Spiny Biorhythms

The ancient Chinese observed this connection between our bodies and the planets many centuries ago, and use it intheir practice of acupuncture. They list a number of different biorhythms, from the normal twenty four hour cycle up through longer several day periods.

All of these are used to follow and influence fluctuations in body energy. In acupuncture, this energy circulates through each part of the body throughout the day, each organ having a two hour time for maximum energy and a time for minimum energy. For example, the major organs have their maximum energy in the following order: first the liver, then the lungs, large intestine, stomach, spleen, heart, etc., in sequence, for all of the twelve major organs. This order was discovered by years of observing the times of day that the disorders of the various organs displayed their worst symptoms.

The acupuncture practitioner can use the times of a patient’s symptoms to help determine which organs and energy channels are affected, and also help select the favorable times to treat the patient. For example, many of the worst asthma attacks take place during the wee hours, which is the maximum energy period of the lungs. The best time to treat these cases is at a time as close to this time as possible.

In the science behind acupuncture, a symptom may be caused by too much energy at an organ, and other symptoms by an insufficient amount of energy. (The determination of which symptoms fall into which category has been catalogued over many centuries, and there are many books on acupuncture detailing these for each of the major organs.) The best time to treat a symptom associated with too much energy is during its maximum energy output, and a symptom with a deficiency in energy is just after the maximum output is over. Of course, it may not be possible to get to your practitioner at those particular times, and there are also other good choices at other times of the day.

If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole Accupuncture story from informed sources. In addition to the daily biorhythm, there are also ten day intervals associated with the moon, and so the acupuncture practitioner might strongly suggest that a particular day would be better for treatment than another, based on the particular symptoms reported.

Each day of the ten days is associated with one of two aspects of the Qi energy, and also associated with one of five elements. Particular organs are associated with particular elements, and so stimulation of these organs will be more successful on those days associated with the correct element.

It is important for us to take note of the times our symptoms occur as well as what our symptoms are, for that is important information in our acupuncture treatment plan. And know that the time and dates for our treatments are an important part of how well the treatment works.

Don’t limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about Accupuncture. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus on what’s important

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To change your life

William James, known as the father of American psychology said there are three rules to follow if you want to change your life:

1. Start immediately
2. Do it flamboyantly
3. No exceptions

Well you may not want to change your life exactly but you may have thought of achieving a goal or just doing something differently.When it comes to change, many people procrastinate or fall victim to the “perpetually getting ready to do something syndrome”- a feeling that the time’s just not right at the moment, or I’ll start next Monday, better still next month and so on…

Here are some tactics for getting things done now:

If you perceive that the starting task might be unpleasant then schedule it first on your to-do list. It often turns out to be not that bad after all. (no exceptions)
All journey’s begin with a small step, so break down complex projects into small pieces that are manageable and schedule the first step today. (start immediately)
Set a target date for completion. Go public-tell a colleague, friend or partner what you are doing and when you are going to do it (do it flamboyantly)

Finally don’t forget your biorhythms - schedule your most important tasks during the periods when you have the most energy.

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Yes, your brain left you to hang… high and dry.

And here’s why your precious brain decides to leave for a short tea-break or ‘vacation’ whenever you need it to report for work:

1. You don’t understand or know your own natural biorhythm. I call this your PPPs, “Peak Performance Period”.

2. You’ve yet to learn how to focus on what motivates. As a result you give in to distractions, internally and environmentally.

3. Your own physical body does not acquire the sufficient or suitable nutrition to keep your brain working healthily.

4. You don’t have the right motivation and driving desire to propel yourself.

5. The lack of energy and rest makes us too tired for intensive mental work.

6. You got overwhelmed by the tasks and challenges that face you. You felt too ‘microscopically and atomically small’ for such a gigantic glorious mission that might change the history of mankind and the surface of the earth.

7. Anxiety, worry, frustrations, fear took over your mind and imagination instead of you being relaxed. The stress you experienced made your mind went ‘blank’

8. It’s the result of poor thinking and working habits you’ve, intentionally or un-wittedly, adopted over the years.

9. You have yet to master your mind to a reasonable, applicable level. The techniques of mind mastery and brain power continue to lie undiscovered for you.

10. You’ve never “wanted it to work” in the first place. You saw the act as a need and as an obligation instead of an all-inspiring purpose. Hence it’s because of your attitude towards the work.

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Biomonitor as a Secret Weapon

The Vancouver Canucks have never owned Stanley Cup rings. But they're wearing biorhythm bracelets, which the National Hockey League team hopes might help get players the jewelry they really want.

Canuck players have been issued black bracelets to monitor their circadian rhythms, which are hard to dance to but set everyone's biological clock.

Circadian rhythms are regular mental and physical changes, driven by light and darkness and other factors, that occur over a 24-hour period. Canuck players are wearing the rhythm monitors -- "sleep bands" -- during their six-game, 11-night road trip, removing them only for games and practices. Or, for Daniel and Henrik Sedin on Tuesday, to go swimming.

The Sleep Performance Sleep Bracelet, a sleep-monitoring device that the Vancouver Canucks are wearing.

The information will be downloaded next week when the trip ends, and each players' rest and energy patterns evaluated.

The innovative program, being overseen by the Vancouver firm Global Fatigue Management Inc., is part of new Canuck general manager Mike Gillis's strategy to use new technology to make his team better.

"It's about managing fatigue levels, seeing what kind of sleep guys are getting during travel," Gillis said before the Canucks beat the Detroit Red Wings 4-3 in overtime Thursday night.

"It will allow Global Fatigue to sit down with players and say: 'You average X-number of hours sleep, and here is when you were most fatigued.'

"They will help each guy develop [a sleep schedule] that suits them.

"It's educating players about fatigue and why some days they feel more tired than other days."

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Biorhythms to Accelerate Weight Loss

Use your body’s biorhythm and eat more!

Losing weight is undoubtedly mankind’s biggest battle in modern history! (Well for some of us at least). In as little as 100 years, we humans have earned the accolade for being the fattest animals on the planet. Weight issues is more that just a ‘big’ vanity obsession. Being fat also carry with it tones of serious health issues.

Nevertheless, the truth is many of us wish to loose weight for aesthetic reasons. Whatever the reason maybe (whether its loosing weight for swimsuit season, for your wedding, to improve your health of just to spice sex life) here are some great tips on how to loose weight fast.

1) Eat more! You heard me. Studies have showed that many of us gain weight not because of how much we eat, but how we eat. When we have a big hefty meal, chances are the body does not need that much energy at that particular moment, so it will store the excessive calories consumed. What we should do is to have more frequent, but smaller meals throughout the day.

By having frequent small meals, the body has time to process the food more efficiently to convert it into energy, instead of fat. Although we may end up eating way more that we did before this program, this method has been proven to help you lose weight quickly!

2) Use your body’s biorhythm. The metabolism rate of your body varies throughout the day. Your body is more active at certain times of day and more passive in others. The trick is to plan your meals according to your body’s biorhythm. You may not have to change the amount of food being consumed everyday, but just change the timing of your meals.

For example, fattening foods like potatoes and other high carbs and high fat foods are best consumed before 12 pm. This is because up to this time, your body’s metabolism is at its highest. From 12 pm to 3 pm, you should stick to fruits vegetables and meat. From 3pm to 7 pm, it is best to stick to just proteins.

After 7, there should be no further consumption of foods. Don’t worry about being hungry as your high protein intake before 7pm will keep you feeling full through out the night.

3) Trick your body! This is another trick where you can loose weight quickly without changing your diet too much. It’s called the vegetable diet trick. During meal times, before you go for the foods that you like, you have to fill half of your plate with vegetables like leafy greens, beans or nuts (not potatoes or French fries).

After that you can fill the other half of your plate with whatever food you want (ice-cream, desert, sweets, meats whatever you wish). Now, before you start eating the food of your choice, you must finish all the vegetables in the other half of your plate first. After you have consumed the vegetables you can proceed to eat the food on the other half.

This is a way of tricking your brain into thinking that you are actually eating a lot of the food that you love, By the time you are done with your vegetables, your appetite for the other side of the plate would have decreased. Over time, your body will start developing a natural preference for vegetables that will help you keep the weight off in the long run!


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Moon's Biorhythms

The Moon may not be made of cheese, but it seems to influence a lot more down on Earth than we previously thought.

For eons, folklore has blamed the Moon for everything from lunacy to bad luck. And, for the last few centuries, scientists have scoffed. Now, according to new research they’re not so sure. The Moon may not be made of cheese, but it seems to influence a lot more down on Earth than we previously thought.

According to new research, the Moon affects not only the tides of the oceans but also people, producing a range of symptoms from flare-ups of gout to bladder problems. It may even lie behind the causes of car crashes and affect people’s hormonal balances.

Having carried out new research and reviewed 50 other studies, scientists suggest that doctors and the police even need to prepare for how their work rate will increase at different points in the lunar cycle. Among the findings examined by the researchers were studies that showed GP consultations go up during a full moon, according to Leeds University. Appointments rise by 3.6 per cent, which works out at around three extra patients for each surgery. The researchers did not speculate on the nature of the moon-related problems or why they happened, but said that “it does not seem to be related to anxiety and depression”.

Gout and asthma attacks peak during new and full moons, according to work carried out at the Slovak Institute of Preventive and Clinical Medicine in Bratislava, where attacks over a 22-year period were monitored.

Data from 140,000 births in New York City showed small but systematic variations in births over a period of 29.53 days - the length of the lunar cycle - with peak fertility in the last quarter. “The timing of the fertility peak in the third quarter suggests that the period of decreasing illumination immediately after the full moon may precipitate ovulation.”

A study in Florida of murders and aggravated assaults showed clusters of attacks around the full moon. A second study of three police areas found the incidence of crimes committed on full-moon days was much higher than on all other days. And a four-year study into car accidents found that the lowest number happened during the full-moon day, while the highest number was two days before the full moon. Accidents were more frequent during the waxing than the waning phase.

Another study of some 800 patients with urinary retention admitted to hospital over a period of three years found higher retention during the new moon compared with other phases of the cycle. Interestingly, patients didn’t show any other daily, monthly or seasonal rhythms in their retention problems.

Even what we eat and drink is affected by the lunar cycle, according to a study at Georgia State University. Researchers looked at lunar variations in nutrient intakes and the meal patterns of 694 adults. They concluded: “A small but significant lunar rhythm of nutrient intake was observed with an 8 per cent increase in meal size and a 26 per cent decrease in alcohol intake at the time of the full moon relative to the new moon.”

While scientists have been trying to prove for some time that the Moon does exert an effect, what has not been established is why. Scientists have until now examined the theory that the Moon triggers changes through its gravitational pull. But the latest research points to an effect on people’s hormones. “The lunar cycle has an impact on human reproduction, in particular fertility, menstruation and birth rate. Other events associated with human behaviour, such as traffic accidents, crimes, and suicides, appeared to be influenced by the lunar cycle,” said Dr Michael Zimecki of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

“Although the exact mechanism of the Moon’s influence on humans and animals awaits further exploration, knowledge of this kind of biorhythm may be helpful in police surveillance and medical practice,” he said.

The researchers also found links between the lunar cycle and the likelihood of people being admitted to hospital with heart or bladder problems and with diarrhoea. The menstrual cycle, fertility, spontaneous abortions and thyroid disease were also affected. Just how the Moon could have an effect needs further research. Dr Zimecki suggests that it may be the effect of the Moon’s gravity on immune systems, hormones and steroids.

He said: “At this stage of investigation, the exact mechanism of the lunar effect on the immune response is hard to explain. The prime candidates to exert regulatory function on the immune response are melatonin and steroids, whose levels are affected by the Moon cycle.

“It is suggested that melatonin and endogenous steroids [which are naturally occurring in humans] may mediate the described cyclic alterations of physiological processes. Electromagnetic radiation and/or the gravitational pull of the Moon may trigger the release of hormones.”

Whatever the root cause of the Moon’s influence over us, its hold over the imagination will endure as long as the shining sphere of rock remains in the sky.
Only 12 people have walked on the Moon: the first were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969, the last were Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in 1972. But last December, Nasa announced plans for a permanent base on the Moon in preparation for a manned mission to Mars.

Construction of the base is scheduled to take around five years, with the first voyages beginning by 2020.

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What is chronotherapy?

Chronotherapy takes into account how our body's natural rhythms' impact our ability to process medications. Patterns like sleeping, menstrual cycles, even our physical response to the changing seasons, are different for everyone. In the old days we called these biorhythms. Today, doctors are finding that understanding a patient's biorhythms, and coordinating the timing of their medical treatments to these biorhythms, can profoundly affect the outcome of their treatments. This is called chronotherapy.

Every drug has an optimal time when it is least toxic and most effective. says Keith Block, MD, editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal Integrative Cancer Therapies, and Clinical Professor, Department of Medical Education, at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago (UIC), and at the Department of Pharmacology. For cancer treatment, this is determined by several factors, including the biological uniqueness of the particular drug being given, the time when the specific type of cancer cells divide the most, when the normal healthy cells of the patient generally divide the least, the patient's circadian clock and individual rest-activity cycles, and even the time zone the person resides in.According to Dr. Michael Smolensky, co-author of the book The Body Clock Guide to Better Health, when cancer medications are given in a chronobiological manner, patients may be able to tolerate higher, more potent doses than would be possible otherwise.

This method of administering chemotherapy is revolutionary and has demonstrated in large randomized trials its potential to improve survival, states Dr. Block. We have found that often patients receiving chronotherapy reduce what would have been recurring side effects of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and fatigue. This is important because the debilitation caused by chemo can cause patients to reduce or even stop treatments that could otherwise help them win their battle with cancer.

Chronotherapy is being widely researched around the world: there are over 62,000 references in the National Institute of Health's archive of biomedical and life sciences journal articles about chronobiology and how biology is affected by timing and over 500 scientific articles specifically about chronotherapy.

The National Cancer Institute's Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (OCCAM) devoted an entire web cast for doctors on chronotherapy.So why isn't chronotherapy used more widely?One of the main problems has been logistic, figuring out how to deliver chemotherapy in exactly timed doses. Portable infusion pumps may hold the answer, explains Gerald Sokol, MD, an oncologist with the division of oncology in FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

Dr. Block has brought technology to the U.S. that administers chemotherapy via a pump designed to precisely time up to four channels of infusion simultaneously to the individual needs of a patient. Highly portable and small enough to fit in a fanny pack, patients are able to maintain full mobility, play sports, and enjoy a full night's sleep while receiving their specifically timed cancer therapy.

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