My Favorite Meditation

Here's a simple but powerful meditation exercise you may enjoy. Teaching you the basics of meditation is beyond the scope of this blog entry (maybe someone can post a comment with a link to a meditation primer for those who've never done it), but if you're already familiar with it, I think you'll find this one interesting and valuable.

I didn't learn this particular meditation from anyone else -- it's just something I made up at one point and have been doing for around 10 years now.

First I get myself totally relaxed and into a peaceful state. Then I imagine a special room in my mind which has two chairs facing each other. I sit in one chair, and in the chair opposite me, I visualize my future self five years from now. He appears as the ideal "me" I'm striving to become. He's physically fit, strong, brave, confident, driven, passionate, enthusiastic, etc. We have a conversation for 5-10 minutes where I ask him questions, and he willingly answers them. He usually looks at me almost with a sense of nostalgia and compassion, since he knows where I am right now as well as the challenges I'm dealing with, challenges he's long since overcome.

Eventually my future self leaves. Then I get up and take his seat, and my past self from five years ago enters the room and takes the first seat. So now I'm the future self (Steve 2005) looking back on my past self (Steve 2000). I take a moment to remember what my life was like exactly five years ago, so I can recall what that past Steve is experiencing. Now he's asking me questions about his future (my present), and I'm providing the answers. I'm often amazed to look back and see just how trivially easy his challenges seem to me today, even though I remember that they appeared much grander when I was in his shoes. I take the time to reassure Steve 2000 that everything turns out well for Steve 2005. I also let him know what things I haven't yet solved that I'm still working on.

Then I do one more step and fast-forward time by five years. So now I'm Steve 2010, and I'm facing Steve 2005. I'm looking back on my present situation from the future -- from a vantage point where I've already solved my biggest challenges. Now I see my Steve 2005 asking the same questions I was previously asking Steve 2010, and I'm able to answer them with confidence and certainty.

Then I imagine all three of us in the room together (Steve 2000, Steve 2005, Steve 2010), and I visualize all three of our bodies becoming translucent. We walk into each other and blend into one being in a flash of light. When this happens I'm often overwhelmed by a release of emotion -- the feeling is somewhat different each time I experience it. We become an integrated whole, a single being who exists outside of time but has been splintered in order to experience the sensation of growth and change.

As I slowly bring myself out of this meditation, I feel very peaceful and calm. But the most important benefit is a feeling of oneness, a sense that I'm more than just a physical being moving forward through time. I feel like an integrated being who exists at all times but is merely focusing his consciousness on a particular time in order to experience it more fully. When I'm in this state of mind, I see the present moment as something contained within my being instead of the more common perception of being a person contained within the reality of the present moment. This has the effect of melting present-moment concerns and replacing them with a feeling of expansiveness and transcendence. My new perception causes my present-reality problems to shrink, which makes them far easier to resolve, sometimes almost trivially easy.

I encourage you to try this meditation at least once to see if you find it as beneficial as I do.

Choosing Digital Blood Pressure Monitors

Ring, Ring Ring! The bell rings and it is all helter skelter, first I have to prepare the kids to go to school then I have to have my husbands' breakfast ready then to prepare myself and finally I am off to work. In the office things aren't any different for I have to arrange meetings for the boss, balance the pending balance sheets, and carry out other many activities before the day ends. Tell me that with all this I wouldn't have a nervous break down and the amazing thing is that I haven't gone for a blood pressure test.

My working counterpart suggested to me that with my very tight schedule I should consider getting a digital blood pressure monitor which might save my life in one of these fine days. I thought about his idea and to my surprise I agreed with him even though we don't seam to agree on anything. So I went hunting for a convenient monitor in the stores that I considered to be appropriate. I discovered that there were a variety of monitors in the stores there are the physically managed and which opens up to expose a U-tube with mercury in it and aneroid is its medical name. There is also another one which requires a certain level of proficiency.

The digital blood pressure monitors come with standard size cuffs which most people use and which guarantees accurate reading. However, some people have very thin or very large arms and a standard size cuff may produce inaccurate readings. Most of these machines come with a standard cuff but one can buy larger or smaller cuffs from suppliers. Digital blood pressure monitor comes with a with a comprehensive instruction leaflet on how to maintain the monitor so as to guarantee that it operates effectively.

Tooth Decay and Diabetes Are the Same Disease

How can you possibly say this?

At first glance, this sounds ridiculous. Diabetes has to do with a glandular organ called the pancreas which is situated behind and slightly under the stomach and tooth decay is a rotting process which occurs in hard tissues of the teeth. The teeth are in the mouth and the pancreas in the peritoneum. They are very far from each other in the body space.

Have they anything in common?

Both teeth and pancreas are organs of digestion. The teeth are at the very beginning of the process, cutting up the food and mashing it in saliva into a suitable form to swallow into the stomach. When the stomach has done its job of further breakdown by acid, the food is pushed on into the first part of the small intestine, called the duodenum.

The pancreas

It is here that the pancreas secretes its contents to bring about further breakdown by enzymes and begin the process of absorption. This process harvests the building blocks of the body's biology from the food and takes it into the bloodstream to supply the cells of all the organs. One of these building blocks is carbohydrate (sugar), a major source of energy for the cells. The pancreas also produces a hormone called insulin which it secretes into the blood. It is this hormone, insulin which carries carbohydrate into the cells (insulin transport mechanism) where it can be burned as fuel to produce energy.

Diabetes

When the amount of carbohydrate that we bring into our bodies is excessive, the workload of the pancreas is greatly increased and this could be termed an overload. There are many consequences of this overload, one of which is cells becoming resistant to the insulin. One of the effects of this is the build up of carbohydrate (sugar) in the bloodstream (called hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar) which is the hallmark of the condition known as diabetes. There are many other effects on and consequences for the pancreas in the short and long term as well as many other effects and consequences for other organs and the body in general. Yet it boils down to carbohydrate (sugar) and the ability of the pancreas to deal with it. We could say therefore, that diabetes is the effect of diet-related 'carbohydrate overload' on the pancreas.

Tooth decay

The major factor in tooth decay is what they call 'sugar frequency'. This could equally be called 'carbohydrate frequency'. This is the number of times per day that we put sugar (sweet things) into the mouth. Each time we use or bring carbohydrate into the body via the mouth, it (the carbohydrate) is broken down into an acid by the bacteria in the mouth. The acid environment thus produced tends to demineralise the enamel (or dentine) of the tooth in the 'at risk' stagnation sites. These are sites on the tooth that are difficult to access by the common methods of hygiene. By repeatedly and or constantly producing the acid trauma at these sites , defects are created in the barrier of the tooth surface. These defects are populated by bacteria which thrive in the acid conditions and the cavity (decaying defect) is produced. The process continues and the cavity gets bigger. We could say therefore, that tooth decay is the effect of diet-related 'carbohydrate overload' on the teeth.

So the picture emerges...

The diseases of tooth decay and diabetes represent the effects of diet-related 'carbohydrate overload' on the two different tissues. Diet-related 'carbohydrate overload' is simply the reflection of our tendency to use sweet taste as a means of comfort or reward. It is thus a method we use to comfort ourselves in stress (feelings of discomfort or upset). It is no more than a 'sweet' habit, - an addiction to sweet things.

Diabetes and tooth decay speak of our discomfort with ourselves and the circumstances of our lives and the negative feelings that we do our best to sweeten.

Tooth decay and diabetes are the same disease with the same origin, but reflected in two different organs of digestive function.