’s not important to focus on how much time you spend in each phase of the breathing activity, but rather that you get the ratio correct. Here’s how it’s done:

        Sit up straight
        Place the tip of your tongue up against the back of your front teeth. Keep it there through the entire breathing process
        Breathe in silently through your nose to the count of four
        Hold your breath to the count of seven
        Exhale through your mouth to the count of eight, making an audible woosh sound
        That completes one full breath. Repeat the cycle another three times, for a total of four breaths

    You can do this 4-7-8 exercise as frequently as you want throughout the day, but it’s recommended you don’t do more than four full breaths during the first month or so of practice. Later, you may work your way up to eight full breath cycles at a time. The benefits of this simple practice are enormous and work as a natural tranquilizer for your nervous system.

     The second is known as the Buteyko Breathing Method, which is a powerful approach for reversing health problems associated with improper breathing, the most common of which are overbreathing and mouthbreathing. When you stop mouth breathing and learn to bring your breathing volume toward normal, you have better oxygenation of your tissues and organs, including your brain.

    Factors of modern life, including stress and lack of exercise, all increase your everyday breathing. Typical characteristics of overbreathing include mouth breathing, upper chest breathing, sighing, noticeable breathing during rest, and taking large breaths prior to talking.

    Controlling anxiety and quelling panic attacks is one of the areas where the Buteyko Method can be quite useful. If you’re experiencing anxiety or panic attacks, or if you feel very stressed and your mind can’t stop racing, try the following breathing technique. This sequence helps retain and gently accumulate carbon dioxide, leading to calmer breathing and reduces anxiety. In other words, the urge to breathe will decline as you go into a more relaxed state:

        Take a small breath into your nose, followed by a small breath out
        Then hold your nose for five seconds in order to hold your breath, and then release your nose to resume breathing
        Breathe normally for 10 seconds
        Repeat the sequence

#8: Hypnosis for Pain Management

    Hypnosis, which is a trance-like state in which you experience heightened focus and concentration, can help decrease pain by altering your emotional responses to your body’s pain signals and your thoughts about the pain. Contrary to popular belief, you do not relinquish control over your behavior while under hypnosis, but it does render you more open to suggestions from the hypnotherapist. According to the featured article:

        Studies show that hypnosis can help manage the pain from childbirth and metastatic breast cancer as well as chronic low back pain. What’s more, cognitive hypnotherapy can lead to less depression, anxiety and hopelessness among depressed people than cognitive behavioral therapy does, according to research from the University of Calgary in Canada.

#9: Soothe Your Mind and Body Through the Power of Music

    If you’re a music lover, you already know that turning on the tunes can help calm your nerves, make stress disappear, pump up your energy level during a workout, bring back old memories, as well as prompt countless other emotions. When you listen to music, much more is happening in your body than simple auditory processing.

    Music triggers activity in the nucleus accumbens, a part of your brain that releases the feel-good chemical dopamine and is involved in forming expectations. At the same time, the amygdala, which is involved in processing emotion, and the prefrontal cortex, which makes possible abstract decision-making, are also activated, according to recent research published in the journal Science.7 Other research8 revealed listening to music resulted in less anxiety and lower cortisol levels among patients about to undergo surgery than taking anti-anxiety drugs. As reported by the featured article:

        ...[R]esearchers in Cleveland found that when [burn] patients listened to music and used visual imagery as a distraction when their wound dressings were being changed, they experienced significantly less pain, anxiety and muscle tension. In a study in Norway, depressed people who had music therapy plus psychotherapy were less depressed and anxious and more functional than those who just did regular therapy.

    Musical preference varies widely between individuals, so only you can decide what will effectively put you in a particular mood. Overall, classical music tends to be among the most calming, so may be worth a try. To incorporate music into a busy schedule, try playing CDs while driving, or put on some tunes while you’re getting ready for work in the morning. You can also take portable music with you when walking the dog, or turn on the stereo instead of watching TV in the evening.

#10: Take Up Yoga

    Yoga has been proven to be particularly beneficial if you suffer with back pain, but recent research also suggests it can also be of tremendous benefit for your mental health. Duke University researchers recently published a review9 of more than 100 studies looking at the effect of yoga on mental health, and according to lead author Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke University Medical Center:10

        Most individuals already know that yoga produces some kind of a calming effect. Individually, people feel better after doing the physical exercise. Mentally, people feel calmer, sharper, maybe more content. We thought it’s time to see if we could pull all [the literature] together to see if there’s enough evidence that the benefits individual people notice can be used to help people with mental illness.

    According to their findings, yoga appears to have a positive effect on:

        Mild depression
        Sleep problems
        Schizophrenia (among patients using medication)
        ADHD (among patients using medication)

    Some of the studies suggest yoga can have a similar effect to antidepressants and psychotherapy, by influencing neurotransmitters and boosting serotonin. Yoga was also found to reduce levels of inflammation, oxidative stress, blood lipids and growth factors.

#11: Visualization and Guided Imagery

    According to the featured article, visualization techniques or guided imagery can serve as an important tool to combat both physical pain and depression by imagining being in a better place.

        Research shows it can help with pain from cancer, osteoarthritis and childbirth by providing distraction and promoting a state of relaxation. In addition, a study from Portugal found that when people hospitalized for depressive disorders listened to a guided imagery CD once a day for 10 days, they were less depressed, anxious and stressed over time, compared to peers who didn’t use visualization, the article states.

    Ideally, you’ll want to immerse yourself as fully as you possibly into your visualization, using all your senses: seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, and feeling. According to Dr. Schmidt:

        Using all your senses changes levels of brain chemicals such as serotonin, epinephrine and endorphins, and with regular practice you’ll gain more of a sense of control, which is often lacking when you’re in pain or depressed.

#12: Repeat a Calming Mantra

    The repeated incantation of a mantra a soothing or uplifting word or phrase of your choice in a rhythmic fashion can help you relax in a similar way as mindfulness training. The focused repetition, also called autogenic training, helps keep your mind from wandering and worrying, and engages your body’s relaxation response.

        A study at the University of Manchester in the U.K. found that autogenic training helped female migraine sufferers decrease the frequency and intensity of their headaches. And research from the University of Melbourne in Australia suggests that autogenic training may provide 'helpful longer-term effects' on symptoms of depression, according to the featured article.

#13: Remove Pain and Dysfunctional Psychological Conditions with the Neurostructural Integration Technique

    The Neurostructural Integration Technique (NST) is an amazing innovative technique developed in Australia. Using a series of gentle moves on specific muscles or at precise points on your body creates an energy flow and vibrations between these points. This allows your body to communicate better with itself and balance the other tissues, muscles and organs. The method of action is likely through your autonomic nervous system (ANS), allowing your body to better carry out its many functions the way it was designed to.

    The main objective is to remove pain and dysfunctional physiological conditions by restoring the structural integrity of the body. In essence, NST provides the body with an opportunity to reintegrate on many levels, and thus return to and maintain normal homeostatic limits on a daily basis.



 Thank You Dr. Mercola



 God Bless Everyone & God Bless The United States of America.


Larry Nelson
42 S. Sherwood Dr.
Belton, Tx. 76513
cancercurehere@gmail.com

Have a great day...unless you have made other plans.