Can we teach ourselves to be healthier and happier?
The answer to this question is not an unqualified yes. Stressful life circumstances are sometimes inescapable. Prayer is clearly no substitute for antibiotics or a proper diet. Genetics and early life experiences can leave some of us more stress-prone than other.
Yet, 3S Body-Breath-Brain-Mind techniques can improve almost anyone’s quality of life. 3S training offers an alternative for better Health-Healing and Happiness. It has the advantage that the same training works effectively for everyone, be it a child or a senior citizen. There is enough scientific research and evidence linking specific brain pathways to emotional competence, which contributes to:
- health •
- performance •
- behavior competence •
- positive relationships •
- stress, etc.
Today, the challenge is not only mapping the pathways linking mental states, but also learn how to travel them at will. 3S took the challenge to put these discoveries to work for your Health, Healing and Happiness.
3S – S.M.A.R.T. Tools :
1. Change stimuli in your environment & avoid undesirable stimuli.
2. Avoid mental intrusion of unwanted negative thoughts. Do not attempt to remove unpleasant thoughts, shift your attention to another thought or object.
3. Overcome temptations by filling your consciousness with objects less tempting or think of undesirable aspects of the object.
4. Transform negative feelings, by controlling your interpretation of any situations. There is no Reality other than your own PERCEPTIONS. Change your perceptions to control your world.
5. Be Positive, by REFRAMING your situation you can change your cognitive processing.
6. Brain has evolved for maintaining your Security and Survival. You have separate brain circuits for processing positive and negative stimulus. The human mind is wired to see negative and dangerous things more strongly and quickly. The circuit for processing a positive stimulus (PNS) is Very SLOW (say 40 bits/sec) compared to Negative stimulus (SNS) (say 40 million bits/sec.). The brain will react to negative stimulus faster than an equally pleasant stimulus. So, you cannot simply WILL YOURSELF to see something /everything as Positive or Good.
7. Emotions and consciousness are like a two-way street- thoughts affect emotions and emotions affect thoughts. Negative feelings create negative thoughts. Avoid feelings of sadness as they blind you to pleasures in that moment.
8. Your ‘Affective’ style is the way you respond to negative or positive experiences. You cannot change your AFFECTIVE STYLE by force of will. By Meditation and Cognitive reframing, you can change the repertoire of available thoughts, to change your affective style.
9. You can change your affective style also by controlling the (automatic) negative thoughts in your head. Try these steps :
- Practice catching your ‘Negative Thoughts’.
- Next, write down your negative thoughts, identify them as ‘distortions in my thinking‘ and label them as: 2a) – Personalization 2b) Overgeneralization – like Always / Never 2c) Magnification 2d) Arbitrary Inference – Conclusion without evidence
- Next, find more Accurate / Better / Alternative way of thinking. Shift your attention from negative thoughts by engaging yourself in simple tasks- gardening, knitting, cleaning, shopping, running, or walking.
- Practice these steps every-time you catch yourself occupied with negative thinking.
10. Beliefs CREATE Perception– discover the Power of thoughts – the ‘Can DO’ gives you a PLACEBO, a positive effect, whereas a ‘Can’t Do’ results in a NOCEBO, a negative effect.
11. Beliefs control your biology & physiology. Research in “Epigenetics” concluded that, many illnesses are due to the effect of your environment, negative thinking and wrong beliefs which affects your ‘Gene- Function’.
12. ‘Laws of attraction’, why it doesn’t give you the things you desire in your life? YOUR BELIEF that “WHAT I CONSCIOUSLY THINK and VISUALIZE, I can create is WRONG”. Realize that it is your SUBCONSCIOUS mind that helps manifest your reality. Conscious brain has ONLY 5% Power and is easily OVER POWERED by the the 95% power of your Subconscious Automatic brain functioning. YOUR NEUROLOGY (Brain Functioning) is Habitual Processing 95% of the time, only 5% of the time you process consciously. Your subconscious processing is automatic, acts only in present moment, and is super fast (just to use a scale of comparison) about 40 million bits/sec. Your conscious processing is deliberate (Reason, Free will, creative, Planning, etc.), acts based on Past (memory) or future (projections), and is very slow, comparatively 40 bits/sec. This is why your Habits becomes your Destiny. Your Thoughts Create your Destiny.
Be very Careful of what you Think.
For what you think, you will SAY.
Be very careful of what you SAY.
For what you SAY, you’ll eventually do.
Be very careful of what you Do!
For your Actions become your Habits.
Be very careful about your Habits!
For your Habits create your Destiny.