As a skeptic of meditation, I wanted to learn more about its healing possibilities. My friend meditates on a daily basis, and he is convinced that it helps with not only his state of mind, but also his immune system. He started meditating about five years ago, and the most sick he’s ever been was with a mild case of the common cold last winter. When I started doing research, I found that meditation can help and even diseases. In a dailybeast.com article, a man named Tibetan Lama Phakyab Rinpoche, had Potts disease and diabetes. Eventually, doctors told him that his afflictions had gotten so bad, to the point where he developed gangrene and had to get his foot amputated. But, Rinpoche did not give up so quickly. He decided to rely on meditation as a way to heal his foot. After a year, it was back to normal and he was able to walk on it again. Now, Rinpoche teaches meditation. The positive correlation between meditation and his healing foot fascinated researchers, so they decided to look deeper into meditation. They found that with lots of practice, meditation can help increase blood flow, it can boost your metabolism, and it can contribute to oxygenation. The combination of these things can fight off damaging bacteria, such as the bacteria that caused the gangrene in Rinpoche’s foot.

After doing additional research, I also found that meditation can help with cancer. Typically, cancer patients are stressed, and meditation can help them with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and depression. And, these stressed and anxious feelings certainly don’t help the patient’s recovery, or treatment for that matter. So by meditating, neuroendocrine can be altered, the immune system can be boosted, stress hormones can be reduced, and more,  according to beginnersmeditations.com.

I’m a “I need to see it to believe it” kind of girl, so this information is still hard for me to wrap my head around. Rinpoche’s story is especially mind boggling to me. No matter how much I learn about meditation, I won’t truly believe in all of its health benefits, until I tried it for myself.

Picture of Rinpoche.

Sources:

http://cdt29.media.tourinsoft.com/upload/41E6DFED-C5F1-433E-A6D2-281A8C1CAD95/Phakyab-Rinpoche.png

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/12/25/can-meditation-cure-disease.html

http://www.beginnersmeditations.com/how-meditation-helps-cancer-patients/

About 9 months ago, I started eating healthy. My entire life, I indulged in sweets, salty snacks, MacDonald’s; you name it. After getting sick and tired of feeling crappy all the time, I thought that it would be best to attempt to eat healthy for one month. But, what started out as New Year’s Resolution, turned into a huge part of my daily life. Although eating healthy comes naturally to me now, it certainly wasn’t easy in the beginning. My biggest struggle was giving up Coca Cola. As many know, soda is high in sugar, and large amounts of sugar was something that I was trying to avoid. So, I thought that I would turn to diet soda. When I asked my dad about switching to diet coke, he shut down the idea immediately. He told me that I should try drinking as much water as I can, and that diet soda is nearly just as bad as regular soda. Although I listened to him and drank mostly water, I still come to think: If there’s not sugar in diet soda, then why is it so bad?

After doing research on diet soda, I found that there are many reasons as to why it’s still threatening to one’s health. According to medicaldaily.com, the consumption of diet soda can result in weight gain, due to the body’s craving for real sugar. The body doesn’t crave the artificial sugar, therefore it is not satisfied. So, this could lead to the overconsumption of food and drink, due to the bodies dissatisfaction with the artificial sugar.

Not only can people gain weight, but there is a connection to heart disease and soda. As I read on clark.com, there was study conducted on 42,400 men in Sweden. They all drank at least two artificially sweetened drinks a day, for 12 years. After 12 years, the scientists  found that there was a correlation between the two. In fact, 3,064 had a positive correlation with risk of heart failure and artificially sugary beverages. And shockingly, 509 of the men died of heart failure.

As I was doing research on diet sodas, I found that a chemical called aspartame is a substitute for sugar in many of there diet soda products. There has been a debate on whether or not this chemical is a cancer causing agent, but in 2012, a Harvard study found a link in an old study that was conducted. About 120,000 participants drank at least one diet soda a day, ⅔ of them being women and ⅓ of them being men in a study by the Nurse’s Health Society. The researchers found that men and women were more likely to get leukemia by drinking one soda a day. The mechanism for this was not founded, but the connection was there. Click here to read more about this study.

Overall, I think that it would be safe to say that diet coke certainly doesn’t do anyone any good. It can cause weight gain, and people could end up with serious health issues, including heart failure and possibly cancer.

Sources:

http://www.medicaldaily.com/diet-soda-vs-regular-soda-one-worse-you-other-308063

http://www.clark.com/diet-soda-risks-diet-coke

https://www.davidicke.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Untitled6-587×387.jpg

https://www.baumancollege.org/aspartame-article/

Hi Everyone, my name is Chloe Salvato and I’m from Westfield, NJ. I don’t necessarily hate science; in fact, I have a fond liking for it. Except, I do not have a math / science brain, which is why I ended up here. I am a freshman in the College of Communications, with an intended major in advertising. I have to receive a 3.3 GPA by my junior year so I definitely did not want to take physics, chemistry, or biology. But, I plan on minoring in nutrition which involves some science unfortunately. Furthermore, there are many different areas of concentration in advertising, which is partially why I am interested in it. I am hoping to get involved with either the entertainment or the food aspect of advertising. Originally I was in the DUS program, but after giving some thought as to what I enjoy, the two things that popped into my mind were pop culture and food/ eating healthy. But, I definitely do not want to become a TV show host, I want to be more “behind the scenes.” This is why I hope that advertising will be the right path for me. I also don’t want to become a chef, but I want to be mindful of how certain foods can affect the body. I also just love food in general. I have always been a huge foodie, except I didn’t start eating healthy and realizing how important it is until about 8 months ago. Once I changed my diet and started exercising, eating healthy became a true passion of mine and I now have a greater appreciation for food. Click here to learn about why eating healthy is so important!

Basically, I chose this class because it’s based upon critical thinking, and rather than scientific math equations. Although, I didn’t do poorly in my math or science classes, but I certainly did struggle a lot. It took A LOT of time and effort for me to understand something so simple. I’d rather play on my strengths, rather than my weaknesses.