Studies and Progress Notes (May 2009)

* * * STUDIES and PROGRESS NOTES* * *       

* *  SPIRITUAL AWARENESS AND WHOLISTIC HEALING * *       

Each of us is involved in research     

Research is the study of our world in a systematic way to obtain new knowledge about the world. We commonly assume that research is for scientists in laboratories. We overlook the fact that each and every person is part of a complex experiment!     

Each of us is engaged in a lifetime research experiment: We make choices in how we live our personal lives in this world and study the consequences of our decisions. When we perceive we have made good choices, we congratulate ourselves and continue on the personal paths we have chosen. When we observe that we have made poor choices, we alter our actions and change our behaviors and paths through the various worlds we inhabit: physical, psychological social, and spiritual.

We look at the likelihood of success and/or failure prior to making everyday choices. We do our best to inform ourselves of all the relevant factors that are at play, so that we make the choices that will have the best outcome for ourselves.

And then there is the collective level of research, where families, communities, cities, states, nations and the global community are all researching the best ways to live our collective lives.

**  FUTURE RESEARCH IN WHOLISTIC HEALING * * 

The IJHC/WHR E-Zine features monthly suggestions for future research in healing.
READERS ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT SUGGESTIONS FOR TOPICS TO STUDY
If your topic is chosen, you ill receive free access to the IJHC for a month, including the current issue and all back issues.
 
We'd be pleased to have your observations on your personal research in these important areas of personal research!

* *  WHOLISTIC APPROACHES * *

Happiness can bring healing     

"There is some scientific evidence that positive emotions can help make your life longer and healthier.

But to produce good health, positive emotions may need to be long term. In other words, thinking positive thoughts for a month when you already have heart disease won’t cure the disease. But lowering your stress levels over a period of years with a positive outlook and relaxation techniques could reduce your risk of heart problems.

Pathways to happiness

In an early phase of positive psychology research, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson of the University of Michigan chose three pathways to examine:

    * Feeling good. Seeking pleasurable emotions and sensations, from the hedonistic model of happiness put forth by Epicurus, which focused on reaching happiness by maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.
    * Engaging fully. Pursuing activities that engage you fully, from the influential research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. For decades, Csikszentmihalyi explored people’s satisfaction in their everyday activities, finding that people report the greatest satisfaction when they are totally immersed in and concentrating on what they are doing—he dubbed this state of intense absorption “flow.”
    * Doing good. Searching for meaning outside yourself, tracing back to Aristotle’s notion of eudemonia, which emphasized knowing your true self and acting in accordance with your virtues.

Through focus groups and testing hundreds of volunteers, they found that each of these pathways individually contributes to life satisfaction…

Source: http://clicks.health.harvard.edu:80/dm?id=D306B0527529D53327E756FBF26CBA81CF80EF627D233712

Forwarded by: Martin Brofman

IJHC – WHR Observations

Increasing the positives in our lives is a frequently neglected approach to healthcare. This is an experiment most of us can easily volunteer to participate in!

Lower back scans are no help with early, uncomplicated back pain

A meta-analysis of 6 studies, including over 1800 people with low back pain showed that the routine use of scans in patients with lower back pain does not improve their outcomes when patients were followed for up to a year.

Previous studies in the UK have shown similar results.

Source: Chou, Roger et al. Imaging strategies for low-back pain: systematic review and meta-analysis, Lancet. 2009, 373, 463-472,

IJHC – WHR Observations

The prevalent approach of fighting pain and seeking every way to eliminate it is unhelpful to people who are in pain and an enormous waste of money.

Pain is a message from the body about disharmony in our lives. Listening to the pain to learn its message is the first step of choice – available to anyone who has pain.

 * *  COMPLEMENTARY THERAPIES * * 

CAM therapies for people with cancer

Great information on alternative cancer treatments, with many different healing options.
 http://www.cancertutor.com  

IJHC – WHR Observations

People with cancer and other serious illnesses often want to learn for themselves from the internet and other resources what their treatment options might be. This is a good resource.

Vitamin D can prevent mental decline in the elderly

"Vitamin D, found in fish and produced by sun exposure, can help stave off the mental decline that can affect people in old age, a study has suggested.

UK and US researchers looked at 2,000 people aged 65 and over.

They found that compared to those with the highest vitamin D levels, those with the lowest were more than twice as likely to have impaired understanding."

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7845703.stm 

IJHC – WHR Observations

This is an inexpensive supplement that can also enhance mobility and is needed for maintaining bone health. Blood levels can quickly indicate whether a deficiency exists, and can provide guidelines to prevent overdose. Caution: Overdose is possible, with possible gastric upset, hypertension, and in long-term overdose, kidney failure.

More CAM reviews at
www.naturalhealthvillage.com
www.mdlinx.com/FamilyMDLinx 
 www.ucalgary.ca/~camig/litsearch.html
AMSA website
www.amsa.org/humed/camresources/camnews.cfm

* * TECHNOLOGY * *

Regeneration of cells - CBS Cutting Edge

Recent explorations suggest that it may be possible to regenerate injured human tissues with the use of various substances. This video shows a man whose fingertip was regenerated after it had been cut off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxhi4Q8EDTU

IJHC – WHR Observations

While it is well known that the fingertips of children under the age of 10 will often regenerate if the wound is left open, to heal on its own, this is highly unusual in adults

Information overload?

A fact-filled commentary on the increasingly rapid pace of life, exponential increase in information, and shifts in global numbers that will influence our future.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

Forwarded by Bob Fleischer

IJHC – WHR Observations

On the one side, we are challenged to become a world that has become a ginormous global community. On the other side, we are challenged to maintain our personal centeredness in an every busier world with ever increasing pace of change.

What methods do YOU use to stay centered?

WHEE is an excellent way to release tensions, fears and other negativity that make it hard to find the quiet place of peace we all have available to us.

* *  ENVIRONMENT (HEALING OUR PLANET) * *

Re Global Warming…Heating:

If we act on an assumption that global warming…heating is a real and present threat, what are the risks?

If we ignore global warming…heating, what are the risks?

Which risks do we prefer to take?

Intelligently argued:
http://manpollo.org/
See the video under “New to Manpollo? Start here”

IJHC – WHR Observations

I find it amazing that there are still people questioning whether global warming…heating is a real and present threat. The consequences of betting that all the evidence is erroneous are that this planet will turn to toast: evidenced by rising temperatures, melting glaciers, worsening weather patterns, and scientific predictions of rising sea waters.

* *  HUMAN ECOLOGY* * 

One person's happiness can be contagious and can affect another's happiness for up to a year

"Happiness is contagious, spreading among friends, neighbors, siblings and spouses like the flu, according to a large study that for the first time shows how emotion can ripple through clusters of people who may not even know each other.

The study of more than 4,700 people who were followed over 20 years found that people who are happy or become happy boost the chances that someone they know will be happy. The power of happiness, moreover, can span another degree of separation, elevating the mood of that person's husband, wife, brother, sister, friend or next-door neighbor.

'You would think that your emotional state would depend on your own choices and actions and experience,' said Nicholas A. Christakis, a medical sociologist at Harvard University who helped conduct the study published online the British Medical Journal. 'But it also depends on the choices and actions and experiences of other people, including people to whom you are not directly connected. Happiness is contagious.'"

Sources: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/04/AR2008120403537.html?hpid=topnews
Research
Fowler, James H. and Christakis, Nicholas A. Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study, BMJ 2008, 337, a2338.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/337/dec04_2/a2338

IJHC – WHR Observations

Happiness is a quality we can enhance – in our lives and the lives of others around us.

WHEE is a method of self-healing that enables you to install positive, happy feelings and cognitions, in addition to reducing negativity.

Brain rewards centers light up in bullies who observe the inflicting of pain

"Bullies may enjoy seeing others in pain: Brain scans show disruption in natural empathetic response

Unusually aggressive youth may actually enjoy inflicting pain on others, research using brain scans at the University of Chicago shows.

Scans of the aggressive youth's brains showed that an area that is associated with rewards was highlighted when the youth watched a video clip of someone inflicting pain on another person. Youth without the unusually aggressive behavior did not have that response, the study showed.

'This is the first time that fMRI scans have been used to study situations that could otherwise provoke empathy,' said Jean Decety, Professor in Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago. 'This work will help us better understand ways to work with juveniles inclined to aggression and violence.'"

Source: University of Chicago news  http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=1477
Decety J, et al. Atypical empathic responses in adolescents with aggressive conduct disorder: a functional MRI investigation, Biological Psychology 2009, 80(2), 203-11.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18940230

IJHC – WHR Observations

While it is often assumed that people who take pleasure in inflicting pain on others have a genetic characterological disorder, my personal experience in the treatment of aggressive children leads me to believe that many of them have experienced severe traumas themselves. I believe that many of these aggressive children are actually suffering from the effects of post traumatic stress disorders.

I would therefore interpret the brain scans as indicating learned responses to pain rather than 'hard-wired,' genetic differences from normal brains.