Nyaprs for short.I attended the convention for the third year to see what I could learn from the folks.The people are from all walks of life.They arrive from all over the world to hear the workshops regarding Mental and physical health.The atmosphere is always light and friendly there.The workshops are generally for those who have had a hard road out of some mental or physical situation that effects them.Many are like myself that have fought ourselves out of a very dark place in our lives.My own story is one of a physical nature.I had a blood clot pass through my brain and temporarily
Blinded my sight.The time before that is for a couple years sorta a blur.I was to the point that I didn't remember where I was.I would be a mile from home in a car someone else was driving.I was headed for a nursing home soon.For the first time in my life I was truly terrified that I would be locked up in a place they put people waiting to die...
For the grace of God go I.The Clot broke up and made itself known.The doctors put stents in my heart and opened my arteries to clear out gunk.I am still balancing on a very narrow tightrope.The changes in my life lead some friends to arrange my transportation to my first convention looking for ideas.That was before my clot broke up.
My younger sister went with me as she had been a member for years.Her background in social services and elder care was known by people at nyaprs.I didn't want to go out of both fear and embarrassment.Hey I said to myself,"hey those people have some real problems,I am not like them".
I arrived to some warm and loving folks who were understanding enough to tell me I had need for fears because everyone there was fighting their way back from something.
Pop foreword to my trip this year.
I went with a clear mind that has still some problems that won't let me come out of a forced retirement do to that clot.But I walk without my cane most of the time now.I still have to catch a ride but I have learned to ride public transit so it is not so bad.
Enough of why I attend.Let me tell you what I learned.Did you ever wonder why you were afraid of things your parents were also afraid of.There may not have even been a life experience involved.
or perhaps abuse from your parents in childhood by their parents transferred to you?
Okay not to say your being compared to rats but that is where the discovery came from.
Lab rats were fed what they loved most,Sweets.They loved those sweets.The scientist then connected a tiny electrical charge to the sweets.Now every time the rats would try to grab some sweets they got zapped.Well after awhile the rats would not even try for the sweets.Even after the charge was removed the rats wouldn't touch or go near the sweets.Conditioning like Pavlov's dog you might be thinking.Perhaps that was also the scientists thoughts till they went abit further.
The shocks in the past would have been called conditioned.Pavloks dog got a treat each time a bell rang.The rat got zapped.Incentive and reward.Reward/punishment.Conditioned reflexes...?
The scientists ran test to determine anything else that would be showing up.They were surprised by what they found.
The rats genetics had been changed by the conditioning from fearing the sweets.The gene that craved the sweets was switched off.It was why the rat no longer wanted the sweets.That was very surprising to those researchers til the next series of tests came back to the lab.
Not only was the test rats gene craving sweets turned of but so was the rats offspring gene turned off.
They also found by further tests that the gene can in time be switched back on in the future.It did not explain how.
you may be asking yourself how this is anything to do with mental illness and I will explain in a tiny example.
Any condition that a human goes through for a period of time the researchers are discovering has a direct effect on the human genes.That is the same for sweets,violence,abuse,trauma,stress.A list that would never end if it were even tried.
Those researchers found that our very genetics are effected by every point in our day and night.Every point of our lives.My trigger as lifestyle and stress.I have changed my life to hopefully switch that death dealing gene off for as long as possible.Life is tough even the strongest of people haven't made it out alive.
The stress and craziness around us is changing us each heartbeat of our existence.The more we learn about whats going on right there in front of us behind our backs,The more we should look at changing our lives.Changing our ideas to take away stress and violence.It is being sewn into the very genetics of our being.
That has seemed to be the our destiny till now.Our job as humans who claim to be the top of the food chain.The top of the intellectual totem pole standing on all other things,is to find a way quickly to switch those genes that are the nuclear trigger of existence the triggers that can finalize our chances of any future for ourselves.
That is what I learned at nyaprs convention.The damage or switches that are either our friend or Nemesis is within us all.we have the power to change even the very genetics of ourselves simply by re-enforcing the things that need to be changed.No electric shock required...
WE THE PEOPLE can change the world if we just start withourselves first.
RJP
Blinded my sight.The time before that is for a couple years sorta a blur.I was to the point that I didn't remember where I was.I would be a mile from home in a car someone else was driving.I was headed for a nursing home soon.For the first time in my life I was truly terrified that I would be locked up in a place they put people waiting to die...
For the grace of God go I.The Clot broke up and made itself known.The doctors put stents in my heart and opened my arteries to clear out gunk.I am still balancing on a very narrow tightrope.The changes in my life lead some friends to arrange my transportation to my first convention looking for ideas.That was before my clot broke up.
My younger sister went with me as she had been a member for years.Her background in social services and elder care was known by people at nyaprs.I didn't want to go out of both fear and embarrassment.Hey I said to myself,"hey those people have some real problems,I am not like them".
I arrived to some warm and loving folks who were understanding enough to tell me I had need for fears because everyone there was fighting their way back from something.
Pop foreword to my trip this year.
I went with a clear mind that has still some problems that won't let me come out of a forced retirement do to that clot.But I walk without my cane most of the time now.I still have to catch a ride but I have learned to ride public transit so it is not so bad.
Enough of why I attend.Let me tell you what I learned.Did you ever wonder why you were afraid of things your parents were also afraid of.There may not have even been a life experience involved.
or perhaps abuse from your parents in childhood by their parents transferred to you?
Okay not to say your being compared to rats but that is where the discovery came from.
Lab rats were fed what they loved most,Sweets.They loved those sweets.The scientist then connected a tiny electrical charge to the sweets.Now every time the rats would try to grab some sweets they got zapped.Well after awhile the rats would not even try for the sweets.Even after the charge was removed the rats wouldn't touch or go near the sweets.Conditioning like Pavlov's dog you might be thinking.Perhaps that was also the scientists thoughts till they went abit further.
The shocks in the past would have been called conditioned.Pavloks dog got a treat each time a bell rang.The rat got zapped.Incentive and reward.Reward/punishment.Conditioned reflexes...?
The scientists ran test to determine anything else that would be showing up.They were surprised by what they found.
The rats genetics had been changed by the conditioning from fearing the sweets.The gene that craved the sweets was switched off.It was why the rat no longer wanted the sweets.That was very surprising to those researchers til the next series of tests came back to the lab.
Not only was the test rats gene craving sweets turned of but so was the rats offspring gene turned off.
They also found by further tests that the gene can in time be switched back on in the future.It did not explain how.
you may be asking yourself how this is anything to do with mental illness and I will explain in a tiny example.
Any condition that a human goes through for a period of time the researchers are discovering has a direct effect on the human genes.That is the same for sweets,violence,abuse,trauma,stress.A list that would never end if it were even tried.
Those researchers found that our very genetics are effected by every point in our day and night.Every point of our lives.My trigger as lifestyle and stress.I have changed my life to hopefully switch that death dealing gene off for as long as possible.Life is tough even the strongest of people haven't made it out alive.
The stress and craziness around us is changing us each heartbeat of our existence.The more we learn about whats going on right there in front of us behind our backs,The more we should look at changing our lives.Changing our ideas to take away stress and violence.It is being sewn into the very genetics of our being.
That has seemed to be the our destiny till now.Our job as humans who claim to be the top of the food chain.The top of the intellectual totem pole standing on all other things,is to find a way quickly to switch those genes that are the nuclear trigger of existence the triggers that can finalize our chances of any future for ourselves.
That is what I learned at nyaprs convention.The damage or switches that are either our friend or Nemesis is within us all.we have the power to change even the very genetics of ourselves simply by re-enforcing the things that need to be changed.No electric shock required...
WE THE PEOPLE can change the world if we just start withourselves first.
RJP
