Meditation and Motivation for Anxiety and Depression

Take a deeeep breath...
And let it ouuuut.

Can you imagine being told anything more infuriating when you are feeling anxious?

Hold my breath??? Are you TRYING to give me a heart attack?? I'd like to see YOU relax and take a deep breath when YOUR chest feels like its about to explode!

Depression is'nt any easier. Picture a football coach giving his best "Go Get Em" prep talk to a sofa inhabited by a droopy figure who feels like a ghost, and you have a pretty good idea.

Pills work, we like pills. They're easy, you don't have to take any more responsibility than remembering to take them, they're socially acceptable, and they were prescribed (one hopes) by "The Doctor".

What could possibly be wrong?

For readers familiar with the chain of events that occurs when using pharmaceuticals, the irony is clear:

Pills have side effects.

Sleeping may seem unimportant to you during a time of pressure and head spinning panic attacks or debilitating depression, but in retrospect, William Dement's well known insomnia research in the 1960s may seem startlingly resonant. Dement showed that prolonged lack of sleep causes both anxiety and depression.

Other side effects meander across a vast field of dysfunctional behaviour, and yet, this is what we do. The more varying the side effects, the more pills are required to bring your deliriously confused body back to "NORMAL". Its like the song about the old lady who swallowed a fly: "She swallowed a spider to catch the fly, she swallowed a bird to catch the spider, she swallowed a cat to catch the bird, she swallowed a dog to catch the cat, she swallowed a horse to catch the dog...

Is this normal? Is this sane? Really?

We can understand the cause of anxiety and depression very simply, by identifying what is missing. If you have anxiety, relaxation is missing. If you have depression, motivation is missing.

Within these two over-simplified statements, there exists enough complexity to spend several years talking to a therapist, quantifying which event in the past caused each repercussion in the present. Let's assume you spent 18 months working it all out. Where would you be? Exactly where you are now with one major change: you can now tell your story, your history, your past. Do you have the peace of mind that you started out searching for? Have you achieved your most accessible life goal?

This myth: "The key to your future is understanding your past" is the reason for so much stagnation, suffering, and entrapment. How can you see where you are going by looking backwards??! Does'nt that seem a little, well, backward?

When is it time to leave pseudo-profound anonymous sayings in the Pick n' Pay diaries where we found them, and listen to real people who are actually doing what we want to do, and living the lives that we want to live? There are people who are doing this right now.

Every author of a "How To Be Brilliant And Successful Like Me" book has one thing in common: they left their past in the past, let bygones be bygones, planned the goal they wanted, and went after it with every spanner they had!

It is my reward to present to you:

Meditation and Motivation for

Anxiety and Depression

The 1 Hour Workshop

Workshop Outline:

Motivation For Depression

• What Do You Really Want?
• Passion, Logic, and Goals
• How To Climb Up, One Step At A Time

Meditation for Anxiety

• When Last Did You Relax?
• Knowing Your Mind
• Choosing Your Thoughts

Duration: 1 hour
Cost: R100 (includes printed notes)
Full details and bookings: www.nbsr.co.za/events
NBSR treatment concessions for workshop attendees: www.nbsr.co.za/guarantee

Anxiety and depression may seem like polar opposites, but they are actually two sides of the same coin. One is very rarely present without the other. You do not have to be officially diagnosed to suffer with anxiety or depression, its just a feeling of being outdone, defeated, disappointed, wanting more out of life, or feeling that your goals are out of reach, or that sometimes things seem a little overwhelming and you feel like you want to get off the carousel, or you feel you need a vacation shortly after returning from one.

After studying human behaviour for many years, and becoming an International Hypnotherapist and Stress Consultant, I founded Neuro-Behavioural Sound Reprogramming in 2005, to address behavioural problems and life challenges holistically. NBSR uses a combination of therapeutic techniques including behavioural analysis, hypnotherapy, and common sense, to transform your challenge into a spiritual, emotional, and physical goal attainment.

I look forward to sharing this dynamic and thorough system of personal transformation and self-empowerment with you. Feel free to brows the testimonials on the website, and get an idea about what I do, or you can email me directly at www.nbsr.co.za/contact
Andrew Wilding

THIS VALENTINES DAY: HYPNOSIS TECHNIQUES FOR ATTRACTING LOVE

Seriously? Valentines Day??
Stop reading this! Are you 12? 

You are special every day, why do you need to be told you are more special on some random day? Who even remembers why its called Valentines day? And who's profiting from all these fluffy hearts and chocolates?

Every year, with varying degrees of awareness, I go through the dilemma of what to buy, where to go for dinner, how to dress, or whether to boycott the whole thing and laugh it off as another consumer conspiracy! It was so much easier before the sly birth of cynicism... Am I jaded beyond any hope of romance? 

Thanks to good fortune, my bedazzling rescuers have convinced me that there is merit in acknowledging a day of romance, so I am holding a workshop for couples and singles alike, to understand how your own personal force of attraction works. Understanding your subconscious behaviour unlocks your ability to attract the right partner if you are single, or to attract your present partner more strongly if you are a couple, and ultimately to achieve inner happiness, within or without a relationship. 

Are you searching for your inner bliss?
Who are you? Who do you attract?
Are you with the right person?
Do you feel like your relationship has reached a plateaux?
Are you still searching for The One?

In my training at HMI, I learned a model of human behaviour based on left and right brain hemisphere dominance. This model is without a doubt the centre-most concept that I use when working with a person in hypnosis. Its like a set of keys that fits the desires of each individual exactly, and allows for an unparalleled understanding of personalities and relationships. I am delighted to share with you:

The Model of Physical And Emotional Behaviour

Workshop Outline
(Printed notes are provided)

• Who are you? Who do you attract?

• Physical Behaviour (Right hemisphere dominance) 
  • Dos and Don'ts, Cans and Can'ts

• Emotional Behaviour (Left hemisphere dominance) 
  • Dos and Don'ts, Cans and Can'ts

• Who are you now? Who is your partner?

• The Hypnosis Technique for Attracting LOVE

• Locating your inner bliss

(The full "E and P" questionnaire will be emailed to you after the workshop)
Duration: 1 Hour
Date: Feb 13th
Details and Bookings: http://www.nbsr.co.za/upcoming-events

Understanding and applying this behaviour model has saved thousands of relationships from the brink of destruction, and helped thousands more individuals realise what was holding them back in their relationships and their lives, what mistakes they were making, and how to find the lasting partnership of which they always dreamed. In my practice alone, every one of my clients who has applied this model has experienced a sense of personal realisation and liberation, and a remarkable increase in their ability to attract their chosen partner! For testimonials, visit
 http://www.nbsr.co.za/testimonials
This workshop is a highly transformative experience. Getting to know yourself at this level gives you a much closer knowledge of what really makes you happy. When you know what makes you happy, your life has a definite direction, and for this reason, attendees to this workshop will automatically receive a 20% discount package on NBSR Hypnotherapy bookings. For details of this package, go to 
http://www.nbsr.co.za/guarantee
So, what are you waiting for? With this knowledge of your own and your partner's behaviour you can surprise your loved one this Valentines Day buy avoiding the cliches and doing something that really makes them happy. And the best part is: it does'nt fade away the next day! Knowing about the Physical and Emotional polarity deepens your understanding of your self, your partner, and your relationship. Whether you book just for yourself, and impress your partner with your new-found knowledge, or whether you book for both of you, and deepen your understanding of your connection, if you are searching for your soul mate, or if you just want to enjoy being you, this workshop will have a profoundly uplifting effect on every area of your life.
 http://www.nbsr.co.za/upcoming-events
All the best
Andrew Wilding

12 Self Hypnosis Tips To Accomplish Your New Years Resolutions

Most people have given up on all of this. What's different about New Year? Why should this be a good time to set resolutions? Even if the change of the year was somehow auspicious, writing a list of resolutions does'nt make them happen, so why bother?

And in this way, we carry on with life according to homoeostasis, and nothing changes except that the idea that nothing changes sets deeper and deeper into the subconscious mind. "Change is hard. It's too much hard work! Life is hard enough without having to do more hard stuff. Its probably better just to leave things be" says the subconscious mind after this conditioning.

I find the new year (or are we calling it the new age now?) as good a time as any to take a perspective look at what has happened, what is happening, and what I would like to happen. Its auspicious for me because I say it is. When I think of how much time in total I spent last year wishing things were different, its clear to me that I am certainly not better off just leaving things be, and fortunately, because of my line of work, I am able to do something about it :)

Writing a list of resolutions, you can light it, send the smoke up the chimney, and wait for Father Christmas to bring you a Lamborghini, but there is also another way:

May I present to you 

12 Self Hypnosis Tips

To Accomplish Your

New Years Resolutions

1

Make a list! Go on, be a sport! Give yourself a break! And don't be mean, ask for what you really want. It can be 50 things, or 1 thing. But remember, Father Christmas was your first option, in this option there is only one person who is going to make it happen: YOU ;) 

2

For each goal on your list, write a step by step description of the fastest possible way you can imagine, for you to achieve your goal. Some of these steps will involve steps within steps. You must quantify everything that you think needs to be done. This list will change all the time. Keep it somewhere accessible so you can update it each time you accomplish another step towards your goal, or each time the plan changes.

3

Prioritise your list from easiest to hardest. Starting with the easiest goal gives you a great confidence kick when you accomplish it, and gives you the traction to stick with the longer, tougher goals.

4

Set aside a certain time every day, or every week, for you to do the donkey work on accomplishing the goal you have chosen to start with. Diaries it! In addition to your "workshop time", you will also need to set aside 10 to 15 minutes each night for Self Hypnosis. You have to get done what needs to get done, and this takes time, but if you stop here, nothing will happen, because nobody wants to be a donkey! 

(That's why there are 12 Tips :)) ...

5

Write a visual affirmation of one or two sentences for each of your goals, starting with the easiest goal to accomplish, and moving down the list to the hardest. Write about what each goal looks like, and how you will look when you have it, or when you are doing it. Word the affirmation as if you have already achieved it.

E.g. I am driving my yellow Lamborghini Gallardo with gunmetal interior down a boulevard lined with palm trees.

6

Write an emotional affirmation of one or two sentences for each of your goals, starting with the easiest goal to accomplish, and moving down the list to the hardest. Write about what this goal feels like for you emotionally, as if you already have it.

E.g. I love this car! I feel exhilarated and yet completely comfortable in this seat. This feels like the car I should have been driving all along!

7

Locate the Voice Notes Recorder on your phone, and record the visual and emotional affirmation of the easiest goal, on the same take. (Or you can write this on a postit note and place it where you can easily learn your affirmation.)

E.g.  I am driving my yellow Lamborghini Gallardo with gunmetal interior down a boulevard lined with palm trees. I love this car! I feel exhilarated and yet completely comfortable in this seat. This feels like the car I should have been driving all along!

8

Learn by heart your complete affirmation to your first (easiest) goal. If you have recorded it on your phone, play it over and over, and say it while its playing, until you can say it without the recording. If you are reading it off a postit, well... just learn it! 

(One good session will be enough for you to by heart your affirmation.)

9

Throughout your day, say your complete affirmation to yourself, silently in your mind or out loud, however feels more powerful for you. You can do this while driving, showering, exercising, any time you can focus on this particular goal. Having a set time, like showering or at the gym, helps to assure that you will do this every day.

10

Every night, take 10 to 15 minutes before going to sleep for your Self Hypnosis session. Prepare by relaxing in any way you know. If you know Yoga, or a meditation technique, or if you have a relaxation CD, or if you pray every night, do your Self Hypnosis session after everything. Make it the last thing, so that your mind can take your Self Hypnosis experience directly into subconscious when you sleep. Take a minimum of 5 minutes to relax. If you don't know any techniques, you can use this Yoga relaxation: 

Sit comfortably with a cushion for your lower back, remind yourself that the day is over, relax your shoulders. Listen your heartbeat, observe how the rhythms of your heart and your breath synchronise. 

[Do this for 5 Minutes]

11

Have your eyes closed so that you can visualise or imagine more easily, and begin with your visual affirmation only, repeating it over and over in your mind. Vary the speed, there's no hurry. Enjoy the visual aspect of your imagination. Its not important that you can picture it, not everyone can visualise. Just imagine what it looks like. The subconscious mind can not tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined!

[Do this for 5 Minutes]

12

Finally, use your emotional affirmation, and let yourself imagine the emotions that you describe. Repeating only the emotional aspect of your affirmation, let those positive feelings build inside you. If you notice any negative emotion like sadness, hopelessness, jealousy etc, use your affirmation to focus on the positive emotion, that's what its for. Your positive affirmation keeps your mind focussed on positive emotion, and that's the message that goes into your subconscious, because your subconscious mind does not know the difference between what is real and what is imagined!

And of course, when you accomplish your goal, you pick the next one off the list! Its awesome! Don't forget to do the donkey work... I would love to hear about your experiences with these 12 Self Hypnosis Tips, so please leave your comments, or email me your questions. I can assure you that this method works because I use it myself, for manifesting everything from my camera to my relationship! 

(Bear in mind that some goals take a little longer than others!!!)

Remember to keep your affirmations positive, because your subconscious mind absorbs everything, and here's to an outstanding year ahead!

Copywrite 11/1/2013 Andrew Wilding

NBSR 9 Elements: Skills And Methods For Personal Developement

The current shift in human consciousness is really all about taking responsibility. In the old belief system, we are taught to cultivate a doubting, helpless, mechanical mentality, regarding our lives and our bodies. It is very dis-empowering.

 

When we are sick or injured, our doctors operate, take out what's broken, replace the part if one is available, disregarding everything beyond the mechanical structures of the body, or they give us pills. And the reason for that is that pills and surgery make the people who are in that industry extremely rich, so they are selling us their products, and they are selling us their services. We have no power.

 

The advice that we receive from a financial consultant barely enables us to survive retirement, and yet, above a certain level in our financial system, there is abundance: private jets, corporate buyouts, mansions, parties, overseas trips for extended families in top international hotels. Why don't financial advisers tell you how to accomplish that?

 

The belief that we are powerless, and therefore we must seek the advice of a qualified professional, and that only that person can tell us what to do, is hugely problematic because it means that we don't take any responsibility for our own problems. We have been taught to doubt our intuition, which is our deepest source of personal knowledge.

 

We don't regard our belief systems, our own negative thought processes, or our own negative emotion, as important, which means that we keep doing the wrong thing over and over again, having the wrong mindset: too much anger, too much hatred or jealousy or negative emotion, and that's what is causing the imbalance in the body, or the resistance in reaching our goals. We then go to doctor or a psychiatrist or a consultant, who either operates or gives us pills or gives us advice, and the problem does not go away. They are treating the symptoms and ignoring the cause, and we are none the wiser.

 

In the old system, we are taught to doubt our intuition, for fear of being wrong.

 

It has to be said: this belief system is hopeless! Doubt and fear corrodes and cripples even our basic common sense. The wisdom of personal experience is reduced to here say, and instead of health and abundance, we have confusion, ignorance, materialism, debt, and sickness.

 

You can not use fear and doubt if you want to be successful. You have to use knowledge.

 

We are not deprived of knowledge. No-one is holding it back from us, book shops and Amazon are full of awesome and amazing self help books with testimonials from well known personalities to prove that they actually work. All we have to do is take responsibility and study the knowledge. Reading is not studying, is it? You can read John Demartini but until you put it into practice, knowledge is nothing but theory.

 

Belief systems are functions of the subconscious mind, and are very difficult to overcome in a short seminar, or a weekend workshop, or by reading a book. But what if you could practice a system of reprogramming every day for two months? Would your beliefs stay the same?

 

The Nine Elements of the Neuro-Behavioural Sound Reprogramming System form a coherent course of practical knowledge, providing you with all the tools you need to achieve your financial, emotional, and physical goals. The Nine Elements are divided into Six Personal Development Skills, and Three Catalyst Methods.

 

• Six Personal Development Skills organised into a personalised daily program of 30 to 60 minutes, to fit your available time and needs:

  Problem Analysis

  Self Hypnosis

  Meditation

  Reiki Breathing

  Dream Work

  Personalised Yoga (optional)

   

• Three Catalyst Methods are used in your sessions to facilitate the development of the six Personal Development Skills:

  Hypnotherapy

  Binaural Beats

  Past Life Regression (optional)

   

• When practised correctly, this treatment is guaranteed to cause a positive change in your belief systems and your behaviour. If you have practised these methods according to NBSR specifications given to you in your treatments, and you can not see a positive change in your attitude or behaviour after 60 days, you will receive 100% of your money back, guaranteed.

 

Can you imagine what it would it would feel like to achieve your goals? When you do this, your brain spontaneously connects every neuron that can play a part in this belief and feeling of goal achievement. The only way you can conceive of something that does not yet exists is to imagine it, and the only way your brain can imagine is by actually constructing the neural network that will eventually produce the result. In his book "Quantum Warrior" John Kehoe writes:

 

"The subconscious mind does not know the different between what is real and what is imagined."

 

So imagine achieving your goals...

When you imagine it, you create it, so why don't we all create the achievement of our goals? The truth is, many people do, and many of those people have become the authors of all those books about creating your reality. The question is, will you take responsibility for developing and practising the knowledge and skill sets you need to achieve your goals?

 

NBSR is a unique system, in that it offers a complete package, featuring 9 separate modalities, teaching you 6 actual skills, and using 3 powerful catalysts to help you spread your wings and leave your struggles behind.

 

If you can feel optimistic about how much change you can actually accomplish, contact me now, while it all still makes sense to you, and while these concepts are still fresh in your mind. You'll find that, if you start while you still remember how you did it, its much easier to take control of your doubt, and use the knowledge and skills sets from the Neuro-Behavioural Sound Reprogramming system to achieve your financial, emotional, and physical goals.

 

 

Copywrite Andrew Wilding, 2012

Reverse Dreaming Hypnotic Rehearsal

We try to be calmer, healthier, or more successful, but can we really change the way we are?

Changing a habit or a way of thinking is difficult, some would say impossible. Everything you do without your awareness of doing it, is considered a subconscious belief system - from the growth of your cells, to your accent. But belief systems can change. What about Santa Clause? Or where babies come from? Throughout our lives, our minds go through thousands of changes in "beliefs", large and small. Neuroscientists describe the ability for the brain to adapt to change as neuroplasticity.

Nothing is written in stone. The processes that created a subconscious belief system also has the power to change it.

Neuroplasticity

The material which informs our brains and our belief systems comes from seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and intuition (the 6 senses). What is important is remembered, what is not important, or outdated, is vented out of the mind in the process of dreaming. Dreams are hallucinations consisting of sensations: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and intuition, the same 6 senses that caused the belief system to develop in the first place. The brain uses the same process of experiencing sensations to vent an obsolete belief system as it does to program it.

For example: An individual had a childhood fear of water caused by a near drowning experience in a neighbour's pool. During that experience his mind took in these senses, associated danger, and constructed a belief system around them. He felt anxious every time he saw a swimming pool, smelled chlorine, or heard the sound of splashing. His belief system triggered the warning feeling to protect him from danger. In his teenage years, due to his group of friends, he trained himself to overcome his fears in order to go spear fishing, diving, and enjoying water sports with them. Around this time he experienced panic dreams of the incident in his early childhood. When he felt safe in water, his dreams reconstructed the childhood event so that he could let go of the danger (fear) associated with water, in the form of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and intuiting the event that programmed the warning (anxiety).

Hypnotic rehearsal, or reverse dreaming, is the technique whereby using the dream state (hypnosis) specific sensations can be experienced, with the effect of building the desired belief system. Reverse dreaming describes the process of using the dream platform for subconscious input, whereas dreaming is a platform for subconscious outlet.

"Repetition of suggestions in hypnosis reinforces the new conditions, until they become subconscious habits."

Dr. John Kappas

The NBSR Reverse Dreaming Hypnotic Rehearsal Technique:

• NBSR provides a safe, controlled environment in which the individual can rehearse positive feelings or actions without interference from the conscious mind
  
  
• Rehearsal in hypnosis allows the individual to approach resistant beliefs in layers. Each layer of rehearsal strengthens the neural pathways that form the positive belief system, and weakens the resistant belief
  
  
• Rehearsal is always emotionally positive and empowering, since repetition of the positive program builds the desired neural network
  
  
• The subconscious mind can not tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined, so it accepts the reverse dream material as actual experience
  
  
• Symbolism is the language of the subconscious mind. The reverse dream material has great symbolic meaning to the individual.

Reverse dreaming hypnotic rehearsal is one of the most widely used NBSR techniques, applicable to virtually every case where transformation is desired.

"When people think "Hypnotherapy" most expect a one-treatment miracle, as if Hypnotherapy is some kind of magic. I explain it like this: How did you learn maths? Or music? Or your golf swing? Did you have just the one training session? Garry player said: The more I practice, the luckier I get..."

Andrew Wilding

Copywrite 2012, William Shand marketting@NBSR.co.za

Idiopathic or Psychosomatic?

"95% of the people on this planet are sick, or are taking some form of synthetic medication."

Ramesh Ramkumar

Idiopathic: "We Don't Know"

When something goes wrong and we experience trauma or grief, most people believe that a prescription from the doctor is the only reliable treatment, even if the side effects are unpredictable or problematic.

The view that each of our problems is separate and unrelated causes confusion: instead of seeing the connection of one illness with another, and treating the cause, we can easily become lost in a wild goose chase of medication and treatments. But in the meantime our body's amazing, resourceful, and intelligent immune system is no closer to identifying the cause, and resolving the problem.

One has also to bear in mind that in 2011 the value of the global pharmaceutical market grossed 880 billion dollars...

http://www.abpi.org.uk/industry-info/knowledge-hub/global-industry/Pages/industry-market-.aspx

Synthetic medication is a central mechanism in medical practice, both for psychiatric treatments and for anaesthesia used in surgery. How could it serve the medical world, the accepted authority on healing, to promote the knowledge that the mind and the emotions play a causal role in illness? Or that wellness can be achieved through natural, non-synthetic processes?

"When we take responsibility for our own healing process, we play the role of director with our illness, instead of being directed by it."

Andrew Wilding

Psychosomatic: Mind-Body Connectedness

It falls to each of us then, as individuals, to re-search this area, and recover ways of well-being that are thousands of years old. As the increasing archive of case studies and anecdotal evidence comes to light, and accumulates around the topic of psychosomatic illness and holistic healing, there is a growing increase in public interest, and more individuals are asking the question:

What effect do my emotions and belief systems have on my body?

Considering the relevance of this question is already to have taken the first step in healing.

"Psychosomatic disorders are characterized by disruption of normally occurring mechanisms of the body which involve the nervous system, physiological functions, endocrine system and the immune system... Studies have shown that stress has a direct effect on disease risk."

Lucce Lopes de Mello, MD

http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/encyclopedia/en/article/139/consumer/

Translation:

Psychosomatic illness (psycho = mind, somatic = body) occurs when cells in a certain area behave dysfunctionally, being disrupted from their natural order by stress (anxiety, depression, insomnia). The effect of stress in the cells can manifest in any of the body's systems:

• The nervous system, e.g. anxiety, insomnia, concentration
• Physiological functions, e.g. digestion, blood pressure, cell growth
• Endocrine system, (hormones) e.g. emotional imbalances, thyroid, pituitary
• Immune system, e.g. bacterial or viral infection, white blood cell count

The Value Of Thought

Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, astonishing and shocking discoveries shook the field of modern science. Quantum mechanics showed atoms to be infinitely complicated and unpredictable, and later experiments (G. Jahn, Princeton) revealed that the human mind has a noticeable and undeniable effect on the behaviour of atoms. Newtonian science remains valid, but only to a certain point of magnification: molecular. The rules of atomic behaviour are so unimaginable, that modern string theories read quite a lot like science fiction! 

Continue reading...

Neural Networks of Belief Systems and "Neuroplasticity": Our Ability to Change

An unfortunate misconception regarding the brain is that we are "hard wired" to behave a certain way, much like a radio. The resulting belief system is that we can not change what we think or do, any more than a radio can become a calculator, or a leopard can change its spots. This belief system is unfortunate in that it provides an easy excuse for negative behaviour:

"I get my bad temper from my father"

or "depression runs in my family".

This belief is not only wrong, it is spectacularly wrong, because it dis-empowers the believer into a pigeon-holed life style of inevitability, and overlooks the individual's ability to thrive.

Belief systems are difficult to change because they are subconscious structures - we are not aware that they even exist - and yet they are the underlying rules that govern every aspect of our personalities, from our cultures to our favourite colours.

Neuroplasticity

While some areas in the brain have specific functions, when it comes to belief systems, neuroscientists since Freud acknowledge the brain's quality of neuroplasticity, meaning its ability to adapt to the surroundings. Beliefs are not set in stone, they change according to the level of knowledge that we possess about our surrounding world. (Consider Santa Clause, or where babies come from.) We may believe that anxiety is inherited genetically, until we become convinced that it is nothing but learned behaviour. At such an "Aha" moment, our belief system changes, and we subconsciously adapt our behaviour according the new information.

Genetics vs Behaviour

According to scientist Gerald Edelman, the human cortex alone has thirty billion neurons capable of making a million billion synaptic connections.

Exactly how this many neurons (brain cells) co-ordinate and cause human behaviour remains to be explained. What can be seen using current scanning equipment is that neurons from all areas of the brain contribute to behaviour, and that "neural networks" can be said to form within the brain, connecting neurons to accomplish certain actions, reactions, and thoughts.

"Neural networks form spontaneously, by association. If I ask: "Do you like fish?", within nanoseconds your brain produces a set of connections to information stored in diverse areas of your brain. Some information is conscious, like memories of your experiences with fish, or of people who are associated with those memories, and some of that information is subconscious, like the response of attraction or revulsion, like or dislike. Psychologists refer to this set of thoughts as a belief system, neurologists call it a neural network. This is your belief system about fish. You like it or don't like it based on your knowledge, memories, emotions, associations, and so forth, and all of this is merely learned information."

Andrew Wilding

Creating Neural Networks (Belief Systems)

In his research at Harvard Medical School, neuroscientist Alvero Pascual-Leone gave his volunteer subjects a simple piano exercise to learn, using TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) to map the motor cortex of each participant. After just one week of practising, new neural networks were observed. The repetition of practice was rewiring the brain.

"Neurons that fire together wire together"

Hebb's Law

Behavioural adjustments occur when the brain creates a neural network that causes the suggested (desired) behaviour. Over a course treatments during which the desired behaviour is practised, (hypnotic rehearsal) the number of neural pathways in the network increases, thus strengthening the behaviour pattern into a habit.

"Neuroplasticity is an impressive sounding word, but it really describes a very simple process. It refers to the ability of neurons to always forge new connections. Neuroplasticity, at its essence, is the process of the brain wiring and rewiring itself."

John Kehoe

Copywrite 2011 William Shand marketting@NBSR.co.za

http://www.normandoidge.com/normandoidge.com/MAIN.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580438,00.html