Category Archives: Health

Words Are More Important Than You May Have Thought

“Every thought, word, or deed, either purifies or pollutes the body.” –

“Thoughts become things, choose the good ones!” –

“You are not a helpless victim of your own thoughts,but rather a master of your own mind.” –

“Thoughts are boomerangs, returning with precision to their source. Choose wisely which ones you throw.” – Author Unknown

“Keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive, because your words become your behaviours.
Keep your behaviours positive, because your behaviours become your habits.
Keep your habits positive, because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny.” –

~

I could continue repeating quotes that support the idea that our thoughts have an effect on our reality. There are even theories put forth by scientists that explain how this works. I’ve embedded a video at the end of this post of talking about synchronicity and in the context, explains how/why our thoughts affect our reality. While there is much evidence that supports the idea that our thoughts have an influence on the outcome of our lives, there is just as much evidence to the contrary. In fact, a simple Google search for “” returns almost 3,000,000 results. I wonder what it is about this topic that is so polarizing for people?

I wonder why there are those people who feel adamant about our thoughts having an effect on us and there are those that feel, just as strongly, that the idea that our thoughts affect us is hogwash. To be honest, I was initially a skeptic. While I grew up in an environment that fostered the development of the idea that our thoughts have an influence on us, I had never seen any tangible evidence of this. Going through my early schooling, I still held the idea of this as a possibility, but I also learned about the scientific method. In doing so, I wondered if there would ever be a way to scientifically measure whether or not our thoughts can have an effect on our lives.

Well, in 2005, , came out with his first book, . In this book, Lipton takes the reader on his journey as a student, professor, and researcher, until his discovery about the cell. For years and years, biologists thought that the cell was controlled by something inside itself — the nucleus. Lipton, however, discovered that this is not the case.

Lipton learned through his research that the cell was actually governed by processes outside the cell. More accurately put, there are processes inside the cell that respond to things happening in the environment outside of the cell. Meaning, as the environment that the cell is in, changes, so too does the cell. There is a dynamic relationship between the cell and its environment. Lipton has gone on to extrapolate these results to other areas of our life beyond the cell. Namely, thoughts and by extension, actions. You’ll find many videos of Lipton talking about the importance of ‘,’ and even some .

Something that I find fascinating about one of the conclusions that Lipton came to from his work is that when cells are presented with nutrients, the cells move openly and towards it. When cells are presented with toxins, the cell closes and moves away. Lipton found that a cell could not simultaneously be in a state of growth (opening and moving forward towards the nutrients) and in a state of protection (closing and moving away from the toxin). I think that this applies directly to the first quote I have provided for this post: “Every thought, word, or deed, either purifies or pollutes the body.” So, we are either thinking positive, warm, and loving thoughts that help our body grow, or we are thinking negative, degrading, and unnecessary thoughts that our body must defend against. Which kind are you thinking?

~

Let’s Treat All Cars Like School Buses: Drive Safe!

According to the , “Fatalities per 100 million Vehicle Miles Traveled” has been trending down since 2005. In 2005, there were 1.46 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. This means that for every 100 million miles traveled by car in the United States, there were 1.46 fatalities. That may sound like a rather low number, but consider that since this particular statistic has been kept, the highest this number has ever been was back in the first year it was kept, 1994, when the number was 1.73. In the years following 2005’s number of 1.46, we’ve seen the number go to 1.42 in 2006, to 1.36 in 2007, to 1.26 in 2008, and to 1.13 in 2009 (numbers for 2010 were not reported as of the writing of this post).

Looking merely at the statistics, this number seems to be trending downwards more than in any other 5-year period since 1994. While on the face of the statistical trend, it’s great, but really, should this number be above zero?

As I was driving home the other day, I saw a school bus van. Immediately, even before I could read ‘school bus’ on the side of the van, I was able to recognize the color of the van and know that it must have been a school bus. Typically, when I see a school bus, I tend to slow down (even a little bit). I would guess that the fair majority of the population would do the same. Why do we do this? Well, in part, . More than that, I slow down when I see a school bus because usually, there are kids on-board, and who wants to cause an accident that harms children?

As a nation, and maybe a species in general, we tend to look more favorably upon our young. That is, when faced with a moral dilemma upon saving people, we almost always save the child over ourselves (or other older people in the group). There are many different theories as to why this is, but I won’t get into them. I’m more interested in our behavior in the car around school vehicles. We slow down when we see school vehicles, but why don’t we slow down when we see other vehicles?

Shouldn’t we drive with the same care and caution, all the time, that we do when we see a school vehicle? When we see a school vehicle, something about the vehicle stands out (), and we immediately are more cautious with our driving. I think we should be just as cautious around other cars as we are around school buses. What if all cars were painted the same color as school buses? Do you think we’d be just as cautious around other cars as we are around school buses? My guess is that the attention-grabbing feature of the color would soon fade as we all became accustomed to seeing that color on every car.

But shouldn’t we still drive as if every car is a school bus? Every car on the road carries “precious cargo” — another human being. All life, old, young, middle-aged — is precious. All life is worth preserving and caring for. There needn’t be any fatalities when one is trying to go from point A to point B. It’s just unnecessary. Wouldn’t you want someone who makes a turn down a windy country road, who sees the light blue color of your car to slow down a little, because you’re approaching from the other direction? I certainly would.