A study just out: Scientists built a cap with cooling water tubes to keep the brain temperature down. Turns out you sleep best when your head is at a little below 60 degrees Fahrenheit about 15 degrees Celsius.
What – they spent research funds on that?? Insane. Why invent a machine for something that is available easily in nature?
Then again: Natural Medicine tells us for more than a century now to sleep with the window open. For the reason that one doesn’t re-breathe ones stale reason. For a second reason: To keep a cool head.
The only other proven across-the-board condition that helps people go to sleep is having warm feet. Is this neat? Cool head, warm feet! You find the absurd prescription of Wet Socks in my water book (I don’t have the time to write about it now) – absurd, but it helps.
For today: Sleep with window open. Give it it try! Of course, we sleep with window open even in the coldest winter in Maine. You can start now - in summer weather. You don’t drink water that has once gone through your body and then been discarded. You shouldn’t re-breathe your used-up air either! Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
World Oceans Day 2011
June 8, 2011
Water is the most precious stuff of life. We drink it, we bathe in it, we revere it.
This morning I had a shower, then drank a sencha tea and ate a bowl of congee with sauerkraut and grape leaves. None of my morning ritual would work without water.
In August we will return to our cabin in Maine. It is small, but it is at the ocean, and so important for our family – most of our renewal starts there, every summer.
What is important today, on World Ocean Day 2011: That you tell at least one youngster to work on saving the waters, the whales, the life of our old Earth.
You know the Gaia hypothesis, don’t you? According to the Gaia hypothesis, our old Earth, Gaia, is an organism of her own – and we are just some lice in her hair. Isn’t that exactly the impression she gives us presently? She is shaking herself to get rid of the vermin on her surface by sending tsunamis, fires, tornados, earthquakes, torrential rains, floods, and plagues.
Regardless, if the Gaia hypothesis is right or wrong – it helps me to see my task better: To protect our old Earth as much as I can. Because she is the only home we have. Read More
Mud Season in Maine
April 12, 2011
Wish I were a poet – to describe the beauty of Maine in early spring. They call this time “mud season” – with the implication that one better flee to warmer shores and leave Maine behind.
Usually, we don’t visit our cabin at this time of the year – nobody ever encouraged us. This year, I had to go up because a friend had died, and I wanted to go to her funeral.
The occasion was a sad one – yet how lovely it was! Yes, there was drizzle and fog, and the ruts of our dirt road seemed to say: Stay away! Stay away! But I didn’t stay away, and the ruts and potholes became a challenge of sorts – and at the end of the dirt road, there is the cabin and the ocean.
It was very, very early spring. Just a few crocuses were up. I looked at them and remembered that I planted them about twenty years ago. Contrary to what garden books say, they didn’t naturalize – they were just as spare as single bulbs stuck in the soil. Life is hard that far north. But those few crocuses – blue and white and yellow – cheered up the day. Daffodils were sending up green blades; no flowers yet.
I should know better but I planted again: a late pink anemone, and some liatris – planted them in the drizzle. They might come up in summer, or they might not. Important is the hope I planted (and the exercise!).
Outside, bare spring beckoned; inside, in the evenings, I had some logs blazing, making it cozy and warm. I played cello. It was a bit much to carry the cello with me for just three days, but I was glad I did. I did some Chinese brush painting. I wanted to write, but I am still reading Anna Karenina – it will keep me biting my nails for a while. Why would I even bite my nails? We all know it will end badly …
Of course, I attended the funeral, and it was heart-wrenching. But it also was good – to see the family and friends gathered to honor one good woman. She is now lying in a tiny cemetery, overlooking Tauton Bay.
This morning, when I got up to clean the house and leave for Boston, the sun was out and the sky showed Mediterranean blue. A strong wind had swept away rain and fog, and the world was as clear and beautiful as it can only be in Maine. Read More