study recognized that factors such as depression

An underappreciated but scientifically substantiated fact is that getting a good education, challenging your mind, maintaining friendships and staying socially active can also help reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's Dementia in later life. A new report in the American Medical Association journal, Archives of General Psychiatry, now compliments those findings in showing that simply having a sense of purpose in life can help to reduce this risk.

This new study was performed by Patricia Boyle, Ph.D and her group at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The participants in the study were 951 men and women with an average age of 80.4 years, who had normal cognitive function at the start of the study. That is, none had yet shown signs of developing Alzheimer's Dementia. In the study they defined purpose in life as, "The psychological tendency to derive meaning from life's experiences and to possess a sense of intentionality and goal directedness that guides behavior." In other words, that your life means something and that you have a sense of control of it. They measured the sense of purpose in life by tallying up scores from a 10 item questionnaire that was given to the subjects in the test.

The questionnaire included questions such as: "I have a sense of direction and purpose in life", and " I sometimes feel as if I have done all there is to do in life." Participants answered questions on a scale of one to five, and agreement with optimistic, positive questions such as the first, added points while disagreement with the more pessimistic questions, such as the second one, also added points. They found that individuals with a sense of purpose at the start of the study were less likely to develop Alzheimer's Dementia over the following seven years. In fact, it was shown that people with the lowest sense of purpose in life were more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's Dementia than those with the highest sense of purpose. The authors of the study recognized that factors such as depression, education, number of friends and family, gender, and race can and do affect ones risk for developing Alzheimer's Dementia. These factors were measured and analyzed in the study. They determined that even when all of these other important social and psychological factors were considered, a simple sense of purpose in life made its own unique, and statistically significant contribution to reducing the risk of Alzheimer's Dementia.

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Some of those with fabulous IQ scores were doing poorly in life

A lot of emphasis has been put on certain aspects of intelligence such as logical reasoning, math skills, spatial skills, understanding analogies, verbal skills etc. Researchers were puzzled by the fact that while IQ could predict to a significant degree academic performance and, to some degree, professional and personal success, there was something missing in the equation. Some of those with fabulous IQ scores were doing poorly in life, one could say that they were wasting their potential by thinking, behaving and communicating in a way that hindered their chances to succeed.

One of the major missing parts in the success equation is emotional intelligence, a concept made popular by the groundbreaking book by Daniel Goleman, which is based on years of research by numerous scientists such as Peter Salovey, John Meyer, Howard Gardner, Robert Sternberg and Jack Block, just to name a few. For various reasons and thanks to a wide range of abilities, people with high emotional intelligence tend to be more successful in life than those with lower EIQ even if their classical IQ is average.

This emotional intelligence test will evaluate several aspects of your emotional intelligence and will suggest ways to improve it. Please be honest and answer according to what you really do, feel or think, rather than what you think is considered right in this test. Nobody is there to judge you, just yourself... and besides, there are many trick questions.

Read every statement carefully and indicate which option applies best to you. There may be some questions describing situations that you may feel are not relevant to your life. In such cases, select the answer which you would most likely choose if you ever found yourself in such a situation.

After finishing the test, you will receive a Snapshot Report with an introduction, a graph and a personalized interpretation for one of your test scores. You will then have the option to purchase the full results.

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What is Yoga ?

Yoga assists one with controlling various aspects of the body and mind. Yoga helps you to take control of your Central Nervous System (CNS) and more. Enjoying yoga on a daily scale will build you up, which you will notice changes (Good changes), such as a boosted self-esteem. Your body will feel stronger also. For more than 5000 years, people have enjoyed yoga. Yoga derived from the India nations, which many believed that the act has helped millions of American citizens take control of their body and mind. Yoga has proven to reduce stress, which promotes the nervous system helping it to stay strong. Yoga when enjoyed on a regularly scale is a great method to help you with many pressures. Yoga combines spirituality, exercise, positive thinking, breathing and so on to help you enjoy healthy aging.

The Pros and Cons in Yoga:
Yoga is a valued practice for many people worldwide. Yoga incorporates fitness, health, gymnastics, and training in a set of rules. Yoga helps you to maintain or loose weight. Yoga is a stress reducing machine. Yoga will train your mind, since it teaches you to control your thoughts through meditation and breathing. Breathing right is essential to yoga’s creators. When you practice yoga, it keeps you in contact with your inner self. You learn to balance your mind and body, which leads to good health. Your emotions are controlled as well, which means fears, doubts, and other negative influences will not take control of your life. Rather you will have control. As you practice yoga, you will feel comfortable with you and the people around you. The world will become yours, since you learn to communicate effectively and stop sweating the small stuff. The cons in yoga, includes that some types of yoga training is not right for everyone. Another con inside yoga is that you sometimes have to modify the workouts to benefit your body type and to withhold the workout suited for your strengths. This is not a con necessarily, but it can be if you have to figure out where beginners start.

How to get started:
The first thing you should do is see your family doctor. Make sure you are able to enjoy the type of yoga you choose. When your doctor approves of your choice of yoga steps start out slowly. Guide your way into mediate exercising. Yoga will put you in connection with your spiritual side, so prepare to find a new you. When you first start yoga, perhaps you would benefit from joining groups that practice yoga. The group sessions may inspire you to continue your journey to healthy aging. Having support is essential for all of us, which yoga groups can become your support team. If you cannot find a group in your area, visit your local library. You can also purchase books that train you how to enjoy yoga. Videos are available as well.

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Meditation for parents

Elderly people who practice the Transcendental Meditation technique may drastically reduce their medical costs, according to findings presented by faculty member Robert Herron at the 91st Annual Canadian Public Health Association Conference last month in Ottawa, Canada.

The study found that 163 people from Quebec - aged 65 and over - reduced payments to physicians by a cumulative 70 percent during the five-year period after they learned the Transcendental Meditation technique.

The retrospective study evaluated a sample of 326 Quebec health insurance enrollees - 163 who practiced the Transcendental Meditation technique and 163 who did not. Using statistical analysis, researchers compared the groups' expenses for treatment by physicians, both during the nine-year period before the Transcendental Meditation technique was introduced and for five years afterward. Data for the study was provided by the Regie de l'Assurance-Maladie du Quebec, the province's health insurance provider. Figures were adjusted for inflation using the Canadian government's Consumer Price Index.

The study's findings were dramatic. Researchers found 70 percent cumulative expenditure reduction for the group who practiced the Transcendental Meditation technique for five years. In contrast, the control group's expenses continued to rise. Both groups showed steadily rising payments to physicians during the nine-year period before the meditating group learned the Transcendental Meditation technique.

"These findings suggest that there is a relationship between the Transcendental Meditation technique and improved mental and physical health for senior citizens," said Dr. Herron, lead author of the study. "The proven health benefits of this preventive technique could have significant implications for the reduction of medical costs for people of all ages."

This research is an extension of previous studies of the effect of the Transcendental Meditation technique on aging. One study, for example, showed that a group of individuals who had been practicing the Transcendental Meditation program for more than five years were physiologically 12 years younger than their chronological age, based on a standard measure of "biological age" that evaluates blood pressure, near-point vision, and auditory discrimination.

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Emotion

Common representation of angry emotion experience: "steamed up" with hot glowing eyes, and uncontrolled appearance. Is it the same across people? Interpersonal aggression in the form of instrumental behaviors produced by skeletal muscles is often a concomitant of anger.

A bright idea can bring a pleasant emotion, or pleasant emotions can foster bright ideas.
The component that seems to be the core of common sense approaches to emotion, the one that most people have in mind when talking about human emotions, is the feeling component, i.e., the passion or sensation of emotion. For example, people generally agree that the state of mind during anger is different from that when one is happy. This component is also one of the most contentious in scientific discussions of emotion, raising many questions such as:

• what extent are such feelings, especially the claimed differences in quality, based on real physical differences?
• is the feeling quality of a particular emotion shared among people?
• what is the nature of the differences in quality among emotions?
• what underlies or produces these feelings?
• what importance or function do such feelings have?

Another obvious descriptive component of emotion is the set of behaviors that may be performed and observed in conjunction with an emotion. These behaviors are produced by the striated muscular system and are of two general types:

• gross behaviors of the body effected by the skeletal muscles and the so-called emotion expressions. These categories shade into each other because any behavior can be interpreted as expressing emotion. 
• The gross body behaviors may have no apparent adaptive value, e.g., 
• wringing and rubbing the hands or tapping a foot, or they may be directed towards a goal, e.g., 
• striking something or running away. 
• In the field of animal behavior, discovering the adaptive function and organization of behaviors in situations analogous to human emotion, and speculating on the evolutionary patterns of these behaviors is an established endeavor. 

This emphasis has not typically been given to the study of human emotions by psychologists. The facial and bodily behaviors called "emotion expressions" are indicators of emotion, as opposed to effecting some action or achieving some goal. These expressions can differentiate one emotion from another. The most widely discussed and investigated emotion expressions are the emotion faces (see the examples of emotional expressions).

Adrenalin is a secretion that affects many organs and may contribute to the felt quality of emotion.
A less obvious component of emotion is the set of internal bodily changes caused by the smooth muscles and glands. Chemicals secreted by the body's various glands are activated during emotion and spread to other parts of the body, usually by the blood, to act in diverse ways on the nervous system and other organs. Smooth muscles of the digestive system, circulatory system, and other bodily components can shift from their typical level or type of operation during emotion under the effects of chemical and neural action. This component includes some behaviors that can be observed, such as the constriction or dilation of the iris of the eye, possibly piloerection, and sweating, blanching, and flushing of the skin, and other responses that are relatively hidden, such as heart rate, stomach activity, and saliva production.

Computers often elicit frustration and anger Another less observable component in emotion consists of the ideation, imagery, and thoughts that occur during emotion. These aspects of emotion are also cognitive activities, and can both give rise to an emotional event and be affected by it, e.g., thinking about a lost pet may evoke feelings of sadness, which may in turn evoke memories of a romance now finished. Since thoughts and other cognitions, like feelings, cannot be directly observed and are hard to measure, there is less understanding of how they fit into the emotion picture than other components.

The circumstances that give rise to emotions comprise another component, called the "elicitors" of emotion. These elicitors might be internal or external to the organism, e.g., a frightening pain in one's chest or a frightening dog at one's heels. Some events seem to activate similar emotion in people of all cultures, for example, the death of one's own child typically elicits sadness. Other things, such as what foods are relished or rejected with disgust, vary widely according to acculturation.

Finally, the neural processes that underlie much of the preceding activities can be considered a component of the emotion process, especially how the neurons and their emotional concomitants are organized centrally in the brain. Many contemporary research studies, and thus a lot of the research money, is focussed on anatomical and functional aspects of brain activity in regard to emotion

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What is Holistic healing ?

Holistic healing means taking an holistic approach when seeking treatment for imbalances and choosing to live a more balanced lifestyle. What primarily distinguishes holistic healing apart from alternative medicine, complementary medicine, and integrative medicine is that physical health is not necessarily the main focus. Even so, it is often the experience of physical discomfort that will first prompt a person's pursuit of holistic healing.

It is true that our pains and other physical discomforts demand our attention. This is where the saying "sticking out like a sore thumb'" originated from. It is difficult to ignore the obvious when we are physically hurting. Common sense tells us that we should seek help to alleviate our discomforts. Holistic healing is not an "alternative" to conventional medical care. Sometimes going to a medical professional is the best solution to addressing a dis-ease.

Physical illnesses are the symptoms of a greater imbalance that may or may not have a root cause in the physical.

Holistic or "wholistic" healing addresses all parts of the individual, not just the physical aspect of a person where manifested illnesses are most apparent. Holistic healing is not intended to serve as a band-aid or a one time fix. It is an ongoing journey of discovery in search of more answers and ultimately; living better, being healthier, and striving for wholeness.

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Learning the technique of ThetaHealing

It is a technique that teaches how to put to use our natural intuition, relying upon unconditional love of Creator Of All That Is to do the actual “work”. We believe by changing your brain wave cycle to include the “Theta” state, you can actually watch the Creator Of All That Is create instantaneous physical and emotional healing.

Upon learning the technique of ThetaHealing, you will see that everyone has intuitive abilities that can be used to bring about spontaneous physical and emotional healing. Using this personal process, you will help yourself, as well as your friend and family.

ThetaHealing™ is designed by Vianna as a therapeutic self-help guide to develop the ability to change on all levels: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually using the Creator of all That Is. ThetaHealing™ is best known for the Belief and Feeling Work on all four levels; Core, Gene, History, and Soul. With growing scientific evidence that toxic emotion can contribute to disease and the awareness that emotions, feelings and the power of thought have a direct bearing upon our physical health, there is increasing interest in changing how the mind influences the body to create optimum health. Belief and Feeling Work empower people with the ability to remove and replace negative emotions, feelings and thoughts with positive, beneficial ones. ThetaHealing can be most easily described as an attainable miracle for your life.

ThetaHealing is also best known for the 7 Planes of Existence; a concept to connect to the Highest Level of Love and Energy of All That Is. Using this concept, the practitioner can achieve the highest clarity and wisdom love.

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The seven features of Vairochana’s posture meditation

When we practise meditation we need to have a comfortable seat and a good posture. The most important feature of the posture is to keep our back straight. To help us do this, if we are sitting on a cushion we make sure that the back of the cushion is slightly higher than the front, inclining our pelvis slightly forward. It is not necessary at first to sit cross-legged, but it is a good idea to become accustomed to sitting in the posture of Buddha Vairochana. If we cannot hold this posture we should sit in one which is as close to this as possible while remaining comfortable.

The seven features of Vairochana’s posture are:

1. The legs are crossed in the vajra posture. This helps to reduce thoughts and feelings of desirous attachment.
2. The right hand is placed in the left hand, palms upwards, with the tips of the thumbs slightly raised and gently touching. The hands are held about four fingers’ width below the navel. This helps us to develop good concentration. The right hand symbolizes method and the left hand symbolizes wisdom – the two together symbolize the union of method and wisdom. The two thumbs at the level of the navel symbolize the blazing of inner fire.
3. The back is straight but not tense. This helps us to develop and maintain a clear mind, and it allows the subtle energy winds to flow freely.
4. The lips and teeth are held as usual, but the tongue touches against the back of the upper teeth. This prevents excessive salivation while also preventing our mouth from becoming too dry.
5. The head is tipped a little forward with the chin slightly tucked in so that the eyes are cast down. This helps prevent mental excitement.
6. The eyes are neither wide open nor completely closed, but remain half open and gaze down along the line of the nose. If the eyes are wide open we are likely to develop mental excitement and if they are closed we are likely to develop mental sinking.
7. The shoulders are level and the elbows are held slightly away from the sides to let air circulate.

If we want to colour our mind with a virtuous motivation we need to clear away all our negative thoughts and distractions.
A further feature of Vairochana’s posture is the preliminary breathing meditation, which prepares our mind for developing a good motivation. When we sit down to meditate our mind is usually full of disturbing thoughts, and we cannot immediately convert such a state of mind into the virtuous one we need as our motivation. A negative, disturbed state of mind is like pitch-black cloth. We cannot dye pitch-black cloth any other colour unless we first remove all the black dye and make the cloth white again. In the same way, if we want to colour our mind with a virtuous motivation we need to clear away all our negative thoughts and distractions. We can accomplish this temporarily by practising breathing meditation.

Breathing Meditation
When we have settled down comfortably on our meditation seat we begin by becoming aware of the thoughts and distractions that are arising in our mind. Then we gently turn our attention to our breath, letting its rhythm remain normal. As we breathe out we imagine that we are breathing away all disturbing thoughts and distractions in the form of black smoke that vanishes in space. As we breathe in we imagine that we are breathing in all the blessings and inspiration of the holy beings in the form of white light that enters our body and absorbs into our heart. We maintain this visualization single-pointedly with each inhalation and exhalation for twenty-one rounds, or until our mind has become peaceful and alert. If we concentrate on our breathing in this way, negative thoughts and distractions will temporarily disappear because we cannot concentrate on more than one object at a time. At the conclusion of our breathing meditation we should think `Now I have received the blessings and inspiration of all the holy beings.’ At this stage our mind is like a clean white cloth which we can now colour with a virtuous motivation such as compassion or bodhichitta.

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