In one of the recent comments received from Kenny he said that there are no photographs on my blog of me smiling. How strange.....  I have included this one of me giving my friend Liz a warm hug at her birthday party.  I am smiling!

Channel Clearing Breath

“Alternate nostril breathing,” is a simple but powerful technique that deeply relaxes the mind and body. Use it to quiet your mind before beginning a meditation session or to calm racing thoughts and anxiety if you are having trouble falling asleep.

This focused breathing serves the purpose of regulating the flow of air through your nasal passages. Here is a practice you can try right now:

Hold your right thumb over your right nostril and inhale deeply through your left nostril.

At the peak of your inhalation, close off your left nostril with your third and fourth fingers, then exhale smoothly through your right nostril.

After a full exhalation, inhale through the right nostril, closing it off with your right thumb at the peak of your inhalation.

Continue performing alternate nostril breathing for the next few breaths, following the same pattern. Your breathing should be effortless, with your mind gently observing the inflow and outflow of breath.

Balance Energy flow

Hand positions are used to regulate and balance the flow of subtle energy throughout the body. Joining the fingers or touching them to another part of the body creates a circuit that allows the energy, or prana, to flow. Here is one to try in your next meditation:

This position as seen in the picture is known as “the seal of patience,” It is formed by placing the tip of the middle finger on the tip of the thumb.

The energy position is said to promote patience and discernment, as well as the courage to fulfil one’s dharma or life purpose.

Creativity and intuition are meaningless unless you put the ideas that arise into action. What this means is that unless we make some effort to do things differently or to do different things, our lives remain the same.

People in general are inclined to spend too much time finding other people to blame, they spend too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing from experiences of the past, and getting on with their lives.

Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference.

Seven old wives' tales that are true

Who doesn’t remember being told old wives’ tales when they were young? However, while most of them are false and are used purely to discourage naughty behaviour, there is an element of truth to some of them.

An apple a day, keeps the doctor away

Not many people would argue that this favourite saying is just a devious ruse to make us eat more fruit. Eating an apple is indeed a fantastic way to incorporate essential health-boosting nutrients into your diet. But then again, so is tucking into any fruit, which can protect you from numerous conditions including heart disease, cancer and stroke. Just make sure apples are part of your five-a-day regime and you will help keep your body in fine fettle.

Fish is good for your brain

This old adage has been given credence by a raft of recent research that says eating fish can indeed boost brainpower, especially in children. Researchers at the US National Institute of Health found that children of mothers who ate more fish and other seafood while pregnant were smarter and had better developmental skills than kids of women who ate less or none. Elsewhere, a school in England announced last year that it would be giving its pupils fish oil tablets to improve their performance in exams, while the government even considered giving pupils the supplements en masse.

Statistics show that young people in the UK are consuming less fish than they used to, something that worries Prof. Michael Crawford, Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition at North London University. He said: “We need to get back to feeding our minds as well as our bodies. We should all be eating oily fish at least once a week.”

Eat your crusts

While there is little truth to the saying that eating your crusts will make your hair curly, there is plenty of evidence that says the last thing you should do is cut the crusts off your bread. Bread contains an antioxidant called pronyl-lysine, a nutrient which helps the body fight carcinogens. Research carried out by German scientists found that there is up to eight times as much pronyl-lysine in the crust of the bread compared to the less-baked centre.

Eating carrots helps you to see in the dark

I would wager that almost all of us were told this by our mothers when we were young – and they were right. Carrots are jam-packed with vitamin A, which is something our retinas feed on. Worldwide, vitamin A deficiency is considered to be a common cause of blindness, which suggests that eating carrots is indeed a good idea if you want to keep your eyesight in tip-top shape. The Eyecare Trust supports this idea and lists carrots as one of its top-ten foods for protecting eyesight. And before you ask, masturbation does not have the opposite effect.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

This old phrase perhaps contains more truth that any of our other old wives’ tales. Eating a nutritious breakfast is essential if you want to maintain a healthy, balanced diet. This is backed up by numerous studies, which all say that eating breakfast prepares your body both mentally and physically for the day ahead.

According to NHS Direct, eating first thing in the morning stabilises your blood sugar levels, while missing out on breakfast can lead to fatigue and poor concentration. Not eating breakfast also slows down your metabolism and makes it more likely that you will pig out on unhealthy, sugary snacks. So, if you are trying to lose weight, missing out this essential meal is in fact one of the worst things you can do.

Listening to music will damage your hearing

“Turn that music DOWN!” is a common cry in many households containing teenagers, and research shows that parents are right to ask their kids to turn the volume down a bit. Studies have shown that as many as one in five of today’s teenagers have already done damage to their ears due to exposure to music played at excessive volumes – three times as many as twenty years ago. The rocketing popularity of MP3 players isn’t helping matters either. Dr John Low, chief executive of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, said: “If young people don’t heed our warnings about safer listening, they could end up facing premature hearing damage. If you are regularly plugged in, it’s only too easy to clock up noise doses that could damage hearing forever.”

Acknowledgement: By Ross Chainey, Health & Wellbeing Editor

Seven old wives' tales that are true - Therapies | Complementary Treatment | Spiritual Wellbeing | Homeopathy | Body toning

Dear Blog friends,

To everyone who has visited and left messages, thank you. It is easier to respond to all from here at the moment, but I shall attempt to get around to all soonest. It is always so nice to log on and find your messages.

So once again thank you to Kenny, The Laird, Mei, Horst, Cat, Wanda, IceDiva, Karen,

Take care and warm hugs from a rather stormy Cape Town.

In my previous blog I mentioned that I was feeling a little ‘out of sorts’ which was just a prelude to what followed next.

I had been feeling a bit ‘spacey’ for most of the day, but never the less headed for the kitchen to prep some food. After using the handheld blender, I stuck my fingers in around the blade to loosen some of the food that had stuck when I accidently triggered the on button resulting in compound fracture of the first two digits and a brutally cut and lacerated finger.

The finger now squirting blood all over the place looked to be cut right through, held on by a mere whiff of skin. I quickly grabbed the finger with my other hand, trying to hold all the bits together and Mr G rushed me off to the emergency hospital. Once there I allowed myself to panic; the shock set in, my blood pressure dropped to 70/40, a stabilising drip was plunged into my arm, my feet were elevated and my head lowered on the gurney. Then more injections followed, one to block the pain in the finger so they could deal with the wound and the other an anti- tetanus shot.

Once my blood pressure was more stable I was trundled off on the gurney to have x-rays after which the plastic surgeon started the challenging task of sewing all the jagged bits together.

While my finger was in the process of being stitched I suddenly remembered that I had put a pot of rice on the stove to cook moments before the accident took place. In the ensuing panic I had forgotten to switch it off.

Mr G leaving me in the good care of the doctor, rushed back to the house which was awash with plumes of acrid smoke by the time he got there; the rice had burnt into a blackened mass of ‘charcoal’.

After opening every door and window throughout the house to get rid of the smoke Mr G then set about cleaning up the aftermath in the kitchen which looked like a chicken had been slaughtered, blood everywhere; on the cupboards, the work tops, the fridge and the floor. He then returned to hospital to collect me from the good care of the plastic surgeon that by this time had completed his work of art on my finger.

I am usually so safety conscious in the kitchen, never before have I left the motor part of the blender attached prior to cleaning the blades as I did this time, clearly I was not focused on what I was doing………..guess who wont be using fingers to clean blades ever again!

The house still smells of a forest fire, but at least it did not catch fire. That probably thanks to the quality of the cooking pot used in the first instant.

I am not sure how the finger will heal; weather I will lose a degree of mobility, or the nail and of course there will be scarring. But at least I still have my finger and in view of what is currently happening around the world; a mere happenstance by comparison.

Just a short note to say……Winter definitely has arrived, announcing the fact rather forcefully with much wind and rain over the past two weeks. The garden has undergone a distinctive change too. The grape vine glorious with all of the russet colours displayed is starting to drop leaves en mass. It is time to trim back, mulch, and plant for the winter.

As I look out over the sea while writing, I am aware that it has not been as calm as it is today for some weeks now due to various weather fronts that have been pushing in. It rather reminds me of how I remember Cape Town to be when I used to commute in for business, long before I finally moved here to stay; lots of rain and mist, sweeping wind, cold fingers, log fires and sipping port.

My organic composter arrived to day so I will be setting this up a little later on. With all the recipe testing that I do, it should soon be providing a lot of compost and plant liquid in copious amounts with all the waste generated from the kitchen. What fun! I would of course have been thrilled if it had a glass panel so that I could see the earth worms in action.

I seem to be coming down with a bug of sorts. sore throat and headache....unusual for me. So I'm off to the kitchen to make some ginger tea.

Ciao for now.