I retired a few months ago and find myself with time on my hands I never formerly had. I grew up in the flower child generation of the 1960’s. Naturally I experimented with everything available but never really found anything better than what I could generate myself. This is where my interest in our own chemicals began.
I have looked into alternative medical approaches and find they do touch on many of the aspects I am interested in. Their are examples all over of things that do touch on this just very few that have made this the key focus.
I have spent the bulk of my years as a truck shop foreman in small shops with approx 20 employees, I also spent 22 years doing volunteer work with addicts, alcoholics and parolees.
Mainly what I would do is try and help to prepare them to go out and find work. This was a perfect platform for me to practice and hone some of my theories on natural chemicals and how to stimulate them. I really have no idea what kind of success rate I may have had in my volunteer work as I seldom followed up with anyone. I took pride in my employee development programs and in retrospect I have gotten a lot of satisfaction from it.
Anyone with people skills has learned how to manipulate the chemicals in those around them wether they think about it in those terms or not. If I were a betting man I would say this is the science of the not so distant future.
I used to think of this when I was younger.
I thought I had stumbled upon a really profound thought:
There are no such things as selfless acts. We only do good to make ourselves feel good.
You still haven’t answered my question: To what extent do you think people are able to “manipulate their chemicals”? What is the end game - dramatically prolonged lifespans? Doubling our IQs? Telepathy? Telekinesis?
I know, I gave up because he wouldn’t answer mine either; “What exactly, specifically do you want to discuss?”
It just produced more ramblings over vague theories, we’ve all heard before. He needs to focus on what the core of what he wants to discuss is.
Just posting a bunch of vague ramblings and then saying, ‘discuss’, never really produces much of a thread, in my experience.
Maybe ‘focus’ isn’t his thing, he does seem to prefer the general and vague it seems to me.
I’d suggest avoiding homeopathy completely, as this practice has been thoroughly debunked by science.
This is the one I personally don’t understand, homeopathy simply CANNOT work.
Unlike something like herbal medicine where you are consuming various plants with effects because of the substances they contain, homeopathy is literally water. IT IS PLAIN WATER!
Some herbs definitely have effects and are cheap enough why not try them for very minor complaints? But homeopathy, how has that not dissapeared?
I think the more conscious we are about the influences of other peoples acts on our own mental state, the better we can approach it or deal with it. If you look at any “self-healing” programm you will find it will be based on positive thoughts and some sort of re-programming of cellular memory.
I use fascia therapy as a treatment for shock of all sorts. it is based on the idea that the tissue actually has a memory and that we can trigger the self-healing capacity of our body by reminding it. ex. if you can’t do a movement because of a medical problem, you can finish the movement in your head to remind the cells that they can go further, so they don’t stagnate even if you are in a cast
The same sort of things are applicable to your state of mind and perception of what is going on around you. 
interesting field imho
Munch, I didn’t see the questions you posed.
Dramaticaly increased life spans? Very possibly and thier is some evidence on this. Memebers of the Howi Krishna sect, and eastern cult have a temple near my home. In 1988 my carpet store was contracted to re do all their floors and carpets. When the decorators walked in my door I didn’t take them serious at first because they looked like young girls. One of them was 46 and the other was 51. I was shocked when I found this out and was actually another key point in my interest. They took it to another level, every couple of hours a bell would ring and they would all meet in this room for some kind of meditation that included the chanting of a mantra. I have been around plenty of heroin addits in my life and I could swear when they come out of the room it looked as if they had all shot up. But the fact was the long time key members looked extremely young, and had very few wringkles. Endorfin is a drug that is almost identical to heroin, there has been quite a bit of talk amoung medical proffessions on what appears to be a youth serum effect with some long time heroin users that have managed to lead otherwise clean lifestyles.
As far as IO’s go. I think all of us have noticed how our learning curve seems so much more powerful when we are charged up and motivated on a project. A common case in point is born again Christians who seem to have memorised the bible in unbelievable short time spans. My own math skills were limited to basic arithmatic and algebra one was about as far as I got. A couple of years ago I was commissioned to do a project on one of Da Vinci’s inventions. Once it kicked in all of a sudden I was developing formulas and fairly advanced math solutions to problems way over my head and they proved out accurate. More simply stated we all learn quicker when we are interested in something and have better focus when " once we get into it" So I would say our brain could simply operate on a much higher level.
How much can we control the release of these chemicals? excellent question. A lot more than we may seem possible, as stated earlier, others use these chemicals on a daily basis to excert different degrees of control over us. Possibly my own facination with this project lies in me being a mechanic and feeling a need to understand how everything works. I guess for this question I can only fairly use myself as an example even though their are a ton of books out there where the authors profess abilities to control a wide aspect of their own abilities through chemical manipulation.
I play with the manipulation of my own chemicals, nothing really dramatic but it seems to work for me. My substitute for chanting and mantras is a simple reflection process I do many times throughout the day. It will often involve things in my garden, nature of interactions I had through the day. Very much like prayer because I am in touch with my spiritual side at these times. Seldom more than 5 min at a time I will do this. It tends to lower my excitement level and juts give me a more peaceful feeling.
If I have something I need to accomplish that is physicaly or mentaly challenging I have a ritual I go through to prepare mysef for this and " get me into it" I simply initiate a process of visualization of me actually doing it, planning every detail getting I need together and then doing it. A lot of us do this because it works. Everyone is always shocked by how fast I accomplish things and how much energy I seem to have. Again nothing dramatic but effective.
I consider myself to be creative, I am certainly no writer, or artist, or skulpter, writer of music etc but I give myself creative challenges on a daily basis in the form of finding creative solutions to problems. This process also generates the chemicals in me and is a huge energy booster.
Social chemicals, a very simple solution. Any interactions I have with other human beings are always based on a simple premiss. I hang out where I feel wanted and appreciated. Where we can share stories and listen to one another. I always keep in mind that it is my job to make others feel good about themselves when they are in my presence and in most cases this is recipratory. social interaction stimulates healthy amounts of motivating and confidence building chemicals that help to solidify our actual identity. Sex and interaction with the opposite sex fall into this category also I beive maybe as a sub category.
I don’t formerly excersize but mu hobbies tend to be very physical with a lot of wood working. I tend to use more hand tools as opposed to power tools. My muscles get a bit pumped up, I work up a good sweat each day and again I get a little touch of that " runners high". So the answer is yes, I do believe we can effectively manipulate our own chemicals for positive results.
Elbows, I thought I did address your question of what exactly it was I wanted to discuss.
I will try to rephrase it.
“lets explore the viability of manipulating our own natural chemicals for the purpose of a better quality of life”
" Could their be a place for Nuero chemical counselors in society?"
I honestly aplogise for rambling and vagueness. The topic is a bit broad and hard to condense. And in all honesty I tend to get a bit spun when I get charged up on a topic, a little side effect of too much chemical infusion!
kob, I think you are on to something with that approach, when I was younger I unconciously used it to learn new dances, I used it to change my bowling style and I used it in boxing.
Goint to throw a little true humor into the mix, a little weird but true.
I was having 3 root canals done, my dentist had a very hot looking assistant that would always grind her crotch into my knee when she was suctioning my mouth. I told the dentist I wanted to do the work with no novacane. I just wanted to see if I could fucus on the nurse riding my knee instead of the pain. The procedure was not nearly as bad as I expected and I was easily able to enjoy the ride. I am certain it was chemical kicking in.
Nah, I think everyone interested in alternative healing should study homeopathy, and come to the conclusion that it is baloney.
I believe ear candling is also a bunch of hooey, along with those foot detox pads. Oh, and those woo-woo “power” bracelets!
When you do your own research, IMHO, you discover some things that make sense, and other things that have to be taken with more than the usual grain of salt. When the amount of salt required to make a technique believable borders on a dose which can make your blood pressure explode, well, that’s a technique that needs immediate discarding!
~VOW
I think I sort of get part of what the OP is about (although I suspect he’s taking it too far).
It’s not just that good things are good - it’s also about focus, attention and mindfulness (not the Buddhist kind).
Example: I have this thing I like to do on the last shopping day before Christmas (having already completed all my shopping) - I take the train or bus into town, have one or two drinks, then amble about, watching everyone else bustle and panic; sweaty, hunted-looking men with lists of people, but no idea what to buy; flustered mothers with kids in pushchairs, almost overbalanced by shopping bags, etc.
Last year, I did this again after a few years’ break - and it was very fine, but when I stopped for lunch (a bacon and cheese sandwich), I did something unusual; I pondered to myself: “If this was the very last bacon sandwich on the planet, how would I be eating it?” I savoured every mouthful of that sandwich, and although it was just an ordinary sandwich, the experience was incredible; I washed it down with a pint of Guinness and went back out to watch the fun - all the while, not only doing what I was doing, but reflecting on my own pleasure in doing it - and I spent the rest of that day with a euphoric feeling of happiness and wellbeing.
I’m not going to argue that the chemicals involved in this are capable of healing or anything, but it could have been a very much more ordinary experience, without omitting any of the details, save for my decision to focus on how happy these ordinary things could make me.
Mange, that is a big part of what I am talking about. I am a pretty poor written communicator I admit. Last night I brought this topic up at my local coffee shop and we had a great flowing discussion amoung 5 of us. I think I will try to organise my thoughts a bit better and start a new thread in the near future with a bit more focus.
So far only one has really grasped what I am talking about and I assume this is my own weak communication skills. I know absolutely nothing about the church of religious science but I have a hunch they deal with this to some extent.
I am very much against, mind control, manipulation, brain washing, cult thinking etc. But I am very much in favor of exploring what makes us tick and understanding why we react and do things the way we do. If a little more knowedge about how we are put together can give us a bit more control over ourselves I am largely in favor of that.
I have say, I’m not sure I know a single person that would disagree with this.
I like your anecdotal examples.
Sounds like you are looking for a cascade effect. Various external forces motivate us, and trigger certain chemical pathways in our bodies. And our actions change our external environment. If you can get a feedback loop going using resonant harmony then the happy chemicals will just start generating continuously.
Jack, I liked the way you phrased that. Exactly what I am talking about, along with the positive side effects. After a while we simply learn that good behavior gives us good chemicals. We also learn that if we need to study or solve a problem a simple ritual might be all it takes to stimulate our concentration type chemicals. After a while it becomes automatic, I am quite sure that many of us just do this without thinking and others amoung us just haven’t quite made that connection.
Another example, I was divorced 22 years ago. Heartbroken lonely the whole 9 yards. I watched some dope attic jiggalo sweep my ex off her feet and she fell in love with him the way I always wanted her to love me. I thought to myself, all that idiot is doing is telling her everything she wants to hear and he is playing her like a fiddle. Against my normal set of values and out of resentment I spent the next couple of years doing women the way he was doing her. It didn’t agree with me and I felt like a scumbag but I did learn a real valuable lesson about relationships. It wasn’t my job to show my partner how great I was, it was my job to appreciate the good qualities in others and let them know it. That agrred with me, the feedback from others was also good so it became automatic in my approach to all types of relationships, business, work, friends etc. People like us and accept us if they feel good about themselves in out presence. We have the cascade effect here.