Meditation – Part 1

Morning, Earth beings.

Two months ago, I volunteered at Camp LIFT. Their mission statement is:

“To foster optimal development in youth, by educating them on holistic principles of healthy minds, bodies and relationships. To promote fundamental values surrounding global health in order to reduce the incidence of addiction, delinquency, and school dropouts”.

It was a seven day sleep away camp, for youths aged 14 to 17 years old. I volunteered on the first day and the last day; I picked up some of the teenagers in Montreal on the first day, drove them to the camp, stayed there to sleep the first night, came home on the morrow, returned on the last day to hang out with them, and drove three of them home the day after that.

During the first evening, we all gathered up in a circle so that the youths could hear the schedule for the week. Amongst two hours of daily sports, morning meditation, yoga, and healthy eating, there was also a 6:00 AM wake-up scheduled for every morning, not easy tasks for teenagers who do not live this lifestyle regularly.

I used to get up around 5:30-6:30 quite often in the past, because of school; however, since school finished almost two years ago, I had not been in that groove anymore. I was getting up somewhere between 7:30-10:00, and I missed being up early—I feel my most productive time of the day is between 5:00 and 11:00.

The next morning, I woke up with them at 6:00 AM, meditated, broke my fast, and then drove home. I couldn’t stay for the week because I had work.

I thought about the teenagers a lot when I got home; I had already become attached to many of them, and so I decided I would stay with them in spirit: I recorded a short video, explaining how I would get up at 6:00 every morning of the week, and meditate on my own, to support them in this endeavor.

Every morning that week, without fail, I was up at 6:00—my alarm was actually 6:01, but no one needs to know that, except my awesome readers—to go meditate at the park next to my house.

This expedition was at the beginning of August, and I have kept up with morning meditation ever since, save three days due to feeling frail and sickly. I do not get up at 6:00 every morning though; instead, I put my alarm on seven hours and 30 minutes after I get to bed. Chiefly, it varies between 6:30 and 8:00, which I largely prefer over 9:00 or 10:00, which is the loophole I had fallen into.

Excuse me. The title of this post is ‘How To Meditate’, not ‘Here Is A Personal Anecdote Of Mine’.

Picky, as always.

I am getting to that presently.

I have three different meditation routines, of which I alternate between each morning. For example: I will do meditation 1 on Monday, meditation 2 on Tuesday, meditation 3 on Wednesday, and loop around as of Thursday.

Today I shall explain one of these meditation techniques I use.

The Bubble Meditation

I discovered the bubble meditation while reading Lawrence LeShan’s book How To Meditate.

The goal of the bubble meditation is to be fully focused on your thoughts in the present moment, taking about six to ten seconds to observe each thought.

Here are the steps, described briefly:

1. Sit down. Imagine that you are seated at the bottom of a lake. If this thought is too difficult for you, imagine you are sitting on a mountain-side, observing the environment ahead—in this case, it will not be a bubble meditation but more of a column of smoke meditation, which I shall explain very shortly.
2. Close your eyes. Each time a thought comes to you, imagine that a bubble has formed at the bottom of the lake, in front of you, and that the thought you had is encompassed in the bubble. Then, observe the bubble as it rises higher and higher, until it is no longer visible—this should take about six to ten seconds. Do not judge, or try to understand why you are thinking of this; simply observe it. If you are imagining yourself sitting on a mountain-side, imagine a column of smoke rising instead of a bubble, with the same parameters as described previously.
3. Do the same thing for the next thought, and so forth, always without judgement. Start with 10 minutes for several sessions, and then you can increase if you’d like, or not, it is entirely up to you.

The goal is to observe your thoughts in the present, without judging or trying to understand them.

Sometimes, the same thought will come back several times in a row. That is fine; just observe, and keep going. You might have instances where no thoughts emerge, and if that is the case, that is fine too. There are no set rules, besides observing your thoughts and doing nothing else.

I normally do this for ten to fifteen minutes. I never put a timer on at the park when I meditate, so I am ball-parking the duration. I used to put a ten minute timer on when I mediated at home several months ago, to help me not think about how long remained, and that way I could just focus on the task at hand, and nothing else—although I never managed to have a full ten minute session when my brain didn’t divagate at least several times.

There you have it.

Thank you.

Woah. A thank you. From you?

Don’t get used to it.

Next time I write about meditation I will share another method I use.

Do you meditate presently, or have you in the past? How did or does it make you feel?

Bubble-note: I’m simply observing my thought, over and over, of how I’d love for you to subscribe to my blog. And if not, that is fine; as I mentioned, I am only observing, and not judging.

 

Low Back Pain Part 1: How To Stretch Your Hamstrings

Jonathan here, again.

We sure hope so; it is your blog.

No need to be incogitant now—I’m trying to help you out with this post.

This is part 1 in a series I will be writing which aims at helping you deal with low back pain. Subscribe if you’d like to receive the next ones as they are posted in the following weeks.

Always trying to get people to subscribe…

Yes, for sure: I’d love to make it to a double digit subscription number!

Alas, let’s get into it.

For those of you who do not know: I am an osteopath.

One of the main reasons of consultations that I see in my office is back pain—whether it be upper or lower. This series of posts will focus more on aiding those who have low back pain, although it is just as important even if you are pain-free.

There are a few important muscles that must be worked when low back pain is present. A lot of this work can be done right in your home, by yourself, for free.

One of these aforementioned muscle groups are the posterior thigh muscles, called the hamstrings.

A blurb of anatomy:

The hamstrings consists of three muscles: the semimembranosus, semitendinosus, and bicep femoris. They attach from the pelvic bone’s ischial tuberosity—that bony lump you sit on, right in the middle of the bum—to the knee joint—that knee joint, the one you have two of. These three muscles run along the posterior surface of your thigh.

Now, for the stretching: first and foremost, do not do the hamstring stretches standing up, where you bend over and try and touch your toes, or the one where you are seated, bending your entire back, trying to bring your head to your toes. These put a lot of stress on the back, and can actually accentuate and worsen your pain and prognosis.

Here are two ways to stretch your hamstrings, which are much safer for your low back:

1. Lie on your back, on a comfy surface, such as a yoga mat. Take a towel or band, and loop it around the underside of your foot. With the leg relaxed and extended, gently pull the towel or band towards you, until you feel tension in the posterior surface of your thigh. Your other leg can stay straight—as shown in the picture below—or can be bent at 90 degrees, with your foot planted firmly on the ground. The bent knee will diminish the tension in your low back.

2. Stand in front of a couch, chair, or anything that is around or slightly lower than the height of your hips. Keep the leg straight, and gently bend forward at the hips; keep your back straight! An easy way to do this is to imagine that you are approaching your navel—belly-button—to your toe. If you do this, your back should stay straight. There isn’t much movement required for you to feel the stretching in the posterior surface of your thigh.

Different beliefs exist on the amount of time that stretches should be held. I generally tell my patients to hold the position for about 30-45 seconds, 3 times per leg, several times a week or every day. The tension during the exercise should feel no more than 2 or 3 on a scale of 10, where 0 is no tension and 10 is maximal tension. If for any reason you feel numbness during the stretch, slightly lower the amount of tension that you are applying to your hamstrings.

There you have it: two safe hamstrings stretches to help with low back pain.

More to come in future posts!

What do you normally do to help with low back pain?

Lumbar-note: plugging semimembranosus in a sentence always gives you a nimbus of awesomeness.

Sources: all images taken through the Google search engine.

How A Fever Works

Have you ever wondered the following:

• How does a fever work?
• Why does my body become so cold?
• How exactly does the fever help me?

I certainly have.

I took the time to read on it several years ago, but for the sake of this post I read it all again.

I’ll try to summarize it in simple terms—without too much jargon:

What Is A Fever?

A fever is an increase of body temperature to an abnormal level usually caused by pyrogens. Pyrogens are substances that produce a rise in body temperature. The hypothalamus—a structure of the brain—is the area in charge of controlling body temperature. The control of body temperature is named thermoregulation. For this reason, the hypothalamus is sometimes called the Body’s Thermostat.

How Do Pyrogens Affect The Hypothalamus?

Pyrogens affect the thermoregulation control center. When this happens, the reference value for the body’s normal temperature is temporarily increased. This leads to your body feeling that it is colder than it should be. This sensation leads the body to attempt to heat itself up—and to achieve this, symptoms can occur, i.e., shivering.

Ok, I Am Cold Now. I Take My Blanket. I Am Still Cold. Is It All Worth It?

If the fever is slight, here are two reasons why it is beneficial—I am sure there are other reasons as well:

• It increases the speed of the body’s defensive reactions to aid in killing pyrogens faster. 
• It—by means of the liver and spleen—lowers the amount of iron and zinc. Bacteria needs iron and zinc to multiply. This lowering of zinc and iron is done to hinder bacteria proliferation.

Therefore, instances of fever that do not rise the body temperature too much are considered to aid in defense against external agents. However, when the body’s temperature increases drastically, certain enzymes—substance in your body that are essential to producing chemical reactions—deactivate and this can be dangerous.

Here is a passage taken from a Science Daily article from 2011:

“Having a fever might be uncomfortable,” said John Wherry, Ph.D., Deputy Editor of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, “but this research report and several others are showing that having a fever is part of an effective immune response. We had previously thought that the microbes that infect us simply can’t replicate as well when we have fevers, but this new work also suggests that the immune system might be temporarily enhanced functionally when our temperatures rise with fever. Although very high body temperatures are dangerous and should be controlled, this study shows that we may need to reconsider how and when we treat most mild fevers.”

That just about sums it up without going through the details of everything occurring in the body when you are swarmed by some unwanted pyrogen visitors.

 

How much of this did you already know? And do you know of other key reasons as to why fevers occur?

References: Atlas de poche de physiologie (1992); Vulgaris Médical; Science Daily.

How Does A Board Game Co-Op Sound?

Hosting board game sessions has been a frequent activity of mine for several years. My friends and I will get together, play some games, munch on some chips, and everyone always has a great time.

Being an active board game player, I often want to acquire new games to be able to play them at game nights, but spending anywhere from 50$ (for games such as Dixit) to 100$ (for games such as Scythe) for each game quickly adds up (and this is the case for anyone who host’s game nights seeing as they often buy a good amount of the games played). Is there a simple solution that can lead to new games being brought to the table frequently without having one person spending all—or most of—the money?

There must be many solutions that exist, and I came up with one last week after spending a full weekend of playing board games at the board game convention in Montreal. My concept is the following: create a small co-op for each new game I’d like bring to the table to reduce the costs and still allow everyone to get to play it. Exciting, no? Yes!

Actually, I am sure you’re thinking “I have no idea what he means“.

Allow me to explain.

I would begin by finding a game I would like try which none of my friends has (it is important that I say that a majority of my friends who enjoy gaming don’t own many games of their own). Let’s take Terraforming Mars as an example. I would think of which of my board-gaming friends might be interested in playing this game and then I would send them all a message along these lines:

“Is anyone interested in trying Terraforming Mars?

It is a complex strategy game that lasts approximately two hours in which the goal is to terraform Mars. I will be planning several sessions of this game soon, but to able to do this, I—or rather we—must first get the game!

If you are interested, it will cost 10$ per person, and all remaining fees of the game will be covered by me. If we have enough willing players (anywhere from 3-7), I’ll buy the game and create a Facebook chat for those who pitched in. Through the Facebook group, I’ll organize Terraforming Mars sessions with those who participated in purchasing the game.

It will function similarly to a co-op—and of course, anyone wanting to borrow the game is more than welcome to!

Doesn’t this sound like a fun concept? I am certainly excited while writing about it!

It could allow to get new games to the table without the burdening one-man costs of frequently buying new games. Obviously I would still buy some games myself to have on my shelves at all times to be able to play it whenever I want, but at least this way new games could more frequently be brought to the table, and we all know what that means: more fun for everyone!

Question for you:

What do you think of this concept? Would you be willing to pitch in 5-10-15$ depending on the grandeur of the game to be able to get the occasion to play it? I am curious to know what you think!