Jug Suraiya

When Bunny was recently suffering from a bout of sciatica, several friends suggested that she might try homeopathy. “Even if it doesn’t work, you’ve got nothing to lose; even if it doesn’t help you, it can’t harm you,” they said.  So Bunny decided to give homeopathy a shot.

Other friends of ours were horrified at this.  “You claim to be a rationalist.  How can you believe in mumbo-jumbo like homeopathy, for which there is no scientific basis whatever?  The few cases in which it’s supposed to have worked are obviously instances of the placebo effect: you believe strongly enough that something is going to cure you, you cure yourself.  How can you believe in homeopathy, how can you have faith in it?”

And the answer to that is that you don’t have to have faith in something – be it homeopathy or anything else – in order to try it out, to practice it, while keeping your fingers crossed that it will work.  In fact, faith itself – faith in a religion or in a non-denominational Divine Principle which is synonymous with the cosmos – is like homeopathy in that sense: you don’t have to have faith in faith in order to try it out, to practice it, keeping your fingers crossed that it works. Read the rest of this entry →

Needles may not seem like the best tool for treating stress, but acupuncture could be tapping into basic biological systems that keep stress under control.

Reporting in the Journal of Endocrinology, researchers led by Ladan Eshkevari, assistant program director of the nurse anesthesia program at Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies, mimicked chronic stress in a rat model and documented how stimulating certain body points with acupuncture can alter stress hormones.

The body’s stress response is triggered by two main pathways, one of which involves the HPA axis, or hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, in which these areas of the brain are activated to release peptides and proteins such as corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). They, in turn, launch the production of other hormones such as cortisol and norepinephrine that rev up the anxiety meter. Once activated, the system causes the heart to beat faster and the senses to go on alert. It also diverts the body’s energy away from background operations such as digestion to prime and fuel the muscles into a state of readiness. Read the rest of this entry →

Drug companies won’t like this one getting around.

Facts on Honey and Cinnamon:
It is found that a mix of honey and Cinnamon cures most diseases. Honey is produced in most of the countries of the world. Scientists of today also note honey as very effective medicine for all kinds of diseases. Honey can be used without side effects which is also a plus.Today’s science says that even though honey is sweet, when it is taken in the right dosage as a medicine, it does not harm even diabetic patients. Researched by western scientists:

HEART DISEASES: Make a paste of honey and cinnamon powder, put it on toast instead of jelly and jam and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol and could potentially save one from heart attack. Also, even if you have already had an attack studies show you could be kept miles away from the next attack. Regular use of cinnamon honey strengthens the heart beat. In America and Canada, various nursing homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as one ages the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged; honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and the veins.

ARTHRITIS: Arthritis patients can benefit by taking one cup of hot water with two tablespoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder. When taken daily even chronic arthritis can be cured. In a recent research conducted at the Copenhagen University, it was found that when the doctors treated their patients with a mixture of one tablespoon Honey and half teaspoon Cinnamon powder before breakfast, they found that within a week (out of the 200 people so treated) practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain — and within a month, most all the patients who could not walk or move around because of arthritis now started walking without pain.

BLADDER INFECTIONS: Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It destroys the germs in the bladder….who knew?

CHOLESTEROL: Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of Cinnamon Powder mixed in 16 ounces of tea water given to a cholesterol patient was found to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood by 10 percent within two hours. As mentioned for arthritic patients, when taken three times a day, any chronic cholesterol-could be cured. According to information received in the said Journal, pure honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol. Read the rest of this entry →

In our last newsletter, we examined the physiology of the human muscle system from an alternative health perspective. In this newsletter, we continue with that theme by exploring both the physics of muscle movement and the code that underpins muscle anatomy. And no, the goal is not to teach you the names of all 799 skeletal muscles in the body, but rather to show you “how” the muscles are named. Muscle names are not just a bunch of random Latin words, but rather, are named according to a set of informal rules; and once you understand those rules, you can pretty much tell where any muscle is located and what it does.

By itself, though, this is not important; but once armed with the information, we will then be able to talk about exercise — and exactly how to exercise our muscles to accomplish specific goals and achieve optimum health.

The Physics of Muscles

Before we can discuss the naming system for muscles, we need to understand the principle of levers that make the whole musculoskeletal system work since many muscle names are derived from that principle. The reason for this is simple: all skeletal muscles provide stability and produce movement in the body by acting as the force or effort applied to the levers of our bones — and by using opposing forces to achieve mechanical advantage. Or to put it another way, muscles move bones around joints. Read the rest of this entry →