We honor those who sacrifice their own interests to help others. Healthcare workers during the COVID period, philanthropists, emergency response personnel, heroes in battle, and everyday heroes who help others in trouble — we are attracted to them for following their hearts.
Does the world pay back heroes for their selflessness? Or do “good people finish last?” Is there any reward in life for those who sacrifice for others? Does living out of love and concern for others have a physical, mental, or emotional reward?
Without God, life is “survival of the fittest” because without Him our only motivation is selfishness. But research has thrown us a surprise: there is a reward for selflessness — in longevity. The altruistic tend to live longer! Something good happens inside when we give of ourselves, and that translates to better health and longer life.
The concept of sacrifice for the greater good is built into life. Complex life could not have developed otherwise, and for single cells to climb the ladder of complexity to become organisms, cells had to learn to work together and even give their lives for others at times. Each step up in complexity requires more selflessness for the sake of the organism, against the rule of survival of the fittest. For society to advance, the same has to happen: the societies that succeed ultimately do so because of the selflessness and concern for others of its members. We have designed into us special and counter-nature characteristics which can only be called by one name: love. When we respond to that design, we are benefitted physically and mentally, even when others don’t appreciate or know about our actions.
Science confirms this. Researchers at the University of Michigan, as published in Health Psychology, took data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study that tracked a random group of 10,317 men and women aged an average of 69 years and questioned them at various stages of life as to whether they did any volunteer work, how regularly, and the motives behind their volunteering. The mortality rate for those who did no volunteer work was 4.3%. For those who did some volunteer work, the mortality rate dropped to 2.3%. Those who were doing volunteer work regularly had an average mortality rate of 1.8%. Then they considered the motives for volunteering, as some had self-centered reasons (wanted the social involvement, or to make friends with someone, etc.) Those who had altruistic motives had the lowest mortality rates in each grouping of volunteers, whether occasional or regular. The researchers’ conclusion was that the desire to help others, to know they had purpose and value in life, and to make a positive difference improved longevity.
Another study looked more closely at the relationship of life purpose with longevity. Published in JAMA Network Open, researchers ran a cohort study — a study of participants over a specific, long period of time — with 6,985 adults over the age of 50. Participants were interviewed during the study as to their sense of purpose in life. Their results showed that the stronger sense of purpose, the lower the all-cause mortality on average. Low sense of purpose correlated to increases in various health conditions, particularly heart and other cardiovascular conditions. Sense of purpose is closely tied to altruism. Sense of purpose drives us to keep going each day, even when we may not feel like making the effort.
The brain — the mechanics of the mind
We can’t see thought, but we can see tracks in the brain due to thought. The mind needs the brain to bring thoughts into physical reality. Researchers can see what the brain is doing with noninvasive brain scanning techniques, so they can see what areas of the brain are activated during various types of activity, when viewing an event, or when asked to think about a certain topic. They can’t “see” thought, but they can see the effects of thoughts through the brain.
Thinking requires energy, and the brain amounts to about 20% of total body calories consumed, with the rate going higher in concentrated thinking. As the brain works harder, it requires oxygen and nutrients to be delivered to the neurons more quickly, thus the blood vessels in the area being used heavily will dilate to let greater blood flow through. This can be sensed through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Also brainwaves change and intensify where brain activity increases, and instruments can detect those. Some mental/emotional balancing therapies use brain measuring techniques to see if the treatments are helping the brain to operate in more balanced ways. These techniques can also measure how the brain responds to the situations a person encounters.
In dangerous situations, our self-protective reaction is fear. This is a primitive function, part of the limbic system in the brain, centered in the amygdala. The amygdala is also the emotional and memory center of the brain. Fear is an emotional response where the brain detects a threat and prepares the body to respond to the threat through unconscious processes, while also causing the conscious feeling we call fear, so the conscious brain can evaluate the situation and decide how to respond.
In a crisis, we have to act with very little time to think. In a situation where someone is in imminent danger and we may have to take a personal risk to save that person, deciding between self-preservation and heroic rescue, portions of our brains are very active, thoughts are running very fast, neurons are firing, and signals are sent rapidly across the brain and through the body. We don’t calmly decide how to act. Instead, we react either out of the fear or out of the love that has become our way of thinking.
Researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden wanted to look at what portions of the brain are involved choosing self-protective versus self-sacrificial activity. Published in eLife, researchers set up an experiment where someone on a video monitor was in danger of getting a painful electric shock (the video was actually a pre-recorded act — no one was really in danger.) If the study participants rushed in to save the victim they were told that they could succeed, but at the risk of getting shocked themselves. With the aid of fMRI imaging, they determined “higher activation in the hippocampus, vmPFC, and OFC was followed by decisions not to help, whereas higher activation in the dACC, PAG, and insula led to helping decisions.” They found that the intensity with which the amygdala was responding to the threat was instrumental in the person’s choice. In other words, the empathy of the potential rescuer with the victim determined the person’s reaction. The areas of the brain that contributed to decisions not to help were associated with learning, while those contributing to helping were dealing with sympathetic responses in the brain. The amygdala — the memory center – was relating personal, memory-stored experiences with the potential suffering of the victim. The more the participants related to the suffering of the apparent victim, the more they were willing to risk themselves to help.
Any area of the body that we use heavily attempts to strengthen. That isn’t just true of muscles, it applies also to the brain. Portions of the brain we exercise are likely to develop further. If we are practicing empathy, our capacity for empathy will grow. Operating in fear or anger helps develop the primitive limbic system, but we would much rather develop the loving, caring aspects of our brains. ”The same sun that hardens the clay softens the wax.” If we choose love, our capacity for love will grow.
Help others, help yourself
So when we have great sympathy for someone in distress, we are most likely to help that person. When we value others as we do ourselves, we have more empathy and concern for others. The primal circuits in our brains are geared to self-protection. Our higher thought gives us the opportunity to love others or love ourselves, and to decide to act accordingly. Our own cells live for the good of the organism, and when we live to help others, we are honoring the design innate within us. And when we are acting out of our innate design, in love, we are actually helping ourselves as well. Love is not only the most satisfying way to live, but also the most healthful.
Dr. Nemec’s Review
There are two controlling channels of all of your hundred trillion cells.
- The first is the mind-brain-body channel. This is the one that is used the most and unfortunately developed the most from childhood.
- The second channel and most important connection is the heart/spirit-brain-body channel.
The mind-brain-body channel is first and foremost, interested in self-preservation. It lives a life, as if it is the most important, and it must survive. The other channel, the heart/spirit-brain-body channel, lives a life of all are one, all are equally important — in essence, all are family.
The heart/spirit-brain-body channel follows the original design of the body, where all the cells work together as one: a community of all are one, always self sacrificing for the greater good of the whole, not of the individual self.
So you see just by the cellular design we were meant to help one another, to lift each other up — not to focus on only lifting ourselves up.
Two Choices
So each moment of your life you can choose which channel of communication you are going to operate from. You can choose the mind-brain-body channel, and in doing so you choose to elevate yourself, as if you were the most important; on the other hand if you choose the heart/spirit-brain-body channel you choose to follow your heart where God speaks, instead of your mind where the world speaks.
As this research has shown, your health and longevity was designed to operate in the heart/spirit-brain-body mode — and when you do, it signals to the hundred trillion cells messages of love, not fear; of rest, not stress.
So as the Word says, “you choose blessing or curses, life or death”. So it’s all up to us to choose which channel we are going to operate from in life. But it’s important to understand: from in utero up to six years old we are programed subconsciously by the environment around us, and with most it is a stressful environment of need, lack fear, and doubt just trying to survive. This environment produces stress programs stored in various areas in the brain that actually can be seen in scanning and 3-D imaging. These areas are in a sense where the brain ”blew a fuse” so now the circuit panel and energy to that organ or gland is dysfunctional. This produces a disease process in the organ or gland, and the only way this can be analyzed is with the most advanced technique that we have developed over the last 40 years with our Revolution New Medicine Protocol. We are not only able to find the exact locations in the brain that have blown fuses supplying certain organ and tissue areas, but also to reset them and retrain the communication pathway so that the heart/spirit-brain-body channel becomes dominant over the once-dominating mind-brain-body control.
This is transformational.
This is the number one source of all conditions and diseases, and unless the circuit is reset and reprogrammed to be heart/spirit-brain-body dominant, the condition or disease will never completely resolve — the circuit will keep on blowing, causing excessive energy in the self-centered areas of the brain because of the deficient energy in the heart/spirit areas of the brain.
This is the most critical aspect of health — very few recognize it. So whether someone has cancer, neurological disease, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disease, autoimmune disease, hormonal imbalance, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, or high cholesterol, all the way down to memory loss, emotional highs and lows, and depression or anxiety — all of it starts when the hundred trillion cells are being controlled predominantly by the mind-brain-body channel instead of the heart/spirit-brain-body channel. This is the most important thing we do at Revolution New Medicine, and this is why people come from around the world and experience transformation in body, mind, heart, and spirit.
Here are the ways we can help you in your health journey:
- Outpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-has the most benefit of teaching, treatment, live classes and personalized coaching. This program has the most contact with Dr. Nemec with 3- 6 month programs that can be turned into a regular checking and support program for life. This is our core program that has helped so many restore their health and maintain that restoration for years.
- Inpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-is our four-week intensive inpatient program for those that are not in driving distance, usually over 4 hour drive. This is the program that is an intensive jumpstart with treatment, teaching, live classes and coaching designed for all our international patients along with those in the US that do not live in Illinois. This program is very effective especially when combined with our new membership program support.
- Stay at Home Program-is offered to continental US patients who cannot come to Total Health Institute but still want a more personal, customized plan to restore their health. This program also includes our Learn Membership Program.
- Membership Program is our newest program offered for those that want to work on their health at a high level and want access to the teaching at Total Health Institute along with the Forums: both Dr. Nemec’s posts and other members posting. And also, to have the chance to get personalized questions answered on the conference calls which are all archived in case you miss the call. The Membership Program has 3 levels to choose from: Learn, Overcome and Master. The difference is at the Overcome and Master levels you received one on one calls with Dr. Nemec personalizing your program for your areas of focus.
