While it has become generally accepted that our state of mind plays some role in health and disease, most people believe that the ultimate determinant of longevity resides in their genes. Whenever I have asked a patient how long he or she expects to live, their first instinct is to say, ?Well, my mother died at age X, and my father?? This is another way of saying that my genes are my fate.
The twenty-first century has been heralded as the age of the genome, and medical genetics is widely touted as the future of health care. Diseases will soon be diagnosed by identifying the faulty gene; therapy will either fix or replace it. While genes are undeniably important factors in causing disease, their roles have been vastly overemphasized. For the most common diseases such as cancer and atherosclerosis, genes are predispositions, not inevitabilities.
Identical twins have the same genetic risk for disease, yet several studies have shown substantial differences in their health histories. This is because another crucial factor in determining one's propensity for disease: an individual's environment. According to Craig Venter, former CEO of the company that first decoded the human genome, ?The wonderful diversity of the human species is not hard-wired in our genetic code. Our environments are critical.?
A recent report in the New England Journal studied 44,788 twins to evaluate the comparative importance of genes and the environment in causing the most common types of cancer. The study concluded: ?Inherited genetic factors make a minor contribution to susceptibility in most types of cancer. The overwhelming contributor to the causation of cancer is the environment.? It is now widely accepted that 80 to 90 percent of human cancer is due to nongenetic factors.
The overriding importance of environmental elements is also clear in the development of atherosclerosis, the number one killer in the United States. Atherosclerosis is a multifactoral disorder resulting from an interaction of several predisposing abnormalities such as high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes. Research has conclusively shown that reducing these risks substantially decreases the probability of having a heart attack or stroke. For example, a loss of just 7 percent of body weight in obese people reduces the incidence of diabetes by 58 percent, while shedding 10 pounds will normalize the blood pressure of those with borderline hypertension, no matter what their genetic propensity.
The human genome project has given us a more nuanced understanding of how genes work. It is now clear that they are not static blueprints that dictate our biological behavior. Most genes have switches, called promoters that control how, when, and even if they become active, a phenomenon known as gene expression. Other regulatory elements, called gene enhancers, also play a role. Even slight alterations in promoters or enhancers can lead to dramatic changes in gene expression. But the factors that determine whether or not genes are turned on or off, and for how long, remain largely unknown.
Animal studies have begun to show that social, behavioral and environmental elements can determine whether or not genes are expressed. For example, stress has been demonstrated to cause diabetes in genetically prone animals, while those with the same genetic susceptibilities not exposed to stress are less likely to develop the disease.
Recent insights into Pavlov's famous conditioning experiments in dogs provide another striking example. A century ago, the Russian scientist showed that the brain of dogs could be trained to anticipate the arrival of food. We now know that this type of training changes the brain through the expression of seventeen genes that have been given the name CREB genes.
These findings demonstrate that a change in mental conditioning not only affects gene expression, but also can actually change the way our genes operate. They prove that our genes no longer should be thought of as immutable determinants of our fate, but as dynamic entities, switching on and off in response to outside influences, as much the result as the cause of our mental, emotional, and biological processes.
People with a strong will to live understand that when they take life-enhancing measures, their health and longevity will be favorable affected, regardless of their genes. They take responsibility for their lives instead of being victims of events. Each and every one of us has the resources within to affect our health and longevity.
The Mind Of Men
Fundamentals of the Mind
The human mind may be subdivided into three parts: the Unconscious, Subconscious and Conscious. These compare to a computer:
Unconscious = operating system
Subconscious = hard drive
Conscious = RAM
Each part has separate and distinct tasks.
The Unconscious mind operates your automatic body systems such as the circulatory system, much as a computer's operating system includes its basic functions. The Subconscious mind operates like a hard drive by storing files of all kinds, from a full memory bank of your past to your emotional spectrum, to its most vital task: protecting you at all costs. The Conscious mind is our everyday mind, making immediate day to day decisions like what to wear, eat, and drink. It is the gatekeeper, choosing what information is to be acted upon moment by moment. It's the mind you're reading this book with right now, and its tasks include comparing, reasoning, and explaining. These abilities are called the Critical Factor and are bypassed in hypnosis.
Importance of the Subconscious Mind
To update a file on your computer, you must open the original file and make the changes. In the human mind, original files are stored in the Subconscious. To gain access, we must reach the Subconscious directly, bypassing the Conscious mind. In other words, one way to gain positive changes in the present is to neutralize the negativity in the past. We do not change the memories, we upgrade how you feel about them.This upgrading can only be accomplished in the Subconscious, for that is where memories are stored, and it can only be reached through bypass of the Conscious mind, and that can only be done through hypnosis. Why? It's what works. Hypnosis specifically sets the Conscious mind aside temporarily.
Your Mind Must Protect You; Good News, Bad News
All levels of your mind work to protect you as best they can at all times. And this especially applies to the Subconscious. It must protect you at all costs, and to do so, it may even lie to you, or more to the point, to your Conscious mind. It may lie about you, about others, it may even lie to your hypnotist while you are in trance. It may hide memories from you. And much, much more. This is because once it accepts negative behaviors in the name of your safety, it hangs on to those behaviors. Some examples are:
•smoking anything
•being obese
•declining success
•biting your fingernails
•spending compulsively
You may well ask, how can compulsive spending possibly protect me? It distracts you. Misdirection is one highly effective way your Subconscious protects you by keeping a lid on overwhelming emotions. Ergo the addict. You may well ask, how can declining to be successful possibly protect me? It limits you. Limiting exposure to risk is another way to protect you. It is when such protective efforts do not meet your current needs that you desire change. Hypnosis sets aside the Conscious mind, makes changes via the Subconscious mind, and change is achieved.
How Hypnosis Upgrades Your Files
Hypnosis is able to change your perception of your memories, and thus of yourself. We do not change the events themselves, we upgrade how you feel about them, and thus your daily life is upgraded. By accessing the original files stored in the Subconscious, you are able to see all of the reasons why your mind specifies your behaviors in the name of protecting you, and together we upgrade those behaviors since, typically, the need of that protection is gone. You are no longer in the middle of the event that had such impact on you. Your Conscious mind does not have complete access to your memory files; that is not its job. This is why merely talking about change is such an ineffective means of getting any. Talking happens in the Conscious mind. Change happens in the Subconscious. And here's the rub: the Subconscious outvotes the Conscious mind. It is far, far larger, stronger, and more powerful. This is why willpower fails so miserably for the dieter. Unless the Subconscious agrees to a healthy diet and a normalized body weight, your finest of intentions are shortlived, having been overridden by the Subconscious mind.
Emotions
Emotions are a function of, and are stored in, the Subconscious. When you have had an emotional reaction to danger, for example, real or imagined, those emotions are felt and stored in your Subconscious. Hypnosis accesses those stored emotions, upgrades your perception of them, and results in changed behavior. You must give yourself permission to make changes. You must want to change. You must want to enter into hypnosis. And this means not being afraid of hypnosis. So, let's define what hypnosis is in several ways, as there is no single perfect way to phrase it.
What Hypnosis Is
•“Hypnosis is the bypass of the critical factor of the conscious mind combined with the establishment of selective thinking,” says the US Government.
•Hypnosis is a blend of physical relaxation and extreme mental alertness. Yes, I said extreme.
•Hypnosis is a state of focused concentration. This is why a few minutes of emotional expression in trance is worth hours in an alert state. Humans are so easily distracted, and the Conscious mind is forever making excuses for everything. In hypnosis, the conscious mind is set aside, and excuses are seen for what they are.
•Hypnosis is the state you enter into every time you watch a tv show you like, see a film you like, or sit down at the computer intending to only be there for 10 minutes... and suddenly it's two hours later.
•Hypnosis also happens when humans fall in love, literally entranced.
What Hypnosis Is Not
•Hypnosis is not mind control.
•Hypnosis is not a royal proclamation.
•Hypnosis is not sleep. We use relaxation, not sleep, to enter hypnosis. You do not wake up from hypnosis, you emerge. And you already know exactly what emerging from hypnosis feels like! Remember the last time you went to the movies, loved the film, and at the end when the credits rolled, you suddenly “came to”? You just emerged from hypnosis. That's exactly what it feels like, because that's exactly what happened.
•Hypnosis is not being unconscious. You can hear everything that goes on around you during trance; you're just not interested in it.
•Hypnosis is not relaxation. That's just an optimal starting point.
•Hypnosis is not being drugged. However, one can easily mimic a drugged state in hypnosis, provided you have previously felt the effects of that drug. Your body remembers. This is useful for pain control.
•Hypnosis is not involuntary. Just as no one can make you enjoy a movie that fails to entrance you, no one can make you remain in hypnosis. I typically teach my clients self hypnosis on the very first session so that they know for certain that they can emerge whenever they like. Anyone can emerge from hypnosis instantly by making that their intention.
How Does It Actually Happen?
Hypnotists use methods we call techniques. These include Guided Imagery, Rescuing Events, The Forgiveness Pyramid, Parts, The Spa of Your Inner Mind, Upgrades, and Higher Mind, to mention a few.
The Last Word
The media uses hypnosis on you all the time. Aaaalllllllll the time. Advertisers have been known to employ hypnotists to assess the hypnotic potential of a given advertisement, and pay good money for it.
Everytime you watch tv and enjoy it, you go into a state of trance. Ditto listening to music, going to the movies, watching a DVD, hearing talk radio, reading a magazine, and so forth. When you don't like a particular type of music, that is expressly because it fails to put you into the trance you listen to music for.
So here comes the big duh. Why should media have all the fun? Please visit your friendly neighborhood trance specialist and use hypnosis to further your own goals.
Ah, hypnosis. So easy you can do it with your eyes closed.
Both Richard Helfant & Michelle Beaudry are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Richard Helfant has sinced written about articles on various topics from Heart Conditions, Fitness and Heart Conditions. Richard Helfant, MD, a Harvard-trained cardiologist, pioneered the development of cardiac electrophysiology and nuclear cardiology. , Dr. H. Richard Helfant's top article generates over 18100 views. to your Favourites.
Michelle Beaudry has sinced written about articles on various topics from Hypnotherapy, Depression and Stress Management. Michelle Beaudry, NBH board certified hypnotist in the Orlando Florida area, takes clients by phone and in person from all over the world. Email hypnofemme@aol.com
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