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This issue contains:
- Our Lives and the Impact of Medication
Meditation - On the Go?
"Taking care of the present moment, you recognize the presence of the sunset, the morning star, the magnolia blossoms, and the person in front of you. When you practice this way, you will not be lost in your worries or anxieties about the future, or caught by the suffering of the past." Thich Nhat Hanh
"Meditation is easy to learn even though it takes a lifetime to master" Dean Ornish MD Cardiologist.
Have you ever wondered if there is an easy way to begin meditating without having to make it and ordeal of sitting in a certain position, spending 20 minutes focusing, and doing it on a daily basis at a regular time?
Personally, I have difficulty doing anything on a regular basis from both meditation to exercise. I tend to do it when the mood hits me. It's because of this tendency that I really like the idea of mindfulness meditation because it can be done anywhere, at any time and for any length of time. Although the practice of mindfulness has recently become popular, it is of course an ancient form of meditation.
I learned a slightly different exercise/meditation from Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy, back in the 1970s that I still use to this day. In some ways it is very similar to mindfulness techniques. Perls helps by describing 3 zones of awareness:
- Outer Zone. This is anything that we can sense outside of ourselves anything that we can see, taste, touch, smell, or hear.
- Inner Zone. This is anything that we can sense inside of ourselves. This would include our chest moving as we breathe, the feel of the air going in and out, perhaps our heart beat on occasion, gurgling in the stomach, sensations in our joints or other parts of our body.
- Middle Zone. Essentially this is the part that involves anything that goes on between our ears - that is in our brain. It is anything that we are thinking about, remembering, fantasizing, calculating, - in other words our own inner talk.
The important thing about the 3 zones is that only the first two represent present-centred awareness using our senses. So to stay in the present we simply have to pay attention to zones 1 and 2. If we find ourselves moment to moment moving into the middle zone where we are thinking and wondering, then we have gone out of the present into the future or the past.
You can do this meditation any time - for example standing in line at a supermarket - just be present to the inner and outer zones of awareness, and if you find yourself in the middle zone perhaps thinking "why doesn't this line go faster, why do I always choose the slowest line?", then you are in the middle zone, and you are not experiencing sensation in the present.
As Dean Ornish said in the quote above, this is easy to learn and takes a lifetime to master because we are always practising. But it's fun to practise when you want to and for as long you want to. I cannot say it better than Thich Nhat Hanh, this practice will enable you to be in the present more of the time.
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Thanks for reading this month's newsletter. See you next month!
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Healthy Tips
Short and Simple ~News to Use
There are four basic principles to health:
1. Good nutrition
2. Good exercise
3. Good thinking and emotional states
4. Good self-care
These embrace the mind, body and spirit of good health and well-being. Each monthly tip(s) will address one or more of these principles. These health tips are short and simple. All tips, where applicable, are based on quality research that is being done in the medical field. You will see links throughout the newsletter to take you to more detail if you wish...or you can simply read what's here.
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Our Lives and the Impact of Medication
Using medication to cure disease or ameliorate uncomfortable symptoms has become a part of our lives in Western culture. It is a part of the "pill for every ill" mentality that came about in the 1950s subsequent to the development of antibiotics and then tranquilizers. The ability to kill bacteria using antibiotics, thus literally saving thousand lives from the ravages of simple infections, naturally led to the idea that other medications might do the same for other diseases. However, over half a century later the medical profession finds itself in a very awkward and embarrassing position. An editorial in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Jerry Avorn in November 2006 opens with the following paragraph -
"September 30 is becoming a day of infamy for drug safety. On that date in 2004 Merck announced that rofecoxib (Vioxx) doubled the risk of myocardial infarction [heart attack] and stroke and the company withdrew the drug from the market after 5 years of use in more than 20 million patients."
This is not an isolated incident. This is a class of drugs known as NSAIDS, or non-steroidal anti-inflammatories -- perhaps better known to you as aspirin, ibuprofen, Advil®, and Tylenol®. These long-term side effects are only being brought to light because long-term testing of these drugs does not take place until after they come to market! Since it takes millions of dollars to bring a drug to market these days, and pharmaceutical companies simply do not do long-term testing on all new medications, you become the guinea pig.
This is becoming a trend. The latest drug to receive a seal of disapproval is the anti-diabetic medication rosiglitazone. All that glitters is not gold! A large analysis in a 2007 study, again in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed a significant increase in the number heart of attacks and death from heart disease in patients taking this medication.
Do you want to think twice before taking any drugs on a long-term basis? Absolutely. All these medications are foreign to our bodies, and they not only target those areas of our bodies that are in pain, say for example in the case of Vioxx, but they also target other areas of the body such as our blood vessels and stomach lining causing them to be affected in adverse ways through increased heart disease, or gastric upset and potential bleeding.
Adverse drug reactions were found to be one of the six leading causes of hospital deaths, reported in the Journal American Medical Association in 1997. Why are we taking drugs that are supposed to help us when they are actually killing us? It's a good question that cannot be answered in this short article.
Take care of yourself - you're worth it. And if you want to read that editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine you can find it here
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