Prayer Needed!

Dear friends,

Let us pray for our fellow Augustinians who will be taking the Nursing Board Examination this coming November 29, 2008.

Let us include them in our prayers.

Sharpen Your Brain With a Good Lie Down

Ever been caught short on a creative idea? Can't think of that niggling last answer in your crossword puzzle or even what to cook for dinner?

Here's a hint: put your feet up and lie down - being a couch potato is great for boosting our brain and our creativity. So says Dr Darren Lipnicki from the school of psychology at the Australian National University, who conducted research on how neurotransmitters are released.

He tested 20 people, who were asked to solve 32 five-letter anagrams, such as "osien" and "nodru" while standing and lying down. His findings? We are smarter and more creative lying down than standing up.

It seems less of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline is released to the brain when you're horizontal, so your creative thinking isn't as impaired.

http://www.readersdigest.com.ph

Psychology Through the Years

PLATO(437-347)

According to Plato, God creates the world out of materia (raw material, matter) and shapes it according to his “plan” or “blueprint” -- ideas or the ideal. If the world is not perfect, it is not because of God or the ideals, but because the raw materials were not perfect. I think you can see why the early Christian church made Plato an honorary Christian, even though he died three and a half centuries before Christ!

Plato applies the same dichotomy to human beings: There’s the body, which is material, mortal, and “moved” . Then there’s the soul, which is ideal, immortal, and “unmoved”

The soul includes reason, of course, as well as self-awareness and moral sense. Plato says the soul will always choose to do good, if it recognizes what is good. This is a similar conception of good and bad as the Buddhists have: Rather than bad being sin, it is considered a matter of ignorance. So, someone who does something bad requires education, not punishment.

The soul is drawn to the good, the ideal, and so is drawn to God. We gradually move closer and closer to God through reincarnation as well as in our individual lives. Our ethical goal in life is resemblance to God, to come closer to the pure world of ideas and ideal, to liberate ourselves from matter, time, and space, and to become more real in this deeper sense. Our goal is, in other words, self-realization.

(http://webspace.ship.edu/psych/)