WHY WE BELIEVE ABOUT HEALTH WHAT WE BELIEVE!!!!!! A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. This is never more true in terms of health. Why do some of us believe certain things about health while others believe the complete opposite, and ultimately what is the truth? At Perfect Balance we understand that for the first 7 years of your life you are walking around pretty much in a hypnotic state. Your parents and your television and pretty much your God. They create many belief systems within you. Many of these systems are excellent and essential for survival, but some are based on old Dogmas or purely based on getting you to give them money when you are older. Its a difficult thing as a child slowly unraveling that everything your family told you may not be gospel. I remember when I learnt Santa didnt exist, I always knew it but could never face the reality of it. What we believe about health and our attachments with certain foods especially I believe are attached into us from a young age and difficult to get rid off. I mean how do you truly know what you know? Ive argued for points on health many times in my life, without having a clue what I was talking about, yet at the time I truly believed I was right, based on an old ingrained belief that was built in me when I was younger. The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience (PDF): Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call affect). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before were aware of it. That shouldnt be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. Its a basic human survival skill, explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself. Were not driven only by emotions, of course—we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesnt take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking thats highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about. Consider a person who has heard about a scientific discovery that deeply challenges her belief in divine creation—a new hominid, say, that confirms our evolutionary origins. What happens next, explains political scientist Charles Taber of Stony Brook University, is a subconscious negative response to the new information—and that response, in turn, guides the type of memories and associations formed in the conscious mind. They retrieve thoughts that are consistent with their previous beliefs, says Taber, and that will lead them to build an argument and challenge what theyre hearing. In other words, when we think were reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing. Or to use an analogy offered by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt: We may think were being scientists, but were actually being lawyers (PDF). Our reasoning is a means to a predetermined end—winning our case—and is shot through with biases. They include confirmation bias, in which we give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs, and disconfirmation bias, in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial. This is why it is very difficult to force ideas upon people, especially regarding health, in fact the more you force something upon someone that challenges their viewpoints, no matter what evidence you have, the more they will defend their identify for that is what they perceive you are attacking. Focus on yourself, stay open minded and realise we are only were we are at now based on our biased belief systems and what we have experienced and taken from our own learnings right up to this very point in time in our life. This is ALWAYS open to being changed and challenged, I will always welcome that. By focusing on myself and my team I realise we can help inspire, and those open minded enough to challenge their own belief systems and those who really want to change will find their way to us. Those that can teach us will also be around. Lose the Dogma, Do plenty of research, follow your gut and use yourself and your greatest source of inspiration. Kind Regards, Perfect Balance
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 09:36:28 +0000
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