Brave, Sara Bareilles

"Brave"
You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love
Or you can start speaking up
Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do
When they settle ‘neath your skin
Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins
But I wonder what would happen if you
Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
I just want to see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave
Everybody’s been there,
Everybody’s been stared down by the enemy
Fallen for the fear
And done some disappearing,
Bow down to the mighty
Don’t run, just stop holding your tongue
Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is
Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
And since your history of silence
Won’t do you any good,
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don’t you tell them the truth?
Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
See you be brave
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you

Making relaxation techniques a part of your life

The best way to start and maintain a relaxation practice is to incorporate it into your daily routine. Between work, family, school, and other commitments, though, it can be tough for many people to find the time. Fortunately, many of the techniques can be practiced while you’re doing other things.

Rhythmic exercise as a mindfulness relaxation technique

Rhythmic exercise—such as running, walking, rowing, or cycling—is most effective at relieving stress when performed with relaxation in mind. As with meditation, mindfulness requires being fully engaged in the present moment, focusing your mind on how your body feels right now. As you exercise, focus on the physicality of your body’s movement and how your breathing complements that movement. If your mind wanders to other thoughts, gently return to focusing on your breathing and movement.

If walking or running, for example, focus on each step—the sensation of your feet touching the ground, the rhythm of your breath while moving, and the feeling of the wind against your face.

Tips for fitting relaxation techniques into your life

• If possible, schedule a set time to practice each day. Set aside one or two periods each day. You may find that it’s easier to stick with your practice if you do it first thing in the morning, before other tasks and responsibilities get in the way.
• Practice relaxation techniques while you’re doing other things. Meditate while commuting to work on a bus or train, or waiting for a dentist appointment. Try deep breathing while you’re doing housework or mowing the lawn. Mindfulness walking can be done while exercising your dog, walking to your car, or climbing the stairs at work instead of using the elevator. Once you’ve learned techniques such as tai chi, you can practice them in your office or in the park at lunchtime.
• If you exercise, improve the relaxation benefits by adopting mindfulness. Instead of zoning out or staring at a TV as you exercise, try focusing your attention on your body. If you’re resistance training, for example, focus on coordinating your breathing with your movements and pay attention to how your body feels as you raise and lower the weights.
• Avoid practicing when you’re sleepy. These techniques can relax you so much that they can make you very sleepy, especially if it’s close to bedtime. You will get the most benefit if you practice when you’re fully awake and alert. Do not practice after eating a heavy meal or while using drugs, tobacco, or alcohol.
• Expect ups and downs. Don’t be discouraged if you skip a few days or even a few weeks. It happens. Just get started again and slowly build up to your old momentum.

Link: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_relief_meditation_yoga_relaxation.htm

How to Prevent Burnout from Stress: Live like a Sprinter, not a Long Distance Runner

When we expend energy, we draw down our reservoir. When we recover energy, we fill it back up. Too much energy expenditure without sufficient recovery eventually leads to burnout and breakdown (Overuse it and lose it). Too much recovery without sufficient stress leads to atrophy and weakness (Use it or lose it).
-Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement

There needs to be an equal balance between stress and recovery- too much of either one has negative consequences

 

Nature is constantly oscillating- think of tides moving in and out, the seasons changing, or the sun rising and setting. We as human beings naturally follow a similar rhythm with our energy levels. Our natural state is to oscillate between rest and activity, similar to a sprinter. Unfortunately, our society of technological innovation socially sanctions living like a long distance runner- we ignore rest and fail to recognize its necessity for preventing burnout and sustaining high performance.

 

Ignoring recovery for too long causes burnout- symptoms of being burned out include emotional exhaustion, loss of motivation, detachment, isolation, and irritability.

Are your addicted to living like a long distance runner?

Living in a state of stress produces an adrenaline rush, and over time, this becomes addictive, and we lose the ability to relax. Common sense would tell us we need to take breaks and rest, but instead we overindulge in work, and face the consequences. Researchers have found that self-described workaholics have a significantly higher than average incidence of stress-related illnesses, divorce, and alcohol abuse.

Are you creating artificial relaxation and alertness?

If you regularly rely on alcohol, marijuana or sleeping pills to calm down, you may be trying to create relaxation (artificially). Similarly, if you rely on stimulants such as caffeine or amphetamines, you are trying to create alertness (artificially). Both of these artificial means of oscillation are masking the bigger problem- you are still living life like a long distance runner.

Are you creating artificial importance?

Do you like the feeling of importance when you become busier? Even when it means being unavailable to your friends and family? This artificial importance will only create artificial success, as you are still living life like a long distance runner.

Are your work habits putting you at risk to karoshi?

Karoshi is the term in Japan which means “death from overwork”. This is apparently a fairly common occurrence. In fact, I just read about a Toyota engineer who worked himself to death today (he died of heart disease). Additionally, I have known several people in the workforce who have had heart attacks after working extreme long hours under high pressure.

Research shows that these five key factors contribute to karoshi:

• Extreme long hours that interferes with normal rest patterns
• Night work that interferes with normal rest patterns
• Working without holidays or breaks
• High pressure work without breaks
• Extremely demanding physical labor and continuously stressful work

Here are some tips for preventing burnout (or karoshi!), and living like a sprinter:

Tips for Preventing Burnout from Stress and Living like a Sprinter

1) Balance stress and recovery to achieve your best performance

Push yourself beyond your ordinary limits, and regularly seek recovery, and you will grow. This is similar to lifting weights at the gym. The problem with people who live like long distance runners is that they don’t allow themselves to recover, and get burned out as a consequence. This brings us to the topic of tip 2.

2) Create a ritual of disconnecting

New technologies such as Blackberries/PDA’s, and social networking tools (ex. Facebook, Twitter), make it easy for us to never truly disconnect. Several people I work with will bring their work phones/laptops with them on vacation, and check e-mail/take phone calls the entire time. This is faulty, socially-sanctioned “live life as a long distance runner” logic.

It is a very good plan every now and then to go away and have a little relaxation… When you come back to the work your judgement will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose the power of judgement.
-Leonardo Da Vinci

Da Vinci’s advice still applies to us today. To prevent work burnout, create a daily ritual (read my post on creating consistent daily habits) of completely disconnecting- have a daily stopping point. For example, if you are a business traveler, make a habit of not working during your commute, and instead, relax and read books/magazines. If you are on vacation, completely disconnect from your work- don’t bring your PDA or laptop.

Another option for preventing work burnout is to disconnect during your lunch. A lot of people fall into the habit of eating at their desk, or eating with coworkers and discussing work-related topics. To truly disconnect and use your lunch break to recover, you may need to eat by yourself.

3) Create healthy breathing, eating, sleeping, and exercising habits

Breathing: This is an easy way to relax and prevent burnout- throughout your day, make a habit of breathing in to a count of three and out to a count of six, for several minutes. This will help you relax deeply.

Eating: Eat small meals at regular intervals (five to six times a day is recommended), in amounts that are satisfying (not over or under filling). Try to eat primarily foods that are low on the glycemic index, as these will provide a steadier source of energy. And don’t forget to drink plenty of water!

Sleeping: Get 7-8 hours of sleep. If you are able to, take at catnap in the afternoon. Winston Churchill was a proponent of this, explaining that a catnap helps you get two days in one, as you wake up more alert and sustaining energy.

 

Exercising: Work out 3-5 times per week, and add some form of strength training to your routine (read my post on losing weight by gaining muscle). Strength training is just as important as cardiovascular training, especially as we age- on average, we lose one-half pound of muscle mass each year after the age of forty in absence of exercise.

Source: http://www.lifeevolver.com/prevent-stress-burnout-live-sprinter-long-distance-runner/

5 ways your TV is slowly killing you

You’ve accepted the idea that TV makes you dumber. You know there are lots of more edifying things you could be doing with your time than cheering on the contestants on "Survivor."

And unless you’re working out to an exercise video, you know those hours sprawled out in front of the screen are going to make you fatter — not to mention the impact of all that junk food you’ve been tempted to scarf down during the commercial breaks.

But you’ll be surprised to learn the host of other bad things TV can do to you.

1. TV makes you deader.  

TV-viewing is a pretty deadly pastime, research suggests. No matter how much time you spend in the gym, every hour you spend in front of the TV increases your risk of dying from heart disease, according to a recent report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Australian researchers studied 8,800 adult men and women for an average of six years and found that every hour spent in front of the TV translated into an 11 percent increase in the risk of death from any cause, a 9 percent increase in the risk of death from cancer and an 18 percent increase in the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. So, compared to people who watched less than two hours of TV a day, those who watched four or more hours a day had a 46 percent higher risk of death from any cause and an 80 percent higher risk of death due to cardiovascular disease. And that was true even among people who didn’t smoke, were thin, ate healthy diets and had low blood pressure and cholesterol.

2. TV makes you drunker.  

TV may make you drink more. When it comes to drinking, we’re apparently very susceptible to what we see on TV, according to a report published in Alcohol and Alcoholism. To discover whether what we view actually affects drinking habits, researchers rounded up 80 male university students between the ages of 18 and 29 and plunked them down in a bar-like setting where the students were allowed to watch movies and commercials on TV. The researchers found that men who watched films and commercials in which alcohol was prominently featured immediately reached for a glass of beer or wine and drank an average of 1.5 glasses more than those who watched films and commercials in which alcohol played a less prominent role.

3. TV can make your kid pregnant.  

Teens who watched a lot of TV that included sexual content were twice as likely to get pregnant, according to a study published in Pediatrics. Once a year for three years, Rand Corporation researchers surveyed 1,461 youngsters — ages 12 to 17 at the beginning of the study — about TV-viewing habits and sexual behavior. Boys were asked if they had ever gotten a girl pregnant and girls were asked if they had ever been pregnant. To get a handle on how much sexually charged TV kids were watching, the researchers asked teens if and how often they viewed 23 specific programs.

 

Video: Watching TV leads to heart disease, docs say Another study showed that kids who watch two or more hours of TV a day start having sex earlier, according to a report in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Researchers followed 4,808 students for a year. The kids — all ages 15 or younger — had never had sex at the beginning of the study. Among kids with parents who disapproved of teen sex, those who watched two or more hours of TV per day were 72 percent more likely to start having sex by the end of the study. The researchers said they weren’t surprised to find no TV effect among kids with parents who didn’t care about teen sex since those kids were at high risk of early sex anyway.

4. TV weakens your bones.  

Hours spent watching TV can set a kid up for later problems with brittle bones, according to a study published in the Journal of Pediatrics. Until we hit 25 or so, we accumulate bone in a kind of savings account. The more bone we build when we’re younger, the less likely we are to develop the brittle-bone disease osteoporosis.

To see whether TV watching might impact kids’ bone growth, researchers followed 214 3-year-olds for four years. The children’s height and weight were checked every four months, along with their activity levels. At each checkup, parents were asked about their kids’ TV-viewing habits. The more TV kids watched, the less bone they grew, regardless of how active they were at other times.

5. TV makes you less engaging.
 

A recent study found that when the TV is on — even if it’s just in the background — parents interact less with their kids. To learn more about TV’s effects, researchers brought 51 infants and toddlers, each accompanied by a parent, to a university child study center, according to the report published Child Development. Parents and kids were observed for half an hour in a playroom without a TV and then for a half hour with the TV tuned to an adult program such as "Jeopardy!" When the TV was on, parents spent about 20 percent less time talking to their children. And when parents did pay attention to their kids, the quality of the interactions was lower: With a program on in the background, parents were less active, attentive and responsive to their youngsters.

Source:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35646508/ns/health-behavior/#.UFVj7KP90hs

My Teen Is Breaking Rules - What Can I Do?

We recently moved, and my 16-year-old daughter started at a new school. Lately, she's been ignoring her curfew, and last weekend I smelled alcohol on her breath. What should I do?
- Joe

The best thing you can do is to talk to your daughter openly about your concerns. Be blunt, honest, and understanding — and reassure her that you want to know what's going on with her because you care. 

Discuss your expectations for her, and what the consequences will be if she breaks the rules. Many teens act like they don't need attention from their parents and family, but actually they do.

While one or two behavior glitches can be expected with a major life change, persistent changes in your daughter's behavior, attitude, or interests may mean something more is going on. Alcohol and/or drug use are often linked to depression or to difficult life changes like moving or going through a rough breakup.

If you're still concerned about your daughter's behavior, talk to her doctor or a counselor for advice.

Source:  http://kidshealth.org/parent/question/emotions/rule_breaking.html

Reviewed by: Larissa Hirsch, MD

10 Modern Methods of Mind Control

Nicholas West

Activist Post

The more one researches mind control, the more one will come to the conclusion that there is a coordinated script that has been in place for a very long time with the goal to turn the human race into non-thinking automatons.  For as long as man has pursued power over the masses, mind control has been orchestrated by those who study human behavior in order to bend large populations to the will of a small "elite" group.  Today, we have entered a perilous phase where mind control has taken on a physical, scientific dimension that threatens to become a permanent state if we do not become aware of the tools at the disposal of the technocratic dictatorship unfolding on a worldwide scale.

Modern mind control is both technological and psychological.  Tests show that simply by exposing the methods of mind control, the effects can be reduced or eliminated, at least for mind control advertising and propaganda.  More difficult to counter are the physical intrusions, which the military-industrial complex continues to develop and improve upon.



1. Education -- This is the most obvious, yet still remains the most insidious.  It has always been a would-be dictator's ultimate fantasy to "educate" naturally impressionable children, thus it has been a central component to Communist and Fascist tyrannies throughout history.  No one has been more instrumental in exposing the agenda of modern education than Charlotte Iserbyt -- one can begin research into this area by downloading a free PDF of her book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, which lays bare the role of Globalist foundations in shaping a future intended to produce servile drones lorded over by a fully educated, aware elite class.   

2. Advertising and Propaganda -- Edward Bernays has been cited as the inventor of the consumerist culture that was designed primarily to target people's self-image (or lack thereof) in order to turn a want into a need.  This was initially envisioned for products such as cigarettes, for example.  However, Bernays also noted in his 1928 book, Propaganda, that "propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government." This can be seen most clearly in the modern police state and the growing citizen snitch culture, wrapped up in the pseudo-patriotic War on Terror.  The increasing consolidation of media has enabled the entire corporate structure to merge with government, which now utilizes the concept of propaganda placement.  Media; print, movies, television, and cable news can now work seamlessly to integrate an overall message which seems to have the ring of truth because it comes from so many sources, simultaneously.  When one becomes attuned to identifying the main "message," one will see this imprinting everywhere.  And this is not even to mention subliminal messaging.
 

3. Predictive Programming -- Many still deny that predictive programming is real.  I would invite anyone to examine the range of documentation put together by Alan Watt and come to any other conclusion.  Predictive programming has its origins in predominately elitist Hollywood, where the big screen can offer a big vision of where society is headed.  Just look back at the books and movies which you thought were far-fetched, or "science fiction" and take a close look around at society today.  For a detailed breakdown of specific examples, Vigilant Citizen is a great resource that will probably make you look at "entertainment" in a completely different light.

4. Sports, Politics, Religion -- Some might take offense at seeing religion, or even politics, put alongside sports as a method of mind control.  The central theme is the same throughout: divide and conquer.  The techniques are quite simple: short circuit the natural tendency of people to cooperate for their survival, and teach them to form teams bent on domination and winning.  Sports has always had a role as a key distraction that corrals tribal tendencies into a non-important event, which in modern America has reached ridiculous proportions where protests will break out over a sport celebrity leaving their city, but essential human issues such as liberty are giggled away as inconsequential.  Political discourse is strictly in a left-right paradigm of easily controlled opposition, while religion is the backdrop of nearly every war throughout history.

5. Food, Water, and Air -- Additives, toxins, and other food poisons literally alter brain chemistry to create docility and apathy.  Fluoride in drinking water has been proven to lower IQ; Aspartame and MSG are excitotoxins which excite brain cells until they die; and easy access to the fast food that contains these poisons generally has created a population that lacks focus and motivation for any type of active lifestyle.  Most of the modern world is perfectly groomed for passive receptiveness -- and acceptance -- of the dictatorial elite.  And if you choose to diligently watch your diet, they are fully prepared to spray the population from the above.

6. Drugs -- This can be any addictive substance, but the mission of mind controllers is to be sure you are addicted to something.  One major arm of the modern mind control agenda is psychiatry, which aims to define all people by their disorders, as opposed to their human potential.  This was foreshadowed in books such as Brave New World.  Today, it has been taken to even further extremes as a medical tyranny has taken hold where nearly everyone has some sort of disorder -- particularly those who question authority.  The use of nerve drugs in the military has led to record numbers of suicides.  Worst of all, the modern drug state now has over 25% of U.S. children on mind-numbing medication.

7. Military testing -- The military has a long history as the testing ground for mind control.  The military mind is perhaps the most malleable, as those who pursue life in the military generally resonate to the structures of hierarchy, control, and the need for unchallenged obedience to a mission.  For the increasing number of military personal questioning their indoctrination, a recent story highlighted DARPA's plans for transcranial mind control helmets that will keep them focused.

8. Electromagnetic spectrum  -- An electromagnetic soup envelops us all, charged by modern devices of convenience which have been shown to have a direct impact on brain function.  In a tacit admission of what is possible, one researcher has been working with a "god helmet" to induce visions by altering the electromagnetic field of the brain.  Our modern soup has us passively bathed by potentially mind-altering waves, while a wide range of possibilities such as cell phone towers is now available to the would-be mind controller for more direct intervention.

9. Television, Computer, and "flicker rate"-- It's bad enough that what is "programmed" on your TV (accessed via remote "control") is engineered; it is all made easier by literally lulling you to sleep, making it a psycho-social weapon.  Flicker rate tests show that alpha brain waves are altered, producing a type of hypnosis -- which doesn't portend well for the latest revelation that lights can transmit coded Internet data by "flickering faster than the eye can see."  The computer's flicker rate is less, but through video games, social networks, and a basic structure which overloads the brain with information, the rapid pace of modern communication induces an ADHD state.  A study of video games revealed that extended play can result in lower blood flow to the brain, sapping emotional control.  Furthermore, role-playing games of lifelike war and police state scenarios serve to desensitize a connection to reality.  One look at the WikiLeaks video Collateral Murder should be familiar to anyone who has seen a game like Call of Duty.

10. Nanobots -- From science fiction horror, directly to the modern brain; the nanobots are on the way.  Direct brain modification already has been packaged as "neuroengineering." A  Wired article from early 2009 highlighted that direct brain manipulation via fiber optics is a bit messy, but once installed "it could make someone happy with the press of a button."  Nanobots take the process to an automated level, rewiring the brain molecule by molecule.  Worse, these mini droids can self-replicate, forcing one to wonder how this genie would ever get back in the bottle once unleashed. Expected date of arrival?  Early 2020s.

A concerted effort is underway to manage and predict human behavior so that the social scientists and the dictatorial elite can control the masses and protect themselves from the fallout of a fully awake free humanity. Only by waking up to their attempts to put us to sleep do we stand a chance of preserving our free will.

Source:  http://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/10-modern-methods-of-mind-control.html