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Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre  Firstly I should say this is not an attempt to discredit or disparage your ideas, or shamanism. I'm replying solely because you said you want to try to comprehend how this works. I'm going to do my best to just present some information for your consideration.
The phenomenon is documented, and the documentation does actually go into the details of the changes involved. The most often cited research I've seen is that by G.H. Yue. In one particular study he and his colleagues measured various physiological changes and found that the improved strength could be attributed to an increase in cortical output signal, and not to an increase in muscle mass.
In other words, the mental work resulted in neural changes, and those neural changes made it possible to get more out of the same muscle. Combined with physical exercise this would undoubtedly be much more effective than either alone (and there's a huge amount of anecdotal evidence that mental preparation improves results in physical activity, in many sports). |
Yes its true, thinking does result in many physical changes. For instance, thinking releases adrenaline, hormones and effects blood supply. Free divers utilise the skill. Your body reacts the same whether you think you see a snake on the path, or whether there is an actual snake on the path. Thinking also effects neural activity and pathways. What exactly is involved in changing neural activity and pathways? Muscle mass, as any one who has experience in developing it knows, or as any one who has grown from a few cells in the womb to an adult knows, is drastically effected by hormone levels and blood supply. Muscle mass can obviously be effected by thinking alone. Otherwise, hormones and blood supply don't effect it.
A classic example is in the book Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure, by Sarah Mcdonald.
Life Matters: 31 March* 2003* - Sarah McDonald - Holy Cow: an Indian Adventure
A couple of friends who are very sceptical about many of my beliefs read the book because an aquaintance of the authors, also sceptical about such things, whom they respect, witnessed the exact thing happen to the author, also a very respected person. My friends rang me up excitedly one day saying you've got to read this book, it's unbelievable, this lady grew breasts, her doctors witnessed it, you've gotta read it, its amasing. I haven't read it, but they keep telling me about the story, and how this 'normal' really respected lady had her whole beliefs turned upside down. We laugh about it. I don't need to read it.