The majority of those who suffer some degree of anxiety, fear or phobia as well as other symptoms of psychological disturbance will agree that their own thoughts are often in chaos, seeming to have central core to help them cling to something firm in principle. Even although offering a subtle anchorage for our minds, the value of the good thoughts of great minds is invaluable and provides us with a mental tonic. For example,
Prior to any expression or release of energy, there is a contraction and build-up of reserve energy before that outpouring. This is natural.
However, a build up of energy and no action to release it becomes potential dynamite in the human psyche. Recognition of this condition is known in modern terms as ‘stress’. This build-up of energy without appropriate release can prove detrimental to the nervous system, glandular system, respiratory system, digestion, the heart and the circulatory system. All systems of the body are interfered with when the body is held under tension that is unrelated to the muscular activity or task in hand.
So, when we refer to ‘stress’ it is to unwarranted and extreme tension beyond the degree required in the context of the individual’s actions and circumstances. Stress can refer to physical stress, emotional stress, mental stress or to all three. It is seldom that there is physical stress alone.
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We all need mental refreshment of some kind, to restore vitality to both brain and body. The finest way to do this has been time tested over centuries by those who have preserved the art of meditation in their traditional practices. Meditation is an inherent part of any religious or spiritual discipline. Now it is proving essential in programmes and practices designed to improve mental health and mental fitness.
Meditation is helpful in alleviating symptoms of mental illness; it also offers a vital aid in establishing a healthy condition of mental fitness; and it allows us to access our higher levels of consciousness that relate to our spiritual nature and aspirations. Many famous people in history from Pythagorus and Marcus Aurelius to present day philosophers confirm the value of meditation.
The urge for self improvement is an inherent quality in human nature, whether this is related to physical achievements, emotional satisfactions or mental status. Although we may try to compare ourselves with others it is difficult except that we may seem to be ‘better’ than some, and yet may fall short of others known to us. However, regarding the quality of other minds and intellects any comparison is futile beyond any comparison we may be able to assess in exchanging information regarding a common interest or study.
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The meditation experience is unique to each one of us. Yet it is variable enough to be exciting time after time. It offers a familiar path of retreat providing refreshment you seek for your entwined emotions and mind and also for your soul.
Our supreme experiences are not of mind or emotions but of our soul. They are usually seen to be generated by our spiritual nature when our consciousness comes to rest at a point of illumination or understanding that replaces previous struggles and searches. These deepest experiences are rare and will be remembered, often for a lifetime.
In whatever degree or guise, realization is always accompanied with a sense of discovering a truth when we find or suddenly ‘see’ or understand a simple solution to a previous complexity or even gain a new perception of old ideas.
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Mental concepts are the building blocks in our mental structure of the mind. Whereas passing thoughts are experienced as temporary flashes of thought of various degrees of importance, enduring concepts are vital to our mental fitness and are capable of powerfully influencing our lives.
Ideas and concepts are as seeds, dropped into the fertile soil of the brain. Some take root and grow and blossom, bearing fruit eventually if tended and cultivated in a fertile and imaginative mind capable of producing productive, healthy thoughts.
There are many concepts freely given to us from infancy. Some of them have the chance to take root and flourish, depending upon many factors both from our choices as well as from outside circumstances.
In the years of early education we are usually bombarded with seed ideas and concepts in such abundance that there is no way we can expect them all to grow. We must be selective if we wish for health and mental fitness. Tending our minds must include weeding out the unwanted. As with any gardening cultivation, this is a demanding and ongoing process.
However, when we are young it is imperative to determine the seed concepts that we find attractive and are willing to nurture to fruition. We have to find our own values, in other words, and remain true to them for our health and mental fitness. Read the rest of this entry »
Major disorders of mind and brain include some of the most devastating conditions that are capable of complete destruction of an individual’s capacities, self confidence and even the will to live.
Although we generally hear of minor ailments of the mind, the most serious mental diseases also deserve our attention. Diseases such as schizophrenia, mania, Alzheimer’s, memory loss and others affect an estimated one percent of the population in the U.S.A and possibly all other developed countries.
Neuroscientists, psychiatrists, nutritionists and scientists of many specialized therapies and modalities are beginning to communicate in an effort to co-ordinate and evaluate research material from different avenues of therapy employed in healing maladies of the mind.
It is timely to arrive at an all embracing investigation that also includes naturopathic therapies and those previously considered as fringe medicine with their drug free methods.
Until there is published an unbiased and comprehensive scientific report of this nature, we must apply our own research efforts as best we can in a search to get an overview of current social problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Every natural organism requires nourishment and elimination of wastes. It is important that we attend equally to both processes. Even the subtler life of the mind obeys these natural processes. Our mental health is dependent equally upon our attention to nourishment of our brain and body and the nourishment of our minds.
Philosophers tell us that free will of a human being gives an individual the power to determine not only his actions, feelings and thoughts, but whether we will choose to assume an attitude to life that determines our future happiness.
If we are patient and relaxed enough to admit to ourselves the reasons for any unhappiness it will cause an unravelling of any negative knot or stranglehold within our psyche. This can refer to either emotional issues or to mental problems that preoccupy our thoughts and disturb our mental fitness. Even if the cause is not immediately apparent, we really may know the answer, although it may be at present buried in our deeper unconscious mind waiting for us to discover the key.
So sometimes we must be patient, and keep searching for the answer so we can dissolve our dissatisfaction or unhappiness and transform it into positive energy. This may results in a more relaxed state, a general acceptance of things we can’t change or improve, feeling of contentment, or better still, just the feeling of joy and happiness in being alive. Read the rest of this entry »
My brain is housed within the confines of my bony skull, cushioned like any other sensitive instrument. Here it functions without interruption throughout my lifetime, as do the brains of every other human being throughout their years.
There are few of us who ever seen the actual physical organ but most of us are aware of its walnut-like appearance with the two halves with their distinct convolutions being separated by membrane.
Scientists say the brain is sexist and that nature discriminates – that a woman’s brain weighs a little less than a man’s. But perhaps it’s another example of the fact that size isn’t all that important. It’s the thought that counts.
The brain is actually the recorder and servant of my thoughts to which it responds to some extent but leaves the greater dictates of nature to assume superiority, particularly in matters of physiological function and for this, we must all be eternally grateful. I really appreciate that I don’t have to think of directing the heart to beat, or telling my digestion to function. It just happens. Read the rest of this entry »
