paya in the press

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the power of yoga

The sensible practice of yoga does more than slap a Happy Face on your cerebrum. It can also massage the lymph system, says Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiac surgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. Lymph is the body's dirty dishwater; a network of lymphatic vessels and storage sacs crisscross over the entire body, in parallel with the blood supply, carrying a fluid composed of infection-fighting white blood cells and the waste products of cellular activity. Exercise in general activates the flow of lymph through the body, speeding up the filtering process; but yoga in particular promotes the draining of the lymph. Certain yoga poses stretch muscles that from animal studies are known to stimulate the lymph system. Researchers have documented the increased lymph flow when dogs' paws are stretched in a position similar to the yoga "downward-facing dog."

Yoga relaxes you and, by relaxing, heals. At least that's the theory. "The autonomic nervous system," explains Kripalu's Faulds, "is divided into the sympathetic system, which is often identified with the fight-or-flight response, and the parasympathetic, which is identified with what's been called the Relaxation Response. When you do yoga — the deep breathing, the stretching, the movements that release muscle tension, the relaxed focus on being present in your body — you initiate a process that turns the fight-or-flight system off and the Relaxation Response on. That has a dramatic effect on the body. The heartbeat slows, respiration decreases, blood pressure decreases. The body seizes this chance to turn on the healing mechanisms."

- Time

what we don't know

Astronomers scouring the heavens with powerful telescopes can see objects that are billions of trillions of miles away. These observations have proven essential to piecing together a fairly refined picture of the history and evolution of the cosmos. Nevertheless, a gaping hole remains in our understanding of a basic question: What is the universe made of? For more than 100 years we’ve known about atoms, and over the past century or so we’ve gone further and identified atomic constituents like electrons and quarks, as well as their exotic cousins - neutrinos, muons, and the like. But there is now convincing evidence that these ingredients are a cosmic afterthought. Current data shows that if you weighed everything in existence, these familiar particles would amount to about 5 percent of the total. Most of the universe is composed of other stuff, which, with all of science’s deep insights, we’ve yet to identify.

- John Hodgman, Wired Magazine

This article also discusses other unknowns: What’s at Earth’s Core? Is time an illusion? How does a fertilized egg become a human? Etc. It's very interesting that despite the massive amount of scientific research and investigation that has occurred (starting with the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries, but particularly in the last 300 years) there is still a lot we don't know. Then, of course, there is the stuff we don't know that we don't know, the unknown unknowns.

improving your happiness

I came across the following 'guidelines for improving happiness' in this interesting article. I happily realized that I'm already applying many of these practices in my own life.

• Make the journey more important than the destination. Daily steps are more important than the grand arrival. Goals, therefore, are valuable in the opposite way they are often used, not to make sure we get to some specific place but to plot the journey. The nineteenth century French philosopher Alain noted: “A man is occupied by that from which he expects to gain happiness, but his greatest happiness is the fact that he is occupied.” Anything, no matter how small, that can improve the journey – a better cup of coffee in the morning, a more interesting route to drive home at night – is likely to bring the greatest amount of happiness to each day. So remember to reward (your kids, your employees, yourself) for undertaking the process as much as for the completion of the goal.

• Develop good relationships. Daniel Goleman's most recent book Social Intelligence points out how we humans are made to interact with others and to feel good because of those interactions. Getting to know the people at the office and building those and other relationships will only add to your sense of satisfaction.

• Put things in perspective. Acknowledge the bigger picture and concentrate on the positive aspects of your situation. Yes, your car is a junker and needs to be replaced, but thankfully you have the means to do that.

naturism in the press

In recorded history there have always been societies, such as the Romans, that embraced nudity and those that abhorred it—think of the Victorians. The Greeks were big on doffing their togas. The Olympics were nude events—gymnos means nude, so gymnasiums were places of nude exercise. Given America's Puritan origins, we have never embraced social nudity as easily as the Europeans. Still, some notable Americans would have been happy campers at [the nudist camp]. Ben Franklin and Henry David Thoreau both advocated the benefits of naked "air baths," reports the Southern California Naturalist Association. Before there was a Secret Service to put a damper on such frolics, President John Quincy Adams regularly bathed nude in the Potomac.

- "My vacation at a nudist camp," Emily Yoffe, Slate Magazine (read the comments, too)

To learn more about naturism at Paya Bay Resort, click here.

what have we done?

The global picture is that we have lost 80-90% of the big fish.

- Professor Danny Pauly, University of British Columbia

We humans have got to start doing things differently. I'm leaning more and more toward becoming vegetarian.  Not that I don't love fish and other seafood, I simply can't in good conscience be a part of this insane, uncontrolled, and relentless annihilation of our planet's species anymore.

usa today: roatan offers real estate bargains

"We are the Cayman Islands or Bahamas 15 years ago — we are 15 years behind in terms of tourism," Storms says. "But the same is true for prices, and $500,000 buys a lot more here than on other Caribbean islands. "For buyers from the (U.S.) West Coast and Central time zone, we are the closest destination in the Caribbean basin — 2½ hours from Houston, 3½ from Atlanta."

Full article

"we have to give it up"

"Nothing is as destructive to people, animals and the entire planet as factory farming," he says, as he rattles off one number after the next. He is even familiar with German figures: "Twenty-one thousand animals die to feed an average American. Ninety-nine percent of those animals are mass-produced. In Germany, the number is 98." Then he shrugs his shoulders and says, quietly, almost matter-of-factly: "There's no good way to feed 6 billion people with 50 billion animals. So we have to give it up."

- Spiegel Online

two mexicos

There are two Mexicos.

There is the one reported by the US press, a place where the Mexican president is fighting a valiant war on drugs, aided by the Mexican Army and the Mérida Initiative, the $1.4 billion in aid the United States has committed to the cause. This Mexico has newspapers, courts, laws, and is seen by the United States government as a sister republic.

It does not exist.

There is a second Mexico where the war is for drugs, where the police and the military fight for their share of drug profits, where the press is restrained by the murder of reporters and feasts on a steady diet of bribes, and where the line between the government and the drug world has never existed.

- Charles Bowden, Mother Jones. Full article

nude york city

Interesting article on the latest thing in the Big Apple