Positive News was handed the guardianship of Global Village News and Resources in summer of 2004. Although we would like to continue to make the archives available to subscribers and readers we would like to point out that stories published prior to issue 89 were not under our editorial guidance and would like to make a distinction that these are not necessarily a reflection of the current opinions of our editorial team.

USA - When the hormones known as endorphins are produced in the body, they reduce tension and allow the body to absorb the vitality of nature and the universe. Endorphins, however, are only consistently produced by particular emotional and mental triggers. When produced, there is a further range of strategies that are needed to maximize their effect.

Enduring physical health is inextricably entwined with emotional and mental wellbeing, and this psychological well-being is itself entwined with a positive spiritual experience of life, according to William Bloom, author of 'The Endorphin Effect,' by William Bloom. By this, William Bloom means a deepening sense of connection with the wisdom, power and beauty of all life, including ourselves.

He believes that the ‘Endorphin Effect’ is a genuine breakthrough, and provides a simple strategy whereby absolutely anyone – regardless of time, mood or previous experience – can create a sense of wellbeing and build a lasting foundation for all other forms of personal development. Whenever you want – in the midst of family pressure, anxious colleagues, an urgent crisis or seemingly unbearable stress – you can trigger the production of your endorphins, feel better and once again sense the good things of life.

From a psychological perspective, what really matters is how you feel privately inside your own skin. There have always been people who instinctively remain positive even in the direst of situations. They can do this because their internal experience of life remains positive and hopeful, despite their circumstances. They feel good inside regardless of what is going on outside them. This skill and attitude can be learnt.

The best known public figure in this field is Candace Pert who began her doctoral research looking at how opium and morphine ‘landed’ in human cells and created their powerful effects. She identified what was known as the ‘opiate receptor,’ that part of the cell which accepted and then reacted with the drug.

It was then logically suggested that, if the body contained a mechanism for receiving these drugs, perhaps they were naturally produced within the body. The American scientists working in the same field, however, named these ‘endorphins’, which means endogenous morphine -- morphine produced within the body itself. And it is this term which has come into common usage.

Twenty types of endorphin have been discovered in the nervous system. They are part of a family of chemicals, known as neuropeptides, which carry information around the body. There are approximately a hundred different types of neuro-peptide and they are all amino acids. DNA, the beautiful double spiral molecule which carries our genetic coding, is the most well-known of these amino acids. Research was then developed to discover exactly where endorphins were produced in the body and what stimulated their production. Originally, it was thought that their production was restricted to the brain, but in the 1980s it was discovered that they were secreted not only in the brain but throughout the whole body.

This was a revolutionary discovery and it led to a new and profoundly important understanding – that the body’s nervous system, immune system and endocrine (hormone) system are all intimately interlinked. Endorphins can be produced at any location in the body and they can also flow through the whole system like waves in an ocean.

In Molecules of Emotion Candace Pert described this process as follows: “The point I am making is that your brain is extremely well integrated with the rest of your body at a molecular level, so much so that the term mobile brain is an apt description of the psychosomatic network through which intelligent information travels from one system to another. Every one of the zones, or systems, of the network – the neural, the hormonal, the gastrointestinal, and the immune – is set up to communicate with one another, via peptides and messenger-specific peptide receptors. Every second, a massive information exchange is happening in your body. Imagine each of these messenger systems possessing a specific tone, humming a signature tune, rising and falling, waxing and waning, binding and unbinding, and if we could hear this body music with our ears, then the sum of these sounds would be the music that we call the emotions.”

William Bloom says, “This is a fundamental breakthrough in holistic health and spiritual development. We can now explain how benevolent vitality, chi and prana enter into the biological body.

“Every pleasurable event or thought – from a minuscule warm touch or thought through to a full-blown experience of bliss and ecstasy – has both a biological and an energetic result. When endorphins flow, so does healing prana. Biologically, there is the production of endorphins and a relaxation of tense tissue, so as to allow the flow of health-giving nutrients and antibodies. Energetically, the relaxation of tension also allows the flow of benevolent vitality – prana or chi – to enter the body system.

“This means that at the same time that you are feeling good and happy, you are also open to sensing and receiving the health-giving energies of nature and the universe. Through the use of simple exercises, it is possible for anyone easily to manage both their physical health and build a strong flowing connection with the good things of life. This can even be done when tired or in crisis.

“I optimistically dare to prophesy that this understand of body chemistry, psychological mood and the flow of benevolent vitality will be the foundation of preventative medicine in the future. It will give folk huge holistic benefits and will cure the economic nightmare of rising national healthcare costs.”

For further information, go to http://www.williambloo

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