Worry, Sleep Loss, and Health

Have you ever been really emotionally involved in a situation? Perhaps your loved one was ill and in danger of dying. Maybe you had just lost your job and had no idea how you were going to pay all the bills piling up. Or perhaps somebody you knew had just made a horrible decision and you knew the outcome wasn't going to be good. Whatever was the cause, you were very worried.

And when night came, then your worry kept you awake. You could not fall asleep. You might try warm milk, counting sheep or whatever, but it doesn't work. You are still worried and still wide awake. And growing more tired by the hour.

You know you have to get up tomorrow, and your inability to fall asleep is really starting to worry you. Its really ironic: you are starting to worry about being worried. How many of us have spiraled in on this situation.

I suppose you could take a sleeping pill. There are hundreds of different varieties available. But it seems to me that every sleeping pill made has potential side effects, and that worries me. Yet another worry!!

If you could just relax and stop worrying, you would fall asleep almost instantly. You are so tired. And so very worried.

The fact that worry never helped a single situation probably never occurs to you. Of course you might be of the mind set "what do you mean worrying doesn't help. Most of the things I worry about never happen!!" Implying that if you did not worry about them, they might happen.

Worry can rob you of sleep, and ultimately of health. Believe it or not, worry is a choice. I choose not to worry.

No more worrying,
David A. Youngs

Religion and Health--is there a connection?

Is there a connection between physical health and the religion that one adheres to and believes in? Suppose you were a Moslem; would you be healthier than say a Jew or a Hindu? Of course if you are a person who straps bombs to your body and blows yourself up, then I would tend to say that your religion is an unhealthy one -- at least for the bomber who just killed himself.

Now the Jews were given special health guidelines which Moses wrote down and put into a little scroll that went on the side of the Ark of the Covenant (which is far different than Noah's ark). Included in these guidelines or laws of health were such things are if you touched a dead animal, you would be "unclean" until evening. And there was a differentiation between "clean" and "unclean" animals. Oh yeah!! The clean ones are permissible to eat, and the unclean ones were not. For example, if an animal both chewed cud and had a cloven hoof, then it was a clean animal. This would include deer, cows, elk, and maybe some other animals. But if it had a cloven hoof and did not chew cud, it would not be a clean animal. An example would be a camel.

There is a whole slew of guidelines in the "laws of Moses" which spell out what things to avoid to stay healthy.

Today, if you are interested in looking up the research on the web, you will find that members of the Seventh-day Adventist church tend to live longer. That is because most of them are vegetarians and just plain live a better life style than the majority of Americans. Not only do they live longer, they enjoy greater health while they are alive -- and that is a very important point. Who wants to have longevity with suffering?

So, in conclusion, I would have to say that there IS a connection between religious beliefs and health.

Stay healthy till next time,
David A. Youngs
polybids@yahoo.com
http://polybids.blogspot.com

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Thanks

Mental illness vs. mental health and computers

Dear reader,

Mental health is just as much a part of health as physical health. I have several friends who are "over the edge" emotionally. They all react far too much to external events. One of them is a certified genius, but because of his constant over reaction to external events cannot hold a job. Let me give you a concrete example. I will call this friend John. John is so super smart that sometimes it literally amazes me. He writes html code freehand without any programs to assist him. He knows UNIX and DOS commands extensively. He has rented a remote server to host web pages and he sets up and manages this entire server in UNIX at the command prompt. No simple interfaces for John. They just get in the way. He is hosting my personal web at http://polybids.com/ and several others I am developing. He can set up an entire hosted domain on his server in under half an hour, entering complex esoteric commands at the UNIX prompt. He is definitely a genius. He cobbles together computers from discarded parts other people throw away, and they actually work.

Any way, periodically John will call me up and threaten to commit suicide because his server is down. Or somebody at the place he is renting his server from has closed down port 25 and now he cant get or send email and it is obviously the end of the world. John will seriously be considering jumping off the bridge and ending it all. It's like "my computer crashed and I am doomed.... I might as well die."

Now when my computer crashes, it annoys the **** out of me. But I don't want to die. I just want to get a much better computer. And I immediately begin reinstalling Windows XP or whatever I need to do to get the computer up and running again. So why is it that some people seem to be ruled by their emotions? Is this a form of mental illness, or, is it just a series of poor choices?

Think good thoughts
David A. Youngs
polybids@yahoo.com