If your first answer was, “nothing” you are badly mistaken. Right now while you sit quietly, a myriad of wonderful events are taking place necessary for your survival. Right now your heart is beating. If you’re in average physical condition, it beats between 60 and 70 times per minute, 93,000 times per day, 655,000 times per week, 34 million times per year, and 2.4 billion beats in the average lifetime. What’s also so amazing is that, most of the time, it fuels itself, paces itself, repairs itself, and alters itself in response to lifestyle changes, with no conscious effort on your part.
In addition to your heart, your liver is detoxifying your blood, your brain is storing away information, cells are being formed and cells destroyed, energy is being used and produced, and many other tasks vital to life and function all carry on in a wonderful, harmonious way. Thomas Jefferson may have had similar thoughts in mind when he observed, ” No knowledge can be more satisfactory to man than that of his own frame, its parts, their functions, and actions.”
In an earlier era, St. Augustine noted, ” Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the oceans, at the circular motion of the stars, pass by themselves without wondering.”
In deference to Jefferson’s hypothesis and Augustine’s criticism, this essay will discuss three topics arising from even a cursory examination of man’s physical form and function:
1) the complexity of man and what it suggests about man’s origins,
2) the efficient and versatile operation of man compared with machine,
3) the depth of our ignorance about how man’s physiological systems operate.
Within man’s span of abilities, he can run more than 26 miles at less than 5 min per mile, he can jump over three feet higher than his own stature, he can create an artificial heart, he can explain some of the workings of the chromosome.
Yet, Man is one of the slowest of the fast animals, and one of the weakest of the strong animals. Despite his superior intellect, man does some stupid things (consider chronic use of tobacco for one), and seems doomed to repeat the same mistakes periodically. Let’s examine man’s function in detail. http://www.leaderu.com/science/bishop.html
Utilizing and tapping into the creator force from within.
We tend to lean towards those who hold a tripartite view and the following is my understanding of our design and how the spirit, soul and body are interconnected. Indeed, we are very, very complex beings and only a living God could have created us as we are. I urge you to study the scriptures to arrive at your own understanding of man’s design.
Our Body
It is by our body that we function. It’s comprised of organs and cells which consists of protein carbohydrates and fats. Our body contains our nervous system. . with nerves and the brain. It’s through our bodies that we connect to the physical world with our 5 senses.
Psalm 139:14 says that “you are fearfully and wonderfully made.” Open this document for examples of how marvelously God made our bodies to function as they do.
Our Soul
Our soul is what gives us our personality and it’s through our soul that we live out our relationship with God, with other people and with our self. Our soul likely has three major components — our mind, will and emotions. Our mind has a conscious part and a subconscious part.
The conscious mind is where we do our thinking and reasoning. The sub-conscious mind is where we hold our deep beliefs and our attitudes. It’s also where we have our feeling, our emotions and retain our memories. Our will is what gives us the ability to make choices.
Through a very complex way, our mind, our will and our emotions are connected to the body through our endocrine, nervous and immune systems. “The mind, body and spirit communicate constantly. What the mind thinks, perceives, and experiences is sent from our brain to the rest of the body.” Herbert Benson, M.D., The Benson – Henson Institute for Mind Body Medicine
Our Spirit
It’s in our spirit that we have meaning and purpose in life. At the deepest level our spirit gives us meaning and purpose and our spirit enables us to love one another, our self and God. It’s through our spirit that we have communion and fellowship with God. Our spirit gives us intuition between right and wrong.
For in-depth reading about the distinction between spirit, soul and body consider material written by Watchman Nee, especially The Spiritual Man which is a book online and free.
Our spiritual health will have a significant impact on our emotional health which will have a major influence on our physical health. The inter-connection between the spirit, the soul and the body is certainly a complex connection, nevertheless, the connection is very real. The apostle John was inspired by God to write in 3 John 1:2, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” This is an indication of the importance of attending to matters of the soul as it relates to being healthy.
The Interaction Between Spirit, Soul and Body
Many of us are affected by how we handle the stress that life brings us. If chronic stress is left unchecked, over a period of time our bodies will take a toll. A strong faith can help us to cope with the stress we experience in our life and enable the impact of that stress to be less significant.
Without a strong personal faith we must resort to our own resources to cope with the stress present in our life. Often we attempt to cope with this stress through addictions and other methods of escape. This behavior can further exacerbate the effect of stress on our physical health. A strong personal faith can be a resource that helps to manage stress. Read more at Stress, Health and Faith.
Our beliefs and attitudes, determined in large degree by our faith, will play a major role in our thinking patterns. Our day to day thinking will have an impact on our emotions and feelings, and our emotions and feelings will have a major impact on our behaviors. In this regard, our thought patterns play a significant role in our emotional and physical health. In the page on Spiritual Exercises we address the importance of our thinking patterns and how we can change our thinking which can transform our life.
Caring for our heart – our ‘spiritual’ heart as well as our physical heart – is a huge part of being healthy.
Why You Do What You Do – A video screencast by Carey Green, founder of Christian Home and Family, that explains how our spirit, soul and body interact and the impact of our flesh, or our old sinful habits.
Read more about spirituality and health to better understand why this connection between one’s faith and their health exists. “Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23
Share with your friends . . . . . .
The Psychodynamic Approach to Explaining Abnormality http://slideplayer.com/slide/2548226/
Human behavior can be confusing. Add to that the influence of being a fallen human being and the sinful habits we develop – and you can go “tilt” trying to figure it out. This screencast is designed to help you understand what the Bible says about how your body, soul, and spirit work together – and how the entrance of the Holy Spirit into your life can make all the difference! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rqEy1jL-iA
Evidence of God in Human Physiology-–
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made!
Mind–body dualism, or mind–body duality, is a view. . . in which the philosophy of mind that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical, or that the mind and body are distinct and separable. Thus, it encompasses a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, between subject and object, and is contrasted with other positions, such as physicalism and enactivism, in the mind–body problem.
Aristotle shared Plato’s view of multiple souls and further elaborated a hierarchical arrangement, corresponding to the distinctive functions of plants, animals, and people: a nutritive soul of growth and metabolism that all three share; a perceptive soul of pain, pleasure, and desire that only people and other animals share; and the faculty of reason that is unique to people only.
In this view, a soul is the hylomorphic form of a viable organism, wherein each level of the hierarchy formally supervenes upon the substance of the preceding level. Thus, for Aristotle, all three souls perish when the living organism dies. For Plato however, the soul was not dependent on the physical body; he believed in metempsychosis, the migration of the soul to a new physical body.
Dualism is closely associated with the thought of René Descartes (1641), which holds that the mind is a nonphysical—and therefore, non-spatial—substance. Descartes also clearly identified the mind with consciousness and self-awareness and distinguished this from the brain as the seat of intelligence.
Hence, he was the first to formulate the mind–body problem in the form in which it exists today. Dualism is contrasted with various kinds of monism. Substance dualism is contrasted with all forms of materialism, but property dualism may be considered a form of emergent materialism or non-reductive physicalism in some sense.
When you connect with your source of strength and faith, whether you believe in God, the Creator, the Universe, Ala, Jehovah, Yashua’s or any name you use for your source, you can always tap into this source at any time, in times of gratitude and of need.
I tap into my Creator Source to ask for guidance. I ask to be guided and protected whenever I’m sitting down to write. I believe that when I ask for guidance it comes; for me, it shows up as a thought, an idea, an image, visualization, a sense of peace. Over the years, I’ve learned to listen and follow this guidance. It gives me strength.
An impenetrable source of strength will make your life’s foundation unshakeable, especially during difficult periods of your career or personal life when circumstances or people appear to be at their worst.
You always have your source—an internal, undeniable, and abundant source to get the support you need to move forward, to believe you can do it, to trust that all will eventually turn out okay.v No one or anything can take it away from you. That’s harnessing your personal power, the ability to tap into all your resources—mind, body, and spirit, and take action.
In the human brainstem, the solitary nucleus (SN) (nucleus of the solitary tract, nucleus solitarius, nucleus tractus solitarii) is a series of purely sensory nuclei (clusters of nerve cell bodies) forming a vertical column of grey matter embedded in the medulla oblongata. Through the center of the SN runs the solitary tract, a white bundle of nerve fibers, including fibers from the facial, glossopharyngeal and vagus nerves, that innervate the SN.
The SN projects to, among other regions, the reticular formation, parasympathetic preganglionic neurons, hypothalamus and thalamus, forming circuits that contribute to autonomic regulation. Autonomic functions include control of respiration, cardiac regulation (the cardiac control center), vasomotor activity (the vasomotor center), and certain reflex actions such as coughing, sneezing, swallowing and vomiting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_nervous_system
Cells along the length of the SN are arranged roughly in accordance with function; for instance, cells involved in taste are located in the higher, more anterior (“ventral”) part, while those receiving information from cardio-respiratory and gastrointestinal processes are found in the lower, more posterior (“dorsal”) part.
Information goes from the solitary nucleus to a large number of other regions of the brain including the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus and the central nucleus of the amygdala, as well as to other nuclei in the brainstem (such as the parabrachial area, the locus coeruleus, the dorsal raphe nucleus, and also other visceral motor or respiratory networks).The signals projected from the SN to the parabrachial area originate in the oral cavity and gastrointestinal tract.
The pathways for gastric and gustatory (taste) processes are believed to terminate in different subdivisions of the parabrachial area, but still interact in the SN. So me neuronal subpopulations in the SN, such as the noradrenergic cell group A2 and the aldosterone-sensitive HSD2 neurons project as far ventral as the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.
Award-winning science journalist Jo Marchant explores the amazing links between our minds and bodies — how we can use this new knowledge to improve our health and enhance our lives. This was filmed at an Action for Happiness event in London on the 8th February 2018 http://www.actionforhappiness.org https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=6dlF3HrkXCY
I’ve been fascinated to read several interviews with medical writer Jo Marchant. For her new book, Cure: A Journey Into The Science of Mind Over Body, Marchant has mined the literature on how thoughts and perceptions affect our physiology, developing a nuanced appreciation of how the mind and body interact. Her findings:
“Our mental state can be crucial in determining our experience of symptoms such as pain, nausea, fatigue and depression…Feeling stressed or afraid can cause your heart to race and your bowels to empty, and trigger an immune response called inflammation.
These processes aren’t usually under our conscious control—we can’t will changes to occur—but there are indirect methods we can use to influence them.”
While in no way suggesting that illnesses are “all in the mind,” Marchant’s analysis suggests that our mental and physical health is affected by the way we perceive and relate to it. Meditation, says Marchant, is one of those indirect, influencing, methods that can help, which is perhaps not surprising given that how we perceive and relate to our lives is precisely what’s trained in mindfulness practice.
The effect of mindfulness on inflammatory health was shown in a study by David Creswell that came out in February. This research showed changes in brain circuitry and reduced inflammation after three days of mindfulness training, while three days of relaxation did not have the same effect. Creswell explains the difference in impact between mindfulness meditation and relaxation:
“We show that mindfulness meditation impacts measurable brain circuits more so than helpful relaxation practices, and that these brain circuit changes help us understand how mindfulness meditation improves health. Mindfulness also teaches participants how to be more open and attentive to their experiences, even difficult ones. By contrast, relaxation approaches are good in the moment for making the body feel relaxed, but…. harder to translate when you’re dealing with difficult stressors in your life. This new work sheds light into what mindfulness training is doing to the brain to produce these inflammatory health benefits.”
How meditation helps me deal with the symptoms of depression and lingering triggers
A mindful way of perceiving and relating to difficult experiences has helped in my journey with depression. I came to meditation around 15 years ago, when stuck in a two-and-a half year depressive trough. I had thrown myself in desperation at various treatments, however mindfulness offered something different.
The method itself meant practicing acceptance, just the opposite of what I was used to. This marked the beginning of a transformation—a recognition that the way I was approaching the “problem” of depression actually helped perpetuate it.
Through meditation, I learned to see how my attitude and behaviour, characterized by self-critical striving and resistance, was a significant factor in how I felt. Mindfulness offered a gentler way, and I learned how to be kind to myself, even—especially—when feeling stressed.
For me, mindfulness has been the “master key” to understanding how the mind and body work, as well as a skillful method for managing them. It’s not magic, of course. Our physiological and psychological habits are strong, and we can’t just think our way out of them—believing this would be falling prey to the pseudo-science which has given mind-body medicine an undeservedly poor reputation.
Our experience is conditioned not just by our mentality, not just by our biology, but also our relationships, external environment, society and culture, and we have limited control over all of these. But practicing a shift in view, a change of heart, over and over again, seems to be a vital mechanism. . .through which mindfulness training also helps our sense of health. As Creswell’s study elegantly demonstrates, it leads to measurable biological shifts.
There’s a traditional mind training slogan which says: “Change your attitude, but remain natural.” I think this captures the paradox. . . .that mindfulness training invites. Without getting caught in trying to change the moment, we nevertheless change our relationship with the moment—the meaning we give to what’s happening, and our way of responding. This, it turns out, changes the moment too.
Dr. Joan Borysenko – After graduating magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College in 1967, Dr. Borysenko earned her doctorate in Medical Sciences from the Harvard Medical School, where she completed post-doctoral training in cancer cell biology. Her first faculty position was at the Tufts University College of Medicine in Boston.
But after the death of her father from cancer, she became more interested in the person with the illness than in the disease itself, and returned to Harvard Medical School to complete a second postdoctoral fellowship, this time in the new field of behavioral medicine. Under the tutelage of Herbert Benson, M.D., who first identified the relaxation response and brought meditation into medicine, she was awarded a Medical Foundation Fellowship and completed her third post-doctoral fellowship in psychoneuroimmunology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBtkS7XpkKs
When You don’t move the mountains
I’m needing You to move
When You don’t part the waters
I wish I could walk through
When You don’t give the answers
As I cry out to You
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You
I Love this song so much❤❤❤❤
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MczogO6XKk