Mood and Medical Ethics

| by Victor Cherubim

( November 6, 2014, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Research says that you can improve your health and feel happier simply by boosting your mood. In her book: “Emotional Energy Factor,” Mira Kirshenbaum gives us a commonsense and very insightful look at the connection between our minds and our energy and how it all relates to health. Only 30% of energy required to build a better future for ourselves and our children comes from physical sources like rest, diet, exercise and health. New research shows that 70% of total energy comes from non-physical sources, what is called “emotional energy”.

She goes on to state:
“I know, based on my research that high emotional energy doesn’t come from luck or good genes. It comes from specific things done to prevent emotional energy from leaking out. There are 25 emotional energy boosters in my book: The Emotional Energy Factor. Here are four specific ways to up your energy when you have a chronic health condition.
1. Concentrate on the things you can do - not about how your life is limited.
2. Think about how your life has changed and focus on new opportunities.
3. Ask yourself: What if your chronic condition were a secret gift enabling you to
take advantage of these opportunities.
4. Force yourself to come up with answers to this question.”

If we accept this premise you’ll discover the youthfulness you’ve forgotten even existed. If we further think back to the things we loved, as a child, say climbing trees to play games, we rediscover an old passion.

No one is asking anyone to climb trees at any age. Of course, we cannot change our past. If we accept the theory that our energy is down to our mind, we can certainly use our mind to let go of our negative emotions, such as anger, revenge and regret and concentrate on what is enriching and positive.

Digital trends –“decoding the brain”

Researchers at University of California, Berkeley (UCLA) have invented a brain decoder that is able to decode brain scans and decipher what people are seeing, hearing and feeling, as well as what they remember or even dream about.

We are further informed that Neuroscientists can predict what a person is seeing or dreaming looking at their brain activity. Such techniques “measure brain activity by identifying areas that are being fed oxygenated blood, which light up as coloured blobs on MRI scans. They use both strong and weak responses to identify more subtle patterns of activity.”

Thought Police

No wonder that media reports have suggested that such techniques can bring mind reading “from the realms of fantasy to fact.” If this is taken to its extreme, there could be a curtailment, if not on privacy, individuality, perhaps, on our identity. We are told all this is in the public interest, as science is for the welfare of men and women.

The voice inside our head may soon find its way out. Decoding brain activity behind the voice in our head could possibly help someone who is disabled, locked in speech. or another who has lost one or more of their faculties. But have we reached the day when morals and manners are dispensed with by medical consultants who can administer to vulnerable patients in Intensive Care wards (ICU’s) and put them on life support systems, without either their consent or of their loved ones, but only demand permission of next of kin, to withdraw this support, as ICU beds are desperately needed for the living, but not for the brain dead.

Fears grow over the recovery of 45 year old Formula 1 Racing Champion, Michael Schumacher, who lives on, but reliant on machines and tubes to feed and breathe. With costs escalating to $183,000 a week, he rightly receives specialist medical care.

Where is the ethics of medical attention for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable?