Maintaining an active lifestyle essential for people living with MS

BY IRIS WINSTON, FOR POSTMEDIA NEWS

NOVEMBER 30, 2010
"Exercise improves the fatigue level, probably better than any drug out there," Stewart says. "Tai chi and yoga, for instance, have a markedly positive impact on patients' balance and on improving their level of fatigue."
Photograph by: Shaughn Butts, Edmonton Journal

Multiple sclerosis is "the single biggest disabler of young, healthy adults," says Edmonton neurologist and University of Alberta associate clinical professor Dr. Brad Stewart. "Medication can cut down on relapses. Some drugs will cut down on disability. Some will have an impact on quality of life."

But Stewart, like many experts, says exercise also plays a crucial role in improving life for people with MS.

"Exercise improves the fatigue level, probably better than any drug out there," Stewart says. "Tai chi and yoga, for instance, have a markedly positive impact on patients' balance and on improving their level of fatigue."

"Exercise is good for all of us and is specifically good for MS patients," says neurologist Dr. Virender Bhan, an associate professor and director of the MS research unit at Dalhousie University, who has cared for MS patients for two decades.

"We recommend that our patients should be as active as possible, keeping in mind that they need to be safe, whatever the activity," says Trudy Campbell, one of only three nurse practitioners in Canada specializing in working with multiple sclerosis patients.

"Exercise, learning strategies to cope with stress, adequate nutrition, maintaining an ideal body weight and family support all play a role in living with MS," she says.

As part of her research projects, Memorial University postdoctoral fellow and physiotherapist Michelle Ploughman worked with numerous older individuals who have had MS for more than 20 years.

"They talked about what they have done to manage their condition and their quality of life now," she says. "I met people in their seventies and eighties who were still contributing to their community, providing telephone support to others with MS and remaining as active as possible. Their lives were not always rosy, but certainly the people who were doing best followed the trend of resilience, taking charge and staying active."

Bhan says that numerous studies indicate the value of any kind of exercise for MS patients. "The type of exercise does not seem to make any difference," he says. "In one study, the groups that did aerobic exercise or worked with weights did equally well and better than the control group. The message is that patients don't have to worry about the type of exercise. Any exercise works."

Balance and time management are also very important for people with MS, says Stewart. "I tell my patients if you're having a bad day, take it easy. If you're having a good day, don't try to make up for all the bad days of the past month. Instead, take an hour or two to go out for dinner and enjoy yourself while you're feeling good."

He adds that getting the appropriate amount of sleep, taking naps and pacing themselves are also extremely important for people with MS; so are managing any other concurrent diseases "aggressively" and maintaining a generally healthy lifestyle. He warns against smoking, for example. "If you have MS and you smoke, you are really doing yourself a disservice. People who smoke tend to have more attacks and more relapses."


© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Exercise

Tips for safe exercise with multiple sclerosis

• Always warm up before beginning the exercise routine and cool down at the end.

• If you plan to work out for 30 minutes, start with 10-minute work out sessions and work your way up.

• Work out in a safe environment; avoid slippery floors, poor lighting, throw rugs and other potential tripping hazards.

• If you have difficulty balancing, exercise within reach of a grab bar or rail.

• If you feel sick or are in pain, stop.

• Select an activity that you enjoy, e.g. water aerobics, swimming, tai chi and yoga.

• MS symptoms may worsen when body heat rises, so don’t exercise during the hot time of the day and drink plenty of cool fluids.

Source: WebMD, wbmd.com

Gregory Petsko on the coming neurological epidemic | Video on TED.com

Gregory Petsko on the coming neurological epidemic | Video on TED.com

Biochemist Gregory Petsko makes a convincing argument that, in the next 50 years, we'll see an epidemic of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's, as the world population ages. His solution: more research into the brain and its functions.

Gregory Petsko's own biography, on his Brandeis faculty homepage, might seem intimidatingly abstruse to the non-biochemist -- he studies "the structural basis for efficient enzymic catalysis of proton and hydride transfer; the role of the metal ions in bridged bimetalloenzyme active sites; direct visualization of proteins in action by time-resolved protein crystallography; the evolution of new enzyme activities from old ones; and the biology of the quiescent state in eukaryotic cells."

But for someone so deeply in touch with the minutest parts of our bodies, Petsko is also a wide-ranging mind, concerned about larger health policy issues. The effect of mass population shifts -- such as our current trend toward a senior-citizen society -- maps onto his world of tiny proteins to create a compeling new worldview.

MS and Stem Cells: Time is brain in MS

The Canadian MS Bone Marrow Transplant Research Study is a MS Society-funded project to re-grow the immune systems of patients with MS using stem cells. Led by Drs. Mark Freedman and Harold Atkins at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and University of Ottawa, the study began in August of 2000. Ten years later, more than half of the 26 patients enrolled have seen their symptoms stabilize and, in many cases, actually improve, unheard of results in the treatment of MS. Yet few people know about this research. As part of our month-long salute to MS and stem cells, we will speak with people involved in every aspect of this study: the doctors and researchers, patients and their families and the people behind the scenes. Today, an interview Dr. Mark Freedman.

Spasticity

Spasticity is a feature of altered skeletal muscle performance occurring in disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) impacting the upper motor neuron in the form of a lesion. 

Memory

Horizon: How Does Your Memory Work?

49:04 - 2 years ago

Aired: March 25, 2008 on BBC2 You might think that your memory is there to help you remember facts, such as birthdays or shopping lists. If so, you would be very wrong. The ability to travel back in time in your mind is, perhaps, your most remarkable ability, and develops over your lifespan. Horizon takes viewers on an extraordinary journey into the human memory. From the woman who is having her most traumatic memories wiped by a pill, to the man with no memory, this film reveals how these remarkable human stories are transforming our understanding of this unique human ability. The findings reveal the startling truth that everyone is little more than their own memory. More Documentaries: http://Atheistmedia.blogspot.com -

Albert Ellis

The Essence of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: A Comprehensive Approach to Treatment by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. (The following has been adapted from The Essence of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy website).

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is a comprehensive approach to psychological treatment that deals not

only with the emotional and behavioral aspects of human disturbance, but places a great deal of stress on

its thinking component. Human beings are exceptionally complex, and there neither seems to be any simple

way in which they become “emotionally disturbed,” nor is there a single way in which they can be helped

to be less-defeating. Their psychological problems arise from their misperceptions and mistaken

cognitions about what they perceive; from their emotional underreactions or overreactions to normal and

unusual stimuli; and from their habitually dysfunctional behavior patterns, which enable them to keep

repeating nonadjustive responses even when they “know” that they are behaving poorly.

PHILOSOPHICAL CONDITIONING

REBT is based on the assumption that what we label our “emotional” reactions are largely caused by our

conscious and unconscious evaluations, interpretations, and philosophies. Thus, we feel anxious or

depressed because we strongly convince ourselves that it is terrible when we fail at something or that we

can’t stand the pain of being rejected. We feel hostile because we vigorously believe that people who

behave unfairly to us absolutely should not act the way they indubitably do, and that it is utterly

insufferable when they frustrate us.

Like stoicism, a school of philosophy that existed some two thousand years ago, rational emotive behavior

therapy holds that there are virtually no good reasons why human beings have to make themselves very

neurotic, no matter what kind of negative stimuli impinge on them. It gives them full leeway to feel

strong negative emotions, such as sorrow, regret, displeasure, annoyance, rebellion, and determination to

change social conditions. It believes, however, that when they experience certain self-defeating and

unhealthy emotions (such as panic, depression, worthlessness, or rage), they are usually adding an

unrealistic and illogical hypothesis to their empirically-based view that their own acts or those of

others are reprehensible or inefficient and that something would better be done about changing them.

Rational emotive behavior therapists — often within the first session or two of seeing a client — can

almost always put their finger on a few central irrational philosophies of life which this client

vehemently believes. They can show clients how these ideas inevitably lead to emotional problems and

hence to presenting clinical symptoms, can demonstrate exactly how they forthrightly question and

challenge these ideas, and can often induce them to work to uproot them and to replace them with

scientifically testable hypotheses about themselves and the world which are not likely to get them into

future neurotic difficulties.

12 IRRATIONAL IDEAS THAT CAUSE AND SUSTAIN NEUROSIS

Rational therapy holds that certain core irrational ideas, which have been clinically observed, are at

the root of most neurotic disturbance. They are:

(1) The idea that it is a dire necessity for adults to be loved by significant others for almost

everything they do — instead of their concentrating on their own self-respect, on winning approval for

practical purposes, and on loving rather than on being loved.

(2) The idea that certain acts are awful or wicked, and that people who perform such acts should be

severely damned — instead of the idea that certain acts are self-defeating or antisocial, and that people

who perform such acts are behaving stupidly, ignorantly, or neurotically, and would be better helped to

change. People’s poor behaviors do not make them rotten individuals.

(3) The idea that it is horrible when things are not the way we like them to be — instead of the idea

that it is too bad, that we would better try to change or control bad conditions so that they become more

satisfactory, and, if that is not possible, we had better temporarily accept and gracefully lump their

existence.

(4) The idea that human misery is invariably externally caused and is forced on us by outside people and

events — instead of the idea that neurosis is largely caused by the view that we take of unfortunate

conditions.

(5) The idea that if something is or may be dangerous or fearsome we should be terribly upset and

endlessly obsess about it — instead of the idea that one would better frankly face it and render it

non-dangerous and, when that is not possible, accept the inevitable.

(6) The idea that it is easier to avoid than to face life difficulties and self-responsibilities —

instead of the idea that the so-called easy way is usually much harder in the long run.

(7) The idea that we absolutely need something other or stronger or greater than ourselves on which to

rely — instead of the idea that it is better to take the risks of thinking and acting less dependently.

(8) The idea that we should be thoroughly competent, intelligent, and achieving in all possible respects

— instead of the idea that we would better do rather than always need to do well and accept ourselves as

a quite imperfect creature, who has general human limitations and specific fallibilities.

(9) The idea that because something once strongly affected our life, it should indefinitely affect it —

instead of the idea that we can learn from our past experiences but not be overly-attached to or

prejudiced by them.

(10) The idea that we must have certain and perfect control over things — instead of the idea that the

world is full of probability and chance and that we can still enjoy life despite this.

(11) The idea that human happiness can be achieved by inertia and inaction — instead of the idea that we

tend to be happiest when we are vitally absorbed in creative pursuits, or when we are devoting ourselves

to people or projects outside ourselves.

(12) The idea that we have virtually no control over our emotions and that we cannot help feeling

disturbed about things — instead of the idea that we have real control over our destructive emotions if

we choose to work at changing the musturbatory hypotheses which we often employ to create them.

MAIN DIFFERENCES FROM OTHER SCHOOLS

1. De-emphasis of early childhood. While REBT accepts the fact that neurotic states are sometimes

originally learned or aggravated by early teaching or irrational beliefs by one’s family and by society,

it holds that these early-acquired irrationalities are not automatically sustained over the years by

themselves. Instead, they are very actively and creatively re-instilled by the individuals themselves. In

many cases the therapist spends very little time on the clients’ parents or family upbringing; and yet

helps them to bring about significant changes in their disturbed patterns of living. The therapist

demonstrates that no matter what the clients’ basic irrational philosophy of life, nor when and how they

acquired it, they are presently disturbed because they still believe this self-defeating world- and

self-view. If they will observe exactly what they are irrationally thinking in the present, and will

challenge and question these self-statements they will usually improve significantly.

2. Emphasis on deep philosophical change and scientific thinking. Because of its belief that human

neurotic disturbance is largely ideologically or philosophically based, REBT strives for a thorough-going

philosophic reorientation of a people’s outlook on life, rather than for a mere removal of any of their

mental or psychosomatic symptoms. It teaches the clients, for ex ample, that human adults do not need to

be accepted or loved, even though it is highly desirable that they be. REBT encourages individuals to be

healthily sad or regretful when they are rejected, frustrated, or deprived. But it tries to teach them

how to overcome feelings of intense hurt, self-deprecation, and depression. As in science, clients are

shown how to question the dubious hypotheses that they construct about themselves and others. If they

believe (as alas, millions of us do), that they are worthless because they perform certain acts badly,

they are not merely taught to ask, “What is really bad about my acts?” and “Where is the evidence that

they are wrong or unethical?” More importantly, they are shown how to ask themselves, “Granted that my

acts may be mistaken, why am I a totally bad person for performing them? Where is the evidence that I

must always be right in order to consider my-self worthy? Assuming that it is preferable for me to act

well rather than badly, why do I have to do what is preferable?”

Similarly, when people perceive (let us suppose, correctly) the erroneous and unjust acts of others, and

become enraged at these others, they are shown how to stop and ask themselves, “Why is my hypothesis that

the people who committed these errors and injustices are no damned good a true hypothesis? Granted that

it woulould be better if they acted more competently or fairly, why should they have to do what would be

better?” REBT teaches that to be human is to be fallible, and that if we are to get on in life with

minimal upset and discomfort, we would better accept this reality — and then unanxiously work hard to

become a little less fallible.

3. Use of psychological homework. REBT agrees with most Freudian, neo-Freudian, Adlerian, and Jungian

schools that acquiring insight, especially so-called emotional insight, into the source of their neurosis

is a most important part of people’s corrective teaching. It distinguishes sharply, however, between

so-called intellectual and emotional insight, and operationally defines emotional insight as individuals’

knowing or seeing the cause of their problems and working, in a determined and energetic manner, to apply

this knowledge to the solution of these problems. The rational emotive behavior therapist helps clients

to acknowledge that there is usually no other way for him to get better but by their continually

observing, questioning, and challenging their own belief-systems, and by their working and practicing to

change their own irrational beliefs by verbal and behavioral counter-propagandizing activity. In REBT,

actual homework assignments are frequently agreed upon in individual and group therapy. Assignments may

include dating a person whom the client is afraid to ask for a date; looking for a new job;

experimentally returning to live with a husband with whom one has previously continually quarreled; etc.

The therapist quite actively tries to encourage clients to undertake such assignments as an integral part

of the therapeutic process.

The REBT practitioner is able to give clients unconditional rather than conditional positive regard

because the REBT philosophy holds that no humans are to be damned for anything, no matter how execrable

their acts may be. Because of the therapist’s unconditional acceptance of them as a human, and actively

teaching clients how to fully accept themselves, clients are able to express their feelings more openly

and to stop rating themselves even when they acknowledge the inefficiency or immorality of some of their acts.

In many highly important ways, then, rational emotive behavior therapy utilizes expressive-experimental

methods and behavioral techniques. It is not, however, primarily interested in helping people ventilate

emotion and feel better, but in showing them how they can truly get better, and lead to happier,

non-self-defeating, self-actualized lives.

http://www.psychologistanywhereanytime.com/index.htm

Multiple sclerosis activity increases during spring and summer

Multiple sclerosis activity increases during spring and summer

+

A new study has shown that multiple sclerosis activity decreases during the spring and summer months. This could have mislead the progression of treatment for MS patients.



According to Dominik Meier, PhD, of Brigham and Woman’s Hospital in Boston and a member of the American Academy of Neurology said that brain scans of 44 people taken between 1991 and 1993 have shown that MS symptoms were two to three times higher between March and August.


The participants were between the ages 25 and 52 that had untreated MS. Each of the subjects had brain scans done eight times a week another eight scans every other week and six monthly check-ups. The researchers took into consideration the weather including daily temperature, solar radiation, and precipitation measurements.

Out of the 44 people that were being observed, only 13 had no new lesions on the brain. The other 33 people had 310 new lesions. It was noted that there were more lesions found in the spring and summer months.

"This is an important study because it analyzes records from the early 1990's, before medications for relapsing MS were approved, so medicines likely could not affect the outcome. A study like this probably won't be able to be repeated," said Anne Cross, MD, withthe Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who wrote an editorial about the study. Cross is also a memberof the American Academy of Neurology. "Future studies should further explore how and why environmental factors play a role in MS."

This research is a very important piece to the puzzle. MS patients may appear to have a decrease in lesions from summer to winter.

If treatment is being used, it would seem that it would be working. The opposite would be observed from the winter to summer.

Robert Wright on optimism | Video on TED.com

Robert Wright on optimism | Video on TED.com

Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks was born in 1933 in London, England into a family of physicians and scientists (his mother was a surgeon and his father a general practitioner). He earned his medical degree at Oxford University (Queen’s College), and did residencies and fellowship work at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco and at UCLA.

Since 1965, he has lived in New York, where he is a practicing neurologist. In July of 2007, he was appointed a Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, and he was designated Columbia University’s first Columbia Artist. 

In 1966 Dr. Sacks began working as a consulting neurologist for Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx, a chronic care hospital where he encountered an extraordinary group of patients, many of whom had spent decades in strange, frozen states, like human statues, unable to initiate movement. 

He recognized these patients as survivors of the great pandemic of sleepy sickness that had swept the world from 1916 to 1927, and treated them with a then-experimental drug, L-dopa, which enabled them to come back to life. 

They became the subjects of his book Awakenings, which later inspired a play by Harold Pinter (“A Kind of Alaska”) and the Oscar-nominated feature film (“Awakenings”) with Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.

Sacks is perhaps best known for his collections of case histories from the far borderlands of neurological experience, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars, in which he describes patients struggling to live with conditions ranging from Tourette’s syndrome to autism, parkinsonism, musical hallucination, epilepsy, phantom limb syndrome, schizophrenia, retardation, and Alzheimer’s disease. 

He has investigated the world of Deaf people and sign language in Seeing Voices, and a rare community of colorblind people in The Island of the Colorblind. He has written about his experiences as a doctor in Migraine and as a patient in A Leg to Stand On. His autobiographical Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood was published in 2001, and his most recent book is Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (Knopf, 2007). 

Sacks’s work, which has been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, regularly appears in the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, as well as various medical journals. The New York Times has referred to Dr. Sacks as “the poet laureate of medicine,” and in 2002 he was awarded the Lewis Thomas Prize by Rockefeller University, which recognizes the scientist as poet. He is an honorary fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and holds honorary degrees from many universities, including Oxford, the Karolinska Institute, Georgetown, Bard, Gallaudet, Tufts, and the Catholic University of Peru.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran MD, PhD

http://cbc.ucsd.edu/ramabio.html

Biography Laboratory Publications Interviews Illusions


V.S. Ramachandran is Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Professor with the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute. Ramachandran initially trained as a doctor and subsequently obtained a Ph.D. from Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. Ramachandran’s early work was on visual perception but he is best known for his experiments in behavioral neurology which, despite their apparent simplicity, have had a profound impact on the way we think about the brain. He has been called “The Marco Polo of neuroscience” by Richard Dawkins and “The modern Paul Broca” by Eric Kandel.

In 2005 he was awarded the Henry Dale Medal and elected to an honorary life fellowship by the Royal Instituion of Great Britain. His other honours and awards include fellowships from All Souls College, Oxford, and from Stanford University; the Presidential Lecture Award from the American Academy of Neurology, two honorary doctorates, the annual Ramon Y Cajal award from the International Neuropsychiatry Society, and the Ariens-Kappers medal from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. In 2003 he gave the annual BBC Reith lectures and was the first physician/psychologist to give the lectures since they were begun by Bertrand Russel in 1949. In 1995 he gave the Decade of the Brain lecture at the 25th annual (Silver Jubilee) meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Most recently the President of India conferred on him the second highest civilian award and honorific title in India, the Padma Bhushan.

Ramachandran has published over 180 papers in scientific journals (including five invited review articles in the Scientific American). He is author of the acclaimed book “Phantoms in the Brain” that has been translated into nine languages and formed the basis for a two part series on Channel Four TV (UK) and a 1 hour PBS special in USA. NEWSWEEK magazine has named him a member of “The Century Club” – one of the “hundred most prominent people to watch in the next century.”

Recent Reviews

A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness; BBC Reith Lectures. New York: Pi Press, 2004

“Vintage Ramachandran, packed with ideas that are bold, irreverent, original, and ingenious. People who have never thought much about the brain will be intrigued, but so will those who, like me, have spent most of their lives thinking about the brain.”

-David Hubel, Nobel Laureate, Harvard University, author of Eye, Brain, and Vision

“An extraordinary book by a remarkable scientist! Ramachandran is … the modern Paul Broca, the great French neurologist who opened up the biological analysis of higher mental functions.”

-Eric R. Kandel, M.D., Nobel Laureate, Columbia University

“The Marco Polo of neuroscience.”

-Richard Dawkins, Oxford University, author of The Blind

Phantoms in the Brain. New York: William Morror, 1998.

“The patients he describes are fascinating and his experiments on them are both simple and ingenious. If you are at all interested in how your brain works, this is the book you must read.”

-Francis Crick, Nobel Laureate, Salk Institute

“…Enthralling not only for its clear and eloquent descriptions of neurological phenomena but also for its portrait of Dr. Ramachandran, a scientist in search of the secrets of the mind…and he is a splendid subject indeed.”

-Michael Goldberg, M.D., Chief of Neuropsychology NIH

Eva Zeisel on the playful search for beauty | Video on TED.com

Eva Zeisel on the playful search for beauty | Video on TED.com

The legendary Eva Zeisel is a ceramics designer whose curvy, sensual pieces bring delight and elegance to tabletops around the world.

Why you should listen to her:

Young Eva Zeisel was driven by two desires: to make beautiful things, and to see the world. Her long and legendary career in ceramics has helped her do both. Born in Budapest in 1906, she apprenticed to a guild of potters as a teenager, then worked in Germany and later Russia (where she was imprisoned by Stalin for 16 months) and Vienna. Landing in New York in 1938 with her husband Hans, Zeisel began her second design career.

In the American postwar period, Zeisel's work simply defined the era. Organic shapes, toned colors, a sense of fun and play -- her Town and Country line for Red Wing in particular evokes an urbane early-1950s kitchen where you'd be likely to get an excellent cup of coffee and some good conversation.

Zeisel took a break from design in the 1960s and 1970s, returning to the scene in the 1980s as interest in her older work revived. But as she collects lifetime achievement awards and sees centenary exhibitions open and close, she's not simply rehashing her older work for the repro crowd -- she's has been branching out into glassware and furniture.

Michael Merzenich on re-wiring the brain | Video on TED.com

Michael Merzenich studies neuroplasticity -- the brain's powerful ability to change itself and adapt -- and ways we might make use of that plasticity to heal injured brains and enhance the skills in healthy ones.

Why you should listen to him:

One of the foremost researchers of neuroplasticity, Michael Merzenich's work has shown that the brain retains its ability to alter itself well into adulthood -- suggesting that brains with injuries or disease might be able to recover function, even later in life. He has also explored the way the senses are mapped in regions of the brain and the way sensations teach the brain to recognize new patterns.

Merzenich wants to bring the powerful plasticity of the brain into practical use through technologies and methods that harness it to improve learning. He founded Scientific Learning Corporation, which markets and distributes educational software for children based on models of brain plasticity. He is co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Posit Science, which creates "brain training" software also based on his research.

Merzenich is professor emeritus of neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco.
"Merzenich is perhaps the most recognizable figure in brain plasticity and how one develops competence through experience and learning."Dominique M. Durand

Michael Merzenich on re-wiring the brain | Video on TED.com

Karen Armstrong: Let's revive the Golden Rule | Video on TED.com

Dean Ornish

Dean Ornish: Physician, author

Dean Ornish is a clinical professor at UCSF and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute. He's a leading expert on fighting illness -- particularly heart disease with dietary and lifestyle changes.

Why you should listen to him:

Dr. Dean Ornish wants you to live longer, and have more fun while you're at it. He's one of the leading voices in the medical community promoting a balanced, holistic approach to health, and proving that it works. The author of Eat More, Weigh Less and several other best-selling books, Ornish is best known for his lifestyle-based approach to fighting heart disease.

His research at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute (the nonprofit he founded) clinically demonstrated that cardiovascular illnesses -- and, most recently prostate cancer -- can be treated and even reversed through diet and exercise. These findings (once thought to be physiologically implausible) have been widely chronicled in the US media, includingNewsweek, for which Ornish writes a column. The fifty-something physician, who's received many honors and awards, was chosen by LIFE Magazine as one of the most influential members of his generation. Among his many pursuits, Ornish is now working with food corporations to help stop America's obesity pandemic from spreading around the globe.

"Instead of trying to motivate [patients] with the 'fear of dying,' Ornish reframes the issue. He inspires a new vision of the 'joy of living' -- convincing them they can feel better, not just live longer."   ~ Fast Company

Dean Ornish on healing | Video on TED.com

Dean Ornish on healing | Video on TED.com

Use All Your Available Resources

"If you are too weak to fight, you must find more men.
In this situation, you must not act aggressively." 
Sun Tzu's The Art of War 9:6:1-2

Pushing Back Without Using Force

LAO TZU
"TAO TE CHING"

Chapter 69

There is an old saying:
"It is better to become the passive
in order to see what will happen.
It is better to retreat a foot
than to advance only an inch."

This is called
being flexible while advancing,
pushing back without using force,
and destroying the enemy without engaging him.

There is no greater disaster
than underestimating your enemy.
Underestimating your enemy
means loosing your greatest assets.
When equal forces meet in battle,
victory will go to the one
that enters with the greatest sorrow.

Multiple Sclerosis

This blog is not about religion but rather about learning how best to deal with the disease multiple sclerosis in all its many guises.

Love Thy Enemy

Matthew 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. [44] But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; (KJV)