Remembering Happy Memories
As we age, the percentage of anxiety driven thoughts increase since a lifetime of anxieties produce unpleasant memories which shadows the happy ones.
Any time you ask people about happy moments in their lives, they have to think hard. But ask
them about unpleasant or sad moments, they will come easily with many. Neurobiology throw
some light on it. There are sufficient indications that bad/ unpleasant thoughts occupy a major
portion of our thinking. There is Socio- biological reasoning for it. In order to survive, humans developed strategies to get resources and ward off enemies and predators. This helped in developing the controlling instinct which allowed us to control our environment and hoard resources. All these came with the baggage of bad of harming others and in turn being harmed by them. These thoughts which lead to traumatic events produce very powerful memories in our brains.
It has been observed that once anxiety-driven thoughts kick in, more and more negative thoughts
start emerging from the brain. It is as if the brain goes into a spiral about negative thoughts. This
also starts, in some episodes of depression. When ego goes on overdrive either because of adrenalin (gland which increases the blood circulation) in flowing or other inputs then, a large number of random neurons fire and neural pathways associated with existing memories light up.
Since anxiety driven memories are much more than pleasant memories, this could be the reason why we get one bad thought after another leading to an agitated mind.
Calmness of mind, comes when we focus on a single thought for a long time. This process helps the brain to loosen other mental knots and allows the processing power of released neurons to focus on
a single thought and helps in reducing traumatic memories.
This process gives significant happiness to a person.
The yogic process achieved by tremendous discipline and years of practice with viveka,wisdom and power of discrimination allows the brain to make decisions after looking all eventualities and helps
in reducing painful thoughts. To be free from thoughts that distract one from yoga, thoughts of an opposite kind must be cultivated. With continuous effort of cultivating happy thoughts, they can replace anxiety driven thoughts.
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Any time you ask people about happy moments in their lives, they have to think hard. But ask
them about unpleasant or sad moments, they will come easily with many. Neurobiology throw
some light on it. There are sufficient indications that bad/ unpleasant thoughts occupy a major
portion of our thinking. There is Socio- biological reasoning for it. In order to survive, humans developed strategies to get resources and ward off enemies and predators. This helped in developing the controlling instinct which allowed us to control our environment and hoard resources. All these came with the baggage of bad of harming others and in turn being harmed by them. These thoughts which lead to traumatic events produce very powerful memories in our brains.
It has been observed that once anxiety-driven thoughts kick in, more and more negative thoughts
start emerging from the brain. It is as if the brain goes into a spiral about negative thoughts. This
also starts, in some episodes of depression. When ego goes on overdrive either because of adrenalin (gland which increases the blood circulation) in flowing or other inputs then, a large number of random neurons fire and neural pathways associated with existing memories light up.
Since anxiety driven memories are much more than pleasant memories, this could be the reason why we get one bad thought after another leading to an agitated mind.
Calmness of mind, comes when we focus on a single thought for a long time. This process helps the brain to loosen other mental knots and allows the processing power of released neurons to focus on
a single thought and helps in reducing traumatic memories.
This process gives significant happiness to a person.
The yogic process achieved by tremendous discipline and years of practice with viveka,wisdom and power of discrimination allows the brain to make decisions after looking all eventualities and helps
in reducing painful thoughts. To be free from thoughts that distract one from yoga, thoughts of an opposite kind must be cultivated. With continuous effort of cultivating happy thoughts, they can replace anxiety driven thoughts.
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