A pause for relaxed breath in the sea of information...Sharing a beautiful rose, brought out of sheer kindness, from my carer's garden.
It's sitting beside a vivid orange salt lamp from Poland.
How I wish I could share the scent with you...hope you may gently relax, enjoy...
Ps..ah, with the best will...the .picture has toppled sideways... grateful for any guidance in how to set it straight. x
Does the salt lamp have any noticeable effects on breathing easier with the calming rose scent.
(size of picture is the probable reason for change from portrait to landscape layout)
Ah, Ian, I appreciate the curiosity. And I wish I could say with any certainty about the effects of the salt lamp on breathing, yet I can share that its presence brings warmth, a curious mineral saltiness that seems to chime with something physiological within, though I can't quite say what this is...yet I can share it feels like a kind of 'recognition' by the body...a feeling of blood-cleansing (is how it feels to me with a welcome sense of grounding)
And I guess, as with much else, this experience is perhaps unique to each person...
Yet recently, I'm noticing how the body calls for and responds to earth and rocks and living things...perhaps for me a call to balance after earlier lifestyle that had always felt against the grain...
Is this making sense... and I gently wonder what may be equivalent for you (and other friends here), if you wish to say.
(And Ian thanks too for the very welcome tip to this novice about the tipped-over photo...)
The reputed lung health benefits of salt caves was behind my curiosity, when taking the sea air has been a popular means of getting in touch with nature almost as long as taking the waters at a spa.
A very Interesting enquiry, Ian.
I wonder if any of us in our community has experienced the benefits of those salt caves? It feels worth further exploring.
I wonder what it is about the sea, that feels so healthful? Is it the iodine...or the negative ions, something in the air quality that is healing? Do we know if there are salt caves here in the UK?
I've more than a hunch there's something in it...Curiously, 12 years ago an NHS doctor actually advised me to go and live by the sea or on top of a hill. I couldn't make that happen then, yet thanks to your question, Ian, I reawaken to that message.
On the subject of spas...some years ago (when just about able to work and travel), I took a 5 day medically supervised 'wellness cure' at a centre in the Czech republic. The 'regime' involved daily supervised baths in strongly mineralised thermal waters...and deep rest and walking in the forest to a particular spring to 'take the waters' and healthy food. The area had many springs, each with different mineral balances, so the Dr prescribed accordingly. I slept so deeply and recharged in a way only known when completely well before EBV days !
Others were there, with serious and chronic conditions, if only our NHS resources would support and encourage such
cures, but then we'd be seeing the sky full of flying pigs ! It gets me thinking, wondering what other EEC countries are recommending for such cases...
In the long run, it would save the government thousands per patient if they would fund such therapies and quit the ones that obviously are of such small use or even harmful. Such is the desire to cut costs, that reason and critical thinking are abandoned and money thrown away on things that do us no good.
Hear, hear dear Budgiefriend, I'm with you on all you express (here and in other wonderful replies today). If I may sidetrack to a totally different area of health, I used to help run 3 half-way homes for people coming out of long-stay psychiatric hospitals...most had been in hospital for 30 years, on lots of meds, with no family, no income and no self-empowerment, all highly institutionalised...
Well, we ran the whole project on the equivalent cost of 1 year's long stay bed in the NHS...and actually served 30 residents and 40 ex-residents. The amazing thing was that each person would get significantly better (within the possible realms and sometimes even miraculously), within 4 years...and whislt we worked closely with the medics as needed, each person had a unique programme which they helped create...for one, it was acupuncture that made a radical difference, for another, contact with animals, horses or cats...another came to life through poetry ...another found a job cleaning churches which thrilled him...the pathways were so diverse, the stories so unique, yet it was incredible what was possible, as I say, for a different population, yet nonetheless healing and well-being are the common ground for all of us wherever possible...and I feel passionately that there could be more subtle, appropriate, creative and empowering ways forward
For starters treat the patient as a person with greater knowledge of their own body than the doctor who has just met them and asked "What can I do for you today?" while glancing at his watch and thinking about lunch.
I know I sound bitter. But, as you say, every person has a set of qualities, needs, injuries, history, particular response systems and physiological patterns that is unique. Each will respond somewhat differently to the same things, and certainly with a disease as bizarre and complex as ours, where each has a different mix and pattern of symptoms... the honestly mind boggling idea that we cannot be treated until there is a simple and cheap test that will tell the doctor exactly what the cause is... well, one would think they could see the absurdity of it all.
I used to teach singers. There were never any two whose way of learning and developing were quite alike. Many common patterns, common problems, but also some baffling and very unexpected head-scratchers. Put the package together and every half hour could be a revelation with that student.
No two alike. And each needed to develop a dialogue with me as the teacher and facilitator and co-discoverer of what they could do and how we were going to create the path toward their best singing their particular instrument can produce. So much was intuitive and almost imperceptible.
But it's not magic. And it's not psychological nonsense or new age silliness. It is called respect, humility and communication. It's simply diversity and awareness that can be finely tuned by a person humble enough and open enough to engage with the other person. Like you and your co-manager of the programme for former psychiatric patients.
I also found out amazing things about myself. I learned how to sing better. We are not clones after all.
Throwing money at health care organisations, in place of common sense, reason, humanity and a desire to learn, brings miserable failure as we can see. Money can be found for the areas where it's needed, with wise management to the rest.
I don't know anything about political decision making or about managing business, but I can recognise silliness and waste. Why can't more people? Just puzzles me.
My goodness ! I just found this (commercial version) of a salt cave in the UK and there's a section there talking about the NHS and continuing health care plans...(obviously someone commercially savvy, yet there seem to be genuine reported benefits and first visit is free)
The type of salt is important apparently, though cures all known ills while removing stains from clothing lingo does not help my inner sceptic.
A very healthy inner sceptic I feel.
Still, I would probably try it once (for free), if they brought it to my door...
On a different note, I wonder if anyone here has tried oxygen therapy?
Last year (before bedbound), after an op, I awoke smiling and absolutely pain free for 45 mins and felt I'd gone on holiday !(Thank to the mix of analgesics, anaesthetic and oxygen.). A few weeks later I discovered a place (mostly for MS sufferers), offering low cost oxygen therapy for those with other conditions. I went to the trial, yet after 6 minutes my ears were too painful to bear it. So not for me, yet I do believe it could be genuinely beneficial for some.
Have tried hyperbaric oxygen therapy but as I already use oxygen when moving the difference was not as noticeable as the post anaesthesia oxygen rush for me.
Travelling to and from sessions put it into the salt cave is worth doing if at my front door state, though as you say of benefit for some.
laughing out loud with your inner skeptic as my own did not see that bit, and would have gone into hoots, as it did when I read your comment.
in hoots too, at the inner hoots I hear and so too the inner sceptics !
I would agree with all of that. Have looked at salt lamps online, but they seem too expensive. After your description, I will reconsider. I love salt air. I am lucky enough to live close to the sea and can step outside or poke my head out to get that wonderful breath of it.
I also have recently remembered how effective natural essences can be as therapy. I have a very potent and fresh little net bag of lavender which I smell when I have a headache... like several times a day... and it does help, although does not cure.
The cleansing feeling is valid and I think it is a very wise instinct to follow it.
Have you stopped a while
to glance at a flower in full bloom
felt its power to banish in a moment
all the gloom
Indeed, I have, Ringading
Such magical petals and each leaf
To me feels thrilling
Helps me breathe
Me too!!
Caring said with flowers the sentiment as beautiful as the rose generosity calming rhythm. Experience shared is multiplied in value.
Phixr changes pictures on Facebook more than that is a mystery
I love a mystery...
Kindness sharing relaxing enjoyment thank you kindly
Thanks for sharing. Every garden should have a rose within.
I have red roses climbing over the front of my house. Just to look at them lifts
the spirit.
Also have never come across salt lamps interesting.
Sounds beautiful, Nedd, your garden with clambering red roses...
Long live such flourishing that also uplifts spirits...
Flourishing. Now there's a word that I had completely forgotten existed. As I seem to have entered the mindset of non flourish ment latterly. some words are as beautiful as flowers. I shall be on a flourising hunt now for other mood boosters. May we all be flourishing to the best of our ability.
I can't advise on straightening the toppled picture, but I do really love it and appreciate it even on its side. Thanks.
Ah, thanks so much for sayin' Budgiefriend
The American Institute of Medicine report on redefining ME/CFS - they suggest a different new definition.