In This Issue

                        The noble eightfold path is one of the teachings of Lord Buddha. It is considered as a path that leads people towards ending their suffering.
     The noble eightfold path consists of three divisions – Wisdom, Ethical Conduct and Mental Discipline. Wisdom consists of right view and right intention. Ethical Conduct consists of right speech, right action, right livelihood and right effort. Mental Discipline consists of right mindfulness and right concentration.

     1.Right View: Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions. Right View is seeing things as they are and realising the four noble truths. 1.There is suffering. 2. Every suffering has a cause. 3. Suffering can be ended by dealing with the cause. 4. The solution to the suffering is following the noble eightfold path.
     2.Right Intention: There are three types of right intentions – 1.Intention of renunciation (Resistance to the power of desire). 2. Intention of goodwill (Resistance to the feelings of anger). 3.  Intention of harmlessness (Resistance to thoughts and acts of violence)
     3.Right Speech: Right speech is important as words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start a war or create peace. It involves four areas – 1.To abstain from false speech. 2.To abstain from slanderous speech. 3.To abstain from harsh speech. 4. To abstain from idle speech.
     4.Right Action: It involves three principles. 1.To abstain from taking life. 2.To abstain from taking what is not given. 3.To abstain from sexual misconduct.
     5.Right Livelihood: One must earn his livelihood in a righteous way and avoid four specific activities. 1. Dealing in weapons. 2. Dealing in human being. 3. Dealing in butchery. 4. Dealing in intoxicants.
     6.Right Effort: Without efforts nothing can be achieved. The same mental energy, that fuels envy and violence, fuels altruism and kindness. One has to direct the mental energy towards preventing the arising of unwholesome mental states (negative thoughts) and to stimulate arising of wholesome mental states (positive thoughts).
     7.Right Mindfulness: It refers to training the mind to remain in the present, to be open, to be calm and to be alert; To suspend all judgments and interpretations; To just observe and drop if they do occur.
     8.Right Concentration: The two important characteristics of a concentrated mind are unbroken attentiveness and the tranquility of the mental functions. The untrained mind jumps from one thought to another thought without any control.  Such a distracted mind is a deluded mind. Freedom from distraction induces equanimity and serenity.

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  A nose that is slightly big; hair that is little more curly; a beauty mark in the wrong place – most people focus on these small details of their appearance while staring at the mirror. But when these small imperfections occupy our thought and become an obsession it turns into a disorder, according to psychiatrist Kieron O’Connor of the Universite de Montreal.
     Among the obsessions, skin receives the most attention from sufferers. The hair, nose and stomach are also popular objects of obsession. “Sufferers are convinced that, part of their body is abnormal, which is not the case,” says O’Connor. They have difficulty separating what is real from what is not. People suffering from this phobia will focus on the physical attribute they consider flawed, constantly viewing it in a mirror or asking the opinion of others. They may go to obsessive lengths to ‘fix’ the problem by wearing too much make-up, going to a tanning salon or getting plastic surgery.
     “It is as if these people are looking at themselves in a mirror that deforms their image. They will carry on an internal conversation and convince themselves that there is a problem with their bodies, although it is not based on reality,” said O’Connor. This problem can affect all aspects of life, work, studies and love and family relationships. It can stop someone from going out or at least hiding the body part about which he or she is obsessed.
     O’Connor’s approach to treatment is to look at the reasons a person starts criticising a part of his or her body. People must learn to accept their body. They must learn to focus on its function rather than its appearance. 

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Dangers of making only minimum payment

    The mere presence of a minimum payment is enough to reduce the actual amount many people choose to pay on their credit card bills, according to Dr. Neil Stewart, psychologist at the University of Warwick.
     Dr.Neil Stewart’s study focused on the psychological phenomenon of ‘anchoring’ in which arbitrary and irrelevant numbers bias people’s judgments. The research found that anchoring affects the way people repay their credit card bills. The research revealed that those people who make only partial repayments of the outstanding balance (about 35% of the credit card holders) the suggested minimum payment on the credit card statement acts as an anchor and lowers the actual repayment people choose to make.
     “Minimum payments distort the behaviour of many customers in a way that increases interest charges and increases the duration of their debt,” said Dr. Stewart. The Consumer Credit Act regulations prescribe a warning text to accompany minimum payments on statements. The text warns of the dangers of making only minimum payments. But card statements of many credit card providers do not carry this text at all.
     People are less susceptible to the effects of anchoring when they have greater knowledge about it. So helping people understand how much different possible repayments will cost them in the long run should help protect them from anchoring on minimum payments.

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Music significantly reduces stress during pregnancy

   Music can reduce psychological stress among pregnant women, according to researchers from the College of Nursing at Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan.
     The researchers randomly assigned 116 pregnant women to a music group and 120 pregnant women to a control group. The women had an average age of 30 years, were between 18 to 34 weeks pregnant ad expected to have uncomplicated vaginal deliveries. Half the women were pregnant for the first time.
     “The music group showed significant reductions in stress, anxiety and depression after just two weeks,” said prof. Chung-Hey Chen, the lead researcher and author of the study. Women in the music group also expressed preferences for the type of music they listened to, with lullabies, nature and crystal sounds proving more popular than classical music.
     The lullaby CD included songs like Brahms’ Lullaby and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. On the classic CD, composers like Beethoven and Debussy were included. The nature sounds included Tropical Mystery and Friendly Natives and crystals’ CD comprised Chinese Children’s rhymes and songs like little Honey-Bee and Jasmine.
     “There are many potential health benefits that can be gained from close integration of CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) therapies into nursing practice and conventional health care,” says Dr. Greame D.Smith, Seniour Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.
     “The beauty of the CAM technique described by Prof. Chen is that patients saw immediate and significant benefits simply by including half an hour’s relaxing music into their daily routine. In a world of sophisticated medical advances, it is good to see that something so easy and inexpensive can be so effective,” said Dr. Smith.

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Help for shopaholics

   Compulsive shopping can lead to financial problems, family conflicts, stress, depression and loss of self-esteem.
     Researchers Nancy M.Ridgway and Monika Kular Kinney from university of Richmond, along with Kent B.Monroe from University of Illinois have developed a new yardstick for measuring compulsive buying. “The scale is designed to identify consumers who have a strong urge to buy regularly, spend a lot of money and have difficulty resisting the impulse to buy,” the researchers explained.
     Earlier scales depended on the consequences of compulsive shopping such as financial difficulties and family strain over money matters. Hence compulsive shoppers with higher incomes who might not have experienced financial difficulties might have not been identified with the previous mode of measuring.
     The researchers identified that compulsive shopping was linked to materialism, reduced self-esteem, depression, anxiety and stress. Compulsive buyers tend to hide purchases, return items, have more family arguments and possessed more maxed-out credit cards.
     People must learn to recognise these symptoms to find out whether they have the problem of compulsive shopping so that they could seek appropriate help.

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Choosing a mate: What we really want?

     While humans may pride themselves on being highly evolved, most still behave like the stereotypical Neanderthals when it comes to choosing a mate, according to research by Indiana University cognitive scientist Peter Todd. He found that though individuals may claim otherwise, beauty is the key ingredient for men in choosing a mate whereas security and commitment is what women look for.
     “Evolutionary theories in psychology suggest that men and women should trade off different traits in each other, and when we look at the actual mate choices people make, this is what we find evidence for,” Todd said.
     Participants in the study were asked to fill out a questionnaire assessing themselves and their ideal mate according to evolutionarily relevant traits, such as physical attractiveness, present and future financial status, health and parenting qualities. Participants stated that they wanted to find someone who was like themselves – a socially acceptable answer.
     But what actually happened was, the men sought the more attractive women and the women were drawn to material wealth and security, setting their standards according to how attractive they viewed themselves.
     Another interesting feature was that while men on average wanted to see every second woman again, the women wanted to meet only a third of the men again, indicating that women are much choosier than men.

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