Unit 5 Power Point

Iris Ranker


Kaplan University

HW420-03

Professor Stewart

February 6, 2011

Mental fitness is as essential as physical fitness, if not more so, to someone’s health. Mental fitness is important because physical fitness has biological limits. The mind is capable of developing all day, every day, but we must make attempts to broaden its reach through practice. “A healthy and developed inner life is an essential complement to outer treatments” (Dacher, 2006).

We can train the mind and many researchers have found the healing qualities of mental and spiritual focus. The use of images, correctly addressing stress, and prayer are three ways to mentally and spiritually focus helping to improve health and healing.


How do we get improve mental fitness? There are exercises and practices that can be performed that enhance mental fitness. Yoga is one way to improve mental fitness and breathing exercises are another.

“Not only can our consciousness influence and shape our personal experience, but it also can impact others” (Dacher, 2006), this is why improving mental fitness is detrimental to our health and others.

Is imagery that can exist or act across persons


“In transpersonal experiences there can be an expansion of one’s identity to include much more of the world, and there can be a greater appreciation of one’s interconnectedness with all of nature” (Schlitz, Amorok, & Micozzi, 2005).

In one study about direct mental interactions with living systems, one person (the sender)uses imagery and intention to exert a direct mental influence upon the objectively measured physiological activity of another person (the receiver) isolated at a distance.

15 experiments of came from this study involving 323 sessions. The results showed repeatable, statistically significant evidence for the existence of nonlocal, direct mental influences. Further studies were done across the country after these results were published, the yielded results were similar.
Everyone is familiar with the idea of prayer, but some people think of it in very strict terms even though there are many ways to pray.


Byrd’s double-blind prayer study in 1988 used 393 patients that were in the coronary care unit. Some patients received prayer by groups outside the hospital and others did not.

The study showed fewer deaths, less external support from machines, fewer potent drugs, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation was needed less often (Schlitz, Amorok, Micozzi, 2005).

Although it is difficult to study prayer it can be done…no study is 100% fail-safe, but this study showed the effects of prayer and lead prayer studies to be an important part of the future.

Lutz and his colleagues found that trained minds can function at a higher level of integration and organization after studying and researching contemplative scholars and a control group. This finding suggested a higher order of mental integration because of the amount and location of gamma rays emitted in the brain (Dacher, 2006).


People who have trained minds open up their inner self using more detail and flourish. This study showed that mental training may result in long term changes like enhanced resistance to mental distress and physical disease, expand our healing capacities, and promote well-being as well as short-term changes (Dacher, 2006).

Yoga


Yoga, which means yoke or to unite the mind, body and spirit, is a wonderful exercise to connect the mind and body while improving mental fitness. Yoga encompasses many different activities at once.

There becomes a fusion of mind and body with physical movement and contemplative practice.



Yoga begins with breathing and focusing on the breath because it remains essential through the whole exercise with every movement. After this you usually begin a series of poses, holding each.



There are many different types of yoga (Ashtanga, Bikram, Gentle, Kundalini, Iyengar, Restorative, and Vinyasa) with focuses that range from stamina to deep breathing (Yoga, 2011).

We tend to be creatures of habit and we will get into a routine and stay in a certain routine until we are forced out or use intention to will ourselves away.


Easy things to do to keep up mental fitness are to do things completely out of your routine.

When we read books we normally do not, switch hands to write or use our mouse, or even rearrange your whole morning routine our brains are processing more and taking in different views and ideas.

Test yourself with your senses. Walk through the house blindfolded (maybe with an aid), watch the television but put earplugs or headphones in so you can’t hear it, or smell your dinner and decide what foods/spices are in it without looking.

These things can help you challenge yourself to think outside the box or differently than normal to help increase mental fitness.


Improving our mental fitness is an essential part of our lives so that we can continue to flourish and experience as much as possible with the abilities and gifts we have been given. When we do not try new exercises, attempt yoga, meditate, or do breathing exercises we are limiting ourselves and taking for granted abilities that we possess that are unique to humans. Many studies like the ones Lutz and Byrd performed show us that the mind and body are not only connected, but there is a powerful bond that also exists with spirituality.


Dacher, E.S. (2006). Integral health: The


path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach,

CA: Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Schlitz, M., Amorok, T., & Micozzi, M.S.

(2005). Consciousness & healing. St.

Louis, MO: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone.

Yoga. (2011). Teens health. Retrieved

February 7, 2011 from http://kidshealth.

org/teen/food_fitness/exercise/yoga.html