Power of the Mind

I want to expand on my blog of a few weeks ago about the power of the mind. There is no longer any doubt that the mind can lead us to happier lives. There are many books on the market that discuss how we can be affected in a negative manner by the way we think.

            To me it’s especially important to be aware of that fact as we age because it would indicate that it is possible to feel younger if we set our minds to it. In one experiment, men in their 70s and 80s practiced pretending they were younger, and the end result was that their bodies were in fact younger.

            In her book Joy! Joy! Joy! Ellen Wood says that she reversed cognitive decline with a program of mind/body/spirit self-help that she developed. She was worried that her fate would be the same as that of her mother who had been a victim of Alzheimer’s disease.

It seems to me that as they age some people simply give up and accept the physical and mental decline of old age without any thought to how their lives could be better. They say things like: my mother died of cancer, that’s what will happen to me, or my grandmother had osteoporosis, so will I. Or dementia runs in my family, so there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s very sad, because so much can be done

One of the habits I have adopted some time ago now is that I meditate every day, twice a day most of the time. The result for me has been that it not only calms me and helps me sleep better but that it has also improved minor physical problems. So why not take advantage of such a simple habit that does not cost anything and has so many positive benefits. It simply involves guiding the mind to positivity.

And positivity is important at any age, and as we get on in years good thoughts should always be our primordial aim. Why suffer when we can let the mind makes us feel better, happier and even younger!