Pirates Plank

Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

Pirates are synonymous with a lot of things – skull and crossbones, daggers between teeth, eye patches, treasure and of course rum!!  We all have an image of these seafarers brought about through books and movies.  The reality is perhaps not quite as intoxicating!!  Although they have a somewhat romantic image in reality pirates were and are outlaws – brutal thieves and sometimes murderers.

Movies especially tend to show the romantic side of them – often portraying them as lovable rogues.  These movies are often chock-a-block full of stereotypes.  Walking the plank, swinging through the air on ropes – always good looking with just a hint of swagger.

In reality pirates have been around for almost as long as ships have been around.  And of course they are still around – making a comeback in recent years off the coast of Somalia. Famous races have indulged in piracy – the Vikings are perhaps the best known.  I’m sure the towns and villages they raped and plundered did not have quite as romantic notion of them as we do in this day and age.

As in most gangs of outlaws alcohol has played a big part in providing bravado.  In the days of the Vikings it was mead and around the Caribbean it was rum.  There were plenty of hidden spots on far off islands for the pirates to hide their stolen treasure and to store their liquor.

Bands of pirates would often fight over command of liquor distribution – and occasionally this would erupt into a full scale war.  This is reminiscent of the drug wars that are going on today in Central America and Mexico.

Jamaica was a special place in pirate’s hearts.  They could flog their plunder and drink the local (high quality) rum.  The city of Port Royal was the center point where all sorts of partying went on.  On 12 separate occasions all the bars in town were burnt to the ground amidst the drunken revelry.

Life on the pirates ships was not one of comfort – or safety.  The food was an afterthought and even drinking water was in short supply.  Disease and famine were rife.  Grog usually took the place of water and this would have eventually added to the misery.  This drink had rum and lime juice in it to prevent scurvy and to make life a little more comfortable.  The fact is – the pirates life was generally short – and not so sweet.

Article provided by DUI Attorney helping drivers in need of legal aid.

For decades cocaine has been one of the more glamorous street drugs. Associated with celebrities and socialites, the facts about cocaine are much harsher than its glittering reputation. Once cocaine enters the bloodstream it makes it way into the fat tissue and bone marrow of an addict and stays there. This means that even after the immediate high wears off, the body is still dealing with the foreign substance.

Quality cocaine addiction treatment will first detox the body, flushing out those deposits and providing the patient with therapy to deal with the physical withdrawal of the drug. Once detoxification is complete, treatment will most likely center around a 12 Step model of behavior modification and individual therapy to address the underlying causes of the addiction. Long-term treatment programs have a much higher success rate than short-term programs, with some taking as long as two years to effectively treat a cocaine addict.

Addicts and their families can choose from inpatient or outpatient treatment. Residential treatment has the added benefit of removing a patient from risky situations and environments until they gain the tools necessary to avoid temptation on their own. The most effective programs will also include family or couples counseling to help the addict understand the consequences their addiction has had on their loved ones and assist in building new, drug-free models of interaction.

The notion that “it’s all in your head” is true for many of the problems, and solutions, that face people every day. Because the brain is a remarkably complicated instrument whose mysteries are still largely untapped, the connection between thought and circumstance is much more closely linked than most people imagine. One excellent example of this is physical pain. Pain takes place in the body, certainly, at the site of injury, but its origins are in the nerve centers that do begin in the mind. This is not to say that pain is entirely within someone’s control, and there are very few who have been able to successfully control their own pain levels through meditation and biofeedback . But there is evidence that it can be moderated.

One of the more exciting discoveries within the realm of contemporary medicine comes from findings linking pain and stress . Stress also has its origins in the brain, and it’s probably somewhat obvious that the experience of pain is greater under stress. Pain does cause stress, but there are also potentials here to moderate the amount of stress one might experience. This can do a great deal for managing pain. In cases of pain management, where the experience of pain continues long after the injury, there are remarkable possibilities for helping the patient to lessen their own pain perception through these other techniques, and this is something of a breakthrough.

When you start to venture into the world of hot tubs, you’ll find a wide variety of spas to choose from, and choosehottubsdirect.com can help your search be interesting and fun, and their customer service is exceptional.  After this, there is a large community of hot tub owners out there, and you’re entering into this community. You’ll also meet a wide variety of people, with very different ways of looking at their hot tubs.  There are those who see their personal spa as an excellent way to entertain.  Some see it as a place of solitude and relaxation.  And still others take the relaxation much more seriously, and see it as a very special place in their homes.

You don’t have to go too far into the ethereal plane to work with the effects of relaxation, although it can get a little interesting at times.  But it’s very possible to simply learn how your own body relaxes, and use the hot tub as a way of facilitating this very pleasurable process.  The first stage in this kind of work would be the pure relaxation.  Hot tubs make it very simple for the body to calm down, and the massaging jets can soothe tense muscles, and this would very easily approximate the beginning of a true relaxation experience.  It can go deeper, however, just as sleeping can lead to dreaming.

The next phase would be to go deep inside, to experience your own experience of relaxation, as if you were an outsider observing your internal world.  From here, it’s a matter of relaxing more, and focusing, so that this experience gets deeper.  This is usually followed, if you can stay in the moment, by an amazing experience of being connected suddenly, to the world around you, in a profound way.  It’s very difficult to describe, but poets have been trying for thousands of years, and it does seem to be as mysterious as the process that moves the body from sleep cycles to REM.  And like dreaming, it may be possible that we understand more about it some day, but that won’t take away from the mystery.