Consider Your Impotence In The Face Of Adversity As A Source For Your Mind And Body Health.

"If we never go through any valleys how will we know when we've reached a mountain top? How will we know if the mountain is even any good if all our lives we stay up on the mountains and never experience any valleys?I know we'd all like to avoid those "valleys" at all costs, But the most growth for anything happens during adversity."

Kim Broom

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant;

if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."

Ann Bradstreet

We live our lives expecting everything to go the way we want it. When we don't win the prize, our world comes to an end. We stop enjoying life and withdraw from society and into ourselves. We forget about the many times we achieved our goals. We forget that just being alive and healthy is worth more that any amount of possessions we may have.

We never escape from our childlike reaction to our disappointments. Yet we know that when our children ask us for something, we sometimes don't give in to their demands. Needless to say, they feel sad when they cannot get the toy or the object they have falling in love with.

As children and adults, these occasions have their purpose in our lives. They teach us that nobody gets everything she wants. It is the ability to live with this realization that we appreciate the power of patience, hard work and the concept that "today's seeds would produce tomorrow's flowers". This faith forms part of the basis of the world's great spiritual lessons. The ability to have faith in the process. The faith makes us live moment by moment. Because, the previous moment's efforts produce the next moment's comforts.

If you become so paralyzed in the present moment and lose its opportunities, the future would be more unkind to you. As grownups some of us carry this childlike trait that destroys us.We grow up forgetting those lessons. We forget to slow down and take one moment at a time. The trust in the moment is so powerful that if practiced regularly, it can transform your life beyond belief. It means live each moment in meditation and savor its opportunities, for this moment lost is your future lost.

"There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy'
would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness."

Carl Jung.

"When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow
strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure."

Peter Marshall

Red Wine Fights Alzheimer's Disease, A Panacea For Your Mind And Body Health.

"Fermented beverages have been preferred over water

throughout the ages: they are safer, provide psychotropic effects, and are

nutritious. Some have even said alcohol was the primary agent for the

development of Western civilization, since more healthy individuals (even if inebriated much of the time) lived longer and had greater reproductive success."

Dr. Patrick McGovern, et al. in The Origins
& Ancient History of Wine


"Bacchus we thank who gave us wine
Which warms the blood within our veins;
That nectar is itself divine.
"The man who drinks not, yet attains
By godly grace to human rank
Would be an angel if he drank."
Pierre Motin
French drinking song

"Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,
Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal."
John Keats 1795 - 1821
Poems [1820], Hyperion: A Fragment, bk. III, l. 11

Though I don't drink, an article that appeared in the on-line Science Daily makes me want to drink wine. The French eat food with high cholesterol and saturated fats. Yet studies show they have low death rate from heart disease because of the consumption of the red wine.

An article that appeared in the Nov. 21 2008 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, written by Alzheimer's researchers at UCLA and Mt Sinai School of Medicine showed that chemicals called polyphenols in wine block the formation of toxic chemicals, plaques, that can destroy brain cells. The polyphenols can also reduce the bad effects of the existing plaques in the brain, thus prevent the plaques from causing Alzheimer's disease. Please, read on...

"Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages."
Louis Pasteur

"Wine is the drink of the gods, milk the drink of babies, tea the drink
of women, and water the drink of beasts."
John Stuart Blackie

Learn The Secrets To A Longer Life For Your Mind And Body Health

"Three passions have governed my life:

The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of people.
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living."

Bertrand Russell

We all strive for long life. The thought of sickness and death strikes terror in our hearts. We spend our days to do things that may bring us happiness and keep us healthy. In spite of that some people who live exemplary lives die early. Some of the reasons for early death may be genetic and high risk activities such as lack of exercise, gluttonous living and failure to control stress.

A new study by Drs. Howard Friedman and Margaret Kern of the University of California at the Riverside found that people who were less conscientious were 50 percent more likely to die at any given age, on average, than those of the same age who were more conscientious. Other findings that improve longevity include Increased socioeconomic status and intelligence. However, the findings in the above study far exceeded the effects of higher socioeconomic status and intelligence which are also associated with increased longevity. The following were the characteristics of the conscientious people who tended to live longest:

• Hard-working.
• Resourceful.
• Confident.
• Ambitious.
• Traits of responsibility.
• Reliability.
• Respectful people in the community who contribute time and energy to their community.
  
• People who co-operate with their colleagues and neighbors.

The study asserts that people with the above traits live lives that are more stable and less stressful. Less stressful is the operative word. With less stress, you're free to be all you can be. The self esteem, that goes with your achievements and successes, gives you the courage to even be more successful. The added benefit of peace of mind is a boon to your mind and body health.


Reference: New Scientist

Consider Setbacks As Vaccine For Your Mind And Body Health.

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins - not through strength but by perseverance."

- H. Jackson Brown


"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another."

- Walter Elliott

You cannot go through life without having disappointments and setbacks. Your success and happiness in life depend on how you sail through these vicissitudes and idiosyncrasies in your life. People who succeed in life have some of the following characteristics:

• They view setbacks as a challenge, a game to beat, an opportunity, or a way to learn something new, rather than barriers in the way of their goals.
  


• They view negative events in their life as less stressful and remain motivated.
  


• They move forward from difficult situations sooner.
  


• They learn form their mistake.
  


• They are more flexible with their plans in life.

When the going gets tough, regroup and go back to the drawing board. Talk to people who have succeeded in the the field you are working and get some help. The new knowledge and determination can goad you on to accomplish your project. Your motto should always be "never despair."

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish."
John Quincy Adams


"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

President Calvin Coolidge

Following Your Dreams Is A Recipe For Your Mind And Body Health

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Roosevelt, Eleanor.

Every invention we see around us was once someone's dream. The inventors did not only dream. They acted on their dreams. Sometimes they failed many times before they persisted and achieved their dreams. How many times have we not walked away from our dreams because of some of the following reasons:

• Lack of self confidence.
• Lack of knowledge of how to achieve your dreams
• Listening to your friends and family members who may speak negatively about your dreams
• Lack of will power.

The ability to stick with your dreams is what makes for success or failure. However it is not easy to build castles as it takes lots of planning, preparation, long sleepless nights and resources to bring the project to fruition. However, a farmer cannot sow seeds without preparing the land and adapt it to what he wants to grow. Hence nobody builds castles without preparations and resources. People who have achieved what they set out to do have some of these characteristics:

• They are open minded and have the thirst to learn new things.
• They are team players because they do not think they have all the answers. They surround themselves with smart people and are ready to listen and learn from them.
• They are not afraid to fail. After all what would be the worst scenario if they fail? They would move on to their next project.
• They have self confidence and the courage to stick with a project till it is completed.
• They have an inner compass that drives them to succeed.

Hence if you have any dreams to build castles, get off your procrastination citadel and start laying the "foundation" for them. For, if you don't you may one day find the castles in your neighbors backyard.

You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau.

Knowing Yourself Is An Elixir For Your Mind And Body Health.

"He who know others is learned. He who knows himself is wise."

Lao Tsu



"There's a lot of fear connected with the inner journey because it penetrates our illusions. Taking the inner journey will lead you into some very shadowy places. You're going to learn things about yourself that you'll wish you didn't know. There are monsters in there monsters you can't control but trying to keep them hidden will only give them greater power."

Parker Palmer

Though you live with yourself, how many times have you taken a break from your busy schedule to know your inner self? You know all about your neighbor or your friends, yet you don't have time to know yourself. I have a friend, Jane, who has mastered the art of knowing herself. She knows when there is imbalance in her inner self. When this happens, she develops non specific symptoms such as shoulder, back and neck pains. These non specific symptoms affect her sleep pattern making her tired during the day.

Many of you have similar symptoms when you're confronted with stressful situations. Unlike my friend who will not run to her physician for a quick fix, many people will run to their physicians for the magic pill to solve their psychosomatic problems. In the busy office, when the physician has only a limited time to deal with your symptoms, he prescribes a quick fix to help you cope. The only problem is that most of the time the medicine does not work. You then move to the next doctor looking for something else to help you cope.

Physicians are important in your life. However you cannot ignore self care that consists of exercising, balanced nutrition, rightful thinking and spirituality. The ability to know yourself will let you know when you're under stress or overwhelmed. You will then be able to cope. Many of my patients are aware of this, yet they want a quick fix by demanding medications.

Your emotions control your feelings and thoughts. These feelings and thoughts produce their own chemicals. Happy feelings will produce happy chemicals and negative feelings can also produce chemicals such as adrenaline and steroids that tear your body apart and make you sick. Once you are in touch with your feelings, you can recognize when something is bothering you. The essence of managing your emotions is to change your circumstances. If you can't, alter your attitudes towards what is bothering you. Understand that there are certain things we can change and others we cannot change. The trick is to determine the difference between what you can change and what you cannot.

The ability to manage your needs and wants will go a long way to keep you at peace with yourself. You become the pilot of your fate and happiness rather than becoming a puppet in the hands of fate. This ability is within us.The secret is to find time to cultivate this innate ability which most of us have lost.

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another, unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another."

Anna Nin


"It's no good running a pig farm badly for thirty years while saying, "Really I was meant to be a ballet dancer." By that time, pigs will be your style."


Quentin Crisp

Prozac Nation No More - A Self Help Prescription For Depression And Your Mind And Body Health.

"Depression is not the end stage of a disease process but a wake up call to examine our lives. There are better ways to do that than taking drugs, which have side effects and don't address the underlying message that depression is bringing—that our lives are out of balance and significant change is necessary. Instead they tell us, "You have a biochemical disorder, here's a drug." " James Gordon, MD

Depression is prevalent in our society. James Gordon, a psychiatrist and the founder of Mind And Body Center in Washington D.C. has written a book to explain that there is a better way of treating depression than taking medicine. His emphasis is on self care through diet, exercise and meditation. Please, read on...

For A Healthy Mind And A Healthy Body, Be Gentle With Yourself.

"A tree has both straight and crooked branches; the symmetry of the tree,"
however, is perfect. Life is balanced like a tree. When you consider
the struggles, difficulties, and sorrows as a part of it,
then you see it as beautiful and perfect.

George M. Lamsa

"If you have known how
to compose your life,
you have done a great
deal more than the
person who knows how
to compose a book.
You have done more
than the one who has
taken cities and empires."

Michael de Montaigne.

Taking yourself too serious can harm your health. This obsession, when every little slight or disappointment becomes a major problem, can sap your energy and deprive you of your health and happiness. It is therefore imperative that you treat yourself gently.

This means you should fall in love with yourself. The ability to fall in love with yourself will give you the insight to follow healthy habits and love your neighbor as yourself. As the saying goes, "charity begins at home." You cannot love your neighbor more than yourself. To be able to follow the above prescription, the following characteristics may help:

• Learn to laugh at your mistakes. Humor is medicine. Laughing at yourself sometimes is not easy.This will give you an objective look at yourself so you can learn and correct the mistakes. The resulting enhanced self confidence can improve your interactions with your friends and colleagues.
• Knowing that you're human will set you free to try new things. Suddenly, you want to go back to school to acquire new skills so you can be more productive. You are not afraid to fail as your journey through life is just a process. You're never done until you die. For a healthy mind and body, you need to keep on challenging yourself. The satisfaction you get from completing a project gives you security and boosts your self esteem.
• Learn form nature. There is nothing that is permanent in this world. Hence be bold and dream great dreams that will propel you to achieve your objectives to enhance your mind and body health.

"For everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace."


Ecclesiastes, 3:1-8

Exercise Slows Down Alzheimer's Disease. A Bonus For Your Mind And Body Health

"Exercise alone provides psychological and physical benefits.

However, if you also adopt a strategy that engages your mind while
you exercise, you can get a whole host of psychological benefits fairly
quickly."

"Movement is a medicine for creating change
in a person's physical, emotional, and mental states."

Carol Welch

Alzheimer's disease wreaks havoc on many old people. Medical research so far has not made any major breakthrough in the treatment of the disease. It is therefore refreshing to see a study published in the journal Neurology about the effects of exercise on the disease.

The study looked at 121 people over 60 years old. About half of them had early stages of the disease. Those with Alzheimer's who were less fit had four times more signs of brain shrinkage than those who were fit.

Other studies have showed that exercise can increase the growth of the hippocampus. During exercise, the brain sends a chemical called BNDF to the brain that causes growth of new cells. Though new cells cannot grow throughout the brain, studies have found that in aging brains some parts of the brain cells rewire themselves
with exercises.

Thus self care is the cornerstone of brain care. Exercise, healthy eating and healthy thoughts can go a long way to keep your mind and body healthy.

Medical Schools Recognise The Role Of Spirituality In Mind And Body Health.

Healing does not consist of using the knife or giving pills only. Physicians are recognizing that patients drive their own care. A patient who practices self care by exercising, eating the right food and in touch with the spiritual world will have the resilience to withstand the onslaught of stress which plagues all of us day in day out. By so doing she will give her body chance to heal.

As healers, physicians in training need to be aware that their patient's sickness is mixed with all sorts of guilty feelings and loneliness as well as fear of death. All these feelings have negative effects on healing as they induce stress.

Medical schools are now training the young physicians in the molecular basis of illness as well as in spirituality. This way, the physicians will learn empathy and encourage their patients to be champions of self care so they can develop resilience to help them heal. Please, read on...

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Confucius

“Psychoanalysis shows the human infant as the passive recipient of love, unable to bear hostility. Development is learning to love actively and to bear rejection.”
Karl Stern

Manage Your Opportunities To Enhance Your Mind And Body Health.

"Opportunity follows struggle. It follows effort. It follows hard work. It doesn't come before."

Shelby Steele

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

Thomas A. Edison.

Many people aspire to do more than what they are doing now. They, for example, may want to be able to loose weight, learn new hobbies, have more education so they can apply for the vacant post in their organization and change certain bad habits they have.

For every need, there is a solution that can be found within your reach. However, you have to have faith in yourself. With faith and tenacity, you will find opportunities in areas you never thought of before. People who manage their opportunities have some of the following qualities:

• They continue learning. Learning new things in their field of work or outside their profession prepares them to be confident and makes it easier for them to seize opportunities when they become available.
• They are open-minded and flexible and are prepared to work in groups for the common good.
  
• They do not procrastinate. Procrastination stifles self development and decreases productivity at work.
• They have internal locus of control, and hence believe that their actions determine their destiny, instead of some external forces determining their future.
• They take care of every aspect of their life including social connections, physical health, mental health and spiritual life.
  

"The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers"

Walter Percy Chrysler.

"There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there's only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen."

Wayne W. Dyer.

Nurture Yourself To Restore Your Mind And Body Health

"Once you choose hope, anything's possible."

Christopher Reeve.



"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by
people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."

Dale Carnegie.

You sometimes feel overwhelmed with life's idiosyncrasies and vicissitudes. This can take away your enjoyment and ability to work well and be productive. It looks like you are not alone. Many people are going through the same feelings of stress and insufficiency at times. This can affect your work.

Pat Heydlauff has a recipe for these feelings that plague all of us. These are her prescriptions: Please, read on...

"Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome
danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm
inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is
meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there
is always tomorrow."

Dorothy Thompson.

Control Your Genes With Healthy Lifestyle Changes. A prescription For Your Mind And Body Health.

Poor health is not caused by something you don't have; it's caused by disturbing something that you already have. Health is not something you need to get, it's something you have already if you don't disturb it.

~Dean Ornish

The first wealth is health ...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many of my patients with family history of cancer are terrified that they may fall victim to the same diseases their parents succumbed to. It is natural to feel this way. However, not everyone who comes from a family with a history of breast cancer or prostate cancer succumbs to the disease. Why is this so? This is the mystery which many scientists are working to unravel.

A recent study conducted by Dean Ornish, MD and his colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco tested the effects of dramatic lifestyle change on genes in the prostate. The study group consisted of men with a history of prostate cancer.

After 3 months of healthy eating, moderate exercises, psychotherapy and stress management, the investigators showed that biopsies taken before and after the lifestyle modification showed the genes that cause the prostate cancer were less active. Other genes that fight diseases were more active.

In 1995, Dean Ornish and his group showed similar results where they found lifestyle changes affected certain markers of prostate cancer, possibly slowing the progression of prostate cancer. Two of the cancer causing genes, RAN and Shock2 were suppressed in the study. The good news is that these genes are found in most types of tumors including breast and colon cancer.

"The implications may be much more widespread, and not just limited to men for that matter.”
Dean Ornish.

Though the results of the study are exciting, we have to await more studies to confirm the findings. However, what do you have to loose by embracing some the lifestyle changes included in the study? The following are some suggestions of lifestyle changes that may help:

• Find time to exercise. Exercise has other benefits that go beyond prevention of cancer. You do not have to spent money. All you have to do is walk. Keep it simple and build it into your busy schedule. The participants in the above study had regular exercise and ate the right foods.
• Eat the right food. Preferably, eat foods with complex carbohydrates and regard food as medicine.
• Find time to be spiritual. Spirituality builds resilience and cuts down your stress hormones that can damage your tissue at the cellular level and make you prone to diseases.
• Meditate daily. The relaxation response that you gain from meditation prevents the production of stress hormones such as steroids and adrenalin that can damage your cells and make you prone to diseases.
• If you're religious, practice your religion. For example, if you are a Christian and you believe in the tenets of the Bible, your daily devotion can give you hope. Jesus will become your psychotherapist as his words can restructure your thoughts and give you peace of mind. With Jesus in your boat, you should never be afraid of the storms in your life.

"In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and abilities to handle feelings will determine your success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships."

John Gottman, PhD

"We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror: It's us and our homemade masks."

Richard Bach

"Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny."

Author unknown

Reference: The New Scientist. June 18, 2008

Controlling Your Genes Wtih Healthy Lifestyle Changes Is A Prescription For A healthy Mind And A Healthy Body.

Poor health is not caused by something you don't
have; it's caused by disturbing something that you
already have. Health is not something you need to
get, it's something you have already if you don't disturb it.

~Dean Ornish

The first wealth is health ...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many of my patients with family history of cancer are terrified that they may fall victim to the same diseases their parents succumbed to. It is natural to feel this way. However, not everyone who comes from a family with a history of breast cancer or prostate cancer succumbs to the disease. Why is this so? This is the mystery which many scientists are working to unravel.

A recent study conducted by Dean Ornish and his colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco tested the effects of dramatic lifestyle change on genes in the prostate. The study group consisted of men with a history of prostate cancer. After 3 months of healthy eating, moderate exercises, psychotherapy and stress management, the investigators showed that biopsies taken before and after the lifestyle modification showed the genes that cause the prostate cancer were less active. Other genes that fight diseases were more active.

In 1995, Dean Ornish and his group showed similar results where they found lifestyle changes affected the progression of prostate cancer. Two of the cancer causing genes, RAN and Shock2 were suppressed in the study. The good news is that these genes are found in most types of tumors including breast and colon cancer.

"The implications may be much more widespread, and not just limited to men for that matter,”

Dean Ornish.

Though the results of the study are exciting, we have to await more studies to confirm the findings. However, what do you have to loose by embracing some the lifestyle changes included in the study? The following are some suggestions of lifestyle changes that may help:

• Find time to exercise. Exercise has other benefits that go beyond prevention of cancer. You do not have to spend money. All you have to do is walk. Keep it simple and build it into your busy schedule. The participants in the above study had regular exercise and ate the right foods.
• Eat the right food. Preferably, eat foods with complex carbohydrates and regard food as medicine.
• Find time to be spiritual. Spirituality builds resilience and cuts down your stress hormones that can damage your tissue at the cellular level and make you prone to diseases.
• Meditate daily. The relaxation response that you gain from meditation prevents the production of stress hormones such as steroids and adrenalin that can damage your cells and make you prone to diseases.
• If you're religious, practise your religion. For example, if you are a Christian and you believe in the tenets of the Bible, your daily devotion can give you hope. Jesus will become your psychotherapist as his words can restructure your thoughts and give you peace of mind. With Jesus in your boat, you should never be afraid of the storms in your life

"In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and abilities to handle feelings will determine your success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships."

John Gottman, PhD

We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror: It's us and our homemade masks.

Richard Bach

"Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny."

Author unknown

Reference: The New Scientist. June 18, 2008

A Caring Father Is A Balm For His Children's Mind And Body Health

One night a father overheard his son pray: Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is. Later that night, the Father prayed, Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.

Anonymous



I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

Harry Truman

Today is fathers' day. it is a day to honor and remember our fathers who toiled to make us who we are. Today also reminds us of Tim Russert, the MNBC anchor for Meet the Press who died suddenly on 6/13/08. Mr. Russert honored his father who, even with meager resources, gave him the wings to fly. As a father, he also became the best friend and mentor of his son to the envy of fathers who could not devote much time and energy to their children.

Parents' role in the development of their children is important. Children, as little flowers in our garden, have to be nurtured so they can blossom. They respond to the attention and the time we devote to them. This makes them feel safe and make them less prone to stress. Stress produces steroids that can shrink the children's brain and predisposes them to depression and post traumatic stress syndrome.

Hence, if you're a father, find time to enjoy your children. Be their friend and find out what they really want to do with their life and be their best cheer leader. This is the only way they can give their best to any task they set their minds on. Your children's knowledge that you approve of their pursuits is enough to open the gates of their creative juices to be all they can be.

"Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing."

- Jim Rohn

"The work will wait while you show your child the rainbow, but the rainbow won't wait while you do the work."

-Patricia Clafford

Blueberries May Be Good For Your Mind And Body Health.

Memory loss with aging is normal most of the time. However when the loss interferes with your day to day function, then it becomes a problem. A study by a group of physicians from the University of Reading and the Peninsula medical School in England found that foods such as blueberries are effective at reversing age-related memory lapses.

Adding blueberries to the diet of the study participants for 12 weeks showed improvements in memory tasks after 3 weeks and continued throughout the study period. Although the authors did not know the precise mechanism of the blueberries on the brain, they postulate that the chemicals involved may pass through the blood to the brain and boost the existing nerve connections by improving cellular communications and improving cell growth.

"This study not only adds science to the claim that eating blueberries are good for you, it also provides support to a diet-based approach that could potentially be used to increase memory capacity and performance in the future."

-Dr Whiteman


Reference:The Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (2008, April 12). Getting Forgetful? Then Blueberries May Hold The Key. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 8, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/04/080410115405.htm

Manage Stress In Pregnancy For Your Baby's Mind And Body Health.

If you are pregnant, think twice before taking on an extra project at work. Severe stress, even in the short term, may almost double the risk of having a stillbirth - although stillbirths are rare.

Nora Schultz-The New Scientist

A study conducted in Denmark on pregnant women by Kristen Wisborg and colleagues followed a group of pregnant women in their pregnancy and found that the women who were stressed had more stillbirths than those with less stress.

The results of this study are even more significant since women with problems like high blood pressure, premature labor and other significant health problems were excluded from the study.

Studies in monkeys show that stress hormones such as adrenalin reduce the flow of blood supply to the placenta. Although the effect is small, if the baby has any other problems, stress can cause more damage to the placenta and cause fetal death.

Other studies show that stress in pregnant rats in the last 3 months of their pregnancy impaired the growth of their offspring's brain. The babies developed fewer nerve cells in the areas of the brain that are involved with emotions (the cingular cortex and the orbito frontal cortex and other parts of the brain.

The nerves in the babies' brain showed abnormal branching pattern with different effects on boys than girls. Boys were more likely to develop attention deficit disorder while the girls tended to develop depression which is known to be due to shrinkage of the hippocampus.

“Early experiences, especially emotional experiences, shape brain circuits for later life. The susceptibility to stress continues after birth, with different types of stress and trauma leading to different brain effects, she adds." Braun.

The take home message of these studies is that we are connected to our outer and inner worlds. Babies, whether they are in their mothers' womb or outside, are influenced by their surroundings. If the environment is hostile, stress hormones are produced that have detrimental effects on them. Thus we owe it to our children that we provide them with a peaceful stress free environment for their proper growth while they are inside the womb and after birth..

Technorati Tags: sprituality, stress and children, mind and body health, healthy mind, healthy body, depression

References:

1. Stress in pregnancy hits offspring's emotional brain. The New Scientist 12:02. 12th July 2006
2. Stress increases risks of still births. The New Scientist. 30th May, 2008

Having Faith In Yourself Will Give You A Healthy Mind And A Healthy Body.

"You may not see the end of the path. You may wonder if you have it in you to accomplish it. But, with each step forward, you build your skills for the journey. Doors open. Possibilities are uncovered. You draw in new ideas. Inspiration and intuition grow stronger."

Annie Robinson

In order to move beyond the ordinary in your life, you have to keep on developing yourself. You can only do that if you believe in yourself and have an open mind. A mind that is open is ready to look at the other side of the mountain, ready to taste the unfamiliar food and ready to try new ideas. Amy ( not the real name) is a cleaner at the Community Health Partners in Lorain, OH. I was in my on-call room this morning when she came to clean the room and change the bedding. She asked for the combination to the bathroom door so she could clean the bathroom.

She started talking to me about going back to school at age 45. She wants a carrier in the medical field. However, her husband does not want her to go back to school. The response she got from talking to her coworkers at the hospital was "cleaning is not that bad." She and her husband earn about $50,000 a year. She wants to elevate herself above her current status but nobody seems to encourage her. They are rather discouraging her.

I congratulated her for her burning desire to improve herself and have a better future. We also talked about various 2 year degree options in the medical field. She agreed to take a look at Nursing as a career. She walked out of my room, elated and ready to go and conquer the world. People who make things happen have these characteristics:

• They act on their dreams even when the odds against them are immense.
• They believe in themselves. They are their own pilot. If they cannot pilot their life, who can do it for them.
• They seek ideas from other people. They have the common sense to know which ideas are better and which are not.
• They are willing to go the extra mile to achieve their goals.
• They have their own inner compass directing them to their destination.
• They are like Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull who went against all odds to achieve perfection and freedom.

"Listen, everybody! There's no limit to how high we can fly! We can dive for fish and never have to live on garbage again!."

"You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now - and nothing can stand in your way! "The only true law is that which sets us free."

“When you have come to the edge of all the light you have And step into the darkness of the unknown Believe that one of the two will happen to you Either you'll find something solid to stand on Or you'll be taught how to fly!”

Bach

Meditation Can Help Your Mind And Body Health

"Plant the seed of meditation and reap the fruit of peace of mind."


"Meditate daily, and soon your inner strength and mind power will grow."

By Remez Sasson

Every human invention was created by the mind. Thus the mind is a powerful creative machine. However, it works well when it is in its creative state. This state is the mindset when the mind is as calm as a pool of quite water. It is at its best when it is not making waves. This is when it is able to be the inventor and creator.

The daily hustle and bustle make it difficult to focus the mind to be at its best. How then can you tame and focus the mind to be able to continue to be creative to contribute to the communal and personal effort to improve the world and your personal fortune?

Research done at the University of Pennsylvania and supported by the National Institute of Health found that even small doses of daily meditation may improve focus and performance. Meditation calms the mind and changes the way the brain works.

They found that meditation may modify the three components of attention, namely:

• The ability to prioritize and manage tasks and goals.
• The ability to voluntarily focus on specific information.
• The ability to stay alert to the environment.

The value of the above findings to practitioners of meditation is that even the practice of meditation for as little as 30 minutes a day is enough to have a great impact on their life. The take home message is that however busy you're, devote some time to recharge your mind to perform better when it is most needed.


Reference:Sciencedaily.com

Laughter Is Good For Your Mind And Body Health

"The best blush to use is laughter: It puts roses in your cheeks and in your soul."

- Linda Knight

"He who laughs, lasts."

-Victor Borge

There are times in your life that clouds form around you, making you loose your way. These occasions can be challenging. Your motivation and enjoyment well dry up. Your life becomes barren like an arid soil.

The result of this stress is that your stress hormone, cortisol, increases and attacks your immune system. The effect of cortisol is counteracted by another hormone called DHEAS. DHEAS, however starts declining at age 30, dropping to less than 20% of their maximum value by the time we reach 70.

Additionally, cortisol has effects on the heart and the brain. Studies from the University of Edinburgh, UK, showed that older men with high levels of cortisol have smaller anterior cingular cortices. Shrinkage of this brain area is linked with Alzheimer's disease and depression in older people. The researchers think these effects are caused by stress.

Stress is part of our existence, however, you should at all times find ways of walking away from stress. These are some suggestions:

• Laugh often. Laughter reduces stress and hence lowers the levels of the steroids in your body.
• Have a positive attitude and a sunny disposition. Optimism helps you roll with the punches so you can take one day at a time.
• Learn from your problems and find ways to avoid stressful triggers in your life.
• Be spiritual. Spirituality gives you hope. Hope gives you the assurance that you can live and fight another time.
• Don't be lonely unless it is self imposed for a particular project or purpose. Social interactions provide you with the necessary support in your time of need and hence can decrease your stress levels
  

"If taking vitamins don't keep you healthy enough, try more laughter:

The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed."

- Nicolas-Sebastien Chamfort

Reference:The New Scientist

Lack Of Sleep May Destroy Your Brain Cells And Your Mind and Body Health.

"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."
William Shakespeare, Macbeth

"And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created."
D.H. Lawrence

The art of sleeping has its place in our lives. Yet, in these hectic times, more often than not, we encroach on our sleep so we can catch up on our homework, socializing, working and many other pastimes. Sometimes even when we wrap ourselves up in our bed to sleep, we scare sleep away because of our wondering mind. We free ourselves from the shackles of our restless mind only when we can train it to obey our will. By taming our mind, we can harness the benefits of a good night's sleep. If we miss this opportunity, we risk getting sick.


It appears that like a factory that has to shut down for maintenance, the brain does better when it goes to sleep. During sleep, the body rests and the production of stress hormones decrease. This gives the body the chance to repair its wear and tear. A recent study on rats by researchers from the Princeton University showed that lack of sleep in rats prevented the growth of cells in rats' brain area called hippocampus that is involved in forming memories. In two groups of rats, the group that had less sleep had higher levels of the stress hormone corticosterone. When the investigators kept the corticosterone levels constant, the decrease in the brain cell growth was less. Even though the experimenters conducted this study in rats, it will be interesting to conduct the same study in humans.


The take home message is that sleep has its purpose in rejuvenating your body. Skimp on your sleep and you run the risk of stressing your body that would lead to increase stress hormones that may have effects on your brain and affect your immune system. The following are some suggestions to help you to sleep like a baby:

• Don't go to bed angry as the stress from your anger will prevent you from sleeping and increase your steroid levels
• Calm your mind before you go to sleep so you can have a stress free sleep.
• One way of calming your mind is to meditate. By simply calming your mind, relaxing your whole body and taking deep breaths slowly in and out of your nose, your mind would be calm and help you to sleep better. Your relaxed stress free body will produce less stress hormones, help you to sleep and maybe spare your brain.
• You may also read an inspirational passage that may calm your mind and give you less stress so you can go to sleep like a baby.
• Some people find that they can sleep better if they exercise before they go bed.

O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my sense in forgetfulness?

William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I

Reference: BBC On Line.

Obesity Can Give You Alzheimer Disease. Fight Obesity For A Healthy Mind And Body Health.

"All parts of the body which have a function if used in moderation and exercised in labors in which each is accustomed,

Become thereby healthy,

Well developed and age more slowly,

But if unused they become liable to disease,

Defective in growth and age quickly."

~Hippocrates~

"People who are obese at 60 are twice as likely to develop dementia by the time they are 75"

Professor Clive Ballard

"Living a healthy lifestyle will only deprive you of poor health, lethargy, and fat."

Jill Johnson

I have many patients who request medications to help them lose weight. They are right to be concerned with their weight; however, they have the wrong approach to managing their weight gain. They want a short cut solution to their obesity-a pill that will melt the fatty tissue. A recent article that appeared on the BBC on line and the Washington Post showed that obesity, smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol can lead to Alzheimer disease because they destroy the blood vessels in the brain and lead to the death of the brain cells. It will therefore appear that lifestyle changes can go a long way to prevent the disease. These are some suggestions:

• You should buy into the concept that food is medicine so you can eat the right food at the right time.
  
• Learn form the Nun study. The nuns who engaged their minds all the time were immune to the onslaught of the Alzheimer disease even though some of the nuns showed Alzheimer changes in their brain after death. This study gives us a healthy model to follow. It is a recipe for preventing Alzheimer disease.
• Find time to exercise. Exercise keeps the brain alive by inducing the growth of new cells. It will also keep your weight down and help reduce high blood pressure and increased cholesterol levels in your blood.
  
• Eat fish or take Omega 3 fatty acids as they help prevent Alzheimer disease.
  
• Embrace spirituality to help you reduce stress. When you are under continuous stress, your body comes under attack from the steroids you produce from the stress. The result of this steroid onslaught is to attack your immune system, your brain cells, your chromosomes and cause you to age prematurely. Spirituality gives you resilience and buffers you from stress so you can weather these stressful moments in your life.
  

"Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness."

Edward Stanley

"If exercise came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body."

Cher

"He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skill of the physician."
- Chinese Proverb

Daring To Challenge Your Life’s Frustrations Is a Recipe For Your Mind And Body Health.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena;

whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood;

who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again;

who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course;

who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,

and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly;

so that his place shall never be with those cold

and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."

- Theodore Roosevelt

I have many patients who are frustrated with their jobs, partners, home situation and lives. They sound disappointed and would rather change their situation if they had the opportunity to do it all over again. However, living in this world is like going on a journey. You have stops to make to fill your tank with gas, perform ablution, change the deflated car tires, look for a toying truck to move your broken touring car for repairs, fight sleep behind the steering wheel and cater for your children in the back seats constantly asking you "are we there yet?" These interruptions and annoyances are part of the price we pay when we are on a journey to see our loved ones or go on vacation.

Sometimes, when you look at your life, you do not see any meaningful achievements you have made. Other times you may find many obstacles in your way preventing you from achieving your goals. If you can tolerate temporary annoyances on the road to visit your favorite grandmother, you can restructure your thoughts to be able to withstand the vicissitudes and idiosyncrasies in your life. These changes in your life are the necessary right of passage you need to survive in this world. You have to remember that the unchallenged life is not worth living. Hence, challenge yourself even in the face of adversity to be all you can.

The early explorers sailed the seas in search of the New World. The only traits they had were faith, hope and religion. They went through bolts, bars and arrows to conquer the land they discovered. If they became frustrated during their journey and made a U-turn to their comfortable environment, we may all not be here today. Hence, when the going gets tough and your stress hormones are giving you palpitations and urging you to quit, you should think about these few suggestions:

• Nothing meaningful is easy to achieve. The more precious the jewel, the deeper you have to dig to get it. Even when you acquire your booty, you still have to keep it polished to prevent deterioration.
  
• Cultivate hope like a little rose in your garden. Water it and prevent the weeds from choking it. For, that little plant can grow and give you flowers to brighten your life with color and sweet scents.
  
• Share your passion and your achievements. Sharing helps other people and makes you richer.
  
• In the face of adversity, be tenacious and have faith in yourself.
  
• Do not go it alone. Have a social network you can tap into since sometimes you need someone to wipe your tears for you.
  
• Cultivate spirituality to give you buffer as you will face disappointments. Spirituality will be your mantle and shield on those occasions and give you meaning for your quest.
  

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,
It's when things seem the worst that you must not quit.

Author Unknown

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

Alfred De Souza

Meditation Can Benefit Your Mind And Body Health.

"We encounter the grinding wheels that sharpen our mental blades many places in life.

Adversity, school, parents, spiritual guides, books,

experiences are all sharpening teachers. As we grow older,

to stay sharp we must find new grindstones to whet and sharpen our potential and keep us at our brightest,

most penetrating best."

Kall, Robert

"Relaxation frees the heart.

Courage opens the heart.

Compassion fills the heart

Kall"

How do we stay motivated and carry on with our lives with enthusiasm in the face of life's disappointments. As humans, we encounter many disappointments in our daily lives. We sometimes forget that we cannot always get what we want. The ability to walk away from our disappointments is a trait that we must cultivate. Walking away from our hurts is like having compassion for ourselves.

On the other hand, when our neighbor hurts us, it is difficult to forgive and forget the hurt. When we dwell on the incident that caused the hurt, we replay the scene in our mind's eye repeatedly until we own the hurt, which then cripples us and prevents us from enjoying our sleep and hurting our health.

A new study from the University of Wisconsin that appeared in the Scientific America found that people who meditate develop the ability to show compassion for others. However, if you can show compassion for other people, you should be able to show compassion for yourself. As charity begins at home, you cannot forgive someone without you forgiving yourself. Hence, the art of meditation should be your daily practice as it will help your dealings with the outside world and can also help you forgive yourself and move away from any hurts that may prevent you from being happy. As James Allen said, "you cannot travel within and stand still without."

"The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith."

Bertrand Russell quotes (English Logician and Philosopher 1872-1970)

In Illness, Spirituality Is A Balm For Your Mind And Body Health.

"God to enfold me,
God to surround me,
God in my speaking,
God in my thinking.

God in my sleeping,
God in my waking,
God in my watching,
God in my hoping.

God in my life,
God in my lips,
God in my soul,
God in my heart.

God in my sufficing,
God in my slumber,
God in mine ever-living soul,
God in mine eternity."

Ancient Celtic oral traditions - Carmina Gadelica

When we fall ill, we come face to face with our mortality. We put a hold on unfinished projects, the places we wish to visit before we retire, the grandchildren we want to help raise and other burning projects we want to start die. This is enough to scare us. Paradoxically, this is not the time to get scared because anxiety has its own problems. It makes us sick and causes our body to produce stress hormones that attack our immune system to wreck our body. This is not what we need in sickness as we need our immune system to help us heal. It is therefore imperative that on such occasions, we find the meaning in our suffering.

The only way we can find the meaning in our suffering is to keep God in our sight. The spiritual realm can give us shelter and peace of mind to take one day at a time. It can make us yield to the plans God has for us, not what we want for ourselves. It can make us become like the children who are beholden to their mother and cannot survive without her. It makes us vulnerable and hence gives us the childlike "faith that passeth all understanding." This is the only way we can bask in the God healing light so we can heal. We heal when we upload all our worries unto Him. We have peace of mind when we keep Jesus in our boat and wake Him up when the storms in our life are threatening to drown us. We have assurance when He wakes up and calms the stormy weather and the seas to make our lives easier. This is the only way we can heal when we are ill. The peace of mind that living with Christ in our boat gives us is the only real assurance we need to heal.

Our poetry allows us to remember that our integrity is not in our body,

that despite our physical limitations,

our suffering and our fears, there is something in us that is not touched, something shining.

Our poetry is its voice. To hear that voice is to know the power to heal. To believe.
- Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

"Man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning."

Victor Frankl

Nurture Your Children To Enhance Their Mind And Body Health.

"Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing."

- Jim Rohn

"The work will wait while you show your child the rainbow, but the rainbow won't wait while you do the work."

-Patricia Clafford

Your children are your future. Can you imagine a future without empowered, motivated and healthy children? No. That is a prescription for disaster. Unfortunately, babies do not come with manuals to help you do what is right by them. You normally make it up as you go along. It appears that your babies respond to stress by increasing their cortisol levels, which in turn shrink the hippocampus in the brain.

A recent study on 15 children who were exposed to stress looked at their hippocampi. The investigators measured the children's blood cortisol levels. They found that the children with high cortisol levels had smaller hippocampi measured with MRI. The higher the cortisol levels the smaller the hippocampi. Small hippocampus predisposes a child to depression and posttraumatic stress syndrome. Hence, like the flowers in your garden, take time to nurture your children so you can reduce their stress and give them a healthy mind and a healthy body.

It takes a whole village to raise a child.
- African Proverb

Your Emotional Wellbeing Is Key To Your Mind And Body Health.

"Most of us have experienced the buoyancy and satisfaction that positive emotional states can create in our lives. At such moments of buoyancy, our effectiveness at big tasks and small improves almost effortlessly. Positive emotional states produce that effect because of the coherence they create within the human system."

Doc Childre and Howard Martin The HeartMath Solution

"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."

Marcus Aurelius

Is it normal to be upbeat all the time? I do not think so. Most people are like the weather that changes day to day. This is because they have no control over their emotions and go with the flow. Like a reflex action, when they are upset, they lash out and vice versa. When they indulge in negative emotions, they pay the price through the effects of the emotions on their health. Misery can kill you as fast as a bullet. Optimism decreases damage to your arteries. Similarly, in people who forgive easily, stress has fewer effects on them. A recent study showed that emotional vitality—a positive state associated with interest, enthusiasm, excitement, and energy for living—is associated with cardiovascular health.

This study that appeared in the December 2007 Archives of General Psychiatry was conducted by Laura Kubzansky, Ph.D. associate professor in the Harvard School of Public Health and Rebecca Thurston, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. The investigators followed 6000 people with no heart disease for 15 years to see whether they developed heart disease or not. They explained their finding that:

"One way by which it (emotional vitality) might protect people, they speculated, is
helping people respond effectively to challenges as well as
provide reserve capacity for meeting those challenges. A better meeting of such challenges would, presumably, put less
stress on the cardiovascular system and thus help protect it."

It therefore appears that for you to enjoy a healthy life, you should strive for improving your emotional vitality. This mental attitude is the key to a healthy living. Hence, in your own life, these are some attitudes that can help you benefit from this study:

• Cultivate a positive attitude to life. It is however not easy to be positive when the going gets tough. Hence, you have to work hard at always seeing the ray of hope in any painful situation. Remember, you have nothing to lose. You may save your heart in the process and by so doing live a healthy long life.
  
• Watch your thoughts, for they are the sails that give you direction in your life. With the right thoughts, you would bounce back when you fall down.
  
• Cultivate your supporting relationships, because this social support is there to give you a hand when you fall down.
  
• Be spiritual, because spirituality gives you the meaning for your existence and may boost your resilience when you are down and out.
  
• Practice forgiveness. For, if you do not forgive, you rehearse the hurt in your mind and by so doing damage your heart with the invisible arrows of hurt.
  
• Practice these principles until they become your second nature. Remember, "Joy in living keeps the heart healthier."

"Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny."

Author unknown

Reference: Psychiatry On-Line

Manage Diversity In Your Workplace To Enhance Your Mind and Body Health.

"We define diversity in an organizational setting in terms of a collective of individuals, who differ from each other on one or any number of dimensions including culture,

values, education, gender, marital status and age. Diversity deals with visible and invisible characteristics."

Church

Valuing diversity means acknowledging that other people, other races, other voices,

and other cultures have as much integrity and as much claim

on the world as you do. It is the recognition that there are other ways of seeing the world,

solving problems, and working together.

ASME PPC on-line

The world is a global village. The US is in a unique position of having many different ethnic groups on its soil. Hence, the workplace may sometimes reflect this diversity. Diversity is important for the workplace as it improves productivity if managed well. However, when organizations bring people with different backgrounds together, there is a tendency to be conflict if they do not make their workers aware of the importance of tolerance and diversity to the organization.

Workers in a workplace should understand that successful organizations bring different people from different backgrounds together for a common cause, to serve people and to improve the bottom line of the organization. If this concept is missing, the ensuing conflicts can cause stress, which in turn will cause poor performance, tardiness, conflicts and decrease in the workplace productivity.

Stress is common in the workplace as I see many patients who complain of stress at work, from a mean boss or unfriendly coworkers. Add diversity issues to it and you have a dysfunctional workforce on your hand.

As a worker, what do you do? These are few suggestions that may help you avoid workplace stressful diversity issues:

• Have an open mind when dealing with people who are different from you. Get to know them, for they may teach you something about their world that will make you a better person. You become richer in the process.
  
• Remember that the new hire is scared and anxious. You should treat him as you would like others to treat you in a similar situation. This way, you may decrease his anxiety. The feeling of acceptance would bring out the best in your newfound friend.
  
• Be patient with your new coworkers. They may make mistakes initially. It is ok. That is how we all learn. It is the person who is working that will make mistakes. Correct him gently. He will be forever grateful to you for your understanding and kindness.
  
• Always walk in the shoes of your friend and see how it feels. You will realize that we are all the same people. We come in different colors, shapes, ages and languages. However, we all aspire for the same shelter, security and crave love and recognition in our second home that we call "work place."
  

Regard your neighbor's gain as your gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss.
Tai Shang Kan Yin P'ien

All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
Matthew 7:1

Embrace Hope To Nurture Your Mind And Body Health

"Look to this day for it is life,
For yesterday is already a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision.
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
A dream of happiness and every tomorrow, a vision of hope."
Sanskrit Proverb

Let me confess that sometimes waking up in the morning and going to work is a chore. Sometimes life seems to be just about working. Home is only there for sleeping. When your life revolves around work and you do not even have time for any pastime, except on the occasions when you encroach on your sleep, then you know you are in trouble.

There is a tendency to lose hope in such situations. However, on such occasions you are the only one who can shine some light into your life. The two quotations in this passage give you a few suggestions to live bye. Embrace them and live today like there was no yesterday or there is no tomorrow. By so doing, you will know that to live a hopeful life is stay in the moment. For, this moment lived fully will yield a better tomorrow. Let this be your creed and embrace today with all its foibles.

"There is no medicine like hope No incentive so great And no tonic so powerful As the expectation Of something better tomorrow."
Orison Swett Marden

Weight Gain And Diabetes Linked To Sleep Deprivation-A Toxin For Your Mind And Body Health

One report, published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, focused on how the suppression of deep sleep hurts the ability to regulate blood-sugar levels even in young adults. Please, read on:

Sleeping Like A Baby Is A Balm For Your Mind And Body Health

"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."
William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Sleep is an important component of our mind and body health. However our ability to sleep is always under attack from many quarters such as:

• Stress at work
• Financial problems
• Shift work
• Illness
• Death in the family
• fighting with your partner

When we experience any of the above problems, we pay through lack of sleep. Eve Van Cauter, MD, professor at the University of Chicago performed a study on a group of healthy young men in their 20's. The study group was allowed four hours of sleep at night while they continued performing their routine chores.

After one week of this experiment, the group's ability to process carbohydrates and metabolic levels was similar to a 65-year-old man. Hence lack of sleep causes major changes in our body such as abnormalities in glucose tolerance similar to prediabetic state. Additionally, the study group had increased evening cortisol similar to people with major depression. In addition to the increased cortisol, leptin ( a hormone that makes you feel full) levels changed, making the study group feeling underfed by 1,000 calories per day. This can make you feel hungry resulting in overeating to cause weight gain.

Cortisol is a stress hormone that has effects on your tissues. It can make you gain weight and cause you to age prematurely and damage your brain cells. Hence, we cannot take adequate sleep lightly. We have to make time to sleep as it's important for our mind and body health. The following are some suggestions to help you sleep better:

• Don't go to bed angry. Anger raises your stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol that can keep you up, deny you of a healthy sleep and raise your blood pressure if the stressful situation continues.
• Don't fill your stomach with food and go to bed as it may cause indigestion and acid reflux.
• Don't drink caffeinated beverages before your bedtime.
• Have a routine of winding down to calm your mind so you can sleep. What I have found helpful is reading inspirational passages in the bible (or any inspirational passages of your choice) followed by meditation. Meditation by deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation can enhance your chances of sleeping within a short time. In addition to calming your mind, meditation also decreases the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. The deep breathing supplies your body with nitric oxide that opens your blood vessels, lower your blood pressure and keep you younger.
• Watching your thoughts has to be your mantra as it will enhance your ability to quickly switch gears to calm your mind to go to sleep.
• Find time to exercise, because it lowers your stress hormones and improve your quality of sleep.

"And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created."

D.H. Lawrence