Scratching Feels Better on Certain Parts of Your Body
Scratching Feels Better on Certain Parts of Your Body |
- Scratching Feels Better on Certain Parts of Your Body
- Finding the Courage to Stay the Course
- Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/30/2012
- How “letting go” helps us get things done
- Smile! It's the happiest Monday of the year
- An inadequate koan tradition
- Carpooling Parents Less Vigilant About Booster Seats
- Shamanism, Korea's spiritual core
- Blood Pressure Check in Both Arms Could Catch Silent Disease
| Scratching Feels Better on Certain Parts of Your Body Posted: 30 Jan 2012 12:00 PM PST
It feels oh so good to scratch an itch, but exactly how much pleasure we get from scratching depends on exactly where on the body the itch is, a new study says. Digging your nails into an itch on your ankle feels better than doing the same to an itch on your arm, the study found. The study could lead to a better understanding of itching, and how to relieve it for people who have skin diseases that cause it, said study researcher Dr. Gil Yosipovitch, a professor of dermatology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, in Winston-Salem, N.C. Yosipovitch and colleagues induced itch on the ankles, forearms and backs of 18 study participants with tiny hairs from a tropical plant called the cowhage plant — a technique often used in studies on itching. The hairs were rubbed gently in a circular motion for 45 seconds within a small area of the skin, and removed once the skin started to itch. Participants rated how intense the itch was and how good it felt to scratch it, every 30 seconds for the next five minutes. Participants' rated their itches on a scale of 0 (no itch) to 10 (maximum unbearable itch). The itching was most intense on the ankle and back, while the perception of itch and scratching relief were less pronounced on the forearm. In addition, "the pleasurability of scratching the ankle appears to be longer lived compared to the other two sites," Yosipovitch said. For the back and forearm, scratching became less pleasurable as the itch diminished. But the pleasure of scratching remained high, even as the itch diminished. The new findings may explain why patients with eczema and psoriasis commonly have itching on their back and ankle. "We never understood why those areas were more affected, and now we better understand that itch in these areas is more intense and pleasurable to scratch," Yosipovitch said. The reason for difference in itching pleasurable may lie in the way that sensory nerves are distributed throughout the body, the researchers say. The findings may have implications for itch treatment. "If we could translate this to a treatment that induces a pleasurable relief sensation without damaging the skin, we may be able to help itchy patients," he said. The study was published online this month in the British Journal of Dermatology. Pass it on: Scratching your ankle may feel better than scratching your arm. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily staff writer on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. Find us on Facebook.  Read More @ Source 
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| Finding the Courage to Stay the Course Posted: 30 Jan 2012 11:00 AM PST  Anytime you decide on the pursuit of an important goal, you'll be faced with a series of challenges. Peaks, valleys and plateaus are par for the the course. But the thing that separates the people who make it from the ones that don't is the courage to stay the course. At the start of any new endeavor most of us look forward to every single day with a child like excitement. We see infinite possibilities and the future appears bright. It seems as though there is absolutely nothing that can get in our way. We feel almost invincible and the possibility of failure doesn't even occur to us. We blow through every obstacle with a sense that we're invincible. The Wall Then we hit the first real roadblock. Our excitement diminishes and turns into frustration. The pursuit of that goal makes us feel as though we're hitting our heads against a brick wall. We keep on hitting our heads until we realize that it doesn't lead to anything other than a really bad headache, and the possibility of failure emerges. We wonder if maybe we should just quit in order to avoid the misery that failing will bring with it. But you realize deep down inside that anything worth doing requires the courage to fail. So you keep going. The Plateau In next phase of reaching that goal we hit what appears to be a plateau. It seems as though no real progress is being made. We go through the motions and everyday we think about quitting, but there's a little flicker inside that lingers from the fire that burns so deep inside us when we want something so bad. We search for the courage to stay the course, and struggle to find it. The Doubt It seems like all we can really see is how far we still have to go. But if we take a look back, the view suddenly changes. Instead of seeing how far we have to go, we see how far we've come, and hope resurfaces. As a result we find the courage to stay the course and we keep going. Soon, the voices of dream crushers, nay-sayers and self doubt emerge and we become tempted to listen. We start to wonder if maybe they're right and that we are in fact losing this fight. But something inside tells us to drown at that noise and we find the courage to stay the course. The finish line seems as though it's nowhere in site and even the supposed light at the end of a dark tunnel seems to be a far fetched fantasy of wild eyed crazy dreamers. It doesn't seem as though it's too long before you really hit rock bottom. But there's a beauty in rock bottom that gives you an opportunity to play the game as if you've got nothing to lose. So you look deep inside, and find the courage to stay the course. It's in those moments when you really want to give up that the biggest breakthroughs, flashes of insight and moments of brilliance occur. But there's only one way to find out. That's by finding the courage to stay the course.
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| Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 1/30/2012 Posted: 30 Jan 2012 10:00 AM PST  "Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind." ~The Buddha  Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma  
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| How “letting go” helps us get things done Posted: 30 Jan 2012 09:00 AM PST
Yes it's true that in meditation, we're told to drop everything and let go. But that doesn't mean becoming passive and ineffectual. There's more to this instruction than meets the eye. There's an image that comes to mind for me to illustrate what letting go is like. Imagine we're kayaking down a river. One way we could do it is to paddle like hell, trying to force our way around, fighting the currents, insisting that the kayak go exactly where I want it to go. And doing it how I want to do it. Or, we could survey the terrain and current before jumping in. Then we ride the current and let it take us most of the way to where we want to go. We steer to make sure we don't get dashed against rocks or end up heading down the wrong side of the river. We could also use a calmer bend in the river to stop and look ahead to plan our next stretch. We can steer our course without using nearly as much effort this way, adjusting our path as we go along. Life can be the same way. We don't have make all the effort ourselves to make things happen from beginning to end. If we expand our view beyond our self-absorbed need to reach our goal, there's a whole universe of structures and currents out there that can help us. At work for example, if we find people who have common goals and interests as we do, our combined energies can often accomplish more than the sum of us individually could. Involving our boss in our plans sometimes results in him clearing a path in front of us, getting us resourses, additional help, budgets, etc. Tagging onto existing workflows and procedures means we don't have to create everything ourselves. Letting go can help us in our inner world, too. Have you noticed how creative ideas often pop up when you're taking a shower or walking the dog? In other words, when you're not really trying? Recent neuroscientific research1 suggests that making less effort is what helps. When we become effortful in problem solving, it generally means we're pushing our way through our old, familiar ways of doing things. And often, those are exactly the ways that haven't worked, but we keep pounding at them anyway. When we keep repeating the same thing over and over, we become blind to other possibilities. So to be "not effortful" means to inhibit the thoughts that don't work in order to leave room for something else to emerge. Not being effortful also means your mind is quieter and more conducive to new ideas. A creative thought is one that brings up a long-forgotten memory or combines some of them in a new way. Neurologically speaking, they involve connections between far fewer neurons than your front-of-mind thoughts. So the signals they emit are much weaker, and generally get drowned out by your much louder, effortful thoughts. To give those quieter thoughts a fighting chance to be noticed, it helps to have a quiet mind. One that has "let go" of jangly discursive thinking. So letting go doesn't mean letting go of everything — just the stuff that gets in our way. In this context, it means letting go of our obsessive focus on results, and our inflexible views of how to get there. It doesn't mean dropping all thoughts about the future, but finding a more open and flexible relationship with them. The larger perspective of the teaching on "letting go" is an acknowledgment that I am a part of a highly interconnected world. Every time I get hyper-focused on my own little view of the world, I am being blind to the way things really are. To think that I can do things exclusively my way is to be foolish and ignorant. And it's bound to get me into trouble, or at least cause me a lot of stress. But at the same time, I'm not a helpless victim either. I am the agent of my own free will, and can use it to steer my path through life. With mindfulness, we can skillfully navigate our way through all these forces to get to a better outcome. And it's not just me that benefits — because everything I do ultimately benefits everyone. 1. See How to have more insights by David Rock, Psychology Today, Sept 5, 2010. Read More @ Source Tsem Tulku Rinpoche Blows Your GROSS and SUBTLE MIND away!!! 
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| Smile! It's the happiest Monday of the year Posted: 30 Jan 2012 08:00 AM PST
 HOUSTON - Jan. 30 is the happiest Monday of the year, according to researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain. Senior psychologist Dr. David Holmes said most people are happy because they have made it past a lean January. The first month of the year is generally a financially tight month where people tried to make up for spending at Christmas. Most people also have money in the bank because they have been paid their first and possibly their second paycheck of the year. The final reason -- people are already booking or have booked their summer vacations. With school out in just four months, most are making plants even if the destination is not as exotic as in years; past. Having something to look forward proved to be the biggest factor in the happiest Monday of the year.
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| Posted: 30 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST Western Zen is usually either Japanese Soto type Zen (Dogen's Zen) or some form of it which mainly involves the practice of ritual sitting. For the most part, it really doesn't have an adequate koan tradition. This could be because the majority of Western teachers don't understand koans enough to be confident with them having inherited Japanese Zen. The Japanese koan system, itself, does not appear to have grasped the Chinese koan or kung-an (公案) in the same way the Koreans and Vietnamese have. We need to keep in mind that koans are the brainchild of Chinese Zennists; the most notable document being the Blue Cliff Records (Pi-Yen-Lu) which is a collection of a hundred cases. Incidentally, the Blue Cliff Records reveal how koans work by means of the hua-t'ou (here R.D.M. Shaw translates it with Pre-Voice).
From the above we can gather that koans are a means of realizing pure Mind which is the Mind to Mind Zen transmission. The koan's semantic structure, which is certainly well crafted, is set up for the realization of pure Mind; acting to judge anyone who might try to find Mind in the koan. It is good to keep in mind that koans are not little stories intended to help us get through the day. They are quite esoteric in nature. Whatever the Zen master is doing in the koan is always pointing to pure Mind regardless of how strange his pointing may seem to those unacquainted with pure Mind. In other words, he is trying to awaken his students to something quite profound which is right in front of their nose. Because Western Zen seems to ignore pure Mind, hardly ever mentioning its importance, it is not surprising that their handling of koans, in my opinion, is inept and, to a certain degree, counterproductive.
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| Carpooling Parents Less Vigilant About Booster Seats Posted: 30 Jan 2012 06:00 AM PST
While the majority of parents report using booster seats for their 4- to 8-year-old children, booster seat use among children who carpool is inconsistent, a new study suggests. In a national survey, University of Michigan researchers asked 681 parents about their use of booster seats. Of those, 64 percent reported carpooling with children. Of the carpooling parents, "we found that they were using booster seats less often for their own children, and they were also less likely to ask another parent to use a booster seat for their child," said study co-author Dr. Michelle Macy, a lecturer in the Department of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Michigan. Parents said they used a booster seat 76 percent of the time when driving their own children in the family car. But of these, only half said their child always uses a booster seat when riding with friends who do not use booster seats. Further, one in five parents doesn't always ask other parents to use a booster seat for their child, the study showed. The study is published online today (Jan. 30) in the journal Pediatrics. States without booster seat laws Most states have laws requiring booster seats for children, but in the three states without those laws — Arizona, Florida and South Dakota — reported use of booster seats was lower, especially as children got older, the researchers found. While 79 percent of parents reported using booster seats for 7- to 8-year olds in states with applicable laws, only 37 percent in states without corresponding laws reported doing so. For carpooling parents, more than 90 percent reported using booster seats in states with child-restraint laws, while fewer than 50 percent reported using the seats in states without the laws. National guidelines suggest using booster seats for children under 4 feet 9 inches tall, the height of an average 11-year-old, Macy said. No states specify height as the basis of their laws, she said. One of the best ways to reduce injuries to children involved in traffic accidents is to make state laws consistent with these national height guidelines, Macy said. "Most of the state laws are set [so parents] use a booster seat until the child is eight," she said. The researchers gathered their data from 12 questions about booster-seat use and carpooling inserted into the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, an ongoing study at the University of Michigan. Booster seat hassle For car poolers, one problem is the hassle involved with moving a booster seat from one car to another. Researchers could work with safety-seat or automobile manufacturers "to see if they can come up with some options that would be more portable for families," Macy said. The study does a good job investigating an important issue, said Dr. Mark Zonfrillo, leader of Child Passenger Safety Research at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "It was interesting to see that, although overall use in the family car was high, the rates for car pooling were lower," Zonfrillosaid. Both Zonfrillo and Macy said a strength of the study was its national sample of parents, but that self-reporting on surveys can sometimes be inaccurate. "We have no real way to verify if the parents do what they say they're doing," Macy said. "They might report … more safety-seat use than they actually do." Healthcare workers need to help parents recognize the importance of booster seats for their children's safety, Macy said. "We've come a long way, and the injuries and deaths have really gone down," Macy said. "[Parents] should really consider the importance of being consistent with the way they're approaching safety with their kids, and not let [booster seats] become a point of conversation or compromise." Pass it on: While many parents are using booster seats for their 4- to 8-year olds, fewer parents use the seats in carpooling situations. Parents should insist that children use the seats in the family car and in other people's vehicles. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. Find us on Facebook. Read More @ Source 
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| Shamanism, Korea's spiritual core Posted: 30 Jan 2012 12:00 AM PST  Bowls of fruit are laid out on the altar. There are also bottles of whiskey and a meter-high stack of Marlboro cigarette cartons. With a grin, Korean shaman Tae Eul says his gods like to drink and smoke. You'd be mistaken if you thought tech-savvy South Koreans only worshiped smartphones and the latest cars -- many believe in an ancient, animistic spirituality. At the center of Korean shamanism is the mudang, or shaman, the medium between the material and spirit world. "People hear about me through word of mouth," explains Eul, from inside his temple on the slopes of Korea's Mt Samgak. "I try to figure out how the energy of the universe flows through, then the gods show the way." The 38-year-old shaman says that even if he wanted to stop being a mudang, he couldn't -- the spirits control him now. Inside his mountain temple, a robed Eul asks a Korean woman to light candles and bow in front of an altar as he summons the gods of the mountain and sky and calls out to her ancestors. Amid the crashing of cymbals and the blaring of a horn, Tae Eul stands barefoot on knife blades that somehow do not puncture his skin. He spins in circles waving a sword in one hand and a silk scarf in the other.  Shamanism is the indigenous faith of the Korean people and despite centuries of influence from other religions, it still appears in many aspects of modern life there. Tae Eul says that many of his clients are not necessarily believers in shamanism. Some ! are ofte n devoutly religious in other faiths. In Korea, religious beliefs are not always mutually exclusive. For example, a mother might pray at a church, then a Meditation temple, and then visit a mudang all in hope of bringing good luck to her family. It's this intrinsic search for spiritually divined good luck that keeps the nation's 50,000 mudangs in business, says David Mason, author of Sacred Mountains, a book on Korean shamanism. "He adds: Koreans are still shamanic believers at the core of their psychology and then layers of Buddhism or Confucianism, then Christianity and modern scientific thinking as the outer layers."  Bernie's Chalisa / Gates of Sweet Nectar - Hanuman Chalisa / Krishna Das 
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| Blood Pressure Check in Both Arms Could Catch Silent Disease Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:00 PM PST
Measuring blood pressure in both the right and left arm may be an effective way of catching a silent but serious disease of the blood vessels, a new review says. The findings showed that a difference in systolic blood pressure between the arms was linked with an increased risk of peripheral artery disease (PAD), a condition that involves a narrowing of the arteries in the extremities, particularly the legs and feet. When researchers examined study participants' systolic blood pressure readings, those who had a difference between their right and left arms of 15 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) or more were 2.5 times more likely to have PAD than those who had a smaller difference between their arms, the researchers said. Systolic blood pressure is the "top" number in a blood pressure reading. Early detection of PAD is important — while the majority of cases are silent, if the condition is detected, measures can be taken to reduce morality from related cardiovascular disease. The findings support the need for it to become the norm to take blood pressure readings from both arms, said study researcher Dr. Christopher Clark, of Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. Such tests could identify patients without symptoms at high risk for PAD who would benefit from further assessment or treatment, they say. The researchers reviewed 28 studies that measured blood pressure in both arms of participants. The studies typically included patients at increased risk of cardiovascular disease, the researchers noted. In addition to an increased risk of PAD, a 15mm Hg blood pressure difference between arms was also associated with a 70 percent increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a 60 percent increased risk of dying from any cause. Which arm has the higher pressure can vary between individuals, but it is the size of the difference that counts, not which arm is higher and which is lower, the researchers said. More work is needed to determine whether a substantial difference in blood pressure between arms should prompt aggressive management of cardiovascular risk factors, Richard McManus, of the University of Oxford, and Jonathan Mant, of the University of Cambridge, both in the United Kingdom, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study. "Ascertainment of differences should become part of routine care, as opposed to a guideline recommendation that is mostly ignored," McManus and Mant wrote. The study and editorial will be published tomorrow (Jan. 30) in the journal the Lancet. Pass it on: A blood pressure check in both arms could improve patient care and catch early signs of peripheral artery disease. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. Find us on Facebook. Read More @ Source 
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Joe, a student in my online class, was worried that meditation would hurt his career. He works in a very competitive business where everyone is single-mindedly pushing and driving hard all the time. The whole idea of "letting go" seemed absurd in that context. But at the same time his stress and anxiety levels were sky high. He knew this wasn't a sustainable way to live.
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