Mom's High Blood Pressure May Harm Child in Old Age
Mom's High Blood Pressure May Harm Child in Old Age |
- Mom's High Blood Pressure May Harm Child in Old Age
- West Nile Outbreaks Likely to Be Unpredictable for Decades
- Why Good People Make Bad Decisions
- The Beginner’s Guide to Unschooling
- Heirloom Zen
- Early Morning Stress Reduction Inspiration - 10/4/2012
- Meditating daily … no matter what
- Reality is a circle: nothing is fundamental
| Mom's High Blood Pressure May Harm Child in Old Age Posted: 04 Oct 2012 01:00 PM PDT
High blood pressure during pregnancy could affect a child's thinking skills well into their retirement years, according to a new study from Finland. The results showed that a woman's high blood pressure in pregnancy correlated with lower thinking abilities in her son, and a faster rate of cognitive decline in his later years. Men whose mothers had hypertension scored 4.36 points lower, on average, on cognitive tests at age 69, compared with men whose mothers had normal blood pressure. Math reasoning was the most affected skill, according to the study. There was no difference between the groups in terms of the men's education level, the researchers said. While it is unclear exactly how a woman's blood pressure might affect her son's thinking skills, "we can speculate that it is because of poor placenta function," said study researcher Katri Räikkönen, a psychology professor at the University of Helsinki. The placenta delivers nutrients to the fetus, but hypertension may reduce its ability to do this. Dr. Vesna Garovic, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic who specializes in hypertension during pregnancy, said that hormones could also play a role. The placenta produces hormones, and recent studies suggest some of these are involved in a child's cognition. A mother's blood pressure, a child's brain High blood pressure affects nearly 1 in 10 pregnancies, but little is known about how the condition affects the children as they enter old age. In the new study, researchers looked at 398 Finnish men, born between 1934 and 1944, whose mothers were tested for hypertension and the related pregnancy condition preeclampsia. The men underwent standardized cognitive tests at age 20 for compulsory military service, and were tested again at age 69. The tests measured language skills, math reasoning, and visual and spatial abilities. The finding that the sons of women with high blood pressure had "impaired cognitive functioning, such a long time after pregnancy, is quite novel and significant," Garovic said. "This extends our observation that hypertensive pregnancies not only affect mothers, but may have detrimental effects to offspring." The new findings are may explain current ideas about babies born with low birth weight, Räikkönen said. Infants born to mothers with hypertension tend to have lower birth weights, and low birth weight has been linked with lower cognitive abilities, she said. Women's health during pregnancy Previous studies have also linked high blood pressure during pregnancy and preeclampsia with an increased in cardiovascular diseases later the woman's in life. "Pregnancy is really a window into a women's future health," said Megan Mitchell, a cardiovascular disease researcher at the National Institutes of Health. Women are more likely to develop preeclampsia if they are obese, younger than 20 or older than 40, are having their first baby or are expecting twins or triplets, Mitchell said. The new study had several caveats: the sample size was relatively small, and since the researchers collected the data in the 1930s and 1940s, the way that hypertension is diagnosed during pregnancy has changed — now, three blood pressure measurements are averaged, whereas in the past, diagnosis was based on one measurement, Räikkönen said. The researchers are now conducting another study of nearly 4,000 children, some whose mothers had hypertension during pregnancy, to see if they find the same link. The journal Neurology published the study in today's (Oct. 3) edition. Pass it on: High blood pressure in moms-to-be linked to child's poor thinking skills in old age. FollowMyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+.  Read More @ Source 
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| West Nile Outbreaks Likely to Be Unpredictable for Decades Posted: 04 Oct 2012 12:00 PM PDT
This year's outbreak of West Nile virus is one of the biggest in U.S. history, and what next year will hold is anyone's guess, experts say. In fact, the disease is likely to remain unpredictable for decades to come, said Dr. Lyle Petersen and Dr. Marc Fischer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who wrote about West Nile in this week's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. As of this week, nearly 4,000 cases of West Nile virus have been reported, the CDC says. While that's about the same as the numbers reported in 2002 and 2006, it's about six times the number reported in 2011. "Until this year's resurgence, many experts questioned whether West Nile virus would remain a substantial public health concern," Petersen and Fischer wrote. But our knowledge of viruses similar to West Nile suggests that it "will cause sporadic cases and unpredictable outbreaks big and small for decades to come," the researchers said. West Nile virus is carried by birds, and spreads to people by mosquitoes. Just how many cases of West Nile are seen in a given year depends on a number of factors, including the number of birds and mosquitoes carrying the disease, the location of the carriers and how fast the virus replicates in mosquitoes, the researchers said. Many of these factors are influenced in some way by the weather, but West Nile virus outbreaks are not consistently tied to heat waves, they said. There's also some randomness in the disease's spread, meaning that even under similar conditions, there could be a variety of outcomes just by chance, the researchers said. "Thus, generating long-range predictions regarding West Nile virus outbreaks will be a formidable, if not impossible, task," the researchers said. There are no treatments for West Nile, and no vaccine against the disease exits. The sporadic and widespread nature of the disease makes it difficult for researchers to conduct trials that would include enough people to prove a treatment is effective, the researchers said. "New paradigms are needed for bringing novel therapeutics and vaccines for emerging diseases such as West Nile virus to market in a timely and cost-efficient manner," Petersen and Fischer said. The researchers noted that sporadic cases of a similar disease, St. Louis encephalitis, have been reported in the United States for 80 years. "Clearly, a long term perspective is necessary," they said. Pass it on: Outbreaks of West Nile have been unpredictable, and will likely remain so for decades to come. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+. Read More @ Source 
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| Why Good People Make Bad Decisions Posted: 04 Oct 2012 11:14 AM PDT  Should you take the dive into entrepreneurship or keep working for a boss you can't stand? Is it time to work on your marriage or get a divorce? Every day we make countless decisions…big and small. Sometimes we celebrate our choices with a pat on the back and other times we wonder: what went wrong? That's why we need to know why good people sometimes make bad decisions, and how we can use that insight to make better decisions ourselves. Because the truth is that sometimes seemingly inconsequential decisions really do affect our lives. Here are four reasons why good people make bad decisions and what you can do to ensure you don't fall prey to these decision-traps yourself. 1. Good Old Unconscious Beliefs Yup…sometimes we harbor unconscious beliefs that don't serve us. Maybe deep down inside we believe that we're unworthy of our success or maybe we believe that we don't deserve to be loved. These kinds of destructive, unconscious beliefs will always lead to bad decision-making. They lead to self-sabotage. Solution: Unconscious beliefs often surface as negative thoughts in our minds. When you find yourself engaging in negative self-talk, replace it with more positive, empowering self-talk. Just write the negative belief down along with its more empowering replacement belief. Keep the empowering beliefs in front of you all the time with post-it notes. Soon, each time the negative belief pops into your head you'll be able to replace it with the empowering belief, until only the empowering beliefs surfa! ce at all! The end result: fewer negative unconscious beliefs guide your decision-making. 2. Distress Caused by Uncertainty Some people are really distressed by the uncertainty that having to make a decision causes…so how do they resolve it? Simple: They just rush into any decision they can. These people will accept the first offer in negotiations, they might accept the first solution to a problem (even if they're not really sure about it)…just to relieve themselves of the anxiety that having to make a decision or having to solve a 'problem' causes. Solution: Whether the temporary uncertainty of having to make a decision makes you anxious or not, the best thing to always remember when making decisions is this: Everything will work out in your favor, exactly the way it's supposed to. There's no need to rush, ever. Be rationally optimistic. If you ever find yourself rushing to make a decision, take a few deep breaths and a few steps back. Remind yourself that you have all the time you need (even if you don't). Because this relaxed thought-pattern will often lead you to a better decision faster than if you were an anxious or worried in the first place. (Our brains simply aren't as efficient when under stress). 3. Irrational Fear Although we humans pride ourselves on being logical, rational creatures…it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes we zero-in on something that really, really scares us…and that drives our decision instead of logic. Think about people who don't fly on airplanes despite the fact that planes are actually safer than cars…this behavior is driven by irrational fear rather than rational logic. This same irrational behavior can happen any time we're faced with a decision that contains a potential percentage o! f fearful! risk…we might zero-in on that fearful risk despite the fact that it's highly unlikely to occur in the first place. Solution: When making a decision that might contain an element of irrational fear, take a piece of paper (or your laptop) and write down all the pros in one column and all the cons or risks in another (be sure to include the risks' actual likelihood of happening in percentage form). Then look at the columns and ask yourself what you would advise someone to do if this weren't your decision but if it were theirs to make instead. (Note: this doesn't work for phobias…only for non-clinical, irrational fears). This exercise will give you a more rational approach to making your decision. 4. Being Way Too Focused on Right Now Living in the now is great, but too many bad decisions are made due to incredibly short-term thinking. It's imperative to assess the long-term implications of our daily decisions. Excessive smoking and drinking are two common examples of short-term thinking. Although they might provide some immediate relief, the long-term consequences of these choices can be reason not to heavily engage in these (and other) equally temporary, quick-fixes. Solution: When making daily decisions (big and small) ask yourself what the potential long-term effects of this decision might be. Make a list of the potential long-term effects if you need to (especially if it's a more complex and important decision). Then and only then should you decide one way or the other! What are some decision-making strategies you use? Share in the comments below!
Do you have a bucket list? Here are 101 things to do before you die. Includes a tutorial on how you can create your bucket list too!      Read More @ Source 
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| The Beginner’s Guide to Unschooling Posted: 04 Oct 2012 10:00 AM PDT Post written by Leo Babauta.There's nothing I get asked about more as a parent than unschooling, and nothing I recommend more to other parents. It's an educational philosophy that provides for more freedom than any other learning method, and prepares kids for an uncertain and rapidly changing future better than anything else I know. My wife and I unschool four of our kids, and have been for several years. And yet, as powerful as I believe unschooling to be, I've never written about it, because the truth is, I certainly don't have all the answers. No one does. The beauty of unschooling is in the search for the answers. If anyone had all the answers, there would be no search. And so what I'd love to teach unschooling parents and kids is that the search is the joy of it all. But I'm getting ahead of myself: what is unschooling? Why should you do it? How do you do it? What should you read? We'll talk about all that today. What is Unschooling?First, it's a form of homeschooling. But there's no easy answer to that except in comparison to regular schooling. There's no one way to do unschooling, and people who do it often do it for many different reasons in many different ways. However, this is how I describe it — in contrast to school:
Let me emphasize that for a minute: in unschooling, life itself is learning. There is no "doing school" … you are learning all the time. Unschoolers learn just like you or I learn as adults: based on what interests them, figuring out how to learn it on their own, changing as they change, using whatever resources and learning materials they find, driven by curiosity and practical application rather than because someone says it's important. This is how I learn as a self-employed writer, as an entrepreneur, as a parent. It's how our children will learn when they're adults. Why not have them learn like that now? Why Unschool?Let's think about what school is about: preparing kids for jobs (and life) in the future … a future that's probably a decade or more away. Now think about a decade or more of change: how many of us predicted 13 years ago what life would be like today? Did we know about the economic recession, or the changing job market, or the fact that things like smartphones and iPads and ebook readers would be so widespread? And that's just the start. If we can't predict what our kids' future will be like, how can we decide today what they should be learning to prepare for that future? We're preparing them for today's jobs, not tomorrow's jobs. School teaches kids a set of facts and skills that they might not need in the future. Unschooling takes a different approach: kids learn how to learn, how to teach themselves. If you know how to learn and how to teach yourself, then you are prepared for any future. If in the future the things we know are obsolete, then the person who knows how to learn anything will be ready to learn whatever is in use in the future. The person who only knows how to learn from a teacher will need a teacher to teach him. More reasons to unschool:
There are many more reasons, of course, and each person will find her own reasons. These are just a few of mine. How to UnschoolThis is the hard part, because there is no right way to do it, no single way. And parents who are starting out always, always want to know how to do it. I know we did, and the honest truth is, we're still figuring out the answer. Why is there no answer? Because every kid is different. Everyone has different needs, interests, abilities, goals, and environments. What would you say if people told you there was only one way to live your life, one way to do your job? You'd hate it, because it would take away your freedom, and also all the fun. Telling you how to unschool is like taking away your freedom and all the fun out of it. The questions are everything, and the finding out is the fun. That said, I will offer some ideas of how we unschool, and some ideas of how you might approach things — but these are just ideas to start you out!
Before you get the wrong idea, I should give credit to Eva for doing most of the unschooling work, and being better at it than I am (Eva is really great, though she won't admit it). She has read more books and websites on the topic than I am, and does the majority of the unschooling on a daily basis (though I do help out as much as I can). I should also give credit to my awesome sister Kat, who inspired us to unschool, and is one of the most amazing unschooling moms I know. More ReadingThis isn't a definitive guide — I don't have the experience or knowledge to write that guide. Better people than I have written much more on the topic, and while I can't provide a comprehensive list, I will share some books and sites to get you started (many are from Eva and my sister Kat):
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| Posted: 04 Oct 2012 09:00 AM PDT I confess, I hang around some of the top chefs in Atlanta. They teach me a lot about cooking and food quality. For example, they don't buy their flour from the same place the unwashed masses do, and that goes for everything else. Suffice it to say that what you get at a fine restaurant is not stuff you can purchase from your local supermarket. Right now I am cooking up some 18th century oatmeal. (No kidding.) What I really want to say is that the oats I am using were probably used by folks like George Washington. These are heirloom oats, in other words. As for the taste, there is no comparison. These oats (from Anson Mills) are far more tasty and rich than, say, what Quaker Oats has to offer. It is unbelievable. So what is the connection with Zen? Well, I am betting that 'heirloom Zen', going back to Tang China, is altogether different from modern Zen. The difference is almost like night and day. Not even Dogen's Zen counts as heirloom Zen. To get a sense of heirloom Zen we have to study the works of Zen masters like Tsung-mi (Zongmi). Here is an example.
After reading a lot of classical Zen literature, its spirituality and richness cannot be denied—it is still unmatched. Much of it, too, had little or nothing to do with sitting on a zafu (Dogen's Zen). To begin to learn real Zen is first to have studied many of the Buddha's discourses in addition to studying the Zen of Hui-neng. This doesn't mean read Joko Beck's books like Everday Zen which is not about Zen at all or what the Buddha taught. It is like eating instant oatmeal made from oats that are bland and almost tasteless. I know some of you will try to defend the modern version of Zen. It is not a worthwhile endeavor. Modern Zen can be and often is, nutritionless, bland slop. 
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| Early Morning Stress Reduction Inspiration - 10/4/2012 Posted: 04 Oct 2012 08:00 AM PDT  "To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him." ~The Buddha       Read More @ Source 
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| Meditating daily … no matter what Posted: 04 Oct 2012 06:00 AM PDT
One morning, I woke up feeling particularly ornery, and, after I snapped at Narayan's father for forgetting something at the supermarket, he recommended that I take some time to meditate. I handed the baby over, plunked down in front of my little altar, and immediately dissolved into tears. I missed the rhythm of my practice. I missed making regular visits to myself! In those moments, with the sun flooding through the windows, and the background sounds of my husband chatting away to Narayan, I made a vow. No matter what, I'd create time each day to come into stillness and pay attention to my experience. But there was a "back door": How long I sat didn't matter. Ever since, I have made the time. I usually meditate thirty to forty-five minutes in the morning, but there have been days, especially when Narayan was young, when it didn't happen. Instead, I'd sit on the edge of my bed right before going to sleep, and would intentionally relax my body, opening to the sensations and feelings that were present. Then, after a few minutes, I would say a prayer and climb under the covers. As my body has changed and long sittings have become more difficult, I'll often do a standing meditation. Still, the commitment to daily practice "no matter what" has been one of the great supports of my life. For some people I know, my approach is a setup for self-punishment. Something happens—a bad cold, falling asleep early, simply forgetting—and the promise has been broken. The bottom line is to enjoy, not stress over, a meditation practice. As Julia Child famously said, "If you drop the lamb, just pick it up. Who's going to know?" If you miss practice for a day, a week, or a month, simply begin again. It's okay. So, how long should you practice? Between fifteen and forty-five minutes works for many people. If you are new to meditation, fifteen minutes may seem like an eternity, but that impression will change as your practice develops. If you meditate each day, you will experience noticeable benefits (less reactivity, more calm) and you'll probably choose to increase your practice time. Whatever the length, it's best to decide before beginning and have a clock or timer nearby. Then, rather than getting entangled in thoughts about when to stop, you can fully give yourself to the meditation. Many contemplative traditions recommend setting a regular time of day to meditate—usually early in the morning, because the mind is calmer on waking than it is later in the day. However, the best time for you is the time you can realistically commit to on a regular basis. Some people choose to do two short mediations, one at the beginning of the day and one at the end. If possible, dedicate a space exclusively to your daily meditation. Choose a relatively protected and quiet place where you can leave your cushion (or chair) so that it is always there to return to. You may want to create an altar with a candle, inspiring photos, statues, flowers, stones, shells—whatever arouses your sense of beauty, wonder, and the sacred. This is certainly not necessary, but it can help create a mood and remind you of what you love.  If you like Tara's teaching, check out her audio titles in our meditation supplies store If you are able, attending a weekend or weeklong residential retreat will deepen your practice as well as your faith in your own capacity to become peaceful and mindful. This is a wonderful time to be practicing meditation! Meditators have a growing pool of resources—CDs, books, podcasts, teachers, and fellow meditators—to support and accompany them as they walk this path. The most important thing to remember is your commitment to practice "no matter what," even if it's for just a few moments out of your day. As one of my students put it recently, "Just having those moments to be quiet is a gift to my soul." It is a gift to the soul. Stepping out of the busyness, stopping our endless pursuit of getting somewhere else—even if it's just one minute at a time—is perhaps the most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit. Read More @ Source
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| Reality is a circle: nothing is fundamental Posted: 03 Oct 2012 04:00 PM PDT Ooh, ooh! It came, it came! I felt like a kid who'd just gotten a long-awaited toy in the mail when I opened our mailbox and saw the New Scientist cover: What is Reality? A User's Guide to the Ultimate Question of Existence. Finally. I'd know. What reality is all about. I stretched out the suspense by waiting until evening to read the cover story. In the bathtub, immersed in relaxingly hot water, a glass of red wine and highlighter in hand (not at the same time). I wasn't disappointed. Right away I liked the concise focus of the "Defining Reality" section. What do we mean by reality? Jan Westerhoff makes some reasonable suggestions, after discussing less plausible options. There are two definitions of reality that are much more successful. The first equates reality with a world without us, a world untouched by human desires and intentions. By this definition, a lot of things we usually regard as real - languages, wars, the financial crisis - are nothing of the sort. Still, it is the most solid one so far because it removes human subjectivity from the picture. The second equates reality with the most fundamental things that everything else depends on. In the material world, molecules depend on their constituent atoms, atoms on electrons and a nucleus, which in turn depends on protons and neutrons, and so on. In this hierarchy, every level depends on the one below it, so we might define reality as made up of whatever entities stand at the bottom of the chain of dependence, and thus depend on nothing else. This definition is even more restrictive than "the world without us" since things like Mount Everest would not count as part of reality; reality is confined to the unknown foundation on which the entire world depends. Even so, when we investigate whether something is real or not, these final two definitions are what we should have in mind. Delving deeper into the implications of these definitions, the New Scientist cover story asks such questions as: Is matter real? Quantum theory seems to show that probability waves don't turn into real objects until an observation occurs. This introduces consciousness into the what is reality? equation. However, Westerhoff points out that some aspects of particles are dependent on measurement, and some aren't. Yet if we accept that the wave function must collapse as soon as consciousness enters the measurement, the consequences are even more curious. If we decide to break off the chain at this point, it follows that, according to one of our definitions of reality, matter cannot be regarded as real. If consciousness is required to turn ghostly probability waves into things that are more or less like the objects we meet in everyday life, how can we say that matter is what would be there anyway, whether or not human minds were around? But perhaps this is a bit too hasty. Even if we agree with the idea that consciousness is required to break the chain, all that follows is that the dynamic attributes of matter such as position, momentum and spin orientation are mind-dependent. It does not follow that its static attributes, including mass and charge, are dependent on in this. The static attributes are there whether we look or not. Nevertheless, we have to ask ourselves whether redefining matter as "a set of static attributes" preserves enough of its content to allow us to regard matter as real. In a world without minds, there would still be attributes such as mass and charge, but things would not be at any particular location or travel in any particular direction. Such a world has virtually nothing in common with the world as it appears to us. ...It seems that the best we are going to get at this point is the claim that some things are there independent of whether we, as human observers, are there, even though they might have very little to do with our ordinary understanding of matter. So what about the other strong definition of reality, the foundation for everything else? Consciousness apparently isn't that foundation, since some things (such as the mass and charge of particles) would exist whether or not a conscious observer is aware of them. This was the most interesting part of the article for me. When I was researching my first book about mysticism and the new physics (I'm slowly working on finishing up a rewrite and getting it back in print), I read a lot about how various scientists and philosophers interpret quantum theory. There's no agreement about what quantum theory tells us about the foundation of reality, even though it is able to make marvelously precise predictions of goings-on in the atomic and subatomic world. Thus the meaning of quantum theory is open to question, while the mechanics are pretty well settled. Offering an example of the traditional Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, says Westerhoff, particles pop into a definite existence "when the system to be measured (the electron) interacts with the measuring device (the phosphor screen. For this reason, it has to be assumed that the phosphor screen will not itself exhibit the particular quantum behaviour shown by the electron." This is where weirdness starts to creep in. Well, actually weirdness is all-encompassing in quantum theory, because it so far removed from how the everyday world appears to us. So let's say increasing weirdness starts to creep in. Measuring devices, whether a machine or the human mind, are medium-sized material things. These things are made out of the tiny subatomic particles which, says the traditional interpretation, come into being when measured by a medium-sized material thing. Weird! This is how Westerhoff's article ends. And this is where the circularity comes in. We analyse the everyday world of medium-sized material things in terms of smaller and smaller constituents until we deal with parts that are so small that quantum effects become relevant for describing them. But when it comes to spelling out what is really going on when a wave function collapses into an electron hitting a phosphor screen, we don't ground our explanation in some yet more minute micro-level structures; we ground it in terms of readings made by non-quantum material things. What this means is that instead of going further down, we instead jump right back up to the level of concrete phenomena of sensory perception, namely measuring devices such as phosphor screens and cameras. Once more, we are in a situation where we cannot say that the world of quantum objects is fundamental. Nor can we say that the world of measuring devices is fundamental since these devices are themselves nothing but large conglomerations of quantum objects. We therefore have a circle of things depending on each other, even though, unlike in the previous case, mental objects are no longer part of this circle. As a result, neither the phosphor screen nor the minute electron can be regarded as real in any fundamental sense, since neither constitutes a class of objects that everything depends on. What we thought we should take to be the most fundamental turns out to involve essentially what we regarded as the least fundamental. In our search for foundations, we have gone round in a circle, from the mind, via various components of matter, back to the mind - or, in the case of the Copenhagen interpretation, from the macroscopic to the microscopic, and then back to the macroscopic. But this just means that nothing is fundamental, in the same way there is no first or last stop on London Underground's Circle Line. The moral to draw from the reductionist scenario seems to be that either what is fundamental is not material, or that nothing at all is fundamental. So there you are, believers in something supernatural: some scientific hope. Either what is fundamental is not material... Yes, that's a possibility. But it requires a belief in an unobserved reality for which there's no demonstrable evidence. This world, on the other hand, is clearly evident -- albeit mysterious. Which leads to the other possibility: Nothing at all is fundamental. Buddhists are smiling at that statement. Emptily. 
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Even after practicing and teaching meditation for more than 35 years now, I truly understand that sustaining a regular practice can be challenging. During the twelve years I lived in an ashram, for instance, I had others to practice with each day. With that kind of support, creating the time for daily meditation became a given in my life. It wasn't as easy after I left. Within a year I gave birth to my son, Narayan, and found myself with a new infant and an increasingly erratic schedule.| You are subscribed to email updates from BuddhaRocks ☸ To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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