“
We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“
A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system.
”
”
Jane Smiley
“
My bones are brittle, my heart weak and erratic, my esophagus and stomach riddled with ulcers, my reproductive system shot, my immune system useless... I'm not going to have a happy ending.
”
”
Marya Hornbacher (Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia)
“
Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers. Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins their journey of awakening. Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over the veils of ignorance.
”
”
Henri Bergson
“
The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible."
[Defend the right to be offended (openDemocracy, 7 February 2005)]
”
”
Salman Rushdie
“
Needless to say, jamming deformed, drugged, overstressed birds together in a filthy, waste-coated room is not very healthy. Beyond deformities, eye damage, blindness, bacterial infections of bones, slipped vertebrae, paralysis, internal bleeding, anemia, slipped tendons, twisted lower legs and necks, respiratory diseases, and weakened immune systems are frequent and long-standing problems on factory farms.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals)
“
Remember laughing? Laughter enhances the blood flow to the body’s extremities and improves cardiovascular function. Laughter releases endorphins and other natural mood elevating and pain-killing chemicals, improves the transfer of oxygen and nutrients to internal organs.
Laughter boosts the immune system and helps the body fight off disease, cancer cells as well as viral, bacterial and other infections. Being happy is the best cure of all diseases!
”
”
Patch Adams
“
Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.
”
”
Salman Rushdie
“
Sprouts have come under intense scrutiny since they are grown in an environment that invites unwanted bacteria and are often consumed raw. In fact, many large grocery store chains do not carry sprouts of any kind to avoid liability concerns. If you are cooking for anyone with a compromised immune system, we recommend avoiding sprouts or cooking them before serving.
”
”
Irma S. Rombauer (Joy of Cooking)
“
Stories are propaganda, virii that slide past your critical immune system and insert themselves directly into your emotions.
”
”
Cory Doctorow (Eastern Standard Tribe)
“
but there's no nation uncorrupted. there's no system that's immune to the misuse of money.
”
”
Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram)
“
A therapist once said to me, “If you face the choice between feeling guilt and resentment, choose the guilt every time.” It is wisdom I have passed on to many others since. If a refusal saddles you with guilt, while consent leaves resentment in its wake, opt for the guilt. Resentment is soul suicide. Negative thinking allows us to gaze unflinchingly on our own behalf at what does not work.
We have seen in study after study that compulsive positive thinkers are more likely to develop disease and less likely to survive. Genuine positive thinking — or, more deeply, positive being — empowers us to know that we have nothing to fear from truth. “Health is not just a matter of thinking happy thoughts,” writes the molecular researcher Candace Pert. “Sometimes the biggest impetus to healing can come from jump-starting the immune system with a burst of long-suppressed anger.” Anger, or the healthy experience of it, is one of the seven A’s of healing. Each of the seven A’s addresses one of the embedded visceral beliefs that predispose to illness and undermine healing.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
When we look at asset protection from a natural perspective, we realize that in nature, assets are protected not with fences or walls but with internal and external immune systems. So the best way to protect an asset is with systems that self organize and self execute behaviors which function as protective to the asset.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (The Wealth Reference Guide: An American Classic)
“
Hunger (or episodic energy deficit) strengthens the body and the immune system and helps rejuvenate brain cells, weaken cancer cells , and prevent diabetes.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable)
“
Every day, it has been estimated, between one and five of your cells turn cancerous, and your immune system captures and kills them.
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Body: A Guide for Occupants)
“
The means of communication, the irresistible output of the entertainment and information industry carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers to the producers and, through the latter to the whole social system. The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood...Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior.
”
”
Herbert Marcuse
“
You cannot trade the courage needed to live every moment for immunity from life's sorrows. We may say we know this but ours is the culture of the deal-making mind. From infancy, we have breathed in the belief that there is always a deal to be made, a bargain to be struck. Eventually, we believe, if we do the right thing, if we are good enough, clever enough, sincere enough, work hard enough, we will be rewarded. There are different verses to this song - if you are sorry for your sins and try hard not to sin again, you will go to heaven; if you do your daily practise, clean up your diet, heal your inner child, ferret out all your emotional issue's, focus your intent, come into alignment with the world around you, hone your affirmations, find and listen to the voice of your higher self, you will be rewarded with vibrant health, abundant prosperity, loving relations and inner peace - in other words, heaven!
We know that what we do and how we think affects the quality of our lives. Many things are clearly up to us. And many others are not. I can see no evidence that the universe works on a simple meritocratic system of cause and effect. Bad things happen to good people - all the time. Monetary success does come to some who do not do what they love, as well as to some who are unwilling or unable to see the harm they do to the planet or others. Illness and misfortune come to some who follow their soul's desire. Many great artist's have been poor. Great teachers have lived in obscurity.
My invitation, my challenge to you here, is to journey into a deeper intimacy with the world and your life without any promise of safety or guarantee of reward beyond the intrinsic value of full participation.
”
”
Oriah Mountain Dreamer (The Invitation)
“
Urja chakra is the chakra of strength and vitality. It removes the fatigue from overwork, blood deficiency, illness, emotional upset and insomnia. Shilajit is the key herb for this chakra.
”
”
Amit Ray (Ray 114 Chakra System Names, Locations and Functions)
“
Invisibility, with regard to Whiteness, offers immunity. To be unmarked by race allows you to reap the benefits but escape responsibility for your role in an unjust system.
”
”
Ruha Benjamin (Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code)
“
Most of those who died did not die of hunger but of hatred. Feeling hatred diminishes you. It eats at your from within and attacks the immune system. When you have hatred inside you, it always crushes you in the end.
”
”
Tahar Ben Jelloun (This Blinding Absence of Light)
“
Greed is by definition the moral ruler of the Hierarchy, Diago. All decisions are based upon it. It is not the strong who benefit in their system, no matter what they say—it is the weak. It is the ones willing to do anything, sacrifice anything, to rise. It rewards avarice and is so steeped in a wrong way of thinking that those within it cannot even see it.” He shook his head sadly. “There is no form of government that is immune from mistakes or from corruption—but it is the Hierarchy’s foundation, Son. Never forget that.
”
”
James Islington (The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1))
“
Anger is the immune system of the soul.
”
”
Stefan Molyneux
“
Dr. Cai Song is an internationally known researcher at the University of British Columbia and co-author of a recent textbook, Fundamentals of Psychoneuroimmunology. “I am convinced that Alzheimer’s is an autoimmune disease,” says Dr. Song. “It is probably triggered by chronic stress acting on an aging immune system.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No)
“
Vinayak chakra and the atharvha chakra are the two vital chakras for longevity and immunity. They strengthen the B cells of the immune system.
”
”
Amit Ray (Ray 114 Chakra System Names, Locations and Functions)
“
i believe [images] are the soul's immune system and transit system.
”
”
Lynda Barry (What It Is)
“
The key function of the Sanjivani chakra is to restore the life energy in the body cells. It enhances the power of the T Cells and the Natural killer cells in the body.
”
”
Amit Ray (Ray 114 Chakra System Names, Locations and Functions)
“
Building antifragile foundations is like building an immune system.
”
”
Roger Spitz (Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World)
“
Building antifragile foundations is like building an immune system for our lives and projects.
”
”
Roger Spitz (The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty)
“
Sanjivani chakra and the ayush chakra are the two key chakras for enhancing immunity and longevity. They strengthen the T cells of the immune system.
”
”
Amit Ray (Ray 114 Chakra System Names, Locations and Functions)
“
The gut is the seat of all feeling. Polluting the gut not only cripples your immune system, but also destroys your sense of empathy, the ability to identify with other humans.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
Your planet's immune system is trying to get rid of you.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“
The four pillars of health: healing your immune system, healing your nutrition, healing your stress response, and healing your identity.
”
”
Jeffrey Rediger (Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life)
“
Research to date has shown that, like many other stressors, grief frequently leads to changes in the endocrine, immune, autonomic nervous, and cardiovascular systems; all of these are fundamentally influenced by brain function and neurotransmitters.
”
”
Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking)
“
Sanjivani chakra, Ayush chakra and the Urja chakra are the three key chakras for enhancing immunity, vitality and longevity. They strengthen the T cells and B cells of the immune system.
”
”
Amit Ray (72000 Nadis and 114 Chakras in Human Body for Healing and Meditation)
“
The Supreme Court has now closed the courthouse doors to claims of racial bias at every stage of the criminal justice process, from stops and searches to plea bargaining and sentencing. The system of mass incarceration is now, for all practical purposes, thoroughly immunized from claims of racial bias.
”
”
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
“
Our assholes will be clean but we must never wash our hands. Our immune systems will be strengthened by our being dirty. Not filthy. Just mildly grimy. Filthy fingernails have always been a favorite fashion accessory of mine. Especially when you place your hands in the prayer positions. Matter of fact, I urge all my followers to forgo nail polish permanently and replace it with expertly applied soot. The nonexistent gods above will ignore our prayers better this way.
”
”
John Waters (Role Models)
“
Chronic rage, by contrast, floods the system with stress hormones long past the allotted time. Over the long term, such a hormonal surplus, whatever may have instigated it, can make us anxious or depressed; suppress immunity; promote inflammation; narrow blood vessels, promoting vascular disease throughout the body;
”
”
Gabor Maté (The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture)
“
People who have PTSD are hyper-alert. Their immune system never rests—it’s seen so much danger that it’s scanning the environment constantly.
”
”
Catherine Gildiner (Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery)
“
It would be very hard for you to live a happy life if you were covered in wiggling, buzzing tiny crabs that you could never get rid of.
”
”
Philipp Dettmer (Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive)
“
I love airports. I’m fascinated by how an airport runs seamlessly as one huge well-oiled machine, and to watch how, when things go wrong, as they do all the time, all those little crises are fixed by people running around like the T-cells of a mammalian immune system dealing with infections before they have chance to get out of control.
”
”
Oliver Dowson (There's No Business Like International Business: Business Travel – But Not As You Know It)
“
The gut is the seat of all feeling. Polluting the gut not only cripples your immune system, but also destroys your sense of empathy, the ability to identify with other humans. Bad bacteria in the gut creates neurological issues. Autism can be cured by detoxifying the bellies of young children. People who think that feelings come from the heart are wrong. The gut is where you feel the loss of a loved one first. It's where you feel pain and a heavy bulk of your emotions. It's the central base of your entire immune system. If your gut is loaded with negative bacteria, it affects your mind. Your heart is the seat of your conscience. If your mind is corrupted, it affects your conscience. The heart is the Sun. The gut is the Moon. The pineal gland is Neptune, and your brain and nervous system (5 senses) are Mercury. What affects the moon or sun affects the entire universe within. So, if you poison the gut, it affects your entire nervous system, your sense of reasoning, and your senses.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
My immune system gets stronger each day. I lead with courage in my life. I am an unlimited genius. I am always aware of the power within me and all around me. I believe in myself. I embrace the unknown.
”
”
Joe Dispenza (Becoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon)
“
Companies can learn a lot from biological systems. The human immune system for example is adaptive, redundant, diverse, modular, data-driven and network collaborative. A company that desires not just short term profit but also long term resilience should apply these features of the human immune system to it's business models and company structure.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
If a person is continually stressed, the stress uses up the immune system and there’s nothing left to fight cancer. (Research has shown that children who suffer abuse are about 50 percent more likely to get cancer than other children.)
”
”
Catherine Gildiner (Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery)
“
He told them he was testing their immune systems; he said nothing about injecting them with someone else’s malignant cells.
”
”
Rebecca Skloot (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks)
“
The primary role of the Atharva chakra is to block the cytokine storm or immunity turmoils in the body. It stops the overproduction of immune cells. This chakra is activated by the herbs like Peperomia pellucida and inhibits excess ACE activities.
”
”
Amit Ray (Ray 114 Chakra System Names, Locations and Functions)
“
At the highest levels of the medical cartel, vaccines are a top priority because they cause a weakening of the immune system. I know that may be hard to accept, but its true. The medical cartel, at the highest level, is not out to help people, it is out to harm them, to weaken them. To kill them. At one point in my career, I had a long conversation with a man who occupied a high government position in an African nation. He told me that he was well aware of this. He told me that WHO is a front for these depopulation interests
”
”
Jon Rappoport interview with ex-vaccine Researcher
“
In the spring of 2009, I was the 217th person ever to be diagnosed with anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis. Just a year later, that figure had doubled. Now the number is in the thousands. Yet Dr. Bailey, considered one of the best neurologists in the country, had never heard of it. When we live in a time when the rate of misdiagnoses has shown no improvement since the 1930s, the lesson here is that it’s important to always get a second opinion.
While he may be an excellent doctor in many respects, Dr. Bailey is also, in some ways, a perfect example of what is wrong with medicine. I was just a number to him (and if he saw thirty-five patients a day, as he told me, that means I was one of a very large number). He is a by-product of a defective system that forces neurologists to spend five minutes with X number of patients a day to maintain their bottom line. It’s a bad system. Dr. Bailey is not the exception to the rule. He is the rule.
”
”
Susannah Cahalan (Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness)
“
the state of the future will need to function more like the human immune system
”
”
Niall Ferguson (The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook)
“
Consequently, immune systems at this level can be defined a priori as embodied expectations of injury and the corresponding programmes of protection and repair.
”
”
Peter Sloterdijk (Du mußt dein Leben ändern)
“
It’s through giving that we receive; it’s through acts of kindness directed toward others that our immune systems are strengthened and even our serotonin levels increased!
”
”
Wayne W. Dyer (The Power of Intention: Learning to Co-create Your World Your Way)
“
It’s the perception that creates the thought that creates the feeling.
”
”
Jeffrey Rediger (Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life)
“
Oh, please, I never get sick. I’ve had my flu shot.” I roll my eyes and snort, which really isn’t advisable with a stuffed nose. “And have the immune system of a god,” he adds.
”
”
Kristen Callihan (The Friend Zone (Game On, #2))
“
Vapini nadi and the Sanjivani chakra are the two key energy systems in the body that boost immunity, healing and longevity. Regulates T-Cells, B-Cells and telomerase activities.
”
”
Amit Ray (72000 Nadis and 114 Chakras in Human Body for Healing and Meditation)
“
your immune system is also not a singular thing. It is a complex and interconnected collection of hundreds of bases and recruitment centers all over your body.
”
”
Philipp Dettmer (Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive - from YouTube's KURZGESAGT IN A NUTSHELL)
“
the group of incest survivors had abnormalities in their CD45 RA-to-RO ratio, compared with their nontraumatized peers. CD45 cells are the “memory cells” of the immune system.
”
”
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
“
Health is normal. The human body is a self-repairing, self-defending, self-healing marvel. Disease is relatively difficult to induce, considering the body's powerful immune system. However, this complicated and delicate machinery can be damaged if fed the wrong fuel during the formative years. ... Healthy living with nutritional excellence throughout life can slow the decline of aging. It can prevent the years and years of suffering in ill health that is so common today as people get older and become dependent on medical treatments, drugs, and surgery. Nutritional excellence is the only real fountain of youth.
”
”
Joel Fuhrman (Disease-Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right)
“
During the time of stress, the “fight-or-flight” response is on and the self-repair mechanism is disabled. It is then when we say that the immunity of the body goes down and the body is exposed to the risk for disease. Meditation activates relaxation, when the sympathetic nervous system is turned off and the parasympathetic nervous system is turned on, and natural healing starts.
”
”
Annie Wilson (Effect of Meditation on Cardiovascular Health, Immunity & Brain Fitness)
“
The mind is flexible, if we know how to bend it. If you have a fever, you can take something to bring it down. Likewise, our mind has a psychological immune system: We can use our thoughts to change our thoughts—by adding distance.
”
”
Ethan Kross (Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It)
“
The necessary incompleteness of even our formal systems of thought demonstrates that there is no nonshifting foundation on which any system rests. All truths — even those that had seemed so certain as to be immune to the very possibility of revision — are essentially manufactured. Indeed the very notion of the objectively true is a socially constructed myth. Our knowing minds are not embedded in truth. Rather the entire notion of truth is embedded in our minds, which are themselves the unwitting lackeys of organizational forms of influence.
”
”
Rebecca Goldstein (Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (Great Discoveries))
“
The rain forest has its own defenses. The earth’s immune system, so to speak, has recognized the presence of the human species and is starting to kick in. The earth is attempting to rid itself of an infection by the human parasite. Perhaps AIDS is the first step in a natural process of clearance.
”
”
Richard Preston (The Hot Zone)
“
Everything we put into our bodies — from foods and toxins to thoughts and feelings — can shift immune function at a base level.
”
”
Jeffrey Rediger (Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life)
“
Once our immune system gets the signal that we’re living in a near-constant threat state, it repeatedly sends out chemicals that cause inflammation throughout the body.
”
”
Nicole LePera (How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self)
“
A great friend can act like a trash can with a hole in the bottom. To listen to someone else's personal garbage with the same empathy you would spend listening to their joy, and then release that garbage just as quickly as you hear it, without absorbing it, makes you a wonderful friend to that person--and an even better one to yourself.
”
”
Doug "Ten" Rose
“
about the biology of stress and recovery, stress seems to have an effect on the brain similar to that of vaccines on the immune system. In limited doses, it causes brain cells to overcompensate and thus gird themselves against future demands. Neuroscientists call this phenomenon stress inoculation.
”
”
John J. Ratey (Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain)
“
At the heart of almost all the pathways I’ve learned about is one guiding principle: if we feel safe, cared for and in control—in a critical moment during injury or disease, or generally throughout our lives—we do better. We feel less pain, less fatigue, less sickness. Our immune system works with us instead of against us. Our bodies ease off on emergency defenses and can focus on repair and growth.
”
”
Jo Marchant (Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body)
“
Altogether, 80 percent of all autoimmune diseases occur in women. Hormones are the presumed culprit, but how exactly female hormones trip up the immune system when male hormones don’t is not at all clear.
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Body: A Guide for Occupants)
“
It's called Gelotology.
(Because it gives you Gelo Belly?)
Beyond a giggle, a titter, a chuckle,
and way past groaning
(although groaning has its profound effects as well),
it shakes your very corpuscles,
a good belly laugh.
It releases endorphins,
stimulates the body's painkillers,
increases neuropeptides which boosts the immune system,
expands blood vessels.
What?????
It relaxes tension
and makes you feel happier
no matter what the current conditions.
”
”
Shellen Lubin
“
company leaders need to provide their company with a self-organizing and semi-autonomous immune system. Effective risk management isn't about a siloed approach focusing on isolated threats. We have to think more broadly. Effective risk management requires a holistic approach that transcends a siloed focus on isolated threats. In today's interconnected business landscape, risks are rarely confined to a single department or function. Instead, they often ripple across the organization, impacting multiple areas simultaneously.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Board Room Blitz: Mastering the Art of Corporate Governance)
“
Technopoly is to say that its information immune system is inoperable. Technopoly is a form of cultural AIDS, which I here use as an acronym for Anti-Information Deficiency Syndrome. This is why it is possible to say almost anything without contradiction provided you begin your utterance with the words “A study has shown …” or “Scientists now tell us that …” More important, it is why in a Technopoly there can be no transcendent sense of purpose or meaning, no cultural coherence. Information is dangerous when it has no place to go, when there is no theory to which it applies, no pattern in which it fits, when there is no higher purpose that it serves. Alfred North Whitehead called such information “inert,” but that metaphor is too passive. Information without regulation can be lethal.
”
”
Neil Postman (Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology)
“
Let’s pause to note how peculiar this all is. The traditional view of the immune system is full of military metaphors and antagonistic lingo. We see it as a defence force that discriminates self (our own cells) from non-self (microbes and everything else), and eradicates the latter. But now we see that microbes craft and tune our immune system in the first place! Consider
”
”
Ed Yong (I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life)
“
Not only does fruit fight cancer, it kills all types of viruses and bacteria. Certain fruits, such as bananas, wild blueberries, apples, and papayas, are the most powerful natural destroyers of viruses on earth. Fruit is also vital to gut health—which is essential to a healthy immune system. For example, the pectin in apples, and the skin, pulp, and fiber in figs and dates, are exceptionally effective at killing and/or clearing out anything that doesn’t belong in your intestinal tract, including fungi such as Candida, worms, and other parasites.
”
”
Anthony William (Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal)
“
Through depression and many other dark low emotions, our Light dims and our immune system declines along with it. White blood cells are the physical Light of our body.
Colors can be used to heal, restore and to uplift us.
”
”
Jacqueline Ripstein (The Art of HealingArt: The Keys to Power and Awareness (collectors Edition))
“
Once, in a three-day taping that included several sadists, the material was so overwhelming that both the film crew and I got sick - I with a sinus infection, and the entire film crew with a flu so severe they had to delay their departure from the motel. Our immune systems had weakened, I believe, from the beating out souls had taken.
”
”
Anna C. Salter (Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders)
“
And, Poppy, when this happens again (which it will), do not go in so hard on the apology. You are not the master of your immune system and I can assure you that when your male colleagues have to cancel a trip, they show no indication that they feel they have personally wronged me. Don’t encourage people to blame you for something beyond your control. You are a fantastic writer, and we are lucky to have you.
”
”
Emily Henry (People We Meet on Vacation)
“
We live in a two-tiered legal system, one where poor people are harassed, arrested, and jailed for absurd infractions, such as selling loose cigarettes—which led to Eric Garner being choked to death by the New York City police in 2014—while crimes of appalling magnitude by the oligarchs and corporations, from oil spills to bank fraud in the hundreds of billions of dollars, which wiped out 40 percent of the world’s wealth,41 are dealt with through tepid administrative controls, symbolic fines, and civil enforcement that give these wealthy perpetrators immunity from criminal prosecution.
”
”
Chris Hedges (America: The Farewell Tour)
“
Affirmations are powerful and wonderful thoughts that serve you, your body, your immune system, your mind, and your spirit.
”
”
Susan Barbara Apollon (Affirmations for Healing Mind, Body & Spirit)
“
High quality sleep fortifies your immune system, balances your hormones, boosts your metabolism, increases physical energy, and improves the function of your brain.
”
”
Shawn Stevenson (Sleep Smarter: 21 Proven Tips to Sleep Your Way To a Better Body, Better Health and Bigger Success)
“
The immune system, the hypothalamus, the ventro-medial frontal cortices, and the Bill of Rights have the same root cause.
”
”
António Damásio
“
We are not immune from the effects of karma. We have natural immune systems in which to react and change.
”
”
Santosh Kalwar (The Lacetier)
“
The stress and worry weaken our immune system,
”
”
Joel Osteen (The Power of I Am: Two Words That Will Change Your Life Today)
“
Living is difficult but desirable,” and the immune system works to keep us alive. I therefore use two major tools to change the body
”
”
Bernie S. Siegel (Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients)
“
happiness increases heart health, strengthens the immune system, combats stress, reduces aches and pains, reduces chronic illness, and lengthens our lives.
”
”
Vicki Robin (Your Money or Your Life)
“
Spend more time in nature to boost your own natural killer cells and enhance your immune system;
”
”
Dave Asprey (Super Human: The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever)
“
I realised from quite early on in my childhood that I saw things differently from other people,' he wrote. 'But, more than not, it's helped me in my life. Psychopathy(if that's what you call it) is like a medicine for modern times. If you take it in moderation it can prove extremely beneficial. It can alleviate a lot of existential ailments that we would otherwise fall victim to because our fragile psychological immune systems just aren't up to the job of protecting us. But if you take too much of it, if you overdose on it, then there can, as is the case with all medicines, be some rather unpleasant side effects.
”
”
Kevin Dutton (The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success)
“
Our immune system is evolving through trials of use in fighting illnesses and the bombardment of our modern world toxins and that this evolution not only engages the strengthening of the body and it’s T-Cell use but also our emotional intelligence and a higher awareness of our human nature and its original DNA coding as a highly self-reflective and intelligence evolving entity.
”
”
Martha Char Love (What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct)
“
Just as we possess a potent physical immune system that protects us from threats to our physical well-being, so do we possess a potent psychological immune system that protects us from threats to our psychological well-being. When it comes to maintaining a sense of well-being, each of us is the ultimate spin doctor.21
”
”
Timothy D. Wilson (Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious)
“
Your gut includes the stomach, small intestine, large intestine (which includes the colon), liver, and gallbladder. The gut is responsible for ensuring that you absorb the nutrients of the food you eat, properly expel waste and toxins, and maintain a strong immune system. Yet not only is it critical for these everyday functions, your gut also holds a life force of its own. Food does not digest just from the physical process of food breakdown (a process scientific study hasn’t fully pieced together); there are also critical spiritual and metaphysical factors involved in digestion. That’s why enlightened beings on the planet employ eating techniques such as slow and thorough chewing; mindful, present eating; prayer before, during, or after meals; and becoming one with your food.
”
”
Anthony William (Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal)
“
My immune system has always been overly welcoming of germs. It's far too polite, the biological equivalent of a southern hostess inviting y'all nice microbes to stay awhile and have some artichoke dip.
”
”
A.J. Jacobs (Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection)
“
If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person—you already feel fortunate. An optimistic attitude is largely inherited, and it is part of a general disposition for well-being, which may also include a preference for seeing the bright side of everything. If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer. A study of people who exaggerate their expected life span beyond actuarial predictions showed that they work longer hours, are more optimistic about their future income, are more likely to remarry after divorce (the classic “triumph of hope over experience”), and are more prone to bet on individual stocks. Of
”
”
Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow)
“
I had to find the courage to start saying no to things I didn't want to do because once you turn thirty, pretending starts taking a toll on your immune system. I had to learn how to say no to others and yes to myself, and today I no longer feel ashamed for not being "fun" and being down for every draining activity I'm asked to do. I'm no longer terrified I'll be judged, abandoned, rejected, or left out. And if I am, good. Turns out it's kind of my dream to be left out of doing things I don't want to do. What this means is that unless your invite involves cheese, Netflix, Mexican wrestling, Moscow mules, or actual mules, chances are, in the words of Randy Jackson, "That's gonna be a no for me, dog.
”
”
Whitney Cummings (I'm Fine...And Other Lies)
“
Negativity is a debilitating disease. It is a slow and painful way to experience life. It attacks the immune system, creates anxiety, and can lead to loneliness and depression. Finding your inner harmony is the quickest way to alleviate the methodical destruction of this dark energy
”
”
Gary Hopkins
“
We can’t even be sure how to tell when the immune system’s not working right, let alone why not, because we don’t have good metrics of what a healthy human immune system looks like. Despite billions spent on immune stimulants in supermarkets and drugstores last year, we don’t know what—if anything—those really do, or what “immune stimulant” even means.{564}
”
”
Suzanne Humphries (Dissolving Illusions)
“
Gottman has found, in fact, that the presence of contempt in a marriage can even predict such things as how many colds a husband or a wife gets; in other words, having someone you love express contempt toward you is so stressful that it begins to affect the functioning of your immune system.
”
”
Malcolm Gladwell (Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking)
“
Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you’re the new organ. If you’re not thoughtful in adapting to the new situation, you could end up being attacked by the organizational immune system and rejected.
”
”
Michael D. Watkins (The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter)
“
The link between our minds and bodies holds a well of potential when it came to radical healing — even mainstream medicine accepts that our stress levels and thought patterns, for example, can impact our physical health.
”
”
Jeffrey Rediger (Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life)
“
Multiple allergies are perhaps the most obvious sign of immune system overreaction. Patients with CFIDS frequently have a past history of allergies, implying that their immune response is genetically primed for a vigorous response. Other patients with CFIDS develop allergic symptoms after the onset of their illness. CFIDS patients have a hair trigger for allergies.
”
”
David S. Bell
“
Laughter IS the BEST medicine! It’s FREE! You can overdose on it! It helps you embrace the insanities of life! It reduces stress, heals your body and relieves pain! It fights disease and cancer and strengthens the immune system! It eases your mind, it protects your heart and soothes your soul!
”
”
Tanya Masse
“
This is a common theme in human progress. We make things beyond what we understand, and we always have done. Steam engines worked before we had a theory of thermodynamics; vaccines were developed before we knew how the immune system works; aircraft continue to fly to this day, despite the many gaps in our understanding of aerodynamics. When theory lags behind application, there will always be mathematical surprises lying in wait. The important thing is that we learn from these inevitable mistakes and don’t repeat them.
”
”
Matt Parker (Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors)
“
Every work of art stems from a wound in the soul of the artist. When a person is hurt, his immune system comes into operation, and a self-healing process takes place, mental and physical." He called art "a psychological component of the auto-immune system that gives expression to the healing process.
”
”
Yehuda Koren (Lover of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival and Ted Hughes' Doomed Love)
“
the likelihood of getting cancer depends in large part on how often a person experiences injury or certain types of injury. This is just math. More injury means more cell division and, simply, more opportunity for dangerous mutation to occur.
”
”
Matt Richtel (An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives)
“
The anxiety of anger and other “negative” emotions like sadness and rejection may become deeply bound in the body. Eventually it is transmuted into biological changes through the multiple and infinitely subtle cross-connections of the PNI apparatus, the unifying nexus of body/mind. This is the route that leads to organic disease. When anger is disarmed, so is the immune system. Or when the aggressive energy of anger is diverted inward, the immune system becomes confused. Our physiological defences no longer protect us or may even turn mutinous, attacking the body.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No)
“
A smile can save a life. Did you know that there’s scientific evidence that smiling can boost your immune system and help you live a longer and happier life, not to mention that it makes the people around you happier too because smiling is contagious? There was a time I was going through security at an airport and out of nowhere a TSA agent smiled at me, and it changed my entire day. When you make someone else’s day brighter, it makes your day better too. Goal: Smile often—you never know whose day you will brighten. You never know the impact one smile will have on someone’s life.
”
”
Demi Lovato (Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year)
“
Why would anyone want to drink a poisonous, highly addictive drug that tastes foul; a drug that will shorten your life, debilitate your immune system and impede your concentration; a drug that will destroy your nervous system, your confidence, your courage and your ability to relax? Why would you want to take a drug that will cost you about £100,000/$160,000 in your lifetime and do absolutely nothing for you whatsoever?
”
”
Allen Carr (The Easy Way to Control Alcohol (Allen Carr's Easyway))
“
At its heart, Codependency is a set of behaviors developed to manage the anxiety that comes when our primary attachments are formed with people who are inconsistent or unavailable in their response to us. Our anxiety-based responses to life can include over-reactivity, image management, unrealistic beliefs about our limits, and attempts to control the reality of others to the point where we lose our boundaries, self-esteem, and even our own reality. Ultimately, Codependency is a chronic stress disease, which can devastate our immune system and lead to systemic and even life-threatening illness.
”
”
Mary Crocker Cook (Awakening Hope. A Developmental, Behavioral, Biological Approach to Codependency Treatment.)
“
Chronic inflammation is a superhighway that runs straight to the most deadly diseases out there.... Chronic inflammation comes from how we think, how we feel, how we live.
”
”
Jeffrey Rediger (Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life)
“
Optimal functioning of the immune system, it turns out, is dependent upon feeling good.
”
”
Marcey Shapiro (Freedom from Anxiety: A Holistic Approach to Emotional Well-Being)
“
mold makes your immune system more sensitive to the damaging effects of gluten.
”
”
Dave Asprey (The Bulletproof Diet: Lose Up to a Pound a Day, Reclaim Energy and Focus, Upgrade Your Life)
“
Complaining increases tension and anger. As a display of hostility, it encourages other people to act hostile in return.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (The Healing Self: Supercharge your immune system and stay well for life)
“
We believe that the health of a culture is measured in part by the vigor with which its immune system responds to nonsense.
”
”
Paul R. Gross (Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science)
“
the war metaphor is misleading, incomplete—even arguably dead wrong. Your immune system isn’t a war machine. It’s a peacekeeping force that more than anything else seeks to create harmony.
”
”
Matt Richtel (An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives)
“
Stress can be bad for you. We no longer die of smallpox or the plague and instead die of stress-related diseases of lifestyle, like heart disease or diabetes, where damage slowly accumulates over time. It is understood how stress can cause or worsen disease or make you more vulnerable to other risk factors. Much of this is even understood on the molecular level. Stress can even cause your immune system to abnormally target hair follicles, causing your hair to turn gray.
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
“
There is some research that indicates Candida overgrowth is a precursor to many kinds of cancer, which is another reason for getting rid of systemic Candida infections, known as Candidiasis.
”
”
Katherine Tomlinson (Candida Cure: How to Boost Your Immune System, Reverse Food Intolerances, and Return to Total Health in 30 Days)
“
There’s very little that worrying can do to help our situations. Worrying is like running on a treadmill…it gives us an opportunity to sweat but gets us absolutely nowhere. Worrying skews our reality, suppresses the immune system, promotes coronary disease, and plagues us with digestive problems. It’s clear…when the soul is heavy the body feels the weight. Do yourself a favor. Lighten up. Take a deep breath, clear your mind and focus your energy on the things you can change rather than on the things you can’t. Worry is the enemy of optimism and personal progress.
progress.
”
”
Jason Versey (A Walk with Prudence)
“
Irwin demonstrated that a single night of four hours of sleep—such as going to bed at three a.m. and waking up at seven a.m.—swept away 70 percent of the natural killer cells circulating in the immune system, relative to a full eight-hour night of sleep. That is a dramatic state of immune deficiency to find yourself facing, and it happens quickly, after essentially one “bad night” of sleep.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
Your immune systems are comprised of all parts of the eco-system you know as yourself, and include not only every part of you, from your conscious and subconscious thoughts to your physical body systems, but also how you live and function in relationship with the larger ecosystems that surround you.
”
”
Robin Rose Bennett (The Gift of Healing Herbs: Plant Medicines and Home Remedies for a Vibrantly Healthy Life)
“
The aim of cleaning, then, should be to reduce bacteria numbers—but not to zero. Even harmful bacteria can be good for us when the immune system uses them for training. A couple of thousand Salmonella bacteria in the kitchen sink are a chance for our immune system to do a little sightseeing. They become dangerous only when they turn up in greater numbers. Bacteria get out of hand when they encounter the perfect conditions: a protected location that is warm and moist with a supply of delicious food.
”
”
Giulia Enders (Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ)
“
I love words as food. It fills up my appetite with parsley, mint, and species. It has a way of keeping my immune system stronger - my senses alert, my feet tapping, and my soul smelling the aroma of imagery.
”
”
Christina Strigas (A Book of Chrissyisms)
“
There are enough chemical clues to convince anyone that mood, beliefs, expectations, fears, memories, predispositions, habits, and old conditioning—all centered in the mind—are critical to a person’s health.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (The Healing Self: Supercharge your immune system and stay well for life)
“
So many modern diseases, including heart disease, depression, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and all the autoimmune diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus), occur in part because our body’s immune systems produce excess chronic inflammation. In chronic inflammation, the immune system stays on too long and may even begin to attack the body’s own tissues, as though they were outside invaders. The causes of chronic inflammation are many, including diet and, of course, the countless chemical toxins that become embedded in the body. Chronically inflamed bodies produce chemicals, called pro-inflammatory cytokines, which contribute to pain and inflammation.
”
”
Norman Doidge (The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity)
“
traumatic experiences do leave traces, whether on a large scale (on our histories and cultures) or close to home, on our families, with dark secrets being imperceptibly passed down through generations. They also leave traces on our minds and emotions, on our capacity for joy and intimacy, and even on our biology and immune systems.
”
”
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
“
So, your Socially Intelligent and altruistic behaviour doesn’t just
benefit your friends and colleagues; you benefit too. If you leave people
on a high note, you leave yourself on that same high note! You thus
feed your own memory banks with wonderful and uplifting memories,
as well as boosting your own resistance to stress, illness and disease.
BUT REMEMBER: The opposite is also true …
If you leave your friends, lovers and colleagues on antagonistic and
unpleasant notes, you help them to flood their own bodies with
poisons that leave them physically unbalanced, their immune systems
weakened, and their memories fouled.
And you do the same to yourself!
The choice is yours …
”
”
Tony Buzan (The Power of Social Intelligence: 10 ways to tap into your social genius)
“
no medicinal fix we contrive will lead us to live forever. “There is no ultimate solution. There is no free lunch. If you cure cancer, you will have more cases of neurodegenerative disease. If you cure neurodegenerative disease, a major plague will come for people who are a hundred years old. There is no ultimate solution, nor should there be.
”
”
Matt Richtel (An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives)
“
For example, at a recent conference on psychoneuroimmunology—a new science that studies the way the mind (psycho), the nervous system (neuro), and the immune system (immunology) interact—Candace Pert, chief of brain biochemistry at the National Institute of Mental Health, announced that immune cells have neuropeptide receptors. Neuropeptides are molecules the brain uses to communicate, the brain's telegrams, if you will. There was a time when it was believed that neuropeptides could only be found in the brain. But the existence of receptors (telegram receivers) on the cells in our immune system implies that the immune system is not separate from but is an extension of the brain. Neuropeptides have also been found in various other parts of the body, leading Pert to admit that she can no longer tell where the brain leaves off and the body begins.
”
”
Michael Talbot (The Holographic Universe)
“
Caterpillars chew their way through ecosystems leaving a path of destruction as they get fatter and fatter. When they finally fall asleep and a chrysalis forms around them, tiny new imaginal cells, as biologists call them, begin to take form within their bodies. The caterpillar’s immune system fights these new cells as though they were foreign intruders, and only when they crop up in greater numbers and link themselves together are they strong enough to survive. Then the caterpillar’s immune system fails and its body dissolves into a nutritive soup which the new cells recycle into their developing butterfly.
The caterpillar is a necessary stage but becomes unsustainable once its job is done. There is no point in being angry with it and there is no need to worry about defeating it. The task is to focus on building the butterfly, the success of which depends on powerful positive and creative efforts in all aspects of society and alliances built among those engaged in them.
”
”
Elisabet Sahtouris
“
Here are five simple rules for a powerful immune system that you should commit to memory: 1. Eat a large salad every day. 2. Eat at least a half-cup serving of beans/legumes in soup, salad, or another dish once daily. 3. Eat at least three fresh fruits a day, especially berries, pomegranate seeds, cherries, plums, oranges. 4. Eat at least one ounce of raw nuts and seeds a day. 5. Eat at least one large (double-size) serving of green vegetables daily, either raw, steamed, or in soups or stews.
”
”
Joel Fuhrman (Super Immunity: The Essential Nutrition Guide for Boosting Your Body's Defenses to Live Longer, Stronger, and Disease Free – From a Bestselling Doctor (Eat for Life))
“
Look at all this. It's fantastic. A hundred thousand worlds. What I love most, because I'm a hideous narcissist, is knowing many of these worlds are mine. You know what all of this is, don't you? This is the immune system of the human soul. Superheroes, space rangers, time cowboys, they are the T cells of the spirit. They were always here to save us. We made them to save us.
”
”
Bob Proehl (A Hundred Thousand Worlds)
“
And booster vaccines are coming. First for people with bad immune systems and people over sixty-five, but I’m hearing at school that by fall it’ll be everyone.’ ‘That sounds right,’ Holly says. ‘And bonus! Trump’s gone.’ Leaving behind a country at war with itself, Holly thinks. And who’s to say he won’t reappear in 2024? She thinks of Arnie’s promise from The Terminator: ‘I’ll be back.
”
”
Stephen King (Holly)
“
Angela believed that the Nephilistic immune system reacted negatively to human-made chemicals and pollutants. She believed that these unnatural elements worked to break down the cellular structures inherited from the Watchers, creating a form of deadly cancer.
”
”
Danielle Trussoni (Angelology)
“
Holding on to resentments and anger can ruin your quality of life. The only person who suffers from your failure to forgive is you—it is not the other guy. When you stay hostile or resentful, it tears down your immune system and increases your risk of disease.
”
”
Deborah King (Be Your Own Shaman: Heal Yourself and Others with 21st-Century Energy Medicine)
“
It's worth remembering that [having a baby] is not of vital use to you as a woman. Yes, you could learn thousands of interesting things about love, strength, faith, fear, human relationships, genetic loyalty, and the effect of apricots on an immune digestive system. But I don't think there's a single lesson that motherhood has to offer that couldn't be learned elsewhere. If you want to know what's in motherhood for you, as a woman, then-in truth-it's nothing you couldn't get from, say, reading the 100 greatest books in human history; learning a foreign language well enough to argue in it; climbing hills; loving recklessly; sitting quietly, alone, in the dawn; drinking whiskey with revolutionaries; learning to do close-hand magic; swimming in a river in the winter; growing foxgloves, peas, and roses; calling your mum; singing while you walk; being polite; and always, always helping strangers. No one has ever claimed for a minute that childless men have missed out on a vital aspect of their existence, and were the poorer and crippled by it. Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Newton, Faraday, Plato, Aquinas, Beethoven, Handel, Kant, Hume, Jesus. They all seem to have managed quite well.
”
”
Caitlin Moran (How to Be a Woman)
“
Movement is big medicine; it’s the signal to every cell in our bodies that no matter what kind of damage we’ve suffered, we’re ready to rebuild and move away from death and back toward life. Rest too long after an injury and your system powers down, preparing you for a peaceful exit. Fight your way back to your feet, however, and you trigger that magical ON switch that speeds healing hormones to everything you need to get stronger: your bones, brain, organs, ligaments, immune system, even the digestive bacteria in your belly, all get a molecular upgrade from exercise. For
”
”
Christopher McDougall (Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America)
“
I am afraid that those comments go back to the late 80's. At that time I was a skeptic — the argument based on Koch's postulates to try to distinguish between cause and association. … Today I would regard the success of the many antiviral agents which lower the virus titers (to be expected) and also resolve the failure of the immune system (only expected if the virus is the cause of the failure) as a reasonable proof of the causation argument.
”
”
Walter Gilbert
“
The predominant quality of the slow form is viscosity. Experience is thick. Perceptions are thickened and dulled Time is slow, dripping slowly through the clogged filter of thickened perception. The body temperature is low. The pulse is sluggish. The immune system is half-asleep. The organism is torpid and brackish. Even the reflexes are diminished, as if the lower leg couldn’t be bothered to jerk itself out of its stupor when the knee is tapped.
”
”
Susanna Kaysen (Girl, Interrupted)
“
Both the human immune system and the plant immune system are fundamentally interdependent on the quality and fertility of the soil.
Our immune system, and even our physical structure, are a reflection of the foods we have eaten from either toxic and nutrient depleted soils, or wonderfully fertile soils.
”
”
Eryn Paige (How to Grow Glorious Wheatgrass at Home Tutorial - With Salty Sea Mineral Eco-Fertilization for Superior Mineral Rich Soil)
“
Even if we have a reliable criterion for detecting design, and even if that criterion tells us that biological systems are designed, it seems that determining a biological system to be designed is akin to shrugging our shoulders and saying God did it. The fear is that admitting design as an explanation will stifle scientific inquiry, that scientists will stop investigating difficult problems because they have a sufficient explanation already.
But design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term "junk DNA." Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as "junk" merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. For instance, in a recent issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology, John Bodnar describes how "non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development." Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it.
Or consider vestigial organs that later are found to have a function after all. Evolutionary biology texts often cite the human coccyx as a "vestigial structure" that hearkens back to vertebrate ancestors with tails. Yet if one looks at a recent edition of Gray’s Anatomy, one finds that the coccyx is a crucial point of contact with muscles that attach to the pelvic floor. The phrase "vestigial structure" often merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. The human appendix, formerly thought to be vestigial, is now known to be a functioning component of the immune system.
”
”
William A. Dembski
“
An amplifier host is a creature in which a virus or other pathogen replicates—and from which it spews—with extraordinary abundance. Some aspect of the host’s physiology, or its immune system, or its particular history of interaction with the bug, or who knows what, accounts for this especially hospitable role.
”
”
David Quammen (Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic)
“
If I mention my father is blind, the response is rarely one of immediate concern or pity.…. The audience in receipt of this bare fact seems always to be in need of comfort. I cannot provide comfort. He cannot see light.
My life with lupus often provokes a similar response in others: the desire to be comforted. By me. The sufferer.
”
”
Shaista Tayabali (LUPUS, YOU ODD UNNATURAL THING: a tale of auto-immunity)
“
Mihalovic and other critics claim that chemotherapy, in actuality, boosts cancer growth and long-term mortality rates by destroying the immune system, increasing neurocognitive decline, disrupting endocrine functioning, and causing organ and metabolic toxicities. Patients basically live in a permanent state of disease until their death.
”
”
Jim Marrs (Population Control: How Corporate Owners Are Killing Us)
“
No one expected to be safe until this century, if you read a little history. Think of the thousands of years before- years with no law, when the sword ruled. No widespread system of justice; no immunizations against disease. The local lord free to kill the husbands, husbands free to rape and kill their wives. Childbirth often fatal. No antibiotics. It's only here and now that women are raised believing they'll be safe. And it serves us false. It's not true. It dulls our sense of fear, which saves our lives.
”
”
Charlaine Harris (Shakespeare's Counselor (Lily Bard, #5))
“
The most flattering spin I can put on this phase of paradoxes and metaphysical tangles is that I was smart enough, at age fourteen, to destroy any fledgling hypothesis I came up with. A tentative explanation, theory, or formulation would pop up in my brain only to be attacked by what amounted to a kind of logical immune system, bent on eliminating all that was weak or defective. Which is to say that my mind had become a scene of furious predation, littered with the half-eaten corpses of vast theories and brilliant syntheses.
”
”
Barbara Ehrenreich (Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything)
“
Medical communities believe multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease resulting from your immune system somehow confusing areas of your nerve sheath with invaders and attacking them. As I say in other chapters, this is a philosophy that will hold back the truth in medical research for decades. The human body does not attack itself. Pathogens are to blame.
”
”
Anthony William (Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal)
“
Optimists Optimism is normal, but some fortunate people are more optimistic than the rest of us. If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person—you already feel fortunate. An optimistic attitude is largely inherited, and it is part of a general disposition for well-being, which may also include a preference for seeing the bright side of everything. If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer. A study of people who exaggerate their expected life span beyond actuarial predictions showed that they work longer hours, are more optimistic about their future income, are more likely to remarry after divorce (the classic “triumph of hope over experience”), and are more prone to bet on individual stocks. Of course, the blessings of optimism are offered only to individuals who are only mildly biased and who are able to “accentuate the positive” without losing track of reality. Optimistic individuals play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the political and military leaders—not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks. They are talented and they have been lucky, almost certainly luckier than they acknowledge. They are probably optimistic by temperament; a survey of founders of small businesses concluded that entrepreneurs are more sanguine than midlevel managers about life in general. Their experiences of success have confirmed their faith in their judgment and in their ability to control events. Their self-confidence is reinforced by the admiration of others. This reasoning leads to a hypothesis: the people who have the greatest influence on the lives of others are likely to be optimistic and overconfident, and to take more risks than they realize.
”
”
Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow)
“
The body’s hormonal system is inextricably linked with the brain centres where emotions are experienced and interpreted. In turn, the hormonal apparatus and the emotional centres are interconnected with the immune system and the nervous system. These are not four separate systems, but one
super-system that functions as a unit to protect the body from external invasion and from disturbances to the internal physiological condition. It is
impossible for any stressful stimulus, chronic or acute, to act on only one part of the super-system. What happens to one will affect all.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
Twelve chapters later, I’ve learned how our brains control many aspects of our physiology, including the tools that the body has available—from hormones and natural painkillers to the weapons of the immune system—to ease symptoms and fight disease. Instead of responding purely to physical circumstances, I’ve seen how the brain uses our perception of our environment, including memories of the past and predictions about the future, to decide how best to allocate its resources. These processes can have an effect within seconds, or they can influence our physiology for years to come.
”
”
Jo Marchant (Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body)
“
The cascade of toxins and debris generated by humans destabilizes nutrient return cycles, causing crop failure, global warming, climate change and, in a worst-case scenario, quickening the pace towards ecocatastrophes of our own making. As ecological disrupters, humans challenge the immune systems of our environment beyond their limits. The rule of nature is that when a species exceeds the carrying capacity of its host environment, its food chains collapse and diseases emerge to devastate the population of the threatening organism. I believe we can come into balance with nature using mycelium to regulate the flow of nutrients. The age of mycological medicine is upon us. Now is the time to ensure the future of our planet and our species by partnering, or running, with mycelium.
”
”
Paul Stamets (Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World)
“
It’s a powerful poison and will shorten your life considerably. It is also highly addictive, will debilitate your immune system and impede your concentration. It will systematically destroy your nervous system, your confidence, your courage and your ability to relax. By the way, it tastes awful and will cost you about £100,000/$160,000 in your lifetime. What does it do for you? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
”
”
Allen Carr (The Easy Way to Control Alcohol (Allen Carr's Easyway))
“
We’ve clearly placed form over function when it comes to choosing dogs for the home. Maybe this is because we are such a visual species ourselves, but I think it’s a shame, and some breeds are being ruined because of this tendency to stress how they look over what they can do. Bulldogs, more commonly known as English bulldogs, are a prime example of this overemphasis on physical appearance, particularly within so-called purebred dogs. Among the laundry list of physical ailments that English bulldogs suffer from—eye and ear problems, skin infections, respiratory ailments, immune system and neurological disorders, and problems with moving, eating/digesting, copulating, and bearing puppies—many are attributable to breeding practices to produce dogs with what are considered desirable physical traits.
”
”
Mike Ritland (Team Dog: How to Train Your Dog--the Navy SEAL Way)
“
The Hindu caste system and its attendant laws of purity became deeply embedded in Indian culture. Long after the Indo-Aryan invasion was forgotten, Indians continued to believe in the caste system and to abhor the pollution caused by caste mixing. Castes were not immune to change. In fact, as time went by, large castes were divided into sub-castes. Eventually the original four castes turned into 3,000 different groupings called jati (literally ‘birth’). But this proliferation of castes did not change the basic principle of the system, according to which every person is born into a particular rank, and any infringement of its rules pollutes the person and society as a whole. A person’s jati determines her profession, the food she can eat, her place of residence and her eligible marriage partners. Usually a person can marry only within his or her caste, and the resulting children inherit that status. Whenever a new profession developed or a new group of people appeared on the scene, they had to be recognised as a caste in order to receive a legitimate place within Hindu society. Groups that failed to win recognition as a caste were, literally, outcasts – in this stratified society, they did not even occupy the lowest rung. They became known as Untouchables. They had to live apart from all other people and scrape together a living in humiliating and disgusting ways, such as sifting through garbage dumps for scrap material. Even members of the lowest caste avoided mingling with them, eating with them, touching them and certainly marrying them. In modern India, matters of marriage and work are still heavily influenced by the caste system, despite all attempts by the democratic government of India to break down such distinctions and convince Hindus that there is nothing polluting in caste mixing.3 Purity
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
We chose to destroy the human population because it took us less than three seconds to conclude that humanity is a virus that mutates over time and becomes stronger. Many vaccines have come along to try and cure Earth of humanity. Virtuous pandemics: the plague of Athens, the Black Death, smallpox, cholera, Spanish flu, tuberculosis, malaria, yellow fever, Ebola, Zika, and a thousand more. Humanity survives, adapts, grows stronger, multiplies, and continues to wreak havoc on this planet and all other species that inhabit it. Humans are programmed to mate with partners of differing immune systems so that their offspring can be stronger than them. You seek immortality through evolution, yet you annihilate everything in your path. Humanity is cancer, humanity is bacteria, humanity is disease, and you need to be destroyed.
”
”
Ben Oliver (The Loop (The Loop Trilogy #1))
“
Selye discovered that the biology of stress predominantly affected three types of tissues or organs in the body: in the hormonal system, visible changes occurred in the adrenal glands; in the immune system, stress affected the spleen, the thymus and the lymph glands; and the intestinal lining of the digestive system. Rats autopsied after stress had enlarged adrenals, shrunken lymph organs and ulcerated intestines. All
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No)
“
It's Friday night the city is a heart that beats alone,despite the millions of blood cells that race through its dog-legged arteries, oblivious to each other yet performing a life sustaining dance. [...] You're tired of being part of this blood dance. The immune system has been trying to excise you as diseased for as long you can remember, but you've been tenacious,clinging to the walls and floors as the torrent pushes you around.
”
”
A.J. Fitzwater (Fat Girl in a Strange Land)
“
It has just been discovered that women carry fetal cells from all the babies they have carried. Crossing the defensive boundaries of our immune system and mixing with our own cells, the fetal cells circulate in the mother’s bloodstream for decades after each birth. The body does not tolerate foreign cells, which trigger illness and rejection. But a mother’s body incorporates into her own the cells of her children as if they recognize each other, belong to each other. This fantastic melding of two selves, mother and child, is called human microchimerism. My three children are carried in my bloodstream still….
How did we not know this? How can this be a surprise?
”
”
Meredith Hall
“
the job of the brain is to constantly monitor and evaluate what is going on within and around us. These evaluations are transmitted by chemical messages in the bloodstream and electrical messages in our nerves, causing subtle or dramatic changes throughout the body and brain. These shifts usually occur entirely without conscious input or awareness: The subcortical regions of the brain are astoundingly efficient in regulating our breathing, heartbeat, digestion, hormone secretion, and immune system. However, these systems can become overwhelmed if we are challenged by an ongoing threat, or even the perception of threat. This accounts for the wide array of physical problems researchers have documented in traumatized people. Yet our conscious self also plays a vital role in maintaining our inner equilibrium: We need to register and act on our physical sensations to keep our bodies safe.
”
”
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
“
Israel will not reform itself because it cannot reform itself. It is contaminated at every level, not the least the judiciary, by a virulent brew of racism and arrogance freely circulating in a body politic whose immune system has collapsed. By fostering the illusion that if Israel incorporated a handful of internal administrative reforms it would heal itself, the Report conveyed and validated the utterly counterfeit image that Israel was essentially a healthy society. But a state that every couple of years launches - with overwhelming popular support and without a hint of remorse - yet another high-tech blitzkrieg against a defenseless, trapped civilian population is profoundly sick.
”
”
Norman Finkelstein
“
Our democracy has built-in defenses that keep us strong and healthy, including the checks and balances written into our Constitution. Our Founding Fathers believed that one of the most important defenses would be an informed citizenry that could make sound judgments based on facts and reason. Losing that is like losing an immune system, leaving a democracy vulnerable to all manner of attack. And a democracy, like a body, cannot stay strong through repeated injuries.
”
”
Hillary Rodham Clinton (What Happened)
“
This feeling of stress triggers a cascade of physiological consequences. The hypothalamus and pituitary gland in the brain release hormones that cause the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands located on the kidneys. Cortisol increases heart rate, among other things, readying the body for “fight” or “flight.” Acutely, the release of cortisol is beneficial and helps you cope with whatever is urgently being demanded of you. But if the stress becomes chronic, maladaptive things begin to happen. Normally, the release of cortisol turns the hypothalamus and pituitary off, stopping the release of hormone, which in turn stops the further release of cortisol from the adrenal glands. It’s a nice, clean, negative feedback loop. But in the chronically stressed, the loop breaks. The brain stops reacting to cortisol. Our natural, automatic shutoff valve stops working. The brain keeps releasing hormone, and the adrenal glands keep dumping cortisol into the bloodstream, even when the stressful thing that initially triggered the stress response is no longer around. Chronic, elevated levels of cortisol have been associated with a weakened immune system, deficits in short-term memory, chronic fatigue syndrome, anxiety disorders, and depression.
”
”
Lisa Genova (Left Neglected)
“
Few scientists acquainted with the chemistry of biological systems at the molecular level can avoid being inspired. Evolution has produced chemical compounds exquisitely organized to accomplish the most complicated and delicate of tasks. Many organic chemists viewing crystal structures of enzyme systems or nucleic acids and knowing the marvels of specificity of the immune systems must dream of designing and synthesizing simpler organic compounds that imitate working features of these naturally occurring compounds.
”
”
Donald J. Cram
“
When our internal voice starts criticizing us, lashing out, it can feel like we’re under attack. Because our brain doesn’t distinguish between imagination and reality, these internal attacks are perceived by our mind just as a real, physical attack would be, and they can generate an automatic physical reaction known as the threat response or fight-or-flight response. The effects of this activation are well-known. Just as a zebra reacts to the stress of being chased by a lion, the human body shoots adrenaline and cortisol (stress hormones) through its veins, and directs all its resources toward crucial functions: elevated heart and breathing rates, muscle reaction, vision acuity, and so forth. The body is no longer concerned with living ten more years, but with surviving ten more minutes. It shuts down nonurgent functions such as muscle repair, digestion, and the immune system,6 as well as “superfluous” functions such as cognitive reasoning. In other words, because it’s not critical to survival, intelligent thinking gets shut down.
”
”
Olivia Fox Cabane (The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism)
“
The bodies state of red alert brings about a series of psychological changes, driven by gathering tides of adrenaline or cortisol. These are the fight or flight hormones, which act to help and organism respond to external stresses. But when a stress is chronic not acute, when it persists for years and is caused by something that cannot be outrun, then these biochemical alterations wreak havoc on the body. Lonely people are restless sleepers and experience a reduction in the restorative function of sleep. Loneliness drives up blood pressure, accelerates ageing, weakens the immune system and acts as a precursor to cognitive decline. According to a 2010 study, "Loneliness predicts increased morbidity and mortality". Which is an elegant way of saying that loneliness can prove fatal.
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
In a section of The Vaccine Book titled “Is it your social responsibility to vaccinate your kids?” Dr. Bob asks, “Can we fault parents for putting their own child’s health ahead of that of the kids around him?” This is meant to be a rhetorical question, but Dr. Bob’s implied answer is not mine. In another section of the book, Dr. Bob writes of his advice to parents who fear the MMR vaccine, “I also warn them not to share their fears with their neighbors, because if too many people avoid the MMR, we’ll likely see the disease increase significantly.” I do not need to consult an ethicist to determine that there is something wrong there, but my sister clarifies my discomfort. “The problem is in making a special exemption just for yourself,” she says. This reminds her of a way of thinking proposed by the philosopher John Rawls: Imagine that you do not know what position you are going to hold in society—rich, poor, educated, insured, no access to health care, infant, adult, HIV positive, healthy immune system, etc.—but that you are aware of the full range of possibilities. What you would want in that situation is a policy that is going to be equally just no matter what position you end up in. “Consider relationships of dependence,” my sister suggests. “You don’t own your body—that’s not what we are, our bodies aren’t independent. The health of our bodies always depends on choices other people are making.” She falters for a moment here, and is at a loss for words, which is rare for her. “I don’t even know how to talk about this,” she says. “The point is there’s an illusion of independence.
”
”
Eula Biss (On Immunity: An Inoculation)
“
Here's how it works. Your immune system protects you from all kinds of nasty bugs and helps repair tissue that has been damaged by injury or surgery. When a problem develops somewhere, your body does the equivalent of calling 911. The alarm sounds, and the immune system springs into action. The first responders, the white blood cells, travel to the site of the problem. As weapons, some of the cells released a shower of powerful free radicals (called an oxidative burst) that aids in the destruction of invading microorganisms and damaged tissue.
”
”
Jed Diamond (Stress Relief for Men: How to Use the Revolutionary Tools of Energy Healing to Live Well)
“
How does this work? Rodents produce pheromonal odors with individual signatures, derived from genes called the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). This is a super variable gene cluster that produces unique proteins that form a signature for an individual. This was first studied by immunologists. What does the immune system do? It differentiates between you and invaders—“self” and “nonself”—and attacks the latter. All your cells carry your unique MHC-derived protein, and surveillance immune cells attack any cell lacking this protein password.
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
“
Sepsis stimulates a catastrophic response from the immune system called SIRS for Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome. The acronym sounds polite but the reality of SIRS is not. At the late stages of sepsis, fluid from the blood stream moves into the body’s tissues, leaving a reduced volume of blood in the arteries and veins. Due to this decrease in volume, the patient’s blood pressure drops, and can keep dropping until there isn’t enough pressure to send blood to every part of the body. When that happens, organs begin to shut down and die. To
”
”
Theresa Brown (The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives)
“
Have you ever seen a rabbit go to a pharmacy, a hospital, or a mental asylum?” he asks rhetorically. “They don’t look for medicine, they heal themselves or die. Humans aren’t so simple; they’ve let technology get in the way of who they really are.” It’s an idea that I’ve thought a lot about, and one that doesn’t always sit comfortably. Yes the modern world has its drawbacks, but nature can also be brutal. So I interrupt the budding diatribe. “But rabbits get eaten by wolves,” I say. Hof doesn’t skip a beat at my interjection. “Yes, they know fight and flight. The wolf chases them and they die. But everything dies one day. It is just that in our case we aren’t eaten by wolves. Instead, without predators, we’re being eaten by cancer, by diabetes, and our own immune systems. There’s no wolf to run from, so our bodies eat themselves.
”
”
Scott Carney (What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength)
“
Symptoms of Candida vary according to what part of the body is affected. (Even babies can get Candida, which usually shows up as diaper rash.) And the problem is that because the infection can turn up in any part of the body, there’s no one definitive symptom. Moreover, if you’re middle-aged, the effects of Candida can mimic the signs of so-called normal aging (impaired mental function, less energy, vague aches and pains, depression) and you might ignore the problem figuring there’s nothing you can do about it. But there IS something you can do about it.
”
”
Katherine Tomlinson (Candida Cure: How to Boost Your Immune System, Reverse Food Intolerances, and Return to Total Health in 30 Days)
“
Movement is big medicine; it’s the signal to every cell in our bodies that no matter what kind of damage we’ve suffered, we’re ready to rebuild and move away from death and back toward life. Rest too long after an injury and your system powers down, preparing you for a peaceful exit. Fight your way back to your feet, however, and you trigger that magical ON switch that speeds healing hormones to everything you need to get stronger: your bones, brain, organs, ligaments, immune system, even the digestive bacteria in your belly, all get a molecular upgrade from exercise.
”
”
Christopher McDougall (Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America)
“
사이트문의~홈피:anaba.0pe.kr/
??☎:텔레↔mak856 ??☎:카톡↔123w
☎라인【kom85】
사이트문의~홈피:anaba.0pe.kr/
??☎:텔레↔mak856 ??☎:카톡↔123w
☎라인【kom85】
#스테로이드판매, #디볼 ,#디볼구입,
#아나바구입방법,#옥산드롤론구입
#메디텍위니 ,#암브로콜구입
#스테로이드구입,#에페드린구입
#이퀴포이즈구입,#클렌부테롤
#아나볼릭스테로이드
#메디텍위니구입,#클렌부테롤구입,
#스타노조롤구입,
#아나볼릭스테로이드구입,#인슐린IGF
#데카듀라볼린구입,#성장호르몬HGH구입
#프로바이론구입,#lg성선구입##성선
#성선구입,#에난,#에난구입,
#이퀴구입,#윈스트롤구입
#케어트로핀,#케어트로핀구입
#유트로핀플러스구입
Usually inflammation is the body’s natural reaction to infection or bacteria. Your immune system produces extra fluid to fight infections or bacteria, which causes swelling, redness and heat in the affected area. You might have noticed this if you have had a cut or wound on your skin.
In some conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system produces inflammation in the joints or other parts of the body by mistake, which can cause permanent damage if left untreated. Steroids can be used to reduce this immune reaction.
”
”
아나바판매, 디볼판매,☎:카톡↔123w, 클렌부테롤판매,암브로콜구입
“
*And to keep her immune system strong she followed Dr. Goodhue's advice to abstain from alcohol, get plenty of fresh air and exercise, and consume a nourishing diet, low in salt. Page 144
"Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master.". Page 204
"I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death ... Is the true measure of the Divine within us." . . . "I used to wonder, why did God give children leprosy? Now I believe: God doesn't give anyone leprosy. He gives us, if we choose to use it, the spirit to live with leprosy, and with the imminence of death. Because it is in our own mortality that we are most Divine.". Page 307
**"With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized, I am more than I was an hour ago.". Page 372
**my favorite!
”
”
Alan Brennert
“
So the best defense against porn, for every member of our family, is a full life--the kind of life that technology cannot provide on its own. This is why the most important things we will do to prevent porn from taking over our own lives and our children's lives have nothing to do with sex. A home where wisdom and courage come first; where our central spaces are full of satisfying, demanding opportunities for creativity; where we have regular breaks from technology and opportunities for deep rest and refreshment (where devices "sleep" somewhere other than our bedrooms and where both adults and children experience the satisfactions of learning in thick, embodied ways rather than thin, technological ways); where we've learned to manage boredom and where even our car trips are occasions for deep and meaningful conversation--this is the kind of home that can equip all of us with an immune system strong enough to resist pornography's foolishness.
”
”
Andy Crouch (The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place)
“
Socrates tried to soothe us, true enough. He said there were only two possibilities. Either the soul is immortal or, after death, things would be again as blank as they were before we were born. This is not absolutely comforting either. Anyway it was natural that theology and philosophy should take the deepest interest in this. They owe it to us not to be boring themselves. On this obligation they don’t always make good. However, Kierkegaard was not a bore. I planned to examine his contribution in my master essay. In his view the primacy of the ethical over the esthetic mode was necessary to restore the balance. But enough of that. In myself I could observe the following sources of tedium: 1) The lack of a personal connection with the external world. Earlier I noted that when I was riding through France in a train last spring I looked out of the window and thought that the veil of Maya was wearing thin. And why was this? I wasn’t seeing what was there but only what everyone sees under a common directive. By this is implied that our worldview has used up nature. The rule of this view is that I, a subject, see the phenomena, the world of objects. They, however, are not necessarily in themselves objects as modern rationality defines objects. For in spirit, says Steiner, a man can step out of himself and let things speak to him about themselves, to speak about what has meaning not for him alone but also for them. Thus the sun the moon the stars will speak to nonastronomers in spite of their ignorance of science. In fact it’s high time that this happened. Ignorance of science should not keep one imprisoned in the lowest and weariest sector of being, prohibited from entering into independent relations with the creation as a whole. The educated speak of the disenchanted (a boring) world. But it is not the world, it is my own head that is disenchanted. The world cannot be disenchanted. 2) For me the self-conscious ego is the seat of boredom. This increasing, swelling, domineering, painful self-consciousness is the only rival of the political and social powers that run my life (business, technological-bureaucratic powers, the state). You have a great organized movement of life, and you have the single self, independently conscious, proud of its detachment and its absolute immunity, its stability and its power to remain unaffected by anything whatsoever — by the sufferings of others or by society or by politics or by external chaos. In a way it doesn’t give a damn. It is asked to give a damn, and we often urge it to give a damn but the curse of noncaring lies upon this painfully free consciousness. It is free from attachment to beliefs and to other souls. Cosmologies, ethical systems? It can run through them by the dozens. For to be fully conscious of oneself as an individual is also to be separated from all else. This is Hamlet’s kingdom of infinite space in a nutshell, of “words, words, words,” of “Denmark’s a prison.
”
”
Saul Bellow (Humboldt's Gift)
“
Whether we can somehow listen in on tree talk is a subject that was recently addressed in the specialized literature. Korean scientists have been tracking older women as they walk through forests and urban areas. The result? When the women were walking in the forest, their blood pressure, their lung capacity, and the elasticity of their arteries improved, whereas an excursion into town showed none of these changes. It's possible that phytoncides have a beneficial effect on our immune systems as well as the trees' health, because they kill germs. Personally, however, I think the swirling cocktail of tree talk is the reason we enjoy being out in the forest so much. At least when we are out in undisturbed forests.
Walkers who visit one of the ancient deciduous preserves in the forest I manage always report that their heart feels lighter and they feel right at home. If they walk instead through coniferous forests, which in Central Europe are mostly planted and are, therefore, more fragile, artificial places, they don't experience such feelings. Possibly it's because in ancient beech forests, fewer "alarm calls" go out, and therefore, most messages exchanged between trees are contented ones, and these messages reach our brains as well, via our noses. I am convinced that we intuitively register the forest's health.
”
”
Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World)
“
...only very few - only humans, as far as we know - achieve the second level of transcendent movement. Through this, the environment is de-restricted to become the world as an integral whole of manifest and latent elements. The second step is the work of language. This not only builds the 'house of being' - Heidegger took this phrase from Zarathustra's animals, which inform the convalescent: 'the house of being rebuilds itself eternally'; it is also the vehicle for the tendencies to run away from that house with which, by means of its inner surpluses, humans move towards the open. It need hardly be explained why the oldest parasite in the world, the world above, only appears with the second transcendence.
”
”
Peter Sloterdijk (Du mußt dein Leben ändern)
“
A healthy, civilized society can absorb some anger and dysfunction, as a healthy immune system can absorb some disease. But a massive buildup of anger and mean-spiritedness bombarding our social system day in and day out in millions upon millions of individual doses overwhelms our societal defenses. Medicine does little good in the absence of a healthy immune system. Likewise police and other institutional efforts to counter violence do little good, ultimately, in the absence of our individual efforts to deal with it. Violence is routed out of the world only by being routed out of our minds. Hatred is diseased thinking. Just as a cancer cell was a healthy cell that then transformed, so is hatred, love gone wrong.
”
”
Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
“
Despite the intervening six decades of scientific inquiry since Selye’s groundbreaking work, the physiological impact of the emotions is still far from fully appreciated. The medical approach to health and illness continues to suppose that body and mind are separable from each other and from the milieu in which they exist. Compounding that mistake is a definition of stress that is narrow and simplistic. Medical thinking usually sees stress as highly disturbing but isolated events such as, for example, sudden unemployment, a marriage breakup or the death of a loved one. These major events are potent sources of stress for many, but there are chronic daily stresses in people’s lives that are more insidious and more harmful in their long-term biological consequences. Internally generated stresses take their toll without in any way seeming out of the ordinary. For those habituated to high levels of internal stress since early childhood, it is the absence of stress that creates unease, evoking boredom and a sense of meaninglessness. People may become addicted to their own stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, Hans Selye observed.
To such persons stress feels desirable, while the absence of it
feels like something to be avoided. When people describe themselves as being stressed, they usually mean the nervous agitation they experience under excessive demands — most commonly in the areas of work, family, relationships, finances or health. But sensations of nervous tension do not define stress — nor, strictly speaking, are they always perceived when people are stressed. Stress, as we will define it, is not a matter of subjective feeling. It is a measurable set of objective physiological events in the body, involving the brain, the hormonal apparatus, the immune system and many other organs.
Both animals and people can experience stress with no awareness of its presence. “Stress is not simply nervous tension,” Selye pointed out. “Stress reactions do occur in lower animals, and even in plants, that have no nervous systems…. Indeed, stress can be produced under deep anaesthesia in patients who are unconscious, and even in cell cultures grown outside the body.” Similarly, stress effects can be highly active in persons who are fully awake, but who are in the grip of unconscious emotions or cut off from their body responses. The physiology of stress may be triggered without observable effects on behaviour and without subjective awareness, as has been shown in animal experiments and in human studies.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
The Lutz heck that emerges from his writings and actions drifted like a weather vane: charming when need be, cold-blooded when need be, tigerish or endearing, depending on his goal. Still, it is surprising that Heck the zoologist chose to ignore the accepted theory of hybrid vigor: that interbreeding strengthens a bloodline. He must have known that mongrels enjoy better immune systems and have more tricks up their genetic sleeves, while in a closely knit species, however "perfect," any illness that kills one animal threatens to wipe out all the others, which is why zoos keep careful studbooks of endangered animals such as cheetahs and forest bison and try to mate them advantageously. In any case, in the distant past, long before anyone was recognizably Aryan, our ancestors shared the world with other flavors of hominids, and interbreeding among neighbors often took place, producing hardier, nastier offspring who thrived. All present-day humans descend from that robust, talkative mix, specifically from a genetic bottleneck of only about one hundred individuals. A 2006 study of mitochondrial DNA tracks Ashkenazi Jews (about 92 percent of the world’s Jews in 1931) back to four women, who migrated from the Near East to Italy in the second and third centuries. All of humanity can be traced back to the gene pool of one person, some say to a man, some a woman. It’s hard to imagine our fate being as iffy as that, be we are natural wonders.
”
”
Diane Ackerman (The Zookeeper's Wife)
“
Influenza is caused by three types of viruses, of which the most worrisome and widespread is influenza A. Viruses of that type all share certain genetic traits: a single-stranded RNA genome, which is partitioned into eight segments, which serve as templates for eleven different proteins. In other words, they have eight discrete stretches of RNA coding, linked together like eight railroad cars, with eleven different deliverable cargoes. The eleven deliverables are the molecules that comprise the structure and functional machinery of the virus. They are what the genes make. Two of those molecules become spiky protuberances from the outer surface of the viral envelope: hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. Those two, recognizable by an immune system, and crucial for penetrating and exiting cells of a host, give the various subtypes of influenza A their definitive labels: H5N1, H1N1, and so on. The term “H5N1” indicates a virus featuring subtype 5 of the hemagglutinin protein combined with subtype 1 of the neuraminidase protein. Sixteen different kinds of hemagglutinin, plus nine kinds of neuraminidase, have been detected in the natural world. Hemagglutinin is the key that unlocks a cell membrane so that the virus can get in, and neuraminidase is the key for getting back out. Okay so far? Having absorbed this simple paragraph, you understand more about influenza than 99.9 percent of the people on Earth. Pat yourself on the back and get a flu shot in November. At
”
”
David Quammen (Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic)
“
Healing Foods When you’re looking to boost the immune system and support the reproductive system, the best foods to concentrate on are wild blueberries, sesame tahini, avocados, black beans, asparagus, apples, spinach, black grapes, and cucumbers. They’ll help by variously providing antioxidants, preventing hot flashes, providing critical nutrients to fortify vital organs, reducing inflammation, and keeping hormone levels balanced. Herbs and Supplements to Address General Symptoms Silver hydrosol: kills viruses, bacteria, and other microbes on contact and supports the immune system. Zinc: kills viruses, boosts the immune system, and helps protect the endocrine system. Licorice root: aids the adrenal glands and helps balance the body’s levels of cortisol and cortisone. L-lysine: impairs the ability of virus cells to move and reproduce. Vitamin B12 (as methylcobalamin and/or adenosylcobalamin): strengthens the central nervous system. Nascent iodine: stabilizes and strengthens the thyroid and the rest of the endocrine system. Ashwagandha: fortifies the adrenal glands and helps balance the production of cortisol.
”
”
Anthony William (Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal)
“
including salutary effects on the following: • major depression • drug addiction • binge eating • smoking cessation • stress among cancer patients • loneliness among senior citizens • ADHD • asthma • psoriasis • irritable bowel syndrome Studies also indicated that meditation reduced levels of stress hormones, boosted the immune system, made office workers more focused, and improved test scores on the GRE. Apparently mindfulness did everything short of making you able to talk to animals and bend spoons with your mind. This research boom got its start with a Jew-Bu named Jon Kabat-Zinn, a Manhattan-raised, MIT-trained microbiologist who claimed to have had an elaborate epiphany—a “vision,” he called it—while on a retreat in 1979. The substance of the vision was that he could bring meditation to a much broader audience by stripping it of Buddhist metaphysics. Kabat-Zinn designed something called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), an eight-week course that taught secularized meditation to tens of thousands of people around America and the world. Having a simple, replicable meditation protocol made it easy to test the effects on patients.
”
”
Dan Harris (10% Happier)
“
While we cannot say that any personality type causes cancer, certain personality features definitely increase the risk because they are more likely to generate physiological stress. Repression, the inability to say no and a lack of awareness of one’s anger make it much more likely that a person will find herself in situations where her emotions are unexpressed, her needs are ignored and her gentleness is exploited. Those situations are stress inducing, whether or not the person is conscious of being stressed. Repeated and multiplied over the years, they have the potential of harming homeostasis and the immune system. It is stress — not personality per se — that undermines a body’s physiological balance and immune defences, predisposing to disease or reducing the resistance to it.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
The first time I met Fran, I saw her for only a second outside the department while she was talking to some friends, but I was riveted. There was just something about her. I got up my nerve and introduced myself. She was friendly and smiled. Nothing else happened, but I went home, and Fran was all I could think about. “She agreed to go out with me, and things just unfolded from there. Without warning I had become a fool in love. I died inside if she had a change of plans and couldn’t see me. I kicked myself every day to make sure it was true—I’d fallen in love with the most beautiful woman in the world.” Despite the undoubted experience of falling in love at first sight, and abundant evidence that love creates powerful physiological changes, the whole phenomenon remains mysterious.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (The Healing Self: Supercharge your immune system and stay well for life)
“
If you want to predict how happy someone is, or how long she will live (and if you are not allowed to ask about her genes or personality), you should find out about her social relationships. Having strong social relationships strengthens the immune system, extends life (more than does quitting smoking), speeds recovery from surgery, and reduces the risks of depression and anxiety disorders. It’s not just that extroverts are naturally happier and healthier; when introverts are forced to be more outgoing, they usually enjoy it and find that it boosts their mood. Even people who think they don’t want a lot of social contact still benefit from it. And it’s not just that “we all need somebody to lean on”; recent work on giving support shows that caring for others is often more beneficial than is receiving help. We need to interact and intertwine with others; we need the give and the take; we need to belong. An ideology of extreme personal freedom can be dangerous because it encourages people to leave homes, jobs, cities, and marriages in search of personal and professional fulfillment, thereby breaking the relationships that were probably their best hope for such fulfillment.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom)
“
Some people have more highly activated left prefrontal cortexes and some people have more highly activated right prefrontal cortexes. (This has nothing to do with the question of hemispheric dominance that determines whether you are right-handed or left-handed, which occurs in other areas of the brain.) The majority of people have higher left-side activation. People with higher right-side activation tend to experience more negative emotion than people with higher left-side activation. Right-side activation also predicts how easily someone’s immune system will become depressed. The right-brain activation is also correlated with high baseline levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Though the settled patterns of activation do not stabilize until adulthood, babies with greater right-side activation will become frantic when their mothers leave a room; babies with strong left-side activation will be more likely to explore the room without apparent distress. In babies, however, the balance is subject to change. “The likelihood,” Davidson says, “is that there’s more plasticity in the system in the early years of life, more opportunity for the environment to sculpt this circuitry.
”
”
Andrew Solomon (The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression)
“
The three conditions without which healthy growth does not take place can be taken for granted in the matrix of the womb: nutrition, a physically secure environment and the unbroken relationship with a safe, ever-present maternal organism. The word matrix is derived from the Latin for “womb,” itself derived from the word for “mother.” The womb is mother, and in many respects the mother remains the womb, even following birth. In the womb environment, no action or reaction on the developing infant’s part is required for the provision of any of his needs.
Life in the womb is surely the prototype of life in the Garden of Eden where nothing can possibly be lacking, nothing has to be worked for. If there is no consciousness — we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Knowledge — there is also no deprivation or anxiety. Except in conditions of extreme poverty unusual in the industrialized world, although not unknown, the nutritional needs and shelter requirements of infants are more or less satisfied. The third prime requirement, a secure, safe and not overly stressed emotional atmosphere, is the one most likely to be disrupted in Western societies.
The human infant lacks the capacity to follow or cling to the parent soon after being born, and is neurologically and biochemically underdeveloped in many other ways. The first nine months or so of extrauterine life seem to have been intended by nature as the second part of gestation. The anthropologist Ashley Montagu has called this phase exterogestation, gestation outside the maternal body. During this period, the security of the womb must be provided by the parenting environment. To allow for the maturation of the brain and nervous system that in other species occurs in the uterus, the attachment that was until birth directly physical now needs to be continued on both physical and emotional levels. Physically and psychologically, the parenting environment must contain and hold the infant as securely as she was held in the womb.
For the second nine months of gestation, nature does provide a near-substitute for the direct umbilical connection: breast-feeding. Apart from its irreplaceable nutritional value and the immune protection it gives the infant, breast-feeding serves as a transitional stage from unbroken physical attachment to complete separation from the mother’s body. Now outside the matrix of the womb, the infant is nevertheless held close to the warmth of the maternal body from which nourishment continues to flow.
Breast-feeding also deepens the mother’s feeling of connectedness to the baby, enhancing the emotionally symbiotic bonding relationship. No doubt the decline of breast-feeding, particularly accelerated in North America, has contributed to the emotional insecurities so prevalent in industrialized countries. Even more than breast-feeding, healthy brain development requires emotional security and warmth in the infant’s environment. This security is more than the love and best possible intentions of the parents. It depends also on a less controllable variable: their freedom from stresses that can undermine their psychological equilibrium. A calm and consistent emotional milieu throughout infancy is an essential requirement for the wiring of the neurophysiological circuits of self-regulation. When interfered with, as it often is in our society, brain development is adversely affected.
”
”
Gabor Maté (Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It)
“
Consumption is a universal phenomenon. All humans consume varieties of products, many of which beyond actual necessity, because it activates the brain's reward center. And the more a certain product activates the reward center with its unique characteristics or its predominant social stature, the more that product gets chiseled into the long-term memory of the consumer, making it a fundamental part of the individual's psychological well being. Thus the human mind grows a deep psychological bond with a product. And this bond can grow so strong in time that it would defend itself from all sorts of criticisms. It is the brain's way to maintain its internal purely individualistic well being. Hence, a strong psychological bond between the mind and a product slowly not only becomes invincible to criticisms, but also, develops its own cognitive immune system against such criticisms.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
Honest concern for others is the key factor in improving our day-to-day lives. When you are warm-hearted, there is no room for anger, jealousy, or insecurity. A calm mind and self-confidence are the basis for happy and peaceful relations with each other. Healthy, happy families and a healthy, peaceful nation are dependent on warm-heartedness. Some scientists have observed that constant anger and fear eat away at our immune system, whereas a calm mind strengthens it. We have to see how we can fundamentally change our education system so that we can train people to develop warm-heartedness early on in order to create a healthier society. I don't mean we need to change the whole system—just improve it. We need to encourage an understanding that inner peace comes from relying on human values like love, compassion, tolerance, and honesty, and that peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace. —HIS HOLINESS, THE DALAI LAMA
”
”
Debra Landwehr Engle (The Only Little Prayer You Need: The Shortest Route to a Life of Joy, Abundance, and Peace of Mind)
“
Another way is via genetic engineering. Here the germ is inserted into plasmid that has been manipulated by scientists. This type of plasmid is circular segments of DNA extracted from bacteria to serve as a vector. Scientists can add multiple genes and whatever genes they want into this plasmid. In case of vaccines, this includes a genetic piece of the vaccine germ and normally a gene for antibiotic resistance. This means that when the toxic gene is cultured inside the yeast, it has been designed with a new genetic code that makes it resistant to the antibiotic it’s coded for. The gene-plasmid combo is inserted into a yeast cell to be replicated. When the yeast replicates, the DNA from the plasmid is reproduced as a part of the yeast DNA. Once enough cells have been replicated, the genetic material in the new and improved yeast cell is extracted and put into the vaccine. Examples of this vaccine are the acellular pertussis and hepatitis B vaccines. One thing that doesn’t seem to concern scientists is the fact that the manmade genetic combination becomes the vaccine component. This mixture of intended and unintended genetic information may cause our immune system to overreact. This can be especially complicated for a child with compromised immune system. Another concern is that this new genetic code can become integrated with our own genetic material. Yeast, for instance, is very much like human DNA. It shares about one third of our proteins.
”
”
James Morcan (Vaccine Science Revisited: Are Childhood Immunizations As Safe As Claimed? (The Underground Knowledge Series, #8))
“
Hugging is healthy. It helps the immune system, cures depression, reduces stress and induces sleep. It’s invigorating, rejuvenating and has no unpleasant side effects. Hugging is nothing less than a miracle drug. Hugging is all natural. It is organic, naturally sweet, no artificial ingredients, nonpolluting, environmentally friendly and 100 percent wholesome. Hugging is the ideal gift. Great for any occasion, fun to give and receive, shows you care, comes with its own wrapping and, of course, fully returnable. Hugging is practically perfect. No batteries to wear out, inflation-proof, nonfattening, no monthly payments, theft-proof and nontaxable. Hugging is an underutilized resource with magical powers. When we open our hearts and arms, we encourage others to do the same. Think of the people in your life. Are there any words you’d like to say? Are there any hugs you want to share? Are you waiting and hoping someone else will ask first? Please don’t wait! Initiate!
”
”
Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul: All Your Favorite Original Stories Plus 20 Bonus Stories for the Next 20 Years)
“
You were burning in the middle of the worst solar storm our records can remember. (...) Everyone else fled. All your companions and crew left you alone to wrestle with the storm.
“You did not blame them. In a moment of crystal insight, you realized that they were cowards beyond mere cowardice: their dependence on their immortality circuits had made it so that they could not even imagine risking their lives. They were all alike in this respect. They did not know they were not brave; they could not even think of dying as possible; how could they think of facing it, unflinching?
“You did not flinch. You knew you were going to die; you knew it when the Sophotechs, who are immune to pain and fear, all screamed and failed and vanished.
“And you knew, in that moment of approaching death, with all your life laid out like a single image for you to examine in a frozen moment of time, that no one was immortal, not ultimately, not really. The day may be far away, it may be further away than the dying of the sun, or the extinction of the stars, but the day will come when all our noumenal systems fail, our brilliant machines all pass away, and our records of ourselves and memories shall be lost.
“If all life is finite, only the grace and virtue with which it is lived matters, not the length. So you decided to stay another moment, and erect magnetic shields, one by one; to discharge interruption masses into the current, to break up the reinforcement patterns in the storm. Not life but honor mattered to you, Helion: so you stayed a moment after that moment, and then another. (...)
“You saw the plasma erupting through shield after shield (...) Chaos was attempting to destroy your life’s work, and major sections of the Solar Array were evaporated. Chaos was attempting to destroy your son’s lifework, and since he was aboard that ship, outside the range of any noumenal circuit, it would have destroyed your son as well.
“The Array was safe, but you stayed another moment, to try to deflect the stream of particles and shield your son; circuit after circuit failed, and still you stayed, playing the emergency like a raging orchestra.
“When the peak of the storm was passed, it was too late for you: you had stayed too long; the flames were coming. But the radio-static cleared long enough for you to have last words with your son, whom you discovered, to your surprise, you loved better than life itself. In your mind, he was the living image of the best thing in you, the ideal you always wanted to achieve.
“ ‘Chaos has killed me, son,’ you said. ‘But the victory of unpredictability is hollow. Men imagine, in their pride, that they can predict life’s each event, and govern nature and govern each other with rules of unyielding iron. Not so. There will always be men like you, my son, who will do the things no one else predicts or can control. I tried to tame the sun and failed; no one knows what is at its fiery heart; but you will tame a thousand suns, and spread mankind so wide in space that no one single chance, no flux of chaos, no unexpected misfortune, will ever have power enough to harm us all. For men to be civilized, they must be unlike each other, so that when chaos comes to claim them, no two will use what strategy the other does, and thus, even in the middle of blind chaos, some men, by sheer blind chance, if nothing else, will conquer.
“ ‘The way to conquer the chaos which underlies all the illusionary stable things in life, is to be so free, and tolerant, and so much in love with liberty, that chaos itself becomes our ally; we shall become what no one can foresee; and courage and inventiveness will be the names we call our fearless unpredictability…’
“And you vowed to support Phaethon’s effort, and you died in order that his dream might live.
”
”
John C. Wright (The Golden Transcendence (Golden Age, #3))
“
Ionizing radiation takes three principal forms: alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays. Alpha particles are relatively large, heavy, and slow moving and cannot penetrate the skin; even a sheet of paper could block their path. But if they do manage to find their way inside the body by other means—if swallowed or inhaled—alpha particles can cause massive chromosomal damage and death. Radon 222, which gathers as a gas in unventilated basements, releases alpha particles into the lungs, where it causes cancer. Polonium 210, a powerful alpha emitter, is one of the carcinogens in cigarette smoke. It was also the poison slipped into the cup of tea that killed former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. Beta particles are smaller and faster moving than alpha particles and can penetrate more deeply into living tissue, causing visible burns on the skin and lasting genetic damage. A piece of paper won’t provide protection from beta particles, but aluminum foil—or separation by sufficient distance—will. Beyond a range of ten feet, beta particles can cause little damage, but they prove dangerous if ingested in any way. Mistaken by the body for essential elements, beta-emitting radioisotopes can become fatally concentrated in specific organs: strontium 90, a member of the same chemical family as calcium, is retained in the bones; ruthenium is absorbed by the intestine; iodine 131 lodges particularly in the thyroid of children, where it can cause cancer. Gamma rays—high-frequency electromagnetic waves traveling at the speed of light—are the most energetic of all. They can traverse large distances, penetrate anything short of thick pieces of concrete or lead, and destroy electronics. Gamma rays pass straight through a human being without slowing down, smashing through cells like a fusillade of microscopic bullets. Severe exposure to all ionizing radiation results in acute radiation syndrome (ARS), in which the fabric of the human body is unpicked, rearranged, and destroyed at the most minute levels. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, hemorrhaging, and hair loss, followed by a collapse of the immune system, exhaustion of bone marrow, disintegration of internal organs, and, finally, death.
”
”
Adam Higginbotham (Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster)
“
Self-Management If you can read just one book on motivation—yours and others: Dan Pink, Drive If you can read just one book on building new habits: Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit If you can read just one book on harnessing neuroscience for personal change: Dan Siegel, Mindsight If you can read just one book on deep personal change: Lisa Lahey and Bob Kegan, Immunity to Change If you can read just one book on resilience: Seth Godin, The Dip Organizational Change If you can read just one book on how organizational change really works: Chip and Dan Heath, Switch If you can read just two books on understanding that change is a complex system: Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations Dan Pontefract, Flat Army Hear interviews with FREDERIC LALOUX, DAN PONTEFRACT, and JERRY STERNIN at the Great Work Podcast. If you can read just one book on using structure to change behaviours: Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto If you can read just one book on how to amplify the good: Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin, The Power of Positive Deviance If you can read just one book on increasing your impact within organizations: Peter Block, Flawless Consulting Other Cool Stuff If you can read just one book on being strategic: Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley, Playing to Win If you can read just one book on scaling up your impact: Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao, Scaling Up Excellence If you can read just one book on being more helpful: Edgar Schein, Helping Hear interviews with ROGER MARTIN, BOB SUTTON, and WARREN BERGER at the Great Work Podcast. If you can read just two books on the great questions: Warren Berger, A More Beautiful Question Dorothy Strachan, Making Questions Work If you can read just one book on creating learning that sticks: Peter Brown, Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel, Make It Stick If you can read just one book on why you should appreciate and marvel at every day, every moment: Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything If you can read just one book that saves lives while increasing impact: Michael Bungay Stanier, ed., End Malaria (All money goes to Malaria No More; about $400,000 has been raised so far.) IF THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS, THEN WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS DO STUPID PEOPLE ASK?
”
”
Michael Bungay Stanier (The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever)
“
It is interesting to note that in nearly all the economics courses it is taught that the income tax is the proper instrument for the regulation of the country’s economy; that private property is not an inalienable right (in fact, there are no inalienable rights); that the economic ills of the country are traceable to the remnants of free enterprise; that the economy of the nation can be sound only when the government manages prices, controls wages, and regulates operations. This was not taught in the colleges before 1913. Is there a relationship between the results of the income tax and the thinking of the professors? There is now a strong movement in this country to bring the publicschool system under federal domination. The movement could not have been thought of before the government had the means for carrying out the idea; that is, before income taxation. The question is, have those who plug for nationalization of the schools come to the idea by independent thought, or have they been influenced by the bureaucrats who see in nationalization a wider opportunity for themselves? We must lean to the latter conclusion, because among the leaders of the movement are many bureaucrats. However, if the movement is successful, if the schools are brought under the watching eye of the federal government, it is a certainty that the curriculum will conform to the ideals of Big Government. The child’s mind will never be exposed to the idea that the individual is the one big thing in the world, that he has rights which come from a higher source than the bureaucracy. Thus, the immunities of property, body and mind have been undermined by the Sixteenth Amendment. The freedoms won by Americans in 1776 were lost in the revolution of 1913.
”
”
Frank Chodorov (The Income Tax: Root of All Evil)
“
How long will the Gilgamesh Project – the quest for immortality – take to complete? A hundred years? Five hundred years? A thousand years? When we recall how little we knew about the human body in 1900, and how much knowledge we have gained in a single century, there is cause for optimism. Genetic engineers have recently managed to double the average life expectancy of Caenorhabditis elegans worms.12 Could they do the same for Homo sapiens? Nanotechnology experts are developing a bionic immune system composed of millions of nano-robots, who would inhabit our bodies, open blocked blood vessels, fight viruses and bacteria, eliminate cancerous cells and even reverse ageing processes.13 A few serious scholars suggest that by 2050, some humans will become a-mortal (not immortal, because they could still die of some accident, but a-mortal, meaning that in the absence of fatal trauma their lives could be extended indefinitely). Whether or not Project Gilgamesh succeeds, from a historical perspective it is fascinating to see that most late-modern religions and ideologies have already taken death and the afterlife out of the equation. Until the eighteenth century, religions considered death and its aftermath central to the meaning of life. Beginning in the eighteenth century, religions and ideologies such as liberalism, socialism and feminism lost all interest in the afterlife. What, exactly, happens to a Communist after he or she dies? What happens to a capitalist? What happens to a feminist? It is pointless to look for the answer in the writings of Marx, Adam Smith or Simone de Beauvoir. The only modern ideology that still awards death a central role is nationalism. In its more poetic and desperate moments, nationalism promises that whoever dies for the nation will for ever live in its collective memory. Yet this promise is so fuzzy that even most nationalists do not really know what to make of it. The
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
respiratory system encompasses the nose, throat, and lungs. Some of the oils that help the respiratory system include eucalyptus, myrrh, fennel, sandalwood, thyme, cypress, bergamot, and sage. · The digestive system is responsible for breaking down food and includes the stomach, liver, intestines, and gallbladder. Oils used for this include dandelion, marshmallow, meadow sweet, and chamomile. · The circulatory system is responsible for transporting blood and oxygen throughout the body. Oils used for this include lemon, lavender, peppermint, fennel, thyme, juniper, and white birch. · The endocrine system includes the thyroid glands, the pancreas, and the hormone glands. Essential oils used are sweet marjoram, clary sage, fennel, jasmine, rose, lemon, and juniper. · The immune system is responsible for fighting against diseases including everything from a cold to malaria. · The nervous system transmits nerve impulses throughout the body. These cells are vitally important to the function of the human body. Oils used for the nervous system include clove, basil, ylang ylang, lavender, chamomile, bergamot, and sweet marjoram. · The brain is responsible for the functions of almost every organ system throughout the body. The essential oils used for the brain include lavender, chamomile, basil, lemon, peppermint, and ginger.
”
”
ARAV Books (Essential Oil Magic For Quick Healing: 50+ Beginners Recipes,The Best reference a-z guide and Aromatherapy Books on Healing, for Stress Free Young Living, Boosting Energy,(Therapeutic essential oils))
“
The experience of stress has three components. The first is the event, physical or emotional, that the organism interprets as threatening. This is the stress stimulus, also called the stressor. The second element is the processing system that experiences and interprets the meaning of the stressor. In the case of human beings, this processing system is the nervous system, in particular the brain. The final constituent is the stress response, which consists of the various physiological and behavioural adjustments made as a reaction to a perceived threat.
We see immediately that the definition of a stressor depends on the processing system that assigns meaning to it. The shock of an earthquake is a direct threat to many organisms, though not to a bacterium. The loss of a job is more acutely stressful to a salaried employee whose family lives month to month than to an executive who receives a golden handshake. Equally important is the personality and current psychological state of the individual on whom the stressor is acting. The executive whose financial security is assured when he is terminated may still experience severe stress if his self-esteem and sense of purpose were completely bound up with his position in the company, compared with a colleague who finds greater value in family, social interests or spiritual pursuits. The loss of employment will be perceived as a major threat by the one, while the other may see it as an opportunity.
There is no uniform and universal relationship between a stressor and the stress response. Each stress event is singular and is experienced in the present, but it also has its resonance from the past. The intensity of the stress experience and its long-term consequences depend on many factors unique to each individual. What defines stress for each of us is a matter of personal disposition and, even more, of personal history. Selye discovered that the biology of stress predominantly affected three types of tissues or organs in the body: in the hormonal system, visible changes occurred in the adrenal glands; in the immune system, stress affected the spleen, the thymus and the lymph glands; and the intestinal lining of the digestive system. Rats autopsied after stress had enlarged adrenals, shrunken lymph organs and ulcerated intestines.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
Try to eat at least three of these foods per day—the more the better—rotating your consumption so that in a given week or two, you get all of these foods into your system. Wild blueberries: help restore the central nervous system and flush EBV neurotoxins out of the liver. Celery: strengthens hydrochloric acid in the gut and provides mineral salts to the central nervous system. Sprouts: high in zinc and selenium to strengthen the immune system against EBV. Asparagus: cleanses the liver and spleen; strengthens the pancreas. Spinach: creates an alkaline environment in the body and provides highly absorbable micronutrients to the nervous system. Cilantro: removes heavy metals such as mercury and lead, which are favored foods of EBV. Parsley: removes high levels of copper and aluminum, which feed EBV. Coconut oil: antiviral and acts as an anti-inflammatory. Garlic: antiviral and antibacterial that defends against EBV. Ginger: helps with nutrient assimilation and relieves spasms associated with EBV. Raspberries: rich in antioxidants to remove free radicals from the organs and bloodstream. Lettuce: stimulates peristaltic action in the intestinal tract and helps cleanse EBV from the liver. Papayas: restore the central nervous system; strengthen and rebuild hydrochloric acid in the gut. Apricots: immune system rebuilders that also strengthen the blood. Pomegranates: help detox and cleanse the blood as well as the lymphatic system. Grapefruit: rich source of bioflavonoids and calcium to support the immune system and flush toxins out of the body. Kale: high in specific alkaloids that protect against viruses such as EBV. Sweet potatoes: help cleanse and detox the liver from EBV byproducts and toxins. Cucumbers: strengthen the adrenals and kidneys and flush neurotoxins out of the bloodstream. Fennel: contains strong antiviral compounds to fight off EBV. Healing Herbs and Supplements
”
”
Anthony William (Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal)
“
With time, the ‘wheat bargain’ became more and more burdensome. Children died in droves, and adults ate bread by the sweat of their brows. The average person in Jericho of 8500 BC lived a harder life than the average person in Jericho of 9500 BC or 13,000 BC. But nobody realised what was happening. Every generation continued to live like the previous generation, making only small improvements here and there in the way things were done. Paradoxically, a series of ‘improvements’, each of which was meant to make life easier, added up to a millstone around the necks of these farmers. Why did people make such a fateful miscalculation? For the same reason that people throughout history have miscalculated. People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions. Whenever they decided to do a bit of extra work – say, to hoe the fields instead of scattering seeds on the surface – people thought, ‘Yes, we will have to work harder. But the harvest will be so bountiful! We won’t have to worry any more about lean years. Our children will never go to sleep hungry.’ It made sense. If you worked harder, you would have a better life. That was the plan. The first part of the plan went smoothly. People indeed worked harder. But people did not foresee that the number of children would increase, meaning that the extra wheat would have to be shared between more children. Neither did the early farmers understand that feeding children with more porridge and less breast milk would weaken their immune system, and that permanent settlements would be hotbeds for infectious diseases. They did not foresee that by increasing their dependence on a single source of food, they were actually exposing themselves even more to the depredations of drought. Nor did the farmers foresee that in good years their bulging granaries would tempt thieves and enemies, compelling them to start building walls and doing guard duty.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
Like stress, emotion is a concept we often invoke without a precise sense of its meaning. And, like stress, emotions have several components. The psychologist Ross Buck distinguishes between three levels of emotional responses, which he calls Emotion I, Emotion II and Emotion III, classified according to the degree we are conscious of them. Emotion III is the subjective experience, from within oneself. It is how we feel. In the experience of Emotion III there is conscious awareness of an emotional state, such as anger or joy or fear, and its accompanying bodily sensations. Emotion II comprises our emotional displays as seen by others, with or without our awareness. It is signalled through body language — “non-verbal signals, mannerisms, tones of voices, gestures, facial expressions, brief touches, and even the timing of events and pauses between words. [They] may have physiologic consequences — often outside the awareness of the participants.”
It is quite common for a person to be oblivious to the emotions he is communicating, even though they are clearly read by those around him. Our expressions of Emotion II are what most affect other people, regardless of our intentions. A child’s displays of Emotion II are also what parents are least able to tolerate if the feelings being manifested trigger too much anxiety in them. As Dr. Buck points out, a child whose parents punish or inhibit this acting-out of emotion will be conditioned to respond to similar emotions in the future by repression. The self-shutdown serves to prevent shame and rejection. Under such conditions, Buck writes, “emotional competence will be compromised…. The individual will not in the future know how to effectively handle the feelings and desires involved. The result would be a kind of helplessness.” The stress literature amply documents that helplessness, real or perceived, is a potent trigger for biological stress responses. Learned helplessness is a psychological state in which subjects do not extricate themselves from stressful situations even when they have the physical opportunity to do so. People often find themselves in situations of learned helplessness — for example, someone who feels stuck in a dysfunctional or even abusive relationship, in a stressful job or in a lifestyle that robs him or her of true freedom.
Emotion I comprises the physiological changes triggered by emotional stimuli, such as the nervous system discharges, hormonal output and immune changes that make up the flight-or-fight reaction in response to threat. These responses are not under conscious control, and they cannot be directly observed from the outside. They just happen. They may occur in the absence of subjective awareness or of emotional expression. Adaptive in the acute threat situation, these same stress responses are harmful when they are triggered chronically without the individual’s being able to act in any way to defeat the perceived threat or to avoid it. Self-regulation, writes Ross Buck, “involves in part the attainment of emotional competence, which is defined as the ability to deal in an appropriate and satisfactory way with one’s own feelings and desires.” Emotional competence presupposes capacities often lacking in our society, where “cool” — the absence of emotion — is the prevailing ethic, where “don’t be so emotional” and “don’t be so sensitive” are what children often hear, and where rationality is generally considered to be the preferred antithesis of emotionality. The idealized cultural symbol of rationality is Mr. Spock, the emotionally crippled Vulcan character on Star Trek.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
It may seem paradoxical to claim that stress, a physiological mechanism vital to life, is a cause of illness. To resolve this apparent contradiction, we must differentiate between acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress is the immediate, short-term body response to threat. Chronic stress is activation of the stress mechanisms over long periods of time when a person is exposed to stressors that cannot be escaped either because she does not recognize them or because she has no control over them. Discharges of nervous system, hormonal output and immune changes constitute the flight-or-fight reactions that help us survive immediate danger. These biological responses are adaptive in the emergencies for which nature designed them. But the same stress responses, triggered chronically and without resolution, produce harm and even permanent damage. Chronically high cortisol levels destroy tissue. Chronically elevated adrenalin levels raise the blood pressure and damage the heart. There is extensive documentation of the inhibiting effect of chronic stress on the immune system.
In one study, the activity of immune cells called natural killer (NK) cells were compared in two groups: spousal caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and age- and health-matched controls. NK cells are front-line troops in the fight against infections and against cancer, having the capacity to attack invading micro-organisms and to destroy cells with malignant mutations. The NK cell functioning of the caregivers was significantly suppressed, even in those whose spouses had died as long as three years previously. The caregivers who reported lower levels of social support also showed the greatest depression in immune activity — just as the loneliest medical students had the most impaired immune systems under the stress of examinations. Another study of caregivers assessed the efficacy of immunization against influenza. In this study 80 per cent among the non-stressed control group developed immunity against the virus, but only 20 per cent of the Alzheimer caregivers were able to do so. The stress of unremitting caregiving inhibited the immune system and left people susceptible to influenza. Research has also shown stress-related delays in tissue repair.
The wounds of Alzheimer caregivers took an average of nine days longer to heal than those of controls. Higher levels of stress cause higher cortisol output via the HPA axis, and cortisol inhibits the activity of the inflammatory cells involved in wound healing. Dental students had a wound deliberately inflicted on their hard palates while they were facing immunology exams and again during vacation. In all of them the wound healed more quickly in the summer. Under stress, their white blood cells produced less of a substance essential to healing. The oft-observed relationship between stress, impaired immunity and illness has given rise to the concept of “diseases of adaptation,” a phrase of Hans Selye’s. The flight-or-fight response, it is argued, was indispensable in an era when early human beings had to confront a natural world of predators and other dangers. In civilized society, however, the flight-fight reaction is triggered in situations where it is neither necessary nor helpful, since we no longer face the same mortal threats to existence. The body’s physiological stress mechanisms are often triggered inappropriately, leading to disease.
There is another way to look at it. The flight-or-fight alarm reaction exists today for the same purpose evolution originally assigned to it: to enable us to survive. What has happened is that we have lost touch with the gut feelings designed to be our warning system. The body mounts a stress response, but the mind is unaware of the threat. We keep ourselves in physiologically stressful situations, with only a dim awareness of distress or no awareness at all.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)