Faith in the Brain’s Healing Powers

We all have good days and bad days with our health, and it can be frustrating when our bodies are not performing the way we want them to or need them to. But our health is not out of our power to control. As a matter of fact, we all do have a super powerful tool right in our own heads. It’s our amazing brain.

Researchers that study the brain-body connection have shown in numerous experiments how the brain can be tricked into believing it is getting better. A simple sugar pill can relieve pain or even cure an illness if the person believes that the pill being taken is genuine medicine.

That’s how powerful our brains are. They can make physical changes in our bodies beyond what we would normally give them credit for. There is a book I reread regularly called Super Brain. The authors, Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi, point out that any of us can, if we so chose, set up or create our own placebo effect at any time without any kind of pill.

What’s supper interesting, as Chopra and Tanzi explain, is that “the effect isn’t limited to drugs, which is important to remember: anything you believe in can act as a placebo.”

They also ask where the relief comes from when the placebos are not actually doing anything themselves. They explain that it is simply, “the mind telling the body to get well.” The body really believes what it was being told and then it relieves the pain or heals the sickness because it believes it can. In other words, your mind can and does control healing of all kinds including pain, disease, and wounds that our bodies deal with from time to time.

These authors go on to say “Being your own placebo is the same as freeing up the healing system through messages from the brain. All healing is, in the end, self-healing. Physicians aid the body’s intricate healing system (which coordinates immune cells, inflammation, hormones, genes and much else), but the actual healing takes place in an unknown way.”

One of the conclusions that the authors come up with in regards to conquering and taking advantage of the mind-body connection is that, “In serious illness, doubts and fears play a marked role, which is why a practice like meditation or going to group counseling has been shown to help.”

That is certainly worth trying for most, if not all of us, whenever we want to cure our pain, problems, or disease. These kinds of things are probably very helpful to do on a regular basis even.

The authors suggest that there is a method through which anyone can apply their own placebo effect. It requires the same conditions as in a classic placebo response:
1. You trust what is happening.
2. You deal with doubt and fear.
3. You don’t send conflicting messages that get tangled with each other.
4. You have opened the channels of mind-body communications.
5. You let go of your intention and allow the healing system to do its work.

Our bodies have an amazing ability to heal themselves. When we get a cut finger or knee we slap on a band-aid and know that it will heal without further help from us. In doing that, we’ve just let our brain send a positive message to our cells to do their job. But when we get a serious disease we let our minds jump into the mix with all kinds of worry and negative thoughts doing pretty much the opposite of the list above. If we can have faith and believe in the body’s ability to heal itself then the brain will send the right messages to bring on and support that healing.

The bottom line here is if we are going to benefit from our own built-in ‘placebo effect’ we’ve got to, at a minimum, follow the list of 5 conditions above. If you can do that, you are supporting your body’s ability to take care of you, as it is supposed to do. I’m not saying modern medicine is not super helpful and needed, but it’s certain to get a big boost from your brain if you strongly believe in the ability of the medicine and your body to do their jobs and heal you.

Changes to this Blog and to Our Lives

We all know that life has its big bumps, surprises, and setbacks. And, yes, it also has many wonderful, fun, exciting, and pleasurable moments. It behooves all of us to constantly remember to live in the great “right now” and appreciate the good times. But, when we have setbacks, we also have to stop and look back at how they happened and figure out what we can do to make things better in the future. It can be hard to both live in the moment and fix and plan for those bumps in the road.

I’ve written a lot about living in the great “right now” previously and most people know they should not spend too much time worrying about the future or beating themselves up for past mistakes or bad decisions. That can be hard to do though. If you are like me, you have to keep reminding yourself to think more about the moment we are in. That kind of thinking can be very critical for our mental and emotional health and our great enjoyment of life. Meditation can help with this. Meditation works because, if you do it right, you truly are living in the moment while doing it!

Knowing all this and preaching it to others, I still wake up worrying about what I need to get done in the immediate or not too distant future as well as fretting a bit over what I missed out on doing yesterday. I have noticed, however, if I take time to write down my next day’s plans and actions the night before I go to sleep, I usually wake up much more likely to just get out of bed and get going on my to do list. My mind seems to be so much clearer and my thoughts are much more positive in the “now moment” when I do this. 

Of course, we all need to think about the future and make plans, much of which is very fun and exciting like when planning a trip to Disneyland with the kids or a vacation to Europe. It’s the same with the past. We enjoy taking time (but not too much time) to relive our great experiences and the really memorable moments in our lives.

And then, of course, there is planning for the not so fun things. Sometimes there are things going on in our lives that make us realize we need to change things up. Recently I’ve been struggling with some health issues that made me stop and think that there might be some areas that I need to slow down in. This means that I have to look back at what I’ve been doing that I can maybe do less of and then think about how I want my future to look. It’s really been taking me out of the “right now” frame of mind. But I have been able to make some decisions and, I think, once I make a few changes, I can focus on my health when I need to and get back to living in the moment more and more.

One of the things I decided to do is to write posts for this blog just twice a month instead of every week. I aim to get them out on the 1st and 3rd Sunday each month. So, you can be sure to check in with me on those weekends.

It will be quite the change, after posting on this blog every week for nearly 15 years, to only write these twice a month, but it’s a good thing to recognize when change is needed. We all need to be really good about recognizing our priorities in life and be open to making the changes that will help keep us healthy and happy.

So, although going to just twice a month for this blog will feel like a big change for me, and maybe for some of you, thinking like this gives us a chance to really look around and figure out what other changes could really help lift our lives.

I’ve talked a lot about how important good health is to our lives as well as spending time with family and friends and all those other good things that keep us healthy and happy. So, maybe we can all take some time now to look around and see if there are changes we can make to be sure that time with our loved ones and our own health and happiness is a priority in our life.

The Four Pillars of Well-Being

Years ago, I noticed that when I became engrossed in my goal setting state of mind (almost a meditative state of mind) I would, at times, begin to feel very calm and at peace with the world. I focused even more with a pen in hand, writing goals and steps down, and I would feel even more euphoric. I didn’t understand why, I just knew it felt good. In fact, it felt fantastic!

Of course, it was a wonderful triumph to reach or exceed the goals I had set down, but why did the process of thinking about my future goals or writing them down give me such a mental boost, one even more euphoric than the actual accomplishment of my goal?

There is a brilliant scientist who thinks he knows the answer and, in my mind, he has proven it. This University of Wisconsin professor, Richard Davidson, was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2006. He established the four pillars of mental well-being: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. I think my goal writing does all of that.

Davidson was actually asked by the Dalai Lama to study the possible connection between the meditative state of mind of some of the Buddhist Monks and their emotional and mental lives. So, he hooked up 128 electrodes to the head of a French monk, Mattieu Ricard. When Ricard began to meditate, Davidson recorded an immediate increase in gamma activity, those brainwaves associated with higher functions like cognition and memory. Later, they studied more monks as well as a control group of college students and found that the monks produced gamma brainswaves that were thirty times stronger than the students brainwaves.

But what does all this mean? Simply put, this, along with other research, unveils the real possibility that the brain, like the rest of the body, can be altered intentionally. Just as we build muscle through exercise, we can build our brain through mental exercises.

Davidson actually found that meditation results in a redistribution of gray matter in the brain as well as a decline in the loss of gray matter. A person’s physical health can also be affected by his or her mental state. According to Davidson, it might also be used to modify emotional response like depression.

I think all of this research and the conclusions Davidson came to can be very helpful for all of us as we focus on adding more awareness, connection, insight, and purpose to our lives. We can work on this and, as a result, use our brains to do so much more.

A Pill-less Placebo

You’ve heard of the placebo effect, right? It’s that brain-body connection in which the brain is tricked into believing that a simple sugar pill can relieve pain or cure certain illnesses by simply telling the person that the pill they are taking is genuine medicine. That’s how powerful our brains really are!

There’s a book I’ve talked about many times before called Super Brain by Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi, which points out that, if we so chose, we could set up or create our own placebo effect at any time and without any kind of pill.

“Where did the patient’s relief come from?” the authors ask in regard to the results of placebo effect studies. They then answer, “It came from the mind telling the body to get well.” Your mind can and does control healing of all kinds including pain, disease, and wounds that our bodies deal with from time to time.

“In serious illness, doubts and fears play a marked role, which is why a practice like meditation or going to group counseling has been shown to help,” the authors write.

But this effect isn’t just for serious illness. We can do this to relieve of heal all kinds of pain, injury and disease, if you truly believe in it.

The authors suggest that there is a specific method that will allow anyone at any time to turn on the pill-less placebo effect. It requires the same conditions as in a classic placebo response:
1. You trust what is happening.
2. You set aside doubt and fear.
3. You don’t send conflicting messages that negate each other.
4. You open the channels of your mind-body communication.
5. You let go and allow the healing system to do its work.

That last item is a big one. Our bodies have an amazing ability to heal themselves, but we need to truly believe in that. When we get a cut on our finger or knee, we slap on a band-aid and know that it will heal itself. In doing that, we’ve just let our brain send a positive message to our cells to do their job, right? Shouldn’t that faith in our body to heal itself in such a small matter be equally effective when it comes to more serious issues?

The problem is, when we are faced with a serious illness, we let our minds jump in with all kinds of worry and negative thoughts, which pretty much does the opposite of the things listed above.

If we are going to benefit from our own built-in placebo effect, then we’ve got to, at a minimum, follow the list of the five conditions above. If you can do that, you are supporting your body’s ability to take care of you, as it is supposed to do. Believe in that ability, and talk positively, both out loud and in your mind, about how well your body can heal itself, and you’ll see the results for yourself.

Keys to a Fit Brain

The human brain really is a very powerful instrument and is used for the most wonderful things, but it also can be very harmful, depending on what you put in it.   

For instance, we can read books that help move us towards our goals in life or that comfort us. Alternately, we could read garbage online that skews what we think or discourages us from even trying to make our dreams a reality. We can choose to be friends with very smart people, allowing us to learn from them and grow from that knowledge. Or we can surround ourselves with people that are vindictive, derogatory, or pessimistic. Which do you think would help your brain and improve your life? That’s easy to figure out.

But even if we read great books and keep the best and most positive people around us, we also need to keep our brains fit and ready to take in all that good stuff that helps us greatly improve our lives. Here’s a few ideas that might be just what you need to keep your brain in great shape.

1. Think about thinking. This is sometimes called metacognition, and it makes you aware of how you learn so you can improve your learning and problem-solving skills.

2. Read books about improving the brain. Just search my blog under the keyword “brain” for my many recommendations.

3. Associate with intelligent people so that you are constantly learning.

4. Look into food and supplements that can help the brain, like gingko biloba or DHEA. Be sure to read up on dosage and side effects as even natural supplements can be dangerous in certain situations. For instance, gingko is a blood thinner which could be a problem if you take a blood thinning medication. Other good supplements include B-complex vitamins, vitamins C, D, and E, magnesium, choline, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids.

5. Meditate. It can help improve your concentration and memory, reduce stress and anxiety and help preserve your brain function as you age.

6. Exercise. Blood flow to the brain is a huge brain helper and exercise increases that blood flow. Running can be great, but if you don’t like running, walking is also tremendously helpful.

Speaking of walking, I have a daily 20,000 step goal and I almost always hit that thanks to the Fit Bit I keep in my pocket. I challenge you to set some walking goals to make you feel better, help your brain and most likely increase your life expectancy! That, along with the stuff listed above, will keep your brain fit and healthy for years to come, if not for the rest of your life!

Beautiful Mindfulness

Recently, I re-read Pema Chödrön’s great book, Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change. It got me thinking again about the human mind and how our thinking can be super helpful or just terrible for us.

It’s so very, very important that we try to “live in the now” as much as we can. It’s not easy but we do need to keep working at it because it really can lift our life and happiness.

In last week’s blog, I talked about meditation and how important and helpful it can be for our lives. Pema says in Living Beautifully that, “Meditation is one form of mindfulness, but mindfulness is called by many names: attentiveness, nowness, and presence are just a few. Essentially, mindfulness means wakefulness–fully present wakefulness.”

I totally agree with her.

She goes on to say that, “The specific details of our lives will, of course, differ, but for all of us, wakefulness concerns everything from how we make dinner to how we speak to one another to how we take care of our clothes, our floors, our forks and spoons. Just with other aspects of this commitment, we’re either present when putting on our sweater or tying our shoes or brushing our teeth, or we’re not. We’re either awake or asleep, conscious or distracted.”

Later she says, in reference to creating a comfortable life that this, “means setting up your life so that you have time for meditation and self-reflection, for kindhearted, compassionate self-honesty”. Those things and thoughts are so very important to our happiness. We all need to put a lot of effort into really living in the present moment. Doing that can lift our mood and our life tremendously.

To help me with this, I’ve made a list of what I call My 10 Natural Mood Boosters:

1. Get into a routine

2. Set goals

3. Exercise

4. Eat healthy

5. Get enough sleep

6. Take on responsibilities

7. Challenge negative thoughts

8. Take good supplements

9. Do something new

10. Try to have fun

I’d like to add one extra thing that has always worked for me when I am feeling down. It’s so simple — just go outside and take a walk to anywhere, although a place that’s new for you is best. And yes, it’s very important to live in the now as much as you can—you will be glad and much happier if you do this as often as possible!

Lift Your Life — Focus on the Present

One of the best ways to increase happiness in your life, and therefore maintain and lift your passion, is to stay in the present.

This can be challenging for most of us, if not all of us, when things are stressful. Most of the time we are worried about the past or the future and not really paying attention to what is happening right now, so we miss life as it is happening. That can make it tough to live passionately in that “right now” time and place.

Living this way takes practice. You have to train your brain to live in the moment. It’s something I’ve worked to achieve all my life. It is easier now than when I started, but it still takes a concerted effort. It is, however, more than worth it.

As you learn how to redirect your thoughts and focus on the present, it’s important not to be hard on yourself. (Take a look at my previous blog where I talk about good ole USA—not the country but “Unconditional Self-Acceptance”!) Just keep working at it and when you get cut off, when your mind wanders, take the time to steer your thoughts and yourself back to the present.

Yoga and/or meditation are ways that we all can practice keeping our focus on the present moment, making us happier and more content. Yoga and meditation are way underrated in this country. They can be such great tools and you don’t need to go to a gym or studio to do either.

For instance, you can do yoga at home with tools such as the Yoga for Beginners with Patricia Walden DVD or through videos found on websites such as Yoga with Adriene. There are also many websites designed to help coach you and I on the best ways to meditate, such as Mindful.org. Even just 10 minutes a day on either of these can make an enormous difference in your life.

Keep practicing and you will lift your life and get better at it the more you do it. You’ll be amazed at how much spending even just 10 minutes a day focusing on the present can increase your life and happiness factor. It’s the real deal!

Meditation and the Quiet Mind

Meditation. Hmm. That’s something that I haven’t done a ton of, but recently I read a great book about the mind and how you can calm it down and make it quiet. It’s making me think about it more seriously.

When I do meditate, it raises my mood and helps my brain, which helps my life a ton. I’m writing this week’s post, in part, because I know I should meditate more. I’ve found, over the years, that almost anytime I write about something we humans should be doing, my own writings on the subject motivate me to just go and do it. So, I guess I’m being somewhat selfish. But if my experience and words are helpful to others, then that’s great!

I’ve sure noticed that the older I get, the more I want to help others. Okay, part of that is because when I help others, I get such a good feeling from it that I want to do it more. Oops. I guess that’s being a bit selfish too. But maybe that is a good kind of selfishness. And that means everybody can be a winner!

I just read a great book called Quiet Mind, compiled and edited by Susan Piver. In this section written by Tulku Thondup, it says, “Through meditation we can realize the awareness of the peaceful and joyful nature of our mind. From there we can interact with mental objects with greater peace and ease on our own terms, from a position of mental strength.” He goes on to say that “in order to find and employ the healing power of our mind and the healing qualities of mental objects, we must consistently and repeatedly meditate on the four healing powers: positive images, positive words, positive feeling, and positive belief.”

Thondup goes on to say, “Like food, exercise, rest, and medicine, meditation is a very important component of healing and keeping healthy.” His advice is to start easy and slow, but be consistent. Even just 5 minutes a day at first is a good start. Then later, he advises, “Early morning is generally the best time to meditate, as your mind could still be in peace and your energy still calm. The best place is a solitary place. Whatever you pick, you should choose the best time and place that you can afford and feel good about.” Then, after enough 5 minutes sessions, he says you should try to meditate for about an hour.

Earlier in the book, another contributor, Sakyong Mipham said, “Decide on a regular time to practice each day and try to stick with it. A ten-minute period in the morning is a good place to begin.” Mipham also suggests that consistency is key.

I really like some of the other simple advice Mipham gives: “If you’re agitated, a slow walk might be in order. If you’re drowsy, a cool shower before beginning the session might help.” He also notes that “It can be inspiring to read a little about meditation first as a reminder of why you’re practicing.”

So, I have a lot of great thoughts about meditating now. As I said, I may not have done it very regularly, but it’s not new to me. As a matter of fact, I had the great privilege to meet, greet, and introduce the Dalai Lama at an event years ago. Through our conversations that day, I got to know him a bit, and he certainly knows and practices meditation. I’m sure he knows quite well how much it can help anyone’s life. We just need little reminders to do it sometimes.

Only 380 Hours Till the New Year

So, do you think it’s too early to start on your list of New Year resolutions? I think it is very helpful and more productive to start thinking early about what you plan to do and accomplish in the new year. For me, if I write them down as I think of them, I’m so much more driven to follow through and carry out those resolutions.

So, no, I don’t believe, at all, that it’s too early to begin making your list. It’s only about 2 weeks before the new year comes in! Make you own list based on what you want out of your life in the next year and beyond but here are some ideas.

COMMON RESOLUTIONS

• Save more money this year.
• Work on better health, including exercise, diet, weight loss, and drinking lots of water.
• Travel more! One of my favorites. I usually pick specific places too, places that are unique and exotic, in the USA and overseas.
• Spend more time with family and friends.
• Spend more time reading and writing.
• Spend time to organize and do it regularly.
• Work harder at living in the right now moments.
• Donate and volunteer for a good cause.
• Write to yourself and give self-compliments.
• Set up new and good routines.
• Meditate on a regular basis.
• Look for, and make, new friends.
• Work on having more gratitude for others and your life.
• Do little acts of kindness on a regular basis.

I try to make resolutions that are realistic, and I usually put a time frame or limit on each goal. That way I am more likely to succeed. It’s always a good idea to take time to review last year’s resolutions and make note of the ones that you followed through on, and the ones you didn’t, and then analyze why you accomplished the successfully completed goals and why you didn’t succeed with others.

REASONS YOU MIGHT FALL SHORT ON RESOLUTIONS

• Resolutions were way too big or unrealistic.
• Too much thinking and not enough doing or follow through.
• Lack of detailed planning and scheduling.
• Not fully believing in yourself.
• Feeling overwhelmed by how much you will have to do.
• Failure to write down your resolutions.
• Not ready for change.

I hope you agree with me that it’s not too early to start thinking about making note of what your new year’s resolutions are going to be. For me, just writing this blog has got me thinking quite hard about my own new year’s resolutions.

I’m going to repeat myself, but this is important and so very helpful… take time to review last year’s resolutions and try to understand why you succeeded on some and why you fell short on others. Consider what you may be able to do this year to make sure you will have a better success rate in the coming new year.

17 Proven Ways to Boost Your Energy Levels

If you have high energy levels, life is so much more enjoyable and, of course, you can get a ton of stuff done. I’m not just talking about work stuff either. With high energy levels there’s tons of fun things and experiences that you can enjoy. As we age, our energy levels begin to drop, but there are many ways that you can lift or boost your energy and that makes life so much more fun and interesting.

Whether it’s for work or play, family or friends, whether you’re young or old, we could all use a little bit more energy. So here is a list of proven ways to boost your energy levels.

1. Set big and exciting goals to put your BIG dreams into action. Be sure to make a list of those big dreams and to put a time frame on those goals.
2. Take a good look at your list of goals, either the night before or the morning of, so you wake ready and focused which will give you with lots of energy that day.
3. Eat more nutritious foods — lots of fruits and vegetables.
4. Drink green tea to help overcome that mid-morning slump.
5. Get plenty of exposure to natural light.
6. Ease your stress by simplifying your life and mainly, or exclusively, pursue your life’s priority items.
7. Heal yourself by being more grateful as well as loving more and letting go of all anger.
8. Thinking good thoughts and increasing your positive self-talk can stimulate good neurotransmitters called endorphins.
9. Play and exercise daily as that releases more endorphins and dopamine, which will boost your mental and physical energy.
10. Keep moving, even if it’s just walking. My fit bit was a fantastic gift. It got me walking at least 5.000 steps a day at first then I began getting 10,000 steps a day and now I consistently get 20,000 steps in a day. That is about 10 miles, but I break up those steps during the day and it doesn’t seem like 10 miles. it always surprises me that doing all that walking gives me even more energy.) My all-time best steps in one day was 40,111. Not bad for 75-year-old dude!
11. Get lots of sleep, but not too much, and take a nap when needed.
12. Take time for a few minutes of yoga stretching and a bit of meditation for a morning boost.
13. Listen to your favorite music. For some people it may be music with a heart pounding beat. To others it may be inspirational symphonic music.
14. Socialize with energetic friends and family.
15. Go visit new and different places such as new states, cities, or countries, but it also works to just drive or walk through a different neighborhood.
16. Drink lots of water. Dehydration drains energy.
17. Talk to yourself using positive affirmations. Some of my favorites are:
    • I am strong and worthy.
    • I’m upbeat and positive
    • I have lots of stamina and energy. (I use that one a lot before and during my tennis matches.)

Okay, and here is one last one that may seem strange, but it works. Take huge breaths, exhaling slowly and do a it many times. I do it 100 times without stopping, which takes only about 10 minutes and the reward is a very calm and energy filled mind and body. It also works to help you go to sleep at night which helps with item number 11.

This and all the above will give you lots of energy throughout your day!

 

 

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