This made me laugh but at the same time think how true it is. Watch to the end …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETv3NURwLc&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
Archive for June, 2009
Everything's amazing right now, and nobody's happy
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009Daydreams may solve complex problems
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009This article published on the website Globe and Mail gives an interesting insight into daydreaming and how it may be useful to us.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/daydreams-may-solve-complex-problems/article1134033/
Letting your mind wander is not a waste of time, according to a new study
Comments By Marina Jiménez Last updated on Thursday, May. 14, 2009 03:12AM EDT
People spend one third of their waking lives daydreaming. But letting your mind wander is not a waste of time, according to a new study. It’s a chance for the brain to stop focusing on immediate tasks, and subconsciously resolve important life problems.
The study, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that brain areas associated with complex problem solving, previously thought to go dormant during daydreaming, are in fact highly active.
“A lot of people reject daydreaming as a wasteful activity,” says Kalina Christoff, the study’s lead author and a University of British Columbia psychology professor. “But our study suggests that if you daydream, you might be able to advance some of your current concerns.”
The study put 15 research subjects through a functional MRI for 90 minutes, to examine the metabolic processes of their brains. They completed a simple, routine task of pushing a button when numbers appeared on a screen.
Prof. Christoff tracked the research subjects’ attentiveness through brain scans, subjective reports and by monitoring their performance of the task. She found that two key regions of the brain were active during daydreaming: the “default network,” associated with easy, routine mental activity, and the brain’s “executive network,” associated with high-level, complex problem-solving.
Usually when one network is working, the other isn’t. It is rare to see them working in tandem, the paper concludes. As well, the brain activity was most active when the research subjects weren’t aware they were daydreaming.
“When your mind wanders, a different kind of thinking occurs,” said Prof. Christoff. “When you aren’t trying to solve problems deliberately, it provides more mental space, you make connections and let your mind go wherever it wants.”
She has long been interested in spontaneous thought – but it is difficult to study because it doesn’t occur on cue. But now studies are being designed that permit scientists to look at the quantity and quality of brain activity during “mind wandering.”
Prof. Christoff says that many of her best research ideas have come to her when she is in the car, daydreaming.
“Driving is the perfect activity for letting your mind wander because it is highly automatized and requires only a small part of our attention,” she said. “When you daydream, you may not achieve your immediate goal, say reading a book or paying attention in class. But your mind may be taking that time to address more important questions in your life.”
She compares it to mulling over a life decision and letting it circulate in your brain, as opposed to deliberately weighing the pros and cons. Prof. Christoff runs UBC’s Cognitive Neuroscience of Thought Laboratory, which studies neural and cognitive mechanisms of human thought, reasoning and problem solving. Her research team for the study included members who are now at Stanford University and the University of California at Santa Barbara.
British surgeons should hypnotise patients for some operations, says academic
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009From The Telegraph Newspaper www.telegraph.co.uk 7 June 2009
British surgeons should be taught to hypnotise patients to control pain for some operations rather than rely on general anaesthetics, according to a leading American academic.
By Daily Telegraph Reporter Published: 3:15PM BST 07 Jun 2009 Professor David Spiegel, of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University, wants the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) to sanction sweeping changes.
He will tell the Royal Society of Medicine on Monday that Nice should add hypnotherapy to its list of approved therapeutic techniques for the treatment of conditions ranging from allergies and high blood pressure to the pain associated with cancer treatment and bone marrow transplantation.
”It is time for hypnosis to work its way into the mainstream of British medicine,” says Professor Spiegel.
“There is solid science behind what sounds like mysticism and we need to get that message across to the bodies that influence this area.
“Hypnosis has no negative side-effects. It makes operations quicker, as the patient is able to talk to the surgeon as the operation proceeds, and it is cheaper than conventional pain relief. Since it does not interfere with the workings of the body, the patient recovers faster, too.
“It is also extremely powerful as a means of pain relief. Hypnosis has been accepted and rejected because people are nervous of it. They think it’s either too powerful or not powerful enough, but, although the public are sceptical, the hardest part of the procedure is getting other doctors to accept it.”
Last year, the Daily Telegraph reported how a pensioner had knee surgery using just hypnosis to control the pain. Trained hypnotist Bernadine Coady, 67, was wide awake for the one-hour operation, which is usually performed under a general anaesthetic.
A spokesman for the National Council for Hypnotherapy said of her case that the technique has been used for centuries for pain relief. He added: “It is used often other countries, for example Belgium, as an alternative to anaesthetics and patients report that it is very successful, that they feel no pain during their operations.” The theory behind medical hypnosis is that the body’s brain and nervous system cannot always distinguish an imagined situation from a real occurrence. As a result the brain can act on any image or verbal suggestion as if it were reality.
Hypnosis puts patients into a state of deep relaxation that is very susceptible to imagery; the more vivid this imagery, the greater the effect on the body. Nice said it would welcome submissions for hypnotherapy to be considered as an approved therapeutic technique on the NHS if it could be cost-effective and consistent delivery could be guaranteed.
But Professor Steve Field, who chairs the Royal College of General Practitioners, said he was sceptical as to whether hypnotherapy could meet these standards. “It is a useful tool used by some GPs and patients for relaxation, but I don’t think it is something that we should support being rolled out to all medical students and all doctors,” he said.
“We can’t call on the NHS to support it without there being a firm medical and economic basis, and I’m not convinced those have been proved to exist.”
Use Hypnotherapy to Reduce Pain and Nausea in Cancer Patients
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009From Natura lNews.com:
Wednesday, June 03, 2009 by: Steve G. Jones, M.Ed., citizen journalist
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Key concepts: Cancer, Hypnotherapy and Hypnosis
(NaturalNews) Cancer is an illness that affects millions of Americans, whether they are currently being treated or in remission. Two of the most common symptoms of cancer and cancer treatments are pain and nausea. Hypnotherapy has been proven to help cancer patients reduce the severity of their cancer symptoms including pain and nausea. It is important that alternative methods are explored in order to help people naturally improve their symptoms.
According to the American Cancer Society, about 560,000 Americans will die from cancer in 2009. Cancer is the number two cause of death in the United States behind heart disease. Men have a 1 in 2 chance of developing cancer in their lifetime and women have a 1 in 3 chance of developing cancer in their lifetime.
A clinical trial tested the effectiveness of hypnosis and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) on treating pain and nausea in cancer patients. The researchers evaluated whether hypnosis or CBT were effective in treating the symptoms of 67 cancer patients. The patients that participated in the clinical trial were recipients of a bone marrow transplant (Syrjala, Cummings, & Donaldson, 1992).
A bone marrow transplant is needed when a patient’s bone marrow has been destroyed or is not functioning properly. Cancers that often require bone marrow transplants include leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. A transplant occurs when bone marrow is taken from a healthy individual and implanted into the cancer patient. This process involves many symptoms including pain and nausea (Medline Plus).
The clinical trial randomly divided the participants into 4 groups. Group one received hypnosis. Group two received CBT. Groups three and four served as control groups where group three had access to a therapist and group four received normal treatment. All patients participated in psychological and physical testing. Groups one, two, and three received their respective forms of therapy twice before their transplant operation. While in the hospital for their transplant, they also received 10 sessions.
At the end of the trial, 45 patients were still involved in the study. Results of the trial showed that hypnosis was effective at reducing pain experienced by bone marrow transplant patients. There was no difference between the hypnosis and the CBT groups in relation to reducing nausea. CBT was found to be ineffective at reducing pain with the participants (Syrjala et al., 1992).
This trial shows that hypnosis is an effective treatment in reducing pain. More research needs to be performed to find out all the potential benefits of hypnosis and pain. Treating pain with hypnosis is a natural and safe form of treatment.
Sources “bone marrow transplant” Medline Plus. Retrieved on May 29, 2009:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/… Cancer Statistics 2009 Presentation. American Cancer Society.
Retrieved on May 29, 2009: HYPERLINK “http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PRO/c… Syrjala, K.L., Cummings, C., & Donaldson, G.W. (1992).
Hypnosis or cognitive behavioral training for the reduction of pain and nausea during cancer treatment: A controlled clinical trial. Pain, 50(2), 237-238.
Buzz up!vote now About the author Steve G. Jones, M.Ed. has been practicing hypnotherapy since the 1980s. He is the author of 22 books on Hypnotherapy. Steve is a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists, American Board of Hypnotherapy, president of the American Alliance of Hypnotists, on the board of directors of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Lung Association, and director of the Steve G. Jones School of Clinical Hypnotherapy. Steve G. Jones, M.Ed. is a board certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Florida (1994), a master’s degree in education from Armstrong Atlantic State University (2007), and is currently working on a doctorate in education, Ed.D., at Georgia Southern University. Learn more at: http://www.betterlivingwithhypnosis…