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Re: Self Help makes you feel worse?

PostPosted: 30 Dec 2016
by ex-l
And when does one get even ... afterwards, once one is calm?

Welcome to the forum. Have you had any Brahma Kumari experience, Toby?

Re: Self Help makes you feel worse?

PostPosted: 03 Jun 2019
by black_panther
Mental Health is really a big issue. I believe it has been for generations. The way we cope with it and mitigate the effects of it have dramatically changed, though. Some for good some really for worse. The consumption of anxiety drugs in the USA has tripled since the early 2000. Some needed, some not. The danger of using medication in the levels we are right now are visible. I am all for medication with responsibility but my family has suffered quite a bit in the hands of psychiatrists dispensing drugs like it was candy in Halloween. Lifestyle changes were really what made significant and permanent changes in my family, not the drugs sold by "well intended" pharmaceutical companies. I personally started doing Yoga, following a well-balanced diet, drinking chamomile and shilajit tea. One way or another these, as well as occupational therapy, seems to help me cope with the anxiety.

Re: Self Help makes you feel worse?

PostPosted: 04 Jun 2019
by Pink Panther
Hi Black Panther,

Welcome to this forum.

I think the concept of "self help" in this topic is more about the idea of ”spiritual” people not accepting things that are OK or "normal" when they actually are; that there is somehow an imperative to improve/purify what is actually pretty normal for the human condition; the commercialisation and other exploitations of that. Your point about over-pathologising and over-prescribing of drugs is one example of that.

The idea of self help is good, that we are our own best teachers and doctors. The self-help industry however is based on self-help being about giving money (time or energy) over to others to tell you that!

In the BKs, and other cults, people might join a group that publicly says they are about facilitating "self-awareness" or "self-actualisation” - which would imply that there is a time when that’s achieved and people move on in their lives - when in fact people are encouraged to identify with the group, a cult identity, and to continue needing their "services”, to keep attending.

What is your experience or connection to the BKs? What brings you here?

Re: Self Help makes you feel worse?

PostPosted: 09 Jun 2019
by GuptaRati 6666
There is another area of self help or self health gaining momentum, even in academic circles; it is lifestyle medicine and health. I was quite surprised that spiritual and economic health are two of the components of lifestyle medicine and health. Some medical schools are grudgingly incorporating lifestyle management courses into their training of doctors. However, some graduate schools of health are.

With respect to anxiety, one non-pharmaceutical intervention method which has increasingly gained attention by mainstream medical science is flotation restrictive environmental technique or FL-REST. The findings of one scientist indicate FL-REST elicits three types of altered states of consciousness: generalized altered states of consciousness, the relaxation response, and shamanistic states of consciousness. The states are experienced by floating in a saturated solution of magnesium sulfate, which induces a sensation of anti-gravity and altered states.

Hollywood did stigmatize FL-REST and the use of the sensory deprivation tank developed by Dr. John Lilly at the NIH, but many spas offer flotation as part of their relaxation protocol. More and more scientists, as evidenced by papers presented at the Float Conference in Portland, Oregon are investigating FL-REST.

Re: Self Help makes you feel worse?

PostPosted: 09 Jun 2019
by ex-l
I've never tried flotation tanks because when they existed, there was a business fad for them a while ago that's kind of moved on to something else, they were beyond my budget ... but I'd like to. I see the logic in reducing brain/neural stimulation simply caused by the effects of gravity/old age etc alone.

I've never actually done LSD but I can see how Lilly's experiments must have been fun.

I wonder how this both would square with the new research being done with, say, depression and PTSD using microdosing with LSD/MDMA and other hallucinogenics.
    Psychotherapy *inside* a flotation tank *while* microdosing the patient? With, obviously, the Psychotherapist *outside* the tank, talking them through it via a mic and speakers. Where do I apply for funding?
As "economy class" alternatives, I've been playing around with headphones and various 'Binaural' sound tracks. No idea where I found them, no idea the science behind or about them (I think it is suppose to be brainwave/subliminal something based), but I have to say they do knock me out to a deep sleep. Although it may just be from some simple noise cancelling effect.

I did read, however, research that debunks the idea of subliminal hypnotic suggestion during sleep having come to negative conclusions.

Continuing on the budget theme, there's been a bit of press and a bit of media on the practise of shinrin-yoku or, literally, "forest bathing" with doctors starting to become aware of the value “Social prescribing”, prescribing sports and other activities instead of drugs or cosmically exaggerated solutions like BKism to what might just be simple, down to earth problems, like one's family or environment*.

Having purged myself of the fantasy of earning "yogi superpowers" or "becoming perfect" through BKism, I am thinking a content normal within a healthy environment is good enough.

It makes me wonder how much of the push factor towards BKism, is actually just the BKs exploiting the problems of the Indian relationships with their environments, whether urban or natural.

Trump got in trouble not so long ago for calling development nations "sh*tholes" but, in all fairness, it is not exactly untrue of many parts of the Indian urban and semi-rural sprawl; sh*tholes, dungheaps and middens to be precise.

How can one been happy and healthy within such environments?

Part of the cure is clearly fixing them, rather than "zoning out" of it ... which the BKs also sort of adopt as part of their marketing taking over public parks and turning them into tidy areas.

It's the clean and tidy (much of which is a product of wealth) that has much of the effect.


* There's been a good bit of solid science done on the curative effects of green and natural environments and it appears to support the commonsense conclusion.

Re: Self Help makes you feel worse?

PostPosted: 09 Jun 2019
by GuptaRati 6666
The shamanistic states of consciousness and generalized altered states of consciousness produced by the float tank experience, are similar to states attained by the use of psychoactive drugs from plants and their synthetic equivalents including LSD. However, with the float tank, the experiences are without side effects and empowers the floater, person using the float tank to over come chronic anxiety and addictions. Benson's relaxation response is also elicited as part of the float tank experience.

Indeed, many segments of developing and developed nations need to markedly improve personal hygiene as part of lifestyle medicine. Included are the ecological and environmental spaces we occupy 24x7, or most of each year.

The BK can brag about the service they do to VIPs who will help to make the world a better place. They usually miss the authentic ones, or the authentic VIPs usually avoid the BKs, because they know them well and wish not to waste their time having any interactions with them.

Re: Self Help makes you feel worse?

PostPosted: 09 Jun 2019
by GuptaRati 6666
During FL-REST, there is an effortless turning away of the five senses from the external environment to the internal environment of the body and soul, due to the micro-gravity experience. It is not unusual for first time and expert floaters to hear their hearts beating and seeing the flow of blood in their bodies while having an out of body experience. It usually startling or unsettling for the new comer. For the expert floater it is just part of the trip to experiencing the three states simultaneously.

Re: Self Help makes you feel worse?

PostPosted: 10 Jun 2019
by ex-l
Why do astronauts not have similar experiences in zero gravity?

Re: Self Help makes you feel worse?

PostPosted: 11 Jun 2019
by GuptaRati 6666
I think that if they made a little mental effort they can. NASA in the 1980's conducted extensive and deep studies in psychophysiology.