In the News (from Nautilus): “It’s an odd quirk of the human mind that we tend to think we’re less likely to be affected a particular threat—be it the flu, a car accident, or a flood—than anyone else. Like the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average, this is a patent impossibility: Everyone can’t be less likely than the average person to catch a cold. But we persist in what psychologists call ‘unrealistic comparative optimism.’ Even when we have actually encountered a threat, or been in close proximity to one, this warped sense of the probability field persists, as a report published last year shows.

“In the study, researchers had a chance to test how people’s comparative optimism changed after a low-probability, high-impact event: a tornado that ripped across Iowa City in 2006, causing $12 million in property damage. And their results were faintly comical: Everyone they polled, from students to randomly selected Iowa City residents to people whose neighborhoods had been damaged, felt both soon after the tornado and a year later that they were less likely to be affected in the future than the average person. In fact, six months after the events, people in damaged neighborhoods were actually more optimistic that they would not be affected again than were those living in intact areas. After a year, their optimism returned to the usual level—but still, as always, holding that they were less likely to be affected than others.”

My Comment: We are within our egoism, and we cannot objectively evaluate anything before we exit it. Until then, we will perceive the world through the prism of egoistic error.
[115533]

Related Material:
“You’re Not As Great As You Think You Are”
Reality Without Filters
Seeing The World As It Is

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Health, Perception - No Comments →

In the News (from the University of Exeter): ”Volunteering may be good for your health, reveals a large systematic review and meta-analysis led by the University of Exeter Medical School.

“Volunteering can improve mental health and help you live longer, finds the study which is published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. The research pools and compares data from multiple experimental trials and longitudinal cohort studies. …

“The systematic review was led by Dr Suzanne Richards at the University of Exeter Medical School, and was supported by the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care in the South West Peninsula (NIHR PenCLAHRC).

“Worldwide, the prevalence of adult volunteering varies with estimates of 22.5 per cent in Europe, 36 per cent in Australia and 27 per cent in the USA. Volunteers commonly cite altruistic motives for their habit – ‘giving something back’ to their community, or supporting an organisation or charity that has supported them. Volunteering can also be used to gain work experience or to widen social circles, but its effects may go far deeper.

“Previous reviews have highlighted supposed health benefits, including increased longevity, improved quality of life, reductions in stress and hospitalisation, but these tend to be based on narrative, rather than comparative evidence. Richards and colleagues pool data from 40 papers which reported data from 9 experimental trials and 16 cohort studies to arrive at their conclusions.

“The causal mechanisms underlying the potential health benefits of volunteering are unclear.”

My Comment: The real reason is that the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif) affects them because the basis of voluntary assistance is ascent above egoism and longing for some unity. Though these impulses are selfish, they still are above usual motivations and thus cause a bit of influence of the Surrounding Light. When a person can really go against his egoism in the desire to bestow (the vessel of the soul), the same Ohr Makif will become for him Ohr Pnimi – the Inner Light of his soul.
[115491]

Related Material:
The EU Is Insolvent And Collapsing
Spaniards Are Willing To Work For Free
Everything Studied In Kabbalah Is A Law of Nature

Filed under: Health, News - No Comments →

In the News ( from the Alex’s Jones InforWars.com): “The mass drugging of US troops is one of the most underreported scandals of the modern era, with soldiers not only being used as guinea pigs in a brave new world of pharmacological experimentation, but also having their rights stripped as a result. …

“As Mike Adams documents, the Defense Department notes that ‘20 percent of U.S. troops are on psychiatric drugs, and that they are often handed as much as a 180-day supply of those pills before being deployed.’

“‘U.S. troops are being forced to take drugs like Prozac and Seroquel for anxiety and depression. Troops cannot refuse to take the drugs without consequences from their superiors. …

“The mass drugging of US troops is another aspect of government social engineering. It is about creating yet another huge sector of society – just like children in school or foster care – whose dependence on the state is secured via the method of artificially creating a dangerous dependence on drugs.”

My Comment: That’s how, from different sides, drugs are gradually introduced into our life; their consumption becomes habitual. After all, it helps calm and even reduce the population …
[115484]

Related Material:
“US To Cut Back Minimum Sentences For Some Drug Offences”
How To Combat Drugs
Fighting Drugs: New Challenges

Filed under: Crisis, Health, News - No Comments →

In the News (from the Economist’s Club): “(…) America’s ever-increasing rates of severe mental disease (which have already been very high for a long time). The claim that the spread of severe mental illness has reached “epidemic” proportions has been heard so often that, like any commonplace, it has lost its ability to shock. But the repercussions for international politics of the disabling conditions diagnosed as manic-depressive illnesses (including major unipolar depression) and schizophrenia could not be more serious.

“It has proved to be impossible to distinguish, either biologically or symptomatically, between different varieties of these conditions, which thus constitute a continuum – most likely of complexity, rather than severity. Indeed, the most common of these illnesses, unipolar depression, is the least complex in terms of its symptoms, but also the most lethal: 20% of depressed patients are estimated to commit suicide. …

“A massive statistical study, conducted from 2001 to 2003 by the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), estimated the lifetime prevalence of major depression among American adults (ages 18-54) at more than 16%. Lifetime prevalence for schizophrenia was estimated at 1.7%. There is no known cure for these chronic diseases; after onset (often before the age of 18), they are likely to last until the end of the patient’s life. …

“All of this suggests that as many as 20% of American adults may be severely mentally ill. In view of disputes over the significance of available data, let’s assume that only 10% of American adults are severely mentally ill. …

“Comparative epidemiologists have repeatedly noticed something remarkable about these illnesses: only Western countries (or, more precisely, societies with monotheistic traditions) – particularly prosperous Western countries – are subject to prevalence rates of this magnitude. Southeast Asian countries appear to be especially immune to the bane of severe mental illness; in other regions, poverty, or lack of development, seems to offer a protective barrier.”

My Comment: This is not just the Western way of life, but the indication of the ultimate form of egoism, which forces us to correct it as “help against it.” The very same egoism exposes itself to show us exactly that the problem is in it. And it also reveals the method of its correction: “Methodology of Integral Education and Upbringing” or the “Methodology of Integral Development.”
[115380]

Related Material:
The Depression Cure
Nearly Forty Percent Of Europeans Suffer From Mental Illnesses
Depression Is Sweeping The World

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Health, News - No Comments →

In the News (from BBC News): “The Obama administration has unveiled major changes to the criminal justice system, dropping mandatory minimum sentences in certain drug cases. Such terms will not be imposed for non-violent drug offenders with no gang or cartel ties, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech. …

“’The attorney general’s remarks represent a good first step toward scaling back the failed ‘war on drugs’,” Tom Engell, chairman of Marijuana Majority, said.”

My Comment: In fact, we cannot accept drugs if we want to reach the goal of creation, the revelation of the Creator. Drugs are enemies of building a better society, creating a family, raising children. In this case, we need intelligence, strength, initiative, all which are lost in an addict..

But if the government’s objective is to reduce the population so that it does not reproduce, does not live long, and is passive during its short life, then drugs are good and should be distributed. And to prevent such inhuman thoughts about the government, it is necessary at the same time to carry out a campaign against smoking …
[114991]

Related Material:
Uruguay’s Parliament Has Said “Yes” To Marijuana
Fighting Drugs: New Challenges
How To Combat Drugs

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Health, News - No Comments →

In the News (from the University of Michigan): “Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being instead of enhancing it, a University of Michigan study shows. …

“’On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection,’ says U-M social psychologist Ethan Kross, lead author of the article and a faculty associate at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). ‘But rather than enhance well-being, we found that Facebook use predicts the opposite result – it undermines it.’ …

“The study found that the more people used Facebook during one time period, the worse they subsequently felt. The authors also asked people to rate their level of life satisfaction at the start and end of the study. They found that the more participants used Facebook over the two-week study period, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time.

“Importantly, the researchers found no evidence that interacting directly with other people via phone or face-to-face negatively influenced well-being. Instead, they found that direct interactions with other people led people to feel better over time.”

My Comment: The whole process of our development aims at bringing us to full disillusionment and an understanding of the need for unity: It is impossible to communicate in the old and the new way in order to direct us to the new kind of connection and interaction—spiritual (bestowal and love).
[114762]

Related Material:
The Reduction In Facebook Audience
Facebook Is Not Cool Anymore
The Virtual Space For The Inner Connection

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Health, Internet, News - No Comments →

In the News (from BBC News): “Choir singers not only harmonise their voices, they also synchronise their heartbeats, a study suggests. Researchers in Sweden monitored the heart rates of singers as they performed a variety of choral works.

“They found that as the members sang in unison, their pulses began to speed up and slow down at the same rate. …

“The researchers also found that choral singing had the overall effect of slowing the heart rate.

This, they said, was another effect of the controlled breathing….

“The researchers now want to investigate whether singing could have an impact on our health.

“There have been studies on yoga breathing, which is very close to this, and also on guided breathing and they have seen long-terms effects on blood pressure… and they have seen that you can bring down your blood pressure.

“We speculate that it is possible singing could also be beneficial.”

My Comment: When people interact with each other, they begin to connect with each other through their organs, like one body, and in this case, we can treat patients by including them among the healthy.
[114397]

Related Material:
The Wonderous Force Of Unity
Integral Health
What Is Happiness?

Filed under: Health, News, Science - No Comments →

In the News (from The Sydney Morning Herald): “Not only are false, or mistaken, memories common in normal life, but researchers have found it relatively easy to generate false memories of words and images in human subjects. …

“Now scientists at the Riken-MIT Centre for Neural Circuit Genetics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they have created a false memory in a mouse, providing detailed clues to how such memories may form in human brains.

“Steve Ramirez, Xu Liu and other scientists, led by Susumu Tonegawa, reported on Thursday in the journal Science that they caused mice to remember being shocked in one location, when in reality the electric shock was delivered in a completely different location.

“At this level of brain activity, he said, ‘the difference between a mouse and a human is quite small.’ The part of the brain in which the memories formed is an area of the hippocampus called the dentate gyrus, which is similar in mice and humans.

“Tonegawa said that, because the mechanisms of memory formation are almost certainly similar in mice and humans, part of the importance of the research was ‘to make people realise even more than before how unreliable human memory is,’ particularly in criminal cases when so much is at stake.”

My Comment: Everything can be modeled in a person, everything that happens in our world, except spiritual experience, because it is not recorded in the brain, mind, desire, and thoughts to “receive,” but in the property to “bestow”—in the soul.
[114154]

Related Material:
Why People Forget Why They Left The Room
The Influence Of The Environment On Decisions And Memory
Time = Motion = Place

Filed under: Body and Soul, Health, Science - No Comments →

In the News (from the University of Buffalo): “The idea that females are more resilient than males in responding to stress is a popular view, and now University at Buffalo researchers have found a scientific explanation. …

“The research shows that in rats exposed to repeated episodes of stress, females respond better than males because of the protective effect of estrogen. …

“By manipulating the amount of estrogen produced in the brain, the UB researchers were able to make the males respond to stress more like females and the females respond more like males.

“When estrogen signaling in the brains of females was blocked, stress exhibited detrimental effects on them,” explains Yan. “When estrogen signaling was activated in males, the detrimental effects of stress were blocked.

“’We still found the protective effect of estrogen in female rats whose ovaries were removed,” says Yan. ‘It suggests that it might be estrogen produced in the brain that protects against the detrimental effects of stress.’ …

“’If we could find compounds similar to estrogen that could be administered without causing hormonal side effects, they could prove to be a very effective treatment for stress-related problems in males,’ she says.”

My Comment: When people near each other internally, they begin to communicate with each other (with a “spiritual transfer”) and they transfer their bodily defenses as well. This is the great power and wonder of the integral system, which absorbs all the positive from each of the participants and provides each and everyone with these combined positive qualities.
[113563]

Related Material:
Stress Is As Contagious As A Cold
Integral Health
What Is Happiness?

Filed under: Health, Man and Woman, News - No Comments →

In the News (from The University of North Carolina): “’We can make ourselves happy through simple pleasures, but those ‘empty calories’ don’t help us broaden our awareness or build our capacity in ways that benefit us physically. At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose,” according to new research led by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“The sense of well-being derived from ‘a noble purpose’ may provide cellular health benefits, whereas ‘simple self-gratification’ may have negative effects, despite an overall perceived sense of happiness, researchers found. …

“’Philosophers have long distinguished two basic forms of well-being: a ‘hedonic’ [hee-DON-ic] [egoistic] form representing an individual’s pleasurable experiences, and a deeper ‘eudaimonic,’ [u-DY-moh-nick] [altruistic] form that results from striving toward meaning and a noble purpose beyond simple self-gratification,’ wrote Fredrickson and her colleagues.

“Collaborating with a team from the University of California at Los Angeles  led by Steven W. Cole, professor of medicine, psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Fredrickson and her colleagues looked at the biological influence of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being through the human genome. They were interested in the pattern of gene expression within people’s immune cells.

“Past work by Cole and colleagues had discovered a systematic shift in gene expression associated with chronic stress, a shift ‘characterized by increased expression of genes involved in inflammation’ that are implicated in a wide variety of human ills, including arthritis and heart disease, and “decreased expression of genes involved in … antiviral responses,” the study noted.

“It’s the difference, for example, between enjoying a good meal and feeling connected to a larger community through a service project, she said. Both give us a sense of happiness, but each is experienced very differently in the body’s cells. …

“But if all happiness is created equal, and equally opposite to ill-being, then patterns of gene expression should be the same regardless of hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. Not so, found the researchers.

“Eudaimonic well-being was, indeed, associated with a significant decrease in the stress-related CTRA gene expression profile. In contrast, hedonic well-being was associated with a significant increase in the CTRA profile. Their genomics-based analyses, the authors reported, reveal the hidden costs of purely hedonic well-being.

“Fredrickson found the results initially surprising, because study participants themselves reported overall feelings of well-being. One possibility, she suggested, is that people who experience more hedonic than eudaimonic well-being consume the emotional equivalent of empty calories. ‘Their daily activities provide short-term happiness yet result in negative physical consequences long-term,’ she said.”

My Comment: Nature is unified, and seeking to reach its wholeness is beneficial for all the systems, physical and spiritual, for an individual and the world. The higher (spiritual) degree a person applies effort to bring nature to unity, the stronger is its affect on the lower (physical) degrees.
[113441]

Related Material:
Health Is A Spiritual Necessity
What Is Happiness?
If You Want To Be Happy, Then Just Let It Be!

Filed under: Education, Health, Unity - No Comments →