Ballet Builds Strength Over Time

Posted on December 18th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Health.

My sister Kate has been keeping healthy by studying ballet ever since we were kids. I always supported her but our father was very anti-ballet. Believe it or not, he wanted Kate to be a Marine. Having said that, you might expect Kate and I come from a military family, but it’s not the case. Our father was an astronomer. So was his father.

Anyway, Kate is a ballet freak, and over the years she got me and my wife Sylvia interested in trying it as well. Yes, it’s true - you don’t have to be dreaming of a career in the Russian ballet to try the sport - Sylvia and I are trying it casually. Call us “ballet dabblers.”

The thing that most surprised me after I tried ballet, was how incredibly, intensely painful it is. My legs felt like they’d been yanked from by some crazed giant, trying to dislodge them from my body. My neck felt like someone had beaten it with a French breadstick; it wasn’t broken, but it stung and felt granular for some reason.

All in all I’m thrilled with my casual ballet experience, but if you’re into giving it a try, make sure you can spare a few days off from work to recover. The physical toll is surprising.

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Eastern Medicine

Posted on May 21st, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Health, Eastern Medicine.

In my late teens, I had a terrible problem with migraines. Migraines occur when blood vessels in the back of the head contract, thus reducing the amount of blood flowing to the brain. This reduction in blood often causes people to see flashes of light or get tunnel vision. After a short period (usually a few minutes), the blood flow returns to normal and there is great clarity. This is then followed by intense pain and, often, nausea. Although the true causes of migraine are unknown, many people believe that they are the result of stress or food allergies.

In my case, when the phenomenon started, I consulted doctors who prescribed a couple of different medications, all of which had horrible potential side effects. In the end, none of them worked. I then saw a doctor who told me I was allergic to a variety of foods, such as wheat, egg, milk, and sesame. I was fine for a couple of weeks (though very hungry), but the headaches came back.

One day, after a particularly bad attack, I was told about a Vietnamese monk living in southern Vermont. Although he was a doctor in Vietnam, he was not given any kind of official medical status in the US. He examined my wrists (presumably my pulse), looked at my tongue, and checked my eyes. After a minute or two, he said I had too much “heat” in my stomach and liver. He then disappeared into the back room only to return with a bag full of plant matter, sorted into paper envelopes. He told me to boil them in water for several hours, then drink them.

I left with the bag - a four week supply of “medicine” costing around $40, including consultation - and began the treatment. The stuff tasted worse than anything I have ever drunk in my whole life. I found it really annoying boiling everything down according to his specifications every day for a month, and it made the house small pretty bad for a while. However, I have not had a single migraine since then, and that was ten years ago! There were absolutely no side effects. There were no chemicals used whatsoever. And there was no money being poured into pharmaceutical companies.

That was a life-changing and eye-opening experience for me. Since then, I have constantly questioned why the government has been so reluctant to open its arms to homeopathic medicine. I suppose if there is no money to be made, there is very little impetus to promote it. But if we could save all that money that we have been so generously contributing to giant pharmaceutical companies for potentially dangerous medications, couldn’t we put it into something else that would help the economy…without side effects?

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Health and Spices

Posted on April 8th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Health, Spices.

People have been making their food more appetizing for thousands of years by incorporating local plant materials. Often, these materials contained certain chemicals that offered a zesty flavor which we found quite pleasing to the palate. We incorpoated these pungent plants into our diets then, and continue to use them now. However, these so-called “spices” are, in fact, toxic to us. So why do we keep using them?

Research points to the evolutionary race between humans and bacteria. Certain microbes cause a variety of ailments generally referred to as “food poisoning”. We don’t have built-in defenses to fight off all of these pathogens. However, many plants do. We incorporate their defenses in our cooking and, in effect, utilize them to potect ourselves. In other words, when cooked with certain spices, food that could be carrying dangerous bacteria will potentially be “detoxified”.

The same chemicals that kill the aforementioned dangerous microbes, however, can also have a deleterious effect on humans. Research shows that spices can be allergenic, carcinogenic, and even abortifacient. However, when dealing with spicy food, we have seemed to have developed the abiliy to know when to say when. Check out research posted on the Cornell Univesity news site for more information.

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