Daniel J. Benor, MD

   
It is estimated that only 5 percent of our brain capacity is within conscious awareness. This means that we have another 95 percent of brain/consciousness capacity we can tap.
   
Applied Kinesiology (AK) provides methods for using the body to facilitate access to the unconscious mind . When you are emotionally upset, as in depression, anxiety or anger, your body becomes weaker. If you think about something that is distressing, your muscles will reflect this. 

AK exercises: 
Do these only if your hand and arm are normal and free of any injury or other problem.

1. Hold your arm out sideways from your body. Ask someone with whom you feel close and safe to press gently but firmly downward on your wrist in order to test your muscle strength. The object here is not for him to break your position, but to see how strong your muscles are. This is your baseline, your starting point in checking the strength of your arm muscles.

Next, have him ask you, twice in succession, "What is the last digit of your phone number?" In response to either the first or the second time he questions you, tell the truth, and in response to the other time he asks you, you will say a false number. (By not revealing which time you are telling the truth and which time you are lying, he can't press harder in line with any expectations.) After responding to each question in turn, your partner will press down again on your wrist, using the same degree of pressure as on the baseline testing. Note any changes in your muscle strength on each occasion.

Most people will find that when they give a false answer their muscle strength is weaker.

2. Now, think of something that makes you sad. When you can feel the sadness of it, ask your partner to press down again on your outstretched arm. Note any changes in your strength.

Next, repeat this process, taking turns thinking of something that makes you happy and then of something that makes you angry. Note any changes in your strength with each feeling.

Most people will find that their muscles are weakened as they focus on sad or angry

Discussion:

Exercise (1) demonstrates that our body can be used to answer 'Yes' or 'No' questions, providing access to the 95% of our brain capacity that is outside of our conscious awareness.

Despise no new accidents in your body, but ask opinion of it.

                    - Francis Bacon

Exercise (2) shows that our emotional state can influence our muscle strength. This provides a tool for accessing the degree of upset when focusing on an emotional issue. It also points to the possibility that emotions might interfere in muscle testing for 'yes' and 'no' answers.

AK for non-local explorations 
Because the mind can reach out through non-local consciousness to anywhere and anywhen in space and time, it is possible to use our body responses to access intuitive and psychic information. Theoretically, there is no limit to the information available to us. For example, we may ask whether a particular food item is good for us, whether it is for our highest good to consult a particular therapist, or whether a specific invitation (social, work, spam mail) is likely to be of benefit to us. Therapists, with the consent of their clients, may use kinesiology similarly on themselves to ask questions about how to proceed with the therapy. I call this transpersonal kinesiology.

The difficulty in any use of intuition is that intuitive information appears to enter consciousness via the deeper parts of the brain or mind, much like dreams do. As intuitive awarenesses surface to consciousness, they may become distorted by various images and mental associations. You may, for instance, intuit an image of the President having a heart attack. You check the news media and find that no such thing happened. A few days later, however, you hear that your high school gym teacher, who was an important person in your life, was hospitalized with a heart attack. It would appear that the Unconscious mind has used the image of the President as a vehicle to bring to your Conscious mind something the Unconsciou has picked up that is important to you.

Skeptics will say any such experience is pure coincidence and that AK and alleged psychic phenomena are no more than chance events that happen to occur at or about the same time .

Exercise (2) shows us that factors other than our thinking mind may influence these muscle responses. If we have particular feelings about the questions asked, or if we have psychological associations to the questions that evoke feelings, our muscle responses may reflect these feelings rather than the answers to the questions being asked. Many other factors could influence these muscle responses. We must therefore be cautious in accepting the answers our body gives us. There will always be leeway for several possible interpretations to our responses, and a significant margin of error. While this may be discouraging to those who want a system that is completely reliable, this is the way our intuition speaks through our body and we must accept it and work with it the best we can if we are to access our intuition this way.

If we seek transpersonal information from outside our own experience and fund of knowledge, where does this come from? Extrasensory perceptions (ESP) can bring us information from the minds of anyone, anywhere.  Time is not a barrier, so information from the past and future is also available. We can thus access the collective conscious of all of mankind.  Whom we access, however, may make a big difference in the answers we get to our questions. We probably wouldn't accept advice from just anyone on the street, nor should we seek or accept uncritically advice which comes transpersonally from unselected sources.

So how do we assure that we get good  advice when we use kinesiology? My recommendation is that we should put out our questions with the request that  they will be answered from the highest possible source, for the highest possible good of all. Sometimes this may mean that our own needs are bent to the needs of the collective. This may be one explanation for apparently negative responses (relative to our personal expectations) to our questions, healing wishes and prayers. What may appear to be negative or erroneous responses to questions from our present personal perspective may turn out to be a positive response for us in the light of future developments or in the context of a greater whole - within which our question may have implications that we cannot foresee or understand at the time we are asking them.

Research in kinesiology has produced very mixed results. While some studies have shown significant effects, others have not. Many researchers have despaired that this is an unreliable test. My own impression is that its reliability is dependent on the mental and emotional clarity and steadiness of the people doing the testing .

Biofeedback gives us conscious influence over body processes that are usually under automated control of the autonomic nervous system. We can train our mind to alter functions of parts of our body such as the iris of our eye, our blood pressure, the dilation of blood vessels (and consequently the temperature) in our hands and feet, spasms of arteries that cause migraines, and our brainwave frequencies. Such control can contribute to treatment of anxiety, hypertension, headaches, painful constrictions of blood vessels in the extremities, hyperactivity, and more.

(1270 words)

Resources for exploring messages from your body

WHEE: Whole Health - Easily and Effectively^®
AKA
Wholistic Hybrid derived from EMDR and EFT
  Potent self-healing method for releasing emotional and physical stress, pains, residues of traumas
  Workbook    Paperback - WHEE for pain    Articles    Workshops 

Resources for explaining the mind-body connection

 Benor, Daniel J. Healing Research, Volume II: (Professional edition)
Consciousness, Bioenergy and Healing, Bellmawr, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications 2004. 
  Thorough review of research validating the efficacy of self-healing, wholistic complementary/ alternative medicine (CAM), biological  energies, and environmental interactions with bioenergies.
  “Book of the Year” award - The Scientific and Medical Network, UK
  Paperback, CD-ROM or e-Book of Consciousness, Bioenergy and Healing
    (15% author’s discount on V2. Professional edition paperback and CD-ROM worldwide, and free postage in the US)

Benor, Daniel J. Healing Research, Volume II: (Popular edition)
How Can I Heal What Hurts?  Wholistic Healing and Bioenergies,Bellmawr, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications 2005 
  Popular edition Explains self-healing, wholistic complementary/ alternative medicine (CAM) and bioenergies, and discusses ways in which
     you can heal yourself.
      (15% author’s discount on V2. Popular edition paperback worldwide, and free postage in the US )

Develop and deepen your intuition and personal spirituality

Healing Research, V. 3
   Personal Spirituality: Science, Spirit and the Eternal Soul, Bellmawr, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications (November 2006)
  
  Reaching Higher and Deeper
Workbook for Healing Research, Volume 3: Personal Spirituality:
   Bellmawr, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications 2007

You may reproduce all or any parts of this article as long as you include credits as follows:
Copyright © Daniel J. Benor, MD, 2006. All rights reserved. An expanded version of this article appears as Benor, DJ, In a Word, International J of Healing and Caring - on line, www.ijhc.org  January, 2001, 1-8.