Increasing your optimism. There are No limits!

Concentration, Optimism, Success

The brain has an open loop system where we are able to pick up subtle clues that are emitted from one another. We can also anticipate the actions of other people and react accordingly and this amazing ability fires back and forth in split seconds between each person. For example, hormones are activated in 40 milliseconds while the sympathetic nervous system is activated in a mere 8 milliseconds.

There is also a cycle of "sacrifice and renewal" which occurs daily within the neurons and this cycle is affected either positively or negatively by the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).

It is estimated that 85,000 neurons are lost every day and if the SNS is activated more frequently and for prolonged periods, it actually promotes cognitive loss. This includes reducing the health of the immune system, increasing nervousness and fears, and stimulating stress.

The PNS has the opposite effect; promoting renewal and health including a better memory for details, increased positive emotions, lowering blood pressure, and arousing compassion.

Increasing optimism
Activities such as meditation, yoga and prayer have all been shown to promote renewal of neurons while also increasing hope, compassion and optimism.

Meditation affects your perception, your perspective on life, and by promoting a positive mental state enables you to be free from negativity that creates upset. It allows each one of us to move beyond the comprehension of what is occurring in the mind and body and to actually begin to feel the flow of positive emotions.

Mindfulness moments increase and effectively give the mind space to focus on what is positive and meaningful to you.

You begin to recognize what is dominate in your life and choose to develop new habits more in line with what you desire. This allows you to transcend the meditative experience and bring the benefits of meditation into your everyday activities.

So what will you do with the new-found attitude?

Let creativity flow
Wonderful things can happen when you channel your true passions into disciplined action and move beyond recurring thoughts and habits and replace them with positive ones through affirmations and a regular meditation practice and to actually begin to feel the flow of positive emotions. Don't compare yourself to others; simply do your best and encourage this in others,

Becoming active rather than reactive to situations fosters positive emotions, framing goals with hope for the future while also being able to see that negative events can “wake” you up to possibilities. This allows you to transcend the meditative experience and bring the benefits of meditation into your everyday activities.

There are NO limits
Be creative and inventive. Let your ideas flow and find what inspires you. Your horizon is as vast as you allow it to be and as tall and exciting as you make it.

Other people do not have your vision or your desire to succeed. There are no limits to your potential.
Your physical outer world is a reflection of your inner world and your energy is always radiating, flowing, and touching others. True change occurs from within and your positive inner dialogue helps elevate others around you even when you are not saying anything TO them; just thinking positive thoughts.

Affirmations

All that I perceive about myself is positive.

I face challenges with certainty that I will find solutions and overcome all obstacles

I am able to help and encourage people around me

I am successful in all that I set out to do

My life is filled with wonder.

 
In the 2008 University of Wisconsin study, “Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation: effects of meditative expertise” the researchers found that compassion meditation increased the practitioners capacity for empathy, which has both clinical and social importance.

Earlier studies showed that two people can share the same emotional responses or elicit the same activity in their brain when one actually experiences pain or pleasure, and the other person is either a visual witness, or hears the experience taking place.
This illustrated that humans have a foundation for empathy.

In the study mentioned above, two groups were studied: one who were experienced meditators and the other who were learning the technique.
Measuring brain activity to sounds such as a woman in distress or a baby crying elicited emotional responses in the groups such as a negative, neutral, or positive.

Brain imaging showed that meditating on compassion elicited reactions in the brain in both groups; however the experienced meditators exhibited a greater reaction, especially when someone was experiencing difficulty or distress.

Meditation increases compassion by helping you to focus on affirming thoughts, rather than problems and attune yourself to the needs of others.

Meditation
Meditation has been used for thousands of years for self-reflection, self-awareness, healing, and enlightenment. Today’s technology enables us to see the physiological and chemical changes that occur throughout the whole body.
People who meditate regularly are clinically shown to have fewer overall symptoms of stress, fewer cardiopulmonary and gastrointestinal symptoms, less emotional irritability, and cognitive disorganization.
As the study mentioned above also shows, compassion increases, not only to others, but also to yourself.

Meditation draws your attention away from a particular problem or illness to a place of overall knowledge and feelings of inner calmness and peace. It helps you to concentrate less on individual set-backs or issues and provides you with a tool that promotes inward focus, enabling the mind and the body to experience a profound state of restfulness. In turn, the brain becomes balanced, while the mind and body move beyond thinking, to simply being.

Affirmation
You have the wonderful ability to think positively and compassionately. It is a conscious choice to ensure that your thoughts and subsequent action are doing their best for yourself and for others. Whether you call it positive thinking or an affirmation, as long as you believe that it is working then it will have the power to make a difference.
Thoughts have their own unique energy
Promote clear and positive images by seeing yourself as confident and compassionate in all that you think, say, and do. Use whichever words best meet your own needs and purpose each day.
Here are a few to begin with:

I choose to be kind
I choose to give love
I choose to be happy
May you and I be safe
May you and I be loved
May you and I be happy

What Thoughts Are You Carrying?

The immune system is not an independent self-directed system; rather it has an actual connection with the conscious mind and the effect of thoughts upon the body.
The brain produces chemicals called neuropeptides which affect the immune cell receptors in specific ways according to your emotional state.

The interaction between your mind and your subsequent behavior affects the immune system of your body, resulting in either health or illness.
People who expect the worst and see everything as half-empty may already be half-way to an early grave. With illnesses ranging from colds and flu to heart attacks and cancer, pessimists do live a shorter and unhealthier life.

Do mind-body techniques such as yoga, meditation or repetitive prayer affect the way the body deals with the activation or repression of genes which can result in cellular damage and consequently disease?
A study by MGH MBI and the Genomics Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center shows that following an 8 week period of meditation, participants’ genes were positively affected demonstrating that thoughts can and do affect the body at a cellular level.

Food and drink contain energy that can work with or against your body.
However, health does not only come from what you consume or apply topically. It stems from the internal and meditation is one of the easiest methods to promote healthy thoughts.
What habits do you keep repeating?
What feelings and fears keep intruding?
A diet of positive thoughts detoxifies the mind and improves your quality of life.
You are what you think.

Affirmation
Negative thoughts draw more negative energy to you; however it is possible to create new and better pathways within your brain with far-reaching consequences. Carry an affirmative thought with you every day to remind you to stay optimistic.

I choose to be grateful I choose to be kind

I choose to give love

I choose to feel joy

I choose to see the good within

I choose to be happy