Lifestyles

Meditation is for everyone. It is the universal state of mind when you are not resisting moment to moment experience and when you are in a state of deep loving absorption. Even most nonmeditators have “accidentally” slipped into a meditative state at one time or another.

Have you ever been so absorbed in a task that you lost all track of time? This can be prayer, sewing, singing, gardening or many other things. If so, you may have discovered meditation.

The ego resists uncomfortable experience and clings to pleasant experience, often by restricting the breath. This process is what causes stress in our lives. The resulting stress and tension wreaks havoc on the body and the mind. It also distorts our clear perception of the world and ruins relationships. We must gradually train the mind to be present with reality if we are to have any chance at realizing wholeness.

Taking time to train yourself to enter a state of relaxed, nonattached awareness is extremely rejuvenating and has too many health benefits to mention here. Regular meditation practitioners say that it is as essential for you as stopping for gas is for your car.

There are two components to meditation. They are concentration and equanimity.

Concentration means just what you think it means. In meditation, you concentrate on an object of focus. You relax into it and become increasingly absorbed in it.

Imagine two people in a room with you. One of them you are absolutely in love with and hope to marry some day. The other is some schmuck from your high school days who was never very interesting. Who are you concentrating on more? You are connected with the former on a much deeper level. The two of you “touch” on finer levels. This is what you are aiming for in an object of focus. Therefore, when choosing one, think of one that you can fall in love with. Maybe it’s the word “Jesus” or a visualization of a waterfall. Maybe it’s just your own breath or a body sensation.

Equanimity is a detached awareness of whatever is occurring in the moment. When we resist experience of senses, thoughts and emotions, clarity of mind becomes distorted. Equanimity occurs when we are present with experience and detached from the poles of attraction and repulsion.

You will be distracted with internal chatter during your concentration practice. Thoughts will tempt you, and so will emotions and body sensations. However, these are all happening in the present moment. When they come up, take note by saying “thinking” or “angry”. Let the thoughts move through you like clouds through the sky. Just watch. Then, bring your attention back to the object of focus. This process trains the mind to achieve equanimity.

Now that you know the theory, let’s try it for real.

Sit down in a chair with your ankles crossed or with your feet flat on the floor. Let your hands rest on your lap. Plant your tailbone and “stack” your vertebrae one on top of the next, starting with the tailbone. When you get to the head, your chin will want to tuck in a little bit.

Take a few deep breaths through the nose. Then, just breathe normally. Watch your breath without trying to control it. Is it shallow? Is it deep? Does it start in the chest? How does it sound? Relax and observe.

Your object of focus is the cool feeling in the nostrils as the breath enters your nose and the warm feeling as the breath leaves your nose. From here onward, pay no attention to where the breath goes. Just feel it where it enters and leaves the nostrils.

This is all that exists. Become deeply absorbed in the breath. Soon, the breath will deepen naturally and the brainwaves will slow down.

When a thought comes up, silently say “thinking” to take note of what is happening in the present moment. The thought will start to lose power over you. Go back to the breath without judgment.

Don’t worry about how “deep” you’re going. Your state of absorption will vary according to the fluctuations of your mind. Do this at the same time each day, even if you only have five minutes. You will become much better at it over time.

Now you know the basic nuts and bolts of meditation. In future articles, we will learn how you can fit meditation into the busiest schedules and how to create a strategy that makes meditation much easier to do. After a while, you will realize that meditation is for everyone, and not just people who are fascinated with “eastern” religions.

Tom Von Deck is an international corporate meditation trainer, stress management speaker and author of Oceanic Mind – The Deeper Meditation Training Course. You can sneak preview the first half of the book and get free guided meditation mp3s at Tom’s website, www.DeeperMeditation.net

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Tags: meditation, meditation for everyone, meditation is for everyone, meditation techniques

Ted’s Restaurant has the feel of an old diner. One of the restaurant’s main color schemes is green.The waiters wear green t-shirts, the padding on the booths are green and the cabinets are green. Did I mention that green is my favorite color, so that might be a reason to make this my new favorite restaurant, lol! However, I’ve got many more reasons on why I enjoyed my experience.

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Tags: desserts, diner, Greek food, meat n' three, peach cobbler, soul food, Ted's, UAB, vegetables

As we gear up for the upcoming HIV awareness month, I thought it would be great to share a new form of contraception. Microbicides, currently still in the research phase, could possibly be used to lower the risk of acquiring HIV in women.

The Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) is leading the National Institutes of Health-funded study in which SPL7013 Gel, or Viva Gel, is being tested for the first time in sexually active young women to determine the product’s safety, acceptability and ease of use. The expanded safety study, known as MTN-004, is being conducted at the University of South Florida in Tampa and the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan through collaboration between the MTN.

Vaginal microbicides are applied topically to the surface of the vagina and are designed to reduce or prevent the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. A microbicide can be formulated in many ways, such as a gel or cream. Several microbicide products are being tested in clinical trials, although none is yet approved or available for use by women. VivaGel is thought to act by hampering the ability of HIV to attach to and infect healthy cells. Unlike other candidate microbicides, including those that target similar cell mechanisms, the active ingredient of VivaGel, belongs to a class of compounds called dendrimers. A dendrimer is a large molecular structure that incorporates multiple units of an active component on its surface. In the case of SPL7013, each dendrimer incorporates 32 copies of the active component. Researchers will assess the safety of VivaGel compared with the placebo gel through laboratory tests and regular clinical examinations of study participants. (Baeten, Wang, & Celium, 2005) Web-based questionnaires are used to  provide information about the product’s acceptability, such as what participants liked or disliked about using the gel, how their sexual partners felt about its use and how likely they are to use microbicides in the future. Participation in the study will last three weeks, including the two-week period that gels are used.

As of 2007 there are 33-million people globally living with reported HIV.  Approximately 15.5 million HIV patients are women whom have reported their status to a health department. In Sub- Saharan Africa 22 million people are held reported to have contracted HIV and in Middle East and North Africa roughly 380,000 people have been reported to have HIV. In eastern and Western Europe almost 1.6 million people have been newly affected victims of HIV.  (www.UNAIDS.com 2007) To any health professional these numbers would be alarming and they should alarm us all. The question is how we prevent these numbers from escalating without offending other countries and their cultural activities as it relates to intercourse. Researches saw a need to help these women so they studied a molecule known as SPL7013 gel otherwise known Microbicides.

Imagine if your right to say “No” to sex was taken away from you, rape charges were not considered a crime in your country, and your husband has the right to sleep with people outside your marriage. Adding insult to injury, you are now a newly infected woman with HIV who had no control over the circumstances that have altered your life for years to come. For many women of southeastern Europe and Africa this is the culture of the countries they live in and they have no right to determine if they want to be in contact with this disease. Some people may argue that this issue is very much prevalent for women in our own country here in the United States. The difference that sets this culture apart however is that in some parts of Africa and Europe the men residing in these countries choose to participate in intercourse and not use lubrication which could possibly cause lacerations and tears to a woman’s vaginal wall. In return it makes the women whom are the receiving partner more susceptible to contracting the Human Immunodeficiency Virus otherwise known as, HIV.

To understand why this is such a big problem for receiving partners in these countries and surrounding countries, we first need to understand what HIV is and how it affects the body.  The immune system is a network of complex cells, tissues, and organs that communicate with each other to keep pathogens from invading the body. When this system fails to operate successfully, virus, bacteria, and fungi can invade our body and cause damage to tissues and organs that can lead to permanent damage or if left untreated can cause death. HIV is transmitted through blood, bodily fluids, (semen and vaginal secretion), and breast milk. This can occur through vaginal, anal and oral forms of sex, shared use of needles, birth, and breastfeeding. Lymphocytes, which are cells of the immune system, respond to the virus. T-lymphocytes commonly known as T-cells are the cells in the immune system that the HIV virus attack and destroy

“It’s important to study this  gel in young women who are sexually active because this is the very population likely to use and benefit most from this kind of HIV prevention approach,” said Ian McGowan, M.D., PhD., professor of medicine, Center for Prevention Research at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles. “If we are satisfied with the results in terms of the gel’s safety profile we may consider conducting trials that would include more women, and eventually, look to see if the gel can help reduce their chances of acquiring HIV,” added Dr. McGowan, who, in addition to serving as protocol chair of the MTN-004 study, is MTN co-principal investigator.(Baeten, Wang, & Celium, 2005)

The Gel can be used with a contraceptive such as the Nuvaring . As the study is in research phase, scientist are trying to find a gel that dries, yet still active for women in countries where the mate prefers dry intercourse which transcends the high risk of acquiring HIV.

For more information you can visit: www.UNAIDS.com, www.Microbicides.org or www.USAID.gov

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Tags: Contraceptions, HIV Prevention, Microbicides Research, Women's Health

As a banker for one of the largest financial institutions in America, I know first hand the importance of having good credit.  Often times, people aren’t as educated on the ins and out of credit as we should be. We all know about the FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation) score, but what exactly is it and how does it directly affect us as a people. The FICO score is a huge factor in your credit.  This score can be obtained from the following three credit reporting agencies:

-Equifax: www.eqifax.com or 1-800-658-1111

-Experian: www.experian.com or 1-888-397-3742

-TransUnion: www.transunion.com or 1-800-916-8800

All citizens of the United States are entitled to one free report from each of these agencies a year. Your FICO score and credit can be detrimental to your way of life. Many employers use these scores as a way of screening applicants. In addition to employers leasing agents, car dealerships, furniture stores, and banks use these scores and credit history to determine eligibility for products. Often times young people use credit as a way to live outside of our means then when we really need it, we can not get approved for anything. So young people use your credit wisely because it definitely does follow you.

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Tags: Credit, FICO score, finance