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Positive thinking

Stoking The Inner Fire

Turning Inward During Winter
In the depths of winter, we can forget that bare trees will once again be full with foliage, and grass and flowers hidden beneath a blanket of white or a deceptive covering of hardened earth will burst forth once again. While they slumber, nature is continuing its work at the center of each living thing. We can think of our blankets and warm clothes as similar protection—like the cocoon that surrounds a changing caterpillar—while we undergo our own inner transformational work. In the meantime, the lights that twinkle and the fires that warm us can serve to remind us of the flame of life that burns within us.

In order to stoke our inner flame, we can use the time indoors to focus our attention on our homes and families. We can become distracted by the world outside and forget that we need to nourish the lights that warm our hearts. Interacting at a soul level can be done by sharing stories from our hearts, doing projects together, dancing, or playing games. Devoting energy this way helps us build a stronger bond that will sustain us once the world allows us each to pursue our individual goals again.

Winter allows us to feed the flame in our own centers by reading or researching to nourish our dreams and plans for the future. This can mean catching up on all the quieter things we wanted to do but didn’t have time for, like reading books, watching movies, or listening to music. We may have set aside creative pursuits such as painting or writing that can be brought back to the center burner now. It is also a great time to do some journaling to look back on the year that has passed and perhaps the years before this one in preparation for forward motion in the coming year. Nature’s wisdom offers us opportunities to nourish our inner seeds of hope in preparation for our future, so let us enjoy the inner warmth and be grateful for it all.

Sources: Daily Om

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News on Health & Science

Drugs lead to brain brake failure

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 A single dose of morphine was found to lower the inhibitions of rats, even after the drug had left their systems, a finding that may help scientists better understand addiction in humans, US researchers said.

In rats, the painkiller blocked the brain’s ability to strengthen connections, or synapses, that ratchet down reward or pleasure, researchers from Brown University reported in the journal Nature.

“What we have found is that the inhibitory synapses can no longer be strengthened 24 hours after treatment with morphine, which suggests that a natural brake has been removed,” said Julie Kauer, a professor of molecular pharmacology, physiology and biotechnology at Brown.

“This happens 24 hours after the animal had one dose of morphine. There is no morphine left in the brain. It shows that it is a persistent effect of the drug,” she said in a telephone interview.

Kauer said the finding adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting a link between learning and addiction and may help in the development of drugs to treat addiction. “Strengthening synapses, we think, is the beginning of the formation of memory,” she said.

By shutting off the natural ability to strengthen connections that inhibit pleasure, the brain may be learning to crave drugs, she said.

Kauer said the brain has two kinds of neurons  those that excite the nerve connections and those that inhibit or depress them.

“If inhibition is reduced, you get runaway excitability,” she said. This imbalance may boost the firing of neurons that make dopamine, the brain’s “pleasure chemical” activated after rewarding experiences such as eating, sex, and the use of addictive drugs.

Kauer found the changes in a small section of the midbrain that is involved in the reward system. While her study looked at the early response to addictive drugs, she intends to study the effect over time.

Source:The Times Of India

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