Breathing On Purpose

I suspect that a practice of breathing exercises might be good for me.
~ Such practice might get a bit more blood to my old brain.
~ It might help to lower my blood pressure a bit.
~ It would contribute to my meditation program.
~ No one has ever told me that breathing was bad for me.
~ Doesn't seem that breathing on purpose could hurt much.
~ I am somewhat subject to upper respiratory irritation. How might it be effected?

Okay: I'll work out a plan it seems I'd be likely to follow. I'll not make a goal yet.
Tentative plan subject to ongoing modification:
1. aim to practice twice a day
2. practice for just a short 10 or 15 minutes.
3. one practice might be just before exercise in the morning.
4. the second might be just before getting into bed.
5. Start putting together a menu of exercises
6. practice one for six consecutive times unless it is truly unpleasant,
7. figure out a way to begin to compare it to another exercise.
8. maybe I'll just continue to change them until I find one to good to quit.
9. I'll try the first one I run into so log as it is fairly simple.
10. Maybe I could try to different practices each day
11. One might just be a simple breath counting: Count ten sets of 12 slow in and out breaths. That should take about ten minutes. Might take longer if I loss count.

Okay: Lets see if I can count ten sets of twelve tonight.

Synovial Fluid

A lubricant for bone articulation and useful focus for joint care is synovial fluid. It lubricates, cushions, and carries nutrients. A principle constituent of synovial fluid is hyluronic acid. Seems it is real important to keep that fluid where it is needed. A doctor may treat a painful joint by injecting the fluid there.

We might ask how we can get more of it to where it is needed by ourselves, say, through nutrition or exercise.

There was a time when in many, perhaps most, kitchens a stock pot was kept.Vegetables, meat, fish or fowl were boiled down for later use in soups an sauces.The resulting concentration of nutrients was called stock. One stock was for bone broth where bone ant cartilage was cooked down into as liquid stock.

I have made quite a bit of stock over the years. I still simmer the chicken bones left from cooking a chicken to make tasty chicken soup. In the process of cooking and eating chicken I have noted that i have developed a taste for the ends of leg and thigh bones. Could my body be telling me I need more cartilage?
I also still cook a pork bone well into the beans.

Recently I have heard that bone broth, sell simmered beef,pork, or poultry bones is very rich in hyaluronic acid. Could the gods want us to get the hyaluronicc acid for our synovial fluid from tasty broth rather then from a needle?

I have heard that egg shells and the membrane left in them also contains a high percentage of hyaluronic acid and other nutrients. But I'm chicken about using egg shells for stock. What is left on them bothers me and that which is put on them bothers me even more.

We might benefit by better 'knowing our onions' about egg shells and hyaluronic acid. However, you have my word that bone broth added to soup doesn't hurt the taste a bit.

Let's Cooperate

Let's be a healthy people.
Let's consider public health care for a healthy public.
Let's support each other in our efforts to keep our families healthy.

Damn!

I take my blood pressure, but still forget the difference between diastolic and systolic pressure. I'm pretty sure that one can be called resting pressure and the other working pressure. the lower of the tow resting and the higher, working.

Pulse pressure is the name given by some to the difference between resting and working pressures. Pulse pressure may be a true and useful measure of the condition of my arteries. the lower it is the more flexible my arteries. the higher it is the stiffer my arteries. I take it that generally flexible arteries are healthy arteries.

I might say that the lower my pulse pressure the healthier I am. Then again when the difference is zero, one is probably dead or very close to being so.

Still is a heuristic, a difference of below 40 might be a useful indication of healthy arteries and a difference above 40 may be an indication of hardening arteries.

At the moment my readings are as follows: 155 systolic
90 diastolic
65 pulse pressure
75 pulse rate
Oh, my God! My readings have really gone bad. They have been this bad and worse in the past.
In recent years they have been more like: 135 systolic
70 diastolic
65 pulse pressure
60 pulse rate

So, even when I thought my readings were good, I had indications of hardening arteries.

Damn!

A 'We' Story

It begins at he far southern tip of South America in the early days of Spanish Exploration. Certain sailors and explorers for Spain have such difficulties with their ship that they feel the need to stay in that place for a time. They see the place as cold, bare, and windy, but there is just enough wood and water for their needs.

In this land they find people. They find men, women, and children living together there. The explorers see a very poor people, an impoverished people. The seem to have no towns, crops, or industries. It appears that they may be godless. Rather than houses the have low windbreaks and they are nearly naked. The men of the ship wonder how these people can live in this hard land. Yet the people of the land seem well formed and healthy.

Soon the people from the ship find that they can barter with these lowly people for food-stuff. They also begin to see the land people as lazy. They spend much of their day sitting around and talking or listening to each other. The people of the ship say to each other that there is no wonder that the land people have so little. They say that the people of the land sit around talking, Rather than working to better themselves. In their hearts some of the people of the ship feel envy of the others' ability to sit and talk.

The ship people believe that if they have to stay in this land they will surely die before their time. Most of the ship people have always worked and they were working hard now to end their suffering in this land. How did the land people live here and spend their time talking while they, the ship people, worked hard all day and feared they would die here ir they did not.

In time, the sailors made their ship ready and sailed away. Somehow, two of their number were left in the land. Of these two one learned to speak with the people. He joined in their talk. The other despised them and their talk. The later died.

In more time, another ship came. Some of the sailors on that ship knew of the two who had been left. There were a few who knew even the towns and families of the two who had been left. They were sad to hear of the death of and pleased and surprised at the life of the other. The one with life was pleased to be with those of the ship and also seem much at home among those of the land.

In the company of his countrymen and comrades, the one alive left the land. They noted tears in his eyes as they left. The shipmates of the live one asked him how he had managed to live among those despicable poor and lazy people. They asked him if it were true that the people of the land were poor because they were so lazy that they sat around and talked instead of working to better themselves. They wanted to know if he were able to trick them or become their king.

The live one seemed unable to answer. But finally he did say that he had come to love and respect the people of that land and that there was a wonderful power in their listening and talk. They had a powerful way of talking that had a gentility in it he tried to explain. His shipmates looked sad and shook their heads a bit. They said that he had had a terrible ordeal, but would get over it in time.

The live one later tried to tell those aboard who knew him best that the people of the land did not feel themselves to be poor or despicable, rather they were quietly proud of themselves and abilities. He told them that their talk enabled them to cooperate in powerful ways. His friends looked at him with large eyes and said, "Those, poor, ignorant, lazy, godless, savages!" "No,' said the live one, "they are powerful, kind people who speak of godly things!" His friends thought it best to speak no more, or to speak of other things.

When the live one left the sea to stay mostly by his home-fires, he sometimes spoke a bit of people in a far land who spoke to excellent effect. He tried to explain the power in their way of conversing, but was seldom understood.

He explained that their talk enabled them to easily share the location of food gathering sites and do so completely, frankly, without jealousy. They told each other not only the location of these places, but also of their size and the state of the life within them. So, they all knew when to gather and the sustainable amount to gather. Their talk enabled them to trust each other and to nurture the life around them to their mutual benefit. Their listening led them to an understanding of each other's needs. He would tell his listeners that those people were able to live in their land in happy health because of their talk. Some few listeners began to ask questions and gradually to learn some of what they called 'ways-of-nurturing-power-talk.'

It is a lot like the "we" forming dialogue I speak of.