About behaviorism - Bahoviour analysis and Behavior Therapy

Behaviorism is a psychological approach with a basic idea that behavior can be investigated scientifically, without reference to internal physiological conditions and that all terms used shall have an observationwise basis. Behavior Theory as psychology was developed in the United States in the early 1900s as a continuation of a particular Pavlovs research. The term means today primarily science philosophy of applied behavior analysis.

Behavior Theory denies free will and believe that all behavior is selected at three levels: genetic, cultural and individual behavioral level, classical conditioning (association) or operant conditioning (reinforcement).

Bavior therapy is a therapy that has the specific aim of modifying bahavior by applying conditions and reinforcement that weakens the unwanted behavior or creates and strenthens appoved behavior modalities.

Since behaviorism only regards behavior or sometimes other measurable states as valid, the method is seen as appopriate to treat mental problems and is used that way.

Important pioneers in behavioral analysis were Ivan Pavlov, who discovered classical conditioning, Edward Lee Thorndike who described the effect the law, and John B. Watson (1878-1958) who rejected introspective methods and argued to restrict psychology to experimental methods. BFSkinner (1904-1990) included awareness and other non-observable factors, so-called "private events", in scientific analysis, and developed radikal behaviorism.

Behavior Theory was a very popular psychological theory (or group of theories) in the first half of last century, and was almost supreme in the psychology of the period. In the second half of last century and until today, and is still practically used, but in less degree.

Theoretical variations

The theory of behaviorism is based on the observation that some kind of stimulus makes an authomatic responce. For example the sight of food will make a dog secrete saliva and appoch the food to eat. This stimulus is called a unconditioned stimululus and the responce is called an unconditioned responce.

If some other event, for example the ringing of a clock use to occure before the unconditioned stimulus, the individual learns to associate this other stimulus with the unconditioned one, and after some time it will create the same responce. This other stimulus is called conditioned stimulus and the responce is called conditioned responce.

According to this thought, nervous or mental problems are the result of unconditioned or conditioned responces that are unwanted.

Behavior therapy is a method where stimuli are applied without the consequences that originally created the responce and thus the individual is leared to respond in another and more appropriate way

Therapeutic variants of bahaviourism

This is not a general classification, and one can extend or shorten this list.

Classical behaviorism: Watson's behaviorism, the objective study and manipulation of behavior. There is no mental explanations, no reference to inner states, thoughts are "hidden" speech.

Methodological behaviorism: The objective study of third-person behavior; psychological data must be inter-subjectively verifiable; no "theoretical" descriptions. Absorbed within the usu ol experimental psychology and cognitive psychology.

Radical bahaviorism: Skinnerianian behaviorism. This appoach includes atferdsperpektiv. Mental life or other not mechanistic oehypothetical inner states are excluded. Alle phenomenons phenomenon must be observed.

Teleological behaviorism: Post-Skinnerianian. This approach is purposive, close to microeconomics,

Theoretical behaviorism: Post-Skinneriansk. Accepts observable internal states. It is dynamic, but eclectic in choice of theoretical structures, emphasizes parsimony


Some words about meditation as a natural health improvement tool

Meditation makes you healthier. Meditation helps you relax and regain physical and mental strenght after hours filled with mental stress and physical struggle. It also help you to achieve better abilities of consentration and better mental and physical energy in your daily work and free-time, and to react more appropriately intellectually and emotionally to challenges and opportunities that afront you in your daily life. It helps lower blood preadsure and to improve the function of inner organs, such as digestion.

Meditation constitutes a systematic absolutly natural self-directed methodology to gain control over our impulses and gain freedom from doubts, fears and anxieties. This is especially true when we suffer from unhelpful thoughts and memories that continually ruin our day. Meditation will then gently guides us back onto a path of happiness and healing, and to self-confidence and compassion.

From the dawn of time, meditation has been a vital part of self transformation and holistic health. Today, the world is reawakening the art and science of meditation.

There are by now over 2000 scientific studies on meditation, showing the positive effects on mneditation.

Mental and physical gains from meditation

Meditation is usually pleasant. An immediate result from meditation is a better mental relaxation, a better muscular relaxation and a better mental mood.

Meny persons suffer from a constant mental tension that causes bad impulses or lack of impulses to the inner organs and result in poor blood circulation, constipation, irritable bowel and irritable overactive blader. Meditation can be of great help for problems with the blood circulation, urinary functions or bowel functions due to constant mental and physical tension.

Meditation can help against high blood pressure

Meditation can also help for lack of sleep.

On a longer term, regular meditation increase all mental abilities, and all those physical abilities that are intimately connected to the mental abilities and enhances the immune responce.

Meditation can give you a stronger will and better abilities to pusue important goals in your life, and may help you to interact better socially with other persons.

Regular meditation will often let you regain the access to hidden memories and give you the ability to solve psychological conflicts that are connected to those memories.

What is meditation

During meditation one sits, stands or lays still, and focuse continually on one sole mental object. This object could be:

- A word you reapeat inside youself. Such a word is called a mantra

- A picture you have in your mind, or a series of pictures or sounds you go through,

- A thought process with thoughts, pictures or words that follow a predetermined sequence

- A repeating sound you listen to from a tape or wave generator.

- A piece of music you listen to

Two basic attitudes or approaches towards meditation

There are two basic forms of meditation regarding the way one concentrates during the meditative process:

In one approach, the concetration upon the object of meditation shall be total, without letting any other thought penetrate, something that is impossible in the beginneing, but that is learnd by time. This kind of meditation is especially good at producing skills in concentration and focusing. The essential skill of this approach of meditation is learning to concentrate, condense and compress your awareness to be totally focused on the very subtle object of the meditation.

In the other approach, one does not concentrate so firmly at the meditation object that other thoughts are let out. On the contrary one lets these thoughts easily penetrate and each of them play out for some while. When such a thought is recogized, and it has done its work, you just stop it and go back to the mediatation object. When skilled in this kind of meditation, these thoughts pop up without actually pushing the object of meditation out of your mind. This kind of meditation when effectuated for some time, actually works as a kind of selfmade psychoanalysis, and help solve psychological conflicts. The essential skill of this approach is to concentrate so much that the thought upon the meditation object is not stopped, but not so hard that other thoughts are stopped from penetrating.

So, before mediatation, you most first determine the object of the meditation process, and then you must determine if you want to use the first or the second approach to the meditational process.

The setting of meditation The Physical place -- this should be quiet, restful and still. The atmosphere should be serene, with no sense of hurriedness. However, when skilled in meditation, it is possible to meditate even if the place is noisy. In the practical life, it may be difficult to find the ideal restfull place, then one most content with a place that maybe is affected by some noise or other disturbances. Allthough this is not ideal, it is better to carry through the meditation as best as you can. Meditation that is somewhat disturbed is better than no meditation at all.

Your bodily condition - If should be clean and properly nourished. Use the nasal wash and brush your teeth. Wash your face, hands and feet. Take a moment and refresh yourself. Empty your bowel and bladder. Wear comfortable loose fitting clothes that will allow you to breath and sit comfortably. Stretch out any tension in your muscles, coordinate your stretching with your breath.

Your position - Using a proper chair or meditation cushions is ideal for meditation. It is important for the body to be comfortable and quiet, so that the mind can focus on the internal process of meditation. However, at times you may feel more comfortable in other positions or laying down. As long as this does not make you sleep, this is allright.

The breathing - Breath gently through your nose, and let your abdomen rise and fall with each breath. Let the abdomen and chest collapse and relax totally each time your lungs are emptied for air. Make a smooth transition between inhalation and exhalation. At the tip of your nose, right inside your nostrils, you can feel a slight sensation of coolness when you inhale and a very faint sensation of warmth during exhalation. By controlling your breath well, you help the restlessness, itchiness and tension melt away.

Timing of meditation - The best times to meditate is early in the morning, in the afternoon after work, or before you go to bed. Try to meditate at least one time each day. Meditate 20-30 minutes each time. Sometimes, if the efforts of the day make you extra tired and stressed up, you may melt away the stress by sitting down and take an extra short meditation of 5-10 minutes.



How to Do Mantra-Meditation similar to Transcendental meditation and Acem-meditation, but in an even better way

The meditation technique described here is much the same as those techniques called Transcendental Meditation or Acem- meditation. But there are certain differences that might give you more benefits than those rigorous methods and suite better for you personally and your personal goals.

Mantra-meditation is called so because an important ingredient in the method is repition of a word or combination of words, called a mantra.

A recommended techique

The mantra-medition recommended here is done like the following:

You place yourself in a comfortable position. Generally one advices to sit comfortably in a good chair. But you can also lie confortably on your back or sides if you feel that is best, and if you know this probably will not make you fall asleep instead of meditating.

You close your eyes, tries to relax as well as possible, and tries to breath regularly. Try to breath deep enough, and breath totally out for each time, but without force the breath so that it feels exhausting.

You will probably not be able to relax and breath perfectly, but this is allright, The important thing is that you try without any hard effort.

Then you repeat the mantra with a medium speed, only by thinking it in an easy fashion, without exhausting yourself in any way. Pause just as much between each repetition that you feel natural and easy. Sometimes during meditation you will feel that a faster or slower speed will work better, and then adjust the speed.

Try to repeat it exactly. You shall not speak it, or move your lips or other speach organs. But again, do not exhaust yourself to do it correctly. Do it the best you can without forcing yourself.

It is generally adviced to meditate 15-30 minutes twice a day, but you can variate how long, when or how often according to your own need. But you should do some meditation each day to give effective results over time.

When you repeat the mantra, you will experience that a lot of thoughts or feelings begin to appear in your mind. Many of these will be good or interesting. Sometimes however you will begin thinking about unpleasant things. As long as these experiences are not very disturbing, they are a sign that the meditation is working. Often you will suddenly remember things that happened to you at some time, often in your childhood, or tings you learned a long time ago, but thought you had forgotten.

You may experience that these thoughts make you stop repeating the mantra, or that you actually keep repeating the mantra even though you experience material popping up and think about it.

The right thing in most cases is to gently stop each thoughts as it pops up, and anew keep repeating the pure mantra.

But sometimes a thought popping up is so important that you should let the thinking go on for a while, either by continue the thinking while still repeating the mantra, or continue thinking a while when the mantra repitition is paused.

Examples of this are when you discover some important material from your childhood during meditation, or when you begin finding a solution to an important problem when you are meditating.

When you have done the mediation in the planned amount of minutes, you should keep yourself relaxed with closed eyes a minute or so, and then gradually open your eyes and getting up from your position.

How to choose your mantras

You must find a mantra or a set of mantras that suit you. The best is to have a set of mantras you alternate between, because different mantras will give somewhat different benefits. You should try one mantra after another and write down those you like.

You can make up mantras yourself or easily search for some at the Internet. Your mantras should sound melodious, and be easy for you to repeat. They should be of 1, 2 or 3 syllables. The mantras should not have any spesific meaning to you. It is impossible to make up a mantra that do not mean anything in a particular languages or for a particular person. You must just find some that do not bear any specific meaning for you.

Still the sound combination in any mantra can give associations to several things in your mind. This is alright, since that make you more easily detect hidden memories during medition. By using just not one mantra, but swich several, you wil be able to track a lot more hidden things in your mind, than when you use only one mantra, and the meditation will benefit your more.

Organizations teaching mantra-meditation will usually give you one mantra that the teacher say is the right for you. This will seldome be the case, and the meditation will give you effects decided by the organization, not the effects you aim at yourself, and which benefit you the most.

Here are some examples of one-syllabic combinations that you can use as matras: an, en, in, on, un, na, ne, ni, no, ing, ang, ong, yang, yong, yung, wing, wang, wong, sing, sang, song, sin, san, sun, son, sen, shim, sham, shom, shem, shing, shang, shong, aing, aim, ain, aim, aum, aun, lam, lan, lang, long, sham, shan, wen, win, wan, won, ring, rong, rang, way, woy, wey, wel, wil, wal, wol, yel, yal, yol

Some two-syllabic mantras: inga, winga, shinga, shanga, ringa, linga, ranga, ronga, sirin, shirin, salim, shalim, salem, shalem, balam, salam, shalam, shalom, shilem, noni, nuni, moni, muni, waya, weya, woya, wala, wila, walang, wilang, wilong, parong, porang, yala, yela, yola

Some tri-syllabic mantras: winomi, sinomi, shinomi, wasana, washana, ringala, rongala, rengala, wakana, takana, sakana, yakana, wanaya, pasimo, pashimo, yolana, walana

Some of the mantras mention above will mean something specific to you. Avoid these. Other are not likeable for you. Avoid also these. You can then try out the rest one by one, and chose a set that feels god for you. or you can just make up your own combinations.



Another easy mantra-meditation techique

You can learn several meditation techiques from books, from personal gurus, or by attending courses. Here you have an easy meditation techique you can start with. This techique is a variant of the approach where you allow other thoughts to penetrate into the mediation.

Sit still in a quiet place. Close your eyes. Breath calmly.

Repeat the word "one" or another easy melodical word inside you, without any tetion or struggle.

If other thoughts pop up during this process, just let these thought play some time, and then go back to the word that is the object of mediatation again, and continue the process.

An althernative way of easy meditation is the following. Here you should try not to let other thoughts penetrate at all. However, since the consentration upon the meditational object follows the breath, this is easy.

Each time you inhale, empty your mind for all thoughts

Each time you exhale, say the word "one", or another easy word inside yoy

An even easier way to start meditation

An even easier way of bringing yourself in a meditative state, is to listen to a meditation tape, or to a sound wave generator suitable for the purpose. Such equipents you can buy from the online store in this page (Tools for wellness).



Even more meditation techniques

Meditation upon a picture

In this meditation you consentrate totally upon some picture you have before you. This can be a picture of a landscape, a picture of a nice animal, a picture of a nice or interesting boy/girl/man/women - naked or clothed, or anything else you like. The process follows as such:

Concentrate first on the whole picture. Try to grasp the totallity of the picture without concentration on eny detail

Concentrate then on the deeper meaning of the pictured object to you, inellectually and emotionally.

Then concentrate on each detail, one after one.

Go through the details once more, but try now to grasp the deeper menining of the details for you, intellectually and emotionally

Go deeper into one of the details and split this up in even smaller parts. Consentrate upon each small part. Then upon the mening of each part to you.

At the end of the meditation, consentrate once more about the whole picture. But try this time to get a fuller understanding of the totallity by concentrating upon the relationships between the details of the picture.

This meditation can be done many times upon the same picture, and every time you will get a deeper understandig of the object of the picture and the meaning of it for you.

The first times you can use an physical photograph and look at it with your eyes. As you get practise, you can fetch the picture from your memory and go through it solely in your mind.



Meditation upon your breath - Kundalini meditation

Place a thick pad on the floor. Sit in a confortable manner upon that pad with your legs crossed. Listen to the sound of your breath. Can you hear "Hahm" on the intake and "Sah" on the exhale? This is the mantra to use in this exercise. Do not speak it -- just hear it in the breath. When I say "Hahm", I refer to the inhale, and "Sah" to the exhale. Try it for a few minutes. Hahm - Sah - Hahm - Sah. Make sure you are relaxed and not forcing your breath.

Next, visualize the air in the room as breathable light. With each "Hahm," you should imagine the light entering up through your nose, around the inside of your skull, and down your spine to the lowest tip of your coccyx (tail) bone.

As you exhale, you should visualize light of a slightly different shade going back up your spine, pushing out the light you inhaled. This second light is your personal Kundalini energy. The light should follow the same path, up your spine, over the top of your head, and out your nose. As it goes, you should hear the "Sah" part of your breath stretched out for a few long seconds. Continue this for some minutes. Haaahhhhm - hold - saaaahhh. You will notice yourself gradually physically relaxing, if you are doing it right. Continue this breathing for some minutes.

This exercise will give you an energetic and vitalizing feeling that rises gradually from the base of your spin up through your body. When doing this exercise, you should not feel exhausted or get any pain. If so, you do it too long or too forcefully. Regulate the time and muscular force you use so that it allways feels confortably.

Once you have this part down, and can do it comfortably, add some minutes with the following procedure: Don't hold your breath at the base of the spine, but just pause a moment. Then, using your stomach muscles, you should release the breath in short bursts, hearing "sah, sah, sah, sah, sah," as many times as it takes before your lungs empty. Keep up the light visualizations: The light will jump with the breathing. Repeat this still some minutes minutes. Haaahhhhm, sah sah sah sah sah sah. You may be able to see your energy increase with each breath.

However -If you begin shaking and jerking, know that is a normal reaction to the increased energy in your system, and you should not fight it. (Like a shiver down the spine, it is totally involuntary and fully natural.) Don't scare yourself into stopping the exercise at this point. Soon, the jerking motions will stop, and you may begin moving in a very fluid fashion.



History and origine of meditation

Most cultures have invented or rather discovered meditation in some form or another, even though one often thinks about India as the place where mediatation originated.

Meditation have often been developed on the basis of prayer. In many religions there are prayers practized by repeating some frase or variations of some frase a number of times. One soon discovered that such reptitition done in a calm and relaxed mood quickly gave an altered mental state where the whole concentration was directed against the prayer and with a feeling of being lifted or of ecstacy.

Soon the devotees developed techiques based on religious symbols, words or actions that had the specific aim of producing a relaxed, ecstatic mental state and one believed that such a mental state was a greater nearness to god or to the heaven. The techiques were tought and practiced with the aim of getting nearer to god or of getting a state that washed away sin, guilt or effects of prior bad actions. In Christianity these techiques were called meditation and later on this word has been used about all such similar techiques, regardless of religious motivs, religious origine or lack of religious connection.

Another religious practice leading to the discovery of meditation has been the reading and reciting of religious texts from the scriptures and then the pondering and thinking about the meaning of the read passage thereafter. Such reading is often performed in a rhythic way, with full concentration and with a concentrated thinking about the meaning of the text thereafter in a calm and relxed atmosphere. Also this practice was soon discovered to leading to an aktered, extatic mental state and one modified the techiques to be especially suited for producing these relaxed, ecstactic states.

Other origines of meditation is music and dance, often combined. Listening to a passage of music in a relaxed way, especially if the music is of the soft kind and with frequent repitition of the same elements with small variations, has the ability to produce states where the body is totally relaxed, where the mind is totally devoted to the music and ehere there is a feeling of ecstacy and of being lifted.

Rhytmic dance in a relaxed way and a relaxed athmosphare can quickly lead to a concentrated mental state with the feeling of being lifted. As this feeling develops and gets stronger, the intensity of the dance also tend to get stronger with and even stronger feeling of liftedness as a result. A dance developing this way will often get very intence physically, but all tensions and muscular work not necessary for the dance itself will cease som thst on gets a state with deep relaxation in some ways and intence muscular work in other ways. A modern verson of such dance is that performed at house parties combined with techno music or related modern music styles.

Still another origine of meditation are sexual activities done in a relaxed and comfortable way that do not have the aim of a quick orgasm. Performing sex in such a mood, be it together with another person or be it by means of sole masturbation, will often lead to a lifted and ecstatic mental state combined with ectatic and lifted feelings in the body, and where all the mind is concentrated upon the sexual feelings.

In most cultures there have been people that decided to dvote their life entirely for meditation and religious practice combined with meditation. In some cultures there has developeted tratditions that such people take disciples and classes for teaching their techiques. These people are commonly refered to a masters or gurus. This tradition is especially strong in India and Hinduism.



Omega 3 EPA: Nature's own antidepressant

Since Dr Malcolm Peet, a consultant psychiatrist at Sheffield swallow court hospital released his findings about the effects of Ethyl Epa and its effects on people suffering from depression and low moods, many other studies have been performed using Ethyl Epa to help treat depression and related disorders. The vast majority of the studies that have been performed consistently confirmed that Ethyl Epa, a natural substance found in omega 3 fish oil, helps relieve depression and low moods.

The idea that high grade omega 3 EPA could be used to help combat depression and other related disorders came from the late Dr Horribin, who as early as the 1970s was a pioneer in lipid research involving the brain and central nervous system. Since the findings at Sheffield, studies have been conducted round the world, Harvard university 1999, London Hammersmith hospital 2001 and Israel Ben Gurion University  2002 to name but a few.

EPA As Part Of A Healthy Diet

EPA is part of the Omega 3 chain of ecosanoids and is most commonly found in fatty fish such as fresh salmon, mackerel, pilchards and sardines. Over the past 100 years the diet patterns of most people in the west has shifted dramatically to include far more hydrogenated oils and Trans fatty acids (bad fats) this is largely due to the increased consumption of fast food and ready made meals. Even people who think they eat a healthy diet consume way too much omega 6 and not enough omega 3.

Researchers have recently found that a diet high in Tran's fatty acids could affect the mood stabilizing hormones within the brain, this is thought to be due to the saturated fats slowing down the messaging system within the brain, should this happen then the onset of depression could occur.

How Does EPA Work?

While the benefits of high grade EPA have been well documented, the scientific community still don't know exactly how EPA works on the brain, one theory released by Dr Basant Puri is that it eases the passage of the signals over the tiny gaps in the brain called synapses. Another theory was that the high Grade Epa actually worked similar to lithium and had anti depressant properties of its own.

Until recently it was widely accepted in the medical community that once a human reached maturity that the adult brain could not grow anymore, in a recent paper just released by Dr Puri his findings show other wise. Dr Puri scanned a 21 year patient before treating him with high grade Pure Epa, after the course of treatment he rescanned the young man only to find that the grey matter of the brain had increased in size.

Omega 3 EPA And The Body

As well as EPA being very good for helping to balance mood it has other well documented effects on the body, these included:-

. Blood thinning properties
. Decrease risk of heart attack
. Decrease growth rate  of atherosclerotic plaque
. Slightly lower blood pressure

There is also some limited scientific evidence to show that high grade EPA has helped people suffering from:-

. Bipolar disorder
. PMS
. Chronic fatigue syndrome / ME
. Huntington's disease
. Fibromyalgia
. Obsessive compulsive disorder
. Schizophrenia
. ADHD
. ADD

Although more research needs to be done in these areas, the current evidence looks very promising.

EPA Versus DHA

Omega 3 fish oil contains another omega 3 nutrient called DHA, there is a currently a controversial argument as to which omega 3 nutrient is the more beneficial in dealing with depression and related disorders.  This Argument is born from doctors who have used high grade Epa , Horribin, Puri and Peet  They claim that the higher the ratio of Epa to Dha the more effective the results have been, just recently Dr Andrew Stoll has also come out in support of this theory.

EPA From Food

Any good doctor or nutritionist will tell you that the best way to get any nutrient is to eat a very balanced diet of the correct amount of carbohydrates , protein and omega essential fatty acids.  In the case of Omega 3 epa  this would be in the form of fish,  unfortunately due to the high concentration levels of epa needed to obtain a therapeutic dose you would have to consume a large amount of oily fish daily and sadly due to the pollution levels found in our oceans today this is not advisable.

Omega 3 Epa can also be found in high doses in certain fish oil supplements, when choosing a fish oil supplement you should choose only the  fish oil of the highest quality  it should also  have as high an EPA to DHA ratio as possible,for maximum therapeutic effect.

Conclusion

The large majority of scientific trails using high grade Omega 3 Ethyl Epa point towards this natural oil being very beneficial for many conditions. The argument about the DHA rages on and probably will until some solid  scientific evidence is presented to us .In the mean time a product with a high EPA to DHA ratio is considered more beneficial by some leading UK doctors.

The Author

Dave mcevoy:  A great resource for high grade omega 3 Ethly EPA fish oil in a vegetable shell with a 90% concentrate of EPA and Zero DHA; visit: https://www.mind1st.co.uk

 

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This information is nutritional in nature and should not be construed as medical advice. This notice is required by the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.