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Science of the SpiritS
This blog will reveal 6 elements of self-knowledge that can help you understand your own identity. As you live your daily life, you can look for clues to these important building blocks of Self.
But first, why is it important to know yourself?
The Benefits of Self-Knowledge
Maybe it's obvious, but here in a nutshell are a few reasons why you might want to know your own nature:
- Happiness. You will be happier when you can express who you are. Expressing your desires, moreover, will make it more likely that you get what you want.
- Less inner conflict. When your outside actions are in accordance with your inside feelings and values, you will experience less inner conflict.
- Better decision-making. When you know yourself, you are able to make better choices about everything, from small decisions like which sweater you'll buy to big decisions like which partner you'll spend your life with. You'll have guidelines you can apply to solve life's varied problems.
- Self-control. When you know yourself, you understand what motivates you to resist bad habits and develop good ones. You'll have the insight to know which values and goals activate your willpower.
- Resistance to social pressure. When you are grounded in your values and preferences, you are less likely to say "yes" when you want to say "no."
- Tolerance and understanding of others. Your awareness of your own foibles and struggles can help you empathize with others.
- Vitality and pleasure: Being who you truly are helps you feel more alive and makes your experience of life richer, larger, and more exciting.
© fotolia / Photographee.eu
When depression is grief, the feelings can be very similar, and can last for some time. Traci was only 23 when her mother rapidly died from a late stage ovarian cancer. Traci welled with unpredictable tears and found it hard to go to work after her 2 days off for the funeral. After a couple of weeks her doctor wanted to put her on antidepressants. Paul, on the other hand, was ready to jump into marriage with the love of his life when she said she could not do it, she took a job in another city and left home with no notice. He could not eat or sleep, lost 15 pounds in 2 weeks and alarmed his daughter who wanted him to get on medication that would ease his depressed mood. Kimberly went to work and went home and did nothing but sit on the couch, watching some TV, ordering pizza for dinner and spent hours looking at pictures and videos she had taken of her dog who had disappeared from the yard one recent morning.
The biggest, and most common cause of deep grief is losing a loved one: a parent, a spouse or worse, a child. But grieving at the loss of a pet who was part of family life and even grieving the loss through divorce of a relationship or a way of life that was valued, can throw a person into a depression-like state. These behaviors and moods all make sense when put into the context of loss, but in our culture there is tremendous impatience with grieving. It is too often labeled as depression, and too often medicated, thereby blunting the normal process of grieving that allows people to move forward.
© thestorytellers.comComplaining turns your brain to mush
"Synapses That Fire Together Wire Together"
The brain is a complex physical organ that somehow works in tandem with consciousness to create the personality of a human being, always learning, always re-creating and re-generating itself. It is both the product of reality and the creator of reality, and science is finally beginning to under stand how the brain actually creates reality.
© Katarina Gondova via iStock
This statement, by homework research guru Harris Cooper, of Duke University, is startling to hear, no matter which side of the homework debate you're on. Can it be true that the hours of lost playtime, power struggles and tears are all for naught? That millions of families go through a nightly ritual that doesn't help? Homework is such an accepted practice, it's hard for most adults to even question its value.
When you look at the facts, however, here's what you find: Homework has benefits, but its benefits are age dependent.
For elementary-aged children, research suggests that studying in class gets superior learning results, while extra schoolwork at home is just . . . extra work. Even in middle school, the relationship between homework and academic success is minimal at best. By the time kids reach high school, homework provides academic benefit, but only in moderation. More than two hours per night is the limit. After that amount, the benefits taper off. "The research is very clear," agrees Etta Kralovec, education professor at the University of Arizona. "There's no benefit at the elementary school level."
Before going further, let's dispel the myth that these research results are due to a handful of poorly constructed studies. In fact, it's the opposite. Cooper compiled 120 studies in 1989 and another 60 studies in 2006. This comprehensive analysis of multiple research studies found no evidence of academic benefit at the elementary level. It did, however, find a negative impact on children's attitudes toward school.
© Tom Stoddart/Getty Images Angelina Jolie Pitt meets children during a visit to Ja Mai Kaung Baptist refugee camp in Myitkyina, Burma, on July 30, 2015. Reportage/Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures blood flow changes in the brain, a new study suggests that specific differences in connectivity between brain regions can predict whether someone is an empathy-driven altruist, a reciprocity-driven altruist - or just selfish.
In the experiment, 34 female participants were divided into two groups. Those in the "empathy" group witnessed an actor receive painful electric shocks - and received shocks themselves (so they knew it hurt). In the "reciprocity" group, participants were paired up with actors who kindly paid money so the participant received fewer shocks (although both groups received the same number of shocks overall).
The thing is, most "rules" you'll read for improving your leadership skills focus on other people—how to understand them, how to persuade them, how to manage them, how to move them the way you want to go. While modern social organization is a far cry from our hunter-gatherer roots (and at times requires different skills), there's something essential and timeless in the model of primal era leadership. It's a case where cutting edge management strategy can add to but not replace enduring principle. See what Primal leadership principles speak to you.
The science of cymatics literally shows us that sound influences the structure of water, but there are many who believe in the scientifically controversial idea that water can hold a 'memory' from the influence of light, sound and even human intention. In recent years many people have been captivated by the work of Masaru Emoto, with his images showing the world precise details of how intention may be affecting water on a structural level. For the first time we were able to clearly visualise what a particular intention, such as gratitude, may look like in the form a single snowflake-like structure, photographed under a microscope.
The list of different photographs that could be taken using Masaru Emoto's technique is as long as as the list of different emotions and all the different sources of water on planet earth combined. In fact people have believed in our ability to influence water since the days of antiquity, with the Christian tradition being the obvious example, with the ongoing performing of rituals they claim turns regular water into holy water. Vibrational essences and the water from flower baths are just a few other examples of people believing in the capacity for water to be affected intentionally for healing purposes.
Comment: Health & Wellness Show - Feb 19, 2016 - Water: What Do We Really Know?
Water: it makes up the majority of our planet and our own bodies, filling everything from the earth and skies to our own cells. Yet what is actually known about this mysterious substance, so vital to life? It may surprise us to find that, despite its prevalence in our lives, scientists admit that there is still a great deal to learn about water. Does water have a "memory"? Are there really only three phases of water (liquid, solid and vapour) or is there a "fourth phase of water?" Does water create energy? When we speak to water, does it listen? Is there a structure to water?
Reflect Tear: Harvested after cutting white onions
Why Do We Cry?
Since crying is the primary means of communication for very young infants and continues to be an important part of the emotional repertoire of adults, it has received a good deal of attention from researchers who wish to exploit the most natural instinct in an attempt to diagnose and medicate.
"There is demonstrable evidence that clinicians often develop diagnostic tools which lead to early and unnecessary medical intervention, especially relating to the psychiatric allopathic model," said pediatric specialist Dr. Marta Gonzales.
© University of California, DavisNeuroscientist Arne Ekstrom uses virtual mazes to explore how we learn to find our way around.
The work is published online Feb. 25 in the journal Neuron.
Arne Ekstrom, associate professor at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience, wants to know how we memorize places and routes, and learn to find our way around. It's long been known that as a rat navigates a maze, its brain gives off a rhythmic oscillation, Ekstrom said.
This also happens when humans travel around a virtual landscape on a computer screen. Most models of brain function assume that the oscillations, emanating from the hippocampus deep inside the brain, are at least partly driven by external inputs.
"There is this rhythmic firing in the brain during navigation and while remembering things, but we don't know if it is triggered by sensory input or by the learning process," Ekstrom said.
Comment: Professor Philip Davis provides important information in how to rewire the brain.
See also: Recording and rewinding our thoughts -- is it possible?