Feeling Free?

I was watching my seven-year-old son do art on my wife's iPad last night.  I was struck by his total abandon as he drew with the ap.  He was laughing and exploring.  Here is his picture:

It got me thinking about how I am always in control.  I'm in control of my thoughts, my actions, my feelings, my everything.  I never do anything anymore with total abandon.  My goal today is to be free . . . I want to lose control and do something with total abandon and child-like joy . . . I only hope that I don't try to control it.

Have You Been Soaking Rays Lately?

After a long, cold winter, and one with way too many clouds, you probably haven’t spent much time in the sun soaking rays.  As a result, your Vitamin D level may be low.  Two out of three people today — that's over 200 million Americans — don't get enough Vitamin D and even doctors are concerned:

 

"I have never seen any medical diagnosis as widespread and so profoundly affecting peoples' health and well-being as the current epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency."

— Dr. Soram Khalsa, M.D. (in his book 'The Vitamin D Revolution')

Vitamin D deficiency can cause:

• Low resistance to colds and flu
• Chronic fatigue
• Memory loss or dementia
• Joint, muscle, and back pain
• Bone fracture and increased risk of falling
• Increased risk of diseases including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and osteoporosis.

Vitamin D is a steroid vitamin, one of a group of fat-soluble pro-hormones, that encourages the absorption and metabolism of calcium and phosphorous.  Five forms of vitamin D have been discovered, vitamin D₁, D₂, D₃, D₄, D₅. The two forms that seem to matter to humans the most are vitamins D₂ (ergocalciferol) and D₃ (cholecalciferol).

The National Institutes of Health note how the body converts vitamin D into a storage form, known as 25-hydroxy-cholecalciferol or calcidiol. When required, this converts into 1,25-hydroxy-cholecalciferol or calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D throughout the body. This form increases insulin sensitivity, boosts the function of the immune system and regulates cell proliferation.

The only natural source of vitamin D2, or ergocalciferol, comes from certain mushrooms exposed to sunlight during their growth. However, almost all of the vitamin D2 available results from manufacturers forming the compound using ultraviolet irradiation of ergosterol compounds found in yeast. Although vitamin D2 traditionally has been used to fortify milk products as a preventive step against rickets, the National Institutes of Health points out that this form does not convert into calcidiol and calcitriol at the same rate as vitamin D3.  Consequently most supplement manufacturers no longer use D2 in their products for this reason.

Dr. Andrew Weil considers vitamin D3 a superior form. The compound, also known as cholecalciferol, exists naturally in fish oils and offal, and also represents the form manufactured in the skin after sunlight exposure.  D3 boosts circulating levels of calcidiol several times more effectively than its D2 counterpart, and the elevations are sustained for a longer period.  I take a D vitamin every day . . . and it is always a D3.

Your body needs enough Vitamin D to maintain even the most basic level of well-being; it's vital for good cardiovascular health, proper neurological functioning, immune health, strong bones and flexible joints, and more. But if even one of the risk factors below applies to you, chances are you are not getting the Vitamin D you need each and every day:

• You rarely go out in the sun
• You wear sunscreen during outdoor activities
• Your clothing often covers most of your skin
• You are overweight
• You live north of Atlanta and Los Angeles
• You drink fewer than 10 glasses of D-fortified milk or orange juice daily
• You don't eat wild oil fish (salmon, mackerel, sardines) at least 2-3 times per week
• You take cholesterol-blocking drugs or glucocorticoids like prednisone
• You don't take a Vitamin D supplement daily

Experts now say that maintaining optimal D levels could be the most important step you take to improve your health, protect yourself from chronic disease and live a longer and healthier life. Major studies agree, showing that Vitamin D can protect against heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes and more.  In addition, researchers at the University of Minnesota found that Vitamin D levels in the body at the start of a low-calorie diet predict weight loss success, suggesting a possible role for vitamin D in weight loss (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/153669.php).

The Health Care Crisis and Wellness Coaching

Here is a short exerpt from the wellness coaching book that I am finishing up.  Hope you enjoy:

Just in case you haven’t noticed, there is a health care crisis in the United States; one that is different from the much touted health insurance crisis.  For example, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical School the United States spends 44 percent more per capita on health care than Switzerland, which has the second most expensive health care system in the world.[i]  The same study reported that the per capita health care expenditure in the United States was 134 percent more than the average in developed countries.   One might expect that such a large expenditure would result in world-class health care.  It doesn’t.  The United States ranks 27^th in the world in life expectancy at birth and 39^th in infant mortality. 

   

America's health care system is in crisis precisely because we systematically neglect wellness and prevention. 

Tom Harkins – U.S. Senator

Here are a few more statistics on the state of health care in the United States:

• The latest Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which shows that 63.1% of adults in the U.S. were either overweight or obese in 2009[ii].  By comparison, only 44.8 percent of the population was overweight or obese in the period from 1960-1962.
• While the United States has the most expensive health care system in the world, it isn’t the best.  The World Health Organization (WHO) recently rated America thirty-seventh in the world, in between Costa Rica (36^th) and Slovenia (38^th)[iii].  Most expensive doesn’t necessarily meant best.
• If you think that things have changed since the WHO rankings in 2000, think again.  In a 2007 ranking of eight developed countries, the United States came in last.[iv]
• About three-fourths of all Americans die from preventable degenerative diseases including heart disease, cancer and diabetes.[v]
• Obesity is growing faster than any other public health issue in the United States. About, 31 percent of Americans are considered obese and, if current trends continue, more than 100 million U.S. adults — or 43 percent of the population — will be considered obese by 2018. Over the same period, obesity could add $344 billion to the nation's annual healthcare costs and account for more than 21 percent of healthcare spending.[vi]
• Only 31 percent of adults over age 18 engage in regular physical activity (three or more sessions per week of at least 20 minutes each).

Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer are, for the most part, life-style diseases.  Ten years ago Jan Breslow, M.D., the then president of the American Heart Association wrote that, "Progress in reducing deaths from coronary heart disease is threatened by alarming increases in obesity, physical inactivity and cigarette smoking as well as the aging of the population.”   Over the past ten years obesity has increased, physical activity has decreased and the population has gotten older.  The only bright spot is smoking.  Smokers comprised 24.6 percent of the adult population in 1995 and only 20.8 percent in 2006.

If the above aren’t enough, statistics in a July, 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association indicated the risk of relying on traditional health care.  The article noted that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States, following heart disease and cancer.  More than 250,000 people die each year in the United States due to medical error including:

• 106,000 from the adverse effects of medication,
• 80,000 from infections they get while in hospital,
• 20,000 from non-medication errors in hospital,
• 12,000 from unnecessary surgery, and
• 7,000 from medication errors in hospital.

While health care professionals had made wonderful advances in responding to acute trauma it hasn’t been effective in treating chronic diseases.  However, it may not be completely rational to expect health care professionals to cure life-style issues like heart-disease, cancer or diabetes when most Americans don’t eat right, exercise or manage stress.

According to the groundbreaking medical report Death by Medicine, published in 2003 by Drs. Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith, 783,936 people in the United States die every year from conventional medicine mistakes. That's the equivalent of six jumbo jet crashes a day for an entire year.  If that is what illness care does, then we need wellness care.

Traditional health care in the United States is really illness care.  No one goes to the doctor because they are well.  People go to their doctor because they are sick, or because they are afraid of getting sick.  Few, if any, go to the doctor and say, “I feel absolutely wonderful, and I want to feel even better.  What should I do?”  While we may need a better illness care system, what is really needed is wellness care.  That’s why wellness coaching is booming.  The role of the wellness coach is to work with individuals to help them improve their overall state of wellness.
 

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[i]            Anderson, G. F., U. E. Reinhardt,  P. S. Hussey, and V. Petrosyan.  (2003).  It’s the Prices, Stupid:  Why the United States is So Different from Other Countries.  Health Affairs, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 89-105.

[ii]           Hendrick, B.  (2010).  Percentage of Overweight, Obese Americans Swells:  Americans Are Eating Poorly, Exercising Less, and Getting Bigger, Survey Finds.  Accessed at http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20100210/percentage-of-overweight-obese-americans-swells on 25 January 2010

[iii]           WHO. (2000).  The World Health Organization’s Ranking of the World’s Health Systems.  Accessed on line at http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html on 25 January 2010.

[iv]           New York Times Editorial.  (2007).  In an Eight Country Ranking the United States Came in Last.  New York Times, 12 August, 2007.

[v]           Weil, A.  (2009).  Why Our Health Matters.  New York:  Hudson Street Press, p. 14.

[vi]           United Health Foundation.  (2009).  America’s Health Ranking:  A Call to Action for Individuals and Their Communities.  retrieved from http://www.americashealthrankings.org/2009%5Creport%5CAHR2009%20Final%20Report.pdf on 25 January 2010.

Mindfulness Practices

What are you doing right now?  Are you here, with me, 100 percent, or is your mind engaged in an internal conversation?  For example, as you read this you might also be thinking, "I have hear this before . . .", or maybe you are thinking about the next web site that you want to visit, or what you are going to have for lunch. 

The capabilities of the human mind are staggering.  We cycle from one thought to the next so quickly that we fool ourselves into thinking that we can actually multi-task.  We do it all the time.  But, when was the last time that you were totally immersed in one activity?  So deeply immersed that you lost track of time?  That is what it feels like to be mindful.

A common Buddhist saying is to "Be here now."  Not to be in the past, the future or in six different places at once.  Just be here, now!  In addition to meditation, where I try to calm the monkeys that jump from branch-to-branch in my brain, I have two other activities that I try to perform with mindulness, and each give me joy.

One of my mindful actities is to wash the dishes.  Yes, we have an automatice dishwasher, but I haven't used it in over ten years.  In fact, it is just another cupboard in the kitchen now.  No one wants to be with me when I wash the dishes; I think that they are afraid that I might ask them to dry and stack.  So when I wash dishes I am completely alone and I can focus my attention on each plate or cup, one at a time, and give it my full and undivided attention.  I don't use the time to plan activities, mentally write an article, or review the day.  I use the time to wash dishes.  That is how I have found mindfulness in an ordinary activity.

My other mindful activity is photography.  Our minds are great storytellers.  They fill in details, embelish, and improve what we remember and what we see.  If you and I were to look at the Blue Ridge Mountains from here I expect that we would both see different images.  I might focus on individual trees parading across the tops of the mountains 20 miles away while you might "see" the interplay of lights and shadows.  When I photograph I try to see with my eye/mind exactly what the camera is "seeing".  I try to suspend judgement and analysis and just see.  You can see some of my mindful and not-so-mindful photos by clicking on the link under "useful links".

This week as part of your wellness practice find an activity in which you can be mindfully immersed.  Find an activity where you can just be there now.

To your health . . . .

Build A Qi Ball

Universal life force energy is call Qi (Chi) in China, prana in India and Ki (like in ReiKi) in Japan.  It is available to all for free.  One of the easiest ways to experience Qi is to build a Qi ball.  I lead you through the process in the following YouTube video.  Don't worry if you don't feel anything the first time.  I took me about a week of daily practice to create and feel my first Qi ball.  I bet, when you experience it, that you won't forget the experience.  Energy, Qi, is real.