-=-=-=-=-==-

websource:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Hints Help People Recall More Dreams

Everybody dreams several times a night, but few are remembered. Edgar Cayce indicated that a lack of dream recall was the result, simply, of negligence. A recent study confirmed Cayce’s suggestion by showing that giving people hints on how to pay attention to dreams can improve dream recall.

The study was conducted in China with almost two hundred adults, and reported in the journal Dreaming. The control group of participants were encouraged to recall their dreams but were given no hints on how to do so. The experimental group was given a set of hints and instructions on improving dream recall. During the three nights of the study, the experimental group had recalled significantly more dreams than did the control group. Below are the instructions that proved so helpful, according to this study.

When falling asleep:

1. Tell yourself: “I want to remember my dreams, and I will remember them.”

When waking:

2. Try to keep your sleeping posture and lie still while you go over your dream.

3. Start by concentrating on the first feeling or emotion you have just as you wake up from a dreaming sleep (e.g., cheerful, sad, exciting, peaceful, etc.).

4. Dwell on the main themes of your dream (event, people, environment, time, etc.).*

5. Dwell on the specific vignettes and details of your dream (including what you see, hear, smell, speak, do, feel with your body, etc.).*

6. Think about what you are feeling in each specific vignette (e.g., cheerful, sad, exciting, peaceful, etc.).

7. Fill in the provided dream report form immediately after leaving your bed.

*If you cannot remember any main themes or story, it is fine. Just try to feel your feelings and emotions in your dream and, at the same time, remember any images or fragments that come to you. When you remember a single portion, concentrate on it for a while, fix the image in your mind, and then try to generate another image or fragment by concentrating on your feelings and emotions until no more images come up. Then repeat all the images and translate them into words.

Source: Facilitating Dream Recall in Chinese People. Calvin Kai-Ching Yu. Dreaming, 2006, Vol. 16, No. 3, 186–195

-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-

Astronaut Affirms the Reality of Extraterrestials

Edward Mitchell, one of the astronauts who walked on the moon, disclosed on a radio interview in Britain recently that alien beings have visited our planet, but that the government has covered up this information. He claimed that he was present for several top-secret military briefings in which the cover-ups were discussed. After news of the interview spread widely, a NASA representative denied Mitchell’s claims.

websource:

Moon-walker claims alien contact cover-up

July 24, 2008 12:01am

Article from:

Daily Telegraph

FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist.

And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades.

Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'

He said supposedly real-life ET's were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head.

Chillingly, he claimed our technology is "not nearly as sophisticated" as theirs and "had they been hostile", he warned "we would be been gone by now".

Dr Mitchell, along with with Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard, holds the record for the longest ever moon walk, at nine hours and 17 minutes following their 1971 mission.

"I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real," Dr Mitchell said.

"It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.

"I've been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes - we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it's been happening quite a bit."

Dr Mitchell, who has a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering and a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics claimed Roswell was real and similar alien visits continue to be investigated.

He told the astonished Kerrang! radio host Nick Margerrison: "This is really starting to open up. I think we're headed for real disclosure and some serious organisations are moving in that direction."

Mr Margerrison said: "I thought I'd stumbled on some sort of astronaut humour but he was absolutely serious that aliens are definitely out there and there's no debating it."

Officials from NASA, however, were quick to play the comments down.

In a statement, a spokesman said: "NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe.

'Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue.'

Weblink:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhNdxdveK7c

-===-=-=-==--=-

More Hospitals Provide Music Therapy

As evidence mounts that music aids in healing, more hospitals are incorporating music therapy into their programs. According to a survey conducted of U.S. health facilities by the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, along with the Joint Commission and Americans for the Arts, found that of the 1,923 facilities, 35% offered some type of music to patients. Among recent findings:

Patients on respirators in an intensive care unit who were exposed to Mozart’s piano sonatas evidenced decreased stress hormones and increased growth hormones needed for healing, according to a study conducted at Harvard University Medical School and published in the journal Critical Care Medicine.

Patients suffering from a severe stroke who were admitted to a Finnish hospital and who listened to one hour of music daily recovered their verbal memory and experienced less depression, according to a study published in the journal Brain.

websource:

Music provides healing note

Kristen Stewart holds a round, wooden instrument filled with small, metal beads that sounds like waves gently crashing upon a beach. As she rotates it back and forth, Angelina and Audrianna Liew yawn, flutter their eyes and occasionally drift off to sleep.

Any other musician might take offense, but this is exactly the reaction Stewart was hoping for.

Born seven weeks premature, the identical twins have spent 20 days in the neonatal intensive care unit at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. Like most ICUs, with the racket of beeping monitors and buzzing devices, along with the chatter among visitors and staff, the room is anything but a sanctuary for rest.

But for these infants, sleep is crucial to their growth and development.

As a clinical director and music therapist at Beth Israel's Louis and Lucille Armstrong Music Therapy Program, Stewart specializes in working with premature babies, children and patients with trauma — in this case, showing parents Rick Mei and Shan Liew how to use instruments that mimic heartbeats and womb sounds, as well as their own voices, to comfort their newborns. The goal on this day: to encourage the babies to sleep, become calm and alert, and prepare for feeding.

The twins would go on to spend several more days in the ICU before heading home. Music therapy played a role in their recovery, their mother says.

Beth Israel's program is one of many efforts by hospitals around the country to use music as a way to ease patients' pain, lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety and depression and improve coping abilities to get patients well, faster.

In harmony with healing

"Often, music therapy is more cost-effective than administering medication, especially for patients with anxiety, sleep disturbances or pain," says Al Bumanis, spokesman for the American Music Therapy Association.

A 2007 survey of U.S. health facilities by the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, along with the Joint Commission and Americans for the Arts, found that of the 1,923 facilities, 35% offered some type of music to patients.

Besides promoting relaxation and reducing stress, music therapy has been shown to affect sleep patterns, improve stroke patients' memories and decrease the amount of sedation medication needed for some patients.

Claudius Conrad, senior surgical resident at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, led a study published in December in the journal Critical Care Medicine that attempted to identify changes the body undergoes while listening to music.

The study looked at patients in the ICU who were on mechanical breathing machines. The group that was exposed to Mozart piano sonatas experienced marked decreases in stress hormones and in cytokines — one of the chemicals responsible for regulating the body's response to trauma.

There was also a substantial increase in the production of growth hormones, which helps the body regulate metabolism, particularly during sleep. The result was a reduction in blood pressure, lowered heart rate and less need for medication to keep patients sedated, compared with the control group, Conrad says.

"If patients could be exposed to music in the ICU … they would survive more often, they would leave the ICU faster," he says. "This would also save costs."

From preemies to stroke victims

Other recent studies have further confirmed the benefits of music on healing.

• Patients admitted to a hospital in Helsinki, Finland, after a severe stroke listened to recorded music for at least an hour daily. Compared with those who either listened to audiobooks or nothing, music patients recovered their verbal memory faster, as well as experienced less depression, according to a study in the March issue of the journal Brain.

• Playing two hours of recorded Mozart each week to premature babies lowered their heart rate and helped induce sleep, according to researchers at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. That study has not yet been submitted for publication in a medical journal.

• Terminally ill patients in Australia who had a single music therapy session were found to have less anxiety, pain and drowsiness compared with those who did not listen to music, according to a study published in the May Journal of Palliative Medicine.

Not all studies are in concert about music's therapeutic benefits. In a 2004 Cochrane Databaseof Systemic Reviews, researchers evaluating 51 studies found that while music reduced patients' perceptions of pain and the need for pain medication, the total benefit was minor.

But try telling that to Kim Febres, a music therapist at the Carol G. Simon Cancer Center at Morristown (N.J.) Memorial Hospital. As Febres strums and sings the first few notes of a popular tune about Naples, Rosa Dotro, 71, an Italian immigrant who has stomach cancer, pushes aside her dinner, wipes the tears streaking her cheeks and sings along in a high, clear voice along, "Saaaanta Lucia! Santa Lucia!"

When they finish, Dotro tells Febres she is worried about having surgery and asks to hear the song again.

"Sing!" Dotro orders. "You can do this all night if you want. I feel better already."

Weblink: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-06-16-music-healing_N.htm

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Exercise is a Health Pill for What Ails You

If there is one single type of treatment that both helps prevent illness and maximizes quality of life among people with illness, it is exercise. Writing in Harvard Magazine, Frank Hu, epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, noted, “The single thing that comes close to a magic bullet, in terms of its strong and universal benefits, is exercise.”

Marilyn Moffat, a professor of physical therapy at New York University and co-author with Carole B. Lewis of Age-Defying Fitness (Peachtree, 2006) concurs, noting that, “The data show that regular moderate exercise increases your ability to battle the effects of disease. It has a positive effect on both physical and mental well-being. The goal is to do as much physical activity as your body lets you do, and rest when you need to rest”

Websource:

You Name It, and Exercise Helps It

By JANE E. BRODY

Randi considers the Y.M.C.A. her lifeline, especially the pool. Randi weighs more than 300 pounds and has borderline diabetes, but she controls her blood sugar and keeps her bright outlook on life by swimming every day for about 45 minutes.

Randi overcame any self-consciousness about her weight for the sake of her health, and those who swim with her and share the open locker room are proud of her. If only the millions of others beset with chronic health problems recognized the inestimable value to their physical and emotional well-being of regular physical exercise.

“The single thing that comes close to a magic bullet, in terms of its strong and universal benefits, is exercise,” Frank Hu, epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, said in the Harvard Magazine.

I have written often about the protective roles of exercise. It can lower the risk of heart attack, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, dementia, osteoporosis, gallstones, diverticulitis, falls, erectile dysfunction, peripheral vascular disease and 12 kinds of cancer.

But what if you already have one of these conditions? Or an ailment like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, congestive heart failure or osteoarthritis? How can you exercise if you’re always tired or in pain or have trouble breathing? Can exercise really help?

You bet it can. Marilyn Moffat, a professor of physical therapy at New York University and co-author with Carole B. Lewis of “Age-Defying Fitness” (Peachtree, 2006), conducts workshops for physical therapists around the country and abroad, demonstrating how people with chronic health problems can improve their health and quality of life by learning how to exercise safely.

Up and Moving

“The data show that regular moderate exercise increases your ability to battle the effects of disease,” Dr. Moffat said in an interview. “It has a positive effect on both physical and mental well-being. The goal is to do as much physical activity as your body lets you do, and rest when you need to rest.”

In years past, doctors were afraid to let heart patients exercise. When my father had a heart attack in 1968, he was kept sedentary for six weeks. Now, heart attack patients are in bed barely half a day before they are up and moving, Dr. Moffat said.

The core of cardiac rehab is a progressive exercise program to increase the ability of the heart to pump oxygen- and nutrient-rich blood more effectively throughout the body. The outcome is better endurance, greater ability to enjoy life and decreased mortality.

The same goes for patients with congestive heart failure. “Heart failure patients as old as 91 can increase their oxygen consumption significantly,” Dr. Moffat said.

Aerobic exercise lowers blood pressure in people with hypertension, and it improves peripheral circulation in people who develop cramping leg pains when they walk — a condition called intermittent claudication. The treatment for it, in fact, is to walk a little farther each day.

In people who have had transient ischemic attacks, or ministrokes, “gradually increasing exercise improves blood flow to the brain and may diminish the risk of a full-blown stroke,” Dr. Moffat said. And aerobic and strength exercises have been shown to improve endurance, walking speed and the ability to perform tasks of daily living up to six years after a stroke.

As Randi knows, moderate exercise cuts the risk of developing diabetes. And for those with diabetes, exercise improves glucose tolerance — less medication is needed to control blood sugar — and reduces the risk of life-threatening complications.

Perhaps the most immediate benefits are reaped by people with joint and neuromuscular disorders. Without exercise, those at risk of osteoarthritis become crippled by stiff, deteriorated joints. But exercise that increases strength and aerobic capacity can reduce pain, depression and anxiety and improve function, balance and quality of life.

Likewise for people with rheumatoid arthritis. “The less they do, the worse things get,” Dr. Moffat said. “The more their joints move, the better.”

Exercise that builds gradually and protects inflamed joints can diminish pain, fatigue, morning stiffness, depression and anxiety, she said, and improve strength, walking speed and activity.

Exercise is crucial to improving function of total hip or knee replacements. But “most patients with knee replacements don’t get intensive enough activity,” Dr. Moffat said.

Water exercises are particularly helpful for people with multiple sclerosis, who must avoid overheating. And for those with Parkinson’s, resistance training and aerobic exercise can increase their ability to function independently and improve their balance, stride length, walking speed and mood.

Resistance training, along with aerobic exercise, is especially helpful for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; it helps counter the loss of muscle mass and strength from lack of oxygen.

In the February/March issue of ACE Certified News, Natalie Digate Muth, a registered dietitian and personal trainer, emphasized the value of a good workout for people suffering from depression. Mastering a new skill increases their sense of worth, social contact improves mood, and the endorphins released during exercise improve well-being.

“Exercise is an important adjunct to pharmacological therapy, and it does not matter how severe the depression — exercise works equally well for people with moderate or severe depression,” wrote Ms. Muth, who is pursuing a medical degree at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Feel-Good Hormones

Healthy people may have difficulty appreciating the burdens faced by those with chronic ailments, Dr. Nancey Trevanian Tsai noted in the same issue of ACE Certified News. “Oftentimes, disease-ridden statements — like ‘I’m a diabetic’ — become barricades that keep clients from seeing themselves getting better,” she said, and many feel “enslaved by their diseases and treatments.”

But the feel-good hormones released through exercise can help sustain activity.

“With regular exercise, the body seeks to continue staying active,” wrote Dr. Tsai, an assistant professor of neurosciences at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. She recommended an exercise program tailored to the person’s current abilities, daily needs, medication schedule, side effects and response to treatment.

She urged trainers who work with people with chronic ailments to start slowly with easily achievable goals, build gradually on each accomplishment and focus on functional gains. Over time, a sense of accomplishment, better sleep, less pain and enhanced satisfaction with life can become further reasons to pursue physical activity.

“Even if exercise is tough to schedule,” Dr. Moffat said, “you feel so much better, it’s crazy not to do it.”

Weblink: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/health/29brod.html?ei=5087&em=&en=80afe98bb54d3e29&ex=1209700800&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1209557006-MLziTovs8uYYWM1UalQpxw

=-=-=-=-=-=-==-

Aging May be a Genetic Phenomenon

Why do we grow old? Prevailing thought is that over time, tissue damage and waste products eventually wear out the body’s system. Researchers at Stanford University, however, have found evidence that perhaps aging is caused by an event in the genes.

Studying small worms, researchers found that when comparing young worms and old worms, there had been a “shift” in the genes. Genetic instructions that informed young worms were mysteriously turned off in the adult worms. When they attempted to replicate this genetic shift by stressing young worms, there was no effect on the genes, discounting the theory that aging is caused by wear and tear. Further research may help determine how to prevent this type of shift and thus prolong youth.

websource:

Is Aging an Accident of Evolution? Stanford Scientists Say "Yes"

"Everyone has assumed we age by rust. But how do you explain animals that don't age? Some tortoises lay eggs at the age of 100, there are whales that live to be 200 and clams that make it past 400 years."

Stuart Kim, PhD, Stanford University professor of developmental biology and genetics

Prevailing theory of aging challenged by Stanford University Medical School researchers. Their discovery contradicts the prevailing theory that aging is a buildup of tissue damage similar to rust. The Stanford findings suggest specific genetic instructions drive the process. If they are right, science might one day find ways of switching the signals off and halting or even reversing aging.

“We were really surprised,” said Stuart Kim, who is the senior author of the research.

Kim’s lab examined the regulation of aging in C. elegans, a millimeter-long nematode worm whose simple body and small number of genes make it a useful tool for biologists. The worms age rapidly: their maximum life span is about two weeks.

Comparing young worms to old worms, Kim’s team discovered age-related shifts in levels of three transcription factors, the molecular switches that turn genes on and off. These shifts trigger genetic pathways that transform young worms into social security candidates.

The question of what causes aging has spawned competing schools, with one side claiming that inborn genetic programs make organisms grow old. This theory has had trouble gaining traction because it implies that aging evolved, that natural selection pushed older organisms down a path of deterioration. However, natural selection works by favoring genes that help organisms produce lots of offspring. After reproduction ends, genes are beyond natural selection’s reach, so scientists argued that aging couldn’t be genetically programmed.

The alternate, competing theory holds that aging is an inevitable consequence of accumulated wear and tear: toxins, free-radical molecules, DNA-damaging radiation, disease and stress ravage the body to the point it can’t rebound. So far, this theory has dominated aging research.

But the Stanford team’s findings told a different story. “Our data just didn’t fit the current model of damage accumulation, and so we had to consider the alternative model of developmental drift,” Kim said.

The scientists used microarrays—silicon chips that detect changes in gene expression—to hunt for genes that were turned on differently in young and old worms. They found hundreds of age-regulated genes switched on and off by a single transcription factor called elt-3, which becomes more abundant with age. Two other transcription factors that regulate elt-3 also changed with age.

To see whether these signal molecules were part of a wear-and-tear aging mechanism, the researchers exposed worms to stresses thought to cause aging, such as heat (a known stressor for nematode worms), free-radical oxidation, radiation and disease. But none of the stressors affected the genes that make the worms get old.

So it looked as though worm aging wasn’t a storm of chemical damage. Instead, Kim said, key regulatory pathways optimized for youth have drifted off track in older animals. Natural selection can’t fix problems that arise late in the animals’ life spans, so the genetic pathways for aging become entrenched by mistake. Kim’s team refers to this slide as “developmental drift.”

“We found a normal developmental program that works in young animals, but becomes unbalanced as the worm gets older,” he said. “It accounts for the lion’s share of molecular differences between young and old worms.”

Kim can’t say for sure whether the same process of drift happens in humans, but said scientists can begin searching for this new aging mechanism now that it has been discovered in a model organism. And he said developmental drift makes a lot of sense as a reason why creatures get old.

“Everyone has assumed we age by rust,” Kim said. “But then how do you explain animals that don’t age?”

Some tortoises lay eggs at the age of 100, he points out. There are whales that live to be 200, and clams that make it past 400. Those species use the same building blocks for their DNA, proteins and fats as humans, mice and nematode worms. The chemistry of the wear-and-tear process, including damage from oxygen free-radicals, should be the same in all cells, which makes it hard to explain why species have dramatically different life spans.

“A free radical doesn’t care if it’s in a human cell or a worm cell,” Kim said.

If aging is not a cost of unavoidable chemistry but is instead driven by changes in regulatory genes, the aging process may not be inevitable. It is at least theoretically possible to slow down or stop developmental drift.

“The take-home message is that aging can be slowed and managed by manipulating signaling circuits within cells,” said Marc Tatar, PhD, a professor of biology and medicine at Brown University who was not involved in the research. “This is a new and potentially powerful circuit that has just been discovered for doing that.”

Kim added, “It’s a new way to think about how to slow the aging process.”

Weblink: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/07/is-aging-an-acc.html#more