HW420-Unit 4 Loving-Kindness

The loving kindness practice has been hard for me so far. It is easy to visualize someone that I hold with great love and tenderness and expand on those feelings and I was able to turn them into myself and become at peace with myself and my body, but it was hard to treat some of my unpleasant experiences as friends therefore it was very difficult to get to a place of stillness, peace and gentleness. I tried to take in a loved one’s suffering and just found myself worrying about them, but still I tried to send out health and joy to them and contemplate how I might be of assistance to them. Because I was fully successful with the first two parts of the exercise, it was almost impossible to take on the suffering of strangers.  In spite of all this, I did feel my heart expanding with loving-kindness. This is a practice that will take some time to master and I can see why they recommend doing it daily. I would recommend to others as a practice to help someone expand their mind.

A mental workout is as necessary for psychological and psychospiritual health as physical exercise is for physical health. Research studies show that mental training can transform the mind by reducing anger, hatred, fear, worry, confusion and doubt and enhancing patience, loving-kindness, openness, acceptance and happiness  Daily mental training through meditation, prayer and visualization can open one’s mind and help to develop one’s mind-body connection and expand our healing capacity thus promoting physical, mental, psychological and spiritual well-being (Dacher, 2006).

Reference:

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral health the path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, Inc

HW420 Unit 3 - The Mind-Body Connection

Our assignment for this week’s blog post was the rate our Physical, Spiritual and Psychological well-being on a scale of 1 -10 (ten- being optimal well-being).

I rate my physical well-being as a 7 because I am in over-all good health other than being overweight. The reason that it is only a seven is because I have not had a complete physical in at least four years. Our insurance does do a health screening each year which includes blood tests and tells us what our risk factors are, but I have not followed up with our doctor on these results.  Also I have not had a Pap smear or mammogram for quite a few years and at 66, I have not yet had a colonoscopy.  I rarely get sick, so I rarely go to the doctor.

I rate my spiritual well-being at a 7 also because even though I go to church regularly, I do not feel connected to God or Jesus. I think that the problem there is that I do not pray regularly therefore it is hard to feel connected when I don’t communicate with them. 

I rate my psychological well-being as a 7 also because even though I feel that my mind is mostly clear and sharp, I do suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder and can become quite depressed and despondent when the weather is gloomy.  Also since I am retired and often alone, I often feel disconnected from the world. Although, this has gotten a bit better since my youngest son (28) came home to live for a while this December.

I set some goals for myself at the beginning of the month and have been meaning to write them down, but had not gotten around to doing it yet. So I was glad for the assignment to do so.

My main physical goal for this year is to take the results of the health screening that will be done on January 31^st to my doctor and get the test that I have not had this year. In addition, I will walk at least a mile a day 5 or 6 days a week and eat more fruit.

My spiritual goal is going to be the hardest for me, but I think that the way to begin is to commit to pray at least once a day.

My psychological goal is to make sure that I get at least 15 minutes of sunshine a day, in order to alleviate any symptoms of SAD and to attend church activities more often, so that I don't feel as lonely.

Before I go on to the relaxation exercise, I would like to discuss something that really touched me in our reading this week.  When I was reading the Meeting Asclepius visualization, I was really touched.  The personal that I visualized was my maternal Grandmother as I feel that for me she embodied the characteristics of peace, wisdom, compassion, love and joy that were mentioned. I was so touched when reading this visualization and imagining her that I was brought to tears. After I finished, I thought well Jesus also embodies these characteristics and wouldn’t it be nice if I could visualize him with the same clarity as I did my Grandmother and let him by my Asclepius. This is a goal I would like to achieve. 

The “Crime of the Century” relaxation technique was a little more successful for me than the one from last week.  Even though I was able to imagine the colors, I was not able to imagine the beams of light, but I liked the affirmations that accompanied the colors and can see the benefit of repeating them on a regular basis. The breathing also was very relaxing and so was the speaker’s voice. 

HW420 Journey On Activity

I have tried relaxation techniques in the past and I have to say that it is not something that I am good at. That said, I did have some success this time.  It was nice just to take the time to relax and become more mindful of my body.  Focusing on my breathing did help me. In fact, I found that when I have trouble falling asleep that just focusing on paying attention to breathing in and out relaxes me so much that before I know it I am asleep. This is something that I know I will have to try several more times in order to master it.

HW420 Unit 2 Introduction

One thing that I didn't specifically mention in the about me section of the blog is that I love to write, but you may have figured that by the fact that I have several blogs listed. I have a total of five blogs and each one reflects a different aspect of my personality. I created this blog for my intellectual writing, so rather than create another blog for my HW420 class, I asked the professor for permission to use this one. I have a blog which I use to review movies that I like and talk about places that I have been: http://agalavantinggrandma.blogspot.com/

I like to cook and experiment with recipes and the blog that I created for that is: http://cookingfasteasy.blogspot.com/

Another one of my interests is crafting especially knitting, crocheting and jewelry making and the blog that I created for that is: http://craftygrandmajune.blogspot.com/

I also have a blog that reflects my interest in Health and Wellness at: http://nutritionfitnesseducation.blogspot.com/ 

As you can imagine, it is hard keeping up with all these blogs, so if you check them out you will see that postings have been kind of sporadic.  I have a lot of writing to do for school, so that makes it hard too. 

The assignment also asked us to write a reflective statement and one that is the motto for my life is: "Life is a journey to discovery".  My blogs reflect this because as I stated before each one reflects a different aspect of my personality.  If I had to sum up my personality, I would say that all in all, I am very creative and I like to think outside the box.

The next 9 weeks

For the next nine weeks this blog will be dedicated to my journey toward integral health and will be used for my Creating Wellness class (HW420) at Kaplan University on-line.  Please follow my journey and feel free to subscribe.

GMO's:Future Food or Frankenfood???

I have my own opinion about GMO’s (Genetically Modified Organisms), but for the purpose of this article, I will present both sides of the issue. First, however, let’s discuss a little of the science behind them.

Biotechnology is the field of science concerned with modifying the DNA of plants by adding or removing genes. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s) are plants or bacteria which have been changed in this manner to produce certain desired traits (Schlenker & Roth, 2011). Genetic Modification is accomplished through biotechnology or plant breeding. Prior to 1990, crops were grown using traditional methods. After that time, biotechnology dramatically changed the way food was produced. Today biotechnology is used in agriculture and food processing.

The three major goals of biotechnology are:

• Resistance to Disease and insects: Because plants that are produced using biotechnology have a built in resistance to disease and insects, fewer pesticides need to be used which is better for the environment (Biotechnology Industry Organization, 2012). Pesticides are designed to kill and therefore by their very nature pose a risk to all living organisms and the environment (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2011).
• Increased tolerance to weather conditions: Plants genetically modified to survive in extreme weather conditions are less likely to be destroyed by late frost. This has the potential to increase crop yields and food shortages, especially in the developing world (Schlenker & Roth, 2011).
• Increased nutritional value: Genetic modification has increased the monounsaturated fatty acid content of soybean oil and scientists are working toward increasing the lycopene content of tomatoes and increasing the protein and micronutrients of grain. This could help lessen nutrient deficiencies in developing countries (Schlenker & Roth, 2011).

The three major concerns those opposing GMO’s have are:

• Risk of allergic reactions: Biotechnology changes the proteins in these crops and may introduce proteins which have the properties of known allergens. There is a growing body of evidence of allergies which have been caused by GMO soy and corn and even though screening for this is recommended, many of the GMO crops in our food supply fail those tests (Institute for Responsible Technology, 2009).
• Potential toxicity: Biotechnology crops have been linked to disease, sterility and death. Animal deaths were linked to Biotech cotton plants, corn and potatoes and people in five Filipino villages became ill when Biotech corn was pollinating (Institute for Responsible Technology, 2009).
• Environmental concerns: The GM crops may themselves become weeds, they may move GM crops may serve as conduits and move to wild plants creating weeds, they could produce toxic substances which can spread to plants and animals, and they could affect the ecosystem. So far none of these concerns have come to fruition (Mellon & Rissler, 2003).

Here in the United States GMO’s are considered safe based on experience not on scientific testing. In order to know for sure whether they are safe or not, scientific research and testing must be conducted to find out how the new proteins which are formed affect human health and how the transfer of the new gene affects plant metabolism (GMO Compass, 2006).

So to answer the question posed in the title of this article, even though the benefits of GMO crops have the potential to increase crop yields, reduce food shortages and improve the nutritional value of the world’s food supply; not knowing whether or not these foods are safe for human consumption makes eating them a questionable practice.
References:

Biotechnology Industry Organization. (2012, June 1).Global economic and environmental benefits of ge crops continues to rise. Retrieved from http://www.bio.org/articles/global-economic-and-environmental-benefits-ge-crops-continues-rise

GMO Compass. (2006, February 15). Evaluating safety: A major undertaking. Retrieved   from    http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/safety/human_health/41.evaluation_safety_gm_food_major_undertaking.html

Institute for Responsible Technology. (2009). Health risks - gmo's. Retrieved from             “http://www.responsibletechnology.org/health-risks

Mellon, M., & Rissler, J. (2003, June 12). Ucsusa. Retrieved from             http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts genetic_engineering/environmental-effects-of.html

Schlenker, E. D., & Roth, S. L. (2011). Williams' essentials of nutrition and diet therapy.    (Tenth ed.). St. Louis, Missouri: Mosby.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (2011, November 29).Environmental contaminants  program. Retrieved from http://www.fws.gov/contaminants/Issues/Pesticides.cfm

The Health Benefits of Journaling

All my life, the leaders of my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) have counseled us to keep a journal (LeAnn, 2011) . Their reason of doing this was to preserve your life history for your posterity. If you want to know more about the LDS (Mormon) perspective on journaling you can go to: http://mormonwoman.org/2011/06/06/the-purpose-of-a-journal/

Recently, while studying stress for my Exercise Fitness class in college, I was reminded of the other benefits of keeping a journal. Journaling in general is a great way to get your feeling out and an excellent mental health strategy. Sometimes writing things down helps you identify your problems and get your feelings out. We sometimes don't recognize that we are under stress until we get our feelings on paper. One great thing to do in a journal is look for the positive things in your life.

In an article I found entitled “The Health Benefits of Journaling”, the scientific benefits of journaling are discussed (Purcell, 2006).

These benefits include:

• Clarifying your thoughts and feelings. Taking a few minutes to jot down your thoughts and emotions will quickly help you get in touch with them.
• Help you get to know yourself better. Writing routinely will help you get to know what makes you feel the way you do and become more clear about situations and people who are toxic.
• Reduce stress. Writing about anger, sadness and painful emotions helps you feel release some of the intensity of the emotions and feel calmer.
• Solve problems more effectively. Writing unlocks your creatively, which engages your right-brain and gives you another prospective on them.
• Resolve disagreements with others. Writing about misunderstandings helps clarify your feelings thus releasing some of the emotions so that you are better able to understand the other persons point of view (Purcell, 2006).

In addition to all the benefits previously mentioned, journaling helps you look back and see patterns, trends, improvement and growth over time. Reading your journal enables you to look back at past problems and see how you have resolved them (Purcell, 2006).

References:
LeAnn. (2011, June 6). The purpose of a journal. Retrieved from http://mormonwoman.org/2011/06/06/the-purpose-of-a-journal/

Purcell, M. (2006). The Health Benefits of Journaling. Psych Central. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/the-health-benefits-of-journaling/