The New York Times has an article about some schools in California and Pennsylvania trying mindfulness techniques with their students to help them calm down, focus, reduce stress, learn better, etc. I'm 110% behind this. I took mindfulness classes a few years ago and I can definitely say that the techniques work. I'd recommend them to everyone and anyone - period.

The class I took used the well known book by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living, along with some guided 'meditation' type tapes made by our instructor. The class was taught at the integrated-holistic medicine department of the UCSF Hospital in San Francisco. It's not meditation in the traditional sense. Yes, you do have to sit quietly, but it's more than just sitting there. It teaches you a way to clear the mind and help bring you into the present, which is where you need to be to focus on what you are doing now and what is going on around you - to keep you mind from wandering into the past or future which is where worries and stresses live.

Posted by Chris at 02:29 PM in Health | Comments (0)

People hear about children being abducted on the news what seems like very often these days. So they assume the streets aren't very safe, and as a result, kids don't get the freedom to roam the way that I did when I was young. But are things really the way that they seem - or are people just more paranoid because of their perceptions?

Although statistics show that rates of child abduction and sexual abuse have marched steadily downward since the early 1990s, fear of these crimes is at an all-time high. Even the panic-inducing Megan's Law Web site says stranger abduction is rare and that 90 percent of child sexual-abuse cases are committed by someone known to the child. Yet we still suffer a crucial disconnect between perception of crime and its statistical reality. A child is almost as likely to be struck by lightning as kidnapped by a stranger, but it's not fear of lightning strikes that parents cite as the reason for keeping children indoors watching television instead of out on the sidewalk skipping rope.

And when a child is parked on the living room floor, he or she may be safe, but is safety the sole objective of parenting? The ultimate goal is independence, and independence is best fostered by handing it out a little at a time, not by withholding it in a trembling fist that remains clenched until it's time to move into the dorms.

Posted by Chris at 06:26 PM in Health, Science, Security | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris at 10:05 AM in Health, Random | Comments (0)

Yes! More pig products are definitely a good thing. (PDF)

Posted by Chris at 12:16 PM in Food, Health | Comments (0)

The HIPAA laws and those privacy informational notices then you get each time you go to the doctor were put in place to protect the privacy of your medical records. Even President Bush decided it was a good idea when he first came into office. Now his administration, through the Department of Justice seems to have rolled over for the Medical industry and taken the teeth out of the legislation by removing important criminal penalties.

Posted by Chris at 05:54 PM in Health, Politics, Security | Comments (0)