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Mindfulness is “the intentional, accepting and non-judgemental focus of one’s attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment”, which can be trained by a large extent in meditational practices. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published the results of a ground-breaking study that found that meditation appears to provide as much relief from some anxiety and depression symptoms as antidepressants.
Mindfulness-based trainings have shown beneficial effects on inflammatory disorders in prior clinical studies and are endorsed by the American Heart Association as a preventative intervention. The training provides a biological mechanism for therapeutic effects.
A study in Psychoneuroendocrinology by researchers in Wisconsin, Spain, and France reported the first evidence of specific molecular changes in the body following a period of intensive mindfulness practice.

Mindfulness Meditation The Most Effective Form
Dr. Madhav Goyal of the John Hopkins School of Medicine, who led the research published inJAMA, singled out mindfulness meditation as the most effective form.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all that mindfulness performs as well as or better than medication,” says Adrian Wells, a professor of psychopathology at Manchester University and a clinical advisor to the charity Anxiety UK. The psychologist Katie Sparks agrees.

“In the group work that I’ve done with sufferers of anxiety or depression, I’ve found it very beneficial because it calms the mind. It’s not a new thing,” she adds.
That’s an understatement: Mindfulness is a meditation technique that has been advocated by Buddhism for 2,500 years. Paul Christelis, the Light Centre’s course leader and a clinical psychologist, defines it as “paying attention to your experience, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment or criticism.”
Its crossover into Western culture has been gradual. But in 2004, its use in preventing the relapse of depression was approved by the U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice). It has rapidly gained traction since.
Gene Activity Can Change According To Perception
According to Dr. Bruce Lipton, gene activity can change on a daily basis. If the perception in your mind is reflected in the chemistry of your body, and if your nervous system reads and interprets the environment and then controls the blood’s chemistry, then you can literally change the fate of your cells by altering your thoughts.
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In fact, Dr. Lipton’s research illustrates that by changing your perception, your mind can alter the activity of your genes and create over thirty thousand variations of products from each gene. He gives more detail by saying that the gene programs are contained within the nucleus of the cell, and you can rewrite those genetic programs through changing your blood chemistry.
In the simplest terms, this means that we need to change the way we think if we are to heal cancer. “The function of the mind is to create coherence between our beliefs and the reality we experience,” Dr. Lipton said. “What that means is that your mind will adjust the body’s biology and behavior to fit with your beliefs. If you’ve been told you’ll die in six months and your mind believes it, you most likely will die in six months. That’s called the nocebo effect, the result of a negative thought, which is the opposite of the placebo effect, where healing is mediated by a positive thought.”

That dynamic points to a three-party system: there’s the part of you that swears it doesn’t want to die (the conscious mind), trumped by the part that believes you will (the doctor’s prognosis mediated by the subconscious mind), which then throws into gear the chemical reaction (mediated by the brain’s chemistry) to make sure the body conforms to the dominant belief. (Neuroscience has recognized that the subconscious controls 95 percent of our lives.)
Now what about the part that doesn’t want to die–the conscious mind? Isn’t it impacting the body’s chemistry as well? Dr. Lipton said that it comes down to how the subconscious mind, which contains our deepest beliefs, has been programmed. It is these beliefs that ultimately cast the deciding vote.

Many Declaring Themselves Devotees
In the past few years, Oprah Winfrey, Arianna Huffington and Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone have declared themselves devotees.
General Mills, the Cheerios manufacturer, has a corporate mindfulness program with 700 members. In some business communities — notably Silicon Valley — it is so popular that you could argue that it has become a status symbol, a badge proving how busy and important your job is.
But its proponents swear by it. Ben, 32, a soccer-loving political advisor from Oxford, tries to set aside 15 minutes each day to meditate. “It definitely makes a difference when I do it,” he says. “It gives me more composure. I feel more clear-headed.” He was drawn to its promise of improved concentration — “my mind tends to wander” — but “the bigger thing I took away from it is it teaches you to take the rough with the smooth. Sometimes at work you feel, like, ‘this is just a nightmare’. But then you think: ‘It will be a nightmare for 10 days, then it will pass.’”
Kate, 34, works in fashion and has taken medication for many years to help manage her depression. “Medication was only going so far,” she says. “It wasn’t tackling me getting overwhelmed by my mind.” She’s been meditating for 20 minutes every morning for the past three years and says: “The emotion’s still there but instead of feeling, ‘Oh my God, I’m feeling really awful or depressed’, or whatever, you take a step back and think: ‘There’s that feeling. It will be there for a while and then it will go.’”
Paul believes mindfulness meditation “nurtures equanimity. It trains you to have an unshakeable balance of mind, so that you’re feeling everything but not getting swamped by it.”
Though I’ve never thought of it as “mindfulness,” I reckon I’m pretty good at appreciating the here and now. Many times a week I’ll note (just a little smugly) that I’m the only one looking up from my device and out of the window on my bus journeys to work. I’m a big believer in the benefits of quiet time, too: a few minutes now and then to acknowledge, and even indulge in, a little sadness, frustration or worry. So I arrive at the Light Centre thinking this will be a breeze.
The popularity of mindfulness coincides with a spike in the incidence of depression and anxiety in Britain. Prescriptions for antidepressants are up from 33.8 million in 2007 to 50.2 million in 2012. Job insecurity, financial pressures and attachment to technology all play their part. People work longer hours, worry more and sleep less.

Mindfulness Movement
The intention of Basic Meditation is to trick the mind into releasing itself, trick the mind into giving the thinking apparatus a rest, so that we can realize our Higher Selves, our essential oneness with whatever we consider to be divine. On the other hand, the intention of Mindfulness Meditation is secular; namely, to train the mind, in the same way that we would lift weights to strengthen a muscle, to be able to concentrate — and avoid weakly wandering around on autopilot — for longer and longer periods of time.
As opposed to “zoning out,” Mindfulness Meditation is like “zoning in” on whatever phenomenon or phenomena we choose to zone in on. We consciously focus our attention upon designated and specific thoughts or sensations that arise in our field of awareness and observe them non-judgmentally – maybe even label them. Thus, there are countless types of Mindfulness Meditations because we can choose to focus our attention on seemingly infinite phenomena.
Mindfulness is gaining a growing popularity as a practice in daily life, apart from buddhist insight meditation and its application in clinical psychology. n this context mindfulness is defined as moment-by-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, characterized mainly by “acceptance” – attention to thoughts and feelings without judging whether they are right or wrong. Mindfulness focuses the human brain on what is being sensed at each moment, instead of on its normal rumination on the past or on the future.
Mindfulness fosters compassion and altruism: Research suggests mindfulness training makes us more likely to help someone in need and increases activity in neural networks involved in understanding the suffering of others and regulating emotions. Evidence suggests it might boost self-compassion as well.
Constant stimulation offered by mobile devices — the average person checks their phone every six-and-a-half minutes — keeps us permanently alert, affecting our ability to concentrate, form memories and relax. If anxiety is the modern malaise, perhaps mindfulness is the cure.

About the Author
Michael Forrester is a spiritual counselor and is a practicing motivational speaker for corporations in Japan, Canada and the United States.
Sources:
berkeley.edu
nationalpost.com
brucelipton.com
huffingtonpost.com
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Featured Image: Psychedelic Meditation by DreadJim

Please click HERE for original link to article. 

November 24, 2014 by Arjun Walia

The wonderful and brilliant scientists over at the Institute of HeartMath have done some amazing work in shedding a light on the science of the heart.
The Institute of HeartMath is an internationally recognized nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to helping people reduce stress, self-regulate emotions, and build energy and resilience for healthy, happy lives. HeartMath tools, technology, and training teach people to rely on the intelligence of their hearts in concert with that of their minds at home, school, work, and play.
A large portion of their research has investigated heart and brain interaction. Researchers have examined how the heart and brain communicate with each other and how that affects our consciousness and the way in which we perceive our world. For example, when a person is feeling really positive emotions like gratitude, love, or appreciation, the heart beats out a certain message. Because the heart beats out the largest electromagnetic field produced in the body, researches are able to gather significant data from it. According to Rolin McCratey, Ph.D, and director of research at the Institute:
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         Emotional information is actually coded and modulated into these fields. By learning to  shift our                    emotions, we are changing the information coded into the magnetic fields that are radiated by the heart,        and that can impact those around us. We are fundamentally and deeply connected with each other and            the planet itself.

This is very important work, as again, it shows how the heart plays an important role far beyond what is commonly known. Did you know that your heart emits electromagnetic fields which change according to your emotions? Did you know that the human heart has a magnetic field that can be measured up to several feet away from the human body? Did you know that positive emotions create physiological benefits in your body? Did you know that you can boost your immune system by conjuring up positive emotions? Did you know that negative emotions can create nervous system chaos, and that positive emotions do the complete opposite?  Did you know that the heart has a system of neurons which have both short term and long term memory, and that their signals sent to the brain can affect our emotional experiences? Did you know that in fetal development, the heart forms and starts beating before the brain is developed? Did you know that a mother’s brainwaves can synchronize to her baby’s heartbeats? Did you know that the heart sends more information to the brain than vice versa?
All of these facts, published researched papers, and more can be accessed at heartmath.org.
Below is a video from the Institute about the intuitive intelligence of the heart. Definitely worth a look.
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This Is Why It’s Important For The Human Race To Change The Way We Feel Inside

FThis Is Why It’s Important For The Human Race To Change The Way We Feel Inside

The Institute of HeartMath does a wonderful job at emphasizing why it’s critical for many of us to change the way we feel inside. Not much can be accomplished from a place of sadness, angst, or anger. Our current human experience, the everyday life we all seem willing to participate in, does indeed take its toll on many. A lot of people are feeling that living the lifestyles we do, struggling to pay bills and constantly working, is not a natural way of life for the human race. It’s an experience which makes it hard to maintain a “high frequency” or positive state for some. What makes this unfortunate reality even more perplexing is the fact that it doesn’t have to be this way, we are capable of so much more.
At the same time, many people around the world are struggling to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves. The Earth is being destroyed and our time to turn things around seems to be limited. This is a hard truth that we very much need to address, and we have a number of options to choose from which could alleviate these problems. It can be difficult to maintain a positive state of mind when we see so many terrible things happening in the world, but we cannot create the kind of change we’re looking for unless we do so from a positive, peaceful state.
Despite all of the negativity in the world and our individual struggles, many people do manage to find inner peace and moments of joy, and that’s pretty remarkable. It’s all about perspective – it’s seeing the bigger picture and changing the way you look at things.
Happiness is no doubt an inside job, but with a human experience that is not resonating with many it can be hard to maintain. This is evident in a variety of different areas where people are starting to stand up and demand change. More and more people are wanting something different, wanting a life where everybody can thrive and feel good about themselves and their place in the world. If one is suffering, we all suffer – that’s the way we feel here at CE and it’s clear that many are resonating with that message.
The funny thing about our feelings is that, for the most part, they are a result of our own choices. We can choose to change the way we feel just by changing our thoughts. Negative emotions are usually a result of the thoughts we have about the people, things, or events in our lives. At the end of the day, it’s just a human experience, and all experiences are opportunities for learning and growth.
Bottom line, feelings of love, gratitude, and compassion – any positive feelings whatsoever – have a larger impact than we could have ever imagined. These are all characteristics of consciousness, and as quantum physics is showing us, consciousness plays a definite role in the creation of our reality. If this is true, then how we feel about things must too, and with the research coming out from the Institute of HeartMath, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suggest that feeling good might very well be fundamental to creating global change. 
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“A fundamental conclusion of the new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a ‘mental’ construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: ‘The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it, and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual.’ ” –  (R. C. Henry, “The Mental Universe”; Nature 436:29, 2005, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University)

FOR LINK TO ORIGINAL COLLECTIVE EVOLUTION  ARTICLE, PLEASE CLICK HERE

The most psychologically correct holiday of the year is upon us.
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Thanksgiving may be the holiday from hell for nutritionists, and it produces plenty of war stories for psychiatrists dealing with drunken family meltdowns. But it has recently become the favorite feast of psychologists studying the consequences of giving thanks. Cultivating an “attitude of gratitude” has been linked to better health, sounder sleep,less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior toward others, includingromantic partners. A new study shows that feeling grateful makes people less likely to turn aggressive when provoked, which helps explain why so many brothers-in-law survive Thanksgiving without serious injury.
But what if you’re not the grateful sort? I sought guidance from the psychologists who have made gratitude a hot research topic. Here’s their advice for getting into the holiday spirit — or at least getting through dinner Thursday:
The gratitude journal was brief — just one sentence for each of the five things — and done only once a week, but after two months there were significant effects. Compared with a control group, the people keeping the gratitude journal were more optimistic and felt happier. They reported fewer physical problems and spent more time working out.
Further benefits were observed in a study of polio survivors and other people with neuromuscular problems. The ones who kept a gratitude journal reported feeling happier and more optimistic than those in a control group, and these reports were corroborated by observations from their spouses. These grateful people also fell asleep more quickly at night, slept longer and woke up feeling more refreshed.
“If you want to sleep more soundly, count blessings, not sheep,” Dr. Emmons advises in “Thanks!” his book on gratitude research.
Don’t confuse gratitude with indebtedness. Sure, you may feel obliged to return a favor, but that’s not gratitude, at least not the way psychologists define it. Indebtedness is more of a negative feeling and doesn’t yield the same benefits as gratitude, which inclines you to be nice to anyone, not just a benefactor.
In an experiment at Northeastern University, Monica Bartlett and David DeSteno sabotaged each participant’s computer and arranged for another student to fix it. Afterward, the students who had been helped were likelier to volunteer to help someone else — a complete stranger — with an unrelated task. Gratitude promoted good karma. And if it works with strangers ....
Try it on your family. No matter how dysfunctional your family, gratitude can still work, says Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside.
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Continue reading the main story“Do one small and unobtrusive thoughtful or generous thing for each member of your family on Thanksgiving,” she advises. “Say thank you for every thoughtful or kind gesture. Express your admiration for someone’s skills or talents — wielding that kitchen knife so masterfully, for example. And truly listen, even when your grandfather is boring you again with the same World War II story.”
Don’t counterattack. If you’re bracing for insults on Thursday, consider a recent experiment at the University of Kentucky. After turning in a piece of writing, some students received praise for it while others got a scathing evaluation: “This is one of the worst essays I’ve ever read!”
Then each student played a computer game against the person who’d done the evaluation. The winner of the game could administer a blast of white noise to the loser. Not surprisingly, the insulted essayists retaliated against their critics by subjecting them to especially loud blasts — much louder than the noise administered by the students who’d gotten positive evaluations.
But there was an exception to this trend among a subgroup of the students: the ones who had been instructed to write essays about things for which they were grateful. After that exercise in counting their blessings, they weren’t bothered by the nasty criticism — or at least they didn’t feel compelled to amp up the noise against their critics.
“Gratitude is more than just feeling good,” says Nathan DeWall, who led the study at Kentucky. “It helps people become less aggressive by enhancing their empathy. “It’s an equal-opportunity emotion. Anyone can experience it and benefit from it, even the most crotchety uncle at the Thanksgiving dinner table.”

Share the feeling. Why does gratitude do so much good? “More than other emotion, gratitude is the emotion of friendship,” Dr. McCullough says. “It is part of a psychological system that causes people to raise their estimates of how much value they hold in the eyes of another person. Gratitude is what happens when someone does something that causes you to realize that you matter more to that person than you thought you did.”
Try a gratitude visit. This exercise, recommended by Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, begins with writing a 300-word letter to someone who changed your life for the better. Be specific about what the person did and how it affected you. Deliver it in person, preferably without telling the person in advance what the visit is about. When you get there, read the whole thing slowly to your benefactor. “You will be happier and less depressed one month from now,” Dr. Seligman guarantees in his book “Flourish.”
Contemplate a higher power. Religious individuals don’t necessarily act with more gratitude in a specific situation, but thinking about religion can cause people to feel and act more gratefully, as demonstrated in experiments by Jo-Ann Tsang and colleagues at Baylor University. Other research shows that praying can increase gratitude.
Go for deep gratitude. Once you’ve learned to count your blessings, Dr. Emmons says, you can think bigger.

“As a culture, we have lost a deep sense of gratefulness about the freedoms we enjoy, a lack of gratitude toward those who lost their lives in the fight for freedom, a lack of gratitude for all the material advantages we have,” he says. “The focus of Thanksgiving should be a reflection of how our lives have been made so much more comfortable by the sacrifices of those who have come before us.”
And if that seems too daunting, you can least tell yourself --
Hey, it could always be worse. When your relatives force you to look at photos on their phones, be thankful they no longer have access to a slide projector. When your aunt expounds on politics, rejoice inwardly that she does not hold elected office. Instead of focusing on the dry, tasteless turkey on your plate, be grateful the six-hour roasting process killed any toxic bacteria.
Is that too much of a stretch? When all else fails, remember the Monty Python mantra of the Black Plague victim: “I’m not dead.” It’s all a matter of perspective.
A version of this article appears in print on November 22, 2011, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Serving of Gratitude May Save the Day. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!   Willow Springs Retreats

You comfort them over a skinned knee in the playground, and coax them to sleep with a soothing lullaby. But being a nurturing mother is not just about emotional care – it pays dividends by determining the size of your child’s brain, scientists say.

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Both of these images are brain scans of a two three-year-old children, but the brain on the left is considerably larger, has fewer spots and less dark areas, compared to the one on the right.
According to neurologists this sizeable difference has one primary cause – the way each child was treated by their mothers.
But the child with the shrunken brain was the victim of severe neglect and abuse.
Babies’ brains grow and develop as they interact with their environment and learn how to function within it.
When babies’ cries bring food or comfort, they are strengthening the neuronal pathways that help them learn how to get their needs met, both physically and emotionally. But babies who do not get responses to their cries, and babies whose cries are met with abuse, learn different lessons.

The neuronal pathways that are developed and strengthened under negative conditions prepare children to cope in that negative environment, and their ability to respond to nurturing and kindness may be impaired.
According to research reported by the newspaper, the brain on the right in the image above worryingly lacks some of the most fundamental areas present in the image on the left.
The consequences of these deficits are pronounced – the child on the left with the larger brain will be more intelligent and more likely to develop the social ability to empathise with others.
This type of severe, global neglect can have devastating consequences. The extreme lack of stimulation may result in fewer neuronal pathways available for learning.
The lack of opportunity to form an attachment with a nurturing caregiver during infancy may mean that some of these children will always have difficulties forming meaningful relationships with others. But studies have also found that time played a factor–children who were adopted as young infants have shown more recovery than children who were adopted as toddlers.
But in contrast, the child with the shrunken brain will be more likely to become addicted to drugs and involved in violent crimes, much more likely to be unemployed and to be dependent on state benefits.

Some of the specific long-term effects of abuse and neglect on the developing brain can include:

• Diminished growth in the left hemisphere, which may increase the risk for depression
• Irritability in the limbic system, setting the stage for the emergence of panic disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder
• Smaller growth in the hippocampus and limbic abnormalities, which can increase the risk for dissociative disorders and memory impairments
• Impairment in the connection between the two brain hemispheres, which has been linked to symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Professor Allan Schore, of UCLA, told The Sunday Telegraph that if a baby is not treated properly in the first two years of life, it can have a fundamental impact on development.
He pointed out that the genes for several aspects of brain function, including intelligence, cannot function.
And sadly there is a chance they may never develop and come into existence.
These has concerning implications for neglected children that are taken into care past the age of two.
It also seems that the more severe the mother’s neglect, the more pronounced the damage can be.
The images also have worrying consequences for the childhood neglect cycle – often parents who, because their parents neglected them, do not have fully developed brains, neglect their own children in a similar way.
But research in the U.S. has shown the cycle can be successfully broken if early intervention is staged and families are supported.
The study correlates with research released earlier this year that found that children who are given love and affection from their mothers early in life are smarter with a better ability to learn.
The experiences of infancy and early childhood provide the organizing framework for the expression of children’s intelligence, emotions, and personalities.
When those experiences are primarily negative, children may develop emotional, behavioral, and learning problems that persist throughout their lifetime, especially in the absence of targeted interventions.
The study by child psychiatrists and neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, found school-aged children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress.
The research was the first to show that changes in this critical region of children’s brain anatomy are linked to a mother’s nurturing, Neurosciencenews.com reports.
The research is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.
Lead author Joan L. Luby, MD, professor of child psychiatry, said the study reinforces how important nurturing parents are to a child’s development.
Sources:
childwelfare.gov
Prevent Disease, where this was originally featured.  
Please click HERE for link to original article. 

By Tanja Taljaard on Thursday November 19th, 2015

Could grieving be the key to healing ourselves and the world?
In the wake of tragedy, collective or personal, there is a modern tendency to shy away from our grief, rather then to embrace it. After being impacted by collective events like the Paris attacks, Beirut bombings and the ongoing Syrian War, we have a shared grief that needs to be processed and, if allowed, that can ultimately lead to healing.
Although grief is a natural process, many of us were taught from a young age to contain our feelings and to act like we’re OK even when we’re not. Emotional pain and grief can be so frightening that we try to push it away and to distract ourselves to avoid truly feeling it. C.S Lewis said “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
Witnessing someone else’s grief can be confronting in that it reminds us of our own past losses or ones we will face in the future. By accepting our own grief we might find it easier to have empathy for another’s heartache.

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A chance to heal our deepest wounds
When natural disasters or other globally traumatic events occur, there’s a collective experience of shock and grief. Often there’s widespread media coverage of the event, which reinforces a sense of national tragedy.
People feel the need to share their sorrow and acknowledge loss even if the event hasn’t directly impacted them, and rituals such as funerals or spontaneous tributes and shrines are important therapeutic steps in the grieving process. It builds a foundation for the transition to a new beginning.
If we allow ourselves to experience the full impact of our grief, it has the power to heal the deepest of wounds. Shock is usually the first response to loss. It’s a protective transition into intense and overwhelming feelings that range from despair and anger to relief and joy.
People sometimes try to pull themselves prematurely out of their grief. They resist it because they think that what they’re experiencing is perhaps not normal, and carry thoughts about grieving that prevent real healing from occurring.

We are all born knowing how to grieve
There could be pressure from friends and family, or a self-imposed expectation to move on. An “aren’t you finished grieving yet?” attitude rather than “Have you grieved enough? Have you cried enough?” How long it takes is individual, there is no time-line for grieving. We are concerned that openly letting out our sorrow will make other people feel uncomfortable.
Each culture has its own mourning ceremonies, traditions and behaviours to express grief. In a culture where there is an absence of real ceremony, where death is not fully integrated into life, holding back strong emotions might even be considered virtuous.
Yet we are born knowing how to grieve, crying naturally to release tension and purge emotions. Positive expressions of our grief can be healing, whilst suppressing it can destructive and inhibit our ability to genuinely connect with others.
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Grief arises from the soul

​By embracing our grief we have the opportunity to not only heal our deepest wounds, but also to tap into the creative force of those once-buried emotions. From this place of openness we have the power to take control of our own healing journey and inspire the world around us to do the same.

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Epigenetics is a branch of biology which studies how the development and functioning of biological systems are influenced by forces that operate outside of the DNA sequence. Within the past few years alone, remarkable discoveries have been made which  demonstrate that our thoughts, emotions, feelings, and overall perception of the world/environment around us can actually have  physical/biological effects on our DNA.
Adding further complexity to our often mystifying genetic code, research from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia has shown that it’s possible for information to be inherited biologically through our DNA. More specifically, their research shows that behaviour can be affected by events in previous generations which have been passed on through a form of genetic memory.
Published a couple of years ago in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the findings of this study corroborates with other recent research in the field.(source)(source)
The study found that mice can pass on learned information about traumatic or stressful experiences to subsequent generations — in this case, the smell of a cherry blossom. These results could explain why people suffer from phobias, or why certain behaviours or thoughts are triggered by particular objects or situations:
From a translational perspective, our results allow us to appreciate how the experiences of a parent, before even conceiving offspring, markedly influence both structure and function in the nervous system of subsequent generations. . . . Such a phenomenon may contribute to the etiology and potential intergenerational transmission of risk for neuropsychiatric disorders such as phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. (source)
As part of the study, researchers trained mice to fear the smell of cherry blossom using electric shocks before allowing them to breed. After this training, they were allowed to mate, and the offspring also showed the same fearful responses to the odour of the cherry blossom when compared to a neutral odour (despite never having encountered either before). The generation after the offspring demonstrated the same behaviour as well, and these results remained constant even when mice were impregnated through artificial insemination.
This suggests that experiences and their effect on our psyche are somehow transferred from the brain and into the genome, allowing them to be passed on to later generations.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Professor Marcus Pembrey, a paediatric geneticist at University College London, said the work provided “compelling evidence” for the biological transmission of memory. (source) He went on to state that:
It addresses constitutional fearfulness that is highly relevant to phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders, plus the controversial subject of transmission of the “memory” of ancestral experience down the generations. . . . It is high time public health researchers took human transgenerational responses seriously. . . . I suspect we will not understand the rise in neuropsychiatric disorders or obesity, diabetes and metabolic disruptions generally without taking a multigenerational approach.”  (source)
You Can Change What Has Been ‘Encoded’ Into Your DNAResearchers at the Institute of HeartMath, an internationally recognized non-profit scientific research center, have found that feelings of love, appreciation, anger, and anxiety can also influence the outcomes of each individual’s DNA blueprint.
For example, in a study titled “Modulation of DNA Conformation By Heart-Focused Intention,” physical aspects of DNA strands were shown to be influenced by human intention:
The results provide experimental evidence to support the hypothesis that aspects of the DNA molecule can be altered through intentionality. . . . The data indicate that when individuals are in a heart-focused, loving state and in a more cohernent mode of physiological functioning, they have a greater ability to alter the conformation of DNA. Individuals capable of generating high ratios of heart coherence were able to alter DNA conformation according to their intention. . . . Control group participants showed low ratios of heart coherence and were unable to intentionally alter the conformation of DNA. (source)
The theory of genetic determinism — the idea that our lives are controlled by a genetic code — has dominated this field for years. Leading developmental biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton, Ph.D, explains:
This kind of belief system provides a visual picture of people being victims: If the genes control our life function, then our lives are being controlled by things outside of our ability to change them. This leads to victimization that the illnesses and diseases that run in families are propagated through the passing of genes associated with those attributes. Laboratory evidence shows this is not true.  (source)
Recently (and for the first time ever), researchers were able to construct a gene network which can be controlled by thoughts. Martin Fussenegger, a professor at ETH Zurich, led the research project which shows the powerful potential of thought. You can read more about that here.
Neuroplasticity is a great example of this power, demonstrating how we can change our genes by changing our thoughts and the way in which we perceive our environment. The placebo effect is another great example.
A 2002 article titled “The Emperor’s New Drugs,” published in the American Psychological Association’sPrevention & Treatment and conducted by University of Connecticut psychology professor Irving Kirsch, made some more shocking discoveries about the power of the mind.(source)(source) He found that 80 perecent of the effect of antidepressants, as measured in clinical trials, could be attributed to the placebo effect. This professor even had to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get information on the clinical trials of the top antidepressants.
A Baylor School of Medicine study, published in 2002 in the New England Journal of Medicine, (source) looked at surgery for patients with severe and debilitating knee pain. Many surgeons know there is no placebo effect in surgery, or at least believe this to be true, yet this study yielded surprising results to the contrary. Patients were divided into three groups. For one group, damaged knee cartilage was shaved off by the surgeons. For the second group, surgeons flushed out the knee joint, removing all of the material believed to be causing inflammation. Both of these processes are the standard surgeries performed on people who have severe arthritic knees. The third group received a “fake” surgery; the patients were only sedated and then told they had received surgery. In reality, doctors simply made the incisions and splashed salt water on the knee as they would in normal surgery, then sewed up the incisions. All three groups went through the same rehabilitation process, and the results were astonishing. The placebo group improved just as much as the other two.
The list of examples showing the potential power of our minds is extensive. Your genes and DNA are not set in stone, you have the power to change your biology with belief.
Below is a lecture from Dr. Bruce Lipton, as well as a related CE article that goes into more detail regarding the power of consciousness.

Related Ce Article: Consciousness Creates Reality – Physicists Admit The Universe Is Immaterial, Mental & Spiritual

Hope you enjoyed this article.  Click HERE for original link

Published on Jan 13, 2014Also see http://batgap.com/john-hagelin-ph-d/

John Hagelin, Ph.D., is a world-renowned quantum physicist, educator, author, and leading proponent of peace.

Dr. Hagelin has conducted pioneering research at CERN (the European Center for Particle Physics) and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. He is responsible for the development of a highly successful grand unified field theory based on the superstring—a theory that was featured in a cover story of Discover magazine.

In addition, Dr. Hagelin has spent much of the past quarter century leading a scientific investigation into the foundations of human consciousness. He is one of the world's pre-eminent researchers on the effects of meditation on brain development, and the use of collective meditation to defuse societal stress and to reduce crime and social violence.

In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Dr. Hagelin was named winner of the prestigious Kilby Award, which recognizes scientists who have made "major contributions
to society through their applied research in the fields of science and technology." The award recognized Dr. Hagelin as "a scientist in the tradition of Einstein, Jeans, Bohr and Eddington."

Dr. Hagelin was featured in the hit movies What the Bleep Do We Know?! and The Secret for his cutting-edge research in physics, higher states of consciousness; and the peace-promoting effects of large meditation groups.

Dr. Hagelin has appeared many times on ABC's Nightline, NBC's Meet the Press, CNN's Larry King Live! and Inside Politics, CNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, and others. He has also been regularly featured in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and other major metropolitan newspapers.

Dr. Hagelin received his A.B. summa cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1975 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1981. He is currently director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, Professor of physics at Maharishi University of Management, President of the Global Union of Scientists for Peace, President of the David Lynch Foundation, and Director of the Maharishi Foundation USA, which overseas the teaching of Transcendental Meditation in the United States.

Interview recorded 1/12/2014

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Can we, as adults, grow new neurons? Neuroscientist Sandrine Thuret says that we can, and she offers research and practical advice on how we can help our brains better perform neurogenesis—improving mood, increasing memory formation and preventing the decline associated with aging along the way.

“Every part of your body has its own consciousness or its own soul.” These transformative words, spoken by indigenous medicine women, began my journey within to discover the extraordinary healing capacity of the human body.

When this perspective was introduced to me, I was suffering from a severe chronic pain disorder. I suddenly imagined incorporating this concept into my meditation routine. I thought, Can my body hear me…can I talk to it to gain its cooperation in healing this condition?

That night, after reaching a state of deep calm through meditation, I inwardly engaged my body in a heartfelt conversation, with hope, but having no idea what to expect. After about one hour of this focused communication, something amazing happened. My tissues began to respond. Connective tissue pulled and stretched apart layers of scar tissue. Nerves fired and my calf muscles began to perform flexion and extension exercises independently of my conscious control. As this response continued, one of my calf muscles that had become paralyzed by the neuropathic condition — diagnosed as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy — came back to life as electric-like jolts shot through the area.

My heart pounded as I realized that the path to my freedom from this condition had finally begun. With a background in acupuncture and Oriental medicine, I knew too well how prevalent chronic pain is in this country and I wondered what the implications of this phenomenon could mean to so many others who were suffering. As I continued to make progress with my condition, I organized my approach into a system that I could teach to clients and shifted my professional focus to hypnotherapy.

When instructing my clients, I explain that a regular meditation practice is necessary to train the brain to enter alpha and theta brain wave states. While in these states, communication between the conscious mind and the physical body is dramatically enhanced. I have found that when communicating, there are three key steps to gaining the cooperation of the body:

• Approach your body with genuine compassion, understanding that it is made up of conscious cells who experience emotions. 
• Build trust by engaging your body in mental conversations about your desire for the two of you to cooperate and overcome the ailment.
• Allow changes in the conversation by using different thoughts and words that elicit spontaneous elevated emotions. 

From my experience, the above guidelines are necessary to achieve dynamic healing responses in the body. I recently came across a very similar set of factors that were discovered by researcher Cleve Backster, who spent 36 years studying biocommunication in plant, animal and human cells. He referred to these factors as real intent, attunement, and spontaneity.[1]

Backster, formerly an interrogation specialist for the CIA, wrote about the defining moment which led him to his real work in this world, in his book Primary Perception.[2] This moment occurred one February morning in 1966 when he decided to monitor the Dracaena plant in his lab utilizing polygraph equipment. He attached the electrodes to a leaf and began to think about ways that he might induce a surge in electrical activity in the plant. In humans this surge in electrical activity is associated with intense emotions. He suddenly imagined burning the electroded leaf. The same instant this idea entered his mind, the polygraph pen shot to the top of the chart showing an extreme reaction on the part of the plant. Amazed, he walked to his secretary’s desk to retrieve a set of matches while pondering the possibility that this plant was somehow detecting the force of human intention.

When he returned with the matches, the plant was still showing the same high level reaction which would interfere with tracking additional changes on the chart. Backster decided to “remove the threat” by returning the matches to the desk. At this point, the chart displayed a downward trend as the plant apparently began to calm down.[3] When Backster attempted to repeat the same results by pretending that he was going to burn the plant, there was no reaction. The plant seemed to sense the difference between real and artificial intent. He eventually discovered that plants become attuned to their primary care takers, responding to both their positive and negative emotions and to their return after being away for a time.[4] Chart findings also showed that plants prioritize the emotions of their primary care takers over the emotions of others nearby.

Backster later expanded his research to include testing human cells for signs of consciousness. He collected white blood cells from human donors, electroded them in a test tube and then recorded the cells’ reactions as the donors experienced different emotional states. He found that spontaneous emotions were necessary in order to elicit an electrical reaction in the cells. For instance, if a donor forced herself to feel an emotion, the cells would not respond. However, when she received a distressing phone call from her daughter, the cells reacted significantly.[5]

He noted that distance seemed to be irrelevant in these experiments. For example, a donor left his electroded cells behind in the lab, then kept a detailed log of any stressful emotions experienced on his trip home to another state, such as missing a turn on the freeway, standing in a long line at the airport, and the take-off of his plane. Later, his logged incidents compared with the chart recording showed strong correlations between the timing of the stressful events and the electrical reactions in his cells. The chart became quiet again when he arrived home and went to sleep.[6]

These experiments were conducted while using equipment that screened out electromagnetic radiation — the usual energies used for information transmission. The cells behaved as if the screens weren’t there, suggesting that this communication is carried by a field still unidentified by conventional science.[7] Some scientists believe that the further development of quantum physics may help guide us to understand this field that communicates emotional intent between living things.[8] Quantum Entanglement is a process where two particles of matter which have interacted with each other, still behave as if they are connected after being separated by many miles. When an energetic change is made to the properties (position, momentum and rotational spin) of one of the particles, the properties of the other distant particle will change at the same instant.

This scientific phenomenon and the research of Cleve Backster, point to the Eastern concept of oneness — the view that all of nature is interdependent. Ancient cultures understood this interconnection as a living universal energy field that sustains life while guiding the evolution of consciousness throughout the universe. The meditation techniques involved in my practice bring the mind into attunement with this field. Energy from this field is then focused into a physical healing event through clear intention — delivered by means of a conversation that evokes spontaneous emotions — and attunes the physical body to the conscious mind. This method which I call Antara (Sanskrit for within), enables one to experience the raw creative healing ability generated by an alliance of the mind and body with this living universal energy field.

Therese Wade received her Master of Science Degree in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine from Bastyr University in 2003. Her combined experience with Chinese medicine, shamanic studies, kundalini meditation and hypnotherapy are integrated within her approach to mind–body–spirit medicine. Please visitAntaraHealingArts.com for more information.

[1] C. Backster, Primary Perception: Biocommunication with plants, living foods, and human cells, White Rose Millennium Press, 2003, pp. 29, 31-34, 39, 49-50. ISBN 0-966435435.
[2] Ibid., p. 20
[3] Ibid., pp. 21-25.
[4] Ibid., pp. 29-32
[5] Ibid., pp. 119-120
[6] Ibid., pp. 127-128.
[7] Ibid., pp. 40, 79, 151
[8] D. Radin, Entangled Minds: Extrasensory experiences in a quantum reality, Pocket Books, 2006, ISBN 13: 978-1-4165-1677-4; R. Sheldrake, Morphic Resonance: The nature of formative causation, Park Street Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-59477-317-4; D. Wilcock, The Source Field Investigations, Penguin Group, 2011, ISBN 978-0-525-95204-6.

Source: expandedconsciousness