The Importance of Body and Mind Harmony - Essay Example

Health Mind and Behavior: The Importance of Body and Mind Harmony The film Health Mind and Behavior depicts the importance of psyche in regulations of different processes in human body. Preciously researchers thought that different diseases appear as a result of biological and environmental influences. However, the recent research shows that psyche has a great impact on human physical health. Other cultures have been familiar with this concept for a long time. For example, the movie shows how Navajo Indians praise the harmony of body and mind in their traditional rituals. These rituals involve different community members stressing the importance of social context of human mental and physical health. Navajo people treat illness as a result of disharmony. I think that their approach is crucial for all people to accept. Obviously, when people are not satisfied with their lives, they have no balance. Their imbalanced condition often leads to such issues as anxiety and depression. In their turn, these mental processes result in real physical diseases. The same can be said about stress. It is a psychological process, but it causes different reaction in human body. Heart is the first to respond to stress. Heart is also the first to experience stress-related consequences which can lead even to heart attack or stroke. Allergies and eating disorders, the work of immune system and various unhealthy behaviors are the results of disharmonious mind and body states. Stress can cause infertility because it influences the process of egg implantation and rejection. The movie shows that previously people used to blame aging in their health decline. However, the research shows that the decline in health is not inevitable if people take care of their psyche. In this way, body and mind harmony is a very important think to pay attention to; if one cares about his or her psyche, different diseases can be prevented. The movie dwells on a very interesting concept which is called biofeedback. It is the reaction of human body to different psychological states. It is said that skin temperature can increase when people feel angry. When people worry about anything, their heart rate tends to increase. In they are calm, their heart rate decreases. However, if people concentrate on the desired results, they can control their biofeedback. In other words, psychological processes allow people controlling processes inside their bodies. Dr Zimbardo shows on his own example how people can control their heart. He lowered his heartbeat by using his knowledge about biofeedback. This techniques can help people to cope with their stress. The film pays attention to stress as an important factor which influences human health. Stressors are the processes, actions or things which cause stress. They can develop in environment where people live; however, they can be cause by different internal factors as well. Stress causes numerous diseases; at the same time, people can avoid stressful events in their daily lives. They have to learn how to cope with stress effectively if they want to remain healthy mentally and physically. In summary, this movie explains how human organism reacts to stress and shows that people need to apply their knowledge of psychology to cope with stress and control their body. The harmony of mind and body is crucial for general health. If people learn to control their body and use biofeedback technique, they can learn to deal with daily stress which is important for their health condition when they get older. All in all, the film is full of useful information all people need to know. Psychopathology: Mental Illness and Genetics Mental disorder are often misunderstood by people. Psychopathology researchers the causes of mental disorders and finds the right way to treat them. This issue is crucial because one out of 5 Americans suffers from some form of mental disorder. This number is significant enough to show that psychopathology is very important branch of psychology which gives people more chances to cope with their mental illness and get back to normal life. The movie traces a story of mental illnesses in human history. It is interesting to know that people were treated just like animals until Philippe Pinel suggested to treat those people as sick. People were totally excluded from human society; they were tortured, chained and killed. The treatment for mental illnesses for a long time remained ineffective. People used to define any deviance from the norm as a mental illness. As a result, different non-conformists in social, political or religious spheres were considered to be ill. Even now mental hospitals often become a storehouses where ill people remain totally rejected and ignored by their community. The movie provides a clear classification of mental disorders. All of them are divided into anxiety disorders, affective disorders and schizophrenic disorders. All anxiety disorders share some common features; they display physical symptoms of arousal, feelings of tension and expectations that something bad is going to happen. These disorders develop when people experience irrational fears which are not proportional to the real danger which causes them. Affective disorders are related to frequent changes in mood of a person. There are two extremes in mood changes. Episodes of mania are characterized by optimism and uncontrolled life energy. They are contrasted by deep depression which makes people have no desire to live at all. Feelings of sadness, quilt and failure become very intensive during depressive episodes. People with psychotic disorder are totally different from two other groups. They suffer from impaired world perceptions, which are often accompanied by false beliefs and hallucinations. They do not perceive the reality the way other people do; in this way, they require treatment to have better lives. Schizophrenia is one of the most common psychotic disorders in the world. Interestingly, only one third of all people who suffer from schizophrenia can recover after the treatment. Other people suffer from this disease during their all life. In order to find appropriate treatment for any disease, researchers need to find its causes. In case of schizophrenia, the etiology of the disease is still not clear. Researchers use psychological and biological approaches to the disease in order to understand people who suffer from it. For instance, hormonal imbalances and different deviations in brain structure and functioning can pass with genes from parents to their children. In this way, genetics becomes a very important factor in causing different mental illnesses. The study of genetics of schizophrenia is complicated. The movie highlights the experiment which involves different pairs of twins where one twin is schizophrenic and the other twin is healthy. The study also includes pairs of twins where both people suffer from schizophrenia. Lastly, there are 10 twin pairs where both twins are healthy. The study is aimed at identifying the differences in brain between these identical but different people. Researchers utilize different techniques to analyze their sample. For instance, SPECT analysis is used to characterize blood flow in brain. This film covers a very interesting and controversial topic. Many issues discussed in the film are still unknown. People still do not know enough to state why people develop schizophrenia. There are many people who suffer from various mental illnesses. Thanks to psychopathology they get their second chance to start their lives from the very beginning. Hopefully, future findings will help people to find out more important features and causes of mysterious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. Motivation and Emotion Every action people do has some motivation in eat. For some reason behave the way they do; some of them choose to be good while others do bad things. Psychologists seek for the answers in studies related to motivation which drives human actions. It is studies and discussed t reason human behavior and understand it better. The film states that motivation is present everywhere in human lives. It is reflected in peoples preferences in their activities. The biggest motivation all living creatures have is to survive. It is the reason why people go to work every day. They earn money which gives them the opportunity to buy food, pay their bills, buy clothes and organize their lives to make them comfortable. The mechanism of motivation seems to be simple; people want something which brings pleasure to them and they try to avoid actions which are painful. However, their culture, family and personal experience also motivate their preferences. The scheme of motivation is complicated by these factors. There are different situations when things that bring pleasure are harmful. People get pleasure from smoking or drinking alcohol, but their actions can be hardly called useful. Contrary to them, studying hard can be not really pleasant or even painful, but it is useful for people. Pleasure seeking is restricted by different cultural regulations. Many motivations remain concealed; people do not think about them consciously. These unconscious motivations become vivid in their slips of the tongues, dreams and fantasies according to Sigmund Freud. His definition of motivations was negative; later researchers like Maslow and Rogers offered more positive view on motivation. They included the importance of nature and society to the concept of motivation. Many psychologists focus on sex and reproduction when they study motivation. First of all, reproduction is a very important mechanism in survival of different species. Second of all, the process is made pleasurable for different animals and people. Advertiser use images related to sexual activities in order to sell different goods to people. Analysis of different ads can reveals different signs associated with sexual arousal. Love provides people with sets of both negative and positive motivations simultaneously. The documentary shows that covers the topic related to universalism of human emotions. Despite cultural differences, people tend to have the same facial expressions when they experience basic emotions. Anger, sadness, happiness and pleasure trigger the same reactions in different people. Emotions are distinguished from motivations, but they often take place together. It is the reason why the study of emotions is also closely related to understanding what motivates people. The research by Seligman dwells on optimism and pessimism. They can be defines as mixes of positive and negative motivations and emotions. This research revels that optimists perform much better at work. They cope with different challenges and tasks more effectively. Pessimists tend to fail more often. In this way, the researcher shows that interplay of attitudes and motivations. Overall, this documentary is a valid source of information bout human behavior. It is true that people tend to seek for pleasure in their lives; even if pleasure brings no good to them, they can be easily tempted. On the other hand, sometimes people are forced to do something that never brings pleasure to them. It shows that human motivation is more complex than it is thought to be. People have different needs and motivations; moreover, they are often mixed with different attitudes and influenced by them. Psychological research of motivation explains human behavior and reasons different crazy actions people do from time to time. Works Cited “Motivation and Emotion”. WGBH Educational Foundation. 2001. Web. May 13, 2014. “Psychopathology”.WGBH Educational Foundation. 2001. Web. May 13, 2014. “Health, Mind, and Behavior”. WGBH Educational Foundation. 2001. Web. May 13, 2014. Read More