Covid-19 Precautions #2

A friend forwarded this, it blew up on the internet, and as a result the WHO has come out debunking some of this information, specifically the idea that holding one's breath for 10 seconds every morning upon rising may be an early indication of Covid-19.

But it's important to understand what they are debunking:

It's not false that Covid-19 fatalities are caused by pulmonary fibrosis, or that in the earlier stages of PF it begins to become more difficult to breathe, or that holding the breath for extended periods becomes more difficult. All the WHO is saying is that an inability to hold the breath without difficulty and coughing is not a definitive test for any specific pulmonary disease, and that is true. BUT, it is a reasonable indication of some kind of pulmonary dysfunction. The WHO is apparently trying to prevent unnecessary panic due to non-definitive ad hoc methods. And there is nothing wrong with that.

But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater either. The correct way to say this would be: inability to hold one's breath for 10 seconds without coughing >>may be<< an early indication of Covid-19 progression. Or it may not be. IMHO one should still feel free to do this simple test, but be aware it is not definitive. And let's not forget Covid-19 is new in human experience, and we are learning more about it literally everyday at this point. Here for example is a very recent paper published by a group of MD Clinicians with "boots on the ground" in Wuhan China (ground zero) describing the progression of Covid-19 in the context of pulmonary pathology.

https://ascopost.com/news/march-2020/pulmonary-pathology-of-early-covid-19-pneumonia-identified-retrospectively-in-two-patients-with-lung-cancer/

Pulmonary fibrosis is already well understood, a web search turns up various papers on it. Acute cases require ventilation and are frequently fatal.

It may also be worth repeating that Covid-19 has the potential for exponential progression, and medical triage may become necessary at some point. For those who do not qualify for medical attention in that situation (older people) information will be our best defense.

My next post will ask whether diet can play a role in defending against viral infection.

Here is some of what has been circulating on the internet, you may have already seen some of it. Let's remember none of these suggestions are physically harmful, and that's something. And they may be helpful, and that's also something.

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The new Coronavirus may not show sign of infection for many days. How can one know if he/she is infected? By the time they have fever and/or cough and go to the hospital, the lung is usually 50% Fibrosis and it's too late. Taiwan experts provide a simple self-check that we can do every morning. Take a deep breath and hold your breath for more than 10 seconds. If you complete it successfully without coughing, without discomfort, stiffness or tightness, etc., it proves there is no Fibrosis in the lungs, basically indicates no infection. In critical time, please self-check every morning in an environment with clean air.

Advice by Japanese doctors treating COVID-19 cases: Everyone should ensure your mouth & throat are moist, never dry. Take a few sips of water every 15 minutes at least. Why? Even if the virus gets into your mouth, drinking water or other liquids will wash them down through your throat and into the stomach. Once there, your stomach acid will kill all the virus. If you don't drink enough water more regularly, the virus can enter your windpipe and into the lungs. That's very dangerous.

1. If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold.

2. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose.

3. This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun.

4. If someone sneezes with it, it takes about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne.

5. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface - wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap.

6. On fabric it can survive for 6-12 hours. normal laundry detergent will kill it.

7. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice.

8. Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes, but - a lot can happen during that time - you can rub your eyes, pick your nose unwittingly and so on.

9. You should also gargle as a prevention. A simple solution of salt in warm water will suffice.

10. Can't emphasize enough - drink plenty of water!

THE SYMPTOMS

1. It will first infect the throat, so you'll have a sore throat lasting 3/4 days.

2. The virus then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and then the lungs, causing pneumonia. This takes about 5/6 days further.

3. With the pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty in breathing.

4. The nasal congestion is not like the normal kind. You feel like you're drowning. It's imperative you then seek immediate attention.

The Beauty of Mastery

Mastery, in whatever form it takes, is beautiful. I came across a short video (below) that illustrates this principle perfectly.

Some forms of mastery will have visceral appeal, others will have cerebral appeal. There will always be a mix of both in mastery, which can be more or less obvious. Take chess for example, where is the visceral appeal in chess? Perhaps one has to know a little about the game to find the visceral hiding within. The movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" illustrates that, it's a biopic of a real person (Josh Waitzkin) about his early years as a chess prodigy. An even better illustration of the beauty of mastery is the book written by Waitzkin himself about his journey titled "The Art of Learning".
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743277465/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Because mastery is ultimately all about learning.

I really enjoyed this short video titled "What Does it Take to be a Shen Yun Dancer". I think you will too.

Covid-19 Precautions

This was forwarded to me by a reliable source, the authors name had been removed so I cannot give credit here. The idea that Covid-19 is not much worse than a common flu is apparently not true.

The letter is directly below, but I want to add a few common sense things I'm going to do myself in case there is a need to stay at home for an extended period.

Stock in rice and beans in dry bulk, Costco / Sam's Club sized bags of frozen fruits and veggies, a sufficient quantity of peanut butter, jelly, and bread, freeze the bread until needed.

Let's hope for the mildest manifestation of this as possible. Your comments are welcome.

Here's the forward:

Date: February 26, 2020 at 2:35:50 PM EST

Subject: What I am doing for the upcoming COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic

Dear Colleagues, as some of you may recall, when I was a professor of pathology at the University of California San Diego, I was one of the first molecular virologists in the world to work on coronaviruses (the 1970s). I was the first to demonstrate the number of genes the virus contained. Since then, I have kept up with the coronavirus field and its multiple clinical transfers into the human population (e.g., SARS, MERS), from different animal sources.

The current projections for its expansion in the US are only probable, due to continued insufficient worldwide data, but it is most likely to be widespread in the US by mid to late March and April.

Here is what I have done and the precautions that I take and will take. These are the same precautions I currently use during our influenza seasons, except for the mask and gloves.:

1) NO HANDSHAKING! Use a fist bump, slight bow, elbow bump, etc.

2) Use ONLY your knuckle to touch light switches. elevator buttons, etc.. Lift the gasoline dispenser with a paper towel or use a disposable glove.

3) Open doors with your closed fist or hip - do not grasp the handle with your hand, unless there is no other way to open the door. Especially important on bathroom and post office/commercial doors.

4) Use disinfectant wipes at the stores when they are available, including wiping the handle and child seat in grocery carts.

5) Wash your hands with soap for 10-20 seconds and/or use a greater than 60% alcohol-based hand sanitizer whenever you return home from ANY activity that involves locations where other people have been.

6) Keep a bottle of sanitizer available at each of your home's entrances. AND in your car for use after getting gas or touching other contaminated objects when you can't immediately wash your hands.

7) If possible, cough or sneeze into a disposable tissue and discard. Use your elbow only if you have to. The clothing on your elbow will contain infectious virus that can be passed on for up to a week or more!

What I have stocked in preparation for the pandemic spread to the US:

1) Latex or nitrile latex disposable gloves for use when going shopping, using the gasoline pump, and all other outside activity when you come in contact with contaminated areas.

Note: This virus is spread in large droplets by coughing and sneezing. This means that the air will not infect you! BUT all the surfaces where these droplets land are infectious for about a week on average - everything that is associated with infected people will be contaminated and potentially infectious. The virus is on surfaces and you will not be infected unless your unprotected face is directly coughed or sneezed upon. This virus only has cell receptors for lung cells (it only infects your lungs) The only way for the virus to infect you is through your nose or mouth via your hands or an infected cough or sneeze onto or into your nose or mouth.

2) Stock up now with disposable surgical masks and use them to prevent you from touching your nose and/or mouth (We touch our nose/mouth 90X/day without knowing it!). This is the only way this virus can infect you - it is lung-specific. The mask will not prevent the virus in a direct sneeze from getting into your nose or mouth - it is only to keep you from touching your nose or mouth.

3) Stock up now with hand sanitizers and latex/nitrile gloves (get the appropriate sizes for your family). The hand sanitizers must be alcohol-based and greater than 60% alcohol to be effective.

4) Stock up now with zinc lozenges. These lozenges have been proven to be effective in blocking coronavirus (and most other viruses) from multiplying in your throat and nasopharynx. Use as directed several times each day when you begin to feel ANY "cold-like" symptoms beginning. It is best to lie down and let the lozenge dissolve in the back of your throat and nasopharynx. Cold-Eeze lozenges is one brand available, but there are other brands available.

I, as many others do, hope that this pandemic will be reasonably contained, BUT I personally do not think it will be. Humans have never seen this snake-associated virus before and have no internal defense against it. Tremendous worldwide efforts are being made to understand the molecular and clinical virology of this virus. Unbelievable molecular knowledge about the genomics, structure, and virulence of this virus has already been achieved. BUT, there will be NO drugs or vaccines available this year to protect us or limit the infection within us. Only symptomatic support is available.

End of forward.

I'm putting up with my own character flaws - why can't you?

Relationships. Character flaws, everyone has them. Relationships plus character flaws is a tough combination. But as far as I can tell it's the only format relationships come in.

So what's the big deal? I can put up with my own character flaws, why can't you? Well of course, our own character flaws are usually pretty easy to put up with, we're used to them. Heck they're almost invisible to us, it's who we are. By a certain age hopefully we become comfortable with who we are. "Comfortable in your own skin" I think it's called.

Why then is it so difficult to put up with the character flaws of others? Well, actually, usually we can put up with them, as long as we don't have to live with them day to day. Living with another's character flaws is an entirely different fettle of kitsch.

So how do we manage this? A few things come to mind. The most basic is the intellectual understanding that this is simply the nature of partner relationships. That one thing goes a long way toward allowing others the space they deserve to be the flawed human beans they are.

Another thing is to get one's own house in order. Work on your own inadequacies. As you become more solid in who you are it becomes so much easier to forgive others for their flaws. I don't know why this is exactly, perhaps as you develop self-compassion you find it easier to extend to others as well. It might be said "becoming well" boils down to development of self-compassion. Getting one's own house in order is a certainly worthy goal to strive for. It may even be paramount.

Begin to notice your efforts at "improving" your partner is almost always counter productive. Particularly when it takes the form of irritation combined with nagging, which carries with the the sub text of "holier than thou". Who needs that?

We all have to learn so much of this the hard way. Well, that's OK, that's how it sticks.

The Shocking Truth About Carbs & Diabetes

If you'd like to know the absolute best way to manage diabetes type 1 and 2, or prevent prediabetes from turning into type 2 diabetes, watch this video interview with the authors of a new book "Mastering Diabetes".
https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Diabetes-Revolutionary-Permanently-Prediabetes-ebook/dp/B07TRJJHN2

This method is safer, faster, and dramatically more effective than either the current medical approach, or the keto diet approach.

And so why is this truth "shocking"? The scientific research on this approach goes back almost a century, and has been replicated in subsequent studies over and over and over. This is not news...it's just that nobody knows about it.

Figure that one out.

Here's the interview:
https://youtu.be/enIvfC985U8

Chronic Stress is not a good thing

I'm belaboring the obvious here. This post is motivated in part by the news that Bruce McEwen, the neuroscientist who "trailblazed a new way of thinking about stress", has died:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/science/bruce-s-mcewen-dead.html

He is credited with leading us away from the view that all stress is bad. Stress is the property that allows for structure to occur...if all the sudden all points of stress were removed from a building, the building would collapse. But that's a mechanical property and we're talking about emotional stress. Is there a corollary? Yes of course there is, one example is as one increases their physical strength their regulation of mood increases as well.

But there are limits - too much stress is structure destructive, and too little means structure will not be balanced and sturdy. There's a delicate balance, and at that balance stress is at the optimal level. Since biology and psychology are dynamic functions, keeping stress at optimal levels requires continuous adjustment, which we do more or less unconsciously when we are functioning at more or less optimal levels in the key determinants diet, activity, and sleep. When we get off track we feel it, and make adjustments we know have the best chance of getting us back to the right balance.

The problem I address over and over in my blog is we are collectively so far from optimal balance we've lost the ability to even see and feel where that is. We live in a world that does not support the attainment of this "sweet spot". The active sources that are functioning to help us get back to that balance are few and far between, and can be expensive and time consuming. And without that level of (let's call it) intervention we are much less likely to get there from here. We can take in the "balance" perspective and attendant information on the intellectual level, and still...change can be difficult to the point of seeming impossibility.

But what is more important than our health? Without it we are quickly reduced to "half selves", or worse.

I'm reminded of a "Poor Richard" (Ben Franklin) axiom: "Pour your purse into you head" (advocating education). I would expand that to include your psychology and biophysiology.

Avail yourself of these resources if at all possible, it's more than worth the time, effort, and money.

What is Narcissism?

The word itself originates in a Greek myth about a hunter known for his beauty who “distained those who loved him, causing some to take their own life to prove their devotion to his striking beauty. Narcissus is the origin of the term narcissism, a fixation with oneself and one's physical appearance or public perception.” wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(mythology)

It is also said we are all narcissistic in that one must have some degree of focus on the self in order to survive. Self preservation is essentially a manifestation of the biological drive instincts that enable all creatures to survive and procreate. There are degrees of self preservation, and there are degrees of narcissism. Narcissism might be seen as a pathological expression of self preservation. “Self-preservation is normal and healthy, but narcissism is detrimental to the species. The difference between them shows in our interaction with others.” http://refulgentcoleman.blogspot.com/2013/10/self-preservation-vs-narcissism-three.html

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) identifies 9 criteria that might be called “self-involvement indicators”, and proposes a diagnosis of pathological narcissism when 5 of the 9 are present in an individual. It is also important to note theory is continually evolving as our understanding grows, and apparently DSM-6, when it is published, will contain alterations. One medical sociologist has this to say:

When I first started in the world of conventional mental health the DSM 3 was being used. It was a helpful manual at the time. However, what the lay person needs to understand is that these illnesses are created by symptoms that overlap with various diagnoses. That many people are improperly diagnosed therefore receive the wrong treatment causing more problems in the form of medication side effects with treatment that has zero to do with the cause of the problem .There are no tests to check for mental illness except for brain scans that show schizophrenia. Dr. Daniel Amen believes his brain scans help to diagnose mental illness among other things, some of his peers disagree.

Instead of using destructive labels how about we deal with the negative events and/or physiological issues like psychosis due to a lack of vitamin B12 in the case of one vegetarian I read about yesterday. Or how about hormonal imbalance or leaky gut? https://www.quora.com/When-is-the-DSM-6-likely-to-be-released-What-important-revisions-will-it-contain/answer/Suzanne-Kellner-Zinck

Personally I support the view that many pathological mental disorders are exacerbated or caused completely by biochemical imbalances addressed more efficiently in many cases with better nutrition and a discontinuation of medications foreign to the body.

Pathological narcissism is thought to be caused by exogenously induced trauma into the very young developing ego, which creates the neurotic condition of “over-defensiveness”, which then begins to manifest as compromised interaction with others, and self-destructive behaviors.

The Mayo Clinic web page on narcissistic personality disorder lists symptoms and behavioral manifestations:

Signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and the severity of symptoms vary. People with the disorder can:

- Have an exaggerated sense of self-importance

- Have a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration

- Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it

- Exaggerate achievements and talents

- Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate

- Believe they are superior and can only associate with equally special people

- Monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior

- Expect special favors and unquestioning compliance with their expectations

- Take advantage of others to get what they want

- Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others

- Be envious of others and believe others envy them

- Behave in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious

- Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office


At the same time, people with narcissistic personality disorder have trouble handling anything they perceive as criticism, and they can:

- Become impatient or angry when they don't receive special treatment

- Have significant interpersonal problems and easily feel slighted

- React with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person to make themselves appear superior

- Have difficulty regulating emotions and behavior

- Experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change

- Feel depressed and moody because they fall short of perfection

- Have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation

“Treatment for narcissistic personality disorder centers around talk therapy (psychotherapy).”

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662

General awareness of this disorder appears to be on the rise. If you do a web search on narcissistic personality disorder you can quickly find videos by clinical psychologists speaking about symptoms and manifestations in more general terms. Perhaps the most significant of these are lack of empathy as the basic condition, and emotional volatility as the basic manifestation.

In my own experience emotional problems can be largely overcome with a combination of talk therapy (which I view as basically a course of self-education), good nutrition, and physical activity. The three of these concurrently might be said to be “the holy trinity” of healing for these modern times where “emotional intelligence” is not taught in schools (and many families are dysfunctional), the general state of nutrition is abysmal, and many of us do not “move our bodies” sufficiently for good health.

On another level it might be said we can come to greater awareness of the potential for negative impact (to our health) caused by our survival instincts formed in prehistoric “wild conditions” while living our lives in “civilized conditions”. An excellent book “The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force that Undermines Health & Happiness” co-authored by psychologist Doug Lisle and nutritionist Alan Goldhamer cover this topic succinctly: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+pleasure+trap&crid=36AKDBKSMNEPX&sprefix=the+pleasure+%2Caps%2C194&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_13

In brief the “motivational triad” is 1) seek pleasure 2) avoid pain 3) conserve energy, a good prescription for success in a nomadic hunter gatherer world where calories are scarce, predators are everywhere, and abundant energy is necessary for survival. None of those conditions exist in “civilized world”, in fact it is quite the opposite: calories (pleasure) that are nutritionally deficient while being “too delicious” to resist are everywhere, predators are banished, and we sit and look at “screens” for hours at a stretch.

Is it any wonder in our time we see exponential progression of so-called “degenerative diseases”, and increasing levels of narcissism?