Dear Readers,

Back around 1996, I went to a lecture and workshop by Gregg Braden held here in Portland, Oregon. He had with him a staff member from the HeartMath Institute, who proceeded to blow everybody away with a demonstration of how group meditation can directly affect the heart rate and brain wave activity of those in the room. We did an exercise involving breathing into the chest and out with the abdomen while sharing a group image of peace and serenity. I never forgot that demonstration, and in fact, incorporated it into my daily meditations and quite thoroughly internalized it.
Then, I ran across the HeartMath website again, and it reminded me of my experience--and became the inspiration for this month's article about the Four Techniques. These are four simple internal thought procedures I use everyday to help me access my natural well-being, and stay in it. The HeartMath exercise of what they call "Freeze Framing," or "Heart Lock-In," is one of these Techniques. It's power is in its simplicity, and as with all four of the Techniques, a profound mystery is revealed about how the body maintains health, and balance; and why. The more you perform these Techniques, the more is revealed.
If you have watched the movie, "What the Bleep," or have any inkling about what quantum physics research is doing these days, it is such an inspiration! More and more Science and Spirituality are seen to have the same roots in consciousness. One studies the effects of consciousness, the other studies consciousness itself. At some point, both studies must conclude they are really about the same thing. Spirituality is consciousness and consciousness creates our physical world.
Consequently, the truth is we, as consciousness, create our own health (or ill health). Whether we feel we must take a pill, see a doctor, pray, do yoga, or change our diet, the bottom line is that underlying all these physical actions is a conscious desire to change our reality. So when things do change, what changed them?
If things we want to change don't change, it is 100% guaranteed that somewhere down in there is a conflicting desire. The inspiring fact about this, is that the resistance to change is a conscious thought, and we can change our thoughts. Yes, there are habits, there are addictions, there are outside influences, but with work (and it IS work), all our resistance to the life we want can be unraveled one thought at a time. Because the mind can only hold one thought at a time.
Therefore, self-awareness is the gateway to our greatest creations. We all have a mind, we all can observe our own thoughts, and we all have the ability to make decisions. So, here's to the grandest and most fulfilling life we can imagine...

In vibrant health,

Boyd Martin

Customer Service
Pure Energy Rx

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Featured Articles

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The Four Techniques...
We present four never-fail techniques you can apply on yourself to diminish pain, dissolve worries, and reclaim your inherent right to well-being. Our Customer Service Dept. exec, Boyd Martin, writes thoughtfully about how he uses these techniques in his life--which are a combination of ancient spiritual practices, and modern-day processes developed from the latest scientific research into human physiology. These techniques take a minimum of discipline to perform, and produce nearly immediate results. You don't have to ingest any substance, rub anything on, or smell anything. And, best of all it's free... >>> MORE

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Feng Shui with Donna Stellhorn...
Feng Shui professionals around the country say that their most common consultation is a house clearing. But if you don't have a professional in your area then you can do a clearing yourself. There are many ways to clear the energy in a home. It can be done with smoke (sage), sound (bells), scent (incense) or salt. Whichever method you choose the results are the same; negativity leaves while joyful and harmonious energy returns to the home. >>> MORE

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  Food may not cause obesity...
Last week the World Health Organization issued a wide-ranging report on global obesity, saying in effect, that blaming the world's obesity problem (1 billion obese people now, 1.5 billion by 2015) on fast food and a sedentary lifestyle is a simplistic view. Although to most of us it IS simple--you eat too much and don't exercise, you get fat. But, in their bureaucratic complexity, the WHO also listed the following thought-provoking alternative causes for this gastronomic pandemic:

• Industrial chemicals called endocrine disruptors that disturb metabolism, encouraging the formation of fat.
• Giving up smoking: people who give up cigarettes very often gain weight.
• Air conditioning, which establishes a comfortable temperature zone. In temperatures above this zone, people eat less. The rise in number of air-conditioned homes in the United States virtually mirrors the increase in the US obesity rate.
• Fat people marry other fat people. These individuals may be genetically vulnerable to obesity, a trait that could handed on to their children.

Another hypothesis is that lack of sleep jolts the metabolic system into demanding doses of instant energy.
Meanwhile, Nikhil Dhurandhar of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University believes obesity could be caused by a bug. At least 10 different pathogens are known to cause obesity in animals, causing dramatic changes to the metabolic system so that more energy gets converted into fat. Dhurandhar believes that something similar may happen among humans exposed to cousins of the common cold.
He tested the stored blood of 500 Americans and found that 30 percent of obese people had antibodies for Ad-36, an adenovirus which causes coughing, sneezing and cold-like symptoms. Only 11 percent of people of normal body weight had this telltale of Ad-36 infection... >>>> MORE

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  Cell phone driving = drunk driving...
If one of your pet peeves is people driving and talking on the phone, now you have even more reason to be madd (sic). According to a study by University of Utah psychologists, people are actually more prone to creating an auto accident while talking on the phone than drunk drivers are. "Just like you put yourself and other people at risk when you drive drunk, you put yourself and others at risk when you use a cell phone and drive," writes David Strayer, a psychology professor and the study's lead author. "The level of impairment is very similar."
The study, published in The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, found that drivers talking on cell phones, either handheld or hands-free, are more likely to crash because they are distracted by conversation. Using a driving simulator under four different conditions: 1) with no distractions, 2) using a handheld cell phone, 3) talking on a hands-free cell phone, and 4) while intoxicated to the 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level, 40 participants followed a simulated pace car that braked intermittently.
Researchers found that the drivers on cell phones drove more slowly, braked more slowly and were more likely to crash. In fact, the three participants who collided into the pace car were chatting away. None of the drunken drivers crashed. >>>> MORE >>>> LINK: Cell Phones & Health

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  Sleep deprivation is a hoax...
As we are told, "Many Americans are sleep-deprived zombies," and a quarter of us now require some form of sleeping pill or aid at night. Wake up, says psychiatry professor Daniel Kripke of the University of California, Quemado. The pill-taking is real, but the refrain that Americans are sleep deprived originates largely from people funded by the drug industry or with financial interests in sleep research clinics. "They think that scaring people about sleep increases their income."

Getting that shut-eye Do not take sleeping pills. This includes over-the-counter pills and melatonin. Don't go to bed until you're sleepy. If you have trouble sleeping, try going to bed later or getting up earlier. Get up at the same time every morning, even after a bad night's sleep. The next night, you'll be sleepy at bedtime. If you wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall back to sleep, get out of bed and return only when you are sleepy. Avoid worrying, watching TV, reading scary books, and doing other things in bed besides sleeping and sex. If you worry, read thrillers or watch TV, do that in a chair that's not in the bedroom. Do not drink or eat anything caffeinated within six hours of bedtime. Avoid alcohol. It's relaxing at first but can lead to insomnia when it clears your system. Spend time outdoors. People exposed to daylight or bright light therapy sleep better.

The latest findings show that more sleep is no guarantee for overall health, and more sleeping pills might not bring on either. A six-year study Kripke headed up of more than a million adults ages 30 to 102 showed that people who get only 6 to 7 hours a night have a lower death rate than those who get 8 hours of sleep. The risk from taking sleeping pills 30 times or more a month was not much less than the risk of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, he says.
Those who took sleeping pills nightly had a greater risk of death than those who took them occasionally, but the latter risk was still 10 to 15 percent higher than it was among people who never took sleeping pills. Sleeping pills appear unsafe in any amount, Kripke writes in his online book, "The Dark Side of Sleeping Pills."
The large study of a million adults (called the Cancer Prevention Study II) even showed that people with serious insomnia or who only get 3.5 hours of sleep per night, live longer than people who get more than 7.5 hours.
And there are questions about the effectiveness of sleeping pills. A study by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School found that a change in sleep habits and attitudes was more effective in treating chronic insomnia, over the short- and long-term, than sleeping pills (specifically Ambien). >>>> MORE

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  Brains mellow with age...
People become more "mellow" in response to negative emotions over their lifetime, research suggests. A brain imaging study in individuals aged 12 to 79 found that emotional stability continues to improve, even into the seventh decade. And older people were found to be less neurotic than teenagers. The results published in the Journal of Neuroscience combat negative beliefs that brain function declines with age, say the Sydney University researchers.
A total of 242 healthy men and women were assessed for the study using emotional well-being questionnaires. Neurotic traits were found to decrease with advancing age--with the 12 to 19 year age group being the most neurotic and the 50 to 79 year age group being the least neurotic. Researchers then used MRI scanning and measurements of electrical activity to monitor brain responses while subjects viewed facial expressions of emotions. When shown images of faces expressing emotion, younger age groups were significantly better at recognising fear but less accurate when it came to identifying happiness.
Brain scans also showed that in older people the medial prefrontal area of the brain was more active when processing negative emotions than positive ones. The results indicate that older people have better control over brain responses to negative emotions than younger people. >>>> MORE

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  Yet another reason to love it...
Dark chocolate rich in flavonoids--plant-based antioxidants--appears to protect against skin cancer and promote healthy skin, a study by German researchers found. The study involved 24 women who added hot cocoa to their breakfasts daily for about three months. Half received cocoa that contained 329 milligrams of flavanols while the rest received a placebo cocoa that contained only 27 mg of flavanols per serving. At the end of the study results showed that women who drank the flavonoid-rich cocoa:

• Had 15 percent less skin reddening after UV light exposure after six weeks of drinking the cocoa, and 25 percent less after 12 weeks.
• Experienced a doubling of blood flow in the skin in tissue 1 millimeter below the surface, and a 37.5 percent increase in tissue 7 to 8 mm deep.
• Had skin that was 16 percent denser, 11 percent thicker, 13 percent moister, 30 percent less rough and 42 percent less scaly, compared to the beginning of the study.

The researchers suspect the flavonoids may work by increasing blood flow and fighting free radicals. The cocoa used in the study is not yet commercially available, but researchers said the flavonoid amounts used were similar to those found in a little over three ounces of dark chocolate. >>>> MORE

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  Your brain on cell phones...
Two Russian journalists obviously with spare time on their hands, decided to try to cook an egg with two cell phones. Initially starting out as a joke, and a photo op, the two would-be alternative egg chefs realized it was no longer a laughing matter--grey matter, that is, if the egg had been replaced by a human brain...
In the experiment, they placed one egg in a porcelain cup (because it is easy to conduct heat), and put one cell phone on one side and another cell phone on the other. The reporters then called from one cell phone to another and kept the cell phones on after connecting.
During the first 15 minutes, nothing changed. After 25 minutes, however, the egg shell started to become hot and at 40 minutes, the surface of the egg hardened. Soon, the the white of the egg had become solid, although the egg yolk was still in liquid form. After 65 minutes, the whole egg was well cooked... >>>> MORE >>>> LINK: Cell Phones & Health