Everyone in the world today is seen to be afflicted with mental tension. As a result of the adverse effects of such tension on the body and the mind, many people are seen to be having physical ailments or mental disorders. It is very unfortunate that no one is still able to think of becoming tension-free and leading a blissful life. A survey by the World Health Organisation has shown that by the year 2020 most of the people in the world will suffer from heart disease or mental disorders. Another important research has revealed that 92% of the diseases are psychosomatic, that is, caused by mental tension. To have a healthy, disease-free life it is necessary to be tension-free. However, to be tension-free it is very essential to understand what causes mental tension as also the different sources of mental tension.

Research by Spiritual-Science on the subject of mental tension showed that mental tension invariably relates to future events. In today’s world, ‘tension’ is increasingly becoming an integral part of the human mind. Thoughts are the origin of tension. There are three categories of thoughts. In the first category are thoughts that arise naturally because of the brain’s habit of thinking. These are mild, superficial thoughts and are not related to any action or any new creation. Thoughts in the second category are action-oriented thoughts. Thoughts of the third kind arise out of logical thinking or imagination. Adverse, negative thoughts about some future event produce fear in the mind about that event. Mental tension aggravates because of fear. When one’s capacity to imagine is exhausted and fear becomes excessive, it leads to despair. A person in a state of despair becomes dysfunctional. The disease-resistant white blood cells of such persons become dysfunctional and such persons can contract any disease. Thus, excessive fear produced by negative thinking and imagination causes mental tension and eventually despair

Sometimes, we encounter situations in our lives that cause mental tension. On such occasions, we begin to consider various alternative courses of action. We are unable to think clearly and, therefore, we keep on thinking endlessly as to how get out of the difficult situation that we have found ourselves in. Such thinking produces strain on the brain. An increase in the strain on the brain leads to mental stress. This affects our breathing adversely which then causes mental tension. In other words, anything that we think about constantly causes strain on the brain as well as mental tension. We begin to fear when we find no solution despite thinking constantly. Later, such fear keeps on increasing which exhausts our ability to imagine and find solutions. We begin to believe that all the doors are closed for us and that there is no way out. The result is despair and such a man then becomes dysfunctional. According to a recent research, such a person’s disease-resistant white blood cells also become dysfunctional. And, decreased immunity is an open invitation to any disease! Therefore, to be mentally blissful and physically healthy one should not have mental tension at all. As a matter of fact, negative thinking about the future events causes tension. Hence, the root cause of increased mental tension is negative thinking.

Man thinks because his brain is naturally habituated to do so. Sometimes, he thinks how and when to do a certain thing while at other times, he keeps on reasoning or imagining about future events. You will have, therefore, realised that 80% to 85% of our thoughts are meaningless. When we are in our office we think about our home or our friends and while going home we remain occupied with thoughts about our office. Now thinking about the wrong things at the wrong place will have to be considered meaningless. Twenty percent of the energy produced in our body is used up by our brain alone. Thinking is a function of the brain; so a major portion of this 20% energy gets used up due to thinking. Besides, tension caused by imagination and thinking, leads to a waste of energy. a man may even attempt suicide because of despair. Mental tension is, indeed, the root cause of all suicides, whether those committed by 26,000 youth in Japan in the year 2003 or those committed in India by the police, farmers and recently even by school children. Just imagine to what extent mental tension is increasing in the world. It is, therefore, very clear that mental tension is a serious matter and needs proper and urgent attention.