Herb Alpert – Playing for Eighty Years

The most inspiring thing I’ve heard recently was Scott Simon’s interview with Herb Alpert on NPR’s Weekend Edition today.

Herb Alpert has been playing trumpet for 80 years, and he just released a new album.  And he’s working on two more.  Here’s the part I liked best:

SIMON: Your new album is titled "50," and you have a whole bunch of 50's going on now, don't you?

ALPERT: Oh, it's an exciting time for me, Scott. I've been married 50 years. This is the 50th album. That caught me off guard. I didn't realize I had 50 albums in the can already. And in 2025, I'm going to be celebrating my - I'm stuttering now - 90th birthday. I'm going to do something that I've always wanted to do. I'm going to form the new Tijuana Brass featuring my beautiful wife, Lani Hall, who was the original singer with Sergio Mendes in Brasil '66. So we're going to go out there for a year and just revisit some of the things I used to play, and people are going to enjoy it because I've had so many requests to get the old Tijuana Brass sound back. And I'm going to do it.

SIMON: And what keeps you going making music, being about to turn 90?

ALPERT: Music is a healing vibration that fills me. I believe people as well when they hear a song they like, it does something for you. When you get into art or you hear a great piece of music, your life kind of just gets into that very moment that you're living in. And that's really beautiful.

You can listen to the interview or read the transcript here:

https://www.ctpublic.org/2024-09-28/jazz-legend-herb-alpert-releases-his-50th-album

Does Getting Paid to Do Something Take Away the Enjoyment of That Thing?

Does it seem to you that when you get paid to do something that you love to do, the activity then becomes less enjoyable?

Here's an excerpt from "Swearing is good for you: the amazing science of bad language," by Emma Byrne:

Give most children crayons and paper and they'll happily draw for the fun of it; the intrinsic reward of doing something creative keeps them happy and interested.  But as soon as you pay children for their art, their drawings get sloppy and less detailed.  They also don't seem to enjoy the process of drawing anywhere near as much as when they are offered a treat in return for each piece produced.  In studies, children who know they will be rewarded for their drawings spend only about half as much time playing with crayons as those children who aren't offered a reward.

-page 124

The author references M. R. Lepper, D. Greene, and R. E. Nisbett, "Undermining Children's Intrinsic Interest with Extrinsic Reward: A Test of the "Overjustification" Hypothesis.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 28 (1973), 129-137. doi:10.1037/hoo35519

Quotes from David Perlmutter and Alberto Villoldo's "Power Up Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Enlightenment"

Here are quotes from "Power Up Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Enlightenment," by David Perlmutter and Alberto Villoldo...

Andrew Newberg, M.D., director of the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania, uses sophisticated brain mapping and imaging techniques to examine how meditation changes both the structure and function of the brain.  In his book How God Changes Your Brain, Newberg states that meditation not only modifies specific areas of the brain but helps the meditation practitioner behave and express emotions and a more positive manner. 

Newberg's work shows that meditation enhances blood flow as well as function in an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate, an evolutionary newcomer that mediates empathy, social awareness, intuition, compassion, and the ability to regulate emotion.  This structure sits in the front of the brain and wraps around the anterior of the corpus callosum, which is the thick network of neurons that bridges the two hemispheres.  In addition to these functions, the anterior cingulate acts as communications conduit between the amygdala, which, as we've already stated, is one of the most primitive brain structures, and the prefrontal cortex. 

The anterior cingulate thus stands at the crossroads.  Its functionality, or lack thereof, helps determine whether our day-to-day behavior is reflexive and fear-motivated or is a manifestation of our uniquely human ability to recognize a wide array of choices, implications, and consequences.  Newberg has quite graphically shown that meditation and other spiritual practices strengthen the anterior cingulate while also calming the primitive amygdala. 

As might be expected, anger produces an effect quite the opposite from meditation.  Anger shuts down communication to the prefrontal cortex.  Emotion and fear determine and dominate behavior.  As Newberg states, "Anger interrupts the functioning of your frontal lobes.  Not only do you lose the ability to be rational, you lose the awareness that you're acting in an irrational way.  When your frontal lobes shutdown, it's impossible to listen to the other person, let alone feel empathy or compassion….  When you intensely and consistently focus on your spiritual values and goals, you increase the blood flow to your frontal lobes and anterior cingulate, which cause the activity in emotional centers of the brain to decrease." - page 80-81

Bӧn is ancient indigenous spiritual tradition of Tibet.  The lineage of Bӧn teachers is said to have been founded by Tӧnpa Shenrab 18,000 years ago, predating Buddhism by many thousands of years.  Tӧnpa Shenrab was born into a royal family and, according to legend, left the comfort of the palace and traveled to Mount Kailash, where he meditated and attained enlightenment.  Even today, follows of the Bӧn religion venture into nature to fast and pray so they can heal their Light Body and attain a greater understanding of the workings of the mind and of consciousness. 

An essential teaching of Bӧn, known as Dzogchen (or the Great Perfection), suggests that once you heal your Light Body with specific practices, you are even able to survive physical death. 

After the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet during the 7th century, the Bӧn traditions, which to this day remain shamanistic, lost favor among the royal families.  In 1987, however, the Dalai Lama, who is a master of Dzogchen, recognized Bӧn as one of the five schools of Tibetan Buddhism and forbade discrimination against Bӧn practitioners. 

Dzogchen practice cultivates a Light Body that is free from the imprints of trauma and disease.  This is known as the natural, primordial state of an unconditioned mind.  In this state, meditation comes easily and infuses everyday activities.  You no longer need to retire to a primordial cave or monastery to attain inner peace and joy.As your Light Body heals and your natural mind establishes itself, you'll start to attain an inner peace and equanimity that will radiate all around you. 

As you become increasingly enlightened, your body will become more luminous.  People will notice there is no longer a figurative dark cloud hanging over you or a literal dark mood about you.  Instead, there is a new radiance to your being. 

As your Light Body heals and your natural mind establishes itself, you'll start to attain an inner peace and equanimity that will radiate all around you.  As you become increasingly enlightened, your body will become more luminous.  People will notice there is no longer a figurative dark cloud hanging over you or a literal dark mood about you.  Instead, there is a new radiance to your being.  - page 130

While any day of the month would be fine for fasting, the Power Up Your Brain Program recommends that you fast on the 11th day after a full Moon, which is the day considered auspicious for fasting in Ayurvedic texts.  We believe there is a special advantage to fasting on the same day as the many other people who participate in the Power Up Your Brain Program.  When you fast with others, whether they're physically present with you or halfway around the globe, you enter into intentional resonance with those persons.  This will make it easier for you to attain brain synergy as you, along with others, collectively awaken the capabilities of the prefrontal cortex.

Check out the website www.drperlmutter.com for more information, including the five core species of probiotic.

Quotes from Bruce Lipton's "The Biology of Belief"

Here are quotes and resources from Bruce Lipton’s Tenth Anniversary Edition of “The Biology of Belief”:

“...tDCS can influence neural activity that results in increasing attention, expanding memory, improving visual abilities and mathematical skills, and alleviating symptoms of depression. (Sanders 2014)” There’s also a reference to Nathan Whitmore, a neuroscience researcher at the National Institute of Aging and advocate of DIY brain zapping. http://www.diytdcs.com/tag/nathan-whitmore/ .

Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation, “To create awareness in our children and our communities that we can choose love over anger, gratitude over entitlement, and forgiveness and compassion over bitterness.” http://www.JesseLewisChooseLove.org

“Soul survivor : the reincarnation of a World War II fighter pilot,” by Bruce and Andrea Leininger, available at SPL. https://books.google.com/books?id=gTHiKTfWhrgC

“Dying to be me : my journey from cancer, to near death, to true healing,” by Anita Moorjani, available at APL & SPL. https://books.google.com/books?id=Pmc5wFoi578C

http://www.brucelipton.com

http://psych-k.com

http://www.HealYourLife.com

Crumbs

"A crumb is a great thing: If you break a crumb in half you don't get two half-crumbs, you get two crumbs.  Doesn't that violate some law of physics?"

- George Carlin

Quotes from "Meditation as a Way of Life"

The following quotes are from "Meditation as a Way of Life," by Alan L Pritz.

"Chanting is an especially potent [devotional] practice because it brings energy (might) to the heart (love) and directs the attention completely (with all thy soul) on God.  In my years of leading meditation groups, I have found that chanting effectively helps people get past their heads and into their hearts.  Even persons with no spiritual leaning have reveled in the alluring aura generate by chanting.  When practiced deeply, devotional chanting can induce a kind of intoxication similar to that which Jesus's disciples felt when toughed by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost: Your energy gets elevated to a divine plane, and you simply get drunk on the love of God! (page 95)

"Another form of devotional practice involves using prayer beads of the rosary -- whatever fits your tradition.  The idea is to pass these beads between your fingers one at a time while reciting a mantra or prayer. Like anything else, it can either be an empty gesture or have inner value, depending on the quality of your attention and intention.  One story tells of a woman who complained to a Hindu saint that prayer beads were ineffective:  She had been using hers for years with no result.  Discreetly observing her over time, he noticed that her attention was on everything else but God, so naturally her mechanical prayers would not bear fruit.  The same can be said for any superficial spiritual practice.  We could be in heaven but miss its glories if inattentive.  With right determination and devotion, however, nothing can  keep us from Spirit.  Loving thought of God invites his company, and that can be done anywhere, anytime.

"The love of God opens mental and emotional channels that keep us in tune with Spirit because Spirit is love.  The Divine is omnipresent, and remembrance of God is a doorway to his presence.  'Be thou diligent in performing actions in the thought of Me.  Even by engaging in activities on My behalf thou shalt attain supreme divine success.'  When thinking of and loving God, our vibrational field is raised.  Ordinary persons may notice this rise by feeling joyfully inspired.  Those steeped in divine ardor may experience spiritual ecstasy or, in the case of the Christian mystic Brother Lawrence, can levitate.  When divinely enraptured, Brother Lawrence rose off the earth; his fellow monks, being ever practical, put him on refectory duty so the ceiling would keep him from floating away.  Heaven, it seems, manifests whenever the head and heart are absorbed in God." (page 96)


"A principal feature with breathing exercises is that mental states respond to the depth, rhythm, and retention of breath.  Regulated breathing balances energy movements through the brain hemispheres, causing a tonic effect that enhances nervous and immune system functions.  Associated benefits include resistance to stress and disease, plus elevated mood, calmness, focus, and creativity.  Even a little done daily is beneficial.

Exercise 1: Centering Breath

This exercise is a cornerstone for stress management and can be done anywhere, anytime -- at home, driving (with eyes open!), or at work.  It helps us to be present and turn within for meditation when desired.  In fact, many and spiritual traditions use centered breathing in conjunction with prayer or guided imagery to enhance inner experiences.

• Sit in a comfortable position with body relaxed and spine straight.  You may also lie down if circumstances allow, but it is often easier to remain awake and alert when sitting upright.
• Close your eyes and mentally focus on the breath.
• Clasp the hands together, placing them gently on the stomach.
• Inhale deeply and slowly through the nose.  Let the belly expand.  Imagine drawing an elixir of calmness directly into the body and brain.
• Exhale slowly and fully through the nose.  Allow the belly to release.  With each exhalation, let go of all mental worries and physical tension.  Experience a sense of increasing physical heaviness.  Retreat within and drop awareness of the body.  Enjoy being interiorized inside the bodily shell.
• Repeat the inhalation and exhalation process smoothly and continuously.
• If the mind wanders, return it to observing the breath.
• Do not try too hard or judge yourself.  This is not contest.
• Practice 5 to 10 minutes.
• When finished, inhale fully and gently return to normal." (pages 160 - 162)

"Use of sound frequencies deliberately exercised for spiritual purposes is rarely employed in the West outside of Wiccan or indigenous traditions....

"Use of this mantra requires that it be repeated in conjunction with breath..."

Quotes from "Finding the Right Psychiatrist"

Here are some quotes from Finding the Right Psychiatrist, by Robert L. Taylor...

For mild to moderate depression -- the most common target of antidepressant medication -- they are no better than placebo (Fournier et al. 2010).

And even these meager results may be overstated.  When studies fail to show any advantage over placebo or when adverse effects prove too troublesome, no problem -- psychodrug makers simply throw out the results and start over.  There are no restrictions on how many studies can be done.  A pharmaceutical company can keep at it until approvable results turn up.  These outcomes -- no matter how difficult to come by -- can then be trumpeted as the only outcomes.  (The FDA does now require all drug studies to at least be publicly registered on a website: www.clinicaltrials.gov.)

You might reasonably ask, Why then do antidepressants remain so popular?  One major factor relates to the tremendous influence psychodrug makers exert over psychiatric publications.  In some instances these companies arrange to have supportive articles ghostwritten!  Another factor stems from selective publication.  In a review of 74 antidepressant studies, researchers found 37 of 38 positive outcomes published in professional journals.  In contrast, only 3 of 36 negative outcomes made it into print (Turner et al. 2008).  In a few instances, failed results were buried in the report and replaced by a positive but unrelated finding.  This long-standing practice carries the nickname "data torturing" (Watters 2010). - page 48

------------------

... magnesium, commonly deficient in the American diet and susceptible to depletion by stress, seems to counteract depression.  One report documented depressed persons recovering after taking extra magnesium (125-300 mg) with each meal and at bedtime.  When put to the test, magnesium also exerts a mood-stabilizing effect, which may be related to chemical characteristics shared with lithium (Eby 2006).  - page 89

------------------

Stanford psychiatry Professor Lorrin Koran and his research team studied the addition of a stimulant drug to the treatment regimen of persons with severe obsessive-compulsive symptoms.  While continuing their previously prescribed SSRI, the patients took, in addition, one of two stimulants: dextroamphetamine or caffeine.  The researchers were surprised when caffeine (used as the control) produced improvement equal to that achieved with dextroamphetamine.  In addition, caffeine was associated with an unexpected reduction in anxiety (Koran et al. 2009).

Further evidence of caffeine's therapeutic value comes from the study of fifty thousand women.  Those who drank two to three cups of coffee a day were 15% less likely to require treatment for depression over a ten-year follow-up period (Lucas et al. 2011).  The results suggest that increasing one's consumption of caffeine might help stave off depression in persons so predisposed. - pages 91-92

---

2016-07-26 Added hyperlinks to quoted text.
2016-07-24 Reformatted some paragraphs to remove unwanted carriage return / newline characters.

The Importance of Deadlines

To all of you participating in NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo this month, this quote is for you:

The biggest thing separating people from their artistic ambitions is not a lack of talent. It's the lack of a deadline. Give someone an enormous task, a supportive community, and a friendly-yet-firm due date, and miracles will happen every time.

- Chris Baty
Founder of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)
in "No Plot? No Problem!", page 19

Quotes From "The Raven's Gift"

Ravens may drop walnuts on your head, storms may batter your canoe, blizzards may scatter your reindeer, but lighten up; nature is "'playing' with you and that is all.  It is not to be taken seriously." (page 210)

I wonder, does nature make traffic lights turn red just as you get to them?

The Koryak Creation Story

When the cosmos was new, there were no people, so Etinvin, our God, made people and placed them on the earth.  He started off first by making the Northern People.  He gave them the best, richest, and most wonderful place on the planet, right here near Vyvenka and above.  He put salmon in the rivers, seals in the bays, and reindeer on the tundra.

When Etinvin finished, there were many places left on the earth with no people.  But he ran out of genuine parts to make people with.  He asked Kutcha [the Raven God] what he should do and Kutcha suggested that they carve some people out of wood.  So Etinvin carved people out of wood.  These people became the Europeans.  They are stupid because they are made of wood and not genuine parts.  They fight too much and they don't think about the future of the earth.  They build too many machines that destroy the earth.

When all the people were finished, Etinvin looked down and saw a woman on the tundra.  She was giving birth and crying in great pain.  Her husband didn't know what to do, so he tried to cut the baby out of the woman's stomach with a large knife.  But that made the women and the baby dead.

Etinvin was sad and called Kutcha: "These people are new and they don't know how to live.  You must fly down from the heavens and teach the people how to live."

So Kutcha gathered the people, and explained: "Women must go to the tundra.  Watch the birds and see how they give birth."

The women walked out to the tundra and watched the birds laying eggs.  And then they understood.  They had many healthy babies and their numbers grew.  But still the people didn't know how to live very well.  So Etinvin called Kutcha again and told him to go back down to earth and tell the people out to live.

And Kutcha gave the following advice:

"Ocean water is full of salt and is not good to drink.  Drink water from the mountains.  That is the sweetest water.

"When the sun is setting, your children must not cry.  They must sit near you and you must tell them stories.  After the stories, the children must sleep.

"You must wake up early in the morning, especially in the spring, when the earth is waking after the winter night.

"If a child falls down, you the must say, 'Stand up.  Don't cry.'

"When fish swim up the river, you must have silence near the river.  The fish will have babies, so you must be quiet to respect the children.

"If you have a headache or stomachache or other pain, you must call Kutcha and say, 'Help me.'  And Kutcha will put on his raven coat and fly down from the heavens.  He will spit on the place that makes the pain.  Then you must push the pain through the body with one finger.  Pick up the pain on the other side of the body, grab it in your hand, and say, 'Go to your mother.  She lives in the darkest place in the North.'  Then you must go outside and throw the pain into the wind." (pages 194 - 195)

From "The Raven's Gift," by Jon Turk

Health Insurance

You can let food be your medicine, but don't expect insurance to cover it.

Likewise, medical research tells us that pets provide their owners with stress relief.  It also tells us that too much chronic stress leads to disease.  But show me an insurance company that will reimburse for pet food and vet bills, and I'll show you a three-legged duck.

The one alternative health care practice that insurance does cover is exercise.  They do this by paying for the cost of joining a gym.  Joining is covered; the monthly fees, however, are not.

What healthy lifestyle choice would you like to see covered?

Quotes from "Why We Get Fat"

Because the insulin level in the bloodstream is determined primarily by the carbohydrates that are consumed ... it's those carbohydrates that ultimately determine how much fat we accumulate.  Here's the chain of events:

1. You think about eating a meal containing carbohydrates.
2. You begin secreting insulin.
3. The insulin signals the fat cells to shut down the release of fatty acids (by inhibiting HSL) and take up more fatty acids (via LPL) from the circulation.
4. You start to get hungry, or hungrier.
5. You begin eating.
6. You secrete more insulin.
7. The carbohydrates are digested and enter the circulation as glucose, causing blood sugar levels to rise.
8. You secrete still more insulin.
9. Fat from the diet is stored as triglycerides in the fat cells, as are some of the carbohydrates that are converted into fat in the liver.
10. The fat cells get fatter, and so do you.
11. The fat stays in the fat cells until the insulin level drops.

If you're wondering whether any other hormones [besides insulin] make us fat, the answer is effectively no....

- Gary Taubes, "Why We Get Fat," page 122

...cortisol makes us store fat both directly (through LPL) and indirectly (through insulin).  But then it works to release fat from our fat cells, primarily by stimulating HSL, just like other hormones.  So cortisol can makes us fatter still when insulin is elevated, but it can also make us leaner, just like every other hormone, when insulin levels are low.  And this may explain why some people get fatter when they get stressed, anxious, or depressed and eat more, and some people do the opposite.

The bottom line is something that's been known (and mostly ignored) for over forty years.  The one thing we absolutely have to do if we want to get leaner -- if we want to get fat out of our fat tissue and burn it -- is to lower our insulin levels and to secrete less insulin to begin with.

- ibid, page 124

...when you eat sugar, according to research by Bartley Hoebel of Princeton University, it triggers a response in the ... part of the brain ... known as the reward center ... that is targeted by cocaine, alcohol, nicotine, and other addictive substances.  All food does this to some extent, because that's what the reward system apparently evolved to do: reinforce behaviors (eating and sex) that benefit the species.  But sugar seems to hijack the signal to an unnatural degree, just as cocaine and nicotine do.

- ibid, page 142

One Sentence

One truly original sentence is better than an entire post of generic cliches. If you only have fifteen minutes, go for the one sentence, seriously! Then post it all by itself.

- from http://www.blogher.com/six-tips-writing-well-and-you-can-still-write-after-kids

Okay then, here's my sentence:

How come you can get a traffic ticket for not stopping when the light turns red, but the guy in front of you won't get one for not going when the light turns green?

Creativity Quotes from "Imagine"

Don Lee on inventing the bacon-infused old-fashioned:

"Basically I experimented with fat-washing because I was bored and nobody told me not to," Don says.  "I'm sure most bartenders would have told me it was a terrible idea, that it would never sell, that I was wasting perfectly good bourbon.  But the laws of chemistry told me that it should work, so why not try it?  I guess my only secret was that I didn't know any better."

- from "Imagine," by Jonah Lehrer, page 117

So it's not such a far-fetched thing to add ghee or extra virgin olive oil to hot tea, then, as I do!

The outsider problem affects everyone....

This is one of the central challenges of writing.  A writer has to read his sentences again and again. (Such are the inefficiencies of editing.)  The problem with this process is that he very quickly loses the ability to see his prose as a reader and not as the writer.  He knows exactly what he's trying to say, but that's because he's the one saying it.  In order to construct a clear sentence or a coherent narrative, he needs to edit as if he knows nothing, as if he's never seen these words before.

This is an outsider problem -- the writer must become an outsider to his own work.  When he escapes from the privileged position of the author, he can suddenly see all those imprecise clauses and unnecessary flourishes; he can feel the weak parts of the story and the slow spots in the prose.  That's why the novelist Zadie Smith, in an essay on the craft of writing, stresses the importance of putting aside one's prose and allowing the passage of time to work its amnesiac magic.

When you finish your novel, if money is not a desperate priority, if you do not need to sell it at once or be published that very second -- put it in a drawer.  For as long as you can manage.  A year or more is ideal -- but even three months will do . . .  You need a certain head on your shoulders to edit a novel, and it's not the head of a writer in the thick of it, nor the head of a professional editor who's read it in twelve different versions.  It's the head of a smart stranger, who picks it off a bookshelf and begins to read.  ou need to get the head of that smart stranger somehow.  You need to forget you ever wrote that book.

- from "Imagine," by Jonah Lehrer, page 132 - 133

I'd love to write fiction, but I can't tell if I would get my story across the way I play it out in my head.  I think this outsider problem is part of it.  But I think I also get too caught up in the detail of specific scenes and pay little attention to the overall flow, cadence, pace of the story.

Wheat = Weight

This article in the latest Natural Awakenings provides a concise overview to Wheat Belly:

By weight, ... modern wheat is approximately 70 percent carbohydrate, in a highly digestible form of a starch known as amylopectin A, which converts more easily to blood sugar than nearly all other simple or complex food carbohydrates. Gram-for-gram, wheat increases blood sugar and causes insulin problems to a greater degree than even potato chips or table sugar.

Read more...

Also check out the Wheat Belly Blog for more resources, including recipes.

Something To Read When Offended

Self-importance is man's greatest enemy. What weakens him is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of his fellow men. Self-importance requires that one spend most of one's life offended by something or someone. Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it, what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone... Self-importance is not something simple and naive. On the one hand, it is the core of everything that is good in us, and on the other hand, the core of everything that is rotten. To get rid of the self-importance that is rotten requires a masterpiece of strategy.

Nagual Carlos Castaneda, Il Fuoco dal Profondo

Amazing Quotes From "Zoobiquity"

Some animal intestines perform an amazing trick. They expand and contract like accordions. This may not sound all that impressive, but its effect on weight can be profound. It allows the body to absorb varying quantities of calories from the same food, depending on the task at hand.

The mechanism is simple: a ribbon of muscle running the length of the intestine allows it contract and expand. When guts are clenched, they’re shorter, tighter and smaller. When relaxed, they’re elongated.

When intestines are in the longer, stretched-out mode, they expose more surface area to the food passing over them. This allows the cells to extract more nutrients and, therefore, energy. When the intestines shrink back to their shortened state, some of the food passes by essentially unused.

Could a similar accordion-like lengthening and shortening in human intestines underlie some unexplained weight gain in our species? ...there are intriguing clues. Our intestines are also lined with smooth muscle. And we know from autopsies that human intestines are some 50 percent longer after death, when smooth muscle control is no longer exerted. Perhaps, during life, dynamic muscle activity allows the human intestine to vary its calorie-absorbing length in response to medications, hormones, and even stress -- factors frequently pointed to when weight inexplicably increases even when a patient isn’t eating more. Many common drugs cause undesired weight gain through unclear mechanisms. It’s intriguing to consider whether smooth muscle effects of these drugs contribute to ... intestinal stretch leading to greater calorie absorption and weight gain.

----------------------

Psychiatrists studying eating disorders note that bulimic binge eaters rarely overconsume protein or leafy greens.  ...they focus their eating sprees -- sometimes with obsessive intensity -- on sugars and simple carbohydrates.

In the Yale study [of grasshoppers exposed to predatory spiders], the insects’ food choices were driven by external factors beyond their control, in other words, the ecology of fear.  In the presence of a predatory threat, they chose foods that would accelerate a lifesaving escape.  These animals provide an underexplored possible context for a human binge eater’s food choices.  They suggest an evolutionary origin.  A stressed person’s decision to forgo the chicken breast and vegetables in his lunch box and consume candy bars instead can seem pointless, weak and even self-destructive.  But knowing that some nonhuman animals prefer high-sugar foods when they’re fearful could help a human stress eater better understand his own candy binge.  While he knows it’s unhealthy for his waistline, blood sugar, and molars, the impossible-to-resist impulse may spring from a hardwired response to threats that for eons has saved animals’ lives.

The Truth About Grains

All grains contain a compound called phytic acid, which can block absorption of zinc, calcium, iron, magnesium, and other minerals and lead to mineral deficiencies.  Fermenting grains by soaking them before cooking neutralizes phytic acid, rendering the grain far more nutritious.

from "Wild Fermentation," by Sandor Ellix Katz

Excerpts from "Buddha Standard Time"

Here are some excerpts from "Buddha Standard Time," by Lama Surya Das...

"He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has."
- Pharaoh Akhenaton 14th century BC (page 7)

"One of the most exciting recent discoveries in the neurochemistry of the brain is that meditation increases the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that positively influences mood, behavior, and emotional well-being. The implication of these studies is that meditation offers a safe, natural way to unwind, calm down, and stabilize one's mood. Aside from daily stress and anxiety, low serotonin levels are associated with a wide range of disorders, including obesity, insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea, migraine headaches, premenstrual syndrome, and fibromyalgia. If larger numbers of people meditated, there could be a significant reduction in the use of Prozac and other antidepressants, whose use has skyrocketed in recent years. If you are taking an antidepressant or antianxiety drug, consider incorporating meditation into your life on a regular basis. By connecting regularly with your higher Self in this way, you might find, in consultation with your physician, that you need a lower dosage of the drug, or none at all." (page 50 - 51)

"After particularly traumatic experiences, some people are prone to lose touch with the present when it becomes painful. What was once a lifesaving and adaptive tendency -- dissociating during periods of acute stress when young -- can become habitual, unproductive and self-destructive. In extreme examples, trauma survivors can frequently lose time -- minutes, hours, or even days -- in what is known as a fugue state. But I have found that once they learn to focus their attention on the now in order to reconnect and heal, they discover that they have immense capacities for spiritual growth, awareness, and healthy transcendence. In a way, we can look at the suffering in our lives as either destructive or creative -- and we have the potential to transform ourselves either way." (page 187)

"Recent research suggests that the earth's main frequency is changing. Scientists report that the Schumann resonances -- electromagnetic waves that have been identified as the earth's natural frequencies -- are now rising in frequency, potentially endangering the entire biosphere. Like global warming, the primary cause of this elevation appears to be human activity. Specifically, the tremendous increase in artificial electromagnetic radiation from satellites, cell phones, computer, televisions, and other military and civilian electronic devices and communications networks is overshadowing the earth's steady pulse of 7.83 hertz. Electropollution depresses the immune function, increases stress and fatigue, and contributes to further physical, emotional, and mental imbalance. We are growing more and more out of tune with nature and the cosmos." (page 204)

Proteins and EMF

To understand the nature of life one must first understand how protein "machines" are empowered to move.

The final shape, or conformation ... of a protein molecule reflects a balanced state among its electromagnetic charges. However, if the protein's positive and negative charges are altered, the protein backbone will dynamically twist and adjust itself to accommodate the new distribution of charges. The distribution of electromagnetic charge within a protein can be selectively altered by a number of processes including: the binding of other molecules or chemical groups such as hormones; the enzymatic removal or addition of charged ions; or interference from electromagnetic fields such as those emanating from cell phones.¹

Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. in "The Biology of Belief"

Find it on Google Books

---

¹ Tsong, T.Y. (1989). "Deciphering the language of cells"

Advice for Warriors

Mapleshade was sitting a tail-length away. "A warrior doesn't daydream," she growled.

"How did you know?"

"You lost your focus a moment before you reared," she told him. "I could see it in your eyes. Your thoughts were on a battle in your head. You must fight the battle you're in, not the one you could be in."

- from Warriors Super Edition: Crookedstar's Promise, by Erin Hunter (page 118)