Unprescription for happiness

by Scotland Willis
I was speaking with a good friend this morning who is visiting with me from out of town; she has been prescribed lots of drugs- eight to my knowledge.  These drugs ranged from antidepressants (prescribed as a method to help them sleep) to pain pills.

Thoroughly concerned about the use of prescription medicine as a solution with no end; I shifted into my life coach mode and asked her to do me a favor.  I simply requested that she take a moment to go up stairs and write a list of ten things that make her happy.

While she was doing this I decided to do some research about the various drugs- most of  it was not positive.  The risks associated with taking the prescribed drugs ranged from suicide to further depression- be more depressed... so I can sleep?  That didn't wash with me, so I furthered my research, all the time knowing and informing her that I am no doctor and am not offering medical advice.  I went a step further.

What we should all know
With only novice experience in heal risk affects, I started to research the NIH (National Institute of Health) and the IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System) to increase my understanding of what I was looking at- more bad news.  Both offer valuable insights to toxicity and responses to various toxicants.

As it turns out, and is sometimes the case, I discovered that what had been prescribed was the very same thing I was requesting of my friend; find happiness- but the drugs were limited in understanding human nature.

The drugs force the release of additional serotonin ( a contributor to a sense of well being sometimes called the happiness hormone (though it is not actually a hormone).  Excesses of serotonin like any toxic affect, can have a negative outcome.   To no surprise she complained about discomfort in her gut (where 80% of serotonin is produced).  An excess dose of serotonin could potentially result in this response.

Putting it all together

After about an hour, she came to me with her list.  Next, I went through the list of ten things she wrote down for me, that make her happy or that she likes to do.  I read them with great care.  Then I went through each one and asked her, "when was the last time you went to the museum?" followed by; "when was the last time you went to a movie"... followed by; "when was the last time you..." until we went through the entire list.

As it turned out she had not participated in any of the things she enjoyed in less than the last six months!

I absolutely could not believe this; I could not believe what I was hearing.  Now I have plenty of stress in my life; but I do not allow a day to go by without doing at least one thing, that makes me happy.  If ever I have, I know that I would not feel good about myself, vis a vis, I would not be happy i.e.,  I would not have the natural dose of serotonin already in my body, that I needed.

So I proceeded to give my nonprescription, "My friend, I said, "I want you to go out and do at least two of the things that make you happy today.  Take your journal and write about how they make you feel and pay attention to what is occurring for you as you make your observations."

A real difference

Immediately, as I was looking at her beautiful self, it was as if a huge burden had been lifted from her.  A smile came across her face that was glowing in a way I had not seen since she arrived.  To me that indicated that the dopamine ( a biological reaction that occurs when you are craving something) was being released at the mere idea of taking time to do some of the things that make her happy.  My belief is that she will get the sense of well being from the interaction between what she stated makes her happy and making a conscious decision to partake in such activity.

And that is it friends, don't allow life to pass you by because you forgot to do something that makes you feel good (the serotonin) every day.

You might  start by going off somewhere right now and making that list of the ten things that make you happy.  If the natural dopamine in your is being released, you are probably experiencing a smile or your salivary glands acting up at the idea that you are going to reward yourself by treating your happiness hormones to doing something nice for someone else, or nice to yourself.

I feel happier already

Don't worry be happy, because there are some things that you just cannot change- accept that and find a alternate happy path.  For the other things, that you can change, as long as they don't make someone else unhappy, go and do them.  Join a new group, pick up an instrument, go for a walk, a bike ride, show someone you care, get an ice cream cone, breathe fresh air, write in your journal, garden, etc. Do a physical or mental activity that nourishes you and can make you begin to feel whole again.

In my non-medical opinion, the first prescription doctors should offer is the prescription of inquiry, and ask what makes you happy.

We forget things all the time as humans, just don't forget to be happy

Resources:

http://www.epa.gov/iris/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion#Neurobiological_theories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin

Stress and emotion: A new synthesis, 1999, New York: Springer Pub. Co.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0004531/

Emotion and adaptation, 1991, New York: Oxford University Press

Everyone should know Balance

by Scotland Willis

Balance is something we strive for in our life.  We see it in how we try to manage work and our 

personal life; balance between consumption and preserving the environment; balancing disruptions and getting tasks done; and in our personal health versus stress.  The list is extensive.  By and large balance is a very difficult goal to achieve; this assertion could be made anywhere in the world.

So here is something to consider about balance you may not have thought of; 1) the most important balance in our body is pH balance; while that may sound simple, achieving it is like trying to balance yourself on a tightrope (ok perhaps not that difficult but it might seem that way) but certainly as challenging to achieve balance in other areas of our life; 2) alkaline and acids make up these two very important chemical that represent this balance, which also influence many other activities that occur in our body.

A bit more understanding migh make you more conscious about your eating decisions and thereby resulting in a happier healthier you.

So why is this make up so important?  Let's not   focus on things like kidney, liver and blood disease, to avoid talking about thsi from a medical perspective- though they are legitimately related to the matter at hand.  Rather I would like to share important factors to understand which will make the importance of acids and alkaline a little easier to digest.

 Most foods (especially processed foods) have high levels of sugar or high fructose.  The result is that most of our diet is made up of sugary acids that means that we have a alkaline deficit much more often than not in our body, across the majority of our U.S. population.  Alkaline foods mean more green foods and raw veggies (which don't appeal to most peoples taste buds the way sugary sweets do).  It's time to change that.

Keep this in mind increasing your alkaline intake will result in more energy, healthier bone structure and a wide range of health benefits including lower blood sugar levels, less chances of heart disease and the other major threats to human health.  For children it can mean improved neurological performance.

Understanding the Scale

The pH scale reflect whether the pH in your body is acidic or alkaline.  The scale ranges from 1 to 14.  A pH of 7 is considered neutral; above 7 is considered alkaline below 7 is considered acidic.  Seven then is the ideal balance for humans.  Because we have a diet that is so heavily influenced by sugars, achieving the balance (i.e., consuming more raw or alkaline foods) is a real challenge.

Less important to understand but good to know is this:  a pH of 4 is ten times more acidic than a pH of 5 and 100 times (10 times 10) more acidic than a pH of 6. The same holds true for pH values above 7, each of which is ten times more alkaline—another way to say basic—than the next lower whole value. For example, a pH of 10 is ten times more alkaline than a pH of 9 (epa).  Sounds impressive but the simlicity if each level of increase refelcts an acidic increase of ten times that.  The same would be true for alkaline, except most people don't have alkaline saturated diets. 

People and Plant Benefits

And here is something else you probably did not know; your plants require a similar pH balance to that of humans. Depending on what region of the world your food is from will also influence whether that food requires more alkaline or acid in its uptake.  Beets for example do best in a alkaline environment(pH) around 7-8; while grass  are slightly acidic or close to neutral between 6.5 to 7.  Basically plant life also thrives in close to this balance of 7.  

All of this makes sense if you consider a couple of different points: 1) we consume a lot of plant life (or we should)  so we should attempt to maintain a similar balance 2) we are evolved from single cellular organism that thrived on plant life (if you subscribe to the scientific theory) as such, our biological system  should have similar requirements.

 Maintaining a better pH balance means a better quality of life.  Eating more alkaline and raw vegetables, fewer sugary and processed foods (which includes milk) will reduce the negative affects of an acidic body.  

If you are a gardner, seek to balance your soil as well (there are devices to monitor this).  I use to have a 100 gallon ( 378 liters)  salt water aquarium at one point; maintaining the pH balance was critical to the fish survival, so it is no surprise the level of importance pH has on the body for me.

From healthy bones to healthy blood, pH affects everything about you and your bodily function.

Please work harder to stay healthy by balancing what you eat and likely adding more alkaline type food to your diet, while consuming less sugary and processed foods.

Alkaline foods: flax seed or oil, brown rice, millet, soaked almonds, tomato slices, fresh avocado, natural vegetable soups or pressed vegetable juices (not canned likely to have sugar) and beets. For a comprehensive list email me

Alkaline foods: flax seed or oil, brown rice, millet, soaked almonds, tomato slices, fresh avocado, natural vegetable soups or pressed vegetable juices (not canned likely to have sugar) and beets.  For a comprehensive list email me

Gardening with Green Elements

Preparing and planning your garden benefits the enveironment, your finances and your health.  Enjoy the video.  Or go directly to youtube (link full view)

Radiation and its affects Wikipedia

This is just a brief reference to information about radiation that has several very reliable links which will help you look at the network to resources for the information they collected.  
Wikipedia is a great resource in the peer-to-peer world that cooperatively helps people understand more about the world and events shaping the world in terms of gaining additional insights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning

Wind patterns and radiation drift

These two videos and other like them will help people understant a littel more about the potential outcome of the nuclear activity in Japan as well as context.
In the first video they put in laymans terms earth temperatures air flow patters.  I like that they look at Asia and not just the US.

Aribic: أنماط الرياح

French: La configuration des vents

Spanish:Patrones de viento

Catalan: Patrons de vent