Brain Controls Body Controls Brain

I was catching up on some light reading this morning - reading The Economist (the funniest magazine I know), when I came across this article, which points out that physical displays of pride & shame are hardwired at an evolutionary level. Ie, they're not learned behaviours. This was discovered by watching athletes that were blind from birth - and thus had no chance to watch others & learn patterns.

So, when shamed in loss, their posture slumps, they hide their faces & narrow their chests.

In victory, they raise their arms, expand their chests, & tilt their heads back. Like this:

(although I suspect the shirts off & veiny thing is optional)

I found this interesting because one of the subtle things we learn at Aikido is to expand our chests & keep our heads up. I'd always figured this was just a posture thing - if you look down, it pulls tension into the shoulders & you go off balance. Expanding the chest leads to a more opening feeling, expansive rather than contracting energy, and so on.

But perhaps there's more to it than that?

There have been many studies, going back to Riskind (1984) and perhaps earlier that link posture & depression. It's common knowledge that you can cheer yourself the hell up just by adjusting your posture (eg, this,or this)

but just how far can you take this?

So I thought hey - let's give this a shot. I went for a walk in full on victory pose. Chest opened & puffed out (almost), head tilted slightly back - although not so far I fell over. Umm, no, I kept my arms down. Don't need to get arrested for being a complete loony (it's supposed to be a secret - don't tell anyone)

The funny thing is, I was already feeling pretty incredibly good this morning. Confident, happy, on top of the world. The sun was definitely shining on planet Si.

Now, when I walk I have a real tendency to get thoughtful, and thus look down. And yet after a 20 minute walk around town, consciously adjusting my posture anytime I felt it slip back ..I felt.. how could it be.. even more incredible?

I don't know how that's possible, but I highly recommend giving it a go - particularly if you're already feeling a bit beneath the weather to start with.

I'm also beginning to think that part of the reason for doing it in Aikido is a combination of these two quotes from the founder, Morihei Ueshiba:

"A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind."

and

"Aikido can be summed up like this: True victory is self-victory"

Ie, perhaps it's internal, not external victory that really matters in the end - and by adjusting your physical posture, you ensure mental & spiritual victory.

This whole brain/mind/body connection really is an incredibly interesting thing.

Two Approaches to Trans-Humanism (Who Wants To Live Forever?)

Post humanism is, essentially, what it will be like to be "more than human" - ie, what are we going to evolve to next. This could be purely biological, purely mechanical, some kind of nano-tech, or a combination of the lot.

Transhumanism is more or less synonomous with "human enhancement". This is the stepping stone to post humanism.

Of course, many people see this as complete nonsense - and that's totally fine.

However, assuming people think "Hey, become better? What a great idea!", there are two main approaches:

1. Wait Till Technology Does It For You
I know a guy who's a great example of this. He's 29 (but looks 49), chain smokes, does a lot of drugs, and so on. He plays guitar, but his body is so massively crippled that he can't play it for more than 5 minutes at a time without extreme pain. He can't do any exercise because every joint in his body hurts. This isn't a genetic disease - bad life choices have gradually crippled him.

He's firmly convinced he will live forever.

I suggested that perhaps he should cut back on the smoking, but he disagreed. Why? Because he's sure that 'science' will catch up soon enough that it'll be able to fix all his smoking related issues - oh, and all his other health problems as well.

Ahh, well. Ok then.

2. Start Now
Aubrey De Grey is a main figure in the immortality movement. He's opinionated as hell, so unsurprisingly, his ideas are hotly debated. He does however have some interesting points.

One of his key tenets is that if you can live another 30 years, then medical technology will improve enough to allow you to live another 30 (in robust health - we're talking quality of life here too, not just quantity). In the 30 after that, technology will improve to allow another 30 - and so on ad infinitum. A longevity equivalent of Zeno's dichotomy paradox.

The critical first step is that you want to hit that +30 year mark in as good a shape as possible. It's touch & go which aspects of human frailty will be dealt with first - so if, say, you have destroyed your lungs but the rest of you is fine, you might die anyway if medical science hasn't quite figured out lung replacement (or lung cancer) yet.

Now, health & wellbeing is a many faceted thing. Is it worth having a healthy body if your mind has completely deteriorated (or vice versa)? All the different aspects of your system have to be kept above a certain baseline, otherwise the entire system will collapse in on itself. Witness how quickly old folks can spiral downhill if they lose their mobility, catch pneumonia, or lose a loved one.

So, unsurprisingly, this is the approach I prefer. Working on improving my physical, mental, emotional & spiritual wellbeing, more or less all at once - thus ensuring maximum longevity (more importantly quality of life, not just quantity), and, eventually immortality.

The really interesting thing is - once you start looking at some of the technologies that have become available to assist & improve in these areas (and boy, the internet is a godsend for this kind of research), you quickly become exposed to more & more ways to improve your life. Not only that, but many of these technologies are both exponential in benefit & complementary to each other. You start using even a couple of them, and massive chunks of your life radically improve at once. The more you use them, the faster & more significantly your life improves. Even better than that, many of them are both free and stupidly simple to implement.

Of course, which technologies (or indeed any) to use is always a personal choice - and different things do just seem to work better for different people.

An unexpected benefit too is - once you start looking at some of these diverse aspects of the human system, you'll start to see that it is possible to live a life with higher highs (& much higher, or even non existent lows) than you might ever have previously dreamt possible.

Happier. Fitter. More energy. More peacful. More fulfilled. Wealthier.

I look at all this, and to me at least it seems obvious - why wait for the future to arrive when it's becoming easier & easier to race up to meet it, with a giant smile on your face?

But of course, as usual, there is always choice 1.

The Importance Of Speech

"If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?"
-- Buddha

I heard this quote the other day (thanks @tinybuddha), and it hit like a ton of bricks.

pic by Trove Designs

When I was growing up, I was always told "If you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". Conceptually this is the same thing, except that it's negatively framed and a little dictatorial in tone - I guess it's not surprising my younger self rebelled! Still, I guess this is the point where I say "Yes Mum, you were right. Again. I love you Mum."

Buddha provides a pretty simple checklist. Makes it easy to remember.

1. True? Yes/No.
2. Necessary? Yes/No.
3. Kind? Yes/No.

I thought about this a bit deeper & I realised, speech is one level, but what's behind speech?

Thought.

Couldn't the same thing apply here? If you're going to think anything, ensure it is True, Necessary & Kind.

Of course, the vast majority of thoughts are simply self-speech - talking to or about ourselves. We're the cruelest & least forgiving toward ourselves, so if anything this self-speech, thought, is far, far more important to consider.

So, being the extremist that I am, I tapped those two things in - both speech & thought. Because it's tapping IN a positive, instead of tapping OUT a negative, it's worth having a few goes to clear out all the blocks.. but already I'm feeling my attitudes - towards those around me - and myself - softening.

It's a path well worth travelling, no matter how few or how those steps are taken.

LSA, Linseed, Linseed Meal: Traps for Young Players

I've recently been introduced to the benefits of LSA. That is:

3 parts Linseed
2 parts Sunflower seeds
1 part Almonds

This was used by Sandra Cabot as a liver cleansing diet (although originally put together by a couple of other Australians, in the 80's).

Ok, so that's great. Soak, grind & add that to my diet, and we're away. Right? Wrong.

Turns out, I didn't have any linseed hanging around the place, just some linseed meal - I figure that's gotta be the same stuff, just ground up, so where's the problem?

One thing that juice fast taught me was to listen very, very closely to my body when I'm feeding it things, and I noticed that after having the LSA mix, something wasn't quite right. Basically ok, just a little off.

So I started doing some research.

Linseed is another term for flaxseed. Flaxseed is well known as a source of omega-3's, etc etc. So what's the problem?

Turns out linseed meal is a by-product of extracting the oil from flax/linseeds. Ie, it's what's left over after you take the oil away.

Now, linseed meal is fed to horses, and is still high in protein, so what gives?

Then I discovered this [pdf]. "The toxic action of linseed meal on trout". Turns out some scientists discovered that when you feed linseed meal (ie, the by-product, not the entire seed) to trout, it turns them black. And blind. And dead.

So. Entire seed, good. Meal, bad. Of Course! How Obvious! *facepalm*

It's a tricky world out there. Stay sharp kids!

Raw: Simpler is Better

I'm coming to the conclusion that the closer a food is to being alive, the better it is for us to eat it - no ground breaking realisations here of course - just important to realise these things for oneself.

The antithesis of this being: the more processed, complexly combined & further from this natural state, the worse it's likely to be. It's a handy rule of thumb.

Which leads me to dessert:

Freshly cut organic apple, strawberries & cherries, topped with passionfruit. Takes about 3 minutes to make, healthy & absolutely delicious. The only thing better would be if I'd picked it all myself.

Gall Bladder Cleanse - Don't Do What I Did

[If you're squeamish, don't read this]

I'd been reading a bit about gall bladder cleanses on Give It To Me Raw, and thought "Hey, why not give that a go?"

So I did.

mMMmm nummy! No, mine doesn't look like this (I'd be in extreme pain if it did).

I did a bunch of research, read about 20 different ways to do it, and figured out what would work for me, and went ahead and got stuck in.

Most of the suggestions involve drinking olive oil + lemon (or grapefruit) juice in the evening, lying on your right hand side with your right knee up, for half an hour, then going to sleep.

So, here's what not to do:

1. Don't figure "Why wait till evening? I'll start now!" (2pm in the afternoon). Otherwise you'll be up all night, uhh, running back & forth. This is not as much fun as it sounds.
2. Also, there's a good chance you'll spend the rest of the day burping olive oil. This is REALLY gross. If you're asleep, of course, you won't notice.
3. Generally the idea is not to eat all day, then drink the gunk in the evening. I've been having psyllium shakes (couple of teaspoons psyllium husk shaken up in water) early in the morning. To me, that's liquid, so no problem, right? Ahh, my body thinks otherwise. Apparently this is a solid. Big problem. Blocks you up inside, so the gall stones can't flush out as easily. I spent most of the rest of the day feeling pretty ill. I have a sneaking suspicion this also lead to me throwing up, later in the piece.
4. I'm a curious guy, but still not curious enough to sift through my "produce". So leaving the light on is a good idea, because otherwise it's going to be pitch black when you go rushing in there & you'll never get to see the results of all your glorious efforts. Once you're sitting, there's no way in hell you're getting up again. And once you've finished, there's no way in hell you're leaving that evil stuff lying around even long enough to get to the light & back.

And here's what did kind of work:

1. I had 2 cups (500ml) of olive oil with 2 cups of lemon juice & the juice of a grapefruit. All things considered, that didn't taste too bad (although I did skull it down). I think the grapefruit really softened the taste.
2. Taking tiny licks of honey in between gulping sessions helped too. I managed to get the entire litre (quart) all down in about 5 minutes.
3. Gargling with mouthwash was the only thing I found that reliably took the olive oil burps away (I tried apple, pineapple juice, water).

Annnnd, some other notes, that you probably don't want to know.

1. Plan on being very busy. I lost count after 14 visits, oh, and threw up three times (I think about the 13th visit). Interestingly, I didn't throw up any oil (I would have tasted it), just the pineapple juice & water I'd taken several hours after the oil, to try and rehydrate a bit and take the olive oil taste away.
2. The next morning my skin really smelt. Not like I've ever smelt it before, and very unusual. Definite "uh oh, time for a shower" stuff. I'd guess I was detoxing stuff out through my pores too.
3. As mentioned above, I kept forgetting to switch the light on, so didn't really get to have a quick look & see how it went in terms of stones, but once most of the action was gone & things had calmed down a bit I did remember to switch it on, and the next couple of visits saw many things like that looked exactly the size, colour & shape of peas, floating in the bowl.
4. The first couple of visits were pretty unusual, and definitely felt like I was clearing some large bulbous things. No way in hell was I gonna go looking for them though!!

All in all, pretty much like giving birth to a litter of alien face-huggers.

So, for all the excitement, it looks like I did successfully clear SOMETHING(S) out of my system. Some people mention feeling incredible soon after. I must say I just feel worn out. Ahh, I don't think I'll be doing it again in any hurry though *cough*. Heh. Just... No.

How to Make Spirulina Tasty

Ok, so everyone knows spirulina is good for you. But so many brands taste like ass (uhh, ok, not exactly like ass).

What to do, what to do?

Well, I've finally found a way (other than the obvious, masking it in smoothies, with tons of fruit, or, you know, buying all the brands out there till you find one that's bearable)

Start like this:

That's cacao powder (on the left), maca (for a bit of kick), and spirulina on the right.

Mix it all up with some raw organic honey (ahh, it's debatably 'raw', but we'll let that slide), stir in a little water if you like, till it looks like this:

Black Gold! Four superfoods in every mouthful!

Now it LOOKS disgusting (but tastes sooo good), so let's make it look more appealing. How about this?

Aha! See, now it's a treat!

If you need some spirulina in a hurry, don't have time for a smoothie, running out the door to some serious exercise, this is a great way to get it in you fast. Just be sure to follow it with some water or juice - spirulina is so green it has a tendency to leave one with 'hulk teeth'.

The Dangers of Fasting

Having recently finished a 30 odd day juice feast/fast, followed by a 4 day water fast, there were a couple of things that deeply concerned me.

To be clear, I don't think these are procedural issues - that water or juice fasting are inherently bad - but rather things that, perhaps due to my personality, worried me. I suspect these may also be dangers for others.

Psychological
There is a lot of talk, if you look around, of people being on fasts, feeling clear, light, connected to everything, full of energy and so on.

The problem is - if you don't feel like that, it's very easy to start thinking "Maybe I'm doing something wrong?" This is a very dangerous & slippery road.

After a couple of weeks, I got it in my head that perhaps my digestive track still had too much crap in it, left over from bad diet earlier in life. As per "official recommendations", I was taking cascara sagrada (a low key natural laxative). In addition, I regularly drank psyllium and bentonite shakes (which help detox heavy metals, & generally cleans you out). It didn't help that I would "slip up" and occasionally eat something - this would then spiral into a cycle of "I need to clear that out" and "once it's gone, THEN I'll feel light", etc.

I never did feel that lightness (except when meditating). But the drive to empty my stomach? Isn't that anorexia?

My lifelong habit has been: I eat whatever I want, whenever I want it. I eat until I'm full, and then I stop. I don't stress about eating healthily, but I do make a point of avoiding rubbish as much as possible (excepting a very stressful period in my early 20's where I ate complete junk & generally treated myself & my life badly).

Since going raw, I've learnt a lot more about what is and isn't healthy, so those boundaries are moving (cooked food in general being less healthy than uncooked - whereas before I would eat, say, japanese because rice is more healthy than burgers), but the attitude remains. To eat healthy: think healthy; avoid rubbish; chill out.

I never get sick. I'm fit enough that I run half marathons every decade or so - I'm not a runner, and never run other than the half marathons, it just seems to work out that way (don't ask, I can't explain it. I get spontaneous). I always have tons of energy. These external indicators tell me that while my diet can definitely improve (& has been), generally it's working for me, and my behaviours are reasonably sound.

So, for someone like me to be exhibiting anorexic tendencies? That's VERY scary.

Physical
When I went on the water fast, I knew it would be rough.

Typically a water fast works like this. You eat nothing, but drink lots of water. Your body survives by using up (in order):

1. whatever food is still in your digestive tract
2. your fat cells (which is where you store toxins, so these then get released - this is desirable)
3. your muscles (a 10 day fast you'll lose maybe 0.5->1kg/1-2lb of muscle)
4. tissues from your internal organs, in reverse order of importance

Now, because I'd just been on a juice feast, I didn't have any food in my digestive tract. What little fat I'd had to start with had mostly disappeared. I went straight into hardcore exhaustion. I spent 4 days pretty much unable to get out of bed.

Remember also, I was still doing colonics every week. Now, if my intention in doing these was to empty my digestive tract, I'd be more concerned about this, but what they did do was both help me clear toxins out faster, and also remove long term build up (I won't get into details here). Plus, from a healing perspective I've found them.. surprisingly effective. Suffice to say, I don't think they, in themselves were a bad thing, and they probably saved me a lot of pain. However, the combination of all of these things (fast, colonics, laxatives, internal cleansers) did have side effects.

One of the things that made me realise that I didn't NEED to be fasting was the inimitable Dhrumil. That what I was seeking wouldn't be found "out there" or by chasing some ideal goal of (mental) lightness, (digestive) clarity, or anything. No, this was an internal game, and you only win by letting go.

The other thing that made me decide enough was enough was seeing this in the mirror:

That doesn't look so bad. What's scary is, this is me deliberately relaxing my stomach, and letting it expand out as much as it possibly can.

To give this some perspective. For 20 years, my weight has been between 57kg and 65kg (126-143 lb). This doesn't matter how much, or what I eat. My lifestyle. Whether I exercise once a year, or three times a day. I eat three dinners to try and gain weight, and it's gone in two days. If I hit 65 kg I know it's time to do some exercise. I walk a bit more and I'm back down to 62kg (my longterm average, +/- 1kg) in a week. I'm STABLE. I've given up trying to gain weight, since it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Now, I don't have scales in the house - where's the point? But I did weigh myself at a friends, before I started the water fast, and I was down around 52kg. I only got lighter after that. What really scared me though? Was this (again, this is as far out as I could comfortably push my stomach):

That? That's unhealthy. And damn scary. And that was enough.

Recovering from a Juice Feast

First of all - a disclaimer. I ain't a juice feastin' expert. I can only talk about my own experience.

And so I shall!

Ok, some background - why did I do a juice feast in the first place? Spiritual clarity, essentially. In the process of weeding my emotional garden, I knew that the lighter my food intake, the more detoxing I'd do, the more things would come up, and the more I could heal. Did juice feasting help with this? Definitely.

Yes, I drank this much green juice.

Now, what did I do? I juice feasted - which means drinking at least 4L (4qt) of mainly vegetable juice, every day. I did this for 30 something days. After that, I went straight into a water fast (hey! why not? In for a penny, in for a pound!).

While I was doing the juice feast, I had colonics every week (more on those later) - which helped enormously, btw. Did I manage to just drink juice the entire time? No, I "screwed up" on several occasions. Oh, I also drank psyllium & bentonite shakes several times daily for most of that time. Theoretically that should have helped clean me out. Did I notice anything? Not that I could tell. Between the shakes and sporadic eating, I suspect my digestive system never really got to the super calm, clear state that people talk about - but in terms of healing, ahhh, hehe, yeah, it was plenty intense enough, thankyouverymuch.

So, what have I learned coming off the feast?

1. It's VERY easy to overeat.
Even though I'm not 100% my digestive system ever completely switched off, I find pretty much every time I eat that my stomach is hurting afterwards. I never ate much to start with, but I think I'm going to have to start making half portions - ie, about half the size of a child's meal.

2. It's VERY easy to underdrink.
Normally I drink 4-5L (4-5qt) of water a day. I have a big glass, and I just sip it throughout the day. When juicing, I'd drink maybe 2L of water a day, but 4L of juice. Take the juice away, and it's been hard to remind myself to start upping the water again. This has, of course, messed up my ability to digest food (I've been more clogged up than I would be on water).

3. The "6 day feast breaking" is wayyyyy too short.
I've been off for two weeks now, and my body is still freaking out every time I eat anything. It's not over after 6 days, that's just the beginning of the adjustment.

4. You're going to be drinking juice for much longer than time+6 days.
When I finished, I was all with the "Thank God!! I am SO sick of juice!!". Ahhh, famous last words. It's not just the feast breaking time, but also with a shrunken stomach, so reduced food intake, where will your nutrients come from? Juicing is still the easiest way to get them - without messing up your system. Psychologically this has been realllly tough for me to realise & accept. Must. Keep. Juicing.

5. Hard food is bad.
Even two weeks later, I can feel that my body is not ready for hard to digest food. Eg, I'll juice celery, but I haven't put it in my salads yet. I'll blend (small amounts of soft) nuts, but not eat them raw, and so on.

6. Your tastes will change, drastically.
I just threw out all the toxic stuff in my house. I had a mouthful of something that had stabilizers, emulsifiers etc and instantly felt ill. Now I'm someone with a concrete stomach lining, so this is pretty unusual. Also, things that I used to like are just too sweet for me now. Kale, I can't get enough of (never used to be able to stand it). Wuhhh.. what just happened?

7. The healing hasn't stopped.
Several issues *cough*likethisone*cough* have continued to bubble up as I've been transitioning. I figured everything would just halt, but noooo, still more to go, food-in-my-belly or not

8. Pace yourself!
All those things you've been missing while on the juice? Ahhh, pace yourself. Think, as Kristen points out in terms of a couple of different things a week. Don't do what I did, which was have all those things I'd missed in one day. *OW*. Yeah, it's stupid, I figured that (eventually). I like to learn experientially. Thanks though.

All that said, it's great to be back eating again. I've missed textures. I've missed subtle combinations of flavours (instead of everything-blurred-together-soup). Oh, and I've missed body fat. Holy crap I need some - it's winter here!! What was I thinking?

Food is not Love - but Love is food

Going on a 30 something day juice feast totally kicked my ass.

I admit it. I was miserable pretty much the entire time.

Worse though was afterwards. I decided to finish by going from juice onto a 4 day water fast (which was easier, oddly). That was ok. However, once the transition back to normal food was done (the usual 6+ day gradual dietary speedup), things have gone completely bonkers.

I've eaten more junk than I have in years. Today alone I had four meals, and another meal's worth of snacking. I've eaten until my stomach hurts, and then kept eating (and been doing this for days). To give this a little perspective, I normally eat only one or two small meals a day. I have a fast metabolism, but don't need much food to keep me going.

And this whole time, I've been trying to figure out what's going on. I've thrown all my usual healing tools (EFT, reiki, releasing, etc) at it, to no avail.

The fasting was tough, true. Having my partner out of town on business for the last two months hasn't been easy either (particularly since the previous two years we spent pretty much 24/7 together). But still, this was insane!

What the hell has been happening?

Well, I think I just found out. The inimitable Dhrumil pointed me to a quote from Mama S, of Give It To Me Raw:

Food is not Love

You know what? I read that and immediately burst out crying. I didn't stop for five minutes. In fact, I think I cried more & deeper than the whole time I was fasting - and considering what a wreck I was most of the time, that's saying something. I released/healed a ton of stuff while I was crying, and now? Well, it's odd, but the urge to eat seems to have disappeared.

A lot more things make sense too.

I grew up in a large, not particularly well off family. Mum didn't necessarily have as much time to spend with each of us as if we'd had a smaller family, & we may not have been able to keep up with the Jones (literally, they had a really nice car & a great computer), but we always ate well. It was one key way that Mum expressed her love for us, through food.

I think, at some level, I picked up on that, and solidified it as a core internal belief. A connection.

It maybe also explains why the juicing was so hard for me - if I was denying myself solid food - but interpreting that as denying myself love? Yowser!

and yet, oddly, the reverse IS true:

Love is Food

Love is the deepest nourishment of all. All beings instinctively crave it, from the second they're born. And what is love anyway, but energy? So why the appeal of raw food? It has more energy, more love. At some level, whether we're aware of it or not, our bodies know this, we feel it. The closer the food is to living, the closer it is to loving. It really is that simple.

Or at least, having cried my lungs out half the evening, that's how I feel about it right now.. And that sure beats eating myself into pain.

Cleaning House - Removing obvious food toxins

I've just come off a thirty something day juice feast, followed by a four day water fast (more on that lot later), and after all that cleansing, I started thinking about what I was now going to be putting into my body again.

Why waste all that time by just putting more toxins in?

So I started looking at the first non-obvious thing I picked up - a can of coconut cream that I used to simply adore putting in my morning smoothies. What I found was these:

• Stabiliser 412
• Thickener 466
• Emulsifier 435

What the hell are they? No idea! So tracked them down to these:

• guar gum
• carboxymethyl cellulose
• polysorbate

To use the most egregious example for greater effect:

Polysorbates are oily liquids derived from polyethylene glycol-ylated sorbitan (a derivative of sorbitol) esterified with fatty acids

uhh. wtf?

Now, ok, to be fair, I'm sure that I've been eating this stuff my entire life with no obvious ill effect. However, that doesn't mean I should or have to continue doing so.

I should state - my overall intention is to have a happy & joyous relationship to food. I'm not going to sweat the tiny details if I'm out eating at a restaurant with friends, for example. However, if I habitually buy & eat something that's bad for me, for no reason other than habit, why not improve it? It's as much effort to make that small change as to continue.

So, here's what I did.

I went through the entire house, and threw out everything that had:

• refined sugar
• processed starches
• preservatives
• additives
• dairy
• meat
• caffeine

Namely, all this:

Which given the tiny kitchen in my apartment here was quite a large percentage of available cupboard space!

After all, if I'm not planning on eating it, why keep it around?