Happy News

I've talked in an earlier blog about looking for happy news to put on Health & Goodness (http://www.healthandgoodness.com) and now I've found a site called HappyNews - http://www.happynews.com - it's good to see such an upbeat site - do take a look.

We have our own happy news coming up hopefully later today - the birth of the therapist listing - it's been a big undertaking because I wanted it to international (it is) and cover lots of therapies (30+), be easy for people to use to find a chiropractor, kinesiologist, reflexologist or whatever (time will tell on ths one, but we think it is),and be easy for me to adminsiter.

I can't wait to see all those excellent therapists out there get another platform to promote themselves - I believe that http://www.healthandgoodness.com is a good place for this as there's a lot of good content on nutrition, exercise, weight and shape management, plus there's the therpay interviews and case studies. It's getting bigger and bigger by the day.

I'll let you know when the therpaist listing gets the green light.

Strengths & Our Environment

Sad news that the whale who had misguidedly travelled up the Thames has died.

It was interesting that the people trying to rescue him/her couldn't give it a sedative as it is a voluntary breather. This is idealwhen you're under water for a long time and need to hold your breath, but in this situation it was a liability as a sedative would have stopped or dimihsed its breathing.

That's true of so many situations when a strength in one cane become a weakness in another. We need to be able to stay true to ourselves, but also adapt to the environment that we find ourselves in.

West Nile Virus & HIV

Researchers have found that people who are naturally highly resistant to HIV are unusually prone to getting West Nile virus. 1% of population lacks a cell surface receptor called CCR5 which HIV uses as an open window to break into human immune system. If you have no CCR5 receptor, you are highly susceptible to West Nile virus (mosquito-borne and causes flu like symptoms that can be fatal). This has set me thinking about how genetic mutations can confer advantages as well as disadvantages, and I intend to write more fully on this topic for http://www.mytherapypractice.com

Reference for the research is http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2006/ccr5.htm

hurray! hurray! hurray!

the revamped Health & Goodness http://www.healthandgoodness.com is finally up and I'm so delighted, but the work is only just beginning as I need to get a lot more case studies and symptoms information up, and shortly we'll be having the therpaist search up and I will need to check all that in.

I feel really tired - like you do after you achieve something - this idea started at the beginning of August .. hurray, this is a big step forward

Agriculture and chemicals

I had lunch with a friend who used to work for the UK ministry of agriculture, so she visited a lot of farms. She talked about the problem of chemicals. She said that on some farms fields will get sprayed twice if there isn't good communication between the owners/empoyees.

She said people worry about too many chemicals, but there can alsobe a problem with too little. Dairy farmers have to clean out the pipes with expensive chemicals, and some farmers won't use the recommended amount because of the cost - this can lead to unwanted bacteria being found in milk.


Makes you think ..

(By the way our website http://www.healthandgoodness.com is currently down because of the revamp - next week it will be up again and be even bigger and better)

Laughter is the best medicine

they say laughter is the best medicine and this made me laugh out loud this morning when I read it in the newspaper.

Ziggy is an African grey parrot who lives with Suzy Collins and its owner. One day as the couple were having a cuddle the parrot said "I love you Gary!" in an exact copy of Suzy's voice. When the parrot' owner saw her embarrassment he suspected she was seeing someone else as his name was Chris Taylor! She admitted it and they split up, but Chris also ended up getting rid of the parrot because it went on saying "I love you Gary"

Fair traded and orgnaic cotton

more chemcials are used in the production of cotton than any other crop in the world - according to the Soil Association about 150 gms - the equivalent of a cup of sugar - is used to grow the cotton for one T-shirt. This can't be good for the wearer or the producer or the environment.

Here's a site offering fair traded organic clothing http://www.equop.com. You can even vote for T-shirt designs or submit a design - 25% of profits go to the designer.

And don't forget our web site: http://www.healthandgoodness.com

Going out

I read in the paper this weekend that women spend an average of 2 years of their lives getting ready to go out!

Is this a waste of time, showing insecurity etc. on the part of women? Or is it that women are pampering themselves and taking care of themselves in this time?

Probabaly a bit of both, but 2 years does seem a lot of time - I can think of better things to do with two years ...

Immortality and rainy days

I really like this quote:

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Life is so short

I've talked to two people recently who've set me thinking about how short life REALLY is - one lost his father on Christmas day - his father was 'fit as a fiddle' but was diagnosed as having cancer 3 weeks before Christmas and then died on Christmas day. The other was a man who's wife had been murdered - stabbed by a burgler.

Talking to these people brings home to me how short and fragile life is, and how we all need to get on with it and do the things we want and make peace with those we need to.

Body Mass Index

Here's a really neat online BMI calculator:

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/calc-bmi.htm

It lets you do calculations in Metric or Imperial measures and tells you what the results mean

Rules to live by

As part of the revamp of http://www.healthandgoodness.com I am putting case studies on it. Christine Nightingale of Toronto sent me an interesting case study and I dceided to look at her web site http://www.nightingalehealing.com. I looked at the section on Reiki and she has this:

"Dr. Usui rediscovered the laying on of hands which was practiced by Christ and Buddha. He formulated these principles of Reiki:

1. I will not be angry.
2. I will do my work joyfully.
3. I will be kind to my neighbour and every living thing.
4. I will give thanks for my many blessings.
5. I will not worry.

Reiki is not a religion, it is a way of life."

Sound principles.

More on new year's resolutions

I write a regular monthly column for The Cornsihman - a local newspaper in this part of the world, and I wrote a piece on new year's resolutions and persistence for them. I send my copy to a lady called Jackie. She sent me this comment back today:

"Apparently a baby falls at least 1500 whilst learning to walk, as adults we give up too easily."

Now that's an interesting thought - think of all those things that we would have never learnt as babies if we'd given up as easily as we do now!

new year's resolutions

Have you kept to your new year's resolutions? Sadly most of us haven't, and many of us have given up trying. But why is this? Are you going to wait another 12 months before you try again?
Thomas Edison said: "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." It is said that Edison was asked how he could bear to have so many failed experiments, and he said: “I’ve learnt 700 ways not to make a light bulb.” I’m not sure if this story is true, but it really shows graphically the power of positive persistence.

So, pick yourself up and try again, but before you do – think again. Think about the goal you’ve set yourself, and ask yourself some questions: Is it worth achieving? Is this the best way to achieve it? Do I need help from others to achieve my goal? Should I break a big goal down into several smaller goals? Have I set myself too many goals?

Then be persistent and tenacious. Louis Pasteur said: “Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity".

Make 2006 a year when you got closer to the person you could be.

Web Sites nearly there

we are getting closer and closer to having everything in place for all the web sites. The main bit we are still waiting for is the free therpaist listing. This will go on http://healthandgoodness.com, and there will also be a link from the practitioner site http://www.mytherapypractice.com for therapists who want to sign up from there.

My aim is to make H & G the biggest resource on the net on alternative medicine for the general public - a big ambition for me, but an exciting and fulfilling one too.

I love this quote I read today:


The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. -- Winston Churchill

Getting older

I recently had to renew my 10 year passport and I had to have the dreaded passport photo taken - I hated it - thought I looked old and weird!

I compared it with the photo in my old passport and wished I could go on using the old photo.

Then I remembered at the time I had hated that photo - thought I looked old and weird!

So, in 10 years time I guess I'll like my exisiting passport photo.

Which set me thinking - why do I have to wait 10 years to appreciate what I am now? OK I am getting older but I still have energy, my eye sight, my hearing .. I can still run and bike .. the physical body isn't in that bad shape ..

Dust If You Must..

Yesterday I went to the dentist for a check-up (nothing needed). While I was waiting to see the dentist I picked up a magazine and came across a lovely quote - here's part of it:

Dust if you must,
but there is not much time
with rivers to swim
and mountains to climb.
Unknown author

It really made me smile. I've used it on http://www.sportandme.com in the Sport For Women sub-section of sport for all.

I've really enjoyed getting quotes for the web site. How about -

"Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face."Dave Barry

or

"A runner runs against himself, against the best that's in him."
Bill Persons

or

"I love sport because I love life, and sport is one of the basic joys of life." Yevgeny Yevtushenko (Russian Poet, b.1933)

I love adding stuff to my web sites - it's great to know I can think of an idea in the morning, write about it and that by late afternoon someone somewhere will be reading it. Much more satisfying than writing books, although in the new year I do intend to get on and finish the revision of Geopathic Stress, but I may not write any more books after that.

Still pursuing good news

Although I feel that alternative medicine could really help people in Africa - it's low tech and it works - I was also heartened by this news:

Of the more than 100 billion dollars spent each year on health research and development, only ten percent goes into treating ninety percent of the world's health problems, found mostly in the developing world. Dr. Victoria Hale saw that part of the reason was that the pharmaceutical industry had traded its aim of developing affordable drugs to those in need, to a profit-seeking one. So, she founded OneWorld Health, the world's first nonprofit pharmaceutical company, with the mission to research, test, manufacture, and distribute effective and inexpensive medicines for people with infectious diseases in developing countries.

http://charityfocus.org/php-bin/qad.php?n=2060a

Good news ..

this is proving much more difficult than I anticipated - I did a web search on "good news" and didn't come up with anything useful - I hadn't realised this was going to be this difficult - I haven't put anything on Health and Goodness yet - it will have to wait till I get at least a few things

Good News & Happiness

I'm about to add a page (that will hopefully get very long) to my web site http://www.healthandgoodness.com for 'Good News'.

There's an awful lot of bad news out there, and while it's important o be aware of it and strive to improve things, we need to focus on what's good. I realise that 'good news' is a difficult term to define - I'm pleased that McDonalds is beginning to struggle, but if you've got shares in McDonalds you won't consider this good news, but I think there are some things that most sane people can agree on.

Here's some good news about smoking to start us off:

28% of men and 26% of women were cigarette smokers in 2001, which is very different from the early 1970’s when around 50% of men and 40% of women smoked.

Any good news - it can be personal random acts of kindness you've received or global improvements?