Seniors and Medications

Did you know that the average person over the age of 65 in America takes seven different medications every day -- four prescribed and three bought at the pharmacy without a prescription. One-third of these people will suffer some adverse medication event that requires a hospital visit. Ten to 15 percent of all emergency room visits are related to medication reactions in seniors. "There has never been a controlled study on a human being involving more than three drugs circulating in the body at the same time... For reasons I've never understood," says Dr. Williams in his newsletter, Alternatives, "most doctors don't seem to have a problem prescribing multiple medications. When questioned, they typically will say the drugs they recommend are safe and have minimal, if any, side effects."

Information from Alternatives by Dr. David Williams, volume 16. number 1, page 3.

Aromatherapy to Restore Emotional Balance

For thousands of years before tranquilizers and anti-depressants in pill form, people used essential oils. We can do the same thing today because essential oils are readily available. They are typically are sold in 5 ml or .5 fl. oz. sizes. Essential oils can be dabbed right onto the skin. But to fill a room with fragrance you will need an aromatherapy diffuser.

My favorite oils are:

(1) Cedarwood, which gives us the will to hold firm.

(2) Eucalyptus, for feeling hemmed in or suffocated

(3) Jasmine, for depression, restlessness, and nervous anxiety

(4) Melissa replaces intensity of feeling with serenity

(5) Myrrh heals deep wounds and eases feelings of grief 

(6) Rose Otto, which heals anger and despair; and 

(7) Rosemary, which sharpens the mind and aids concentration

Aromatherapy for Healing the Spirit by Gabriel Mojay is a well-written, comprehensive book on this fascinating subject.

Copyright (c) 2012    Barbara A. English     All rights reserved.

The 99 Percent

They say that 53 percent of the wealth of the country is owned by one percent of the people.

On the streets of New York we see immigrant workers on bicycles delivering food orders in the rain to customers who don’t even have to come out of their apartments to eat. The disparity between the affluent and those with few resources seems particularly apparent to me sometimes.

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama seemed to choose this topic as the theme of his re-election campaign. “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” He spoke of reclaiming or restoring our basic American values.

I am wondering about the demographics of the Baby Boom generation. Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. They are currently between 48 and 66 years old. This generation makes a huge bulge in the population of the country, constituting approximately 25 percent of the population, and the later generations are not as large. Do the younger generations think that the Baby Boomers took all the money and are keeping it for themselves? I must say, nothing is trickier to interpret than money statistics and financial reports.

But the point is well taken that some few individuals are amassing ever-greater amounts of money in the form of income, while the rest of us watch helplessly as prices go up. $20 used to pay for my groceries, but now I sometimes have to pay $60. We also watch helplessly as the cost of our medical insurance policies or prescription drugs rise by leaps and bounds, if we are lucky enough to have medical insurance coverage in the first place.

The oldest Baby Boomers are just now becoming entitled to Medicare and retirement through Social Security. The media bombards us constantly with stories saying that the Social Security system is running out of money … How could it be running out of money, since most of the Baby Boomers are still employed and are still paying into the system? What we hear in the media often does not make sense.

Anyway, most medical insurance in the U.S.A. is provided voluntarily by employers, and it is no secret that a person can be employed full time and still not have medical insurance.

Speaking about the haves and the have nots, the lawmakers in Washington have their own special medical insurance and therefore may be completely out of touch with how the “99 percent”—most of the people—are living. Maybe the lawmakers should try applying for Medicare and see how they like sorting through THAT pile of paperwork. After all, this is what the country expects the average senior citizen to be able to do, and most of the members of Congress ARE senior citizens. 

Some Questions for Discussion:

1.     Does economic inequality necessarily have an effect on democracy?

2.     What does wealth inequality mean in practical terms?

3.     Can economic inequality be seen and felt, or are these merely statistics?

Copyright © 2012     Barbara A. English

All rights reserved.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Some things can be hunted down, but happiness is not one of them.

Money cannot buy happiness. If it could, so many wealthy people would not indulge in self-destructive behaviors or commit suicide.

Regarding marriage, we were conditioned as children to expect “to live happily ever after.” But think of the couples you know. How many of them appear to be happy?

Regarding happiness in families, it should be no mystery by now that all families are dysfunctional and it is only a question of the degree of dysfunction. All family members are capable of pushing each others' buttons, as the expression goes. If we want peace, we must learn how to value peace.

The best way to avoid or stop an argument is to refuse to say anything. This is difficult, because we human beings enjoy the pleasure of fighting over and claiming our supposed rights.

A good case could be made that most people actively pursue misery, thinking that they will find happiness like a pot of gold waiting for them as a reward at the end of a life of self-sacrifice and suffering. Happiness is the opposite of that.  

I can consciously intend to be a happy person today. I can choose happiness without making it into a hunt or a chase. I can wish for happiness and then let that wish go. I can be happy today without paying for it first through suffering. I don't have to pay for happiness. Happy is something I DECIDE to be.

Copyright © 2011     Barbara A. English

All rights reserved.

For Emotional Balance: The Bach Flower Remedies

With the help of The Bach Flower Remedies, we can heal ourselves of most emotional imbalances. A few drops of Aspen or Mimulus, for example, and an anxiety state will disappear.

There are 38 Bach Flower Remedies. They come in 20 ml (0.7 fluid ounce) brown glass dropper bottles. One usually puts drops into water to be sipped as needed. I have found this book very helpful: The Bach Flower Remedies, Revised Edition, copyright 1997 by The Dr. Edward Bach Center.

Wild Oat is a fundamental remedy. When we take it for four consecutive days, we shall become clear about our main concern in this life; what we want to accomplish.

Olive is for exhaustion and Sweet Chestnut is for the depths of despair. The remedies are specific and much work has gone into differentiating one from another. For example, Hornbeam is for the kind of tiredness we feel in the morning or at the beginning of the workweek. We feel we are lacking the strength to get through. Later in the day or later in the week, however, we see that we have gotten through. Olive is used when the person has no reserves of energy left and is completely wiped out.

These flower essences make a fascinating study, and I certainly encourage you to begin your investigations immediately. The work of Edward Bach is not known as widely as it should be. If you are not able to locate a professional practitioner where you live, you may need to practice on yourself, but nothing will be lost by doing so. You will learn how to help yourself and perhaps help others as well.

From Aesop's Fables: 'Sour Grapes'

One hot summer's day a fox was strolling through an orchard until he came to a bunch of grapes just ripening on a vine hung over a high branch. 

"Just the thing to quench my thirst," he said.

Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning around again, he jumped up, but with no greater success. 

Again and again he tried to reach the tempting grapes, but at last had to give up. He walked away with his nose in the air, saying: "I am sure they are sour."

 

Moral: It is easy to despise what you cannot get.

And so, if someone says he dislikes an obviously good thing, we say the person is suffering from "sour grapes." 

This wisdom is from the Aesop's Fable entitled 'The Fox and the Grapes.' It is a good example of how the ancient wisdom of these fables can be found in everyday English conversation.

The story above was adopted from the online version at www.aesops-fables.org.uk.

Copyright (c) 2011      Barbara A. English

All rights reserved. 

Squeeze to Lower Blood Pressure

This is a non-drug method for lowering blood pressure. 

You use an ordinary hand grip with a spring. These can be purchased for less than $10 from an athletic store. You want to apply about one-third of your gripping strength for one minute. That means you don’t want the easiest one and you don’t want one that is extremely resistant, either. 

The idea is to grip continuously for one minute and then relax your grip for one minute. This is one cycle, and you want to do this cycle four times, three days a week. That’s all it takes to get results. 

Gripping a rubber ball will not work. You need to use spring-loaded hand grips.

Subjects in a scientific study who did this exercise for ten weeks experienced a 19-point drop in their systolic blood pressure (Med Sci Sport Exerc 03;35(2):251-6). The subjects had already been using medication for an average of nine years, and their average age was 67.5 years. Needless to say, the reported 19-point drop was very impressive.

Even though there was no explanation given for this effect, when I told this to a salesman who was selling me the set of hand grips, he said, “Oh, it’s obvious that if you exercise and get the stress out, then your blood pressure will drop.”

Health regimens are easy to start but difficult to keep up. I'll write  SQUEEZE  on the big wall calendar in my kitchen under Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And I'll get back to you in ten weeks to let you know what happened! 

The citation for the original research has already been given above. I saw this information written up in the August 2004 issue of the newsletter Alternatives, Vol. 10, No. 14, “Exercise Doesn’t Have to Be That Complicated.” [www.drdavidwilliams.com]

Some Questions for Discussion:

1.     Have you ever successfully lost a lot of weight or changed a bad health habit? Was it difficult to lose weight? If so, did you use diet aids of some kind?

2.     Did you ever quit smoking? If the answer is yes, how many years were you a smoker before you were able to quit?

3.     They call high blood pressure the silent killer, because it has no symptoms. Have you had your blood pressure checked recently?

4.     Blood pressure changes constantly. Many people experience a rise in blood pressure whenever they see their doctor, maybe because it’s like taking a test. This is called the white coat syndrome or white coat hypertension. Does this happen to you?

Copyright © 2011      Barbara A. English

All rights reserved.