The Mind Rools, Okay!!!

July 5, 2012

First – an apology to all those people who are doing the Audio Course, who have been sending questions – I will reply soon – just been a bit busy the last week, so please stay tuned.

Now, bit of a change from my usual post – I’ve been noticing various articles in the popular press which affirm a central principle of what I’ve been saying, so I’m posting one here.

The basic implication of these articles, (and they are increasingly noticeable) is that, regardless of how it seems like the body is separate to the mind, the ultimate truth is, mind rules EVERYTHING … from when you get sick and what with, to how you heal, whether you age well or badly, to the quality of the life you lead.

We’re conditioned to regard body as being somehow independant of mind – but the rule is, Body ALWAYS follows Mind .. so the most powerful medicine in a life is how you use the mind – the state it’s in.

Our mental ecology is the most important part of our life.

And that makes a powerful case for meditation … so NEVER STOP!!!! Remember, when it seems as if you just can’t meditate at all is when the most effective practice is happening.

Being young at heart works

By Sarah Marinos

Discover the surprising benefits of not acting your age.

Did you know?

A US study has found laughter relaxes muscles, boosts the immune system and is even good for your heart.

Forget fad diets, expensive face creams, Botox and new-age treatments that promise to rid you of wrinkles and give you the youthful agility of Peter Pan. If you want to look younger, then you need to think, feel and act younger, according to the experts who have studied how we can stop the clock.

Just adopting a happier, more positive and interested attitude can make subtle changes in our appearance that cause people to think we are younger than we actually are.

Harvard University psychologist Dr Ellen Langer has studied the way our mind influences our body and appearance. In one study, she arranged for a group of elderly men, in their 70s and 80s, to spend a week at a retreat that was decked out as if it were 1959.

The furniture in the house was straight out of the late 1950s. The programs the men watched on a black and white television were from that era and they could only listen to 1950s music on the radio. The men were encouraged to believe, act and talk as if they were back in 1959.

Mind over matter

After a week of living as though they were younger men, the pensioners were more flexible, had better hearing and memory and felt stronger. And they also looked younger. When strangers were shown photos of the men, they estimated them to be younger than their biological age.

“When these people came to see if they could be in the study and they were walking down the hall to get to my office, they looked like they were on their last legs,” Dr Langer says. “At the end of all this, I was playing touch football with some of them.”

In another study, Dr Langer discovered how something as simple as having their hair cut and coloured can make women look younger. Volunteers looked at before-and-after photographs of a group of women who had their hair cut and coloured.

The women who felt younger after having their hair styled were perceived as looking younger – even when the volunteers assessing the photos were only shown images of the women’s faces, not their hair.

“Everybody knows in some way that our minds affect our physical being, but I don’t think people are aware of just how profound the effect actually is,” Dr Langer says.

Melbourne-based psychologist Meredith Fuller agrees our attitude can either make us look younger and healthier, or older and worn out.

“Genetics has a role in how we age, but that’s only part of the story,” Fuller says.

“People react to you the way you project who you are to them. If you are aware, act younger, are curious and interested in life then you’ll be perceived as being younger. If you feel old, are miserable and don’t engage with the world around you, you’ll appear older.”

Music soothes

Listening to music from our youth can be particularly beneficial, Fuller says. “We’re very affected by sound so if you play music from a time when you were doing interesting things and happy, that revitalises you. It floods you with feel-good hormones.

“If you feel uplifted, the muscles in your face relax more. You’ll stand and move differently – more upright and with confidence – and you’ll breathe more deeply and that impacts on oxygenation to the skin and improves your complexion. All these subtle changes can help you look younger.”

Fuller believes it’s also important to have friends of a broad age range so you keep up to date with younger people, but also have friends who are older and leading interesting lives.

“They show you growing older doesn’t have to be depressing and dispel the negative myths about ageing,” she says.

Try to do at least one new thing each week – even if it’s only finding a new route to work, taking up a new sport or hobby, going away for a weekend to a place you have never visited before or listening to a new style of music.

“When we try something new we’re enthusiastic and that is an attractive trait,” Fuller says. “People appear younger when they are engaged, interested, curious and enthusiastic. So don’t give up on living life.”