Making relationships work

If there is one area in our lives where most of us struggle, it’s relationships.

That’s the bad news

The good news is that they can be improved.

It takes hard work and involvement

We learn how to have relationships from our parents

We learn quickly as young children when we meet and find ourselves with other young children

And for sure some of us are taught rather better than others

Without too much thinking some of us become controllers

Others followers

Others users even

Much has been written about how we should treat each other in these three major categories

What we should do or say

How we should behave

Maybe less written about is what we should not do

Being told to be gentler, kinder and more tolerant is fine but how?

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Do not blame somebody else for the way you feel
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Don’t to try to change the other person, we cannot change other people change your own responses and behaviour.

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Try not to use the word ‘you’ replace it with the word ‘I’ and stop using the words ‘never’ and ‘always’

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Don’t be defensive and stop sulking

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Learn to accept an apology as well learning to apologise,
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And if you love to control people then stop it let others be

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Do not promise to do things that you have no intention of doing

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Do not agree to meet at a certain time and then arrive late, show respect for yourself and others by being on time

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Do not tell little white lies, ever they have a way of coming back to haunt you

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Do not gossip about those who are not present unless it is to say something nice, in fact better to say nothing if you cannot think of anything nice to say
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If you have bad manners then be warned we all notice bad manners and yes they do matter so ensure that you have good manners

Self-esteem

I can pass this examination

I am a wonderful person and will find love again

I am capable and deserve that pay rise

Are phrases that students, the love lorn and driven employees may say to themselves over and over again in the face of difficulty

Self-help books through the ages have encouraged people with low self-esteem to make positive self-statements

And so the idea of positive thinking has ever pushed these teachings on us

However this can be a bridge too far when the gap between reality and mantra is too wide

When one is too far away from the concept it can create the opposite effect

When your self esteem is really low then trying to pretend that you are superhero does not work

Since the 1960s psychologists have known that people are more accepting of ideas close to their own views and resistant to those that differ.

With regard to self-perception, if a person who believes they are reasonably friendly is told that they are extremely gregarious, they will probably accept the idea.

But if told they are socially aloof, the idea will most likely be met with resistance and doubt.

So it is not a big jump to see that positive self-statements cause negative moods in people with low self-esteem because they conflict with those people’s views of themselves.

When positive self-statements strongly conflict with self-perception, there is not mere resistance but a reinforcing of self-perception.

People who view themselves as unlovable find saying that they are lovable so unbelievable that it strengthens their own negative view rather than reversing it.

Given that many readers of self-help books that encourage positive self-statements are likely to suffer from low self-esteem, they may be worse than useless

Holding a positive image rather than a negative one is useful however it must be close enough to the persons self-esteem that it can do any good

If you suffer from low self-esteem be careful of those courses and books that ask you to reach too far

Of more use is to accept the reality that you have low self-esteem

Determine to change this

Find a course, job activity that allows you to address this situation

One step at a time

Check your progress

Move on to the next step

Take no heroic jumps they just bring more pain

One step at a time, just one at a time

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And yes we can all move on from low self-esteem

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The first and most important step is believing, really believing that you can

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The next is finding activities and courses that allow you to address your issues

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Building your self-esteem and giving you more confidence

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Keep at it though perseverance and will power are needed here

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No quick fix will work, work over time will fix it

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Self-esteem is a funny thing as it relates to how you relate to reality

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If you feel inadequate because you are not Prime Minister then a reality check is in order

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Try not to compare yourself with others

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Not with the most materially successful, or most attention seeking

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If you need a role model then pick someone who has good human qualities

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Understand that if you do the best you can every day then this is all that nature asks of us

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True self-esteem is built on knowing this to be true

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Knowing that you are becoming a better human being

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One step at a time, just one at a time

Cutting calories

Cutting calories may delay the ageing process and reduce the risk of disease, a long-term study of monkeys suggests.

The benefits of calorie restriction are well documented in animals, but now the results have been replicated in a close relative of man over a lengthy period.

Over 20 years, monkeys whose diets were not restricted were nearly three times more likely to have died than those whose calories were counted.

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Writing in Science, the US researchers hailed the "major effect" of the diet.
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It involved reducing calorie intake by 30% while maintaining nutrition and appeared to impact upon many forms of age-related disease seen in monkeys, including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and brain atrophy.

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Whether the same effects would be seen in humans is unclear, although anecdotal evidence so far suggests people on a long-term calorie-restricted diet have better cardiovascular health.

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The precise mechanism is yet to be established: theories involve changes in the body's metabolism or a reduction in the production of "free radical" chemicals which can cause damage.
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And here they are again

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Seventy-six rhesus monkeys were involved in the trial, which began in 1989 and was expanded in 1994.
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Half had their diets restricted, half were given free rein at feeding time.

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The rate of cancers and cardiovascular disease in dieting animals was less than half of those permitted to eat freely.

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While diabetes and problems with glucose regulation were common in monkeys who ate what they wanted, there were no cases in the calorie controlled group.

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People would have to weigh up whether they are prepared to compromise their enjoyment of food for the uncertain promise of a longer life

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Catherine CollinsBDA

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In addition, while most brains shrink with age, the restricted diet appeared to maintain the volume of the brain at least in some regions.

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In particular, the areas associated with movement and memory seemed to be better preserved.
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Both motor speed and mental speed slow down with ageing, said Sterling Johnson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine.

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Those are the areas which we found to be better preserved.

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We can't yet make the claim that a difference in diet is associated with functional change because those studies are still ongoing.

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What we know so far is that there are regional differences in brain mass that appear to be related to diet."

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Earlier this year, German researchers published findings from their study of elderly people which suggested that calorie reduction appeared to improve memory over a period of just three months.

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Various studies on the positive effects of calorie restriction on the life spans of various organisms - from yeast to dogs - have been published over the last 70 years

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But dieticians sounded a note of warning.

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Monkeys may be a close relation but there are significant differences which means not everything we see in them can be translated to humans," said Catherine Collins, spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association.

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And there should be some serious reservations about cutting calories so dramatically, particularly for anyone under the age of 30.

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Any such diet would need to be very balanced to avoid malnutrition, and it would be a long-term commitment.

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People would have to weigh up whether they are prepared to compromise their enjoyment of food for the uncertain promise of a longer life, and a life which could be dogged by all sorts of problems - including osteoporosis."

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BBC

The key

Looking for the key?

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The key to life

The key to advancing your consciousness that is

There are other keys for other things, however the key to life is the most important

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And advancing our consciousness is the only way this can be found

The only way out of human toil

The only way to move towards genuine enlightenment

Yes the real key

Some might say this as impossible

Too many variables

Too many elements

Too many confusing ideas around

Yes that's all true

And yet

Since time immemorial we have been told

Know thyself

Yes we say but

Usually the but is because we have not really thought about this simple phrase

So if you want to find the key it is you

You are your own key

Nothing outside

Nothing mysterious

'Just' knowing yourself

No 'just' about it really because knowing ourselves truly is tough a very tough ask

And to do this requires discipline, courage, will power and hard work

Yes all of the above and then some

And where does this lead?

To greater peace of mind

Compassion

Increasing love for all

And as a word of caution this is not weekend warrior work

It is constant 24/7 work for the rest of this life

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And the work?

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Finding our fears

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Getting them out, looking at them

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Searching for the truth of things

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Learning humility

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Patience

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Accepting life as it is doing the best we can every day

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Learning to know ourselves and that is where the key is

Problem solving

A type of dreamy sleep that occurs more frequently in the early morning is important for solving problems that cannot be easily answered during the day, a study has found.

The discovery could explain many anecdotal accounts of famous intellectuals who had wrestled with a problem only to find that they have solved it by the morning after a good night's sleep.

Scientists believe that a form of dreaming slumber called rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, when the brain becomes relatively active and the eyes flicker from side to side under closed eyelids, plays a crucial role in subconscious problem solving.

Dreams normally occur during REM sleep which occupies about a quarter of the total time spent asleep at night.

REM sleep alternates with deep sleep and occurs as four or five bouts of sleep that get progressively longer as the night turns into morning.

In a series of tests on nearly 80 people, the researchers found that REM sleep increases the chances of someone being able to successfully solve a new problem involving creative associations – finding an underlying pattern behind complex information.

The volunteers were asked in a morning session to solve a series of creative problems.

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They were told to either sit on the problem until the afternoon by either resting and staying awake or by taking a nap monitored by the scientists to see whether it involved any REM sleep – it produces characteristic eye movements and brain-wave patterns.

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In the afternoon, they were asked to solve the problems again.

Those people who had enjoyed REM sleep improved significantly, by about 40 per cent, while the other volunteers who had not had REM sleep showed little if any improvement, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers suggest that it is not merely sleep itself, or the simple passage of time, that is important for the solving of a new problem, but the act of being able to fall into a state of REM sleep where the brain slips into a different kind of neural activity that encourages the formation of new nerve connections.

We found that for creative problems that you've already been working on, the passage of time is enough to find solutions.

However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity, said Sara Mednick of the University of California San Diego, who led the study.

Economist

Yes but

No, yes and

Since time immemorial sleep and meditation have been used to induce results in solving problems

Go to sleep thinking about the problem and chances are you will have a result or insight first thing in the morning

Often this gets over looked or drowned out by our waking noises or rituals

What is happening is that our left brain sleeps during REM sleep

Relaxing the left brain hemisphere allows the right hemisphere to be heard and it is from here that insights arrive

Sleep is a good way to shut down the endless chatter of the left hemisphere

Technically we can say that we now know what is happening in the wiring department of our brains

Indeed the research above is all about wiring, what triggers what

Not about how it works

We do not have a clue as to how the right brain arrives at insights or answers to problems

As with so much modern research we are learning what is going on where but not what gives the insight

To go further we could do worse than look at occult teaching

This states clearly that these insights can only be approached once we control our minds

Control the left brain hemisphere that is

Shut it down, and this in left brain dominated people, read scientists occurs when they sleep

This requires that we acknowledge that reductionist logic cannot help us as it is stuck in mind

This is a step too far for many scientists

Who usually have highly developed left brain hemispheres

Reductionist logic requires highly developed left brain hemispheres

Scientists who normally operate in this area have no clue how to let go or operate in their right hemispheres

So the battle continues

These insights come from our right brain hemisphere

In truth insights come from our higher self, which is accessed through the right brain hemisphere

They are accurate because the higher self has access to any knowledge it needs

It is not reductionist

It is not logic based

It is truth based

So the intriguing question is how will left brain scientists deal with this?

Currently many deny that there is any such thing as a higher self

Others insist that logic is the only scientific way

Fortunately there is a new generation coming along who are more open

Notice open not open minded because what we are talking about is beyond mind

From these come insights often as a result of getting ideas from our ancestors for whom such questions were answered long ago

Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras all were initiates and as such were well versed in accessing the so called hidden realms

Modern man has a way to go before he reaches such ease of access

At least some are now beginning to ask the right questions

To try and go beyond mind

Women and happiness

Researchers discovered women feel most confident and happy with their love life and body shape shortly before they reach 30.

It is also the period in their life when they enjoy the best sex – but the happiness is relatively short lived.

Because by the time they have turned 30 they start worrying about growing old and developing grey hair and wrinkles.

The age of 28 has been pinpointed as the time in a woman's life their hair looks the best, body shape is at its peak and confidence is at an all-time high.

The security of job, having a steady income, being in a relationship and having strong friendships all help create the perfect point in our lives when everything comes together.

Reaching and surpassing your twenties no longer triggers the downward spiral of looks and self-confidence.

The survey of 25-65 year olds recorded the age at which women were most content in 12 key areas of their life.

According to the results, women are happiest in their career at 29 and most content with their relationships one year later at 30

The research found two thirds of women feel they age more quickly than men,

and the women polled rated their appearance a measly five out of 10.

But drinking from the fountain of youth doesn't come cheap as the average woman will spend £600 every year, or more than £49 a month, on beauty products in a bid to stay looking young.

The research also found women spend over five days a year on their beauty routine – an average of 22 minutes every day.

Telegraph

Something else on sleep

Some people seem happy with four or five hours, although most people would feel sleep-deprived on less than six.

Others need a good seven or eight hours of sleep and adolescents are renowned for extended kips.

So how much sleep is necessary for a healthy mind and body, and does this amount truly need to vary between people and age groups?

The latest study into sleep may help to resolve the issue with the discovery that certain people in the population carry the smallest of genetic mutations in a gene that appears to play a significant role in deciding just how much sleep human beings need.

Scientists studied an extended family in California and found that a mother and her daughter shared a life-long habit of rising in the very early hours of the morning with no apparent ill-effects.

They routinely went to bed between 10.30pm and 11pm and got up between 4am and 4.30am.

The researchers took blood samples from all members of the family and analysed their DNA for any signs that could explain this unusual behaviour.

The tests revealed that the mother and her daughter did in fact share a tiny "point mutation" in a gene known as hDEC2, which is known to affect the regulation of other genes and has been implicated in the control of sleeping patterns in animals.

Other members of the family who followed a more conventional sleeping pattern were not found to have inherited the same mutation.

These family members typically required the normal eight hours or so of sleep a night instead of the five to six hours of the mother and daughter.

Just to make sure that the hDEC2 mutation was truly involved in this unusual sleeping pattern, rather than a coincidental occurrence in the two women, the scientists went on to create genetically-engineered mice with the same point mutation to the same gene.

These mice also exhibited unusually short patterns of sleep, a feature not seen in ordinary mice.

The implication from the study would be that there is a genetically-wired system in our body to tell us how much sleep do we need, explained Ying-Hui Fu, Professor of Neurology at the University of California in San Francisco, the study's head.

Yet, we really don't know anything about how this is done.

This discovery provides an opportunity for us to begin to probe into the pathway regulating our sleep quantity and need

It is not clear at the present time how this mutation can lead to short sleep quantity.

This is one of the areas that we are pursuing actively," she said.

The scientific evidence suggesting that different people are genetically wired to require shorter than-average periods of sleep goes back many years

In 1999, for instance, scientists identified the existence of a gene – or more specifically an inherited mutation within a gene – that appeared to confer something called familial advanced sleep-phase syndrome.

This is an inherited condition where people tend to go to bed early and get up early, which can also happen when people abandon normal sleeping routines, such as at the weekend and when on holiday.

People who exhibit this all the time are known as "morning larks", to distinguish them from "night owls" at the other extreme who routinely go to bed late and get up late.

The scientists in this study, led by Christopher Jones of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, did not actually find the gene or its mutation – they could only show that it must exist in the 29 people from three different families that they had studied.

People with advanced sleep-phase syndrome, however, still sleep for the usual seven and a half to eight hours a night, it's just that their daily routine or "circadian rhythm" is shifted.

Scientists believe that genetic mutations can also occur in the genes influencing this aspect of the 24-hour sleep-wake cycle.

Sleep is a product of both circadian rhythm and another controlling factor that, put simply, measures the amount of sleep we have had.

When we need sleep, this "homeostatic" mechanism makes us sleepy; when we've had enough sleep, it tells us to wake up.

Professor Fu and her team suspect that the mutation they have found plays a role in the homeostatic mechanism that helps to control the amount of sleep we need.

What the latest study tells us is that the actual quantity of sleep needed is partly under genetic control – and that is the result of who our parents were, rather than what we do each day.

Independent

Death and sleep

Death and sleep are fundamentally the same

Not different except in degree

Sleep is an imperfect death and death is a perfect sleep

This is the main key to all the teachings on death

Death is not the opposite of Life

But actually is one of the modes of living

A modification of consciousness

A change from one phase of living to others in subservience to karmic destiny

Our bodies are in a state of constant change

Their atoms are in a continuous process of renewal . .

Even while imbodied we are living in the midst of innumerable tiny deaths

FSO 535-6 - G de Purucker

So true

For self mastery is the end aim of all rulership

No man can safely remain ungoverned who has not learned to govern himself

And at the present stage of development, that is the hardest task that can be given to him

It is easy to command others

It is hard to force obedience from oneself

In the measure that a man has mastered himself

.......................and in that measure only

Is he qualified to govern others

Were the present rulers of the masses able to govern themselves

We should again have the golden age

M Heindel

Unfortunately we are a long way from having rulers that even come close to mastering themselves

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Hence the rule of greed and self interest predominates around the planet

Curious island

A drug originating on Easter Island, the mysterious South Pacific home of a lost statue-building people, may become the first substance to slow down human ageing, new research indicates.

Rapamycin, a pharmacological product used to prevent rejection in organ transplants, has been found to extend the lifespan of mice by up to 38 per cent, raising the possibility that it may delay ageing in people.

Hitherto a matter for science fiction, the idea of an anti-ageing drug which would allow people to prolong their natural lifespan and also to avoid age-related diseases is now being seriously considered for the first time as a result of the findings by American researchers.

Rapamycin is a bacterial product originally found in a soil sample from Easter Island, the Polynesian extinct volcano famous for its monumental statues erected hundreds of years ago by the island people, and known in the region as Rapa Nui – hence the drug's name.

Originally developed as an anti-fungal agent, rapamycin was soon found to have powerful immuno-suppressant properties and thus be valuable for preventing rejection of transplanted organs.

It was also found to delay the ageing process when used experimentally with three sets of lower organisms: yeast, nematode worms and fruit flies.

Now, however, it has been shown to affect the ageing of mice – the first time that this has ever been shown with a mammal.

A team of 14 researchers from three institutions, led by David Harrison from the Jackson Laboratory at Bar Harbor in Maine, fed rapamycin to mice late in their life – at 600 days of age – and showed that both the median and maximal lifespan of treated animals were considerably extended.

Currently, the only way to extend the life of a rodent is by severely restricting its diet, so this marks the first report of a pharmacological intervention that lengthens the life of mammals – with clear implications for humans.

The results, published today in an online paper on the website of the journal Nature, are attracting considerable excitement, and an accompanying article in Nature by two of the world's leading experts on the ageing process, Matt Kaeberlein and Brian K Kennedy from the University of Washington, Seattle, headed "A Midlife Longevity Drug?" openly asks the question: "Is this the first step towards an anti-ageing drug for people?"

Their answer is that it may well be.

Dr Kaeberlein and Dr Kennedy first issued a warning to people not to start taking rapamycin at once in the hope of prolonging their lives – "the potential immuno-suppressive effects of this compound alone are sufficient to caution against this," they advised.

But they added: On the basis of animal models, however, it is interesting to consider that rapamycin ... might prove useful in combating many age-associated disorders.

Also ... it may be possible to develop pharmacological strategies that provide the health and longevity benefits without unwanted side-effects.

So, although extending human lifespan with a pill remains the purview of science fiction writers for now, the results of Harrison et al provide a reason for optimism that even during middle age, there's still time to change the road you're on

Rapamycin was known to have an influence on ageing in the lower organisms by disrupting the influence of an enzyme known as TOR, which regulates cell growth.

Dr Harrison and colleagues found that this was also the case with mice, and found that rapamycin feeding could extend mouse lifespan even when started late in life.

The maximum lifespan went up from 1,094 days to 1,245 days for female mice, and from 1,078 to 1,179 for male mice – a striking increase of life expectancy of 38 per cent for females and 28 per cent for males.

Dr Harrison and his colleagues conclude: "An effective anti-ageing intervention that could be initiated later than the midpoint of the lifespan could prove to be especially relevant to clinical situations, in which the efficacy of anti-ageing interventions would be particularly difficult to test in younger volunteers.

Our data justify special attention to the role of the TOR pathway in control of ageing in mammals and in the pathogenesis of late-life illnesses."

Also known as sirolimus, rapamycin was first discovered as a product of the bacterium Streptomyces hygroscopicus, which was found in an Easter Island soil sample.

Probably the world's most remote and least-visited inhabited island, Easter Island is globally famous for its haunting monumental stone statues of human faces, set up around the coast, known as Moai.

Weighing as much as 80 tonnes, they were carved by a lost people, whose society may have collapsed, according to the American environmental geographer Jared Diamond, when they overexploited their forests.

Volcanic, hilly and now treeless, and a territory of Chile, the island is situated 2,180 miles west of Chile itself and 1,290 miles east of Pitcairn Island; its European name comes from its discovery on Easter Sunday 1722, by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen. Its oldest known Polynesian name is thought to be Te Pito O Te Henua, meaning "the navel of the world". Rapa Nui is a name given to it by Tahitian sailors in the 19th century.

Independent

The statutes are from Lemurian times

The era that predated the Atlantean times

Lemuria being a continent covering a huge area of what is now the Pacific ocean

At that time Easter island was the high point of a mountain chain, which sank during the earth quakes and cataclysms that ended Lemuria

Many of the statutes were life size

Yes the people who built them were giants by today's standards

No there were no great forests or trees

Just giant size people who also knew how to move their colossal statutes without pulleys or wood based contraptions

Even the carving of such hard rock would pose problems for us today

Lemuria has left us with several amazing artifices none of which are identified with that period in our history, which ended literally millions of years ago

Yes many a puzzle for us

And that soil producing these unusual qualities too

How interesting