Biopsychology: Holistic Health
Psychoneuroimmunology Biopsychology
Content
1 Difference between orthodox medicine and holistic health.
2 Location and function of cakras, and their relation to endocrine glands and vrttis.
3 Stress and its relation to Manipura (third) cakra
4 Psychosomatic illness and the importance of positive thinking and hope vrtti At Anahata cakra. Discussion of psychosomatic diseases.
5 Relation between the immune system, Anahata cakra, and the mind. The new science of Psychoneuroimmunology
6 Demonstration of several asanas to harmonize energy at various cakra and control their vrttis.
7 Visualization of location and energizing of cakras.
I'd like to begin our discussion of Bio-Psychology today by telling-you a story about p. prize-winning American writer, Norman Cousins, who had a crippling disease, called spondylitis. His jaws were locked tightly shut, his hands crippled, and as the connective tissue of his spine disintegrated, his spine stiffened so he could not move at all. He was constantly in agonizing pain. The doctors gave him 1 chance in 500 to recover. And so he prepared himself to die.
But one day someone gave him в book about the Power of Positive Thinking, and he started thinking to himself, "I have been always thinking negatively that I'm going to die, or be crippled all my life. But if I think that I can become well, I can!" From that moment he searched for ways to drive away the cloud of depression from his mind, and be discovered ...LAUGHTER. He bought dozens of joke books and he had his nurse read them to him for hours every day. He played videos of Charlie Chaplin and the Marx brothers, and he roared with laughter in his bed. And he took: 25 grams of Vitamin С per day - the "miracle vitamin" which strengthens our nervous system and increases our resistance. He stopped taking all the expensive drugs which he had become dependent on to reduce his pain so he could sleep at night.
After a few days, he found that 10 minutes of hearty laughter made him feel so good that, he could then sleep peacefully, without pain, for 2 hours. Within Jess than one year of this "laughter therapy", be got out of bed free of pain and full of energy. He started playing tennis again, golf, and even piano with his once-crippled fingers. He wrote a best-selling book about his miraculous cure, Anatomy of An Illness - but doctors still don't really know how be laughed his way to health.
Slide
Commentary
1. Iatrogenic diseases
The Norman Cousins story is a good example of a how more and more people are seeking new ways of healing, because in spite of all the advances in modern medicine, it seems that there is more illness than ever before. More and more people are becoming sick from "iatrogenic" diseases - diseases that are actually caused by medical treatment. A recent British study showed that more than one doctor per 1000 people actually produces an increase in the death rate!
2. Orthodox Healthcare
Our expensive, high-technology methods of healthcare are simply not working - infectious diseases like malaria and ТВ are spreading dangerously in many parts of the world, and more and more people in developed countries are dying young from heart disease and cancer. These methods are failing because they: (Read from Chart: "treat only the symptoms." etc.)
3. Holistic Healthcare
So more and more people are turning to the holistic approach to health, which emphasizes, not the symptoms but the cause of disease - not the physical organs, but subtler levels of being, especially mind and emotions, and their tremendous effect on health. (Read from Chart.)
4. Man and the light
Holistic medicine emphasizes -what most doctors now agree: that as much as 95% of our diseases are psychosomatic, caused by the mind - even cancer. But if diseases are caused by the mind, they can be cured by the mind as well. But how? How does the mind so powerfully affect the body, and how can we change our mind to cure disease?
5. Seven Cakras
The answer lies in the wisdom of the ancients, which has been recently rediscovered by modern technology - the science of the CAKRAS. Thousands of years ago, yogis in India described 7 subtle energy centres or cakras located along the spinal column, and since then people of more than 82 cultures have described, the location and functioning of these cakras each cakra controls one of the fundamental elements of the body. For example, the coccygeal or root cakra (Muladhara cakra) at the base of the spine controls the solid facto…the sacral cakra (Svadhisthana cakra) controls the liquid factor…the solar plexus cakra Manipura cakra) at the navel controls the fiery factor…the heart cakra (Anahata cakra) at the heart controls the aerial factor…and the throat cakra (Vishuddha cakra) controls the ethereal factor.
The brow cakra (Ajina cakra) between the eyes control the mind... and the crown cakra (Sahasrara cakra) at the top of the head is the seat of pure Consciousness.
6. Dr. Valery Hunt. (Kirlian Photo of fingertip)
In 1979, Dr. Valery Hunt at the University of California at Los Angeles, using highly sensitive instruments*, detected energy emanating from the surface of the human body, higher than any frequencies ever known to come from the body - radiating from exactly the position of the cakras described for thousands of years by yogis and mystics all over the world.
[* Electromyographyc techniques used to measure the electric potential of muscles. The frequency of brain waves» if is approximately 30 cycles per second: of muscles 225 срs. and heart 250 cps. Dr. Hunt found energy frequencies at the cakra at high as 1600 срs!]
7. Hands of energy
Later Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama in Japan found that when people concentrated on their cakras, there was a higher energy (amplitude) and higher frequency electrical field emanating from that area of the body.
8. Cakras Endocrine Glands
These subtle energy centres are directly related to the Endocrine glands. The endocrine glands, as you remember, secrete hormones which affect the entire body and mind. The root and sacral cakras are related to the sexual glands, the gonads (testes and-ovaries) the navel cakra to the pancreas and adrenal glandsthe heart cakra to the thymus gland the throat cakra to the thyroid and parathyroid glands the brow cakra to the pituitary gland and the crown cakra to the pineal gland. Any imbalance in the energy flow in any of the cakras may result in unbalanced secretion of the hormone from the gland associated with that cakra.
9. 50 Mental Propensities: Vrttis
The flows of subtle energy — which ancient yogis described as "petals" - at these 7 cakras produce different mental states called "vrttis" (which literally means "whirlpool"). These emotional states or vrttis - altogether 50 - are constantly emerging in our minds to disturb our mental peace. We often feel helpless to control our emotions: we become furious and cannot control our anger -- we get hopelessly depressed. - Or we feel filled with anxiety. We say, "I'm such a nervous person - that's just the way I am." Or we try to escape from our emotions in drugs or alcohol because we don't know what else to do.
But we can do something - we can learn to control our emotions instead of letting them control us. But first we must learn exactly where these disturbing emotions are coming from - what cakra they are operating from. Then by proper techniques we can learn to control them. This is the new science of BIOPSYCHOLOGY - practical psychologies which will not only help us diagnose our mental problems, but remove them permanently from our lives.
10. Fear of Annihilation
For example, one of the vrttis or propensities at the second cakra is fear. Yoga psychology is extremely subtle, more subtle than many schools of psychology. It analyzes not one but three different types of fear complex located at different cakras. Extreme fear, such as fear of annihilation or terror, originates at the second cakra which controls the liquid factor of the body, and thus controls the urinary organs. This is why during battle at the moment of death; some soldiers involuntarily urinate - due to the extreme stimulation of fear at this cakra.
11. Adrenal Glands
Doctors now know that many diseases are caused by STRESS, and stress-management has become a billion-dollar industry as more and more people become ill and die due to stress-related diseases. But to manage stress, we have to first understand the workings of the navel cakra which is related to the endocrine glands, and which is especially affected by stress.
12. "Fight or Flight" Response
There are 10 mental propensities at this third cakra, and three of them are irritability, hatred, and fear (not as extreme fear as terror). When these propensities are expressed, they stimulate the adrenal glands to secrete the hormone adrenalin, which activates the sympathetic nervous system for the "fight or flight" response.
13. Fighting men
In a situation of danger or stress, adrenalin mobilizes all the organs of the body for extreme exertion to either fight or flee: the heart rate accelerates, blood pressure soars, stored sugar in the liver is sent to the blood for quick energy, and digestion stops.
14. Primitive human being;
Doctors explain that when primitive human beings faced stressful situations, like man-eating tigers, they dealt with them in bursts of intense physical exertion until the stress was over. Then they relaxed.
15. Civilized people
But today's "civilized" people face continual stresses which they cannot respond to with physical activity. If you are an employee constantly criticized by your boss...a housewife abused by your husband...a student under tremendous pressure of examinations -- you build up intense inner tensions which you cannot release by hitting your boss or your husband, or by running away! So you bottle this tension up inside.
16. Over-stimulated adrenal glands
(Stressed face)
Your adrenal glands become over-stimulated and this keeps your body and mind in a state of continual inner tension. As a result you may develop many physical diseases such as hypertension, heart disease, stroke, bowel and stomach diseases, and even cancer.
17. Type A Personality
Doctors call such highly-stressed person a "Type A personality" -hostile, impatient, angry, and fearful. This is a person whose navel cakra is unbalanced, with its propensities out of control. Such people have higher levels of adrenalin hormone in their blood, and therefore,- higher blood pressure and heart rate, and greater risk of heart attack. They often have digestive problems as well, which are a sign of third cakra disharmony. In this age of increasing stress all around us, it is essential to balance the energies at the third cakra, and thus harmonize the secretions of the endocrine glands. Proper control of the navel cakra or Manipura cakra is the basis of true "stress management." Next week we'll talk about how to do this.
18. Anahata Cakra
One of the most interesting cakras is the heart cakra or Anahata cakra, which has a crucial role in health and disease. This cakra is related to the thymus gland. Some years ago, little was known about this thymus gland but now with the outbreak of many immunological diseases and the billions of dollars poured into AIDS research, scientists are learning more and more about this important gland.
19. Thymus gland
The thymus gland secretes the hormone THYMOSIN, which acts on the white blood cells to turn them into "killer T-cells" ("T" means "thymus-activated"). These killer T-cells are the "soldiers" which protect our bodies from disease by destroying viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells. They fire deadly proteins that pierce holes in the cancer cells' membranes and cause them to burst.
20. Cancer cell
Did you know that we all have cancer? Everyone of us in this room has cancer many times in our lives, for cancer cells art-developing in our bodies all the time. Normally these cells -which are not at all powerful but rather weak and confused --are destroyed by killer T-cells before they can grow into dangerous tumours. Cancer appears only when our immune system is suppressed - when we have fewer T-cells to destroy the cancer cells properly.
21. Depression
And when does this happen? When we are emotionally depressed. Then our immune system is also depressed, and we actually produce fewer killer Т-cells. Research has shown that depressed people have fewer killer T-cells than normal people, and are twice as likely to die from heart disease or cancer.
22. Optimists
In fact our entire immune system functions better on days when we are in a happy, positive mood -- especially when we are laughing! Scientists have discovered that humorous people have higher levels of T-cells in their blood. (This gives us a clue to the mystery of Norman Cousins' miracle cure.) Another study revealed that optimists have 1/10 the rate of serious illness and early death of depressed people. A whole new science is now emerging called PSYCHO-NEURO-IMMUNOLOGY (PNI) -how the mind, through the nerves, affects the immune system.
23. Life history of a cancer patient
Dr. Lawrence LeShan (of the USA) researched the lives of 400
cancer patient cancer patients, and found that there is actually a particular type of "cancer personality - someone who is lonely and alienated during childhood and youth, but finds something that gives his or her life meaning in adulthood: a beloved spouse, or a stimulating career, for example. Then, suddenly, they lose it - their spouse dies, or their career is ruined - and they are plunged into hopeless despair. Within two years they develop cancer. As an American doctor described it, "cancer is an accumulation of swallowed tears." [31 out of 33 children with leukemia (blood cancer) experienced traumatic loss lese than 2 years before the onset of the disease.]
24. Grief suppresses the immune system
It has now been established that grief suppresses the immune system, and hope stimulates it. In fact, special tests are given to
cancer patients to determine their "H-score" or "Hope-score." The higher their Hope-score, the more likely they are to survive from cancer. One of the most amazing - and tragic - examples of this is the true story of Mr. Wright. [Tell the following story.]
Mr. Wright, whose story is often quoted in the literature on psychoneuroimmunology, was a patient in a cancer ward in a Massachusetts hospital, with cancer of the lymph nodes in an advanced state. His tumors were the size of oranges, and two quarts of milky fluid were being drained out of his lungs every day. He was being fed intravenously, and needed an oxygen mask to breathe. The doctors gave him maximum two weeks to live.
But one day, a new drug was sent to the hospital - Krebiogen - an experimental drug which was supposed to be a miracle cure for lymph node cancer. The doctors, who were sent only 20 doses of this expensive drug, didn't want to waste it on Mr. Wright who was certainly going to die anyway -- but Mr. Wright heard about it and begged the doctors to give it to him. "I just know this drug will cure me!" he pleaded. Out of sympathy for the dying man, the doctors administered one dose of the drug to him en Friday afternoon, and went home for the weekend. They thought perhaps they would never see him alive again.
But to their amazement, when they returned to the hospital on Monday morning, they found Mr. Wright out of bed, waiting through the ward drinking coca-cola, and joking with the nurses' His tumors had shrunk to half their size, and within ten days they completely disappeared — at; one doctor said. "They melted tike snowballs on shot stove." He was released from the hospital, free of disease, and returned to normal me. He even started flying his own plane again.
But, as fate would have it, within a few months a scandal filled the pages of the newspapers - Krebiogen was found to be a worthless drug, without any therapeutic value whatsoever, and the drug company which had produced the drug was besieged by lawsuits from patients and doctors from around the country. Unfortunately, Mr. Wright read about it – and his last hope vanished. His tumors suddenly reappeared and rapidly grew to the same gigantic size. He was admitted to the hospital again, and within two days he died.
Such is the power of hope – and hopelessness.
Here you may start a discussion on psychosomatic illnesses by asking the class, "Have you ever experienced, or do you know anyone who has experienced, a sickness that was caused or cured by the mind?”
25. Hope produces more T-cells
Now, how does this relate to the cakras? Thousands of years ago yogis described the 12 mental propensities at the heart cakra. Three of them may be directly related to the immune system: PSYCHIC DEPRESSION or DESPAIR, REGRET or BURNING MISERY, and HOPE. (Thus the poet wrote, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast"- it literally springs from the heart cakra!)
When the propensity of hope is expressed at the heart cakra, it stimulates the thymus gland hormone thymosin to produce more T-cells. And when the propensities of depression and misery are activated, they depress the thymus gland and fewer T-cells are produced - and the body succumbs to disease.
26. Open hands
In fact, it is said that the propensity of hope ("asha vrttis") is one of the most important expressions of the mind. The major pat of our thought revolves around this propensity and inspires us to action. Someone has a deep hope in his mind that by hard work he will one day buy a beautiful house....a mother has a deep hope that her child will become great....young people hope to fall " in love with the person of their dreams. If this propensity of hope is disturbed or destroyed, one's life will become ruined -and the person may even commit suicide. Thus the yogis say that for a happy life, we must keep this propensity of hope strong.
27. Techniques of Biopsychology
But how to do it? How to affect our mental propensities? This is where the science of BIO-PSYCHOLOGY comes in. It is not
simply an abstract, analytic science like much of contemporary psychology - it is a practical, therapeutic science as well, that teaches us how to control our propensities, cakras and glands for optimum physical and mental health.
Biopsychology is the science of controlling the propensities of mind directly, from the source - from the cakra at which they are first expressed. By various physical and psychic techniques, we can affect the cakras and the endocrine glands we can balance the secretion of hormones and thus control the mental propensities this, in a feedback loop, maintains the balance of the subtle energy at the cakra.
28. Asanas pressurize endocrine glands
What are these techniques? The physical techniques include endocrine glands the yoga asanas which we have been learning - the twisting and bending postures which selectively pressurize certain cakras and the associated endocrine glands, balance their hormone secretions, and help to control the mental propensity at that cakra. Other techniques of breath control revitalize the cakras and rectify any in balances in them. For example: [HAVE SOMEONE DEMONSTRATE THE FOLLOWING ASANAS)
29. Visualizations
Other, subtler psychic techniques of visualizations act directly on the various cakras through color and sound. Every vibration has a particular color and sound, and thus each cakra, with its specific vibration frequency, has a particular shape, color, and sound. Practicing concentration and visualization techniques on the color and sound of the cakra helps to balance the energy flow in that cakra and control its mental propensities. These visualizations not only give good health but also great strength of mind.
30. Less than 20% of population
Psychological studies show that less than 20% of the population has inner control. Most of us are slaves of our emotions, full of negative fears, anxieties and tensions which destroy our health and mental peace.
31. Biopsychology
Through Biopsychology we can develop control of our cakras, glands and emotions. We can become integrated personalities without inferiority and superiority complexes — self-reliant and self-confident, unaffected by what others think of us.
Remember the wisdom of the ancient Greeks: "KNOW THYSELF." In this age of high technology, we have come to understand the fine details of the world around us, but we have neglected ourselves. We must learn to know our own bodies and minds. Instead of feeling that we are the helpless victims of circumstances, we must exert positive control over our lives.
None makes us happy or sad. Our own emotions are the only things in life we can control. Your future does not just happen to you -- you create your future by bow you think and act now. Let's not waste any more time. Let us start now to learn to become masters of ourselves.
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