For as long as I can remember, I have innately known that thoughts can have the power of manifesting in matter. When I was only five or six I used my mind to guide me to lost items like some sort of compass. I would close my eyes and follow the unspoken voice within as it guided my footsteps. At about the age of 11 or 12, I well remember thinking that I needed glasses but since my father unsympathetically referred to men who wore glasses as 4 eyes and I feared disappointing him. I just imagined passing the school eye test over and over again. My eyes didn’t improve, but when it came my turn to take the eye test the doctor looked at me and said, “You can see the 20-20 line can’t you?” I answered, “Sure.” That was the test, so it was a few more years before I would put glasses on.
When I was fourteen or so, I imagined becoming 6 foot tall. That was taller than anyone in my family. I would go to sleep at night imaging myself as 6 foot tall and I did this repeatedly over the summer of the year between 8th and 9th grade. When I returned to school I was 6 foot tall, and at that time 6 feet was tall! I towered over almost everyone in my school. (Today we think of this sort of thing as possible through epigenetics, the influence of our minds on genes). It was at about this time that I began imagining myself as a successful author and again I would fall to sleep at night visualizing myself signing books, lecturing and the like. Today I have more than 400 titles published in print, and audio or video media, and many of these titles have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Now all of this visualization that I have just discussed, together with much more, took place over fifty years ago, long before the Secret or the law of attraction were published. How I knew this about the power of thought is not what this piece is about. No—what I really want to address today is how well documented the idea that ‘thoughts are things’ has become in scientific circles.
Mind Over Matter
In December of this last year, the American Physiological Society reporting in an article titled, “Mind Over Matter: Can You Think Your Way to Strength?” suggested that indeed you could do just that. Science News explained it this way,
“Now researchers at the Ohio Musculoskeletal and Neurological Institute (OMNI) at Ohio University have found that the mind is critical in maintaining muscle strength following a prolonged period of immobilization and that mental imagery may be key in reducing the associated muscle loss.” 1
The article continued with an explanation of the study which involved wrist-hand immobilization:
“At the end of the four-week experiment, both groups who wore casts had lost strength in their immobilized limbs when compared to the control group. But the group that performed mental imagery exercises lost 50% less strength than the non-imaginative group (24 percent vs. 45 percent, respectively). The nervous system’s ability to fully activate the muscle (called “voluntary activation” or VA) also rebounded more quickly in the imagery group compared to the non-imagery group.
“These findings suggest neurological mechanisms, most likely at the cortical level, contribute significantly to disuse-induced weakness, and that regular activation of the cortical regions via imagery attenuates weakness and VA by maintaining normal levels of inhibition,” the research team wrote. “Thus our findings that imagery attenuated the loss of muscle strength provide proof-of-concept for it as a therapeutic intervention for muscle weakness and voluntary neural activation.” 2
Neuromuscular Training
Years ago research demonstrated the idea of neuromuscular training. The idea began by using visual imaging techniques or proprioception to improve physical performance. In a study conducted at the University of Chicago, subjects were split into three groups and each group was tested on how many free throws they could make. The first group practiced free throws every day for an hour. The second group visualized themselves making free throws but did not actually practice. The third group did nothing. Thirty days later the groups were tested again. The first group who actually practiced shooting free throws improved by 24%. The second group who visualized shooting free throws improved by 23% without touching a basketball. There was no change in the third group.3
Today neuromuscular training is often recommended as a preventive care modality to eliminate injuries such as Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) tears as well as a modality for performance improvement. So, we can visualize ourselves stronger, we can improve our coordination and athletic performance, we should be able to even tighten muscles as around our abdominal area, and more by just regularly visualizing. Indeed, mindfulness research has demonstrated that boosting brain activity through meditation and/or visualization can reduce even addictive behavior patterns, such as those resulting from pain management medications. In one study carried out at the University of Utah, this intervention was found to reduce opioid misuse among a sample of chronic pain patients compared to another sample of chronic pain patients participating in a conventional support group.4
Subliminal Priming
The fact is, most of this (if not all) can also be accomplished without the conscious mind’s active attention. Indeed, much of it can be cued by subliminal priming. This technique has been repeatedly demonstrated effective and I have had personal experience with this—having had the honor to work with elite athletes as well as entire teams, I have witnessed many go from so-called losers to win gold medals and team championships as a result. But again, it’s not just me reporting, the data has accumulated where it is now common place to see science articles detail this information such as the one published in Science News on December 1st of last year. The title says it all: “Athletes perform better when exposed to subliminal visual cues.” 5
Your mind is truly magical! One of my favorite activities is reading your notes and letters telling of your successes after unbridling your imagination and turning your mind lose to create all the good things in life. That’s one of the grand rewards I so much enjoy as a result of creating InnerTalk. So I guess my challenge to you this year: Dare to turn your mind’s creative power loose!
Thanks for the read and here’s to thoughts manipulating matter!
Eldon Taylor
Bibliography
1. American Physiological Society. 2014. “Mind over matter: Can you think your way to strength?” American Physiological Society.
and
Clark, B. C., Mahato, N. K., Nakazawa, M., Law, T. D., and Thomas, J. S. 2014. “The Power of the Mind: The Cortex as a Critical Determinant of Muscle Strength/Weakness.” Journal of Neurophysiology, 2014; 112 (12): 3219
2. Ibid
3. Bayer, C. C. 2013. “Transform your mind, then market your business.” P. Tim Brunson, The International Hypnosis Research Institute.
4. University of Utah. 2014. “Mindfulness Intervention Boosts Brain Activation for Healthy Pleasures.” Science Daily. December 5, 2014.
and
Garland, E. L., Matthew, B. F., and Howard, O. 2014. “Neurophysiological Evidence for Remediation of Reward Processing Deficits in Chronic Pain and Opioid Misuse Following Treatment with Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement: Exploratory ERP Findings from a Pilot RCT.” Journal of Behavioral Medicine,
5. University of Kent. 2014. “Athletes perform better when exposed to subliminal visual cues.” Science Daily. December 1, 2014.
and
Marcora, S. et al. 2014. “Non-Conscious Visual Cues Related to Affect and Action Alter Perception of Effort and Endurance Performance.” Front. Hum. Neurosci, December 2014