Doctor Yaya

An Easy Way to Meditate for Your Health

[Note: I’ve been away from this blog for a while, as I’ve been helping start up our Ladies’ Home Journal group blog called
Ladies Lounge. But I’ve missed Doctor Yaya, and this is a subject very close to my heart.]

Stressed out lately? Who isn’t? Worried about catching the flu, too? No doubt.

Stress Makes You Sick
We have a very useful story coming out in the December issue of Ladies’ Home Journal with some surprising ways to help prevent colds and flu. One of them is meditation. Yep, new research shows that stressed-out people have higher levels of the inflammatory stress chemicals that burn out your immune system and make it harder for you to fight off an infection. But people who practice meditation three to four times a week have lower levels of those nasty chemicals in the body, which may make them less likely to get sick.

Meditation 101
What better reason than scary flu fears to start now? But the thing is, it’s tough to teach yourself how to meditate if you’ve never done it before. Many people who try to sit quietly, focus on their breathing and quiet their thoughts report that they can’t “turn off their brains” and that they’re too easily distracted. Then they judge themselves by thinking they’re terrible at meditating, which is definitely counterproductive. Guided meditation, with music or talking or chanting, can help.

Coincidence or Not?
I had practiced meditation before in my life, but hadn’t done it in years. Too busy, too stressed, no time, blah, blah, blah. But several things happened to push me into practicing it again. First, I worked on the story mentioned above. A political writer friend in Washington, D.C., said he’d recently discovered the benefits of meditation. And after I’d written a Ladies Lounge blog on Michael Lang’s book The Road to Woodstock, Ticia Agri posted a comment on it. Turns out, she was Michael Lang’s assistant at Woodstock, and now she's a healer based in New Hampshire. She sent me a CD of her guided meditation called The Ribbon Breath Meditation. Enough with the nudges! I sat down and tried it.

First Time’s the Charm
This meditation, which is only 15 minutes long, uses drumbeats and music as it leads you upward from the feet to the top of the head, using color imagery that’s easy to visualize. You sit quietly, listening to Agri’s soothing voice and somehow your breathing slows and you know what to do.

The first time I listened, though, I had an odd reaction: I felt my eyes well up with hot tears, and in fact cried through the whole thing. And yes, I distracted myself by wondering what the heck that was all about. Agri reassured me that it must have unblocked something in me, which is a good thing. “Better out than in,” she said, followed by "Yippee!"

The Pleasure of De-Stressing
The next time I listened, no tears. But I did feel that familiar lightness and lifting of the spirit that I remembered from my long-ago meditation practice. I’ve been listening to the meditation for several days now, and I think it’s making a difference.

Today was a particularly stressful day, including an expensive visit from the refrigerator repairman. So when I got home tonight, I sat in my chair and took my pulse: 88 beats per minute. Then I sat and listened to The Ribbon Breath Meditation. Fifteen minutes later, I checked my pulse again: 52 beats. That’s a 41 percent reduction in heart rate, folks—nothing to sneeze at!

You can do any form of meditation, yoga, focused breathing or relaxation training and get benefits, of course. But if you want to try Agri's approach, you can order it on her website meditationhealing.com. And report back here on how you do. Cheers!

Woodstock State of Mind

“Freedom… freedom… sometimes I feel like a motherless child” (Richie Havens’ improvised ode) is stuck in my head this morning. So is Crosby, Stills and Nash singing “Don’t let the past remind us of what we are not now.”

I watched the 40th anniversary director’s cut of Woodstock last night. (Not the Ang Lee film coming soon, called Taking Woodstock, but I'm looking forward to that, too.) I’ve been in such a Woodstock state of mind lately. All the 40th anniversaries this summer, plus the untimely deaths of icons like Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett and now John Hughes, are reminding us baby boomers of our mortality. As one tweeter asked, “Is 50 the new 80?”

 

Nevertheless, I’ve been in a fervor of nostalgia since I read Michael Lang’s fascinating behind-the-scenes book The Road to Woodstock (above; I recommended it in the August Ladies’ Home Journal). And watching the film I was mesmerized at the performances as well as the audience during those three days of rain, mud, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. The things that struck me most:

• It’s unbelievable that this concert happened at all. Just like we could never get a man onto the moon as fast as we did in the ‘60s, we could never stage a concert like this today. We’re too mired in bureaucracy and afraid of liability and risk.

• Most teens I know today could not exist for three days in a rainy, muddy field with little food, water or plumbing and no cell phones, computers or iPods, let alone find the beauty in this situation.

• While I don’t admire the drug use, I respect the idealism and passion of the attendees, who really wanted to make a difference. We’ve all wondered a zillion times how we lost that. But this recession and its back-to-basics thinking somehow seems more in tune with that time, doesn’t it? Maybe in some ways that’s a good thing.

Michael Lang, above, was one of Woodstock's masterminds. Seeing him in the original film, I was reminded how adorable, curly haired and sweet-faced he was then—a real hippie-era heartthrob. (He still looks pretty good, in my opinion.) The young actor who plays him in the Ang Lee film, Jonathan Groff, is his spitting image.

• A lot of the music holds up. It was only the second time Crosby, Stills and Nash had ever played before a live audience, and their harmonies on “Suite Judy Blue Eyes “ were passionate and poignant. I always bemoaned that the Beatles weren’t there and thought Joe Cocker was a spaz, but damn, that version of “With A Little Help From My Friends” is genius. Santana’s signature guitar sound soared. And that searing, blistering national anthem by Jimi Hendrix still brings chills. Too bad almost everyone was gone by the time he played it.

• In 1969, no one was overweight. As a friend pointed out in a Facebook comment: “Dancing, alcohol and smoking pot will certainly help keep the weight off—not to mention group sex! I think we’ve come a long way since then for obvious reasons.” Well, yes and no. Our childhood obesity epidemic is much more complex than that, of course. But I can’t help thinking our sedentary teens who spend hours a day in front of some kind of screen might benefit from some up-close human contact, dancing and singing and “groovin’” together in a crowded, muddy field. Far out.

What's Average?

Fox Searchlight

Here’s something that’s been nagging at me since I saw the (mostly) charming film (500) Days of Summer this weekend: In the beginning the narrator, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, above left), describes the girl he falls for, Summer (Zooey Deschanel, above right). We see our heroine riding a bike in a lovely vintage dress as he recounts her stats: 5 foot 5 and 121 pounds, he says; in other words, “average.” What?

First of all, the average American woman is about 5 foot 4 and 165 pounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (as of 2002—it’s probably more than that now). What’s more, no way does Zooey Deschanel weigh 121 pounds. Maybe 101. Hollywood’s idea of average is off by a good 50 or 60 pounds. But we knew that already, didn’t we? I thought this movie was going to bust some myths!

It does, in a way. Bit of a charming role reversal as our skinnier-than-average heroine professes a strong streak of independence and lack of interest in a serious relationship. It’s a refreshing bite of acidity in a summer (and lifetime) of stereotyped movie roles. I was enamored till the very end, when they couldn’t resist throwing in a load of saccharine. Almost ruined it for me. Except that our hero, Tom, is just so believable and adorable. And those fabulous vintage dresses Summer wears—albeit in a very tiny size.

That Giant Leap for Mankind

                                                                                                                    Photos courtesy of NASA

I was pretty young in July 1969 when I first saw this image, above, photographed by astronaut Neil Armstrong. But it changed my perspective forever. The war in Vietnam was raging, Woodstock was a few weeks from happening—but that day, a man stepped onto the surface of the Moon and we saw our tiny blue planet in a whole new way. 

 

After the Eagle landed on July 20th, 1969, Buzz Aldrin, above, followed Neil Armstrong onto the lunar surface. I was thrilled to meet Aldrin at the 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. I'm happy to see he's still going strong, starring in the beautiful new Louis Vuitton ad campaign, shot by photographer to the stars Annie Leibovitz. (It also features Jim Lovell, commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, and Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut.)

My fascination with exploration and space travel has never waned, and I’ve been so lucky to meet and write about many astronauts and missions over the course of my career. 

One of my heroes, astronaut Peggy Whitson (above, floating in the Destiny Lab on the International Space Station in March 2008) remembers watching in wonder as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon. The young Iowa farm girl dreamed about what it would be like to blast off on a rocket and float in zero-g. She found out: Today, after two six-month tours on the International Space Station, Whitson has spent more time in space than any other U.S. astronaut—male or female. She says it’s important to remember the “can-do spirit” of the Apollo missions in the ‘60s, and keep the dream alive of exploring worlds beyond our own fragile planet.

Above, the space shuttle Endeavour approaches before docking with the Space
Station in March 2008, which meant visitors during Whitson's long stay!

“The Apollo 11 mission inspired a generation of people,” she says, “not just the citizens of our country, but of our world, about the things that are possible. Among that generation of people, as a rural farmer’s daughter, I pursued a dream of exploration, to become a scientist and work at NASA. I still find it unbelievable that as commander of the International Space Station, I talked to mission control centers each day in Houston, Texas, Huntsville Alabama, Munich in Germany, Tskuba in Japan, Toulouse in France and Moscow in Russia. Hopefully, the next 40 years will take us on many more ‘small steps’ that will make every ‘giant leap’ just as significant!”

Amen. Yes, we have big economic problems here at home. But we need to continue the international cooperation begun with the Space Station program and ensure the future of our species by getting out of low Earth orbit and going to Mars and beyond.

In his passionate special message to Congress on May 25, 1961, President Kennedy said of going to the moon, "It is a most important decision that we make as a nation. And no one can predict with certainty what the ultimate meaning will be of mastery of space."

That's true of all exploration. No one can know where it will lead, or even that it might ultimately save us from extinction. In his famous September 1962 speech at Rice University in Houston, where he said "we choose to go to the moon...and do the other things...not because they are easy, but because they are hard," Kennedy also said:

"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there.' Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."

May the journey continue.

Italian Food Makes You Happy, Not Fat

Too many people go to war with food. They treat it as the enemy. And celebrities like Oprah and Kirstie Alley stoke the fires of self-loathing. There’s a fascinating piece about this in the "Sunday Styles" section of the Times today called Bingeing on Celebrity Weight Battles.

Sure, we need a healthy respect for food and what it can and can’t do (i.e., it can make you healthier and can deliver great pleasure; it can’t make troubles go away). But obsessions for any food group, either yea or nay, can lead to trouble. Moderation in all things (without guilt) is still the answer.

Europeans seem to understand this better than we do, which is why so many American women devoured the wisdom dispensed by Mireille Guiliano in her best-seller French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure.

THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE

Italians live this philosophy, too. And Italian food just makes me happy. When out-of-town friends come to New York, it’s the restaurant category I choose from most often.

One of my new favorites is Scarpetta, Scott Conant’s spot on West 14th Street near Ninth Avenue. What a joy. It’s got a friendly, comfortable vibe, and the food is simple but bold, fresh and modern. A perfect choice for my friend Dayna Steele, who was in from Houston to promote her book Rock to the Top: What I Learned about Success from the World’s Greatest Rock Stars. (She got to  know many of them during her 25-year career as a top radio personality. Check out her blog.)

We tried most of the signature dishes: the creamy polenta with truffled mushrooms, the delicate fritto misto with flash-fried herbs, the duck and foie gras ravioli, and the black cod with caramelized fennel and concentrated tomatoes. We were happy and satisfied, but not stuffed, at that point, thanks to the realistic portions. But as we were chatting with our neighbors, we realized we’d forgotten one not-to-be-missed dish: Conant’s famous spaghetti with tomato and basil. I’d heard people rhapsodize about it being one of the best examples of its ilk, including comments like these from you-review-it website yelp.com:

RAINBOWS AND UNICORNS

“I don't know what they make this stuff out of...maybe it's rainbows and unicorns, but it is undeniably the best spaghetti I've ever had in my life.” And: “The spaghetti almost brought tears to my eyes. The first bite transported me back to Italy. No pasta in the U.S. has ever made me feel this way.”

 

The happiness the spaghetti at Scarpetta brings is worth every gram of carbs.

How could Dayna, who'd balanced all the craziness and excesses of the rock music world for years and managed to keep her head about her (as well as her girlish figure), return to Houston without trying this "Stairway to Heaven" on a plate? So we split an order for dessert (above, via iPhone). Perfetto! Afterward, we felt great. Now that’s how to have a relationship with food!

Dr. Yaya on TV: Build Strong Bones and Take Care of Scars

BEST WAYS TO BUILD STRONG BONES

I've been practicing my TV skills lately, with two recent appearances on GMA Health. In one, we discuss the importance of healthy bones, and how it's never too early (or too late) to make your supporting frame stronger. It's vital to a healthy, vigorous long life! To see the video, click here.

HEAL CUTS AND BURNS TO MAKE BETTER SCARS

On an earlier segment, we talked about how to treat minor cuts and burns to make them heal better—and how to improve old scars you hate. For that video, click here:

Help for Chronic Sinus Problems

Home remedies for medical conditions often raise my skeptical antennae, but some make sense and even have research behind them to show they’re safe and effective. There’s a nice roundup in the current (June 2009) issue of Ladies’ Home Journal that includes such tips as Vicks VapoRub for toenail fungus, ginger for nausea and witch hazel for cold sores. Couldn’t hurt to try!

I’d add another one: a neti pot for chronic sinus problems. Yes, it always sounded weird to me: Isn’t it kind of like waterboarding? Why pour salty water up your nose when you can take a high-tech pill?

But I'd suffered for years with chronic sinusitis, which had developed into several miserable sinus infections, complete with fever and flu-like symptoms that required antibiotics to clear up. Not an experience I want to repeat!

CAN A LITTLE POT OF SALTY WATER REALLY DO ANYTHING?
Nasal irrigation has become fashionable lately, thanks to Dr. Oz demonstrating a neti pot on an episode of Oprah. People in other cultures have used them for thousands of years. But I wasn't convinced until I interviewed Gary Rachelefsky, MD, director of the Executive Care Center for Asthma, Allergy and Respiratory Diseases at UCLA for a story on allergies. Because it mechanically clears the sinuses by thinning secretions so they can flow out, he said, nasal irrigation can really prevent chronic problems, allergies and infection. Simple as that. So as allergy season approached this spring, I decided to try it.

HOW TO USE A NETI POT
I got a small plastic pot at the drugstore, along with the premeasured Sinus Rinse packets by NeilMed (basically a mixture of salt and baking soda, with no preservatives) and followed the directions.

I use tap water filtered in my Brita pitcher, gently warmed in the microwave to a comfy temp (cold water is jarring). About 8 ounces with one packet of rinse, shake gently, then bend over the sink and pour in one nostril (mouth open) as solution flows out the other nostril. Switch about halfway through. Yes, it feels really weird at first, like you’re doing something that nature didn’t intend. But you get used to it, and it only takes a few seconds.

You need to be careful about blowing your nose afterward, as that can force water into the ears, which can get stuck in there and develop its own infection. So you just kind of let it drip and then blow gently without pinching the nostrils.The solution doesn't burn or sting unless your sinuses are really irritated and inflamed, and you don't feel different when you're done; it's more about prevention.

RESULTS
I started in April, using the neti pot twice a day, but soon switched to just once a day. Now, two months later, I’ve had almost no allergy symptoms at all, except itchy eyes a few days, and some sneezes on really heavy pollen days. And what secretions there are stay thin and clear, not thick and green or yellow, which spells trouble. And I’ve had no cold or flu-like symptoms, no sinus headaches, no fevers, no infections. And I haven’t taken one Claritin or needed to use an inhaler once. This doesn’t prove cause and effect, of course, but there’s no downside, so I’ll continue to use this technique. Now I’m a believer!

Caregiving: You Can't Do It Alone

I’m thinking about my dad on this Memorial Day. He died in 2002 after several strokes had slowly chipped away at his short-term memory and the man he once was. Toward the end, he couldn’t remember what he had for breakfast, but he could remember all the lyrics to Frank Sinatra’s “Nancy With the Laughing Face” or “It Might As Well Be Spring” from State Fair. I remember hearing him sing that one (“I’m as restless as a willow in a windstorm…”) early in the mornings when I was a kid.

A tall, optimistic man, a member of the Greatest Generation, he had served in the Navy onboard ship in the South Pacific during World War II. He didn’t often share his feelings with us kids, but he did talk about a night near Christmas in 1944, standing on deck with carols playing over the loudspeaker and tears running down his face. My dad, crying? That story always tore up my brother and sister and me. He even teased us with it, saying, "Did I ever tell you about the Christmas I was onboard ship..." and we'd yell "Dad, no...not that story!"

We were lucky: Even toward the end, Dad always knew who
we were. And there were good days, like this one, above.

Dad was proud of having served his country, and he shared more details of his time in the Navy toward the end of his life, as the recent past receded and his early years seemed more real to him. He also talked about a girl he knew when he was young, and told a story about picking her up one winter day in a horse-drawn sleigh and how romantic that was. I had never once heard Dad mention another woman besides my Mom. Who knows if this was real or something he conjured up. He also insisted he’d been to Harry Potter’s house. But we were lucky in one way: He always knew who we were.

I lived in Dallas when Dad started having problems in the mid 1990s and helped Mom with caring for him—and coping—as long as I could. That was a very hard time in my life because we didn’t really know what we were doing and we never sought the support that could have made all the difference.

I realized I’d tamped down my own memories of that time when I met TV star Leeza Gibbons a couple of weeks ago. She has a new book out called Take Your Oxygen First: Protecting Your Health and Happiness While Caring for a Loved One with Memory Loss. As soon as I opened this book I recognized myself and my family and what we went through with Dad. I think if I’d had this book back then, it might have changed my life.

 

Meeting Leeza felt like meeting a kind of soulmate, too. We only talked for a few minutes about our caregiving experiences, but it felt incredibly therapeutic, even now. Leeza went through hell as her Mom suffered from Alzheimer’s, but she learned from it and now is helping others cope, too, through Leeza's Place. Meeting her inspired me to write about my own experience with caregiving, "Saying Goodbye to  Dad," for Ladies' Home Journal.

If you know anyone who’s taking care of a loved one, I highly recommend this book. It could be a life-saver.

8 Vital Points from Leeza Gibbons' Book, Take Your Oxygen First

• A diagnosis can bring a sense of relief. "We waited so long before we finally took Mom to a doctor," says Gibbons. "But if I had it to do all over again, I would have taken her to the doctor at the first sign of trouble."
• People with mild dementia usually still function independently. But early warning signs include short-term memory loss, forgetting words, disorientation, and personality changes.
• "I encourage people to challenge their doctors. If you think there is something wrong, chances are you're right."
• Caregiving is an enormous task that is too much for just one individual, or even one family, to handle without support.
• When you neglect your own physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, you cannot possibly give effective care to a loved one.
• "I fell apart. My marriage was strained to the breaking point and I was depressed. I sought the help of a therapist. It turned out to be more than a lifeline, it was the exploration I needed to reclaim my sanity."
• You must feel confident that you've done your best. You need to practice accepting who you are and valuing yourself enough to overcome the guilt of perceived inadequacy.
• Caregiving can become the means by which you and your family can revel in each other's strength and companionship. You'll be less burdened physically and emotionally. A palpable sense of connection with your loved ones will give you the strength to carry on.




Reprinted by permission of LaChance Publishing, LLC, Brooklyn, NY; copyright 2009

Man and Fire: the Ancient Connection

What is it about men and fire? I asked this question two weeks ago, when the temperature hovered just above freezing and our Easter eggs nearly froze before they could be plunked into their baskets. Friends were coming for dinner, and it seemed like a good opportunity for one last fire in the fireplace. I pride myself on my Girl Scout-trained ability to stack the logs for proper oxygenation to get it started yet keep it burning long, with modest warmth and gently leaping flames.

FIRE-STARTERS

But no. When the Y chromosomes arrived, consisting of one tall 40-something and his 5-year-old chip off the old block, all hell broke loose. Let the conflagration begin! Seldom-touched fireplace tools were wielded, logs were rearranged and stacked with surgical precision, while both men danced about with a primeval, savage gleam in their eyes.

Soon we were sweating in the blast-furnace heat, inspiring young Tynan to fling off his clothes in some dimly remembered ancient pagan ritual. That, in turn, inspired his father, Steve, to join him as, shirts off, they expressed their most manly caveman solidarity, above (while the women howled with laughter). You could have roasted a whole pig in that fire.
 
MANNING THE GRILL

Which brings me to the opposite expression of April’s cruelty: the record-setting 92-degree heat just a few days later. And that could mean only one thing: grilling on the terrace. Dare I invite my fire-starters again, I wondered? I had just seen a study (OK, so it was funded by the beef people, but whatever). It asked participants to keep grilling diaries and asked them about their “sensory responses” to grilling food. Guess what they found? “Many people have such a strong response to both the smells and practice of barbecuing outdoors that it stirs actual emotions—especially feelings of connections to family, nature and joyous childhood memories.” Sure, but I think it goes even further back, into that ancient caveman part of our brains.

A bit of a grill novice, I had called my rocket-scientist brother for advice on my techniques. In typical fire-guy fashion, he gave me his full 30-minute lecture on the Zen of high-heat searing, crafting the perfect 90-degree angles on the grill marks and learning to “feel” when the ideal level of medium-rareness has been achieved. He waxed nearly poetic on the subject. His advice was good, as I found in my practice sessions. So I felt confident to “man” the grill, as it were, when Steve and Ty, et al arrived. But it was not to be. A fire dude cannot allow a female of the species to place the mastodon onto the bonfire. So I conceded the tongs.

While the steaks and shrimp were excellent, this time there was no naked dancing—probably due to the lack of actual flames. New York co-op buildings prohibit gas and charcoal. So while it sears like a sonofabitch, my Weber, alas, is electric. Also, the Yankees-Red Sox game was on.

 

Till next time...

Stupid Products, Part 1

Just in time for Earth Day, when, presumably, good sense and earth-friendliness prevail, here are a few products we can all live without.

BLING FOR YOUR BOTTLE?

In case you can’t remember if that plastic water bottle is yours or someone else's, now you can purchase jewelry to wrap around the bottle neck to identify it as yours truly's! Yes, you can personalize that landfill-bait with a chrome or gold-colored spring-loaded ring with fleur-de-lis, butterfly, pink ribbon or cross charms studded with sparkly stones in “a variety of blinged-out colors.”

Yes, and after you guzzle your six slugs of water, forgetting that your ring of charms is there, and fling it into the trash can, your AquaBling and the toxic plastic it rode in on will remain in a landfill with billions of other bottles for the next few hundred years, until Wall-E comes along to discover it.

The better choice? A reusable stainless steel water bottle (in a color or style you can identify as yours at all times) that you refill with your filtered tap water. Cheaper, easier, healthier for you and the planet—and no bling needed.

WOULD SPOCK APPROVE?

Have you ever burned your ear while using a curling iron? Me neither. But in case this is a worry, you can just strap on some Ear Cuffies, cotton and polyester fake ears that strap on over your own to protect them from that hot iron.

Can you imagine actually doing this? First you'd have to find them in the bathroom drawer. Then your dog would definitely look at you funny, not to mention the jeers from your loved ones. But you could use them on Halloween as mouse ears, or cut them into little points to wear to the highly anticipated new Star Trek movie, coming soon to a theater (n)ear you.

HELLO? HELLOOO!

Remember the scene in the 1987 movie Wall Street where Michael Douglas as ruthless mogul Gordon Gekko proudly wields his brick-sized cell phone while walking on the beach? The technology was still clunky, but boy, did we ever think it was cool! Now, of course, cellphones are tiny, with multiple hands-free options that also protect the head from potentially dangerous radiation. So who could imagine the need for a clunky, retro “real” handset to plug into your cellphone “for hours of comfortable conversation?”

Yubz plug into any mobile phone for some “old school” pontificating!

Excuse me? I saw a version of this at the Museum of Modern Art Shop in Soho recently, too. If anyone can explain the appeal, please do tell! But for now, I’m taking comfort on this Earth Day in knowing that I don't need to buy one more thing that's ultimately headed for the landfill.