Zen reality
Zen reality |
- Zen reality
- Health Problems in Teens Linked with Worse Cognitive Skills
- Mr. Coffee Single Cup Brewers Recalled by JCS
- We are the miracle
- Certainty is how the brain's left hemisphere deludes itself
| Posted: 03 Sep 2012 12:00 PM PDT From a recent The New Yorker. Pretty much sums up my own mindfulness practice. Download Zen reality (pdf file)
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| Health Problems in Teens Linked with Worse Cognitive Skills Posted: 03 Sep 2012 10:00 AM PDT
Teens with metabolic syndrome — a set of health conditions linked with the development of heart disease and diabetes — perform worse in school than their healthier counterparts, according to a new study. Researchers studied 111 adolescents, including 49 with metabolic syndrome and 62 without, and found that those with the condition performed 5 to 15 percent worse on tests of their academic abilities. Additionally, brain scans showed kids with metabolic syndrome had smaller hippocampuses, the part of the brain involved in learning and forming memories. While much research has linked metabolic syndrome to health problems later in life, "this paper demonstrates is there is something going on in their brains today, not 20 years from now," said study researcher Dr. Antonio Convit, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. "They're performing in the normal range, they're just not performing to their full potential," Convit said. Metabolic syndrome is diagnosed in people who have at least three of these five criteria: high blood pressure, insulin resistance, high triglycerides, a large waist and low levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol. Children in the study fell across a range, with some having none, one or two of the criteria. As the number of criteria that children met rose, their test scores declined, Convit said. While only a few differences were statistically strong, such as scores in math and spelling, the trend was clear. "In none of those tests did the kids with metabolic syndrome score higher than the kids in the control group," he said. While obesity has been a primary target for wellness programs, Convit said weight itself should not be the target, but the symptoms of metabolic syndrome, which can be assessed by a pediatrician and often improved by exercise. Extra weight alone isn't a problem in an otherwise active child, he said. "You can have a kid who is quite fit who won't have these problems, even if they're carrying excess weight. It's the coach potato…who [has] the problem," he said. Particular attention should be paid to kids with insulin resistance, Convit said. It is unclear how metabolic syndrome might lead to cognitive problems, but one theory is that insulin resistance makes it difficult for the brain to get sufficient glucose needed to fuel higher-level thinking and learning. Dr. Jennifer Miller, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Florida who studies the connection between early-onset obesity and brain function, said that the causes of insulin resistance itself are unclear, but it is believed to have a strong genetic component. Studies of elderly patients who are not physically fit have shown that cognitive function problems can be alleviated, to some degree, by exercise, Miller said. The hope is that exercise could have a similar benefit in children. "We know exercise improves insulin resistance, improves blood pressure, improves body weight, so it should help," Miller said. But a study in children has not been done. Convit said he and his colleagues are beginning to explore that question in young adults. Miller and Convit both expressed hope that research in this area would provide more incentive to parents and policymakers in promoting active lifestyles. "I would hope that a study like this that shows an impact on cognition would have a much bigger impact on parents, in terms of their child's obesity," said Miller. The study appears online today (Sept. 3) in the journal Pediatrics. Pass it on: Kids with metabolic syndrome may do worse in school than their healthier counterparts. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+.  Read More @ Source 
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| Mr. Coffee Single Cup Brewers Recalled by JCS Posted: 03 Sep 2012 09:00 AM PDT
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada, in cooperation with Sunbeam Products Inc. d/b/a Jarden Consumer Solutions ("JCS"), of Boca Raton, Fla., announced a voluntary recall of 520,000 Mr. Coffee® Single Cup Brewing System in the United States and 80,700 in Canada. Hazard: A build-up of steam in the water reservoir can force the brewing chamber open and expel hot coffee grounds and water, posing a burn hazard. Incidents/Injuries: JCS has received 164 reports of the brewing chamber opening due to steam pressure, including approximately 59 reports in the U.S. and two in Canada of burn injuries to consumers' face, upper torso and hands. Description: The recalled coffeemaker comes in black with silver, red or white trim. It stands about 11 inches tall and has a Brew Now /Off button and a removable drip tray. The water tank is located on top of the unit towards the back. The model number is printed on the bottom of the brewer. Recalled model numbers are: 
Sold by: Mass merchandisers nationwide, including Bed Bath & Beyond, Brandsmart, JC Penney, Kmart, Lowe's, Target and Walmart, and online at www.mrcoffee.com from September 2010 through August 2012 for between $ 60 and $ 80.  Manufactured in: China Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled coffee brewer and contact JCS to receive instructions on how to obtain a free replacement unit. Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact JCS at (800) 993-8609 anytime, or visit the firm's website at www.mrcoffeerecall.com Note: Health Canada's press release is available at http://cpsr-rspc.hc-sc.gc.ca/PR-RP/recall-retrait-eng.jsp?re_id=1674. Read More @ Source 
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| Posted: 03 Sep 2012 06:00 AM PDT  Detox Your Heart: Amazon.com and Amazon.ca Joyful to have Composed by Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. 1974. It is a miracle that we are born, and that we are still living. Every minute, world wide approximately 267 people are born and 108 people die. Just over 40% of us survive birth, and none of us survive death. Last month I asked you: 'How are you making the most of your precious birth? I ask you again this month, as it is a reflection we could do daily.
Do not let your birth be worthless. Embrace this precious opportunity. There is the gap between birth and death. This gap is called life. Mind the gap.
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| Certainty is how the brain's left hemisphere deludes itself Posted: 02 Sep 2012 11:00 PM PDT Are you certain? For sure? No doubts at all? 100%? Your faith in what you know is absolute? Congratulations. The left hemisphere of your brain is firmly in control of you -- recognizing that almost certainly (notice that almost? my brain's right hemisphere is working) there's no difference between "you" and "your brain." This is my second post about Iain McGilchrist's fascinating book, "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World." See here for the first. I'm hugely enjoying learning about how the left and right hemispheres function. After all, how the world appears to us is a result of how the brain processes information. Interestingly, "what" is a left brain thing; "how" is a right brain thing. Ultimately if the left hemisphere is the hemisphere of 'what,' the right hemisphere, with its preoccupation with context, the relational aspects of existence, emotion, and the nuances of expression, could be said to be the hemisphere of 'how.' This is related to the left hemisphere's focus on certainty. It shies away from amibiguity, whereas the right hemisphere is much more comfortable with not knowing for sure. The left hemisphere will make up stories about how the world works even when there is no good reason to believe in them. (See "The reasons we give for what we do: are they reasonable?") Religiosity, then, seems to be supported largely by left brain goings-on. Religious people weave together myth, wishful thinking, dogma, blind faith, unsubstantiated stories, and vague personal experiences into a confident This is How the World Is tale that's extremely resistant to criticism. McGilchrist points out in his book the obvious: both the left and right hemispheres are vitally important. It isn't possible to live a normal life without both sides of the brain functioning nearly normally. But we need to recognize the tensions between left and right. Like I said before, the divided brain is the root of our divided sense of self. McGilchrist says: Before embarking on this chapter, I suggested that there were two ways of being in the world, both of which were essential. One was to allow things to be present to us in all of their embodied particularity, with all of their changeability and impermanance, and their interconnectedness, as part of a whole which is forever in flux. In this world we, too, feel connected to what we experience, part of that whole, not confined in subjective isolation from a world that is viewed as objective. The other was to step outside the flow of experience and 'experience' our experience in a special way: to re-present the world in a form that is less truthful, but apparently clearer, and therefore cast in a form which is more useful for manipulation of the world and one another. This world is explicit, abstracted, compartmentalized, fragmented, static (though its 'bits' can be re-set in motion, like a machine), essentially lifeless. From this world we feel detached, but in relation to it it we are powerful. This helps explain the appeal of religious theologies, spiritual philosophies, mystical teachings. They present devotees with a nice tidy package of beliefs with few, if any, loose ends. Want to know what God is like, what happens after death, what is right and wrong? No problem. Just embrace Holy Book X, Guru Y, or Master Z and all of your questions will be answered. Of course, few people fret about why it is that X, Y, and Z have such different answers; true believers assume that they have been singled out to know the Truth with a capital "T," while all others are deluded. The brain's left hemisphere loves this! Certainty delights it! Forget about flux, impermanance, interconnectedness, subjectivity. That's right brain stuff. Us left hemispheres just want to know that we know. McGilchrist again: The left hemisphere likes things that are manmade. Things we make are also more certain: we know them inside out, because we put them together. They are not, like living beings, constantly changing and moving, beyond our grasp. Because the right hemisphere sees things as they are, they are constantly new for it, so it has nothing like the databank of information about categories that the left hemisphere has. It cannot have the certainty of knowledge that comes from being able to fix things and isolate them. In order to remain true to what is, it does not form abstractions, and categories that are based on abstraction, which are the strengths of denotative language. ...Even in the absence of amnesia, the left hemisphere exhibits a strong tendency to confabulate: it thinks it knows something, recognises something, which it doesn't, a tendency that may be linked to its lack of ability to discriminate unique cases from the generalised categories into which it places them. The left hemisphere is the equivalent of the sort of person who, when asked for directions, prefers to make something up rather admit to not knowing. ...So the left hemisphere needs certainty and needs to be right. The right hemisphere makes it possible to hold several ambiguous possibilities in suspension together without premature closure on one outcome. ...The right hemisphere is also more realistic about how it stands in relation to the world at large, less grandiose, more self-aware, than the left hemisphere. The left hemisphere is ever optimistic, but unrealistic about its short-comings. I'll end with a few other passages that I liked in McGilchrist's book. How do we get out of endless loops, trapped situations, blind alleys, unproductive belief systems? Religions want us to embrace more of the same. Growth requires something fresh and new. The left hemisphere's 'stickiness', its tendency to recur to what it is familiar with, tends to reinforce whatever it is already doing. There is a reflexivity to the process, as if trapped in a hall of mirrors: it only discovers more of what it already knows, and it only does more of what it already is doing. ...The right hemisphere, then, is capable of freeing us through negative feedback. The left hemisphere tends to positive feedback, and we can become stuck. This is not unlike the difference between the normal drinker and the addict. After a certain point, the normal drinker begins to feel less and less like another drink. What makes an addict is the lack of an 'off switch'-- another drink only makes the next, and the next, more likely. So don't get addicted to religion. Have a few drinks of a belief system, then move on. Remember what the signboard said in one of my favorite movies, "LA Story." The Signboard: There are more things in heaven and earth, Harry, than are dreamt of N your philosophy. 
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