Intuitive Mind

Here's a great quote from Albert Einstein:


The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. -- Albert Einstein

it's today's quote from the 'quote a day' service from www.charityfocus.org

To Do Before I Die

I've just come across a really nice web site:

www.2dobeforeidie.com

Bird Flu

here's some up-to-date info on the bird flu:

Research in the Netherlands and the USA has shown that while human influenza viruses are able to bind with receptors in the windpipe, H5N1 binds only much deeper inside the lungs. This makes it more difficult for the virus to infect humans, because the virus is less likely to reach the inner lungs than the windpipe. The H5N1 virus is also less likely to spread from human to human. Coughing and sneezing easily transmits viruses that have multiplied in the windpipe, but not those located deep in the lungs. If H5N1 manages to mutate so that it can replicate in the upper respiratory tract, a pandemic becomes more likely. Scientists are constantly monitoring the virus for this mutation.

To see all that I've written on this check out this web page:

http://healthandgoodness.com/health/bird_avian_flu.htm

overweight - have you given away your power?

I've posted an article with this title on the Health & goodness web site.

Here's the first bit of it to whet your appetite :-)

If you’re unhappily overweight, is it because you’ve given away your power?

Do you let others decide on your portion size?
When you eat in a restaurant, buy a ready meal, buy chocolate or an ice cream, do you let the producer decide what is the amount you should eat by finishing whatever the portion size happens to be?

to read the rest go to:

http://www.healthandgoodness.com/weightshape/weight_power.htm

Reflexology

I've been adding case studies in the 'symptoms' section of Health & Goodness:

http://www.healthandgoodness.com/symptoms/index.htm

Here's a remarkable case study from Hannah Shine, a reflexologist in Bishops Stortford, Herts, UK:

Angelika came to see me with severe earache in her left ear and a high temperature. I decided to give her a reflexology treatment.While doing the ear reflex by the little toe, I felt what can only be described as a "grain of rice" under that reflex. It was very painful.I worked on it and she went home. I got an email 2 days later headed "weird stuff"..... Angelika explained that she forgot to tell me that 3 weeks ago she went to get some new contact lens. The optician put the lenses into her eyes; she decided she did not like them and he removed them using a suction pad. He found that he had only half a lens from her left eye in his suction pad and looked on the floor, couldn't find it, looked in her eye and couldn't find it and presumed it was lost somewhere on the floor. Angelika went home and her eye felt very uncomfortable. She went back and he still could find nothing. She went to the Eye Unit at the hospital and they could not find anything in her eye on examination....Angelika was emailing me to say that 2 days after the reflexology treatment she woke up, rubbed her eye, and lo and behold, half a contact lens was in her hand!! I asked her to check her foot and tell me whether the "grain of rice" lump under her little toe was still there and she checked and said it had gone!!! At the same time, her earache also was cured.So, although there is no physical link between the eye and the ear, somehow a reflexology treatment released the offending contact lens to be expelled by the body.

What an impressive case study!

animal experimentation

As a vegetarian I find animal experimentation unacceptable. I also believe that it is not the immensely useful instrument of research that it is claimed, because many of the results from animal studies are not replicated in humans.

Here's the start of a letter I've just come across in PLOS:

"The only people who don't know in 2005 that animal research is irrelevant for human disease are those who don't understand it or those who benefit from it. As a physician, clinical researcher, and former animal researcher, I know that though they are our closest genetic relatives, primates have failed as research models virtually whenever they have been used."

Read the full letter here:

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10%2E1371%2Fjournal%2Epmed%2E0020278

Friendship & Peace

this is a wonderful project involving children in India sending letters of friendship to children in Pakistan:

http://www.friendswithoutborders.org/

and

http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/jan/11sumit.htm

a simple thing, but I'm sure it could have a profound effect on at least some of the children involved, breaking a cycle of hatred.

Foetal life and subsequent health

Here's an intersting article from the London Times:

"Want to be thin, enjoy a long and happy life untouched by dementia, with a low risk of depression, cancer and arthritis, and have lots of children? The good news is that medical researchers may have found the secret of such a healthy, successful life. The bad news is that the blueprint was laid down during the nine months before you were born"

The article goes on to say that there's a debate about how strong the effects of "foetal origins of disease" are. The basic principle is that the foetus adapts to the nutritional environment of the womb (no mention of psychological environement) under the assumption that this will be the nutritional environment later. If there is a match between these two then the person will have the resources to cope with its environment, but if the womb environment is differnt from the subsequent environment then problems occur.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2682-2078125,00.html

Drug Companies

I've just been reading some interesting research on drug company leaflets:

"Three out of 20 brochures distributed to family doctors by drug companies [in the USA]exaggerated the benefit of treatments, a study published this week has found. "

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/332/7541/568-c

the machinations of the drug companies are being monitored and publicised more and more. The findings are not reasssuring, but it is reassuring that the medical profession are now looking closely at this area.

Geopathic Stress & Subtle Energy

This is the title for my revised book on geopathic stress!

Today I feel really excited. Up to now I have seen revising this book as a chore that I didn't particularly want to do - it felt like going back over something from the last century (I wrote it in1994!), not an exciting new project, but that's changed today.

I've been expanding the part about whether GS energies are electromagnetic or subtle energies, and I've realised that I want to make this the ecentral thrust of the book - in a way I want to look at subtle energy through the prism of geopathic stress - or is it the other way round? mmm I'm excited

geopathic stress

finally I'm getting abck to revising my book on geopathic stress. I've decided I'm going to have to be disciplined and put aside at least one hour each day to work on it. I haven't done anything for severeal months because of revising http://www.healthandgoodness.com and launching http://www.mytherapypractice.com and http://www.sportandme.com, plus launching the forum and the therapist listing, and there's still a lot fo work involved, but I will just have to work more slowly on those things.

Also John's mum who lives with us and is 92 has shingles so I'm needing to spend more time looking after her than I usually do.

Life's definitely very full!

Appreciation of beauty and excellence

I thought this was very good - it's taken from the newsletter of Coaching Towards Happiness http://www.coachingtowardhappiness.com:

Seligman and Peterson (2003) make the important point that it is sometimes necessary to “strip away layers of snobbery to be sure what it is that we are valuing: someone’s appreciation of life’s finer things and moments, or merely his or her ability to afford them” (p. 520). Price may or may not reflect real value. People can savor a simple meal prepared at home as well as an elegantly presented meal at an expensive restaurant. Whether one is evaluating a dining experience, a painting or a companion, there is abundant truth in the old adage that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. While many will make superficial judgments that inaccurately assess value, the “beholder” whose strength is an appreciation of beauty and excellence may find deeper qualities that others miss. Self-styled arbiters of what is beautiful and good often err in their appraisals.

Happiness

I like this:

Happiness is not a destination, it's a journey. Happiness is not tomorrow, it is now. Happiness is not a dependency, it is a decision. Happiness is what you are, not what you have.

It's from the daily email from http://www.brahmakumaris.org.uk/thoughts/tft.asp

Soft Drink Safety

A worrying story in today's online Guardian newspaper:

Soft drinks on sale in the UK have been found to contain benzene, a cancer-causing chemical. Benzene is produced when the drinks have the preservative sodium benzoate and vitamin added to them. The two can interact to form the carcinogen.
The Food Standards Agency ordered the soft drinks industry to survey its products last year when tests in the United States found benzene in soft drinks sold there. In tests of 230 products, levels of up to eight parts per billion were found in some drinks. The legal limit of benzene in drinking water is one part per billion. There are no legal limits on benzene in soft drinks. The brand names of drinks containing benzene have not been made available.

You can read more on this story at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1721479,00.html