Hangover Pill Review

Hey everyone, I decided it would be a great idea to post up the latest news from Google so here it is…

Single Person's Movie: Very Bad Things

Of course, The Hangover isn't the first film to mine this territory, and it probably won't be the last: we only hope it ends up faring better than the … Read More…

Impact Analysis: Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia Phillies

Last season Rollins appeared to be victim of the notorious MVP hangover. A month-long absence, in essence, because of an ankle injury and a regression in … Read More…

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But dizzy current-account deficits, wild foreign-currency borrowing and reckless fiscal policy are leaving a horrible hangover for some. … Read More…
That’s all the news for today guys, so until next time, thanks for stopping by.

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Have you ever heard a woman hating her womanhood? I have. They must be around us and they might be able to express their feelings here in the western worlds we live in. In Iran, there are many women who hate their womanhood and they do not have a voice. They might have many reasons for their feelings, yet, they are unable to identify the hatred toward their own gender.

I will try to be their voice now.

Recently I met a lady who has newly immigrated to Canada. The conversation I had with this lady impacted me deeply and made me to write this article. I found this woman an authentic human being who cares for human life. She left Iran one year ago with the hope to give her two adult children and her family a chance to breathe freedom.

I met this lady over in an unplanned setting. I happened to be in the same place she was and we basically had a regular woman conversation about the reasons why we Iranian leave Iran. a new immigrant she started to tell me about the adjustment challenges here and the concerns she had in finding work like many others. I asked her what she did back home. She said as a midwife. Then she added that her working environment back home was quite hard and she could not do it any more.

This little conversation soon gave her a chance to tell me stories of her reality back home. Stories that were part of everyday life in that city she comes from.

She said that she has worked past 14 years as a midwife in a city north of Iran. She started depicting all those women who are in extra affairs with married men who are hungry for extra sexual relationship and who are fantasizing a lot. She continued describing how these usually young women are abused and exploited for little money. Some of these women have no choice she said, they do this for the financial support they receive from these men. These young women sometimes have several men to serve at the same time, since these men can afford to have extra lovers while they are authorities who preach on morality and a just society. My midwife friend would see these women once they came to ask for advice on illegal abortion or anyway they could get rid of unwanted pregnancies.

As she was talking, I kept thinking, I would not call these women prostitute, although this is what they do, they sell their bodies for money. However, the circumstances around why these women do this are totally different from the issue of prostitution in the West. Not that we want to glamorize these women, no, women in those extra affairs usually have no choice or no voice. They do this for financial reasons sometim
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es to feed a family of their own. However this article is neither about the complex issue of prostitution nor about the dangerous life do these women live within.

No this article is about the experiences of a midwife who have seen hundreds of cases, where young under age girls were brought to her because they were pregnant, an act that brings disgrace to the family and to the community they lived in. Our midwife added that the controversy about abortion is much more complex in Iran than anywhere else. Young teenage girls are not supposed to have sex and if this is known they could be sentenced to death or harsh consequences. However, she knew that these girls did not have any consented sex and they were mostly raped, abused, or forced to sexual activity by some one.

In one case our midwife recalls she was contacted by a woman who asked for an appointment. One hour later she came back with her 15 years old daughter who complained about not having her menstruation. Our midwife could right away after a regular examination say that she was pregnant carrying a six month old baby. This young girl started crying and denying, while the belly was sticking out and the reality could not even be denied. Our midwife tried to find out who is the father and how is that she has not told anyone. The young girl whose paled face indicated neglect and deprivation whispered to her ears that it was her brother. Our midwife knew if this story goes out both brother and sister could be sentenced to death. She referred this mother to another midwife who has an in-home clinic where she performs several abortions every week. This colleague to our midwife who is running this secret clinic endangers her life for helping these young girls who have no where to go.

Our midwife says she feels bad for all these young victims of sexual abuse and rape.

These are all young girls who were used and abused by men around them and now that they carry a baby, no one is out there to support them. What happens is that these young girls some at age 13-14 or 15 has to find out someone who wants to help them to wipe out the evidence of a sexual act that they were forced to.

Our midwife said that she hated her womanhood every time she had a client in that age, young beautiful girls who were sexually abused, raped, exploited, while they had no voice. All in all these girls and their mothers usually have to keep this horrible act of crime secret because they live in a system that victims are blamed in any case. She said that our young girls in some families and communities in Iran are raped easily and no one is there to protect them. Those who try to seek justice they might be doomed to death sentence because according to the laws sex before marriage is a sin. At this moment, our midwife was red in her face and she wiped her tears while she explained that she has witnessed many young pregnancies that had to end in dangerous life threatening situations.

She added that she has seen hundreds of cases of young girls who were raped and sexually exploited by their brothers, fathers, uncles, and someone else in the family. However, she never could share this information with anyone. Now that she is in Canada she hopes to find a job that has nothing to do with her past. I asked for a number and she said I was only one midwife and there are many others around the country. She was sure that the number is much higher than it can be conceptualized. This is a harsh reality back home that no one can deal with it because our nation is fed with ideology instead of education, she added.

I think of these brave midwives who risk their life and income while they are left out to decide what to do with these young girls, our children who are left out with no support, our children who are supposed to be children and grow up in a thriving environment. After this conversation I really felt numbed, shocked, and in rage. Why are we Iranian doomed to a situation like this? We see the problem still, we can not do much for it, we have no cure for it. What have we done to deserve such a horrible situation where our families are left out with no education, no rights, no support, and no voice?

How come our home country, Iran, is left out in such darkness where life is a taboo and death is appreciated?

I guess there are many of us who wonder about the same thing? When are we supposed to see our home country and our people thrive? I am not sure. We are not sure?!

Poran Poregbal Vancouver, B.C. July 1, 2008

I would like to open up a healthy communication about our Iranian culture and what is included. In doing so, we need to be able to challenge our beliefs about our own culture. Just by analyzing our own culture, we would be able to help our next generations in adjusting in wherever we live with respect for all cultures they are involved with. we need to set up new boundaries and define many concepts from scratch zero. I would like to encourage healthy communication, positive participation, and cooperation in respect for building healthy families within our Iranian community. Mental health issues are my main area of interest where I hope to offer a multicultural sensitive counselling.

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The Benefits of Meditation: Tips and Techniques
 by: Galina Pembroke

Meditation is healthy, safe and affordable. In fact it’s free. The only expense you’ll have is a meditation mat, which isn’t especially necessary-at least from my experience. Meditation has been around for 5,000 years, and was originally a spiritual component of yoga. Through the years non-yogis adopted it, intuitively sensing and connecting the practice with greater peace of mind. Personally, I can’t say enough good things about meditation. Its use has rewarded me with less worry and much more energy. But I’ve never been one for anecdotal evidence. Let’s get to the science…

Transcendental Meditation

Recently, there’s an incredible amount of science tied into the benefits of meditation. The studies are endless and cover a variety of meditative practices. On Transcendental Meditation alone (mantra repetition) there are over 500 studies. Some are more noteworthy that others. A study in the Japanese Journal of Public Health found that through Transcendental Meditation, industrial workers sleep improved and their smoking decreased. Another study conducted at MERU Research Institute, in Buckinghamshire, England found that the length of time practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program correlated with younger biological age and younger functional age.

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation, which asks us to focus on our breath to facilitate awareness of the present moment, is another widely studied meditation technique. After studying the effects of 8-weeks of mindfulness meditation on participants, a 2003 report in the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine concluded: “A short program in mindfulness meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function.” Impressive, but fairly vague. To get a more committed response to the benefits of meditation we have to turn to Taiwan. In 2002 their journal Chang Gung Medicine reported that “training in MM may be a medically superior and cost-effective alternative to pain medication for the control of headaches with no underlying organic causes in highly motivated patients.”

Stress Reduction and Meditation

What causes these positive physical changes? To answer this, other research has looked at the specifics of what happens in the body during meditation. . Researchers at the Maharishi School of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, found that meditation has an enormous impact on stress reduction. When they examined a group who had meditated for four months they saw that they produced less of the stress hormone cortisol. They were therefore better able to adapt to stress in their lives, no matter what their circumstances were.

Having balanced cortisol levels is essential to mental and emotional health. Notice I say balanced rather than none. We don’t want to completely eliminate cortisol. If we did we’d be dead. Even low cortisol levels can be dangerous. Not enough cortisol is the identifying trait of Addison’s disease. John F. Kennedy had this condition, which he denied passionately during his presidency. Yet during his term he regulated his levels through hydrocortisone (synthetic cortisol). The reverse of JFK’s condition is called Cushings Syndrome. The five most common and noticeable changes of this condition include; red face and puffy cheeks; excess fat surrounding the collar bones, muscle weakness, and hypertension. But we don’t have to have Cushing’s Syndrome to be damaged by extra cortisol. The changes we experience may be subtle variations of these. Plus, the changes caused by excess cortisol are age dependent. Young people may stop growing and teenagers can develop acne. The mature among us aren’t safe either. Since excess cortisol damages bone-tissue those over age 60 may develop fractures related to osteoporosis. So it’s evident that if we can regulate cortisol, especially through a natural process, we owe it to ourselves to try.

Other Benefits of Meditation

Regina Drueding, MD, is a meditation instructor at Life Circles in Utah, USA. She quotes the benefits of meditation as follows: “more energy, improved quality of sleep, decreased anxiety, lessened chronological aging, improved concentration, improved visual acuity, increased alertness and heightened immunity.” She writes: “Besides the benefits mentioned earlier, meditation results in improvement of hypertension, sleep disorders, headaches, heartrhythm disturbances, chronic pain – pain due to cancer, infertility and irritable bowel syndrome. Following meditation, mental and physical refreshment result – and benefits are cumulative with regular practice.”

How to Meditate

Meditation is both simple and complex. It’s like defining the color orange: When you see it you know it. Similarly, the experience of meditation is best, well…experienced. In an article in New View magazine, Shippensburg University’s Dr. C. George Boeree describes the basics of Buddhist meditation. In summary, the beginner’s technique is as follows:

Sit or kneel comfortably.
The hands are loose and open with the palms up, one atop the other and thumbs lightly touching.
Head is upright. Eyes may be closed or open. If open they should focus on your hands or a spot nearby.
Beginning meditators should count upwards to ten on each exhale. Breathe in a relaxed and natural way. Then begin again at one and repeat. Continue to breathe naturally.
Continue for 15 minutes.

In my personal experience, I don’t find that the specific length of time is as important as repetition and persistence. To paraphrase, 10 minutes daily beats 15 minutes once a week. This brings me to another point: We all have different personalities and as such, different meditation approaches suit some more than others. Thankfully there are many varieties of meditation. Some varieties have sub-varieties.

Mindfulness meditation is one of these versatile practices. Perhaps it’s because its essence-awareness of the present moment-is so versatile. Mindfulness in our daily life can be practiced by slowing down and attending to our surroundings. What are our 5 senses telling us? We can use mindfulness in the middle of a hectic day, such as paying attention to our breathing when stopped at a traffic light. We can also use other everyday events as triggers for mindfulness. Buckling your seatbelt? Make this a reminder to return to the present. Really think about what you’re doing and the details of the experience.

The more traditional may benefit from a more formal mindfulness practice. You may sit in the identical form as in traditional Buddhist meditation- on a chair or kneeling. However, you may also sit with your legs crossed. Your eyes are closed and your posture is both straight and relaxed while your head remains upright. Focus on your breath and allow mental chatter to float by without regard. Thoughts, emotions and sensations will come, but don’t be influenced by them. Keep focused on your breath. If you are getting involved with your thoughts don’t worry-your efforts aren’t destroyed. The key thing is to bring your attention back to breathing and continue. This can go on for 5 minutes to 5 hours. It’s up to you.

Transcendental Meditation is another popular form of meditation. Generally, this type is practiced twice daily for a period of 15-20 minutes. Again, this technique involves sitting comfortably. Yet in contrast to basic Buddhist the eyes stay closed. Each student is given a mantra and is instructed to induce relaxation through use of this mantra. Since many of either can’t or won’t go to a formal TM class, a no-fail mantra I recommend is the classic OM. In The Heart of Yoga, T.K.V Desikachar writes that repetition of “OM” enables us to maintain mental and emotional calmness, overcome obstacles and enable understanding. It is the shortest of the mantras, and is said to be suggestive of God. If you’re uncomfortable with the religious aspects of OM I suggest a word that has positive meaning for you, such as love, calm or peace. Calm is an ideal substitute, since vocally it resembles OM.

Final Word

You may never, ever choose to meditate. Yet if this is your choice it may be valuable to question why. For a long time I was reluctant because of images of the dropout hippie 60’s. Yet when I tried it the experience overcame my reservations. If you try it the same may happen to you. If it doesn’t you haven’t lost any money, and you’ve gained a new experience.

Resources:

Getting in the Gap: Making Conscious Contact with God Through Meditation (Hay House Inc., 2003)

The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh (Beacon Press, 1975)

About The Author

Galina Pembroke is the editor and publisher of New View magazine online. New View offers articles on spirituality, health, self-help, animal rights, green living and more. For the complete text of Dr. Boeree’s meditation article visit their Spirituality section. Visit New View at http://www.nuvunow.ca.

nuvunow@gmail.com

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