Self-Referral
What is SELF-REFERRAL ?
SELF-REFERRAL is the body’s ability to monitor current body conditions, compare them with ideal conditions, and make changes. The goal of SELF-REFERRAL is to maintain ideal body conditions in a dynamic changing environment.
We experience SELF-REFERRAL every day but we typically are not aware of it. You may go from a cool environment into sweltering heat. Your body starts to sweat to cool it off in the changing conditions. You may be walking and start to run. Your heart speeds up, your muscles become active, and you breathe more rapidly to adjust to changing conditions. This is how the body monitors changing conditions and responds to maintain an ideal internal environment.
How does the body carry out SELF-REFERRAL? What parts of the body are involved with SELF-REFERRAL? How does SELF-REFERRAL continue day and night? Do we need to think about SELF-REFERRAL – or is it just automatic? What happens when SELF-REFERRAL fails?
The Brain Governs the Body as a Thermostat Governs the Furnace.
The brain governs the body much as a thermostat governs a furnace. When we set a thermostat to 65 degrees, its job is to keep the room at that temperature. This requires the thermostat to sense the temperature in the room. The thermostat also has the abiity to turn the furnace on and off. When the temperature goes below the setpoint of 65 degrees, the thermostat turns on the furnace – heating up the room. Once the room retuns to 65 degrees, the thermostat turns the furnace off. So long as thermostat and furnace are in operating condition, the room will stay at the set temperature.
We all know that brain and body working together is far more complex than the thermostat and furnace, but the fundamental principle is the same. When it gets hot, the brain gets feedback that the body is hot and needs to sweat. When we run, we need more oxygen and increased blood circulation to power muscles and blow off extra waste products. That is why the heart speeds up and we sweat or breathe more deeply.
We need constant communication between brain and body to maintain health. All this is automatic and requires no thought on our part.
We readily see in these illustrations that the brain connects with the rest of the body via the spinal and cranial nerves. When we look at the body this way, we clearly see how complex the nervous system is. Through its function – day and night – the brain receives feedback from the body that reports on body status. The brain dynamically makes changes throughout the body to optimize health. For all this to work, there must be effective lines of communication both ways between brain and body. What are these lines of communication between brain and body
How Does SELF-REFERRAL work?
SELF-REFERRAL Depends on Communication Between Brain and Body
Communication goes both ways – from body to brain, and brain to body. Both directions of SELF-REFERRAL communication operate the same way. If you understand how nerve cells – also known as neurons – communicate, you understand how nervous system communication works both directions, throughout the body. This two-way communication is the basis of SELF-REFERRAL.
Nerves are not like the long connecting wires we know from experience with electrical house wiring. Neurons are separate cells that have their own lives but also participate in creating neuronal pathways. This happens when the axon of one nerve meets the dendrite of another nerve. The axon is the transmitter and the dendrite is the receiver. This is how one neuron sends a signal that is received by a second neuron: this repeats across many neurons along neuronal pathways. In this fashion, information is conveyed from the body to the brain, and from brain to the body. This is a critical part of SELF-REFERRAL.
This communication is constant and incredibly complex. Speed of signal transmission is known to reach well above 250 miles per hour. Additionally, a multitude of signals are constantly being sent and received between brain and body throughout our lives. This operation of the nervous system is so seamless that we never even think about it – unless something goes wrong and it stops working, as in the case of a stroke or other neurological problem.
SELF-REFERRAL maintains ideal body conditions in a dynamic changing environment.
Brain and body must communicate well to have normal SELF-REFERRAL.
Communication goes both ways - body to brain, and brain to body. This two-way system is the basis of SELF-REFERRAL.
SELF-REFERRAL maintains ideal body conditions in a changing environment.
The Stress of Modern Life Ruins Our Health
We know that the human body has SELF-REFERRAL built in as part of its design. In fact, when we are healthy, it runs all by itself for long periods of time. What goes wrong that interrupts SELF-REFERRAL?
What Interrupts SELF-REFERRAL ?
SELF-REFERRAL is the body’s ability to govern itself. The brain has fixed setpoint ranges for blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, temperature, and so forth. That is, the body is designed to operate within normal limits. If conditions change, the body has the ability to respond by changing the internal environment. This is SELF-REFERRAL – and we know this is how the body keeps good internal order and health. But what interrupts SELF-REFERRAL?
The chief cause of all interruptions in SELF-REFERRAL is STRESS. Stress is an idea proposed by scientist Hans Selye in the 1960s. Selye noticed that lab rats who had been subjected to rough handling were subsequently much more likely to get sick compared to those who were well treated. Selye borrowed a term from metallurgy and called the pressure caused by life Stress. He reasoned that the more Stress in a person’s life, the more likely they would later suffer illness and disease. Over half a century of medical research has proved him right, time after time.
Stress is clearly the enemy of SELF-REFERRAL – and it is likely to be the cause of most if not all disease.
Perhaps the best single summation of the health effects of Stress can be found in Alvin Toffler’s bestselling book Future Shock. Toffler identifies the inordinate amount of Stress caused by all aspects of modern life. He cites the rapid pace and frequent change caused by modern life as the source of steadily increasing Stress and declining health in modern populations.
Citing important medical research, Toffler made it clear that stressful life events create Stress. The effects of Stress on our health depends on the severity of the stressful life event. Death of a spouse was one of the worst stressful life events that were nearly certain to cause health problems. Less severe stressful life events like a quarrel with your boss were less likely to cause health problems. But the effects of ALL stressful life events are cumulative; that is, the more Stress per unit time people experience, the more likely they are to have health problems – and the more Stress that occurs the more severe the health problems will be.
Humanity Faces an Adaptational Crisis
Destruction of SELF-REFERRAL by the Stress of modern life is causing an Adaptational Crisis in humanity. Our physiology can no longer keep up with the accelerating amount of Stress caused by modern life. We are constantly stressed by computer technology and rapid pace of life. Adding to this is constant overstimulation from television, the Internet, smart phones, and more. The result of all this overstimulation is the human being can no longer the cope with the accelerating Stress of modern life
This is why we can no longer ignore the negative effects of Stress caused by modern life. If we want long and healthy lives, we must take effective measures to counteract Stress; we must find a way to reverse the onslaught of the Stress of modern life.
The way medical care is organized and practiced today, we seldom take all of this into account. These are known facts and everyone in the medical field accepts them. The reason they have been shoved into the background is until now there has been no way to improve SELF-REFERRAL other than medications. And all medications, regardless of the good they do, have side effects – which may not be good for our overall health. What can we do to restore SELF-REFERRAL?
No one denies the Stress of Modern Life and its negative effects on everyone. We must find a way to restore SELF-REFERRAL.
We Must Find a Way to Restore Self-Referral
What Restores SELF-REFERRAL ?
Stress as we experience it in our lives is anything that forces us to adapt to it. The sources of Stress may be environmental, such as loud noises or dangerous surroundings. Other sources of Stress include working with a deadline, driving a car, or constant focus as in working with computers. The common factor is anything that makes demands – that forces our bodies to adapt.
SELF-REFERRAL depends upon the body being able to work within its own natural limits. Whatever the source of Stress, the effect is the same. The Stress of modern life – with its fast pace, demanding electronic environment, and deadline-driven pressures – is worse than any time in known history. The convergence of fast pace, pressures, and continuous novelty has brought us to what Alvin Toffler called Future Shock.
Sleep is our natural defense to the demands of Stress. We get tired, sleep for a night, and wake up refreshed. The critical problem today is that sleep is simply no longer enough to counteract the constant onslaught of the Stress of modern life.
Sleep is No Longer Enough
Today the search is on to find a remedy for Stress. Many stress-reduction techniques have been presented to remedy this situation. Whenever we look for answers to medical problems, it is best to apply science to clarify what works and what does not. When we survey the scientific literature on stress-reduction techniques, one clearly stands out
Transcendental Meditation (TM) was brought out of India in 1958 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Starting in Hawaii and later on the West Coast, Maharishi taught people TM wherever he went. What began as one man’s service to others changed the world for the better.
Among those early TM meditators was R. Keith Wallace. In 1968 Wallace was completing Ph.D. work at the University of California, Los Angeles. After reviewing previous stress reduction technique research, he decided to study Transcendental Meditation. He used modern methods to carry out the most complete meditation research up to that time. He published his findings in the scientific journal SCIENCE. What did he find?
The Stress of modern life demands effective relief. Science proves that Transcendental Meditation works.
TM clearly caused physical changes in the body’s operation. Oxygen consumption rate dropped, heart rate slowed down, galvanic skin resistance went down, and brain waves changed. All these body changes pointed to a profound state of rest that is much deeper than sleep.
When Wallace’s original work became known through published journal articles, scientists across the world became interested in studying the effects of TM. The result through the years is hundreds of research journal articles that verify TM’s beneficial effects.
One of the most profound findings were those of Dr. Jean-Paul Banquet. He studied TM’s brainwave effects in 1972. TM subjects showed brain wave patterns typical of deep rest – but brain waves showing alertness also were present. This is why scientists refer to TM’s effects as producing “restful alertness” – a physiologic state that had never been seen before. This state of “restful alertness” is completely different than how the body works while awake, sleeping, or dreaming.
Wallace, Banquet and others proved that TM provides deep rest more profound than sleep, compensating for the stress of modern life. TM also improves the brain’s ability to synchronize with itself – front to back, side to side, and top to bottom. That means that TM not only beats the effects of the Stress of modern life – it also optimizes brain function. And the longer you practice TM, the more these benefits become more prominent.
Why are these EEG findings so important? We know that SELF-REFERRAL between brain and body is critical to health. When SELF-REFERRAL is working well, health is the natural result. If anything interrupts SELF-REFERRAL, disease is the equally natural result.
Because of these findings, we now see that human beings now have a choice they never had before. We used to think that disease was just a matter of bad luck or bad genetics. Sure, choosing bad habits will take your health down, but the TM findings show us that by simply practicing twenty minutes TM twice a day we restore the brain’s SELF-REFERRAL- and the longer we regularly practice TM the better SELF-REFERRAL gets. And research also shows the longer you practice TM, the more bad habits like drug abuse, smoking, and alcohol will decrease and disappear.
It is one thing to wish for good things to happen or hope that things will improve. There are literally hundreds of scientific research proving that TM reverses the effects of stress. These studies also show TM bringing marked improvement in nearly every nearly major known medical problem. Why is this? As described in detail in the book Self-Referral/Maximum Health, nearly every disease we face is caused by STRESS. Cure Stress, move away from disease.
The Stress of modern life is worse than any time in known history. Sleep is no longer enough to cope with this Stress.
His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Founder of Transcendental Meditation
TM has been studied by scientific methods more than any other meditation technique. The findings? TM works.
Now we can choose . . . Stress Vs. Perfect Health
We can live with Stress and poor health . . .
. . . or we can learn Transcendental Meditation and move toward happiness and Maximum Health.
Restoring SELF-REFERRAL thus opens a whole new possibility. Instead of passively living life, hoping we never develop disease, we can now adopt the practice of TM twice a day. As time goes on, SELF-REFERRAL of the brain will improve. The daily effects of Stress caused by modern life will be negated. With this improved brain and body function we should see improving health in people who practice TM regularly. What do we know about that possibility?
More recent research has proven that Transcendental Meditation has profound positive health effects. Multiple research articles prove that TM improves hypertension, heart disease, asthma, digestive problems, headache, anxiety, depression, and nearly every other major health challenge. Looking at these profound findings makes anyone wonder: how can this be true
There is an ancient story of a man who wanted to conquer a vast territory. His initial plan was to go there with his army and fight a battle, go somewhere else and fight another battle, and so forth. Once all battles were won, he thought, he would control the territory.
A wise man corrected him, pointing out that a strong fort controlled the whole area. He suggested that if the man were to conquer the fort first, he would not have to fight endless battles to control the territory.
We have the exact same story repeated now with TM. The brain is the strong fort that controls the whole territory of the body. By culturing SELF-REFERRAL in the brain through TM, we spontaneously bring the whole body into effective SELF-REFERRAL – and the result is health.
Over sixty years of scientific research proves that TM works, and that TM creates health. TM is the only stress-reduction technique scientifically studied in this detail. Comparisons have been made to other meditation techniques – including Mindfulness – and none of them produce the profound physiologic changes provided by TM. This is why our best advice is to learn TM and not some copycat technique that seems similar. Why take medicine from an unreliable, unknown bottle? Get the prescription that works!
TM Proven to Restore the Brain's SELF-REFERRAL.
Research proves that brainwave coherence is a direct result of practicing Transcendental Meditation. The above series of graphs shows that the practice of TM immediately creates measurable brainwave coherence at two weeks of practicing TM versus the low brainwave coherence of sleep. Progression of brainwave coherence is even more pronounced at 4 months of TM. The progression continues as shown at 5 years of TM. The 15-year TM meditator has remarkably coherent brainwave function. All this indicates that brain function is becoming more orderly with practice of TM. That orderliness is indicative of SELF-REFERRAL steadily improving over time. This is the basis of incredibly positive health benefits of practicing Transcendental Meditation. No other meditation technique – Mindfulness or otherwise – has been proven to cause these kind of improvements. That leads you straight to MAXIMUM HEALTH !
TM is easier to learn now than ever ! Contact the TM Website and find out how easy it is to learn TM. You can even learn TM online at home ! Inquire today !
