Abdominal Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Abdominal. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Most people in Atlanta don't have an accent. It's pretty urban. A lot of people speak gangsta, though," I add jokingly. "Fo' shiz," he replies in his polite English accent. I spurt orangey-red soup across the table. St. Clair gives a surprised ha-HA kind of laugh, and I'm laughing too, the painful kind like abdominal crunches. He hands me a napkin to wipe my chin. "Fo'. Shiz." He repeats it solemnly. Cough cough. "Please don't ever stop saying that. It's too-" I gasp. "Much." "You oughtn't to have said that. Now I shall have to save it for special occasions." "My birthday is in February." Cough choke wheeze. "Please don't forget.
Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1))
How is it that I'd nearly been smothered to death, and yet I could sit there and notice things like my stepbrother's abdominal muscles a few minutes later?
Meg Cabot (Shadowland (The Mediator, #1))
His favorites were the arm curl machine and the abdominal machine, where he would lift hard for long minutes and then fight a few last painful crunches.Not that I made a habit of standing there and staring at him as he worked out.That would be creepy.I watched him on the surveillance cameras behind the reception desk.
Jennifer Echols (The Ex Games)
I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world, and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God's grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources.
C.S. Lewis
Is there some kind of taboo against seeing a woman’s breasts in human culture?” asked Serene. “Breasts are functional. They feed children. Whereas I know many men cultivate their shoulder and abdominal muscles merely to attract the opposite sex. Their chests are the ones that are more decorative and which it is less modest to display!
Sarah Rees Brennan (In Other Lands)
...if he can write a book at all, a writer cannot do it by peeping over his shoulder at somebody else, any more than a woman can have a baby by watching some other woman have one. It is a genital process, and all of its stages are intra-abdominal;
James M. Cain (The Butterfly)
Jesus,” Kiernan said as he stepped from the Bronco and a gust of frigid wind lifted his hair. “I think my testicles just climbed up into my abdominal cavity in fear.” Matt chuckled. “Lovely visual.” He cautiously joined him on the icy sidewalk. “They’ll come back out of hiding as soon as you warm up.” “So you say. The poor things aren’t used to this kind of weather. It’s traumatizing. I’m going to expect you to check later to make sure they’re still where they belong.” “I can certainly make an inspection of the general area. I’m a detective. It’s all about gathering evidence.
Diana Copland (A Reason To Believe)
There is, of course, this to be said for the Omnibus Book in general and this one in particular. When you buy it, you have got something. The bulk of this volume makes it almost the ideal paper-weight. The number of its pages assures its posessor of plenty of shaving paper on his vacation. Place upon the waistline and jerked up and down each morning, it will reduce embonpoint and strengthen the abdominal muscles. And those still at their public school will find that between, say, Caesar's Commentaries in limp cloth and this Jeeves book there is no comparison as a missile in an inter-study brawl.
P.G. Wodehouse (The World of Jeeves (Jeeves, #2-4))
Massive cerebral damage and abdominal bleeding in automobile accidents could be imitated within half an hour, aided by the application of suitable coloured resins. Convincing radiation burns required careful preparation, and might involve some three to four hours of makeup. Death, by contrast, was a matter of lying prone.
J.G. Ballard (The Atrocity Exhibition)
Excessive abdominal noise is an uncommon, but not unprecedented, presenting symptoms of infection with the bacteria Clostridium difficile, which can be fatal.
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
Colin thought about the dork mantra: sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. What a dirty lie. This, right here, was the true abdominal snowman: it felt like something freezing in his stomach. "I love you so much and I just want you to love me like I love you," he said as softly as he could. "You don't need a girlfriend, Colin. You need a robot who says nothing but 'I love you.
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
From the half-open doors of this chiffonier hung laces, ribands, stockings, ladies' underclothing and an abdominal brace, which gave the impression that the feminine finery had suffered venery.
Djuna Barnes (Nightwood)
Delaying a meal brings about symptoms most people call "hunger." These symptoms include abdominal cramping, weakness, and feeling ill-the same as during drug withdrawal. This is not hunger. Our dietary habits, especially eating animal-protein-rich foods three times a day, are so stressful to the detoxification system in our liver and kidneys that we start to get withdrawal, or detoxification, symptoms the minute we aren't busy processing such food. Real hunger is not that uncomfortable.
Joel Fuhrman
Somatic Symptoms: People with Complex PTSD often have medical unexplained physical symptoms such as abdominal pains, headaches, joint and muscle pain, stomach problems, and elimination problems. These people are sometimes most unfortunately mislabeled as hypochondriacs or as exaggerating their physical problems. But these problems are real, even though they may not be related to a specific physical diagnosis. Some dissociative parts are stuck in the past experiences that involved pain may intrude such that a person experiences unexplained pain or other physical symptoms. And more generally, chronic stress affects the body in all kinds of ways, just as it does the mind. In fact, the mind and body cannot be separated. Unfortunately, the connection between current physical symptoms and past traumatizing events is not always so clear to either the individual or the physician, at least for a while. At the same time we know that people who have suffered from serious medical, problems. It is therefore very important that you have physical problems checked out, to make sure you do not have a problem from which you need medical help.
Suzette Boon (Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists)
How much do you enjoy the ad of the hot brunette in the skimpy tank-top winking at you? How much do you enjoy that image of the college hunk with the cubed abdominals blue-steeling into the breeze? Once you make the link that it’s American Apparel, or Abercrombie, how do you then feel about that brand?
Simon Pont (The Better Mousetrap: Brand Invention in a Media Democracy)
Hours before his death in 1955 from a ruptured abdominal aortic ayeurysm, Albert Einstein's doctors proposed trying a new and unproven surgery as a final option for extending his life. Einstein refused. "I have done my share," he said. "It is time to go. I will do it elegantly.
Albert Einstein
She batted him away and gestured to the muscles hidden beneath his shirt. "You're going to make me look like that?" His low laugh rippled over her body. "No one can look like this but me, Nes." Arrogant ass. "Rhysand and Azriel do," she said sweetly. "I've got one or two muscles on them." "I don't see it." He winked. "Maybe they're in other places." She couldn't help it. Couldn't stop it. Not the flash of desire, but the smile that overtook her face. She huffed a laugh. Cassian stared like he hadn't seen her before. His shock was enough that Nesta dropped her smile. "All right," she said. "Warm-up, then abdominals.
Sarah J. Maas (A ​Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
A Note From the Beach Hello. I am the beach. I am created by waves and currents. I am made of eroded rocks. I exist next to the sea. I have been around for millions of years. I was around at the dawn of life itself. And I have to tell you something. I don’t care about your body. I am a beach. I literally don’t give a fuck. I am entirely indifferent to your body mass index. I am not impressed that your abdominal muscles are visible to the naked eye. I am oblivious. You are one of 200,000 generations of human beings. I have seen them all. I will see all the generations that come after you, too. It won’t be as many. I’m sorry. I hear the whispers the sea tells me. (The sea hates you. The poisoners. That’s what it calls you. A bit melodramatic, I know. But that’s the sea for you. All drama.) And I have to tell you something else. Even the other people on the beach don’t care about your body. They don’t. They are staring at the sea, or they are obsessed with their own appearance. And if they are thinking about you, why do you care? Why do you humans worry so much about a stranger’s opinion? Why don’t you do what I do? Let it wash all over you. Allow yourself just to be as you are. Just be. Just beach.
Matt Haig (Notes on a Nervous Planet)
Complaining, whether silently or aloud, is a major man repellant. When you complain, you are arguing with what is: you’re saying life is not how you think it should be. This victimizes you and creates stress and anxiety in your body. And that stress has a negative impact on your appearance: premature aging, a worsening of acne or psoriasis, and, my personal favorite, an increase in cortisol, the stress hormone that causes an increase in abdominal fat. That being said, men are attracted to more than looks in a woman. They are attracted to the way you make them feel. Women who are complaint-free make men feel good because they themselves feel good.
Marie Forleo (Make Every Man Want You: How to Be So Irresistible You'll Barely Keep from Dating Yourself!)
Then she will marry the man whom she is currently trying to find both online and in real life, the man with the smile lines and the dog and/or cat, the man with an interesting surname that she can double-barrel with Jones, the man who earns the same as or more than her, the man who likes hugs more than sex and has nice shoes and beautiful skin and no tattoos and a lovely mum and attractive feet. The man who is at least five feet ten, but preferably five feet eleven or over. The man who has no baggage and a good car and a suggestion of abdominal definition although a flat stomach would suffice. This man has yet to materialize and Libby is aware that she is possibly a little over-proscriptive.
Lisa Jewell (The Family Upstairs (The Family Upstairs, #1))
If you eat a destroying angel, for the rest of the day you’ll feel fine. Later that night, or the next morning, you’ll start exhibiting cholera-like symptoms—vomiting, abdominal pain, and severe diarrhea. Then you start to feel better. At the point where you start to feel better, the damage is probably irreversible. Amanita mushrooms contain amatoxin, which binds to an enzyme that is used to read information from DNA. It hobbles the enzyme, effectively interrupting the process by which cells follow DNA’s instructions. Amatoxin causes irreversible damage to whatever cells it collects in. Since most of your body is made of cells,4 this is bad. Death is generally caused by liver or kidney failure, since those are the first sensitive organs in which the toxin accumulates. Sometimes intensive care and a liver transplant can be enough to save a patient, but a sizable percentage of those who eat Amanita mushrooms die.
Randall Munroe (What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions)
Almost any abdominal operation can now be performed laparoscopically, which is Greek for “much slower”, and involves inserting tiny cameras and instruments on long sticks through little holes. It’s fiddly and takes a long time to learn. Recreate the experience for yourself by tying your shoelaces with chopsticks. With your eyes closed. In space.
Adam Kay (This Is Going to Hurt)
There is an information in open sources that nauli is used in various types of Tibetan kum nye and trul khor yogas, as well as in the practice of Tummo.
Artem Orel (Enhancing the Benefits of Nauli with a Key Exercise for Abdominal Muscle Strength: Second Edition)
I’d decreased my sit-up regime and had taken to drawing on abdominal muscles with brown eye shadow.
Sam Harris
he has the V. Those beautiful indentations on men that run the length of their outer abdominal muscles,
Colleen Hoover (Ugly Love)
I’ve begun to picture my abdominal cavity occupied instead by a single glowing globe,
Tom Robbins (Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life)
Perhaps one of the most important things to remember about weight loss surgery is that it is abdominal surgery, not brain surgery.
Pennie Nicola (The Sleeved Life: A Patient-to-Patient Guide on Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy Weight Loss Surgery)
There’s a macabre medical maxim that says that the good people get the worst diseases. If a person is generous of spirit and comes in with a nagging abdominal discomfort the week after she runs a marathon, we’ll discover she has stage-four ovarian cancer. The racist pedophile who drowns kittens on Sundays survives being struck by lightning and lung cancer as he chain-smokes into his nineties.
Michele Harper (The Beauty in Breaking)
Many people infected with C. diff are sick with diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, and weight loss. Others are “carriers” of C. diff with no signs or symptoms of disease. Some of these carriers have been recently infected with C. diff but have recovered and now feel well. But carriers still have the C. diff organism in their stools and can serve as a silent reservoir of infection in hospitals and nursing homes.
J. Thomas LaMont
How’s your abdominal wound?” I ask, draping my arms over the sides. My tits are wantonly exposed. I’m honestly enjoying the hell out of this; I hope the horseman is rattled. Famine narrows his gaze on me. “Gone.” “Too bad.” “My balls are better too—thanks for asking,” he says. “I wasn’t worried about your balls. It seems you have no use for them.” My mouth curves into a smirk as I speak. I really am enjoying myself.
Laura Thalassa (Famine (The Four Horsemen, #3))
The swelling can be so severe that it impairs blood flow and increases abdominal pressure, hindering the animal’s ability to breathe. Sometimes the liver and other organs will even rupture from the stress. Cruel and inhumane, it provides an excellent, if extreme, illustration of exactly what we’re doing to ourselves as a consequence of chronic sugar consumption: developing fat-filled livers and creating foie gras right inside of our own bodies.
Max Lugavere (Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life (Genius Living Book 1))
We'll do the warm-up, and then we're moving into some core work.' She gaped. Her... core? 'Abdominals,' he clarified, and pink washed across his face. He cleared his throat. 'Filthy mind.' He flicked her cheek. 'Too much smut.
Sarah J. Maas (A ​Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
I should also add something about weight here, because we all know that there’s often a relationship between weight and risk for diabetes. If the risk for Alzheimer’s disease goes up with metabolic disorders, then it makes sense that the risk also rises with unhealthy weight gain that has metabolic consequences. The science now speaks to this fact. Carrying extra weight around the abdomen has been shown to be particularly harmful to the brain. One study that garnered lots of media attention looked at over six thousand individuals aged forty to forty-five and measured the size of their bellies between 1964 and 1973.11 A few decades later, they were evaluated to see who had developed dementia and how that related to their waist size at the start of the study. The correlation between risk of dementia and thicker midsections twenty-seven years earlier was remarkable: Those with the highest level of abdominal fat had an increased risk of dementia of almost three-fold in comparison to those with the lowest abdominal weight. There is plenty of evidence that managing your weight now will go a long way toward preventing brain decline later.
Sanjay Gupta (Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age)
Linda finds herself engaged in a strange and exhausting abdominal exercise as she tries to steer away from the wide mass of Florida without touching the sleeping passenger on her other side. She feels like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Ann Napolitano (Dear Edward)
We need a certain amount of fat in our diets, anyway. It helps us absorb vitamins A, D, K, and E. Unsaturated fats from nuts, olive oil, sesame oil, and avocados prevent heart disease. Coconut oil helps lower cholesterol and reduce abdominal fat.
Vani Hari (The Food Babe Way: Break Free from the Hidden Toxins in Your Food and Lose Weight, Look Years Younger, and Get Healthy in Just 21 Days!)
Our insect musicians are roused to their greatest activity during the monsoons. At dusk the air seems to tinkle and murmur to their music. To the shrilling of the grasshoppers is added the staccato notes of the crickets, while in the grass and on the trees myriads of lesser artistes are producing a variety of sounds. As musicians, the cicadas are in a class of their own. Throughout the monsoons their screaming chorus rings through the forest. A shower, far from dampening their ardour, only rouses them to a deafening crescendo of effort. As with most insect musicians, the males do the performing, the females remain silent. This moved one chauvinistic Greek poet to exclaim: ‘Happy the cicadas, for they have voiceless wives!’ To which I would respond by saying, ‘Pity the female cicadas, for they have singing husbands!’ Probably the most familiar and homely of insect singers are the crickets. I won’t attempt to go into detail on how the cricket produces its music, except to say that its louder notes are produced by a rapid vibration of the wings, the right wing usually working over the left, the edge of one acting on the file of the other to produce a shrill, long-sustained note, like a violinist gone mad. Cicadas, on the other hand, use their abdominal muscles to produce their sound.
Ruskin Bond (Landour Days: A Writer's Journal)
Fiona decided to take the warnings of her abdominal pain to heart. She left her husband when it became clear that he was unwilling to give up his drug addiction. With her two children, she has moved to a new town and filed for divorce. She is no longer experiencing pain.
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No)
In the past, before the physiology of abdominal training was well understood, bodybuilders used to do a lot of “conventional” abdominal exercises such as Sit-Ups and Leg Raises. Unfortunately, those are not primary abdominal exercises but instead work the iliopsoas muscles—the hip flexors.
Arnold Schwarzenegger (The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding: The Bible of Bodybuilding, Fully Updated and Revised)
Benny the Clown had torn open the man's abdominal cavity, his claws cradling several loops of glistening intestines. But rather than gorging on them, the clown was stretching and pulling the bloody loops, twisting the organ into knots. Familiar knots. 'Is that...a flamingo?' asked the old woman.
Blake Crouch
If you give me the five hundred dollars right now, I’ll let you do whatever you want to me,” she whimpered. “Why are you being such a hard ass, Jeni?” he said with a wry smile. He took her hand and slid it down the front of his bare torso. His abdominal muscles rippled under her hand. Then he slid her hand over his erection. His cock twitched at the feel of her hand. “You know you want me to fuck you.” “Then cough up the money, Hamilton!” Though her voice regained its edge, her body was seconds away from crumbling. She wanted nothing more than him buried deep inside her. She ached for him.
Jessica Jayne (More Than Friends)
Those who experience symptoms complain of abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, and intestinal distress. Some people, however, don’t experience obvious signs of gastrointestinal trouble, but they could nevertheless be experiencing a silent attack elsewhere in their body, such as in their nervous system.
David Perlmutter (Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers)
By doing the only core exercise, leg raises on wall bars, you can develop the strength needed to perform numerous other core exercises with ease, making them unnecessary.
Artem Orel (Enhancing the Benefits of Nauli with a Key Exercise for Abdominal Muscle Strength: Second Edition)
It’s clear that if we use the mind attentively, mental power is increased, and if we concentrate the mind in the moment, it is easier to coordinate mind and body. But in terms of mind and body unity, is there something we can concentrate on that will reliably aid us in discovering this state of coordination? In Japan, and to some degree other Asian countries, people have historically focused mental strength in the hara (abdomen) as a way of realizing their full potential. Japan has traditionally viewed the hara as the vital center of humanity in a manner not dissimilar to the Western view of the heart or brain. I once read that years ago Japanese children were asked to point to the origin of thoughts and feelings. They inevitably pointed toward the abdominal region. When the same question was asked of American children, most pointed at their heads or hearts. Likewise, Japan and the West have commonly held differing views of what is physical power or physical health, with Japan emphasizing the strength of the waist and lower body and Western people admiring upper body power. (Consider the ideal of the sumo wrestler versus the V-shaped Western bodybuilder with a narrow waist and broad shoulders.) However, East and West also hold similar viewpoints regarding the hara, and we’re perhaps not as dissimilar as some might imagine. For instance, hara ga nai hito describes a cowardly person, “a person with no hara.” Sounds similar to our saying that so-and-so “has no guts,” doesn’t it?
H.E. Davey (Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation)
The higher the blood glucose after consumption of food, the greater the insulin level, the more fat is deposited. This is why, say, eating a three-egg omelet that triggers no increase in glucose does not add to body fat, while two slices of whole wheat bread increases blood glucose to high levels, triggering insulin and growth of fat, particularly abdominal or deep visceral fat.
William Davis (Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health)
So those abdominal exercises are useful beyond wanting to show off your muscles?' He threw her a wry grin. 'You really think this is just for show?' 'I think I've caught you looking at yourself in that mirror at least a dozen times each lesson.' Nesta nodded to the slender mirror across the ring. He chuckled. 'Liar. You use that mirror to watch me when you think I'm not paying attention.
Sarah J. Maas (A ​Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
…are you saving enough stuff to furnish a whole alternate universe in which a skinnier you uses that dusty abdominal crunch machine every morning before inserting all your photos into a new album and then dons the old wig you’ve been storing for a costume party you’re hosting at which everyone will be lounging in the extra chairs that have been languishing in your basement for the last six years?
Claire Middleton (Downsizing Your Life for Freedom Flexibility and Financial Peace)
Calm down. Let's assess the situation," Drew said, crossing one leg over the other and folding his hands on his knee. "Have you noticed any of the following: unidentified discharge, burning sensation when you urinate, lower abdominal pain, testicular pain, pain during sex, fever, headache, sore throat, weight loss, chronic diarrhea or night sweats?" He sounded like a f**king commercial for syphilis.
Tara Sivec (Seduction and Snacks (Chocolate Lovers, #1))
PERIODIC MOOD-CHANGES We have already spoken of the affective concomitants of common migraines—elated and irritable prodromal states, states of dread and depression associated with the main phase of the attack, and states of euphoric rebound. Any or all of these may be abstracted as isolated periodic symptoms of relatively short duration—some hours, or at most two or three days, and as such may present themselves as primary emotional disorders. The most acute of these mood-changes, generally no more than an hour in duration, usually represents concomitants or equivalents of migraine aura. We may confine our attention at this stage to attacks of depression, or truncated manic-depressive cycles, occurring at intervals in patients who have previously suffered from attacks of undoubted (classical, common, abdominal, etc.) migraine.
Oliver Sacks (Migraine)
Contrary to popular belief, sitting in front of the television or computer is a poor way to relieve stress. Instead, stress relief is an active process. There are many time-tested methods of stress relief, including mindfulness meditation, yoga, massage therapy and exercise. Studies on mindfulness intervention found that participants were able to use yoga, guided meditations and group discussion to successfully reduce cortisol and abdominal fat.
Jason Fung (The Obesity Code)
DO YOU HAVE OR HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS . . . — PART A — ■ A feeling you’re constantly racing from one task to the next? ■ Feeling wired yet tired? ■ A struggle calming down before bedtime, or a second wind that keeps you up late? ■ Difficulty falling asleep or disrupted sleep? ■ A feeling of anxiety or nervousness—can’t stop worrying about things beyond your control? ■ A quickness to feel anger or rage—frequent screaming or yelling? ■ Memory lapses or feeling distracted, especially under duress? ■ Sugar cravings (you need “a little something” after each meal, usually of the chocolate variety)? ■ Increased abdominal circumference, greater than 35 inches (the dreaded abdominal fat, or muffin top—not bloating)? ■ Skin conditions such as eczema or thin skin (sometimes physiologically and psychologically)? ■ Bone loss (perhaps your doctor uses scarier terms, such as osteopenia or osteoporosis)? ■ High blood pressure or rapid heartbeat unrelated to those cute red shoes in the store window? ■ High blood sugar (maybe your clinician has mentioned the words prediabetes or even diabetes or insulin resistance)? Shakiness between meals, also known as blood sugar instability? ■ Indigestion, ulcers, or GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease)? ■ More difficulty recovering from physical injury than in the past? ■ Unexplained pink to purple stretch marks on your belly or back? ■ Irregular menstrual cycles? ■ Decreased fertility?
Sara Gottfried (The Hormone Cure)
Abdominal Massage When I went to massage school and learned how to perform abdominal massage, I understood just how powerful it could be for relieving constipation and indigestion. You can perform massage on yourself, and I strongly encourage you to do it morning and night for five minutes. It will definitely improve your situation. Here’s how to do it: 1. Lie down in a comfortable place, place a pillow underneath your knees, and put a little lotion or massage oil (such as my Belly Massage Oil) on your hands. 2. Beginning in your lower right pelvic area, gently apply pressure and massage in small circles, slowly moving upward toward your rib cage. 3. When you get to the right side of your rib cage, gently but firmly massage toward the outer edge of your left rib cage. 4. Work your way down the left side of your torso toward your groin area. 5. As you massage, you may find some areas that are tender when you apply pressure. Spend a little more time in those areas, massaging gently but
Tieraona Low Dog (Healthy at Home: Get Well and Stay Well Without Prescriptions)
Solar Plexus the “Abdominal Brain.” The Solar Plexus is situated in the Epigastric region, just back of the “pit of the stomach” on either side of the spinal column. It is composed of white and gray brain matter, similar to that composing the other brains of man. It has control of the main internal organs of man, and plays a much more important part than is generally recognized. We will not go into the Yogi theory regarding the Solar Plexus, further than to say that they know it as the great central store-house of Prana.
William Walker Atkinson (The Science of Breathing)
And yet, right then, as I stood among my father’s friends and acquaintances drinking Mike’s free beer in Sam Hall’s honor, waves of panic as physically tangible as abdominal nausea crashed over me. It wasn’t that I needed Sam Hall for anything specific. I’d have been satisfied to know that his consciousness had somehow been saved, that his essence was being kept alive in some jar on a shelf somewhere, that he continued to be. Of such fears, I thought as I drank off the rest of my beer in a gulp, are religions born. Also alcoholics.
Richard Russo (The Risk Pool)
Pop told me many times after that that he had sent a wire forthwith to Jesse Paine, an old friend and neighbor of ours from Passaic Avenue, then residing in Los Angeles, asking what, if anything, had happened to Lou, his wife. Two weeks later he received a letter saying that Jesse was sorry not to have been able to answer the telegram sooner, the reason being that Lou had been ill; in fact at the time the telegram had arrived, she was in the hospital where, that day, she had been given up for dead, following a serious abdominal operation
William Carlos Williams (The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (New Directions Paperbook))
The CF gene codes a molecule that channels salt across cellular membranes. The most common mutation is a deletion of three bases of DNA that results in the removal, or deletion, of just one amino acid from the protein (in the language of genes, three bases of DNA encode a single amino acid). This deletion creates a dysfunctional protein that is unable to move chloride-one component of sodium chloride, i.e., common salt-across membranes. The salt in sweat cannot be absorbed back into the body, resulting in the characteristically salty sweat. Nor can the body secrete salt and water into the intestines, resulting in the abdominal symptoms.
Siddhartha Mukherjee (The Gene: An Intimate History)
I close the loo seat and sit down. I’m not proud of what I do next. But who hasn’t done the wrong thing for the right reasons at least once in their life? I honestly thought this would be the end of something, not the beginning. I carefully peel off the Sellotape and the padded manila envelope flaps open. I just knew Lisa wouldn’t have licked it. She’s as careless with things as she is with people. I breathe in and out, as deep as I can, one hand holding the envelope, the other resting on my diaphragm as it rises to make sure that my abdominal muscles are contracting properly on the inbreath. I know more about breathing than any yoga teacher.
Fiona Neill (The Betrayals)
Nobody ever took time out in a boat race,” he noted. “There’s no place to stop and get a satisfying drink of water or a lungful of cool, invigorating air. You just keep your eyes glued on the red, perspiring neck of the fellow ahead of you and row until they tell you it’s all over . . . Neighbor, it’s no game for a softy.” When you row, the major muscles in your arms, legs, and back—particularly the quadriceps, triceps, biceps, deltoids, latissimus dorsi, abdominals, hamstrings, and gluteal muscles—do most of the grunt work, propelling the boat forward against the unrelenting resistance of water and wind. At the same time, scores of smaller muscles in the neck, wrists,
Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics)
The Nervous System of man is divided into two great systems, viz., the Cerebro-Spinal System and the Sympathetic System. The Cerebro-Spinal System consists of all that part of the Nervous System contained within the cranial cavity and the spinal canal, viz., the brain and the spinal cord, together with the nerves which branch off from the same. This system presides over the functions of animal life known as volition, sensation, etc. The Sympathetic System includes all that part of the Nervous System located principally in the thoracic, abdominal and pelvic cavities, and which is distributed to the internal organs. It has control over the involuntary processes, such as growth, nutrition, etc.
William Walker Atkinson (The Science of Breathing)
I hear footsteps, which is my first indicator that something is off—Dr. Zhang is feather-boned, and her light steps would barely register through the thick metal of her door. Still, I’m staring at where her eyes should be when the door jerks open. Instead of her kind, slightly wrinkled face, I’m met with a bronze wall of rippling abdominal muscles. Washboard isn’t a good descriptor because these abs are so chiseled they seem like they could hurt you, like you could lose a finger to a freak sit-up related accident if you reached out to stroke them at the wrong moment. This is an imminent threat because, clearly, their owner must spontaneously break into abdominal exercises without warning all the time to maintain this physique.
Alyssa Cole (The A.I. Who Loved Me)
My adrenal gland gave me a shot of adrenaline, too. I turned purple as my blood pressure skyrocketed. The adrenaline made my heart go like a burglar alarm. It also stood my hair on end. It also caused coagulants to pour into my bloodstream, so, in case I was wounded, my vital juices wouldn’t drain away. Everything my body had done so far fell within normal operating procedures for a human machine. But my body took one defensive measure which I am told was without precedent in medical history. It may have happened because some wire short-circuited or some gasket blew. At any rate, I also retracted my testicles into my abdominal cavity, pulled them into my fuselage like the landing gear of an airplane. And now they tell me that only surgery will bring them down again.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Breakfast of Champions)
The following simple exercise will give you a clear idea of what the Complete Breath is: (1) Stand or sit erect. Breathing through the nostrils, inhale steadily, first filling the lower part of the lungs, which is accomplished by bringing into play the diaphragm, which descending exerts a gentle pressure on the abdominal organs, pushing forward the front walls of the abdomen. Then fill the middle part of the lungs, pushing out the lower ribs, breast-bone and chest. Then fill the higher portion of the lungs, protruding the upper chest, thus lifting the chest, including the upper six or seven pairs of ribs. In the final movement, the lower part of the abdomen will be slightly drawn in, which movement gives the lungs a support and also helps to fill the highest part of the lungs.
William Walker Atkinson (The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath)
On the next floor below are the abdominal and spine cases, head wounds and double amputations. On the right side of the wing are the jaw wounds, wounds in the joints, wounds in the kidneys, wounds in the testicles, wounds in the intestines. Here a man realizes for the first time in how many places a man can get hit. Two fellows die of tetanus. Their skin turns pale, their limbs stiffen, at last only their eyes live—stubbornly. Many of the wounded have their shattered limbs hanging free in the air from a gallows; underneath the wound a basin is placed into which drips the pus. Every two or three hours the vessel is emptied. Other men lie in stretching bandages with heavy weights hanging from the end of the bed. I see intestine wounds that are constantly full of excreta. The surgeon’s clerk shows me X-ray photographs of completely smashed hipbones, knees and shoulders. A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round. And this is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is. I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things; all my generation is experiencing these things with me. What would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our account? What do they expect of us if a time ever comes when the war is over? Through the years our business has been killing;—it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall come out of us?
Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front)
When this story goes out into the world, I may become the most famous hermaphrodite in history. There have been others before me. Alexina Barbin attended a girls’ boarding school in France before becoming Abel. She left behind an autobiography, which Michel Foucault discovered in the archives of the French Department of Public Hygiene. (Her memoirs, which end shortly before her suicide, make unsatisfactory reading, and it was after finishing them years ago that I first got the idea to write my own.) Gottlieb Göttlich, born in 1798, lived as Marie Rosine until the age of thirty-three. One day abdominal pains sent Marie to the doctor. The physician checked for a hernia and found undescended testicles instead. From then on, Marie donned men’s clothes, took the name of Gottlieb, and made a fortune traveling around Europe, exhibiting himself to medical men.
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
Paced Breathing People who experience anxiety often breathe improperly. They take shallow breaths from their chests instead of deep breaths from their diaphragms. (The diaphragm is the muscle that separates your chest cavity from your abdominal cavity and that makes it possible for you to inhale and exhale.) Breathing from the chest can cause you to hyperventilate, which has a negative effect on your body’s chemistry. Hyperventilation does not only mean panting or gasping for air; it also includes yawning, holding your breath, and sighing. The symptoms of hyperventilation are similar to those associated with anxiety: shortness of breath, lightheadedness, faintness, tingling or numbness in your fingers and toes, and the feeling that you are walking around in a dream. If you deal with anxiety and begin to hyperventilate, it will make the situation even worse.
Heather Moehn (Social Anxiety (Coping With Series))
You left those children with me when that boy was a year old and covered head to hide with infected insect bites. Naomi was four and didn’t even talk until she was almost six…” 
“Don’t make it out like it was such a big deal,” interrupted Skyla. “Naomi was always stubborn and quiet, and Owen just had a few flea bites.” “No, ma’am,” said Gram. “Naomi went to a counselor for two years. She had selective mutism, that’s what it’s called, from insecurities and Lord knows what other trauma during her young life. That’s what the counselor told us, and Naomi still doesn’t talk much. Owen was on antibiotics for three months to get him cleared up. There’s no telling what went on in Mexico that caused those children’s abdominations. And now, 7 years later, after you never sent a card or made a telephone call to even let us know you were alive, you want to talk about your rights?
Pam Muñoz Ryan (Becoming Naomi León)
It was a sad fact that the commonest complaint in the outpatient department was “Rasehn . . . libehn . . . hodehn,” literally, “My head . . . my heart . . . and my stomach,” with the patient’s hand touching each part as she pronounced the words. Ghosh called it the RLH syndrome. The RLH sufferers were often young women or the elderly. If pressed to be more specific, the patients might offer that their heads were spinning (rasehn yazoregnal) or burning (yakatelegnal ), or their hearts were tired (lib dekam), or they had abdominal discomfort or cramps (hod kurteth), but these symptoms were reported as an aside and grudgingly, because rasehn-libehn-hodehn should have been enough for any doctor worth his salt. It had taken Matron her first year in Addis to understand that this was how stress, anxiety, marital strife, and depression were expressed in Ethiopia—somatization was what Ghosh said the experts called this phenomenon. Psychic distress was projected onto a body part, because culturally it was the way to express that kind of suffering. Patients might see no connection between the abusive husband, or meddlesome mother-in-law, or the recent death of their infant, and their dizziness or palpitations. And they all knew just the cure for what ailed them: an injection. They might settle for mistura carminativa or else a magnesium trisilicate and belladonna mixture, or some other mixture that came to the doctor’s mind, but nothing cured like the marfey—the needle. Ghosh was dead against injections of vitamin B for the RLH syndrome, but Matron had convinced him it was better for Missing to do it than have the dissatisfied patient get an unsterilized hypodermic from a quack in the Merkato. The orange B-complex injection was cheap, and its effect was instantaneous, with patients grinning and skipping down the hill. T
Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone)
Now algae bloomed as never before, causing snail populations to explode. The snails hosted tiny parasitic worms that harbored schistosomiasis, a horrible disease that leaves its victims chronically prostrate with abdominal pain, high fever, fatigue, and diarrhea. Schistosomiasis had been unknown in the region before Ford came along; after Fordlandia, it was endemic. Malaria, yellow fever, elephantiasis, and hookworm were rife as well. Agonizing discomfort could come from almost anywhere. The river teemed with a little fish, the candiru, or toothpick fish, which would swim into any available human orifice (most notoriously the penis), then extend prickly, backward-facing spines, making it impossible to dislodge. On land, maggots from the botfly Dermatobia hominis burrowed into the skin and hatched eggs; victims knew of an infestation when they could see wriggling just under their skin or when sores erupted and newborn maggots spilled out. Beyond the camp boundaries, vipers and jaguars
Bill Bryson (One Summer: America, 1927)
Posted 7/17/18 The Breath – Let the Breath be the Boss When we begin sitting, it’s good to begin with several big breaths, filling up the abdominal area,, the middle chest, and the upper chest until we’re full of air, and then just letting it out and holding the exhalation for a moment. Do this three or four times. In a sense, it’s artificial, but it helps to create a certain balance and forms a good basis for sitting. Once we’ve done this, the next step is to forget it: forget controlling our breath. We won’t entirely forget, of course, but it’s useless to control the breath. Instead, just experience it, which is very different. We’re not trying to make the breath long, slow, and even, as many books suggest. Instead, what we want is to let the breath be the boss, so that the breath is breathing us. If the breath is shallow, let it be that. As we become our breathing, the breath of its own accord starts to slow down. The breath stays shallow because we want to think rather than experience our lives. When we do this everything becomes more shallow and controlled.
Charlotte Joko Beck (Nothing Special)
Owen stepped into the saddle and reached a hand down as he took his foot out of the stirrup, so Bay could mount behind him. Once she was settled, he said, “Hang on. And don’t be wiggling around. We can’t afford any more accidents.” Bay glowered at him. She clamped her hands on either side of his waist at his beltline, but his Colt .45 was holstered on one side, which kept her from getting a comfortable hold. She put her right hand above the gun, but that meant it was practically under his armpit. Then she moved it below the gun, but that put her hand low on hips close to his crotch. “Sonofabitch.” He grabbed her hands and pulled them around his midriff. “Now hang on.” Bay kept her breasts rigidly distanced from Owen’s back, but her nipples puckered anyway. It was that damned washboard of male abdominal muscle under her hands. The man could do commercials for those workout machines they advertised on TV. The horseflies were a surprise. Where had they come from? She let go with one hand and swatted at one that seemed determined to bite her on the nose. And knocked Owen’s hat askew. “That does it. Off.” “It wasn’t my fault,” Bay said. “I was getting bitten.” “Off.” He grabbed her arm and levered her out from behind him and onto the ground.
Joan Johnston (The Texan (Bitter Creek, #2))
In 1937, Gunda Lawrence, a teacher and homemaker from South Dakota, lay close to death from abdominal cancer. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota had given her three months to live. Luckily, Mrs. Lawrence had two exceptional and devoted sons—John, a gifted physician, and Ernest, one of the most brilliant physicists of the twentieth century. Ernest was head of the new Radiation Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley and had just invented the cyclotron, a particle accelerator that generated massive amounts of radioactivity as a side effect of energizing protons. They had in effect the most powerful X-ray machine in the country at their disposal, capable of generating a million volts of energy. Without any certainty what the consequences would be—no one had ever tried anything remotely like this on humans before—the brothers aimed a deuteron beam directly into their mother’s belly. It was an agonizing experience, so painful and distressing to poor Mrs. Lawrence that she begged her sons to let her die. “At times I felt very cruel in not giving in,” John recorded later. Happily, after a few treatments, Mrs. Lawrence’s cancer went into remission and she lived another twenty-two years. More important, a new field of cancer treatment had been born.
Bill Bryson (The Body: A Guide for Occupants)
PRESCRIPTION 5 Low Back and Trunk   This prescription can be used to treat these symptoms and restrictions: Abdominal pain Compromised breathing Hip extension range of motion Hip pain Low back pain Sciatica Spinal rotation, flexion and extension range of motion   Overview Methods: Contract and relax Pressure wave Smash and floss Tools: Small ball Large ball Small bouncy ball or under-inflated soccer/volleyball Total time:  14 minutes   This prescription is great for treating low back pain and supporting the hardworking muscles of your trunk. We’ve established that poor spinal mechanics and sitting can cause adaptive stiffness and irritation in the discs, ligaments, and muscles around your spine and trunk. And when that happens, low back pain is often the result. Although there are other contributing factors to consider, like previous injuries, arthritis, obesity, and stress, we would argue that one of the leading causes of low back pain and trunk-related problems stems from poor posture, prolonged sitting, and a lack of basic self-maintenance. Having spent the majority of this book outlining a protocol for preventing and resolving the issue from a mechanical standpoint, let’s turn our attention to the maintenance side of things. This prescription targets the muscles that are responsible for keeping your spine braced, as well as the muscles that may get stiff when you move poorly or sit for too long.
Kelly Starrett (Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World)
The first human footprint on a sandy Australian beach was immediately washed away by the waves. Yet when the invaders advanced inland, they left behind a different footprint, one that would never be expunged. As they pushed on, they encountered a strange universe of unknown creatures that included a 200-kilogram, two-metre kangaroo, and a marsupial lion, as massive as a modern tiger, that was the continent’s largest predator. Koalas far too big to be cuddly and cute rustled in the trees and flightless birds twice the size of ostriches sprinted on the plains. Dragon-like lizards and snakes five metres long slithered through the undergrowth. The giant diprotodon, a two-and-a-half-ton wombat, roamed the forests. Except for the birds and reptiles, all these animals were marsupials – like kangaroos, they gave birth to tiny, helpless, fetus-like young which they then nurtured with milk in abdominal pouches. Marsupial mammals were almost unknown in Africa and Asia, but in Australia they reigned supreme. Within a few thousand years, virtually all of these giants vanished. Of the twenty-four Australian animal species weighing fifty kilograms or more, twenty-three became extinct.2 A large number of smaller species also disappeared. Food chains throughout the entire Australian ecosystem were broken and rearranged. It was the most important transformation of the Australian ecosystem for millions of years. Was it all the fault of Homo sapiens? Guilty
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
Noboru managed, while following his own dreamy thoughts, to pay scrupulous attention to the details. The kitten's dead pupils were purple flecked with white; the gaping mouth was stuffed with congealed blood, the twisted tongue visible between the fangs. As the fat-yellowed scissors cut them, he heard the ribs creak. And he watched intently while the chief groped in the abdominal cavity, withdrew the small pericardium, and plucked from it the tiny oval heart. When he squeezed the heart between two fingers, the remaining blood gushed onto his rubber gloves, reddening them to the tips of the fingers. *What is really happening here?* Noboru had withstood the ordeal from beginning to end. Now his half-dazed brain envisioned the warmth of the scattered viscera and the pools of blood in the gutted belly finding wholeness and perfection in the rapture of the dead kitten's large languid soul. The liver, limp beside the corpse, became a soft peninsula the squashed heart a little sun, the reeled-out bowels a white atoll, and the blood in the belly the tepid waters of a tropical sea. Death had transfigured the kitten into a perfect, autonomous world. *I killed it all by myself* - a distant hand reached into Noboru's dream and awarded him a snow-white certificate of merit - *I can do anything, no matter how awful.* The Chief peeled off the squeaky rubber gloves and laid one beautiful white hand on Noboru's shoulder. 'You did a good job. I think we can say this finally made a real man of you - and isn't all this blood a sight for sore eyes!
Yukio Mishima (The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea)
Brummer was unique. His world was known as a haven for those who still refused to embrace technology. Like most Dragolians, he was similar to the original template of a human being. For ages, Dragolians had refused the implementation of advanced genes within their population. Whereas most humans had infrared, telescopic, and fractional vision that permitted them to observe and scrutinize four or five different things at once at various depths, Dragolians did not. While most humans could survive with their gills under oceans or with their skin sealant secretion in the vacuum of space and hostilities of planet atmospheres, Dragolians couldn’t. They lacked double genitals, temperature control genes and other basic comforts that were standards on any individual. They still possessed the original brain schematic, refusing to compartmentalize areas to specific functions with enhanced nerve terminals. It had been proven long ago that a triple brain split into small sectors connected with each other was the most functional intellectual state. One part was mainly used for the conscious state, one for the virtual state, and the other as the control center of the body’s physiology while also doubling as the backup copy of the essential traits of the other two parts. This third part of the brain also was the input/output terminal that interacted between the two other minds and the cyber world. Even so, this was all likely to change in a few years as research was on the verge of eliminating the need for intestines making room in the abdominal cavity for a smaller second brain.
Vincent Pet (8. Oblivion)
The expression "fee thulumaatin thalaathin," translated into English as "a threefold darkness," indicates three dark regions involved during the development of the embryo. These are: a) The darkness of the abdomen b) The darkness of the womb c) The darkness of the placenta As we have seen, modern biology has revealed that the embryological development of the baby takes place in the manner revealed in the verse, in three dark regions. Moreover, advances in the science of embryology show that these regions consist of three layers each. The lateral abdominal wall comprises three layers: the external oblique, the internal oblique, and transverses abdominis muscles.91 Similarly, the wall of the womb also consists of three layers: the epimetrium, the myometrium and the endometrium.92 Similarly again, the placenta surrounding the embryo also consists of three layers: the amnion (the internal membrane around the foetus), the chorion (the middle amnion layer) and the decidua (outer amnion layer.)93 It is also pointed out in this verse that a human being is created in the mother's womb in three distinct stages. Indeed, modern biology has also revealed that the baby's embryological development takes place in three distinct regions in the mother's womb. Today, in all the embryology textbooks studied in departments of medicine, this subject is taken as an element of basic knowledge. For instance, in Basic Human Embryology, a fundamental reference text in the field of embryology, this fact is stated as follows: The life in the uterus has three stages: pre-embryonic; first two and a half weeks, embryonic; until the end of the eight week, and fetal; from the eight week to labor.
Harun Yahya (Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an)
I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God’s grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over—I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed. And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless.
C.S. Lewis (The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings)
The following simple exercise will give you a clear idea of what the Complete Breath is: (1) Stand or sit erect. Breathing through the nostrils, inhale steadily, first filling the lower part of the lungs, which is accomplished by bringing into play the diaphragm, which decending exerts a gentle pressure on the abdominal organs, pushing forward the front walls of the abdomen. Then fill the middle part of the lungs, pushing out the lower ribs breastbone and chest. Then fill the higher portion of the lungs, protruding the upper chest, thus lifting the chest, including the upper six or seven pairs of ribs. In the final movement, the lower part of the abdomen will be slightly drawn in, which movement gives the lungs a support and also helps to fill the highest part of the lungs. At first reading it may appear that this breath consists of three distinct movements. This, however, is not the correct idea. The inhalation is continuous, the entire chest cavity from the lowered diaphragm to the highest point of the chest in the region of the collar-bone, being expanded with a uniform movement. Avoid a jerky series of inhalations, and strive to attain a steady continuous action. Practice will soon overcome the tendency to divide the inhalation into three movements, and will result in a uniform continuous breath. You will be able to complete the inhalation in a couple of seconds after a little practice. (2) Retain the breath a few seconds. (3) Exhale quite slowly, holding the chest in a firm position, and drawing the abdomen in a little and lifting it upward slowly as the air leaves the lungs. Where the air is entirely exhaled, relax the chest and abdomen. A little practice will render this part of the exercise easy, and the movement once acquired will be afterward performed almost automatically.
Ramacharaka (Science Of Breath - A Complete Manual of the Oriental Breathing Philosophy)
In order to avoid the deafening of conspecifics, some bats employ a jamming avoidance response, rapidly shifting frequencies or flying silent when foraging near conspecifics. Because jamming is a problem facing any active emission sensory system, it is perhaps not surprising (though no less amazing) that similar jamming avoidance responses are deployed by weakly electric fish. The speed of sound is so fast in water that it makes it difficult for echolocating whales to exploit similar Doppler effects. However, the fact that acoustic emissions propagate much farther and faster in the water medium means that there is less attenuation of ultrasound in water, and thus that echolocation can be used for broader-scale 'visual' sweeping of the undersea environment. These constraints and trade-offs must be resolved by all acoustic ISMs, on Earth and beyond. There are equally universal anatomical and metabolic constraints on the evolvability of echolocation that explain why it is 'harder' to evolve than vision. First, as noted earlier, a powerful sound-production capacity, such as the lungs of tetrapods, is required to produce high-frequency emissions capable of supporting high-resolution acoustic imaging. Second, the costs of echolocation are high, which may limit acoustic imaging to organisms with high-metabolisms, such as mammals and birds. The metabolic rates of bats during echolocation, for instance, are up to five times greater than they are at rest. These costs have been offset in bats through the evolutionarily ingenious coupling of sound emission to wing-beat cycle, which functions as a single unit of biomechanical and metabolic efficiency. Sound emission is coupled with the upstroke phase of the wing-beat cycle, coinciding with contraction of abdominal muscles and pressure on the diaphragm. This significantly reduces the price of high-intensity pulse emission, making it nearly costless. It is also why, as any careful crepuscular observer may have noticed, bats spend hardly any time gliding (which is otherwise a more efficient means of flight).
Russell Powell (Contingency and Convergence: Toward a Cosmic Biology of Body and Mind)
9:36a    ἰδὼν δὲ τούς ὄχλους ἐσπλαγχνίσθη πεϱὶ αὐτῶν seeing the crowds, his insides were moved with pity for them THE JEWS AND THE GREEKS could not succeed in making pity and compassion into a purely mental act. It sounds archaic, hardly short of embarrassing, to say that “Jesus saw the crowds and felt pity for them in his bowels.” But, in fact, any translation that omits compassion’s element of viscerality (for σπλάγχνα, the root of the verb here, means “viscera”, “bowels”, “womb”) has already betrayed the depth of Jesus’ divine and human pity. We all know how the strongest emotions—whether sorrow, fear, joy, or desire—are all initially registered in the abdominal region, and this physiological reaction is one of the proofs of the authenticity of our emotions. The same teacher, herald, and healer who surpassed all others in these crafts finally reveals himself in utter silence and inactivity in his deepest nature: the Compassionate One who is affected by suffering more elementally than the sufferers he sees around him. If Mary’s womb was proclaimed blessed for having borne such a Child, we now see in the Son the Mother’s most precious quality: wide-wombed compassion. When we allow ourselves to be moved in this way, we are already hopelessly involved with the object of our pity: no possibility here of a distanced display of “charity” that refuses to become tainted by contact with the stench of human misery. Jesus looks at the crowds, then, and is viscerally moved. What power in the gaze of a Savior who pauses in the midst of his activity in order to take into himself the full, wounded reality about him! Jesus never protects himself against the claims of distress. He is not content with emanating the truth, joy, and healing power that are his: he must become a fellow sufferer. His loving gaze is like an open wound that filters out no sorrow. He has already done so much for them; but as long as he sees misery, nothing is enough; and so he wonders what else remains to be done. His contemplative sorrow becomes a stimulant to his creative imagination. He nestles all manner of plight within his person, and every human need becomes a churning in his inward parts. He interiorizes the chaos of the surrounding landscape, but, by entering him, it becomes contained, comprehended, embraced and saved.
Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word: Meditations on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Vol. 1)
A phobia is an excessive or unreasonable fear of an object, situation or place. Phobias are quite common and often take root in childhood for no apparent reason. Other times they spring from traumatic events or develop from an attempt to make sense of unexpected and intense feelings of anxiety or panic. Simple phobias are fears of specific things such as insects, infections, or even flying. Agoraphobia is a fear of being in places where one feels trapped or unable to get help, such as in crowds, on a bus or in a car, or standing in a line. It is basically an anxiety that ignites from being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult (or embarrassing). A social phobia is a marked fear of social or performance situations. When the phobic person actually encounters, or even anticipates, being in the presence of the feared object or situation, immediate anxiety can be triggered. The physical symptoms of anxiety may include shortness of breath, sweating, a racing heart, chest or abdominal discomfort, trembling, and similar reactions. The emotional component involves an intense fear and may include feelings of losing control, embarrassing oneself, or passing out. Most people who experience phobias try to escape or avoid the feared situation wherever possible. This may be fairly easy if the feared object is rarely encountered (such as snakes) and avoidance will not greatly restrict the person’s life. At other times, avoiding the feared situation (in the case of agoraphobia, social phobia) is not easily done. After all, we live in a world filled with people and places. Having a fear of such things can limit anyone’s life significantly, and trying to escape or avoid a feared object or situation because of feelings of fear about that object or situation can escalate and make the feelings of dread and terror even more pronounced. In some situations of phobias, the person may have specific thoughts that contribute some threat to the feared situation. This is particularly true for social phobia, in which there is often a fear of being negatively evaluated by others, and for agoraphobia, in which there may be a fear of passing out or dying with no one around to help, and of having a panic attack where one fears making a fool of oneself in the presence of other people. Upon recognizing their problem for what it is, men should take heart in knowing that eighty percent of people who seek help can experience improvement of symptoms or, in male-speak, the illness can be “fixed.
Sahar Abdulaziz (But You LOOK Just Fine: Unmasking Depression, Anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder and Seasonal Affective Disorder)
A True Story Let me tell you about Wendy. For more than ten years, Wendy struggled unsuccessfully with ulcerative colitis. A thirty-six-year-old grade school teacher and mother of three, she lived with constant cramping, diarrhea, and frequent bleeding, necessitating occasional blood transfusions. She endured several colonoscopies and required the use of three prescription medications to manage her disease, including the highly toxic methotrexate, a drug also used in cancer treatment and medical abortions. I met Wendy for an unrelated minor complaint of heart palpitations that proved to be benign, requiring no specific treatment. However, she told me that, because her ulcerative colitis was failing to respond to medications, her gastroenterologist advised colon removal with creation of an ileostomy. This is an artificial orifice for the small intestine (ileum) at the abdominal surface, the sort to which you affix a bag to catch the continually emptying stool. After hearing Wendy’s medical history, I urged her to try wheat elimination. “I really don’t know if it’s going to work,” I told her, “but since you’re facing colon removal and ileostomy, I think you should give it a try.” “But why?” she asked. “I’ve already been tested for celiac and my doctor said I don’t have it.” “Yes, I know. But you’ve got nothing to lose. Try it for four weeks. You’ll know if you’re responding.” Wendy was skeptical but agreed to try. She returned to my office three months later, no ileostomy bag in sight. “What happened?” I asked. “Well, first I lost thirty-eight pounds.” She ran her hand over her abdomen to show me. “And my ulcerative colitis is nearly gone. No more cramps or diarrhea. I’m off everything except my Asacol.” (Asacol is a derivative of aspirin often used to treat ulcerative colitis.) “I really feel great.” In the year since, Wendy has meticulously avoided wheat and gluten and has also eliminated the Asacol, with no return of symptoms. Cured. Yes, cured. No diarrhea, no bleeding, no cramps, no anemia, no more drugs, no ileostomy. So if Wendy’s colitis tested negative for celiac antibodies, but responded to—indeed, was cured by—wheat gluten elimination, what should we label it? Should we call it antibody-negative celiac disease? Antibody-negative wheat intolerance? There is great hazard in trying to pigeonhole conditions such as Wendy’s into something like celiac disease. It nearly caused her to lose her colon and suffer the lifelong health difficulties associated with colon removal, not to mention the embarrassment and inconvenience of wearing an ileostomy bag. There is not yet any neat name to fit conditions such as Wendy’s, despite its extraordinary response to the elimination of wheat gluten. Wendy’s experience highlights the many unknowns in this world of wheat sensitivities, many of which are as devastating as the cure is simple.
William Davis (Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health)
Surfing is a physically demanding sport and nothing can prepare you better to hit the waves than an extremely strong, flexible, and stable core. The better developed your core, the better you will be able to rotate your hips for a bottom turn/snap/cutback, handle a big wave, duckdive, and paddle out in the line-up. In almost every surfing movement, your abdominals are directly or indirectly worked. If you are a fan of pro surfing, I’m sure you have witnessed the chiselled midsection of all pro surfers.
Troy Adashun (Body Like a Surf Pro: Get Fit, Lose Fat and Catch More Waves Than Ever Before)
The first human footprint on a sandy Australian beach was immediately washed away by the waves. Yet when the invaders advanced inland, they left behind a different footprint, one that would never be expunged. As they pushed on, they encountered a strange universe of unknown creatures that included a 200-kilogram, two-metre kangaroo, and a marsupial lion, as massive as a modern tiger, that was the continent’s largest predator. Koalas far too big to be cuddly and cute rustled in the trees and flightless birds twice the size of ostriches sprinted on the plains. Dragon-like lizards and snakes five metres long slithered through the undergrowth. The giant diprotodon, a two-and-a-half-ton wombat, roamed the forests. Except for the birds and reptiles, all these animals were marsupials – like kangaroos, they gave birth to tiny, helpless, fetus-like young which they then nurtured with milk in abdominal pouches. Marsupial mammals were almost unknown in Africa and Asia, but in Australia they reigned supreme. Within a few thousand years, virtually all of these giants vanished. Of the twenty-four Australian animal species weighing fifty kilograms or more, twenty-three became extinct.2 A large number of smaller species also disappeared. Food chains throughout the entire Australian ecosystem were broken and rearranged. It was the most important transformation of the Australian ecosystem for millions of years. Was it all the fault of Homo sapiens?
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
A much more likely candidate for influencing a baby’s sleeping patterns is the hormone melatonin, which is produced by the baby’s brain beginning at about 3 to 4 months of age. This hormone surges at night and has the capability to both induce drowsiness and relax the smooth muscles encircling the gut. So around 3 or 4 months of age, so-called day/night confusion and apparent abdominal cramps (colic) begin to disappear.
Marc Weissbluth (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep)
To digest gluten, the cells of the intestinal wall produce a specific enzyme called transglutaminase. Transglutaminase breaks down gluten into its smaller building blocks, the peptides gliadin and glutenin. The cells of the intestinal wall then absorb these into circulation. The GALT scans their surfaces, as it does with all things absorbed, in search of threatening surface codes. For reasons that only nature understands, the surface of the glutenin peptide is not coded as threatening, but gliadin is in people with a genetic predisposition. T cells in the GALT will mediate the production of gliadin antibodies. These same antibodies, however, often attack the intestinal wall’s natural transglutaminase enzyme, essentially tearing apart the intestinal wall, piece by piece. This shrinks and erodes the villi and microvilli, the finger-like tendrils in the small intestine that maximize its surface area; this results in an inability of the small intestine to absorb any nutrients at all. In its most severe expression, this is known as celiac disease, which presents as weight loss, diarrhea, bloating, abdominal pain, and an overall failure to thrive.
Alejandro Junger (Clean Gut: The Breakthrough Plan for Eliminating the Root Cause of Disease and Revolutionizing Your Health)
Six of the stab wounds were in the neck and the other twelve in the stomach. One dug as far down in the belly as the abdominal cavity; another reached the liver. The enormous jugular vein in the neck was completely severed and the body was covered with bruises, on her neck, arms, wrists, and around her thighs.
Lacey Fosburgh (Closing Time: The True Story of the "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" Murder)
The closest I've come to having a "real job" has been in a recurring nightmare. It goes like this. I'm lost in a maze of office cubicles. Each cubicle contains a stylish hipster, a stylish Macintosh computer, and one of those big rubber balls that people use for abdominal workouts. The hipsters sit atop the balls as if the balls were chairs, and they plug XO, XO, XO, XO into their keyboards, populating the fields of never-ending spreadsheets. The hipsters are all identical. They wear black polos. Their gelled hair is unkempt in a contrived way. Strange oily tattoos decorate their arms like runes. I know that they are slim and handsome, but try as I may, I can never see their faces. I wander the maze, looking for a cube of my own, but they are all occupied by the same infinite hipster, the same infinite Macintosh, the same infinite ab ball.
Nick Yetto (Sommelier of Deformity)
These are the most common complaints of older children with unhealthy sleep schedules. So if your child doesn’t appear to be very sick but has frequent headaches or episodes of vague abdominal pain, especially near the end of the day, ask yourself if he might be overtired.
Marc Weissbluth (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep)
The full-body scan will reveal these: Amount of heart calcium—the best non-invasive measurement of atherosclerosis. Bone density—how far are you from osteoporosis? 
 Colon problems—any early signs of colon cancer. Thoracic or abdominal aneurisms—these can be fatal and ~4% of people over 65 have one. Cancers or pre-cancerous condition in various organs—includes lungs, liver, gall bladder, spleen, kidneys, adrenal glands, etc.
Mike Nichols (Quantitative Medicine: Using Targeted Exercise and Diet to Reverse Aging and Chronic Disease)
I told her something that I tell many of my patients, “You need to put on your own oxygen mask first before you help others.” What I mean by this is you need to look out for yourself first so you can be healthy enough take care of the people you love. Thanks to some stress-management techniques and a renewed focus on her own needs, Maria lost the abdominal fat and fared much better in taking care of her mother and son.
Daniel G. Amen (Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted)
Reducing abdominal and liver fat. FMD pushes the body into a high fat-burning mode, mainly using abdominal/visceral fat but also liver fat, which are central to the promotion of diabetes and other diseases
Valter Longo (The Longevity Diet: Discover the New Science Behind Stem Cell Activation and Regeneration to Slow Aging, Fight Disease, and Optimize Weight)
Most of the people get trouble in losing their belly fat. It is a big challenge to lose. But it is best to accept the challenge and show our body that it is not difficult. I am here to tell you how to lose belly fat without investing. 1. Lemon: lemon is an easily available ingredient found in everyone’s kitchen. It has various health kit like improving digestion, enhancing focus and increasing energy level. Lemon is low calorie beverage. One glass of lemon water helps to lose weight. Start your day with one glass of lemon and warm water juice and see you midsection getting smaller. 2. Ginger: add ginger in your tea will help you to lose weight. It increases your body temperature and helps burn fat more effectively. It is a natural remedy for a wide variety of digestive disorders, including upset tummy, vomiting, and gastritis. It also helps for cold and cough. It contains a type of caffeine that helps lose weight. 3. AppleCider Vinegar : apple contains lots of fibre and a good source of pectin. Including pectin in your meal can make you feel full and satisfied. It adds amazing flavour in your drink and helps with weight loss. Add apple cider vinegar in water before any meal. 4. Mint : mint and lemon water helps to detox your body. It also helps in decreasing your belly fat by removing additional bile from your gall bladder. Bile helps to store fat in everyone’s body. Mint is also naturally low in calories, and the antioxidants present in them can improve your metabolic rate and help you lose fat. 5. Aleo vera juice : sterol contains in aleo vera, which helps to lose abdominal fat. Also, being a laxative, it can result in weight loss. If you are looking to lose those extra fat quickly, turn aleo vera into juice and add it in your meal. One glass of aleo vera juice per day will help you lose weight. 6. Garlic: garlic helps to boost the energy level which can help to burn all the calories. It is great in detoxifying. Have raw garlic will help to lose weight faster. 7. Water melon : it contain 91% of water. Eat water melon before any meal. It will add substantial amount of calories in your meal, which will keep you feel full for a long time. 8. Beans : Regular consumption of different types of beans helps reduce body fat, develop muscles and improve the digestion process. Beans also help you feel full for a longer time, thus keeping you from overeating. 9. Cucumber : people do prefer to have cucumber before meal is because it is refreshing and low in calories. It contains 96% percent of water in 100 grams of cucumber. They are packed with mineral, vitamins and dietary fibre. 10. Tomatoes: One large tomato has just 33 calories. It contains a compound known as 9-oxo-ODA that helps reduce lipids in the blood, which in turn helps control belly fat. This compound also fights chronic diseases associated with obesity.
Sunrise nutrition hub
Therefore, wheat products elevate blood sugar levels more than virtually any other carbohydrate, from beans to candy bars. This has important implications for body weight, since glucose is unavoidably accompanied by insulin, the hormone that allows entry of glucose into the cells of the body, converting the glucose to fat. The higher the blood glucose after consumption of food, the greater the insulin level, the more fat is deposited. This is why, say, eating a three-egg omelet that triggers no increase in glucose does not add to body fat, while two slices of whole wheat bread increases blood glucose to high levels, triggering insulin and growth of fat, particularly abdominal or deep visceral fat.
William Davis (Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health)
Let me look to your pistols,' said Jack, as the trees came closer to the road. 'You have no notion of hammering your flints.' 'They are very well,' said Stephen, unwilling to open his holsters (a teratoma in one, a bottled Arabian dormouse in the other). 'Do you apprehend any danger?' 'This is an ugly stretch of road, with all these disbanded soldiers turned loose. They made an attempt upon the mail not far from Aker's Cross. Come, let me have your pistols. I thought as much: what is this?' 'A teratoma,' said Stephen sulkily. 'What is a teratoma?' asked Jack, holding the object in his hand. 'A kind of grenado?' 'It is an inward wen, a tumour we find them, occasionally, in the abdominal cavity Sometimes they contain long black hair, sometimes a set of teeth this has both hair and teeth. It belonged to a Mr Elkins of the City, an eminent cheese-monger. I prize it much.' 'By God,' cried Jack, thrusting it back into the holster and wiping his hand vehemently upon the horse, 'I do wish you would leave people's bellies alone. So you have no pistols at all, I collect?' 'If you wish to be so absolute, no, I have not.
Patrick O'Brian
stimulating conversations–ones that make us laugh so hard that it feels like we just completed an extreme abdominal workout, ones that
Matt Morris (Do Talk To Strangers: A Creative, Sexy, and Fun Way To Have Emotionally Stimulating Conversations With Anyone)
6. The Breathing Exercise of the Yogi. Breathing exercise is one of the practices of Yoga, and somewhat similar in its method and end to those of Zen. We quote here[FN#247] Yogi Ramacharaka to show how modern Yogis practise it: "(1) Stand or sit erect. Breathing through the nostrils, inhale steadily, first filling the lower part of the lungs, which is accomplished by bringing into play the diaphragm, which, descending, exerts a gentle pressure on the abdominal organs, pushing forward the front walls of the abdomen. Then fill the middle part of the lungs, pushing out the lower ribs, breastbone, and chest. Then fill the higher portion of the lungs, protruding the upper chest, thus lifting the chest, including the upper six or seven pairs of ribs. In the final movement the lower part of the abdomen will be slightly drawn in, which movement gives the lungs a support, and also helps to fill the highest part of the lungs. At the first reading it may appear that this breath consists of three distinct movements. This, however, is not the correct idea. The inhalation is continuous, the entire chest cavity from the lower diaphragm to the highest point of the chest in the region of the collar-bone being expanded with a uniform movement. Avoid a jerking series of inhalations, and strive to attain a steady, continuous action. Practice will soon overcome the tendency to divide the inhalation into three movements, and will result in a uniform continuous breath. You will be able to complete the inhalation in a couple of seconds after a little practice. (2) Retain the breath a few seconds. (3) Exhale quite slowly, holding the chest in a firm position, and drawing the abdomen in a little and lifting it upward slowly as the air leaves the lungs. When the air is entirely exhaled, relax the chest and abdomen. A little practice will render this part of exercise easy, and the movement once acquired will be afterwards performed almost automatically." [FN#247]
Kaiten Nukariya (The Religion of the Samurai A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan)
I had diarrhea and abdominal pain. It started in January 2018 after a strange non-contagious flu-like sickness during the new year. I was not the only one to get this sickness, it was one of the worst flu seasons in modern history.
Steven Magee
Large-scale population studies have found that the consumption of artificial sweeteners, particularly in diet sodas, is associated with increased weight gain and abdominal fat over time.1538
Michael Greger (How Not to Diet)
Children and adults with developmental trauma frequently experience chronic abdominal pain, headaches, chest pain, fainting, and seizure-like episodes—all very common symptoms related to a sensitized stress response.
Bruce D. Perry (What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
Hyperventilation is very common with panic attacks and anxiety. Here it will be important to forgo of the common technique of breathing in a bag since that will mess up your blood oxygen/carbon dioxide levels even more. There are two ways to respond: 1. Do nothing and let your body breathe any way it wants. This is often the most effective approach. Our breathing happens automatically, and your body will soon find the best way of breathing. 2. Use abdominal breathing. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, making sure that only your abdomen moves. Furthermore, you can use any of the mental and other techniques described in part two of this book. My favorite is, “I allow you to breathe anyway you like, dear body. Whatever happens, I’m fine with it!
Geert Verschaeve (Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life)