Thursday, October 30, 2014

nigella sativa, black seed and alz plus

 study published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology reveals that the seeds of Nigella sativa, commonly known as “black seed,” may provide an ideal nutritional supplement for preventing or slowing the progression of Alzheimer disease.[1]
Researchers divided forty elderly volunteers into a treatment group receiving 500 mg capsules of Nigella Sativia twice daily for nine weeks and a placebo group. Subjects were assessed for neuropsychological state and safety profile twice before treatment and after nine weeks. The trial resulted in significant improvements in memory, attention and cognition without any measurable changes in any biochemical markers of cardiac, liver, or kidney function during the nine-week study period.
The researchers also noted that beyond its neuroprotective properties Nigella Sativa also has kidney protective, lung protective, cardioprotective and liver protective properties.
It is remarkable that a thousand years ago the Persian scholar Ibn Sīnā described Nigella sativia in his Canon of Medicine for their enlivening and tonifying effects as follows:  ‘it stimulates the body’s energy and helps recovery from fatigue and dispiritedness.  It appears that science is only now catching up to the wisdom of the ancients, which in the case of Black Seed, was known as  ‘The Remedy for Everything But Death.’
Our own review of the scientific literature on the US National Library of Medicine reveals this remarkable seed’s experimentally confirmed benefits articulated through 20 distinct physiological actions:
  •        Analgesic (Pain-Killing)
  •        Anti-Bacterial
  •        Anti-Inflammatory
  •        Anti-Ulcer
  •        Anti-Cholinergic
  •        Anti-Fungal
  •        Ant-Hypertensive
  •        Antioxidant
  •        Antispasmodic
  •        Antiviral
  •        Bronchodilator
  •        Gluconeogenesis Inhibitor (Anti-Diabetic)        
  •        Hepatoprotective (Liver Protecting)
  •        Hypotensive
  •        Insulin Sensitizing
  •        Interferon Inducer
  •        Leukotriene Antagonist
  •        Renoprotective (Kidney Protecting)
  •        Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha Inhibitor
Black seed, like turmeric, ginger, pepper, oregano, and cinnamon, is commonly used as both a food and medicine in traditional cultures.  As research continues to accumulate confirming ancient dietary compounds in preventing and treating disease, a genuine paradigm shift within conventional medicine is imminent.  When safe, affordable and easily accessible spices, herbs and food concentrates produce therapeutic effects often superior to the drugs, we are increasingly encouraged to look to the farm before the pharmacy.

Death and Dying

http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/10/30/5-things-know-about-death-and-dying-debates
good resource


https://www.compassionandchoices.org/userfiles/2011-VSEDBook.pdf  Voluntary stopping eating and drinking

Related Reading

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/onourownterms/articles/inventory2.html  Kathleen Dowling Singh   see also pdf on bro's suicide

http://www.onbeing.org/blog/the-choice-of-hanging-on-or-giving-to/7029  Parker Palmer essay
includes poem
In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Fire Cider Tonic

Fire cider is also great because it can be used not only as a digestive aid, but as general immune support. It has lots of antibacterial properties from garlic, vitamin C from lemons and limes, the benefits of raw apple cider vinegar, the prebiotics of onion and ginger, and the kick of cayenne. It also works wonders on colds. It's such amazing food-based powerhouse.
So, are you ready to make your own?! Don't be scared. It honestly couldn't be any easier!
Homemade Fire Cider Tonic
Makes: 1/4c. – 1/2c. (depends on use of juicer)
Time: 5-10 mins.
Ingredients
  • 1/4 red onion
  • 5 inches ginger root (2 inches if you do not have a juicer)
  • 2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
  • dash cayenne pepper
  • 1 lime
  • 1 lemon
  • 2 cloves garlic
Special equipment
  • juicer or a microplane
Directions
In a juicer, juice onion and 4 inches of ginger root. (Warning: wear goggles or an eye covering if you have a centrifugal juicer as it will make your eyes tear up fiercely while juicing the onion!) If you don't have a juicer, you can use a microplane grater. (If using a microplane, only use 1 inch of ginger at this stage.) Next, add apple cider vinegar, cayenne, the juice from the lemon and lime, 1 inch ginger (grated with a microplane), and garlic (grated with microplane). Stir. To serve, add 1/2 tablespoon Homemade Fire Cider Tonic to 1 tablespoon of water. Store in the refrigerator, up to 18 months.
You May Also Enjoy

franklin method

http://franklinmethod.com/blog   videos

Neuroprotection by Spice-Derived Nutraceuticals: You Are What You Eat!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183139/
s turmeric, red pepper, black pepper, licorice, clove, ginger, garlic, coriander, and cinnamon target inflammatory pathways, thereby may prevent neurodegenerative diseases

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

How we grieve

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/06/09/meghan-o-rourke-the-long-goodbye/

Mama  Il Divo

I Believe in You   Il Divo and Celing

kahlil gibran

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/28/kahlil-gibran-the-madman-said-a-blade-of-grass/

SAID A BLADE OF GRASS
Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, “You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams.”
Said the leaf indignant, “Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing.”
Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when spring came she waked again — and she was a blade of grass.
And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself, “O these autumn leaves! They make such noise! They scatter all my winter dreams.”

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/28/kahlil-gibran-the-madman-said-a-blade-of-grass/

leonard cohen

"There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e39UmEnqY8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye6JssTdnvw   Leonard Cohen: 'Dance Me to the End Of Love' ... it's curious how songs begin because the origin of the song, every song, has a kind of grain or seed that somebody hands you or the world hands you and that's why the process is so mysterious about writing a song. But that came from just hearing or reading or knowing that in the death camps, beside the crematoria, in certain of the death camps, a string quartet[2] was pressed into performance while this horror was going on, those were the people whose fate was this horror also. And they would be playing classical music while their fellow prisoners were being killed and burnt. So, that music, "Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin," meaning the beauty there of being the consummation of life, the end of this existence and of the passionate element in that consummation. But, it is the same language that we use for surrender to the beloved, so that the song — it's not important that anybody knows the genesis of it, because if the language comes from that passionate resource, it will be able to embrace all passionate activity.


Glen CAmpbell

s://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7kw5zXVFVQ ghost on the canvas

http://www.etonline.com/music/149421_country_legend_glen_campbell_refuses_to_be_silenced_by_alzheimer/index.html

dry needling

http://www.examiner.com/article/trigger-point-dry-needling-releases-muscle-pain

Myofascial trigger points, also known as trigger pointstrigger sites, or muscle knots, are hyperirritable spots in the fascia surrounding skeletal muscle. They are associated with palpable nodules in taut bands ofmuscle fibers.[1] They are a topic of ongoing controversy, as there is limited data to inform a scientific understanding of the phenomenon. Accordingly, a formal acceptance of myofascial "knots" as an identifiable source of pain is more common among physical therapists and osteopathic practitioners. Nonetheless, the concept of trigger points provides a framework which may be used to help address certain musculoskeletal pain.
The trigger point model states that unexplained pain frequently radiates from these points of local tenderness to broader areas, sometimes distant from the trigger point itself. Practitioners claim to have identified reliable referred pain patterns which associate pain in one location with trigger points elsewhere. There is variation in the methodology for diagnosis of trigger points and a dearth of theory to explain how they arise and why they produce specific patterns of referred pain.[2]
Compression of a trigger point may elicit local tenderness, referred pain, or local twitch response. The local twitch response is not the same as a muscle spasm. This is because a muscle spasm refers to the entire muscle contracting whereas the local twitch response also refers to the entire muscle but only involves a small twitch, no contraction.
Among physicians, many specialists are well versed in trigger point diagnosis and therapy. These include physiatrists (physicians specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation), family medicine, and orthopedics. Osteopathic as well as chiropractic schools also include trigger points in their training.[3] Other health professionals, such as athletic trainers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, acupuncturists, massage therapists and structural integrators are also aware of these ideas and many of them make use of trigger points in their clinical work as well.[4][5]

Overlap with Acupuncture[edit]

In a June 2000 review, Chang-Zern Hong correlates the MTrP "tender points" to acupunctural "ah shi" ("Oh Yes!") points, and the "local twitch response" to acupuncture's "de qi" ("needle sensation"),[20] based on a 1977 paper by Melzack et al.[21] Peter Dorsher comments on a strong correlation between the locations of trigger points and classical acupuncture points, finding that 92% of the 255 trigger points correspond to acupuncture points, including 79.5% with similar pain indications.[22][23]

History[edit]

Trigger points have been a subject of study by a small number of doctors for several decades although this has not become part of mainstream medicine. The existence of tender areas and zones of induration in muscles has been recognized in medicine for many years and was described as muscular rheumatism or fibromyalgia in English; German terms included myogelose and myalgie. However, there was little agreement about what they meant. Important work was carried out by J. H. Kellgren at University College Hospital, London, in the 1930s and, independently, by Michael Gutstein in Berlin and Michael Kelly in Australia.[24] The latter two workers continued to publish into the 1950s and 1960s. Kellgren conducted experiments in which he injected hypertonic saline into healthy volunteers and showed that this gave rise to zones of referred extremity pain. Janet G. Travell's work with trigger point and treatment of US John F. Kennedy's back pain led to her being asked to be the first female Personal Physician to the President.[25]
Today, much treatment of trigger points and their pain complexes are handled by myofascial trigger point therapists, massage therapistsphysical therapistsosteopathic physicians (DOs)occupational therapistsmyotherapists, and certified athletic trainers, as well as some naturopathschiropractorsdentists and acupuncturists, and other hands-on somatic practitioners who have had experience or training in the field of neuromuscular therapy (NMT).

See also[edit]


http://www.singingdragon.com/blog/
http://www.singingdragon.com/catalogue/9781848192263

Monday, October 27, 2014

21 tricks for your body

26th May 2014
By April McCarthy
Guest Writer for Wake Up World
Whether it’s curing a throat tickle, resolving your headache in minutes or experiencing supersonic hearing, these 21 tricks are proven methods of fooling your body to achieve a desired result, whether that’s relieving pain or just having fun.

1. Cure a Tickling Throat

When you were 9, playing your armpit was a cool trick. Now, as an adult, you can still appreciate a good body-based feat, especially if it serves as a health remedy. Take that tickle in your throat: It’s not worth gagging over. Here’s a better way to scratch your itch: Scratch your ear. “When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that can cause a muscle spasm,” says Scott Schaffer, M.D., president of an ear, nose, and throat specialty center in Gibbsboro, New Jersey. “This spasm relieves the tickle.”

2. Experience Supersonic Hearing

If you’re stuck chatting up a mumbler at a cocktail party, lean in with your right ear. It’s better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech, according to researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. If, on the other hand, you’re trying to identify that song playing softly in the elevator, turn your left ear toward the sound. The left ear is better at picking up music tones.

3. Calm Yourself With Cold Water

Nerves getting the best of you. Take a deep breath and spash cold water on your face. This triggers the mammalian diving reflex that is genetically in all animals including humans. The lower temperature of the water and you holding your breath also causes your body to think it’s diving into cold water. This reflex allows you to use oxygen more efficiently.

4. Overcome Your Most Primal Urge To Pee

Need to pee? No bathroom nearby? Fantasize about what ever turns you on. Thinking about sex and arousing fantasies preoccupies your brain, so you won’t feel as much discomfort, says Larry Lipshultz, M.D., chief of male reproductive medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine.

5. Feel No Pain While Giving Blood

Love donating blood but hate the needle prick? German researchers have discovered that coughing during a needle stick can lessen the pain. According to Taras Usichenko, author of a study on the phenomenon, the trick causes a sudden, temporary rise in pressure in the chest and spinal canal, inhibiting the pain-conducting structures of the spinal cord.

6. Swallow Your Horse-Sized Supplements

Those huge health supplements are sometimes a pain to swallow. Want to swallow more than one at a time without gagging? Try this trick to get them down: take a drink of water, and tilt your head forward instead of backward. The capsule should float, and will be at the back of your throat, ready to swallow.

7. Clear Your Stuffed Nose

Forget Sudafed. Here’s an easier, quicker, and cheaper remedy to relieve sinus pressure: Alternate thrusting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then pressing between your eyebrows with one finger. This causes the vomer bone, which runs through the nasal passages to the mouth, to rock back and forth, says Lisa DeStefano, D.O., an assistant professor at the Michigan State University college of osteopathic medicine. The motion loosens congestion; after 20 seconds, you’ll feel your sinuses start to drain.

8. Fight Acid Reflux By Sleeping Position

Worried that chilli will repeat on you tonight? Try this preventive remedy: “Sleep on your left side,” says Anthony A. Starpoli, M.D., a New York City gastroenterologist and assistant professor of medicine at New York Medical College. Studies have shown that patients who sleep on their left sides are less likely to suffer from acid reflux. The esophagus and stomach connect at an angle. When you sleep on your right, the stomach is higher than the esophagus, allowing food and stomach acid to slide up your throat. When you’re on your left, the stomach is lower than the esophagus, so gravity’s in your favor.

9. Cure Your Toothache

Just rub ice on the back of your hand, on the V-shaped webbed area between your thumb and index finger. A Canadian study found that this technique reduces toothache pain by as much as 50 percent compared with using no ice. The nerve pathways at the base of that V stimulate an area of the brain that blocks pain signals from the face and hands.

10. Make Burns Disappear

When you accidentally singe your finger on the stove, clean the skin and apply light pressure with the finger pads of your unmarred hand. Ice will relieve your pain more quickly, Dr. DeStefano says, but since the natual method brings the burned skin back to a normal temperature, the skin is less likely to blister.

11. Stop the World from Spinning

Feeling dizzy? Put your hand on something stable. The part of your ear responsible for balance–the cupula– floats in a fluid of the same density as blood. “As alcohol dilutes blood in the cupula, the cupula becomes less dense and rises,” says Dr. Schaffer. This confuses your brain. The tactile input from a stable object gives the brain a second opinion, and you feel more in balance. Because the nerves in the hand are so sensitive, this works better than the conventional foot-on-the-floor wisdom.

12. Unstitch Your Side

If you’re like most people, when you run, you exhale as your right foot hits the ground. This puts downward pressure on your liver (which lives on your right side), which then tugs at the diaphragm and creates a side stitch, according to The Doctors Book of Home Remedies for Men. The fix: Exhale as your left foot strikes the ground.

13. Stop A Nose Bleed

Put some cotton on your upper gums–just behind that small dent below your nose–and press against it, hard. “Most bleeds come from the front of the septum, the cartilage wall that divides the nose,” says Peter Desmarais, M.D., an ear, nose, and throat specialist at Entabeni Hospital, in Durban, South Africa. “Pressing here helps stop them.”

14. Make Your Heart Stand Still

Trying to quell first-date jitters? Blow on your thumb. The vagus nerve, which governs heart rate, can be controlled through breathing, says Ben Abo, an emergency medical-services specialist at the University of Pittsburgh. It’ll get your heart rate back to normal.

15. Thaw Your Brain Freeze

Press your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, covering as much as you can. “Since the nerves in the roof of your mouth get extremely cold, your body thinks your brain is freezing, too,” says Abo. “In compensating, it overheats, causing an ice-cream headache.” The more pressure you apply to the roof of your mouth, the faster your headache will subside.

16. Prevent Near-Sightedness

Poor distance vision is rarely caused by genetics, says Anne Barber, O.D., an optometrist in Tacoma, Washington. “It’s usually caused by near-point stress.” In other words, staring at your computer screen for too long. So flex your way to 20/20 vision. Every few hours during the day, close your eyes, tense your body, take a deep breath, and, after a few seconds, release your breath and muscles at the same time. Tightening and releasing muscles such as the biceps and glutes can trick involuntary muscles–like the eyes–into relaxing as well.

17. Wake Up a Limb That Feel Asleep

If your hand falls asleep while you’re driving or sitting in an odd position, rock your head from side to side. It’ll painlessly banish your pins and needles in less than a minute, says Dr. DeStefano. A tingly hand or arm is often the result of compression in the bundle of nerves in your neck; loosening your neck muscles releases the pressure. Compressed nerves lower in the body govern the feet, so stand up and walk around if they fail you.

18. Impress Your Friends

Next time you’re at a party, try this trick: Have a person hold one arm straight out to the side, palm down, and instruct him to maintain this position. Then place two fingers on his wrist and push down. He’ll resist. Now have him put one foot on a surface that’s a half inch higher (a few magazines) and repeat. This time his arm will cave in. By misaligning his hips, you’ve offset his spine, says Rachel Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., co-owner of Results Fitness, in Santa Clarita, California. Your brain senses that the spine is vulnerable, so it shuts down the body’s ability to resist.

19. Breathe Underwater

If you’re dying to retrieve that quarter from the bottom of the pool, take several short breaths first–essentially, hyperventilate. When you’re underwater, it’s not a lack of oxygen that makes you desperate for a breath; it’s the buildup of carbon dioxide, which makes your blood acidic, which signals your brain that somethin’ ain’t right. “When you hyperventilate, the influx of oxygen lowers blood acidity,” says Jonathan Armbruster, Ph.D., an associate professor of biology at Auburn University. “This tricks your brain into thinking it has more oxygen.” It’ll buy you up to 10 seconds.

20. Encode Long-Term Memory

Your own! “If you’re giving a speech the next day, review it before falling asleep,” says Candi Heimgartner, an instructor of biological sciences at the University of Idaho. Since most memory consolidation happens during sleep, anything you read right before bed is more likely to be encoded as long-term memory.

21. Relieve a Migraine Instantly

The next time you are about to reach for some pills to get rid of your headache, use your thumb and forefinger and pinch down on the muscle on the web of your hand (thumb on the back of your hand and forefinger underneath) and press for 2 minutes. Repeat. Most headaches and migraines will ease after just 4 minutes. This shiatsu point addresses headaches by dispersing stagnant Ki (i.e. blocked energy) and moving blood in the head, neck, and other parts of the body.

Beannacht

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
beannacht - john o'donohue

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Healing toxic thoughts

http://www.sandraingerman.com/healingtoxicthoughts.html

Medicine for the EArth  http://spiritualecology.org/article/medicine-earth

Saturday, October 25, 2014

pumpkin spice

  • 2½ tablespoons pumpkin pie spice or
    • 1½ tablespoons ground cinnamon
    • 1 teaspoon ginger powder
    • ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
    • ½ teaspoon ground cloves