Wind and Fire

Ramblings in the Wind of Fire and Rain blown in.

Name:
Location: Bay Area, CA, United States

I'm a college graduate, a web developer, and soon to be a student again. I picked up the blog-reading virus in the last year and a half and it replicated itself rapidly. I will never again have an unread items count of 0. This virus is also partially to blame for my realization that Human Sexuality is a viable career option. So please excuse me while I worship the internets.

Friday, November 30, 2007

'Tis the Season to be Sharing

And so I'll share words and links to more words, because they're easy to give, and that's what you're here for. ;-)

For some reason I fight myself when it comes to doing certain activities that I enjoy. The likelihood of a fight seems to increase if said activity is actually good for me. Unfortunately this is the case with Yoga. And unlike running (which is hard on your joints) it's difficult to find a real excuse not to go. This is what I spent all of yesterday reminding myself of. And, after much effort, I succeeded in forcing myself to go to Yoga. There were moments, distressingly near the beginning of the session, when I thought my limbs were going to give out and I was going to collapse into a limp pile of untrained and uncultured desk-job-appendages. But except for a few stumbles and cheats I made my way through; I even managed to impress myself a little. And I think that's one of the reasons I like yoga, as humbling as it is, it leaves room to discover something you never would have guessed you could do. I'm also a huge fan of stretching, and the sauna after doesn't hurt.

Speaking of which, I did some research on saunas. I've heard just as a general lore that saunas can have health benefits and so I thought I would look into some details. I didn't look too hard, but I found a couple of optimistic sites, with references even:

Sauna & Health: Sweat Bathing and the Body (Very Pro-Sauna)
Wikipedia - Sauna (Harder to follow the health benefits, but many references)

A couple of the more easily believable benefits are relaxation, which can ease joint and muscle pain, and toxin expulsion. The extent of toxin cleansing and its benefits seems to vary depending on the author, but there does seem to be supporting evidence for it.

Also did a little research on the vitamin D and cancer thing. There is at least one study among adult females showing that Vitamin D significantly reduces the incidence of cancer. Another team gathered papers and research on Vitamin D and cancer (done by many other teams over 30 - 40 years) and determined that a relationship exists. From these and other studies I gathered a recommendation of 1000 IU of Vitamin D3 daily. Best taken in the form of short solar exposure every couple of days, supplements when this is not an option. It's, as always, more complicated, but this will have to do until I find the links again later.

Until then, more sharing:

FreeRice (Test/Increase your vocab and fight Hunger)
Kiva - Loans that Change Lives (micro loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries)



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