ISLAM AND PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE

MOHAMMAD AHMAD AND Mrs. NIKHAT AHMAD

India.

www.islamset.com

The most important cause of morbidity today is the stress and strain of life. Not only this, but directly or indirectly the stress and strain of life. Not only this, but directly or indirectly the stress and strains of life are also one of the most important causative factors of cornary artery diseases which stands out as the number on ekiller of mankind today.

"We are born in pain, we die in pain and in between there are pains both psychic and somatic". One cannot avoid stress in life nor can we live without stress. It is essential for the development of human faculties. But excess of it is extremely damaging to the human body. Minimising stress within tolerable limits is the goal of modern physical and psychological therapy.

The present work attempts to analyse how best Islamic practices have contributed to solving the psychological problems and have helped towards a healthier living in a chieving positive health.

Because of the limited space only the commonly practiced methods which minimise stress and bring about relaxation both physcial and mental will be discussed int he light of Islam.

The following methods of relaxation have been selected for the present discussion.

1. MID-DAY NAP

A short mid-day nap (Qailulah) is a Sunnah. The value of this mid-day nap in total body relaxation has been appreciated recently by scientists.

Not only does a mid-day nap give relaxation to the body in day time but it is also very conducive to sleep at right.

Relaxing once during the day is very conducive to total relaxation and sleep - once you crawn into bed for the night (Kerner)

It should be appreciated that insomnia is a "powerful stressor in itself". The Sunnah of short mid-day nap may, therefore, be practiced as a remedy for sleeplessness.

Furthermore, the sunnah is not necessarily to sleep during the day but to lie down for some time to relax. This is exactly what is required for proper relaxation according to the modem scientific investigations.

2. FAITH IN THE ALMIGHTY CREATOR AND SUSTAINER

Lack of faith in the Almighty Creator is one of the theories of psychological disorders leading to psychoneurosis and psychoses. This can be understood from the knowledge of the mechanisms of development disorders.

Man is constantly exposed to stress conditions. It is not possible to avoid stress in life. One tries to adjust to the stresses of life by methods which he has learned as well as by the inherited tendencies of reactions to stress. The resul of this stress adaptation interaction is a STESS REACTION. The effect of this stress reaction will depend upon the severity on stress and on the power of adaptation of the individual to stress. If stress is mild an dpower of adaptation is good, the reaction results in an adjustment which is beneficial to the individual. However, if the stress is severe and adjustment poor, it results in major mental disorders (psychosis).

A person who has the faith in Allah the Alkmighty and He is with Him, has an intense moral support which will sustain him in th emost adverse situations in life.

Hadith Sharif mentions extensively of the importance of the virtues of remembrances of Allah and the Holy Quran bears a testimony to it in the following words:

BEHOLD ITS MERIT THAT REMEMBRANCE OF ALLAH BESTOWS SATISFACTION OF HEART

It is logical to conclude that believing in one Allah as preached by Islam provides the real moral support as needed in life and bestows satisfaction of heart.

3. FAITH IN LIFE HEREAFTER AND ACCEPTING THE INEVITABLE

In the light of the foregoing discussion, it is obvious that one who believes that the troubles of this Dunia are nothing but emporary and Dunia is Fani, and there is a life hereafter, will be content with whatever he gets in this world. 'Accepting the inevitable' is an important and indispensable mechanism of psychological defence against frustration.

Those who do not have faith in life hereafter are totally dprived of this benefit. Those who believe in a temporary life hereafter will be partially deprived of this benefit and those who believe that they will get the rewards of all their deeds in the world only, should be expected to have an effect of fear rather than relief.

The faith in destiny and in the life hereafter as is preached by Islam should definitely be the most effective sustainer for anybody.

4. CARE OF NEIGHBOURS

In the so-called 'most advanced places', it is a fact that people do not know even their immediate neighbours. The scientific significance of keeping good relations with neighbours is being appreciated only recently with the observations of Hans Seley, known as the father of the science of Stress. He has concluded that the most important factor affecting mental peace is having good relations with neighbours. In most of the religions good relations with neighbours has been emphasized. But the meaning of aneighbour and the type of relations to be kept with neighbours is very comprehensive in Islam. As for the definition of a neighbour, in Islam all persons living in the 40 houses from the houses of an indiviudal, in all directions, are his neighbours. As regards the rights of the neighbours; these are extensive in Islam. Hazrat Gibrail stressed so much on the right of neighbours that once it appeared to Rasool (pbuh) that neighbours may have a share in the property of a person. Thus one can appreciate the status of a neighbour as considered in Islam.

It is the faith of all Muslims that all the teachings of the Prophet (pbuh) are the best of the actions. The psychiatrist will definitely realise their significance when he will look at it in an unbiased perspective.

5. SLEEP POSTURE

The posture one adopts while sleeping reveals a lot about the personality of the person, his attitude towards life and so on.

Lying down in bed relaxes the muscles of the body and the degree of relaxation is determined by the sleep posture adopted by the person.

In the semifoetal position the person lies on his side with arms and legs partially folded. The limbs are not kept in an exactly opposed position.

In terms of physical comfort, in this position it is possible to turn from side to side without undoing the set configuration of the body position. It is supposed to be the best position in terms of physical comfort. It has, therefore, been considered as the best position for relaxation.

According to an old proverb the kings are known to prefer to sleep on their back, the rich man on his stomach and th ewise man on his side.

These abovementioned observations bear testimony to the superiority of sleeping in semi-flexed position on one side.

The sleep position which was adopted by Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) is a Sunnah and is scrupulously adopted by devout Muslims. He used to lie on his right-side with limbs slightly flexed, right hand below his cheek and facing towrds Kaba Sharif. This position is similar to the semi-foetal position described above, and, obviously in the light of the existing knowledge about sleep posture, is the position adopted by a highly balanced person psychologically. It is also the best posture for relaxation, both physical and psychological. Adherence to this sleep posture should therefore, contribute a lot to total body relaxation.

SALAT AS A MEANS OF RELAXATION

In salat the person concentrates on Allah, who is not a formed object but a Light, a Noor, with all His qualities of being Rahman and Rahim. He is unlimited and will remain forever. He is the Master of the Day of Judgement, the Qeyamat, when the fate of every body will be decided. The person not only concentrates on Allah but also talks to Him in a murmuring voice, reciting His own words. The person not only sits before Allah, but stands before Him, bows down before Him and finally prostrates before Him. Praising Him with words better than which no human mind can think of and better than which no human can utter. Finally, he recites the conversation which took place between Allah and Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) during Meraj. Obviously both in physical form and in mental state, this should be a definite improvement on the most sophisticated method of concentration devised by human mind.

From theforegoing discussion, it is obvious that scientific researches have confirmed the superiority of Islamic practices. Further researches will definaitely reveal more astonishing facts regarding the superiority of faith in one Almighty Allah, faith in the eternal life hereafter and in the life style of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh).

Anxiety and psychological maladjustments bring about a chain of metabolic changes which, in turn, produce damage in various tissues of the body - causing 'PSYCHOSOMATIC DISEASE'. These diseases are the most important cause of, morbidity and mortality of mankind today. Islamic practices bring about peace of mind and soul apart from giving phsycial relaxation. Undoubtedly, if one adheres to the teachings of Prophet (pbuh) he will be greatly benefited in this life as well as in the life here after.

REFERENCE

1. Al-Quran-ul Hakeem (Surah Ra'ad)
2. 'The Teachings of Islam' by Shaikhul Hadis Hazrat Maulana Mohammad Zakaria; published by Idara Ishaat-e-Dinyat, Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia, New Delhi, India.
3. 'Stress and your Heart' By Fred Kerner, Hawthorn Books Inc. 1961.
4. 'Souvenir' Divinise The Man International Conference, Bombay India, 1976-77.
5. Reader's Digest- "What your sleep position reveals". Nov. 1977 issue.

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Blind Fold Reading Method

What's "Blindfold Reading Method"

"Blindfold Reading Method" is a way that is designed to enable the ability of the midbrain and brain power that can balance the middle of the left brain and right brain.

Blindfold Test Standard Method
Finish the course one day, our children will be tested by closing their eyes to "see" and "read" without using the naked eye. This is because after the middle of the brain activated a phenomenon will occur that our children can "see" and "read" even though their eyes were covered with a cloth. Subsequent exercise of the muscles of the eyes and hands will enable more capabilities as before. You only need to train your children for 15 minutes every day.
Benefits of "Blindfold Reading Method"
Many scientists have given an explanation about the theory of functions of the left brain and right brain. According to a recent investigation, humans are the dominant right brain will process information and react in a way that berlainan.Mayority said the theory that whoever will be the dominant right brain is emotional and act by following the feeling, like menghayal. If the dominant left brain will react in a more logical manner. Students who left brain dominant trait will show more regularly. They will analyze the information and process it in teratur.Selain than that, students are more dominant left brain was carefully and follow the rules, show a strong ability in mathematics and science and can answer the question with cepat.Dengan Thus, personality someone that will be determined by the dominant species of our brains.

How the brain with students who are dominant center?
They will exhibit a balance between left brain and right brain. Thus, the ability of "brain center is the secret to success." Brain functions like a central control center for the left brain and right brain and the ability to highlight more like their original grandeur of the human brain.
Privileges are:
a) Improve the ability of remembering
b) It can encourage attention
c) Creative
d) balancing hormone
e) Stability of emotion
Students close their eyes just to show that the brain center of a pupil has been activated. Our goal is not to close the eyes. Close your eyes just the first stage where the students learn to concentrate. The disciples did not need to blindfold when it reached a high stage.

source: www.otakgenius.com

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96% Son of Indonesia had a Bad Experience on the Internet

By Fajar Widiantoro
detik.com

The parents should pay more attention to children's online activities. Because, according to research from Symantec, Internet security firm, 96% of children in Indonesia had a bad experience with a negative content on the internet.

Negative item in purpose was none other than the content from pornography, violence, gambling sites, until the other adult content that is not time for access by children. According Effendy Ibrahim, Internet Safety Advocate & Cosumer Bussines Lead for Symantec Asia.

"Three out of ten parents are not aware of the content consumed by their children while online," Ibrahim said in a presentation Norton Family Online Report 2010 at Hotel Grand Hyatt, Jakarta, Thursday (01/07/2010).

Effendy said, this report is not to scare parents, but rather intended to warn parents to better communicate with their baby while consuming Internet content.

Moreover, at this time the average child spends approximately 64 hours online each month. Based on Symantec's data, only one in three parents in Indonesia to monitor the content their children consume.

Unfortunately, even parents know of activities that kids do, they still could not communicate very well against children. "Some kids must have thought would be reprimanded when caught accessing adult sites. It should be the parents to open communication with a warm and open," said Effendy.

In the research also shows that the negative content circulating on the internet a little more influence children's emotional side. There is a feeling angry (53%), disappointed (40%), disturbed, shocked, or worried (all 38%) for having seen it.

Role of Parents

So how should parents respond to this attitude? Parents certainly have important roles related to the understanding of the existing content on the internet.

According to Effendy, a combination of technology and how to communicate to children is the most important thing. Preventive approach is far better than the repressive attitude of rebuke.

In addition, parents and the child must also make regulations about the way of surfing with a healthy family. One way to put computers in strategic places in the house and how long it is allowed internet access.

While the technical side, parents can choose the software filters Internet content in the negative. There have been many free software to perform these precautions, such as the Norton Family Online is already available in 25 languages worldwide.

The research itself involved 499 adults aged over 18 years. Of that total, 102 of whom have children aged 10-17 years. Meanwhile, for children who have surveyed 112 people aged 10-17 years, all spent an average of more than one hour per week to access the Internet.

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The Defense of Computers, the Internet and Our Brains

By NICK BILTON
The New York Times

If you’re reading this blog post on a computer, mobile phone or e-reader, please stop what you’re doing immediately. You could be making yourself stupid. And whatever you do, don’t click on the links in this post. They could distract you from the flow of my beautiful prose and narrative.
This is the alarm currently being rung by some in the bell towers of technology.

There is a lively discussion and some concern that computers, the Internet and multitasking are extracting a mental price.

Nicholas Carr argues in his book “The Shallows,” that the Internet, computers, Google, Twitter and the like, are making us into shallow thinkers and the neurocircuitry of our brain that long form reading creates is critical for society to function. Mr. Carr thinks that the Web, with its colored hypertext and endless abyss of bite-sized morsels of information, is making us stupid.

Charles Baldwin for The New York Times

Several studies show that video games and the Web stimulate areas of the brain associated with memory, hand and eye coordination and attention.

And although there are plenty of others in this camp, there are some who argue that not only are our brains just fine on the Internet, but they are indeed better off for it.

Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist and professor of psychology at Harvard, argues on the Op-Ed page in Friday’s New York Times that the current outcry is nothing new. The same was heard, he writes, after the invention of the printing press, newspapers, paperbacks and television. Now, the fear stems from PowerPoint, search engines and Twitter.

Professor Pinker points out that our brains are intended to be rewired and learn new things. It’s the way we are built:

Critics of new media sometimes use science itself to press their case, citing research that shows how “experience can change the brain.” But cognitive neuroscientists roll their eyes at such talk. Yes, every time we learn a fact or skill the wiring of the brain changes; it’s not as if the information is stored in the pancreas. But the existence of neural plasticity does not mean the brain is a blob of clay pounded into shape by experience.

Jonah Lehrer, author of “How We Decide,” also argues that our brains are likely just fine on the Internet. Mr. Lehrer, a former neuroscientist, writes on his blog, The Frontal Cortex, that “given this paucity of evidence, I think it’s far too soon to be drawing firm conclusions about the negative effects of the Web.”

In a recent blog post Mr. Lehrer notes that the evidence critics use to attack the Web could be used to argue that we shouldn’t even walk down a city street as the cognitive load is far too great for our brains to handle. He notes that a in 2008, a group of scientists from the University of Michigan engaged in a study that showed walking led the brain to see a “dramatic decreases in working memory, self-control, visual attention and positive affect.” Mr Lehrer writes:

When people walk down the street, they are forced to exert cognitive control and top-down attention, and all that mental effort takes a temporary toll on their brain.

Based on this data, it would be easy to conclude that we should avoid the metropolis, that the city street is a hazardous place.

Then there is the reality that our brains, the tool that you, the reader, are currently using to decode these symbols and understand what they mean, has still not evolved to naturally learn to read: reading is an unnatural task that we still need to train our brains to learn.

Maryanne Wolf, the director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts, and author of “Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain,” notes that our brains were never actually designed to read. In a blog post last year on The Times blog, Room for Debate, Ms. Wolf wrote:

After many years of research on how the human brain learns to read, I came to an unsettlingly simple conclusion: We humans were never born to read. We learn to do so by an extraordinarily ingenuous ability to rearrange our “original parts” — like language and vision, both of which have genetic programs that unfold in fairly orderly fashion within any nurturant environment. Reading isn’t like that.

Ms. Wolf, who is concerned about the effects of the Web on children, recently explained in a phone interview that although our brains are not designed to read, the act and process children go through when decoding letters and narrative is an imperative part of a child’s development and thinking.

Ms. Wolf points out different media have value. “I’m not saying other mediums and technologies are not good for the brain, research shows that they are,” she said, “but we must understand the use of visual auditory narratives so we don’t neglect the role of the reading circuit.”

Research shows that each medium offers its own positive attributes: Neuroscience has shown that playing video games stimulates areas of our brains that control working memory, hand and eye coordination and attention and can stimulate and vastly improve our cognitive skills. Reading on the other hand promotes deep thought and exercises areas of the brain responsible for reflection, reasoning and critical analysis. And auditory storytelling stimulates areas of the brain involved with creativity, contextual thinking and executive function.

It could be argued that the Web, which is the ultimate library of words, video, images, interactivity, sharing and conversation, is the quintessential place to learn.

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The Amazing Midbrain Activation

Midbrain activation is a phenomenal discovery in the education of children. Actual use of the midbrain theory has been applied in many Asian countries especially Japan. Japan has long been engaged in practice midbrain activation in childrens. A child who has been activated the midbrain will have more ability than children who the midbrain have not activated.

Activities with eyes closed is a most significant activity can be seen. A child who the midbrain has been activated (Mid Brain Activated) can have extraordinary abilities. This ability is even exhibited remarkably often in magic entertainment programs. After seeing the ability of children who have been activated, most magic game show at The Master's become less attractive. Because this can be done by their own innocent children who only received training midbrain activation during the two days. Basic skills that can be done is to 'see' the card with the eyes closed (blind fold). Christofle (9 yrs), for example, after following the midbrain activation training, can sort all cards according to numbers, colors and shapes the picture cards with their eyes closed. He could use the felt senses to see the patterns and colors complete with figures just by eyesight skin (Skin Vision).

Another capability that can be done by these children is to walk with eyes closed, without crashing. Conducted experiments on a boy who walked with his eyes covered with cloth. Someone deliberately blocking the road in front. He was immediately able to avoid obstacles without touching it. A child can even recognize his father among the crowd of other parents, without touching and hearing his voice.

At more advanced levels a child is expected to
'See' objects behind walls or inside the box. He can even count the money contained in the
someone in front of her wallet without the person issuing wallet. If a child is diligent train brain functions and even the middle he can expect to read documents located in a position closed.

Predictive ability (to predict what will happen some time later) is a higher capacity that can be owned by a child. A child who has been the center of the brain activation can 'guess' what the card will appear at the time the person is still shuffle the cards. Once finished mixing, and choose a card, that person took a card that turned out exactly as 'suspected' of the child.

Midbrain activation is not something magical or supernatural smells. Midbrain activation was done by scientifically. Midbrain activation was much use Alpha brain waves. Alpha brainwaves are the scientifically proven brain waves that appear dominant as we in a state of relaxed and most creative. These brain waves are usually dominant at the time we wake up, or in a state of relax on the toilet, or even having a bath of hot water in the bathtub. No wonder why Archimedes discovered the law Achimedes when he took a shower.

Midbrain of the activated brain waves that radiate like a radar. This makes the owner able to see objects in a state of eyes closed. Basically, the wave is located below the nose. Only able to detect objects located slightly below the nose.

Regular exercise can make the children become stronger and able to see objects located higher. There are even some kids who can medeteksi to 360 degrees. That means they can detect objects located in the rear, top and all directions.

Brain activation training center has been installed in Indonesia. Today not many people know of the existence of this training program. Training is usually conducted over two days. At that time, also usually carried out training for the parents. Like other areas of expertise, parents can play a major role to help children develop their potential midbrain. A child with a strong mid-brain, expected to develop the left brain and right brain to be maximal so that they can enter the category of genius. Not only in the left brain (IQ, intellectual), or right brain (emotional, EQ) but also in 'Loving Intelligence'. They are individuals of a balanced and loving others as the creator loves him. Unfortunately this midbrain activation training can only be done for children aged 5-15 years.

Referance: www.otaktengah.com

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Football hooliganism: comparing self-awareness and social identity theory explanations

Alain Van Hiel *, Lobke Hautman, Ilse Cornelis, Barbara De Clercq
Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

Abstract
The emergence of research interest in group violence in general and football hooliganism in particular has been explained by various models generally relying on situational or individual differences accounts. Yet, these two research traditions have largely evolved independently, showing little or no interaction. In the present study (N = 109), we integrate measures of these two approaches and the results reveal that social identity was more predictive of self-reported physical aggression than of loss of private and public self-awareness. Moreover, attitudes towards violence were the most marked predictor variables of both physical and verbal aggression. In the discussion, the moderator effect of social identity and attitudes about violence on physical aggression is elaborated upon.

Keywords
attitudes • Five-Factor Model • hooliganism • mass violence • self-awareness • social identity

Source: www.wiley.com

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