Imagine that we have seeds in our consciousness such as joy, forgiveness, peace, anger despair and hate. These seeds can be awake or asleep. If you live in a positive environment seeds like anger, fear, despair, violence and craving are sleeping and not touched. If you live in a negative environment these seeds are touched, watered and begin to grow.

“So it is wise for you to choose a good environment that will prevent these negative seeds from being touched often. You should not allow other people around you to touch these seeds, and you should not allow yourself to water them.” This is diligence.

“When you read an article full of violence or watch a violent television program you turn on the seed of violence. The first step of diligence is not to turn on these negative seeds and not to allow the environment to turn them on…Try not to expose yourself to sights and sounds that stimulate the seed of craving or the seeds of anger in you…You need diligence to practice this, and you may need a community or group of friends with similar values to help you create a good environment.”

I was thinking of this while reading The Paranoia Switch, a book about how terror rewires our brains by Harvard psychologist Martha Stout. She asks one question: What were you doing on the morning of September 11, 2001?

Dr. Stout claims we all have immediate and vivid memories of 9/11 that we will carry to our graves. “We will be able to recall small details—the weather where we were, what we had been up to but stopped doing, exactly which telephone we picked up—as if we had had tiny videotapes in our heads.”

She also claims that, based on neuropsychological research, the 9/11 attack turned on our “fear switch” by traumatizing our brains and causing overreactions to the reality of life.

The following is some of the information presented:
1) Immediately after the attack eight out of ten women and six out of ten men were depressed.
2) Three to five days after the attack, 44% of Americans reported at least one symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
3) Two months later 31% of respondents to a L.A. Times poll felt their personal sense of security was still “a great deal” shaken.”
4) One year later, 30% of Americans said they still thought about 9/11 every single day.
5) A study published in 2005 that followed the infants of 38 mothers who had been at or near the World Trade Center attack reported that at one year old the babies of mothers who had PTSD showed low cortisol levels —linked to being vulnerable to post-traumatic stress. In other words, “…maternal post-traumatic stress disorder may have transgenerational effects beginning when the child is in utero…”

What’s the point? The point is that “When you read an article full of violence or watch a violent television program you turn on the seed of violence.”

Diligence is the practice of training ourselves to come back to our best and highest self.

–Dr. Rohn Kessler

Smoking represents a major risk factor for cancer, heart disease and stroke. These leading causes of death represent an ongoing concern for all Americans. Nonsmokers might consider taking an empathetic approach to smokers who are trying to quit, and parents might use a “tough love” approach with their children to make sure they don’t even start.

Tip 2: Follow your physician’s advice.

Your relationship with your physician is critical to your health. Remember, though, that as a consumer of health services your doctor is your employee, so establish a good working relationship based on the understanding that you are the boss of your body. We must develop a proactive attitude toward maintaining our health and take responsibility to change those aspects of our lifestyles that are minimizing our longevity potential. Our physicians can help guide this process.

Tip 3: Exercise regularly.

Exercise and physical activity continue to emerge as primary components of a healthy lifestyle at any age. Aerobic exercise, weight training and recreation are critical not just to our cardiovascular health but to our brain health, as well. Every time our heart beats, 25 percent of its output goes to our brains-quite a large market share! Clearly, maintaining efficient blood flow to our brains through regular exercise promotes health. If you don’t exercise regularly, start by walking around the block tonight and build from there.

Tip 4: Reduce the overall calories you consume daily.

We Americans tend not to under-consume anything…including food. Yet the leading factor for longevity in animals is caloric restriction. This finding has yet to be demonstrated in humans. However, provided you get your daily nutritional needs from the USDA’S food pyramid, you should pay close attention to how much you eat. Follow the advice two physicians gave me: N ever go to bed stuffed, and eat only 80 percent of what you intend to consume at every meal.

Tip 5: Socialize and have fun.

We Americans specialize in stress, with little understanding of how to have fun. We need more time to socialize, celebrate and laugh! Some of us have walls around us that keep other people away. As humans, though, we need to be engaged and to be social. Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, once stated that every time “we lose an elder from our village, we lose a library.” If we begin to think of everyone as a library, it becomes clear that we can learn from others.

Tip 6: Develop your spirituality.

Evidence continues to emerge that prayer is a health-promoting behavior and that attendance at formalized places of worship may have more significance to our health than we understand. Meditation, yoga, relaxation procedures and prayer have neurophysiological bases. They help to alter our existing homeostasis for the better. Praying or meditating daily can help us combat the stresses of life and focus on the challenges ahead.

Tip 7: Engage in mentally stimulating activities.

“Mental stimulation” refers to the ways our brains respond to stimuli in the environment. Novel and complex stimuli are health-promoting for the brain. New learning translates to neurophysiological growth and to mental stimulation in the same way that aerobics translates to cardiovascular health. We can benefit from being challenged, from learning information and skills that we do not yet understand, and from engaging in pursuits that are initially hard for us!

Tip 8: Maintain your role and sense of purpose.

Retirement as it is presently envisioned in this country is not good for the human brain, which benefits from environments rich in novel and complex stimuli. Retirement by definition reinforces disengagement and passivity. Our nation might consider prioritizing social engagement across the lifespan-from a brain-health perspective. Although it is important to allow elders to choose more passive lifestyles, many may benefit from an understanding of the importance of actively participating in society and finding personally relevant roles and senses of purpose.

Tip 9: Seek financial stability.

Research clearly demonstrates that having some money late in life correlates with better health. Therefore, a practical tip for maintaining lifelong health is to hire a financial planner and begin a savings plan that will provide some money late in life. Financial planners do not consider themselves to be health promoters, but they are. We are never too young or too old to begin saving, and the less money we make the faster we need to get started!

Tip 10: Engage family and friends.

Developing and maintaining a social network of relationships is important from a health perspective. Our friends and family help us stay active and involved in the fabric of society. They can provide us with emotional support and can nurture trust. Our roles in life, from child to parent to grandparent, exist within the family; they provide much health and human enrichment across the lifespan. And intimacy, broadly defined, is itself a health-promoting behavior at any age.

A client was having trouble getting her son to his appointment.

“My mother broke her arm and is living with me. I don’t know what’s happening with my life.” Those of us in the sandwich generation get pushed at both ends, and we have our own issues. “I need my reading glasses, but I can’t remember where I put them.” We’re having increased responsibilities to others while at the same time our physical and mental abilities are declining.

Now it doesn’t have to be as bad as it sounds. Life does not have to be a xanax moment. Some things are inherently on our side and there is more we can do to stack the deck.

Journey of the Wild Divine is one of the cutting-edge tools we use at Sparks of Genius to help our students learn to manage stress, regulate their body rhythms and heighten attention. You can try it at home for free, and train with it too if you are out of area.

The Benefits of Age

Aging is more than high cholesterol and cellulite. We can also gain wisdom and calmness from life experience. Instead of breaking all my crystal when I am angry, I can just imagine smashing it and avoid the cleanup. If I am really desperate, I can throw some ice. I can recognize my feelings and think about how to use them productively. My mind tells me the consequences of my actions because I have been at this juncture before.

When I was younger I was tossed about by my emotions. Now I have my lifelines. I remember the ring of Solomon which states, “This too will pass.” I ask myself if this will really matter in 1000 years. I go for a walk, call a friend or ask the audience. I have an arsenal of techniques keep me sane. This doesn’t mean that I’m always in control. When I get to be an enlightened being I’ll let you know. But things that would have set me off in the past have lost of their potency and I have gained some of mine.

Better Living through Technology

At Sparks of Genius we use some technological innovation to help with stress.

HeartMath® technology teaches you how to shift from a negative emotion to a positive one. When you do this, your heart rhythms automatically shift to a state of coherence, releasing a cascade of positive neural, hormonal and biochemical events.

When they are using the Harmony Sparking Station in our electronic playground, HeartMath® computer, we teach our clients learn the Quick Coherence Technique, so that they can see the changes in their heart rhythms in real time. If you want to get ahead of the game, you can practice this technique on your own.

Step 1 – Heart Focus

Focus your attention on the area around your heart.

Step 2 – Heart Breathing

Pretend you are breathing through your heart area. Breathe slowly to a count of 5 or 6.

Step 3 – Heart Feeling

Continue to breathe through your heart and find a positive feeling. You could remember an appreciation for someone, a fun activity or a time in your life when you felt at peace. Think about one of the many things that you could be grateful for. Once you have found the positive feeling, sustain it with heart focus, heart breathing and heart feeling.

Do this exercise several times a day. Make it part of yourself. You can even make it a point to practice when you are stopped for a red light. Then it can become a life line.

As soon as you feel angry, practice heart focus, heart breathing and heart feeling. Once you have those positive feelings flowing, ask yourself how you could best handle your situation. Do you need a time out or is there something that you could do or say that will help. Do you need to journal, jog or schedule an appointment with your life coach?

Remember that if we are lucky enough to stay around on this planet, we will all grow older. The gift is being able to grow wiser.

By Ninah Kessler, LCSW
Life Coach