Laughter Really is Good for You

A September Science News Today article reports the many benefits of laughter.  "It reduces stress hormones, strengthens the immune system, eases pain, and even protects the heart." ¹

A recent article by Albert Stumm published by Associated Press², provides some history on the subject as well as advice from some practitioners of the "sport."  "Dr. Madan Kataria, a physician in Mumbai, ... said the trick is to learn to laugh for no reason. He and others in laughing yoga classes around the world have created hundreds of exercises that help."

I've recently started watching reruns of The Office³, which "airs" for hours on E! and Comedy Central.  I haven't laughed out loud so much in a long time.

It should be obvious by now that this blog post won't make you laugh.

What makes you laugh?

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¹ https://www.sciencenewstoday.org/why-laughter-is-the-best-medicine-according-to-science
² https://apnews.com/article/laughter-health-benefits-1821b672f574a445e2fa9763452979c9
³ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office_(American_TV_series)

General Wellness Prayer

I composed this for a user on MySupportForums...

May you be surrounded by warm, soothing energy.

May you receive healing of the body, mind and spirit.

May you feel peace, love and kindness in your soul.

May you know that you are connected to every living thing in our Universe.

To Make Time Go Slow, Fast

If it seems like your day goes by in a blur, try skipping a couple of meals.  That’s right, go on a fast to make the day go slow.

Why does this work?  First, you save time that you’d otherwise waste preparing the meal, eating the meal, and then cleaning up afterward.

Second, your digestive system stays in the background instead of siphoning off the resources you need to cope with the day.  So you actually have more energy during the fast.

There are a few different types of fasts: eating nothing at all; liquid only (herbal tea, fruit and vegetable juices, broth); raw fruit, sprouts, vegetables.  Also, duration can vary from just a few hours to one day or a weekend; or they can be extended, as on a retreat¹.

I came across this idea when I got sick while reading Health Via Food, by William Howard Hay².  I had no appetite and no sense of hunger when I was sick.  And then when I recovered, I still felt no hunger.  So I leveraged that feeling and broke with my tradition of having a large breakfast, rich in protein and vegetables.  Instead I sliced up an apple and ate small pieces slowly throughout the morning.

There two keys to making a fast work, for me; they are mindfulness and abstaining from stimulants such as coffee and added sugars.  The mindfulness tells me when the urge to eat is out of boredom, habit, stress or anxiety rather than a need to eat.  Turns out I rarely have a legitimate need to eat.   Coffee produces a hollow gnawing sensation in my stomach, which compels me to eat something more to fill the hollow.  And the so-called energy bars stimulate my appetite while giving me brain fog.

I am amazed at how much better I feel, and at how slow the mornings go.  Luckily, I still can work from home a few days a week.  This gives me the assurance that if I needed to eat something, I’d have plenty of healthy options on-hand to choose from.

And I’ve been noticing that when I forestalled breakfast until later in the workday morning, I’d go through my pre-breakfast chores so quickly.  I could feed the cats and dog, clean the litter boxes, go to the bathroom, take in the newspaper, prepare my wife’s breakfast, guess the daily Wordle, all without much movement on the clock.  But once I ate the breakfast, suddenly it seemed like time sped up and it was already time to leave for work.

So don’t wait to get sick like I did before you try a fast.  Schedule your first one on a slow day, or take a sick day if you work.  You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how good you feel and how much you’ll accomplish.

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¹http://healingwithwholefoods.com/
²https://soilandhealth.org/book/health-via-food/

Buy One, Get Six For Free

Temperatures here in the Northeast are at the freezing mark or below, so the heated indoor air is very dry.  This is a good time to use a saline spray to keep nasal passages moist.

I use a lot of saline spray every winter.  My preferred brand comes in little bottles of 50ml (1.69 ounces) and costs about $3.50.  That's $2/oz.  It doesn't last long.

The first bottle of the season already ran out.  So rather than buy another, I bought the saline solution that's marketed to users of contact lenses.  For the same price, $3.50, I got 12 ounces, a whopping seven times more, which should last all winter.

Of course, I don't squirt the stuff into my nose from that larger bottle.  Instead, I refill the little spray bottle.  I just remove the tip from the spray bottle and pour the saline solution in and then press the tip back on.

It turns out that the cheaper, contact lens saline solution is more soothing than the nasal saline.  Perhaps the nasal solution contains more anti-microbial chemicals to keep it from harboring germs.  After all, the bottle is inserted into one's nose.  With each squeeze, the user could aspirate germ-infested nasal mucous into the bottle.  So the producers of the nasal spray would want to ensure that their product won't result in re-infection with some pathogen.

If you decide to try this cost-saving idea, do your best to avoid contaminating the bottles and solutions.  Your workspace and hands should be as clean as possible.  You can place the spray bottle tip on a clean paper towel or tissue while filling the bottle.  Also, don't fill the bottle more than halfway, otherwise you won't get a fine spray when you squeeze but rather a surprisingly strong stream.

The High Cost of Vegan Cheese

My daughter has been vegan for about four years.  Vegans follow an even more limited diet than vegetarians.  The most devout ones don't eat anything produced by an animal or from an animal.  That includes eggs, all dairy, and even honey.

My daughter is devout.  But rather than give up mayonnaise, butter and cheese, she eats vegan-friendly versions instead.

My wife complains about the high cost of these vegan-friendly substitutes almost every week.  And she goes over-budget buying them.  But I tell my wife that if our daughter craves cheese and butter so much, it means her body is crying out for real, honest-to-goodness dairy.  As I wrote earlier, I don't fully endorse our daughter being vegan.

I say that we should buy absolutely no substitutes.  Instead we can buy eggs and dairy from producers that treat their livestock with care and respect, a major concern of vegans.  And I suspect that dairy produced the old-fashioned way is friendlier for the environment than the spreads made from vegetable oils or the cheeses made from cashews.  I believe that such substitutes require much more energy to produce because their raw ingredients are so thoroughly processed as to make them unrecognizable.

Some vegans will argue that there's a health issue with dairy.  They complain that it's loaded with saturated fat, which is bad.  I reject that entirely.  Saturated fat has been unfairly demonized.  The fat from pasture-raised, grass-fed cattle has a ratio of Omega3 to Omega6 that's comparable salmon, plus CLA (conjugated linoleic acids) and butyrates, both of which are important for good gut health.  The heart and brain both use saturated fat as fuel.

It's true that some people just can't tolerate dairy.  It can promote inflammation and mucus production.  Some people are lactose intolerant.  Others must avoid casein.  It's the casein in dairy that can mimic opioids in the brain in individuals with leaky gut syndrome.  So these intolerances are really the only good reasons to avoid dairy.

Well, even if our daughter agreed to eat real butter and cheese, our cost would still be fairly high.  Organic dairy from humanely-treated, grass-fed cows is not inexpensive.  But at least it's real and wholesome.

What do you think?

Alternative Hernia Treatment

I've had an inguinal hernia for several years.  The recommended remedy involves repairing the abdominal wall using a mesh sheet, which is put in place during laparoscopic surgery.

I'm reluctant to have surgery at this time, especially with my wife's unpredictable medical issues.  So I've found, through experimentation, two types of treatments that reduce the swelling and pressure in the area.

The first involves diet.  There are inflammatory foods that increase swelling and pressure.  Wheat is the most notable culprit.  So by reverse logic I decided to stick with a mostly anti-inflammatory diet, and the one I chose is my trusty Blood Type Diet.

Overeating can also exacerbate the condition.  It's simple -- there's just so much stuff you can put into a gut before it tries to expand beyond its confines in the abdomen.  Don't over-stuff it, and keep the pressure down.

The second approach is mechanical, broadly speaking.  Coughing produces the biggest stress to the area.  So if I'm about to cough, I'll apply upward and inward pressure on the area with my hand.  This is difficult to do discretely in public however, so my alternate method is to bring my knee up and across my body.  This is even more bizarre looking to the general public (I suppose), but at least I don't look like a perve.

Lying supine on a decline bench is great for providing momentary relief of acute pressure, especially when combined with the inward and upward hand pressure described earlier.

Wearing pants that are not tight around the waist also helps.  The tighter the wasit-line, the greater the pressure on the hernia.

Lastly, keeping external pressure applied for an extended period really helps.  So when I lie down to go to sleep I apply the pressure.  I used to place my hand on the area.  But then I decided I'd use a weight, instead.  I chose a stone from the garden for the weight.  I warm it before bedtime by running it through the dishwasher.  I think the combination of pressure and warmth brings healing.

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2014-11-22 - SPG  Edited to add the second to last paragraph regarding the waist line of pants.

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Epic Sinus Infection

I'm just getting over a sinus infection.  I first noticed it on the morning of Wednesday, November 28, as I readied myself for an appointment at the dentist.  But I think the trigger occurred on Sunday October 7, when I inhaled a cloud of dust from a bale of moldy hay at a local farm.  In fact, on Sunday afternoon and into the night, I had more and more trouble breathing.  I experienced the worst case of asthma ever, and I went in for a breathing treatment at the walk-in clinic.

I brushed off the sinus infection thinking that with my low-inflammation diet, herbal remedies, neti pot, steam treatments, Reiki and over-the-counter decongestants that I could recover without medical intervention.  But after a while not even the Sudafed could open my nasal passages, so steam and neti pot became futile.

My condition worsened while off from work for Christmas.  And I was surprised.  I had expected to improve once we had a nice layer of snow to seal off the mold from leaf decay.  It was the waves of throbbing head pain that clinched it.  Not wanting to start 2013 sick, I decided to finally visit my Primary Care Physician (PCP) on New Years Eve Day.

He prescribed Ceftin and recommended Mucinex and steam treatments.  I discontinued the Sudafed.  It wasn't working, and it would only increase my borderline high intraocular pressure (glaucoma).  Very soon I started to improve.  The headache was gone within several hours.  I was thrilled with every wrinkled, dense, yellowish-green booger I could dislodge.

But after four days I stopped improving, reached a plateau, and thereafter slowly got worse.  With one day's dose of Ceftin remaining, I called the doctor and explained the problem.  He responded with a prescription for Medrol and Levaquin.  Yes, this was what I needed.  I've been through this once before, and the combination of a systemic steroid and powerful antibiotic (plus a steroidal nasal inhaler) restored me several years ago.

I'm on Day Four of the six-day course of Medrol and ten-day antibiotic.  If I were to just stay as well as I am now, I'll be happy.

I 've heard from others in my circle who are also battling their own sinus infections.  One theory for this confluence of illness is that mold developed here in the Northeast from the flooding from Hurricane Sandy and aggravated many.

How has your health been in 2013?

On Healing, Artists, and Regaining Control

"...it is what you choose not to observe in your life that controls your life."

- Butterfly Woman
from "Jaguar Woman and the Wisdom of the Butterfly Tree," Lynn V. Andrews

...your culture doesn't support its artists. Your culture accepts only the great nurturing matriarch, the type of woman who grows the corn and raises children. These women love routine, get married, raise their children, and generally have a much easier time than their rainbow sisters. While the Rainbow Mothers are frustrated, unfulfilled, and perhaps alcoholics because of the expectations of others, the Great Mothers are the pillars of society. Until they reach midlife, that is. Then they find that their children are grown, and there is no one to nurture. At that point, their opposite energy, Death Mother, comes close and tries to take them away.

- Zoila
from "Jaguar Woman and the Wisdom of the Butterfly Tree," Lynn V. Andrews

Sylvia Browne on the Healing Process...

Anyone can heal, but advanced souls often do it with more strength than others do, and they can even see faster results. Yet if you're not a mystical traveler, I don't want to discourage you from healing because you *can* absolutely do a transfer of energy.

Make sure you begin by surrounding yourself and the person you're healing with white light, and then thread green light through his or her body. Next, you can follow the very simple process that the ministers of Novus Spiritus do after every service. They wait until after the service is over and stand behind those who want healing, who are seated. If the minister is female, she simply puts her right hand on top of the person's head, and then places her left hand over that. If it's a male minister, the hands are reversed -- his left hand would be on top of the individual's head, and his right hand would go over that.

This signifies and recognizes the left and right sides of the brain, and how they typically work with the sexes: Males generally operate from the left sides of their brains, while females tend to be dominated by the right sides of their brains. However, this can be individually different, so you might want to experiment to see which hand placement works better for you.

After the placement of hands, the ministers surround both themselves and the people being healed with the white light of the Holy Spirit, and then they ask that they become tubes by which God's energy flows through to heal those who need it and can benefit from that energy. It's as simple as that, and very effective. Our ministers have had great success in healings, and men and women invariably stand up in our churches to relate that they feel 100 percent better.

You don't have to pay for lessons in healing unless you're going to become a doctor... or the like. It's always baffling to me when people who do holistic or faith healing follow rituals or ritualistic practices and over complicate it. Our Parents know what we need -- we're all Their children and have the power to channel Their energy. Thus, we don't have to explain ourselves and what we're doing to Them.

Healers don't even have to necessarily know where an illness is, for they're just the vehicles that Mother and Father God's grace and healing energy comes through, with no effect on them. There's no ego involved, for They are the Ones doing the healing. Everyone can do this, although it's true that some may be better at it than others. However, the more you do it, the better you'll get at it, whether you're a mystical traveler or not.

- from "Mystical Traveler," Sylvia Browne

Edited on 2011-02-22 to add links to quoted books.

Book Review "How to Thrive in Changing Times"

When I signed up to review this book, I expected that it would help the reader become resilient. But as I read, I quickly realized I was mistaken. Yet I was not disappointed, because as the book's subtitle suggests, it aims to offer "simple tools to create true health, wealth, peace, and joy for yourself and the earth."

I enjoyed several sections. Her discussion on page 40 of "words as seeds" was perhaps my favorite part of this book -- a moving revelation to me.

On page 97, she implies that it's been scientifically proven that gratitude can help the immune system. It's inspiring, although there are no references to any supporting studies.

The "Gratitude Walk" on page 102 involves appreciating the beauty in nature and being thankful for it. It occurred to me that my love of nature photography is my way of appreciating the beauty in nature.

She discusses the practice of transfiguration (transmuting environmental pollution) at the beginning of chapter 7 (pages 134 to 138). She describes experiments in which her group lowered the ph of a toxic base solution, but again cites no references. In another experiment, she describes how the auric field of a peach was improved. Photos of the auric field were produced with a gas discharge visualization (GDV) camera and can be seen on a website.

The book's small size belies its lengthy content. It does this with smaller margins and small font size for the "Practice" text. As well, there's no bibliography or index and a simple one-page Table of Contents.

If read with motivation and an open mind, this will strike you as a inspiring gem of a book.

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• This review was posted to LibraryThing on 2010-02-23.
• More reviews can be found here.
• I received a free copy of this book in order to write this review.
  
• As an associate of Amazon.com, I receive a small cash award for each click-through-purchase of "How to Thrive in Changing Times: Simple Tools to Create True Health, Wealth, Peace, and Joy for Yourself and the Earth".
  

Simple Relief of Asthma and Sinusitis

You can relieve asthma and sinusitis simply by using a Neti Pot to irrigate your sinuses.

You fill the Neti Pot with warm salt water, turn your head to the side and just slightly face up, and place the Neti Pot tip into the upper nostril. Press it close and then tip the pot up so the salt water flows into the upper nostril and then back out of the lower.¹ The water will loosen mucus² and wash away dust and pollen.

It's a relief to expel the thick mucus and to be rid of the pressure it causes. This helps keep away chest congestion, too, because there's less mucus and pollutants draining into your bronchial tubes.

You can buy a Neti Pot on Amazon.com. I use a ceramic pot from Himalayan Institute. Mix a quarter teaspoon of salt with 8oz. of warm water to make the salt water. Be sure to use iodine-free salt. Kosher salt and sea salt work well.


¹ It might take a little trial and error to get the head and pot positioned so that the flow starts. You could be so congested that the water can't get through, in which case you might take a Sudaphed to open things up a bit.

² "Mucus" has got to be the worst word I've used in this blog so far. I hated writing this post because of it. I almost stopped writing because I figured people would stop reading at about this point.

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior

I was looking for something to read. My wife suggested a book that she just finished reading. She left it on the book case downstairs.

I'm sure she told me the title, but I just didn't pay attention. I figured that if it was any good, it would reveal itself to me. And I was hoping I would find something better. Perhaps I'd find one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels that I didn't know I had. Or I might get the urge to reread Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy, again, for the fourth or fifth time.

In any event, I browsed our stacks, thinking that Updike's "Rabbit Run" might be worth reading again. Or possibly the James Herriot series "All Creatures Great and Small," for some light escapism. I also considered "A Year in the Maine Woods" -- it might make me feel as though our winter is mild and easy compared to the one Bernd Heinrich experienced.

Then I spied Dan Millman's "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior" crammed horizontally way up on top of the books on the top shelf. When I pulled it down and saw the cover, I finally remembered reading it back in 1991 when I was struggling through the last two semesters of engineering school.

Flashback:

I'm having trouble with this material. It's difficult to understand, and I just can't focus on it. And there's so little time because the workload is heavy. Am I retarded?

But I'm having an equally bad realization. What could be as bad as thinking you're retarded? How about realizing that you have no interest in the topic you decided to major in? It's not just a lack of interest, actually. No, I'm beginning to really loathe engineering. I'm so tired of it.

And what about the future? What am I going to do if/when I'm done with school? Do I go on to graduate school? I start looking at graduate school programs, but the research they do all seems very complicated, boring and meaningless. I fill out a few applications and even a grant (more work/deadlines). I also dread having to start interviewing again. Do I really want to pretend that I've always wanted work on Doppler detectors for mine shafts, that it's something I've longed to do my whole life, and that it would take precedence over my personal life?

I've lost my appetite. I've lost my appetite because I feel like puking all the time. I'm normally a loner. But I start hanging out with my classmates. Because if I don't, I feel the panic creep over me like a cold electric fog. My classmates distract me enough so that I can eat a bit of food from the campus cafeteria.

I'm also becoming emotional. This is strange. I've always been stoic. It used to be that I could read about horrible atrocities in the newspaper or hear about them on TV and I'd feel nothing. Now I get upset.

What's wrong with me? Am I really going crazy? I see the doctor and complain about the difficulty I have eating and swallowing. He wonders if I have a Hiatal hernia. I get an upper GI series, which requires that I swallow some ghastly thick liquid. I cannot drink it all, but the technician does the scan anyway. The results are negative.

The doctor doesn't think there's anything wrong with me. I decide to visit the school's social worker. When I describe what I'm going through, she tells me that I might actually have a learning disability, but it becomes apparent only when I'm under a lot of stress. This of course only adds to the stress. But I do see a wonderful poster of a cyclist beginning an imposingly steep mountain ascent. An avid cyclist myself, I understand the analogy perfectly -- focus just on what's right before you and don't think of how far away the final goal is.

But I still need help, so I get the phone number of a local clinic for off-site counseling. My first session starts out awkwardly, but then it gets downright disappointing. She doesn't seem to have much empathy. "So what's the problem," she asks when I mention that I start crying for no reason.

But after a few sessions, I see that she's trying to help. Her aim is to get me to identify the causes of my problems, break them into smaller, more manageable problems, and solve them.

We start to build a rapport. She recommends that I read "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior," by Dan Millman.

That's the book I held -- the book I'd forgotten about completely until now. This is the book I was looking for, that I've needed for nearly seven years in fact.

I read it in two nights and felt energized and inspired. "There are no ordinary moments." "What time is it? Now. Where am I? Here." "The horse ran away. Oh no! But he came back leading two other wild horses. Yippie! But my son broke his leg trying to tame them. Oh no! But the army decided not to draft my son for the war. Yippie!" I love this stuff.

But I was also a bit troubled by it. Because in order for Dan to remake himself the first time, he cuts himself off from those around him -- his professors, his coach, his friends. And the second time he needs to remake himself, he and his wife separate and he goes off on his own.

I sometimes long to be a loner again. My wife and daughter demand more attention than I can spare. There are days I need to work at home because my wife's pain and fatigue confine her to her bed. They spend a lot more money than I would on my own. I pay bills for the newspaper and cable TV for them. They use heat and electricity during the day when I'm at work. If it weren't for them, I could leave my job and strike off in another direction and be willing to accept less pay. I wouldn't worry about moving to another part of the country, into an unknown school district, away from in-laws and friends.

But the peaceful warrior does not dwell on what might've been or long for things to be different. The warrior accepts what is and learns from it. I must do that, too.

My First Reiki Session

I had my first Reiki session right after work today with Catherine, the same Reiki Master who worked on my wife and daughter.

I was so relaxed, even before she started. The room was lit softly and evenly, so there were no scary shadows. Music and water sounds played on a CD. And soothing incense burned. I started melting as soon as I got on the table. But I was alert.

Catherine started by testing to see whether my chakras were blocked. She did this by holding an amethyst crystal from a chain above each chakra. If the crystal moved in a circular pattern, the chakra was open. If not, it was closed. Only my top three chakras were open, the crown, third eye and throat, although the throat was weak. She said that was pretty typical.

Then she started. Catherine's hands were very warm, and that's the only energy I felt. I kept my eyes closed most of the time. She started by standing behind the head end of the table, placing her hands on my head and partly on my forehead. Then she moved to work on my left side, feet, right side. She stayed in each spot for about five minutes. Sometimes I felt her shake slightly before leaving an area.

When she was working on my left arm, I suddenly remembered that my wife said that our daughter giggled during her session. Then I felt like giggling, because it seemed funny / strange that this woman was just standing next to me with one hand on my arm and the other on my hand. I never felt so giddy and happy at that moment. I held back a laugh, though and merely smiled.

Another thing that I experienced was I saw a clear image in my mind of a green sea sponge. Perhaps I was on the verge of dozing off. I don't think I ever actually feel asleep, though.

My wife said that when she was treated she felt or saw another presence in the room next to Catherine. Catherine told her that it was her spirit guide. So I peeked a few times to see if I could see the spirit guide. I did not. But I had the strange perception that Catherine felt a whole lot closer than she appeared. Visually, she seemed a few feet further away from me than she was.

When it was over, she re-did the chakra test and demonstrated that they were all open. Except that the navel one didn't seem to go unless she moved her hand. She also commented that she felt that my right side needed more energy. The right side pertains to fathers, so folks who have a difficult relationship with their fathers need more work on the right side. (The left side pertains to mothers). I explained that my father died more than 20 years ago and wondered whether it might indicate a problem with a male boss?

I took me a while to sit up and then to stand. I felt the way I do when I give blood, only a bit less sure footed. When giving blood, it's the light-headed-ness that dominates. With the Reiki session, it was light-everything-ness that made standing and walking chancy. The fact is, you do need some muscle tension to stand erect. But my muscles were happy to let the bones in my skeleton to just sort of stack themselves up like a tower of dominoes.

But muscle tension increased as soon as I got home. After supper, I went to the gym to work out. While doing the elliptical machine, I had near crippling back pain on the right side. My guess is that if the muscles don't tense back up at the same rate, you can get some twisting and uneven pressure in spots.

While writing this I did an online search for "Chakra Test" and came up with an online questionnaire. Here are my results, which seem to correspond to my pre-Reiki state:

Sacral:	under-active	(-38%)
Navel:	under-active	(-56%)
Heart:	under-active	(-6%)
Throat:	under-active	(0%)
Third Eye:	open	(56%)
Crown:	open	(38%)

The advice for opening the chakras is interesting....