namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

REGULAR exercise can reduce a woman's risk of cancer, but the benefits may slip away if she gets too little sleep.
The study involving 5968 women in the US state of Maryland confirmed previous findings that people who do regular physical activity are less likely to develop cancer.

But when the researchers looked at the women ages 18 to 65 who were in the upper half in terms of the amount of physical exercise they got per week, they found that sleep appeared to play an important role in cancer risk.

I'm going to do a series of posts on health tips that I've uncovered in my research.

In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what's wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it's putting the entire planet at risk.

My sincere prayers are with H.H. Jayapataka Swami at this time of a challenge to the physical health of his body.

Maharaja has always been very kind and encouraging to me, and his disciples have also.

I wish Maharaja a speedy recovery and many years of continued service to the devotees of ISKCON and the people of this world. If this doesn't happen, I am sure that his service will continue anyway, in another body.

Courtesy of Madhava Ghosh came the insight: "Pain is weakness leaving the body".

Pain in yoga practice is not "injury" - it is the attempt of the system of the body to maintain the status quo. One part rebels, complains, tries to change the equation: "Leave things as they are - it's harder to change than it is to stay the same, and I'll make it harder for you..."

It is the duty of the practitioner to push through it, to take it to another level.

New Zealand's main outreach centers have implemented a policy of only using milk from protected cows. In practice this has translated into a vegan menu at Auckland's The Loft, and Wellington's Gaura Yoga.

Since there are no protected cows giving milk within the movement in New Zealand there is no milk to use.

1 kg of muscle in 1 week.

I read it as the theoretical maximum on wikipedia, and the lady at the health food store today confirmed it as the "safe maximum weight gain or loss rate".

I got some more intelligence on how to do it today, but earlier I made a video about the breakfast I am using. This is science, kids, but not as we know it....

Take one BBC news report from 2003:

"The results were clear with both our experimental groups and in both test scenarios. "Creatine supplementation gave a significant measurable boost to brain power."

Add one report from the Mayo Clinic:

Creatine administration was shown to significantly improve performance in cognitive and memory tests in vegetarian individuals involved in double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over trials. Vegetarian supplementation with creatine seems to be especially beneficial as they appear to have lower average body stores, since meat is a primary source of dietary creatine.

- Creatine Supplements: Mental Performance, Wikipedia

Interestingly enough, my morning realization at Bikram today is an interesting counterpoint to Devadeva Mirel's "Plain Truth".

There she presents the old adage: "Eat right, exercise, die anyway".

Of course that's true, but it's a truth devoid of subtlety. Once you realize this truth, you can still go further. Krishna consciousness is not fatalism or nihilism.

still to come: subheadings to make it easier to read, some graphics, and links to external blogs

If you've followed my blog for even a short while you've probably figured out that I'm a Hare Krishna. Cows are considered sacred by Hare Krishnas, and my recent posting on the effects of Dairy on the human body will verge on heresy for some members of the movement. You might say that it challenges a sacred cow - literally.

However, bhakti yoga is not meant to be dogmatic or unthinking, so let's take a look at this sacred cow, shall we?

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post "Why Dairy Makes You Stiff that dairy products are acid-forming in the body. They result in the same lactic acid build-up that I described in Why Drinking Green Juices Makes You More Flexible.

You can read more about it here: Latose and Lactic Acid.

Last night I had some Parmesan cheese. Not a lot, just a little bit, over my beans and rice. This morning in my Bikram class I felt stiff, and was clearing my throat of mucus continually.

Doing the same thing every day, like clockwork, I notice variations like this. I had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago - the day after I drank 500ml of organic milk.

For the past four months I've been drinking two or three caps of Oxyrich, an oxygen donor, in a litre of water.

I drink it during my Bikram class, in the water breaks, and the effect has been to almost completely eliminate the soreness and stiffness that I used to feel the day after a class.

A couple of months back I followed a targeted ad on Facebook ("Yoga students ONLY!") and found Yoga Body - a website that states: "Yoga Poses & Yoga Exercises aren't Enough for Flexibility".

The main premise of the site is that drinking green juices makes you more flexible.

Bikram yoga for the win!

Fasting for one day each month may reduce the risk of clogged arteries by 40 percent, according to a new study conducted by researchers from Intermountain Medical Center and the University of Utah and presented at a conference of the American Heart Association.

Researchers first began to study fasting when an analysis of a health registry indicated that significantly fewer Mormons than non-Mormons in Utah suffered from the clogged arteries indicative of heart disease, even after different smoking rates were taken into account.

''We cannot say with any certainty that cellphones are either safe or not safe,'' Dr. Black said on CNN. ''My concern is that with the widespread use of cellphones, the worst scenario would be that we get the definitive study 10 years from now, and we find out there is a correlation.''

- Experts Revive Debate Over Cellphones and Cancer, New York Times

A prominent cancer researcher's warning to limit cell phone use has rekindled anew the longstanding question over mobile-phone health risks.

The media is abuzz with news of the memo from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. He sent it to faculty and staff Wednesday, saying, among other things, that children should use cell phones only for emergencies, since their developing organs are the most likely to be sensitive to possible effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields.
Dr. Ronald B. Herberman

This week the ISKCON New Govardhana farming project in Australia received organic certification from the national Organic Growers Association. After several rigorous inspections, the farm was granted a certificate of compliance which allows all fruit and vegetables grown to carry the official OGA logo.

Pandu das shared the following on Pariprashnena.com:

I just composed the following e-mail in response to a "hot dog sale," which I intend to send to my office of about 200 people during lunchtime today:

If you get cancer, I can recommend this. I know it's good for skin cancer, and I'll let you know about internal tumors.

I can recommend a few other things as well. I'll write an in-depth article about it. In the meantime you can email me if you need the information faster.