This is the height of holiday stress. Here a fast stress reliever:
• Choose a quiet corner
• Turn egg timer on 5 minutes
• Sit with crossed legs on the floor on a cushion; or on a chair
• Keep your back straight - let the top of your head touch Heavens
• Hands: palms-up and open on your knees
• Closed eyes
• Breathe in and out slowly – always start with exhaling (counting regularly might help the beginner)
• Do not move at all except keeping your back straight
• Empty your brain from thoughts and outside disturbances
• Pay attention to your sensations: breathing, aches, itches, fears, etc.:
• Let them happen.
• Stop when the clock rings
• Go on with your day with renewed energy and purpose.
The Five-Minutes Meditation is useful when
• you are stressed out
• your emotions overwhelm you (anger, sadness, anxiety, jealousy, etc.)
• you are tempted to binge out on food (perfect to do before each meal in obesity, for instance)
• you suffer with sleeplessness - just do it before retiring to bed
• you are listless and bored and procrastinating
• you have high blood pressure
• you have pains - instead of taking pills
For really learning to meditate, there are good programs, groups, and courses available.
Do not attempt to increase the time above 5 minutes.
Citation
"Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It's about feeling the way you feel. It's not about making the mind empty or still, although stillness does deepen in meditation and can be cultivated systematically. Above all, meditation is about letting the mind be as it is and knowing something about how it is in this moment. It's not about getting somewhere else, but allowing yourself to be where you already are. If you don't understand this, you will think you are constitutionally unable to meditate. But that's just more thinking and, in this case, incorrect thinking at that."
"But to stay at it for even five minutes requires intentionality. To make it part of your life requires some discipline. " (From: Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are). Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Odors - Is Your Body Betraying You?
December 16, 2010
A rose is a rose is a rose – but never will a rose grow out of one of your body orifices. Yet all the time we make believe: Bodily odors are among the most embarrassing facts of life. Those odors jump into your face unbidden, exposing the thin veneer that shields our modern identify – clean, well-shaven, sweet-smelling - from acknowledging our ancient, animalic bodies.
These are the most bothersome malodorous areas and orifices of our bodies: mouth, vagina, anus, feet, and modern science and salesmanship have figured ways to sell us products for smelling better – preferably like roses, lilies-of-the-valley, violets – soaps, deodorants,
They all have two things in common: They don’t address the root causes of stench, and they add to the pollution burden on your body.
Now is probably too late to tell you because all the scented soaps, incense, perfumes, colognes, after-shave lotions, shower gels, wrinkle creams, bubble baths and whatnot have already been bought – either for you, or by you.
Truth is there is no cosmetic product available that is good for us – not even the natural or organic varieties. They all require stabilizers and preservatives for their long shelf life – and none of those further your health. If mold doesn’t touch it, your cells don’t like it either. Oh, well – you remember this next year.
Let’s go to the root cause of odor:
• Underarm: If you need a deodorant, buy a fragrance free product. I like the tea tree oil kind. Check if you really need to use it every day. As you eliminate root causes (see: feet), your smell might get better naturally - don’t be obsessive about it.
• Vagina: We had this subject already: NO DOUCHES!!
• Halitosis: If you have an odor from your mouth (you can test it by cupping your hands over your mouth and exhale into them), it can stem form your teeth, gums, esophagus (feeding tube), lungs and/or stomach. Most often the culprit is the stomach. Eating a diet without sugar and dairy is a good beginning. Many people have a gluten people. And tomatoes are at the root often, too. Try to figure it out.
• Gas (coming out of that unmentionable hole): Excessive gas is linked to an inflamed intestinal tract. Dairy, sugar, gluten are most often the root cause (on this blog, I have written extensively about food allergies, milk’s inflammatory properties, gluten intolerance and so on).
• Feet: If you have excessive sweating of your feet (sometimes also of your hands), it can be your autonomic nerve system – doctors like this diagnosis. But more often, poor nutrition is at the root of smelly feet. Especially bad fats and animal proteins.
Here I want to lay to rest once and for all the discussion about vegetarianism: If you smell excessively at your feet and under your arms, you are having too much animal and/or bad foods for your body type, period. Science makes clear that we are omnivores, we eat all and everything – mostly because during history we didn’t have the luxury to be choosy; starvation was always near. But the amount you eat should not be unduly high, and should cover your needs – every body has different requirements. The animals you eat should be of good quality (organic, grass-fed). And don’t forget to say a prayer for every animal that has died for you.
We all have met those male types who have smelly feet and holes in their socks – so needy for a caring wife that likely they’ll never find one. Because, genetically, we are hard-wired to choose a healthy mate, and somebody who eats day-in, day-out from the convenient store around the corner and doesn’t care for his body, shows all the alarm flags of a poor mate. (Of course, this is gender-neutral – it applies to women, too).
Yep, bad food choices come out in your armpits and in your shoes. Hint: learn cooking from scratch! Women will love you!
A few more hints:
• If you take a daily shower and don’t have a blue-collar job, don’t use soap – how dirty can you get at the computer in a single day? Every wash takes away from the healthy acidic layer on your skin that protects your body from invading germs. – Always end with a cold shower to close the pores (unless you have a contraindication).
• Don’t use soap at all. When you wash you hair, use an inexpensive shampoo and RINSE EXTREMELY WELL.
• Never wash your hair twice in a row – that’s a ruse by the industry to sell more shampoo.
• Use a fragrance-free detergent for your laundry.
• NEVER use a softener – liquid or one of those scented towelettes. They pollute the environment and your body and have no value at all. Who says that a towel has to be soft? Try toweling yourself with a hard towel – and discover how the scrubbing makes your body come alive.
• Question any household product (dish washing liquid, etc.) that comes with an added fragrance. One of the reason we see so many allergies and asthma, is that our bodies desperately are busy getting rid of all those unwarranted scents.
Get used to the idea that we are odorous animals. If we eat right, we will not be stinky. But never will we smell like violets.
Even so, our healthy smell is full of pheromones that will drive the other sex wild. Read More
Don’t Know About the Biochemistry of Birds
December 11, 2010
Today the pond was frozen over for the first time this year. The Canada geese have flown away to a place with still open waters, and the lone cormorant that, for weeks, had greeted us every time from the same spot is gone, too. We still can make out where he always had been sitting – a white sheet of guano at the edge of the reservoir (presumably soon being washed into the reservoir, enhancing our drinking water…).
We marveled at the bird every time we walked by. Why was he always sitting on that very spot so steadfast? Hatching time was long over. He was not deterred by the many passers-by. We had gotten fond of him, and his whimsical determination.
My husband and I take our walks to catch up on each other's lives; we are talking to each other (helps a marriage to survive). And to catch a ray of sunshine – so precious at this time of year when the sun gets lower daily. We want to build up some vitamin D under our skin to get through the winter without colds or cancer. I don’t know about the biochemistry of birds, but the cormorant must have thought along the same lines: Get in as much of the goodness of the sun. as long as it lasts!
Of course, a walk in the dark exercises your body, too. But walking (or running or playing ball or finishing up fall cleaning in the garden) in light has the extra benefit of helping your body to produce vitamin D under the skin. Lighter skin produces it more easily; dark skin needs longer exposure. Besides helping fight infections and cancer, vitamin D is essential for bone strength – and doing something outdoors, moving around, gives an extra boost to your health.
If we live right, we are able to do away with artificial vitamins. Isn’t it marvelous that the body finds the required vitamins in its food and produces some under the skin? Of course, the food has to be fresh, not processed – because artificial things (let’s not even call them food!) are devoid of what really nourishes your body. It has to be this way – that you find all your requirements in fresh foods – because, otherwise, how would have mankind ever survived without the multivitamin from the drugstore?
We do eat cod liver about once a month – giving us a hefty dose of vitamin D (along with vitamin A). It is delicious. But probably polluted – so we don’t have it often. If you don’t like the idea of eating cod liver, get a good cod liver oil preparation and take it during the winter months.
Our walks keep us healthy. Winter is not a time to stay indoors; it is the time to bundle up warmly, march out and come back an hour or so later with red cheeks, ready to sit in front of the warm wood stove again. That walk in the cold gives your body a stimulus to balance itself according to the season – similar as a cold shower does: Cold is a healing stress – if not overdone.
Out there, with the cormorant or the Canada geese or just the still surface of the frozen pond, we bond again with Nature and rediscover that we are part of it, and rediscover our spiritual home. Read More