Christchurch Bishop condemns Easter Sunday jelly wrestling.
The best part is the last line.
[via Oddwalk Oddblog]
April 11, 2006 by Gene
Condemnation
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April 10, 2006 by Gene
Emotion and Memory
I have spent the last few days plowing through Molecules of Emotion by Dr. Candace Pert. It is an amazing book. Here is one of the little nuggets and my interpretation of it.
She sites a study that was done on mice in which they learned how to get through a maze, something we know rodents can do. The study had the mice learn to go through the maze while it had a drug in its system. Every time it went through the maze it had the drug in the system, until it learned the maze by heart. When the mice were later placed in the maze without the drug in their system, they struggled to get through the maze.
When we have a drug of any type in our system (caffeine, aspirin, alcohol, nicotine) parts of the drug float around our system and make connection to small receptacles on the cell wall of the cell in our body. They then give the cell information making it react in a certain way. We have all felt this when an aspirin kills the pain.
What the study tells us is that the chemical state of the body effects how we remember. Meaning it is easies to remember something if our body is in the same chemical state was when we learned it.
Emotions affect our body the same way. When we feel emotions, peptides are released from any of a number of sources (included our glands) in to our body. The peptides interact with the receptacles on the walls of our cells, passing information, causing a reaction (eg our face get hot and red when we are embarrassed).
MY CONCUTION: This means that the emotional state we are in when we learn something is going to effect the way we are able to recall the information. If we are in a calm state (with one set of peptides flowing through our body) when we study for a test, but are very anxious when we take the test (with another set of peptides flowing through the system) it is going to be harder to remember what we studied. Thus the sensation of going blank before a test we are nervous about.
SOLUTION: Learn a few relaxation techniques. Visualization. EFT. Breathing. All are easy, and many can be done in lest than 30 seconds.
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April 10, 2006 by Gene
Rock Star Needs Help
Joia Farmer is heading back into the studio to record “Before and Afterlife” her new album. One of the songs she records is going to be a request. Submit a song you think Joia should cover at JoiaFarmer.com.
I am hoping for “Dancing on the Ceiling” or “Welcome to the Jungle”
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April 5, 2006 by Gene
The Power of Belief
When I say I believe something do I mean I believe it, or are am I just hoping for it? Here is a brief audio exploration into the power of our beliefs.
http://Monterastelli.com/audio/PowerOfBelief.mp3 (4m 22s/1.0 mb)
Feel free to copy, save, and share this file with anyone and everyone.
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April 5, 2006 by Gene
Your So Vain
“We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don’t care for.”
- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach
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April 3, 2006 by Gene
Ultra Competitive Family
My father (who is home and well, thanks for asking!) sent the whole family an e-mail today. He received the bill for his surgery and asked the family to guess how much it was. The winner will receive 25,000 miles from his frequent flyer account.
My sister immediately protested. Her husband is a health care consultant, who helps set hospital pricing. She wanted her husband disqualified.
I would have thought she would have wanted her husband to win so they could use the miles.
She would just rather win.
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April 2, 2006 by Gene
Power of Prayer
I think I often pay lip service to prayer and it power. How often do I utter the lines “I will keep you in my prayers.,” just to have the thought leave my head as quickly as it entered.
In fact, the power of prayer is real, and it is scientifically proven. This is from the book Science and the Akashic Field by Ervin Laszlo:
As reported in the Southern Medical Journal in 1988, Byrd formed a group of experimenters made up of ordinary people whose only common characteristic was a habit of regular prayer in Catholic and Protestant congregations around the country. The selected people were asked to pray for the recovery of a group of 192 patients; another set of 210 patients, for whom nobody prayed made up the control group…The people who were to pray were given the names of the patients and some information about their heart condition…all patients had between five and seven people praying for them. The results were significant. The prayed-for group was five times less likely than the control group to require antibiotics; it was three time less likely to develop pulmonary edema; none in the prayed-for group required endotracheal incubation (while twelve patients in the control group did)…It did not matter how close or far the patients were to those who prayed for them, nor did the manner of praying make a difference. Only the fact of concentrated and repeated prayer was a factor.
There have also been a number of studies where groups of people mediating have reduced the violent crime rates in major cities. Here is a study where the murder rate dropped by 25% in Washington, DC.
Also, check out my latest reflection on prayer
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April 1, 2006 by Gene
When Dodge Ball Goes Wrong
I don’t even know where to begin with this story about a youth minister over reacting in a dodge ball game. Read More
[via D. Scott Miller]
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