29/09/2008 by Tina.

I’m not wholly sure I know what this means on a conscious level, but something inside me went, “WOW!”, so I thought I’d share it:

emotional-virus.jpg

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26/09/2008 by Tina.

We’re moving - again! This will be the 13th time in 22 years, so you’d think I’d be quite good at it.

Well I am actually - everything has a label and I’ve planned where all the furniture will go. But undoubtedly the best bit, and the most therapeutic, is the throwing away of redundant and no longer wanted things. In fact this time I think more will be recycled or taken to the tip than will go to the new house!

There is no doubt that decluttering your surroundings helps clear you mind, and it’s clearly big business if the many decluttering systems to be found by google is anything to go by. Mind you, no one seems to have twigged that if you buy a book on decluttering it’s just another bit of clutter for you to deal with

Anyway, having these “things” around you all the time acts as constant reminders, whether you’re consciously aware of them or not. And when it comes to the wiring of the brain, the more times the neurons fire (each time it catches your eye, you touch it or you think about it), the more “hardwired” they become, forming what Leonard A Wisneski (The Scientific Basis of Integrative Medicine) calls engrams, or engrained thought patterns. He says:

“The amygdala receives the incoming sensory information and checks in with the hippocampus to see if there is an engram associated with a memory to which the hippocampus can respond. The amygdala is scouting around to see if there is a match. It is somewhat like doing the FBI computer search for a fingerprint. If the sensory data is close, you get a hit.”

And from there the body responds with a cascade of hormones that affect your feelings. Now of course some things will have a pleasant engram/association and will spark off the feel good hormones, but others may not and you’ll find yourself feeling bad even though nothing has happened in the present. Basically your body goes, “Well the last time I saw/held/heard that I felt angry, so if I’m seeing/holding/hearing this again I should be angry now”. And it produces the chemicals to make that happen. Clearly bad news if you’re surrounded by things that evoke negative memories!

The good news is that when the neurons stop firing, the engrams can break down, so no future matches.

So order up that skip, toss out that rubbish, declutter your life and move on to better things. Less work for your poor old amygdala and more room for feeling good

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11/09/2008 by Tina.

(Excerpt from a small brochure found lying around in a tray at work)

“In many ways the body is like a car, requiring precisely the correct quantity and mixture of fuel to maximise and maintain its efficiency. And, just like a car, our bodies need optimum fuel in order to function efficiently without premature deterioration. As an example, the difference between petrol and diesel is only a few carbon atoms, but try to run your petrol driven car on diesel and you will soon see the difference a few atoms can make. Of course, our diet is extremely varied but, without the correct core ingredients, our “engine” would fail as assuredly as that of the car.

The body is capable of a continual rebuilding and maintenance cycle, but to perform these tasks it requires a diet containing all the essential raw materials. Every day the human body manufactures and replaces 50 million new skin cells, and in a normal week the whole intestinal mucous system will have been replaced. These processes are taking place every minute of every day throughout our lives. Red blood cells have to be renewed once every four months. This is a mammoth task when you consider that just one teaspoon of blood contains about 15 million red blood cells and the human body contains approximately 5 litres of blood. If a diet does not contain the necessary raw materials, or if their value has been diminished due to interaction with free radicals, each of these new blood cells will be damaged and less able to fulfil its role as the body’s transport system.

Under normal circumstances, all mammals have two cycles of cell replacement. The first is the anabolic stage during which the body grows and develops almost automatically. The human cycle for this is approximately 25 years. The second stage is the catabolic stage, during which th body starts to break down those functions it no longer requires. If  not exercised muscle is replaced with fat, physical inactivity results in our bones losing both calcium and their strength, and mental activity slows down if mental facilities are not maintained.”

So the message clearly is: feed it well, and use it or lose it! As amazing as our bodies are, they still need to be looked after.

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