New Friendshipe Attraction!

Here are seven simple tips that will help you to attract new friends:

1. Focus on the good in people.

None of us is perfect. We all have traits that make us difficult to live with. It’s easy to focus on what is difficult. Instead, look for what is good and strong. If you do catch yourself focusing on negative aspects, remind yourself that you too have faults.

2. Smile.

If you look at ancient Buddha figures, they usually show a serene smile. It’s a kind of visual teaching, because when we smile, we become mindful and step out of ourpreoccupation. No matter how you connect with others, remember to smile. Whether you’re connecting face-to-face, or via Twitter, email, chat, Skype, or phone,  your inner and outer smile will be felt by the person you are connecting with.

3. Let go of grudges.

Do you stew over how others have treated you? It can be difficult to release yourself from negative thoughts about how someone harmed you or made you unhappy. Such negative thoughts are corrosive and will harden your heart. So let them go and focus on the beauty of the present moment instead.

4. Be a positive mirror for others.

I you want to be a friend to someone, make sure you let them know all the wonderful things you can see in them. There is a lovely poem by Galway Kinnell that talks about this:

… sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

This poem shows us what it is to be a good friend. We need to reteach our friends their loveliness, in words and in touch.

5. Be helpful.

The key to creatinglasting friendships is to think about what you can do for friends. They key question is: what do they need? For example, a friend of mine recently lost her father. At a time like that, help is important. So I’ve been cooking meals for her, just to make things easier and to let her know that I care.

6. Be kind.

My aspiration inlife is this: kindness is never out of place. Mind you, I don’t always manage to live up to it. But that’s the nature ofaspirations—they are the stars by which we navigate our lives. Though they light up our path, we can never reach them.

7. Be grateful.

It’s easy to take friends for granted. But if you want to strengthen your friendships, do the opposite. Think of your friends with gratitude. And then express your gratitude to them in words and deeds. Everyone loves being valued.

Positive Attitude!

1:-Believe Happiness is a Choice:-  

For me, this was a hard one at first. I thought that people were either unhappy or happy (and I was one of the unhappy ones). I used to blame this on all kinds of outside forces  fate, experiences, parents, relationships but never really stopped to think that I could choose to be happy.

Add caption

Sure, this isn’t always easy, but it is always, always an option. Teaching myself to see that happiness is a choice has been one of the greatest things I’ve ever done for myself.

Now when I find myself in a bad situation, I know that it’s up to me to find the good, to be happy regardless of what’s happening around me. I am no longer pointing fingers, placing blame. I realize that everything happens how it happens and it’s up to me to choose how I want to feel about it. I am in control of my happiness level and no one can take that away  from me.

2:-Rid Your Life of Negativity:-
If you want to live a positive, joyful and happy life, you cannot –- absolutely CANNOT -– be surrounded by negative people who are not encouraging your happiness. When I was a pretty negative person, I tended to attract other negative people.
When I decided to make the change to live a more positive life, I had to rid my life of all of the negative people in it. This, as you can imagine, wasn’t easy. Getting rid of people hurts -– even when you know they aren’t good for you or your current lifestyle.
Not only did I have to get rid of the negative people, but I also had to get rid of the negative things too. I had to stop doing certain things that were causing negativity in my life. I had to take a step back and examine which behaviors were good for me and which were not.
I learned to focus on the positive things I was doing and let go of the negative ones. This process was not easy and to be honest, is still ongoing, but I know this: having negativity in your life prevents you from living a truly positive existence 
3:- Look For the Positive in Life:-
There is the positive aspect in everything. In every person, in every situation, there is something good. Most of the time it’s not all that obvious. We have to look. And sometimes we have to look hard.
The old me just sat back and allowed things to happen by default. If I saw negative, I went with that feeling. I didn’t want to look harder or think too much about the good. I found it much, much easier to sit back and just accept what I saw (which was usually the bad).
Now, when I’m faced with a difficult or challenging situation, I think to myself, “What is good about this?” No matter how terrible the situation might seem, I always can find something good if I take the time to think about it.
Everything –- good and bad -– is a learning experience. So, at the very least, you can learn from bad experiences. However, there’s usually even more to it than that. If you really take the time to look, you will usually find something good, something really positive, about every person or situation. 
4:-Reinforce Positivity in Yourself:-
Once I started thinking more positively and adapted to a more positive attitude, I realized I had to reinforce these thoughts and behaviors in myself so they would stick. As with any sort of training, practice makes perfect, and, yes, you can practice being positive.
The best and easiest way to do this is to be positive when it comes to who you are. Tell yourself you’re awesome. Tell yourself you look good. Tell yourself that you love and accept yourself completely. Tell yourself you did an awesome job at work or raising your kids or whatever it is you do.
Be honest with yourself, but do your best to look for the good. And, whatever you do, don’t focus on the negative. Nothing good can come of telling yourself that your butt’s too big or your latest career goal wasn’t met.
It’s okay to not like everything about yourself (yet), but don’t spend energy dwelling on the negative. Remind yourself of the good in you. We all have positive attributes and it’s up to you to remind yourself of them every day. 
5:- Share Happiness with Others:-
Not only do you need to be positive with yourself for this new positive attitude to really take effect, you also need to be positive with others. You have to share your wealth of positivity with the world.
The best way I’ve found to do this is quite simple and basic: be nice. Be nice to other people, no matter what. Tell someone he or she looks nice today. Tell someone they did a great job on that presentation. Tell your parents or children (or both!) how much you love them and how great they are.
When someone is feeling down, do what you can to cheer him or her up. Send flowers. Write notes. Don’t gossip. Be kind to all living things. All of these things sound basic enough, but, for someone like me, they didn’t used to come easily.
In the past, I didn’t wanted to see the good in myself and, therefore, didn’t want to see it in others either. I used to be critical and condescending. Now I strive to be encouraging and supportive. I try not only to treat others, as I would like to be treated, but also to consider how they would like to be treated.
People appreciate positivity and the more you are sharing it with others, the more you are practicing it and reinforcing it in your own life.

Secret of Attracting friends!

Here are seven simple tips that will help you to attract new friends:

1. Focus on the good in people:-

None of us is perfect. We all have traits that make us difficult to live with. It’s easy to focus on what is difficult. Instead, look for what is good and strong. If you do catch yourself focusing on negative aspects, remind yourself that you too have faults.

2. Smile:-

If you look at ancient Buddha figures, they usually show a serene smile. It’s a kind of visual teaching, because when we smile, we become mindful and step out of our preoccupation. No matter how you connect with others, remember to smile. Whether you’re connecting face-to-face, or via Twitter, email, chat, Skype, or phone,  your inner and outer smile will be felt by the person you are connecting with.

3. Let go of grudges:-

Do you stew over how others have treated you? It can be difficult to release yourself from negative thoughts about how someone harmed you or made you unhappy. Such negative thoughts are corrosive and will harden your heart. So let them go and focus on the beauty of the present moment instead.

4. Be a positive mirror for others:-

I you want to be a friend to someone, make sure you let them know all the wonderful things you can see in them. There is a lovely poem by Galway Kinnell that talks about this:

… sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

This poem shows us what it is to be a good friend. We need to reteach our friends their loveliness, in words and in touch.

5. Be helpful:-

The key to creating lasting friendships is to think about what you can do for friends. They key question is: what do they need? For example, a friend of mine recently lost her father. At a time like that, help is important. So I’ve been cooking meals for her, just to make things easier and to let her know that I care.

6. Be kind:-

My aspiration inlife is this: kindness is never out of place. Mind you, I don’t always manage to live up to it. But that’s the nature of aspirations—they are the stars by which we navigate our lives. Though they light up our path, we can never reach them.

7. Be grateful:-

It’s easy to take friends for granted. But if you want to strengthen your friendships, do the opposite. Think of your friends with gratitude. And then express your gratitude to them in words and deeds. Everyone loves being valued.

Broken Heart Healing!

ACCEPT THE PAIN:-

Accept that you will have to go through some pain. It is an unavoidable truth that if you loved enough to be heartbroken, you have to experience some suffering.
When you lose something that mattered to you, it is natural and important to feel sad about it: that feeling is an essential part of the healing process.
The problem with broken-hearted people is that they seem to be reliving their misery over and over again. If you cannot seem to break the cycle of painful memories, the chances are that you are locked into repeating dysfunctional patterns of behaviour. Your pain has become a mental habit. This habit can, and must, be broken.
This is not to belittle the strength of your feelings or the importance of the habits you've built up during your relationship. Without habit, none of us would function. But there comes a time when the pain becomes unhealthy.
When you enter your bedroom at night, you switch on the light without thinking. If you obsess about your ex, and feel unhappy all the time, it's likely that your unconscious mind is 'switching on' your emotions in exactly the same way.
Without realising it, you have programmed yourself to feel a pang of grief every time you hear that tune you danced to, or see your ex's empty chair across the kitchen table.

CHANGE YOUR HABITS:-
Now you have to break those connections. Turn off the music that reminds you of your ex. Make your home look and feel different from when your loved one was around. Move the furniture.
Take up a new activity. And keep moving: exercise is the single most effective therapy for depression.
The point of these changes is to break up the old associations and give yourself a new environment for your new life. The changes you make don't have to be permanent. Even if it is just using a different shampoo and deleting your ex's number from the memory of your mobile, change something. Now.
CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS:-

The next step is to do the same thing on the inside - transform your habits of thought. In a relationship, we build up a huge array of such habits. When the love affair ends, these patterns can still be running.
To change your thinking habits, you need to understand a little more about them.
Have you ever witnessed the same event as someone else, and later found out their account of it was completely different from yours? Each of you saw the event through a 'frame', made up of your personal beliefs, feelings and internal habits.
If you are finding it devastatingly difficult to handle the end of your relationship, you may need to change this 'frame'. You will need to reframe your heartbreak. Stop seeing it as the end of your happiness. Instead, turn it into a challenge; view it as an opportunity.
Being heartbroken can make you feel worthless and hopeless - but that is because the frame you are using is too narrow. Learning to see your situation with a different frame is a wonderful liberation.
VIEW YOUR RELATIONSHIP FROM THE OUTSIDE:-

The following exercise will help you look at your circumstances from different points of view, so you gain helpful insights.
1. Think about the break-up of your relationship. What are the judgments or generalisations you have made about yourself and your ex?
2. Now think of someone you admire - a character from history or a real friend. Imagine they are watching a movie of this part of your life, and step into their shoes to watch it instead. Imagine what their comments would be.
3. Now imagine that a neutral observer is watching the movie of your life. Step into their shoes and watch it from there.
4. Notice the differences that you see from each point of view. Which ones are helpful? Which ones make you feel better? Use these perspectives to view your relationship in a new light.
People who get over difficulties well rarely see what has happened to them as a disaster. They frame it as a challenge. It is a matter of a point of view. It is not what happens to us, but how we interpret it that determines the outcome for us.
CHANGE HOW YOU SEE YOURSELF AND HIM:-

The next stage is to focus on your mental picture of your lost love. By changing how you represent your ex in your mind, you can greatly reduce or even eliminate your distress.
You must learn to control your 'visualisation'. Every single one of us makes pictures in our imagination - and we can all learn how to change the pictures. It is important to learn to do this, because our bodies react to what we imagine in the same way that they react to what is actually happening to us. Memory and imagination affect our feelings in the same way as reality does.
We are constantly altering our state by the pictures we make in our imagination and the way we talk to ourselves. So it is vital to control those pictures and not let them run away with our feelings.
CHANGE HOW YOU SEE YOUR PAST:-

1. Answer the following question. Which side of your front door is the lock on? To answer, you have had to make a mental picture of the door. You have made a visualisation.
2. Now try to imagine what your front door would look like if it was bright orange or had yellow stripes down it. Make it bigger. Move it away so that it is smaller. Move it further away and down a bit so you are looking down on it. Make it open. Change it in different ways.
3. Think about your ex now. As soon as you remember what someone looks like, you are using visualisation. What is the expression on his or her face? Observe what your ex is wearing and what he or she is doing. Where do you see the picture of them? In front of you, or to the left or the right? Is it lifesize or smaller? Is it a movie or a still image? Is it solid or transparent? Now, as you keep that image in your mind's eye, notice the feelings that arise. Make a note of those feelings.
4. Now you could remember or imagine them differently. You can imagine you are a great film director. You can reshoot the scenes of your memory and imagination in any way you want. You can change the action, soundtrack, lighting, camera angles, framing, focus and speed. Change how you are visualising your ex and notice how it affects your feelings.
5. Bring to mind the picture you had of your ex.
6. Notice where it appears and how big it is.
7. Now drain the colour out until it looks like an old black and white picture.
8. Move the image further away until it is one-tenth of its original size.
9. Shrink it even further, right down to a little black dot.
10. Notice how your feelings have changed and compare how you feel now to the note you made earlier.
You will notice that some changes have a bigger effect than others. Images that are closer, bigger, brighter and more colourful have greater emotional intensity than those that are duller, smaller and further away.
Standing outside your memories and watching as if they were a movie helps you distance yourself from them.
ALL OUR OF LOVE - FOR GOOD:-

Now you are ready to tackle the central problem using the visualisation technique. Part of being heartbroken is the fact that you still feel in love. It hurts because part of you is still attached to your ex. This exercise helps that piece of you release itself.
1. List five occasions when you felt very in love with your ex. List them so you can easily call them to mind.
2. Start with the first of those memories. Play with it. Move the image away from you so that you can see yourself in the picture. Make it small.
3. Drain out the colour so it is black and white, then make it transparent. When you look at your memory like this, it will seem as if the event is happening to someone else, and the emotional intensity will be reduced still further. You are starting to re-code your memory.
4. When you have finished re-coding the first memory, do the same for the next one. Work through them until you have done all five.
5. Remember in detail five negative experiences with your expartner, where you felt very definitely put off by him or her. List the five experiences.
6. Take the least appealing memory and fully return to that moment. Try to relive it.
7. Now turn up the colour and the clarity. Make the memory as bright and clear as you can, and experience the feelings more and more strongly.
8. Go through each of the other four negative memories of your ex-partner, and relive them. Carry on until even thinking about them puts you off.
When you think about the bad experiences again and again, the negative memories begin to join up so that there is no space between them for the feelings of love, yearning and regret.
Concentrate on the exercise and do it methodically. Some people have found that doing this just once makes them feel different. To make sure the effect sticks, do it every day for two weeks.
UNDERSTAND YOUR EMOTIONS:-

The next stage is to learn to understand your emotional reactions better. Your feelings of heartbreak are unlikely to disappear unless you cope with what they are trying to tell you.
An emotion is a bit like someone knocking on your door to deliver a message. If you don't answer, it keeps knocking until you do open up.
Opening the door to your feelings means learning to understand them. This can be hard, because heartbreak is complicated by other feelings: anger, fear and shame.
BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL FIND LOVE AGAIN:-

You could fall into the trap of remaining convinced that your ex is the only person you could ever love. This is unlikely to be true on a planet with six billion people.
So why do you believe it? Can it be because you are desperately trying to avoid accepting that the relationship is over? Or are you afraid that the bad feelings associated with heartbreak will never go away?
That fear makes you anxious, and keeps you feeling bad for longer. The burden of your heartbreak has grown heavier, and a vicious circle has been established.
LIVING HAPPILY AFTER YOUR BREAK-UP:-

A good way of giving yourself a boost - and coping with complicated feelings - is to imagine a bright future.
1. Imagine the future as a corridor in front of you. Imagine walking down it, away from the present, towards a door.
2. Open the door, and see beyond it a world in which you have recovered from your heartbreaking relationship.
3. See what you look like, what you are wearing, where you are going, whom you are seeing.
4. Now step into this new world and into the new happy you. Imagine the whole experience from the inside, seeing what you would see, hearing what you would hear, and feeling how good and happy things are now.
It is not a matter of believing the image is real: just imagine it as vividly as possible.

In heartbreak, there is often a backlog of emotional learning to get through. Do one bit at a time. Your unconscious mind will protect you, and give you a rest so that you can deal with the next bit. You will learn to step out of the memories, leave them behind, and start a new life.

To Activate Your Body's Self Repaire Mechanisms!

6 Simple Steps:-

Step 1: Believe You Can Heal Yourself

Don’t believe that positive belief can cure the body? Think again!Don’t believe your health condition could possibly resolve? Check out the Spontaneous Remission Project, a compilation of over 3,500 case studies proving that spontaneous remission has been reported for just about every illness out there- Stage 4 cancers, HIV, diabetes, high blood pressure, thyroid disease, autoimmune diseases, even an untreated gunshot wound to the head!

For my skeptical physician mind, reading through all these case studies was a paradigm shift. It’s kind of like the story of the 4-minute mile. Exercise physiologists used to think the body was physiologically incapable of running a mile in less than 4 minutes — and so no athlete ever did it. Then in 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in three minutes and fifty-nine seconds. Once that limiting belief was shattered, virtually every athlete that competes in a world-class event has run the mile in under four minutes. Today’s world-record time for the mile is 3:43:15, more than 15 seconds under 4 minutes.

What if your belief that the body can’t heal itself is like the 4-minute mile? For some mind-blowing stories about how positive belief can radically affect your health, watch my TEDx talk Is There Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself?.

Scientific data proves that once you believe healing is possible, it can be. So what do you believe?

Step 2: Find The Right Support:-

To say that you can heal yourself is sort of a misnomer because the scientific data proves that, equally essential to positive belief is the nurturing care of a true healer, someone optimistic who shares your positive belief, includes you in true partnership, respects your intuition, cares for your wellbeing, and ensures you that you won’t be alone on your self-healing journey.

Do you have the right healers on your health care team?

Step Three: Listen To Your Body & Your Intuition:-

Nobody knows your body better than you, not even a doctor. We doctors may know the arteries of the leg or the anatomy of your organs better than you, but you know what’s best for your own body better than anyone else. 

Yes! Your body is indeed your business. So listen to your intuition and trust what it tells you.

Not in touch with your intuition? Then listen to your body, which is one vehicle your intuition uses to speak to you. If you have a physical sensation in your body  pain, tightness, nausea, clenching, dizziness  ask your body what it is trying to communicate to you. Then listen up! This is the voice of your inner wisdom and it will always lead you directly to your true north.

Step Four: Diagnose The Root Causes Of Your Illness:-

Your doctor may give you one kind of diagnosis- migraines or irritable bowel syndrome or breast cancer, for example. But the kind of diagnosis I’m talking about gets at the root of what might have triggered stress responses in your body and deactivated your body’s self-healing mechanisms, thereby making your body vulnerable to illness.

What aspects of your life are activating your stress responses? What relaxation response-inducing activities  like meditation, creative expression, laughter, engaging in work you love, massage, yoga, or playing with animals — have you been neglecting?

Illness is often a wake up call, forcing us to get down and dirty with what’s really true in our lives. We can either play the victim or we can use illness as an opportunity to awaken.

If you’re struggling with a physical issue, what might lie at the root of it? For more ideas about what might lie at the root of your illness, check out my TEDx talk The Shocking Truth About Your Health.

Step Five: Write The Prescription For Yourself:-

This won’t be the kind of prescription you fill at a pharmacy, though it certainly may include elements of Western medicine. It’s more of a self-guided action plan intended to make your body ripe for optimal health and full recovery.

So ask yourself, “What does my body need in order to heal?” Your Prescription may include diet changes, an exercise regimen, and a conventional medical treatment plan. But it may also include getting out of a toxic relationship, quitting a soul-sucking job, adding a meditation practice, taking steps to get out of debt, or following a passion.

Be as specific as you can. Then muster up the courage to put your plan into action!

Step Six: Surrender Attachment To Outcomes:-

What if you’ve adopted a positive attitude, found the right healer, tapped into your intuition and your body, diagnosed the root cause of your health condition, written The Prescription for yourself and put it into action- but you’re still sick? Are you doing something wrong? Is it your fault you’re still sick?

Absolutely not  and any talk of guilt, blame, or shame for someone on a healing journey only activates more stress responses and harms the body.

So what’s the deal? This is where the art of surrender comes in. Some patients do everything “right” and spontaneous remission happens. But others are the proverbial choir- and they’re still sick. Why does this happen? Honestly, I don’t know. The only real answer is a spiritual one. Perhaps our souls come here on this earth to learn lessons, and illness can be a spiritual practice, a way to learn our life lessons and a part of our soul’s destiny.

What I can say is that if you’ve followed the 6 steps, you’ve done everything within your power to make your body ripe for miracles — and the rest is out of your hands. So take a deep breath, trust The Universe, surrender attachment to any particular health outcome, and let any health condition you face be an opportunity for spiritual awakening.

The Mind Power Role in Achieving Success in Life!

The mind plays an important role in achieving every success and goal, minor, everyday goals, or major goals.

With minor, day-to-day goals, you know what you want to achieve, but when it comes to major goals, it is different. You might have a vague idea, but this is not enough.

To accomplish anything, and to use your mind power, you have to know exactly what it is you want to do. In order to focus your mind on a goal, you need a clear and well defined goal. How do you go about that?

1:-First, you have to think and find out what is it that you really want to accomplish or gain. This might not be a simple step, and requires deep thinking, investigation and time.

2:-After discovering what you really want to accomplish, you need to come up with a plan for action. You need to know what you have to do first, and how to proceed. All of this requires planning, which means using the power of the mind.

3:-After deciding on a goal and coming up with a plan, you need to hold in your mind a clear mental image of your goal. You need to see it accomplished. This step requires that you use your imagination, which is another power of the mind.

Not everyone can visualize clear mental images, but regular training of the imagination can do wonders. You may, for example, look at photos of what you want to achieve, and then close your eyes, and try to see it in your imagination. This will enhance your visualization ability.

At this point, you have to display patience, self-discipline and persistence.

4:-Affirmations are another useful mental tool for achieving success. What you affirm sinks into the subconscious mind, becomes part of the subconscious mind, and consequently, affects your behavior and actions. If your affirmations are positive, they lead you to success.

5:--You need to be able to transmit your thoughts to other people, who would aid you with your plans. Often, you have to persuade others to invest in your plans or to help you in other ways. You need to be enthusiastic, persuasive, and believe what you are saying, otherwise they won't listen and won't care.

To be able to do so, you need some degree of concentration, the ability to visualize, tact and patience, all being mental skills:-

6:-Motivation is another mental and emotional power that you require for achieving success. How can you achieve anything if you are not motivated enough? To increase your motivation and enthusiasm, think often of your goal, about its advantages and benefits, and how it will change your life. Doing so, will strengthen your motivation.

Your thoughts, which are part of your mind, possess power. The thoughts that you most often think tend to come true.

If you pour your mental energy into the same thoughts or mental images day after day, they will become stronger and stronger, and would consequently, affect your attitude, expectations, behavior and actions.

These thoughts and mental images can even be subconsciously perceived by other people, who would then offer you help or opportunities.

Your thoughts can also create what is usually termed as coincidence. They can attract into your life corresponding events, situations and opportunities.

Not every thought turns into reality. A thought has to be repeated often, and to be saturated with desire, in order to come true.

Piano for Body, Mind and Soul Healing!

Piano for Body, Mind and Soul:-

There has always been a recognized trinity between the mind, the body, and the therapeutic qualities of music. And the piano, specifically, has been a long-recognized source of remedy for those seeking escape and creative expression. But recent years have also offered a wealth of scientific studies that demonstrate our instincts have always been correct playing the piano offers proven benefits from physical and intellectual to social and emotional to people of all ages.

Let’s Get Physical:-

The physical benefits of piano playing are even more far reaching. Mitchell Gaynor M.D., in his book Sounds of Healing, demonstrates that music has therapeutic physical effects including reduced anxiety, heart and respiratory rates; reduced cardiac complications; lowered blood pressure; and increased immune responses.

Keys to Better Thinking:-

In a study conducted by E. Glenn Schellenberg of the University of Toronto at Mississauga in 2011, researchers split 132 first-graders into four separate groups for after-school activities. One group was given singing lessons, one was given drama lessons, another piano lessons, and the last was offered no after-school instruction. All of the students’ IQ’s were evaluated at the end of the year. Those who participated in the piano lessons saw an IQ increase of 7 points, while the other groups saw an increase of 4.25 at most. The researchers concluded that the fact that piano education requires one to be focused for long periods of times contributes to the greater IQ gains in the piano-playing group.

Striking a Contented Chord:-

Barry Bittman, MD, of the Body-Mind Wellness Center in Meadville, Pennsylvania, created a study to gauge stress levels among 32 volunteers. The volunteers were put through a stress-inducing activity attempting to assemble a difficult puzzle while incentivized by a monetary prize and then were told to “relax” afterward using a variety of different methods, including reading magazines and playing keyboards. The volunteers also gave blood during the study, and the blood was tested for the activity of 45 stress-related genes. In the group that played keyboard to relax, the results showed a significantly higher reversal in the markers for stress-related genes than in the other groups.

“With ongoing research,” Bittman concludes, “recreational music-making could potentially serve as a rational stress-reduction activity, along with other lifestyle strategies that include healthy nutrition and exercise.”

Add to this data the other benefits that come from piano playing—increases in work ethic, diligence, creativity, self-reliance and perseverance and the result is a veritable symphony of good news for your body and your soul.