A few years ago we went to South Carolina in a Hilton Head rental. We stayed for a week and a half and I loved it. It was the best vacation I’d ever had. We had immediate access to a private beach, a pool and spent a lot of time strolling along the walking paths (like a sidewalk but different). Being so close to the ocean was calming for me and so I use my memories from there for meditation purposes.

There are many health benefits of meditation which include but are not limited to:

• Stress reduction

  Meditating properly helps bring stress chemicals down to normal levels, eases anxiety, and for some people even cures phobias.

  Neuroscientists have found that meditators shift their brain activity to different areas of the cortex – brain waves in the stress-prone right frontal cortex move to the calmer left frontal cortex. This mental shift decreases the negative effects of stress, mild depression and anxiety.[source]

• Decreases blood pressure

  See Above for why.

• Decreases muscle tension which can reduce the frequency and severity of headaches

  Learning to recognize muscle tension through meditation is an excellent way of controlling chronic pain. Many people suffer from tension (stress) headaches and proper meditation can reduce that.

• Increases self-awareness

  This can help with problem solving and issues with low self-confidence. Most meditation requires that you remove all thought from your mind and float in “nothing”. Because of emotional conflicts, the practitioner is forced to deal with issues s/he wasn’t aware of previously. Then the brain follows paths to a resolution to these conflicts, leading to higher levels of self-confidence. [source]

How Do I Do It?

Depending on what you read regarding meditation you are either supposed to empty your mind and completely relax or focus on something that relaxes you. It’s almost impossible for me to completely empty my mind. Just thinking about emptying my mind causes me to think about something. Obviously that method doesn’t work for me. And it may not work for you. My method may not work for you either, so take that into consideration if you try it.

First, I make sure that I have absolute solitude. I cannot be disturbed during my meditation. Because I’m a mom and wife, I have to make sure there’s no one home and the dog is outside. I go into a room with no phone and no television. Nothing to distract me from my meditation time.

Then, I put on a CD of sounds of nature. I particularly like the sounds of thunderstorms or waves breaking in the ocean. I try to limit the sounds of animals as they can be too distracting for me. I place a folded blanket on the floor and sit cross-legged on that. Then I close my eyes.

This is when I go back to Hilton Head. It’s a more complex type of meditation than what you may have read about elsewhere. With my eyes closed I imagine the blue sky above me. Then, if I’m using the ocean CD, I imagine looking toward the shore with the waves crashing against the sand. I imagine the smell of a salty breeze and the feel of fine sand under my legs. I use my mind’s eye to walk me from one sensation to the next until all of my senses are utilized.

When I’m at a place where I can almost believe I’m really on that beach in Hilton Head, I start to really relax. I start by relaxing the muscles on the top of my head and work my way down to my toes. I mentally find every muscle that is being used and relax it just enough (I don’t want to fall asleep or fall over). This is amazingly useful in finding those trouble spots that you didn’t know were troublesome. I imagine that each muscle is being smoothed over by a warm breeze. I do this for each part of my body, including my face and, yes, my ears.

Finally I’m completely relaxed and I let myself “walk” down the beach. When I was physically in Hilton Head, the early morning was the best time of day for me. I could walk on that beach and not be bothered by anyone- save for the occasional jogger. Since I was the only one in my family who enjoyed these walks, I was left alone with myself and Mother Nature. It was peaceful and I was completely content. It was a near-perfect experience for me. And so, when I meditate I take myself back there.

Today there is much emphasis on medications to ease your mind and calm your body. Many people still scoff at the “New Age” practice of meditation¹ and refuse to contemplate it. But when you’ve exhausted the options modern medicine offers for stress-relief and pain management, meditation is really something to consider. Because, believe it or not, it really works.

1. Though meditation has been practiced for centuries in Eastern cultures

The announcement that Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose, due to mixing medications, should heed as a warning to anyone who is living through prescriptions. For instance, I take two to three different pills each day. One of those pills, if combined with certain over-the-counter meds or herbal remedies, could kill me. And I wouldn’t have to take a handful to accomplish this.

There is some speculation that this ruling really does mean that Ledger committed suicide. That isn’t necessarily the case. The reports state that the drugs found in his system were found in small quantities. He had pain pills, sleeping pills and some anxiety meds. All of these were prescriptions, and he was taking them as prescribed. Unfortunately, as prescribed doesn’t tell you which drugs to avoid.

I’ve had my own horror stories involving medications and inattentive doctors. Perhaps you tell the doctor you’re taking one prescription from someone else (anxiety, for instance) and your doctor doesn’t “quite” hear you. He prescribes a sleeping pill that could very well interact with your anxiety pill. You trust your doctor to do what’s best, but he was just having an “off” day. Then on your way home, you stop by a more convenient pharmacy than the one you usually frequent. They fill your prescription without being aware of the other medication you’re taking. This particular medication is safe alone and/or with some Tylenol, but with your anxiety medication it’s deadly. But you don’t know. Because your doctor didn’t pay attention (or didn’t know) and you didn’t think going to the same pharmacy every time was important.

You go home, pop an allergy pill and take your other medications. You don’t know any better because you trust your doctor. Or you don’t have adequate information on your meds. Or whatever other factor I could be missing. You don’t feel suicidal or ready to end it all. You just want to take your medications and feel better.

Then you fall asleep and die.

It can happen that quickly and that simply. There is no need for any kind of conspiracy theory, because there are simply reasons why taking your medications as prescribed can kill you. That fast.

What can you do?

• Make sure that you always tell all of your doctors what medications you’re taking. If you can’t remember, carry your pill bottles or a list with you at all times.
• Make sure that your doctors all understand what you’ve told them. If they’re having an “off” day, perhaps they didn’t quite catch your misgivings. Repeat yourself. Be a pest. Your life depends on it.
• Always go to the same pharmacy for your prescriptions. This is important because your pharmacy has a record of all meds you’re on and they can warn you when mixing is dangerous. If you can’t go to the same pharmacy, go to a chain (like Walgreens). They have your records.
• Research. It’s ultimately you’re responsibility to know what you can take with what. If you need to take a cold medicine, talk to the pharmacist. Read the prescription information sheets (available online or through your pharmacy). Not the short ones- but the detailed ones like this one [pdf] about Tramadol. It’s long, but look for terms like “interaction with central nervous system” and “drug interaction”.
• Don’t put 100% trust in your doctor. He or she is human and therefore fallible.

Heath Ledger’s death was tragic and untimely, but it does serve as a reminder that we are responsible for our health care and we need to be ultra-vigilant. Our lives depend on it.

I was just floating around, trying to… I’m not really sure. At any rate, I came across this forum thread wherein the original poster announced s/he believes her/his sister-in-law is a huge fraud. There were a lot of responses, but this is my favorite and I want to post it here for my own future reference.

Your first sentence was enough. Those of us who have to deal with Fibromyalgia everyday eventually just cut people like you out of our lives for good.

What makes you think she DOESN’T have it?
Why do you care what she does all day?

You say she uses it as an excuse not to get off her “big backside”. what is that all about? Are you perfect? Do you think if she weren’t big as you say she would feel better?
She is probably afraid to get up and do something because she knows it will cause her pain. Something that is simple and done without thought for others like, chopping vegetables, vacuuming, washing the floor etc. can put us into agony. We avoid it because we are in pain, then on a “good” day which some one else already described to you as horrible we have to decide if we should try to do something that could put us into bed and tears for a week or more or try to let it go and enjoy the fact that we can move around a bit.

usually out of guilt we choose to do whatever it is that needs to be done, Then when we can’t so much as walk from the bed to the bathroom without exrutiating pain and we can’t keep our eyes open yet we can’t sleep either We have to deal with someone like you who thinks we are lazy.

We are not lazy, we don’t want to sit home while everyone else is out and about, we don’t want to miss special events. We don’t want to have to ask you to help zipper the kids jackets because last night we made you dinner that involved chopping something and now our hands don’t work!

We learn to not make plans in advance so as not to dissapoint and if that’s not possible we either push it or we do dissapoint.

We cannot just live spontaniously-we must always consider what the price will be that we know we will have to pay for doing something you take for granted. We don’t WANT to dissapoint our children because we can’t help out in their class trip that we volunteered for a month ago because the day we said yes was “good” day. I could go on and on but hey it’s actually PAINFUL to type for this long. Dealing with attitudes such as your is also very painful. I really feel for your sister in law. I am so glad she is not married to you which brings me back to-What do you care? Really, if you can’t accept it, why not just leave her alone? You say you have a bad back? and you hate it when people say they do? We WISH we had a bad back and hate it when you think it can even compare. [kdel]

(I’ve cleaned up the paragraph structure a little to make it easier to read.)