Buffalo Mindfulness Community sponsors new group, plans retreat – Buffalo alternative medicine
The Buffalo Mindfulness Community now has a sister group, Buffalo Mindfulness North. The first meeting of the group will take place Thursday, October 28 at Saint Andrew’s Church. St. Andrew’s is located at 3017 Main Street, near Lisbon in University Heights.
The doors will open at 7:00 PM. Meditation will begin at 7:30. Two rounds of sitting and walking meditation will be followed by either an audio Dharma talk or another round of sitting. The group ends at 9:00. Buffalo Mindfulness North replaces the Wednesday evening Daemen College meeting. Daemen will continue to host the Sunday meeting of the Awakening Community at Rosary Hall.
Friday, November 19, will begin a retreat. The Friday evening talk will begin at 7:30 PM, and the Saturday events will begin at 9:30 AM and end at 5:30 PM. The guest is Shinzen, who will speak about “Unity and Diversity within the Buddhist Practice Traditions.”
There is no cost for the program, and a vegetarian lunch will be provided. Donations are welcomed.
How to Get a Better Night of Sleep
Before I had kids I had some great habits and routines. I ate properly, woke up at 4:30 every morning, exercised hard and often, accomplished so much in my work life that my income soared, and still had plenty of time for fun and relaxation. Somewhere along the road I lost it all. But I know how to get it back.
The road along which I “lost it” is a little path you might have heard of called PARENTHOOD. All my schedules and routines were immediately crushed by the needs of the little people I adopted who were neither aware of my house rules, nor did they care. I slept, ate, cleaned house, and socialized when they allowed it. I lost my business. I lost my mind and I gained weight.
It has taken five years to get my children and family healthy, happy, and adjusted. I guess I just expected my healthy habits and fit body to return as well. It didn’t.
Now I knew that what was missing was my good habits, routines and scheduling and I tried to recapture all that but I kept getting sabatoged by exhaustion. I attributed it to stress, to lack of exercise, to staying up too late, etc. But then I remembered my old sleep strategy! And my life has changed.
The strategy is based on planning your sleep around your body’s natural sleep cycles. Remember when we learned in school about REM (rapid eye movement) and the different phases of sleep? The body sleeps in 90 minutes cycles which are broken down into different phases. For our purposes here we can explain those cycles into 3 phases as follows.
*65 minutes of normal, non REM sleep.
*20 minutes of REM sleep, the very deepest sleep, when dreams occur.
*5 more minutes of of non REM sleep.
That 90 minute cycle is followed by a brief period of almost consciousness as your body prepares for the next 90 minute cycle. You are very easily disturbed at this point and easily awakened. If you plan your wake up call for this moment in your sleep “limbo” you will have the most energetic, refreshing, productive day possible.
It is easy to do.You still want to shoot for 8 hours of sleep. 6 is really the bare minimum and 12 is too much. Keeping those parameters in mind, along with what time you must get up in the morning to be on time at work or school or wherever your day takes you, count backwards in 90 minute increments to find your optimum bed time.
For example. I like to get up at 4:30. Sounds crazy right? But it gives me 2 hours to workout, tidy up the house and simply enjoy some quiet before the kids get up for school. So from 4:30 I count backward in 90 minute increments… 4:30 to 3:00, (1.5 hours, definitely not enough sleep) 3:00 to 1:30 (3 hours, no way!) 1:30 to 12:00 (5.5 hours is still not enough), 12 to 10:30 (7 hours is pretty good. I can handle that if it was a late night of homework with the kids or I rented a good movie) 10:30 to 9:00. (8.5 hours of sleep! Perfect!). So my routine is to be asleep by 9 but I know that if I don’t make it until 10:30 I am in good shape too. By the same token, if I am out very late and don’t get home until the wee hours I would tweek my wake up time to accomodate that 90 minute cycle even if it means 30 minutes less of sleep. Because I know that extra 30 minutes is not going to be as beneficial to me respecting my body’s natural sleep patterns.
I discovered this 90 minute sleep cycle strategy when I was 24 from an amazing and new age-ish co-worker who went on to enrich my life for years with her unconventional wisdom. I used the strategy until I was 35 and went into new mom “just-trying-to-survive” mode. While using the sleep strategy I never had to use an alarm clock, regardless of what time I went to bed. After years without using the strategy I didn’t even hear my alarm clock and I woke up sick and groggy every day despite how early I went to bed.
I don’t know what made me remember the strategy, but I am so glad I did. I suppose it was from finally getting my adopted children settled and coming out of a few years of intensity and challenge. The 90 minute sleep rule changed my life once before and I am enjoying watching it transform my life once again.
Sleeping and insomnia: how to have a great night sleep
Having a good night sleep is important so that you can wake up fresh the next day and be ready for your day. Trouble sleeping is not a great thing for most of us. You’ll have trouble sleeping if you have a medical condition and pain could be keeping you awake. There
some people that will have trouble sleeping from time to time due their particular body response.
You can do several things to help you out in getting a good night sleep. One of those is to exercise or walk around before you go to bed. It works well. When you’re tired you’re most likely to fall asleep better.
The next thing is to avoid drinking coffee, green tea or any drinks that have caffeine in it because it’ll keep you awake. You will want to drink water around bedtime. Coffee will keep you awake for a long time.
The next thing that you can do is to not eat a lot before going to bed. When you eat a lot you can get tire and agitated and feel bad and you will have trouble falling asleep. You’ll get a headache sometimes too.
Next thing that you can do is to keep your room dark and quiet. Keep all noise down in the house. Play soft jazz music to keep neighbor’s noise level down. If you sleep with someone and their snoring or movement is keeping you awake then you should sleep by yourself.
Boost Your Focus by Using Mindfulness Exercises
Unfortunately the Internet, the greatest information tool of our time also creates the biggest distraction possible. However, there is an exercise you are able to practice to increase your concentration and make it razor sharp. If your concentration is horrible consider mindfulness exercises.
Unfortunately the Internet, the greatest information tool of our time also creates the biggest distraction possible. With the number of devices all of us have together with the always on attitude it’s become so difficult to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. For anybody wanting to be more productive this is a serious problem.
Focus
To make this situation even more difficult, add in a thing called multi tasking. Multi tasking is yet another buzzword, however a lot of people have seen that starting lots of things at once doesn’t mean completing all of them. Now we have multiple things all wanting our attention at once, now our concentration is really shot..
However, there is an exercise you are able to practice to increase your concentration and make it razor sharp. If your concentration is horrible consider mindfulness exercises.
Take away don’t add
When you concentrate on one task at a time you can do a higher quality job and actually complete that task. The important thing here is concentration. Being able to concentrate on a single thing at a time is a skill, that takes practice. Concentrating on one thing at a time is one of key principals of meditation, additionally it is something you can practice with mindfulness exercises.
If you fight to sit still for 2 minutes, you need to develop you concentration. To accomplish this you need to practice some mindfulness exercises.
Be in the moment
The very nature of mindfulness is to entirely focus on one thing at a time, or to be totally “in the moment”. You may have discovered this once or twice when listening to a song, or doing something where you’ve lost track of time. Focusing on one thing may seem simple however it’s far from it.
Try this experiment
Next time you’re at the office, try to work on a document solidly for 10 minutes. Try to focus only on the document and don’t do any of the following things:
- Answer the phone
- Check Facebook
- Send an SMS
- Reply to the outlook pop up
- Send or receive any messages from any type of system
- Respond to a walk up or talk to a colleague
This will be impossibly hard. Why? Simply because there will literally be many distractions. It will take a lot of practice to master this. The power of learning this is incredibly useful in a work environment. If you’re able to focus on one thing at a time you will find your level of productivity explode.At home it’s understandable there will be an enormous amount of distraction. If however you can find only a couple of minutes every day to practice concentrating on one thing you’ll easily recognise the benefits.
Using mindfulness exercises to get the job done
With more experience you’ll find you’ll be able to concentrate on things longer and sharpen your focus into a precision laser able to cut through tasks with ease. This is simply an example of mindfulness exercises. Why not learn more about mindfulness exercises and how they could help you!
X-Inactivation in Chromosomes: Mosaicism in Females Lessens Instance of X-Linked Diseases
Chromosomes encapsulate DNA and are responsible for every physical aspect and a host of personality traits of every human body. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Men and women have all the same types of chromosomes, except one vital pair. In women the last pair will be XX. In men the last pair will be XY. Whether or not the last chromosome pair is XX or XY is determined by the male sperm.
Human Genome Project
The quest for the map of human chromosomes was started in 1990. Surprisingly, the project was fully completed in May 2006. The results have already poured mounds of new information about genetics into the biology world.
For instance, one thing determined was that the X chromosome has many more genes than the Y chromosome. Due to less genetic material from their fathers, males are 6% more genetically similar to their mothers. Male twins are also slightly more identical than female twins due to less genetic information, according to Natalie Angiers, in her book Woman: An Intimate Geography.
X and Y Chromosomes
According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, it was determined that the Y chromosome contains about 70+ genes. The X chromosome carries about 2,500 genes, and is responsible for about 300 specific diseases, including colorblindness, prostate cancer, hemophilia, baldness, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and many mental retardations, as reported by Jai Dennison at Daily News Central, in his article, “X-Chromosome Studies Unlock Deep Mysteries About Gender Differences.” Women are less likely to suffer from these X-linked genetic diseases due to what is called X-inactivation.
X-inactivation and Mosaicism
When two X chromosomes come together to create a female embryo, X inactivation occurs. During X-inactivation, cells randomly chooses to “shut down” sections of its extra X chromosome to form a “mosaic” of genes.
Consequently, X-linked diseases are more common in men than women, since women have both Mom’s and Dad’s X genes to pull from. Scientists are still discerning just how “random” the X-inactivation process is. Philip Avner and Edith Heard’s article “X-Chromosome Inactivation: Counting, Choice and Initiation” discusses interesting research in this area. Similar to the reason that tortoise-shell cats can only be female, X-inactivation creates a mosaic of X-linked traits in women but not in men, who are subject their single X’s full expression.
Inheritance and the X Chromosome
Because men only have one X chromosome, men may inherit their mother’s genetic diseases related to the X chromosome but will never inherit their father’s X-linked genetic diseases, since men only receive their father’s Y chromosome. While men escape any X-linked diseases from their father, they are vulnerable to and likely to fully develop any of the X-linked diseases given to them on their mother’s X chromosome.
In contrast, women’s double X requires that both parents have a gene an X-linked disease and even then severity of inherited disease will likely vary due to the fact that during female development random sections of the X-chromosome are inactivated. A woman is less likely to develop X-linked diseases, and more likely to develop a light instance if a disease should develop.
In conclusion, nature appears to have a “back up plan” for women through X-inactivation, while unlucky men must suffer the full severity of X-linked diseases.
How to Cope With Sleep Apnea
More and More people are being diagnosed with sleep apnea, a problem where you actually are not breathing for periods during the night. I am not a medical professional and will not attempt to explain the reasons why this is happening, but the treatment is usually a machine that is used to keep the air passages open to allow for deep, uninterrupted sleep. There are various types of facial masks used, depending on the need. But, for most everyone, especially those using masks that cover mouth and nose or even the whole face, it requires some adjustment and patience.
While not a medical professional, I am mentioning some things that were helpful to me as I experienced this adjustment. The good news is that it is worth the trouble! You may not realize how little rest you have had until you know what it is to deeply and soundly sleep. For many, like myself, with a serious sleep apnea, it can be life-changing!
Instructions Things You’ll Need:
- Doctor’s care and administration of a sleep test for apnea
- Doctor’s prescription of machine and machine settings.
- a PATIENT Medical equipment person to help yhou achieve success.Step 1
Step 1
Listen carefully to what your doctors’ and technicians say to you. And don’t hesitate to call them back with questions and problems. At your sleep test, you may begin treatment or determination of prescriptions. IN this setting, a prescription is the setting for your machine. Depending on your severity, the higher settings require a machine that breathes in and out since it would be difficult to exhale against the very high pressure. Usually, they will work you up gradually to the higher pressure. Also the machine has a ramp where it increases from a lower setting as you fall off to sleep.
Step 2
Don’t forget to use distilled water in your machine. not Bottled water but distilled. VERY IMPORTANT> I found that I do better with the heat setting on; I thought I wouldn’t since I am hot all the time with menopausal hot flashes. But, the heat setting seems to be soothing and opens up the airways some. I was having trouble using mine until I turned the heat on.
**Be careful when transporting your machine to empty out the water reservoir first…….It leaks everywhere!(experience)
Step 3
At first it feels very uncomfortable to have the air blowing in your face. Small sessions at a time are good, while watching a favorite tv program or listening to a book on tape. I like to listen to foreign language tapes. It is best not to focus on the actual mechanics of breathing.
Tips & Warnings
- THE MOST important thing…..Continue to explore different masks with your professional equipment person until you find the correct mask and the correct size and fit. I was ready to give up when my technician brought me the GEL mask. It was perfect for me. It was lightweight, and had a different feel from the hard plastic. It meant the difference in my chunking the whole thing!
- Some folks just have a nose mask….it is not as comfortable as oxygen..it has to go all the way up in your nose and seal the nostrils. A friend has this and is very comfortable, but I hated it. I am a mouth breather and they didn’t feel the effectiveness was going to be there anyway, but the high pressure makes the nose thing feel awful like your nose is exploding! My technician said that it was mainly for folks with lower pressures, or less air coming at you.
- But, just keep on bothering them till they find you one that is comfortable and effective. When I found the gel mask, which is the one most people get she said, I was unable to even use my machine at all.
- Whatever you have to do to follow your doctor’s directives, do it. Not doing it can permanently damage your heart. And besides long-term issues, once you get a good few hours on it, you will wake up and go WOW…is this how other people feel every day? Prior to my machine I had experienced about 4-6 weeks of little or no sleep. So it was like a GODsend.
How to Survive Sleeping With a Snoring Partner
Step 1
Put a pillow over your head to drown out the noise You’ve looked forward to getting back to bed since you arose in the early morning. Ahhh, all settled in, and what is that horrible noise you hear? Oh no! How are you going to survive another night with “the snorer”. He’s oblivious to your pain. He’s already out, mouth hanging open and horrible sounds emanating from his throat. You think about the dreadful things you want to do to him . But you can’t, because 1st, you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in a jail cell, and secondly you have to find a civil solution to this. Try pushing him and tell him to ‘roll-over’. It didn’t work? Put your pillow overtop your own head, even though you’d rather put it overtop his head!
Step 2
Sleeping peacefully on the couch Still not working? Nudge him again. No response? The couch is the next step. Either him or you, it’s got to be done. Send him packing to the couch, or the spare bedroom. Sleep deprivation is unhealthy for you also.
Step 3
Pillow fight for your health. You’re feeling even more disturbed, because through the walls of your house, you can still hear that, that, that,,man sound again! Do something constructive. If he’s going to keep you awake, then all is fair in love and war. Wake him up with a pillow fight!! The kind you had with your sisters or brothers when you were young! This may relieve some of the stress and tension and maybe even be fun.
Step 4
C-Pap Machine saves lives. Make a Doctor appointment for your spouse to have a sleep study test done. This only takes a phone call, and it will be better for his health and yours if he goes away for one night to be studied. He may have sleep apnea, and this could be causing him to stop breathing, and then he grabs a long breath and a loud wretched snore. In the long run, you will have a happier, healthier, safer life with your spouse, because you’ll both be getting the proper sleep you need. Do this instead of divorcing him. He can’t help he’s got a problem, and this is a ‘fix-it’ kind of thing in a marriage! This I know personally. This is how I kept from having him euthanized! I do mean some of this in jest, but really, sleep apnea is jeopardizing his health
The Cost of Eating Organic
I have struggled with the organic food prices for awhile. On the one hand I would love to only eat organic foods and foods and groceries from local farmers. I want to support my local economy and businesses. However, I have four children and the portions are ridiculously small for a family of five. There is barely enough in one package for two of my children, let alone all four of them. I realize they are smaller for a reason and there is less processing, which is great. They are natural, fewer additives and preservatives, and more natural vitamins and minerals in them. However, none of that does any good if the portion is so small it will never fill my children or myself up. Compound the small sizes with the grossly high prices. Again, I realize the prices are higher because they are not made in bulk, they do come from private farmers, and they are not processed foods. But, again the size is bad enough, but the price is like being slapped in the face. Reason one as to why I rarely eat organic or feed my children organic foods. As much as I would like to at times and I think that maybe somehow they would get something more by me doing so, I simply can not afford it.
Then there is the other problem I do have with organic foods, that besides the extremely high prices and very tiny portions, is that some of the foods are just not very good. Now I know that my taste buds are not use to organic foods and that maybe over time they would adapt to all natural foods, versus highly processed foods. However, explaining why the cereal does not taste the same to a 2 year old is a loosing battle. As for myself, it just does not taste good and as much as I know that I will get over that at some time, the small portions and high prices, make swallowing the food even harder. Reason number two as to why I don’t buy more organic foods.
I guess when it really comes down to it, I would love to buy organic, but I also realize that I can’t afford it, the portions are not reasonable and the quality just is not there. Paying a higher price does not always mean better quality either. Many foods can be listed as organic, because the rules for organic foods are not that strict and the standards are not that high. I just am not willing to pay those prices for organic foods. My family is too large and realistically it just is not good money management to spend three times the going price for food items, because their package says organic.
Psychic Meditation for Telekinesis Training – Learn to be Psychic
While meditation is still fairly new to the Western world, it has long been practiced in the Eastern world. One discovery made is that meditation can help develop psychic powers. One of those powers is telekinesis which is the ability to move an object with the mind.
A very popular form of telekinesis has been spoon bending, popularized by Jack Houck. However, for now, let’s start with something more simple.
How to Be Psychic
When working on psychic development, practice is very important. In one way or another, psychic abilities involve the mind. In order to keep the mind clear, use meditation as a tool. Meditation can also play a key role when trying to learn telekinesis.
Psychic Meditation
When learning how to do telekinesis, start with trying to move a lightweight object. For this experiment, use a small pencil. Place a piece of paper on the table. Put a small pencil on the piece of paper. Trace the pencil on the paper in order to track its movement.
It’s best to already know basic meditation in order to use meditation for telekinesis development. Otherwise, the following meditation may not be successful. If you have never meditated before, learn some of the basics in the articles Sitting Meditation and Breathing Meditation.
Telekinesis Training
Begin by staring at the pencil. Make sure you burn the image into your mind. Now, sitting with good posture, allow your eyes to close and start taking relaxing, deep, slow long breaths. Clear your mind of all thoughts. Once you feel relaxed and focused, envision the pencil in your mind.
Using your mind only, try to roll the pencil. Visualize the pencil physically moving. Imagine part of your energy being transferred to the pencil in order to help it move. When you think you were able to psychically see the pencil move, end the meditation, open your eyes and see if you were successful.
Don’t be disappointed if nothing happened. Meditation skills and psychic development both take time and practice. An alternative to this experiment is to use a feather. Caution needs to be taken that you are far enough away from the feather that your breathing doesn’t cause it to move.
Many forms of psychic skills can be learned with the aid of meditation. Psychic meditation is a great way to try to learn telekinesis. Long practiced in the Eastern world, meditation can help develop other psychic abilities as well.
Meditations for Difficult People: Exercises to Protect Against Draining Relationships
Difficult people or times in a relationship are an unfortunate part of life. The following three meditations protect from such encounters, so one feels empowered and aware instead of drained and scared.
Judith Orloff’s Heart Meditation
Dr. Judith Orloff, psychiatrist and energy healer, recommends focusing on one’s own heart to boost energy, especially when dealing with difficult people.
The following adaptation of Orloff’s Three Minute Heart Meditation focuses on the beat of one’s own heart.
- Sit or stand comfortably. Notice the breath, and focus on slowing it.
- When breathing slowly, place the dominant hand over the heart. Imagine the heart beating and pumping against the palm of the hand.
- As the heart beats, close the eyes for a second and visualize a warm, bright light radiating from one’s heart. Keep imagining the heart pumping and the warm light growing warmer and brighter.
- Continue until the light completely surrounds the body.
- Now imagine a much-beloved person, place, or memory. Bathe that image in the light around the body, and see if the light grows brighter as one thinks of the image.
- When ready, focus again on the hand over the heart. Breathe deeply three times, and open the eyes.
The heart meditation can be practiced anywhere or anytime one has a free hand. One may desire to try it during or before a conversation with a difficult person to see how the exercise changes one’s perspective on the situation.
Shield Meditation
Blocking the effects of a negative person or encounter can prevent one from feeling drained and hopeless. The following visualization invites one to visualize a protective shield between him/her and a difficult person or situation.
- Breathe deeply in, and on the exhale visualize a blast of white light coming out of the mouth.
- Watch as the light forms a tall shield between the self and the difficult person or situation.
- Breathe in and out, and notice how strong the shield is, how it is curved towards you, and how nothing from the difficult person or situation is able to harm you.
- Look at the person or situation through the shield. Has your perspective changed?
When the threat has passed, or when one feels in control of the situation again, breathe in the shield of light, knowing that one can exhale it again at any time when needed.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s Compassion Meditation
Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace advocate Thich Nhat Hanh recommends seeing a situation through another’s eyes to increase compassion and understanding. The following adaptation of Hanh’s Compassion Meditation can be practiced in two parts, focusing on one’s own feelings surrounding a situation and focusing on the difficult person’s feelings.
Try this meditation to increase awareness about a difficult or frustrating relationship. The exercise works best with a person one knows well. Note that this meditation will invite deep reflection and self-awareness that may not necessarily be relaxing, though it certainly will bring healing in a relationship.
- Sit comfortably, with ten or more minutes to spare. Breathe in and out slowly and carefully.
- Bring to mind the person who is difficult. How does one feel about this person- angry, frustrated, or depressed? Sink into those feelings a little, and let them come.
- Hanh teaches that all anger has roots in past anger. Take a few minutes to notice any memories that may surface as one focuses on his/her anger. Spend some time sinking into those memories and letting them heal, if the experience is not too unpleasant.
- When have an understanding of one’s own feelings in the exchange, now focus on the person that is driving you crazy. What is his/her point of view? Try to get inside that person’s world to understand him/her better.
- What might the other person be feeling in this situation? Let those feelings come, too. Are they similar to the feelings you are having? What do you both have in common?
- If know that person well, imagine past experiences they have had that might lead them to be angry or unpleasant to you. Let those images flow and come.
- When have a clear idea of one’s own anger, as well as the other person’s anger, stop and place the right hand over the heart. Rest it there for a minute. Feel the heart beating.
- Now visualize a ball of warm light around the self. Extend the right hand towards the other who has caused pain and frustration. Watch as the ball of light extends around him/her. Bring the hand back to one’s own heart and see the light coming back to the self.
- Rest for several minutes in the light. When ready, open the eyes.
This meditation may bring up information that is useful for personal reflection. Keeping a journal or piece of paper nearby may also be helpful.
Draining people are a part of life, but with meditation, their negative effects can be minimized.