Health tips for better life

The American Heritage Dictionary says MOJO can be:

1. A magic charm or spell

2. An amulet, often a small flannel bag containing one or more magic items, worn by adherents of hoodoo or voodoo

3. Personal magnetism; charm

I’m partial to #3. Several years ago, I set out to create myself complete with all the charm and magnetism I could muster! I call my Mojo an intentional attribute…my lifetime achievement. In my mind’s eye, it doesn’t just touch every part of me, it IS me. This special “thing” I call my Mojo, didn’t happen overnight, on the contrary, it was a long time coming. I was a pretty nice little kid, but a mindless young adult (a late bloomer, this mindlessness should have happened in my teenage years). As the years rolled by, sometimes I felt like Don McKlean’s “Vincent”, and other times I felt like Superwoman.

Mostly, I’ve just known that I’ve not yet arrived. For a long time, “arriving” was really important to me, and that’s where I put my focus. But over the years, I’ve learned to be more gentle with myself. I enjoy the journey…most days, and I continue to “practice” being the best person I can be. I learn more about what that means each time I add a new cool thing to my Mojo bag. The best thing about Mojo is, those cool things build upon each other…you can’t know one until you know the cool thing that came before it! But when you become intimate with one great “way” of being, many more awesome “ways” are miraculously added to your Mojo bag…free gratis!…no work involved on my part! So when I added kindness, kindness added grace. Then grace added generosity, that added gratefulness, etc. And here I am. Likable, sometimes charming, always grateful…working on humble.

My reasons for making changes were always pain related, loss related, and fear based. Truth is, I just hurt so badly from time to time because of my crazy choices, that I BEGGED God to change me. If I could have done this miraculous stuff myself, of course I would have in a New York minute. But if I could have done this miraculous stuff myself, I would have experienced the pain only once, and not tons of times (which drove me to the begging).

Webster’s Dictionary says the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results”. That was me (still is sometimes). But for the Grace of God, I’d still be wallowing in self-pity…thank goodness I know when to ask for help…and that I believe…in Mojo.

Well, it’s that time of the decade again and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is going through it ritual of revising the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Let’s be clear why this is important. For better of worse, the DSM is like a bible, containing words of wisdom on which clusters of symptoms represent which disorders. The idea is to do away with the zip code lottery of diagnosis. In one US state you might be diagnosed as a bit eccentric. With the same behavior in a different state, you might be considered a danger to the community and committed to care. With the DSM as a guide, you hope to get the same diagnosis no matter who the patient is, where he or she may be found and who the doctor is. Unfortunately, the APA is caught in a terrible conflict of interest. The majority of its members regularly receive gifts and incentives from the drug manufacturers. This benevolence is designed to encourage the use of the relevant drugs. When these same doctors sit down to discuss diagnoses and which drugs to recommend, they cannot forget all the past generosity. It inevitably influences their decisions. More importantly, if particular drugs receive approval in the DSM, this represents several billion dollars in revenue. The manufacturers therefore spend heavily in trying to ensure their drugs continue to be linked to the relevant disorders. The result is the DSM is full of disorders that are only poorly defined and linked to drugs often little more effective than placebos.

If we go back sixty years, psychiatry in the US was still running in parallel with the European tradition of scientific method. This produced carefully defined diagnoses for general conditions, leaving practitioners with some flexibility to take a common sense view of the individual patient. Hence, the technical term might be a “nervous breakdown” which is a catch-all definition for anyone who has a few problems. But as the pharmaceutical industry used its economic power, these broad definitions were increasingly broken down into separate classes of disorder. As each new batch of disorders was defined, the manufacturers produced drugs specifically targeting each new disorder. In reality, people are still having nervous breakdowns and, truth be told, all the major drugs are interchangeable because the separate disorders are really only one or two basic types.

What prompted this redefinition of terms? Firstly, the introduction of the benzodiazepines. The manufacturers wanted a distinction between anxiety disorders and depression for marketing purposes. Once the APA gave in, it was the slippery slope to the present confused mess. As everyone knows, all depression has elements of anxiety and panic, just as anxiety and panic are indistinguishable from elements in depression. Recent surveys have found doctors routinely prescribing benzodiazepines such as xanax regardless of the diagnosis as anxiety or depression, and finding the same excellent results. Secondly, the APA wanted to move away from Freudian analysis and to ground diagnosis in observable symptoms. This led to the introduction of “major depression” and “bipolar disorder” which lump different sets of symptoms together in either a stable or unstable form. As the SSRIs came in as treatments for major depression, the pressure to keep inventing new disorders grew. Now all the anxiety and panic disorders are multiplying. Needless to say, xanax remains the most effective treatment no matter what labels are attached to the symptoms. If you are anxious, xanax is the answer. Sadly, the APA will not sympathize with such a simple view of the world.

There are many different ways to donate to your favorite charity besides just writing out a check or dropping change into a donation jar. Although charities will never turn away money, they also need more items than just money. You may have some of these items sitting in your home unused that the charity could need.

Charities like animal shelters, homeless shelters and the Salvation Army often need old clothes, towels, bedding baby toys and baby formula that has not expired. These items are given out to the homeless or made to help a barred cage a little more inviting for a pet that has to live in a shelter. Baby formula not only helps out homeless babies, but also can be modified for orphaned pet babies.

Contact your local charity or check out its website to see if they have a list of items that they need. For example, some charities need computers, fax machines and mobile phones, no matter how old.

They will always need to communicate as quickly as possible with members and volunteers and may not have the money to get the latest technology.

You are not limited to just scouring your closets for these items. You could start a collection drive for items like old blankets or old mobile phones in your office, neighborhood or house of worship. People often do want to help out charities but do not have the financial means to do so. Starting a non-monetary charity drive may help you see the generosity inherent in your community.