Mood:  chatty

Writer George Prochnik says he's had a passion for silence as long as he can remember.

"I can't sit in my house without hearing air conditioners," he tells Dave Davies. "I worry about this layer of noise that's placed on top of infrastructure noise. It's made [noise] inescapable."

In his new book, In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise, Prochnik leaves the noisy confines of New York City and goes on a global quest to find those who still value silence. He examines the never-ending series of sounds that pervade his thoughts on a daily basis — the traffic helicopters, the leaky iPods, the neighbors who hold loud parties — and researches the scientific effects of noise on our bodies.

"There's increasing evidence that harm goes across our systems [from noise]," he says. "There's been a long association with noise and hearing loss — many times subways that haven't been maintained are already running at decibel levels that are dangerous — but there's also new studies just completed that show danger to our cardiovascular systems. Even when not awakened, blood pressure goes up and hours later, the blood pressure is still elevated."

Among the noises Prochnik investigates in In Pursuit of Silence are those deliberately added to an environment to trigger key emotions and excitement. He points to one study conducted in France that showed a clear correlation between noise levels and how much people eat and drink.

"What we know is that if you're loud at this point in our culture, it seems to signify that you're having a good time," he says. "This is the same phenomenon that we find in restaurants, which continue to get louder in many cities every year. ... People, it seems, will often not eat as much in a really loud environment. However, what they will do is drink more. ... So that sense of loss of control, of celebratory arousal, is something some restaurant spaces can benefit from."

Prochnik says that on trips to a Quaker meeting and a monastery, he learned that absolute silence doesn't exist but that quiet spaces are essential because they "can inject us with a fertile unknown: a space in which to focus and absorb experience."

"What surprised me is degree to which the monks don't associate silence with gloomy overhang," he says. "There's sense of joyfulness of turning themselves down to be conscious of greater things."

Excerpt: 'In Pursuit Of Silence'

by George Prochnik

Chapter One

Listening for the Unknown

On my second night in the monastery, I heard the silence. I was inside the church: a beautiful, vast chamber of limestone blocks that resemble lumpy oatmeal and were quarried from the Iowan earth by the monks themselves in the mid-nineteenth century. The monks had finished compline, the last of the day's seven prayer services, and had filed off into the inner recesses of the monastery, where they would observe the Great Silence, speaking to no one until after mass the next morning. The last of the monks to leave had switched off the lights above the choir, and then the light over the lectern. Though the section of visitors' pews where I sat still had a little illumination, the body of the church was now in total blackness except for the faint flickering of a votive candle suspended high in the distance against the far wall. For the first quarter hour, a few worshippers remained on the benches around me.

Although I sat very quietly, I found my mind busy and loud. Mostly I was reflecting on the service I had just heard, which Brother Alberic, my gracious liaison to the world of the monastery, had described as a kind of lullaby. Compline is lovely, and I was frustrated that I had not been able to find it more profound. These weren't my prayers. I yearned only for more quiet. My thoughts were noisy enough that I half expected to see them break out of my skull and begin dancing a musical number up and down the wooden benches.

Soon the other worshippers departed and I was left alone. For a moment or two, my experience was of literal silence. Then, all at once, there came a ting, a tic, another tic, a tap, and a clang. The sounds came from all around the enormous dark church. They ranged from the verge of inaudibility to the violence of hammer blows; discrete chips of sound and reverberatory gonnngs. Out of nowhere, I was treated to a concert by the sound of heat in the pipes. It was a grand, slightly menacing sound that I had been oblivious to not only during the prayer service but afterward in the din of my mental dithering. And it was worth that long opening pause. The ever-changing sonic punctuation of this empty space — which had first seemed soundless — gave me a tingling sense of elevation. This is it, I told myself. Silence made everything resonate.

And yet . . . Later that night when I retreated to my room, and my euphoria had subsided, I wondered why I had been affected so powerfully. Objectively, the only thing that had happened, after all, was that I had heard the metal of the pipes expanding and contracting as they heated and cooled. Why should that experience have made me feel that I was "hearing the silence"? Why did I feel at that lonely hour that I had found what I was looking for when I came to the monastery?

What brought me to the New Melleray Abbey in Dubuque, Iowa, was the desire to learn from people who had made a lifelong commitment to devout silence. Trappist monks, a branch of the Cistercian order, do not make a vow of total silence, and today there are times when they engage in conversation; but silence is their mother tongue. Saint Benedict, who is credited with founding Western Christian monasticism in the sixth century, most famously at Monte Cassino, southeast of Rome, wrote a document known as the Rule that remains their guide to this day. In the Rule, monks are defined before all else as disciples, and the defining quality of the disciple is "to be silent and listen." Trappists are among the monks known as "contemplatives." Their interaction with the world outside the monastery is minimal. Much of their worship is silent. They study in silence. They work almost entirely in silence. They eat primarily in silence. They pass each other in the monastery corridors without speaking. They retire at 8 pm to separate cells and rise at 3:15 am, when they gather in silence to pray. They avoid idle talk at all times. And even after the morning mass, throughout much of their demanding day, they are discouraged from speaking. Almost everything the Trappist does takes place in silence — is pressed close by its weight, or opens out onto that expanse, depending on how you look at it.

Monks have, moreover, been at the pursuit for quite some time. Alberic remarked at one point that while it is often said that prostitution is the oldest profession, he believes that monks were around before there were prostitutes. This struck me as unlikely, but it still gave me pause.

There was a personal stake in this journey as well: I needed a break. I'd had a hectic, noisy winter in the city — medically harrowing, filled with bills, the hassles of insurance claims, technology fiascos, and preschool worries. Plans to visit friends in the country had fallen through several times. I'd tried to go to a Zen retreat in New England that taught the breath- and silence-based meditation practice of vipassana, only to be told at the last moment that although I could come and sit silently with the retreatants, the guesthouse itself was overbooked and I'd have to stay in a bed-and-breakfast in town. The thought of beginning my daily practice over fussy French toast in a dining room packed with antiquers — where tasteful classical music would be piped in to glaze over the gaps in conversation — didn't conduce to inner quiet. I had to get out of New York. Yet it was hard to arrange anything. Just because we have a nagging sense that silence is good for us doesn't make it any easier to actually commit to.

I didn't think of quiet only as one of those overdue restoratives. Beyond the idea of wanting to learn something about the Trappist path and get away from the noise in my own life, I was hoping to find some truth in the silence of the monastery that I could take back to New York. I'd packed a stack of books and volumes of photocopied pages representing different theological and philosophical traditions — everything from Martin Heidegger and Max Picard to kabbalistic disquisitions, an array of Buddhist tracts, and enough Christian monastic literature to envelop a monk from tonsure to toe. I needed help.

Article Source - dailygood.org

Posted by Neil Bartlett DHyp M.A.E.P.H at 01:01 MEST

Updated: Wednesday, 18 April 2012 01:03 MEST

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Mood:  chatty

Are your kids getting enough vitamin D? If not, they could be at a higher risk for depression. A new study from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom shows that children and teens with higher levels of vitamin D are less likely to experience depression than those with lower levels.

The study analyzed vitamin D levels in more than 2,700 children who were age nine, and then followed up with them again at age 13. Researchers found that children who had the lowest vitamin D levels were more likely to experience symptoms of depression.

The children with higher levels of vitamin D were 10 percent less likely to have depression. These children also showed a decrease in symptoms of depression as they became teenagers.

The specific form of vitamin D is also important. This study also found that vitamin D3 offered stronger anti-depressant benefits than vitamin D2.

Vitamin D helps with depression in kids and adults
Although this is the first study to link low vitamin D with depression in children, a number of previous studies have demonstrated how vitamin D can prevent or reduce depression in adults.

Studies done in Washington state and in Norway show that raising vitamin D levels in the body can reduce symptoms of depression in women. Other research has shown that higher serum vitamin D appears to reduce the severity of symptoms associated with depression. In Italy, women with low vitamin D levels were twice as likely to experience depression. Men with low vitamin D levels experienced a 60 percent increased risk for depression.

The best source of vitamin D is the sun, which can help you produce thousands of IUs of vitamin D with good exposure in the summer months. However, not everyone can get enough exposure to the sun to correct a vitamin D deficiency. In this case, eating foods rich in vitamin D can help. These include cod liver oil, salmon, mackerel, tuna and organic egg yolks. You can also supplement with vitamin D3 if you do not get enough vitamin D through sun exposure or your diet.

Article Source - naturalnews.com

Posted by Neil Bartlett DHyp M.A.E.P.H at 01:01 MEST

Updated: Monday, 16 April 2012 01:42 MEST

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Mood:  cheeky

David Icke takes us on a tour of his house on the Isle of Wight and puts rest to the rumours of him living in a mansion and owning a Bentley. 

Posted by Neil Bartlett DHyp M.A.E.P.H at 01:01 MEST

Updated: Sunday, 15 April 2012 01:06 MEST

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Mood:  cool

Not since footage emerged of a giant, ape-like figure in the California woods in the late 1960s has there been so much interest in proving the existence of Bigfoot. So how do you go about finding a creature most people believe to be a myth?

It could be a human footprint. Let's not rule that out.

Kentucky Bigfoot investigators pride themselves on their scientific rigour.

They compile detailed reports, take copious notes, and rely on high-tech recording equipment to set their traps and document their work.

Every twisted branch or broken twig is carefully examined for clues. Every distant sound in the trees seized on as a possible sign of "activity"

Full Story from BBC

Posted by Neil Bartlett DHyp M.A.E.P.H at 01:01 MEST

Updated: Saturday, 14 April 2012 01:45 MEST

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Mood:  bright

A bacteria found in soil called Mycobacterium has been found to effect the same neurons as Prozac, offering people a natural lift in mood.  This is just one more great reason to get out in the garden and grow your own foods. Not a green thumb? Just spending time in areas with rich soil will allow you to breath in these great benefits. – Intelligentactile

Imagine: You’re feeling so depressed that you visit your doctor and request a prescription for a mood elevator. Instead of writing you a prescription for Prozac or a similar antidepressant, she advises you to get dirty. While you consider changing doctors, she describes how getting dirty changes your brain chemistry. The microbes in dirt, she says, tweak the same neurons that are stimulated by Prozac. Your options, she explains, are an expensive drug plus its possible side effects, or gardening, yard work, or a romp in the park. Your doctor, it turns out, hasn’t gone round the bend. She is actually up-to-date on the latest scientific findings about how the natural environment affects our brain function.

Full Story from healthfreedoms.org

Posted by Neil Bartlett DHyp M.A.E.P.H at 01:01 MEST

Updated: Friday, 13 April 2012 01:15 MEST

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Mood:  a-ok

Practising the ancient martial art of tai chi can boost elderly people's hearts, a study has found.

Older subjects who regularly performed the traditional Chinese mind-body exercise now enjoyed worldwide were less likely to suffer high blood pressure and were physically stronger.

Researchers said a work-out which can achieve both good heart function and muscle power 'would be a preferred mode of training' for this group of society.

Heart pulse measurements showed it improved expansion and contraction of the arteries - known as arterial compliance - and increased knee muscle strength.

Full Story from dailymail.co.uk

Posted by Neil Bartlett DHyp M.A.E.P.H at 01:01 MEST

Updated: Thursday, 12 April 2012 01:52 MEST

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Mood:  happy

Earlier evidence out of UCLA suggested that meditating for years thickens the brain (in a good way) and strengthens the connections between brain cells. Now a further report by UCLA researchers suggests yet another benefit.

Eileen Luders, an assistant professor at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, and colleagues, have found that long-term meditators have larger amounts of gyrification ("folding" of the cortex, which may allow the brain to process information faster) than people who do not meditate.

Full Story from sciencedaily.com

Posted by Neil Bartlett DHyp M.A.E.P.H at 01:01 MEST

Updated: Wednesday, 11 April 2012 01:11 MEST

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Mood:  d'oh

Life expectancy has changed dramatically in a century.

In 1908, half the UK population was dead by 60 and in 1948, when the contributory state pension was introduced, half the population was dead by the age of 72.

Falling mortality rates, as a result of advances in science and medicine, mean the average UK man and woman can expect to live into their 80s, perhaps even to the age of 100, but what will the quality of our lives be like?

And will we have to resort to more and more drugs to keep us alive?

The longer we live, the more prone we are to chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer.

Drugs can help control and reduce the symptoms of these conditions and increase our longevity, but the danger is that we will come to rely on them too much.

Full Story from BBC

Posted by Neil Bartlett DHyp M.A.E.P.H at 01:01 MEST

Updated: Tuesday, 10 April 2012 01:07 MEST

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Mood:  happy

As the cheesy pickup line suggests, your eyes may really be the window to your soul. According to a new study by Yale University psychologists, most people intuitively feel as if their "self" — otherwise known as their soul, or ego — exists in or near their eyes.

In three experiments, the researchers probed preschoolers' and adults' intuitions about the precise location of the self in the body. The participants were shown pictures of cartoon characters, and in each picture a small object (a buzzing fly or snowflake) was positioned near a different section of the character's body (face or torso or feet, etc.), always at the same distance away.

The study participants were then asked which pictures showed the object closest to the body, the hypothesis being that people would interpret the object as closest when it was near what they intuitively believed to be the soul's location.

Full Story from livescience.com

Posted by Neil Bartlett DHyp M.A.E.P.H at 01:01 MEST

Updated: Monday, 9 April 2012 01:04 MEST

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