I was conversing with a friend of mine who is very much influenced by the western philosophy and the old school thought of learning from one's own mistake without expecting any guidance from parents or teachers. A typical "Gen Y" enthusiast. Our conversation went into an argument mode and eventually both of us agreed that neither of us are going to agree with the other guy's point of view so we started googling.
For a feel good moment after googling a variety of topics like "Gurukula system vs modern day schooling", "joint family vs nuclear family", "saving vs living for the moment", "guiding vs experiencing" etc i could at the end convince him that our Easterners' philosophy (Chinese, Mongolian and Indian) all accept that parental guidance is more apt and plays an important role in the moral building of the child. One physiological factor i would like to share now.
Physiological effect:
Our Brain is composed of so many chemicals and the Neurons are responsible for harnessing these chemicals and converting them into physiological and psychological signals in our body. One such chemical is the Cortisol - a hormone which is released by brain from the HPA axis (Hypothalamus Pituitary Adrenal axis). these hormones are released as a reactive enzyme when the body is encountered with a stressful situation. These are controlled by endocrine glands and pituitary glands of the body which in turn primes our body for instant energy to tackle the situation (eg. running away from a chasing dog or a barking wife).
But prolonged exposure and secretion of this Cortisol have adverse effects in our body. Because Cortisol's main focus is to cut down the energy in the body used for useful work (like memory, knowledge, concentration etc) and channel all those energy to involuntary nerves and senses. So prolonged exposure and release of Cortisol will reduce the capability of Hippocampus (part of brain helping in logical thinking and analyzing) by breaking the neuron linkages and eventually in shrinkage of that part of the brain.
Psychological Treatment:
But this can be avoided (proved be experiments) by practising and training our brain to tackle excessive Cortisol secretion. this is achieved by telling and comforting our brain from young age. how is this achieved? usually Cortisol will be secreted more for infants and children less than 12-14 years whose brain development is continual. When they are experiencing a stressful situation Parents especially mother can calm and confirm them about not having any problems and evading the situation. This way HPA gets a signal or a Cortisol receptor from Limbic system (responsible for emotional activities of the brain). the more the Cortisol receptors, more are the chances of not getting affected by it.
Also the effect gets exponentially multiplied if this information is transferred from one generation to the next getting stored in DNA history and eventually the DNA gets mutated and adapted to stressful situation(unless broken by some catastrophic activity like a death of a partner/kin etc).
This way our guidance and pampering will help our children to develop a resistance for stress.
These are now being identified by the Westerners and are advertising the need for parental guidance for children until they are 18-20.
These were definitely identified by our ancestors (if not atleast with so much technical accuracy- quite possible still). It is amusing how those people knew about all these and they did what exactly was needed without much fuss and much publicising. Probably these would have been stored as a cryptic in some old song sung by a mother to her child as a lullaby.That is how so many scientific facts have been hidden in our songs, culture and customs. We have forgotten the very reason while still hanging on to the ritual. We could restore our longlost glory if and only if we are able to find the reasons for our customs and tradition.....
For a feel good moment after googling a variety of topics like "Gurukula system vs modern day schooling", "joint family vs nuclear family", "saving vs living for the moment", "guiding vs experiencing" etc i could at the end convince him that our Easterners' philosophy (Chinese, Mongolian and Indian) all accept that parental guidance is more apt and plays an important role in the moral building of the child. One physiological factor i would like to share now.
Physiological effect:
Our Brain is composed of so many chemicals and the Neurons are responsible for harnessing these chemicals and converting them into physiological and psychological signals in our body. One such chemical is the Cortisol - a hormone which is released by brain from the HPA axis (Hypothalamus Pituitary Adrenal axis). these hormones are released as a reactive enzyme when the body is encountered with a stressful situation. These are controlled by endocrine glands and pituitary glands of the body which in turn primes our body for instant energy to tackle the situation (eg. running away from a chasing dog or a barking wife).
But prolonged exposure and secretion of this Cortisol have adverse effects in our body. Because Cortisol's main focus is to cut down the energy in the body used for useful work (like memory, knowledge, concentration etc) and channel all those energy to involuntary nerves and senses. So prolonged exposure and release of Cortisol will reduce the capability of Hippocampus (part of brain helping in logical thinking and analyzing) by breaking the neuron linkages and eventually in shrinkage of that part of the brain.
Psychological Treatment:
But this can be avoided (proved be experiments) by practising and training our brain to tackle excessive Cortisol secretion. this is achieved by telling and comforting our brain from young age. how is this achieved? usually Cortisol will be secreted more for infants and children less than 12-14 years whose brain development is continual. When they are experiencing a stressful situation Parents especially mother can calm and confirm them about not having any problems and evading the situation. This way HPA gets a signal or a Cortisol receptor from Limbic system (responsible for emotional activities of the brain). the more the Cortisol receptors, more are the chances of not getting affected by it.
Also the effect gets exponentially multiplied if this information is transferred from one generation to the next getting stored in DNA history and eventually the DNA gets mutated and adapted to stressful situation(unless broken by some catastrophic activity like a death of a partner/kin etc).
This way our guidance and pampering will help our children to develop a resistance for stress.
These are now being identified by the Westerners and are advertising the need for parental guidance for children until they are 18-20.
These were definitely identified by our ancestors (if not atleast with so much technical accuracy- quite possible still). It is amusing how those people knew about all these and they did what exactly was needed without much fuss and much publicising. Probably these would have been stored as a cryptic in some old song sung by a mother to her child as a lullaby.That is how so many scientific facts have been hidden in our songs, culture and customs. We have forgotten the very reason while still hanging on to the ritual. We could restore our longlost glory if and only if we are able to find the reasons for our customs and tradition.....
