High Blood Pressure

Few things in life naturally lower our blood pressure – but plenty can raise it. Between worrying about our health, our families, our pets, our friends, our careers, our finances… there’s little time left over to just ‘chill.’

There are numerous drugs on the market that will help keep BP at an even keel. Doctors tell us to give up almost all of the things that give us the most pleasure. “Everything in moderation,” they tell us. Yeah, and we’re also told to ‘just say no’ and ‘you can’t eat just one…’

But these are, literally, words to live by.

We should eat right, exercise, do yoga and/or meditate and all our troubles will magically disappear. Really? Just like that? Yet we continue to abuse our bodies – putting chemicals and additives and artificial coloring and preservatives into our system on a daily basis. We have little if no self control and, when we feel poorly, we blame everyone else but ourselves.

I, for one, do not have high blood pressure. I’m as stressed as the next person but I don’t keep things bottled up inside. I yell, I complain and… you know what? I feel better.

So, do what your doctor tells you and take meds if they’re recommended but the rest is up to you. Find something that calms you – I knit and I color. It relaxes me at the end of a long and stressful day. So does drinking a cup of hot tea and eating a whole lotta chocolate!

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The Natural Choice

We all have choices to make in life. Some of us tend to blame anyone and anything else but ourselves for OUR choices. It’s the American way.

If we take a ‘short cut’ home that ends up taking twice as much time, it’s the fault of the poor schmuck who drove into the tree to avoid hitting a deer.

If we smoke cigarettes or over-eat (ignoring all health warnings), it’s the fault of the manufacturers who make the products and force them into our mouths.

If we use artificial preservatives or coloring or anything outside of nature that poisons our insides, it’s the government’s fault for making those items cheaper or more readily available than their natural counterparts.

So, in conclusion, continue to eat, drink, smoke and consume massive amounts of chemically-altered products, of your own free will, knowing full well that there will always be someone, somewhere, that you can place the blame on!

Brain Aerobic Exercises

I’ve been given a unique opportunity to both care for my parents and also to discover a myriad of ways to control my anger/anxiety.

Yesterday, I found Dad pacing in his room. That wasn’t the scary part though. He was also yelling and placing blame for something that had just happened only, at the time, I wasn’t aware of what that was or why it had happened.

After talking to him (not quite as calmly as I would have liked at first) I was able to figure out the problem and solve it for him. Apparently, he had been painstakingly trying to shave his face for nearly 30 minutes and had gone through an entire pack of 12 disposable razors in the process. What he didn’t realize (due to his fading eyesight) was that the razors all had covers on them. This man who had once carried me around on his shoulders to keep me from scratching, during an agonizing bout with chickenpox (thanks to my brother), was now unable to see the tiny piece of plastic that was causing him so much misery.

Here’s where the yelling and blaming part comes in…

Apparently, when you get to this point in life, you feel like the world is against you so you blame anyone and everyone for your current situation. That said: “how can you possibly tell a man, who you’ve looked up to your entire life, that it’s his fault and his alone?” 

The answer is: “you can’t.” 

So, in an effort to exonerate everyone who had just been wrongly implicated in a conspiratorial incident I, instead, used some brain aerobic exercises and just dumped out the razors into the drawer with their covers off and hoped that no future fingers ended up with nasty razor cuts!