Picture of the day.

Heres me on a rope swing on an East coast beach called Apotere. My bro took this pic.

Picture of the day.

I like taking pictures of power lines. you can take some nice little arty shots if you get it right. this one is alright but nothing spectacular. I like it because it looks black and white but it's not just a real flat day.

Picture of the day.

Dusk in Whangamata.

Picture of the Day (with a story to go with it)

This is a place called Piha on the wild west coast of New Zealand. It's about 45mins from Auckland City. I grew up in Piha so I'll probably be posting a lot of pics.
I almost died in Piha surfing. Theres a lot of jagged Rocks and caves all around the west coast. I was surfing with one of my friends just around the bay from this photo. I caught a big wave and ended going over the falls. I got smashed by a few waves and when I came up I was right against the rocks. A cave was about 5 meters away from me and the current was sucking me in there. That was about the freakiest time of my life because I couldn't see what was in the cave. So I ended up getting sucked in the cave which was like a washing machine. Very freaky. I got stuck in there for over an hour until I managed to climb up onto a ledge then climb out of the cave. My board was smashed already. I climbed out of the cave and sat on a perch. I decided I wasn't going anywhere until a helicopter came to save me haha. while I was in the cave my friend had gone to get the life guards so they ended up coming round in their IRB (rescue boat) to save me. I tell you that was the best sight of my life. I thanked the lord at that point because I thought that was it for me :D.

These pictures are taken of Lion Rock. From some angles it really looks like a lion sitting down but you can't really tell from these pics.

Simple tips for stress relief

Meditation always goes a long way. One thing Sam and I agree on (or at least, one of the things) is that we start our day with meditation. We both do hatha yoga too, but he's way better than I am at it. Anyway... here's a little article I found helpful.

Dr. Mao's Secrets of Longevity
7 Ways to Slash Stress Posted Mon, Oct 27, 2008, 1:29 pm PDT

Chronic stress seems to be our national disease, especially these days. Millions suffer from symptoms of stress: nervous tension, restless sleep, difficulty focusing and remembering, irritability, and health complications. Generally speaking, stress speeds up aging. Learn the ways to manage stress, and you will look and feel younger.

1. Start your day with meditation
Spend time every day in meditative relaxation, with calming music if you desire. Start with five minutes and work your way to 15 or 20 minutes each day. Meditation is your number one way to reduce the output of stress hormones and avoid adrenal exhaustion, serious threats to your health.

Try this Stress Release Meditation: Breathe consciously, relax, and with each exhale focus on relaxing each area of your body in sequence, starting from the top of your head and moving all the way down to your toes.

2. Manage your mood with diet and herbs
Chinese Medicine considers the liver to be the center of your emotions. To allay stress and balance your emotions, keep your liver healthy and happy:

• Every day, eat lots of green leafy vegetables, barley grass, seaweed - anything high in chlorophyll - to keep the liver in good health.

• Take 500 mg dandelion daily for a month or longer to cleanse the liver and help release built-up anger.

• Take 400 mg white peony root daily for 1 to 3 months to soothe the liver and balance your mood.

• Schisandra berry protects the liver from chemicals and calms the spirit. For emotional anxiety, take 200 mg daily for a month.

Take these herbs anytime during the day and before bed in tea or capsule form. All the herbs are available from health food stores and Eastern medicine practitioners. Many of my patients have had remarkable results with Calm-Fort Elixir, an all-natural formulation of herbs to calm your spirit. For more information, click here.

3. Suppress stress with positive thinking
Instead of letting your thoughts run wild with anxiety, say affirmations to yourself, such as "I can handle the tasks I have ahead of me. I enjoy my responsibilities and fulfill them well." In fact, repeating positive affirmations can actually suppress the cortisol that the adrenal gland releases in times of stress - leaving you peaceful and calm.

4. Get stress out of your head and on paper
Writing in a journal every day can help you release thoughts and emotions that are causing you stress. Write from the position of an observer, recording your thoughts without any judgments. Just write it down so that you can see clearly what is going on inside. The next step is to identify the source of any anger or stress so you can begin to make changes. Looking into your thoughts give you the opportunity to gain insight into your feelings and reflect the underlying issues.

5. Unblock tension with exercise
The constant pressures of your job and family can lead to chronically elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which is a direct cause of muscle and joint pain. Clenched jaw? Lump in your throat? Chronic back and neck pain? These can all be manifestations of stress in your body. Release physical tension and clear these emotional blockages by using massage therapy, exercise, yoga, tai chi, or qi gong to get the circuits moving.

6. A Retreat to Avoid Burnout
Overloading your brain is a recipe for stress and health problems. Information overload is particularly harmful at midlife because we have less tolerance for stress, which can contribute to high blood pressure and heart disease. Press the "reset" button on yourself. Give yourself a retreat from the stresses of modern life. Take one day out of the seven-day week to minimize "screen" time. Don't watch TV, don't check email, and don't look at the news - it will be there tomorrow, and after a day of rest, you will be refreshed and ready to look at them.

7. Perspective from the Natural World
Use nature to reduce stress. Go outside, hike in the woods, walk on the beach, anything that puts you in contact with the natural world. It is difficult to feel stressed when you are surrounded by nature's abundance of vitality and wonder.

I hope you find the ways to have less stress! I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.

May you live long, live strong, and live happy!

-Dr. Mao

From: Yahoo!

Picture of the Day

A lonely man stands on a west coast beach.

Pic of the Day

Heres the new pic of the day. It's a cabbage tree. Ever heard of that? they're pretty cool trees.

Pic Of The Day

Heres a nice little pic of the dunes In Whangamata.

How to Relieve Upper Back Pain

The old-fashioned way to exercise to relieve pain and muscle tension just doesn't work. When our upper back muscles hurt, we How to Relieve Upper Back Pain
The old-fashioned way to exercise to relieve pain and muscle tension just doesn't work. When often try stretching to loosen up. But the pain returns, doesn't it?
Work, everyday activities, and lifestyles are harder than ever on back muscles. Our activity levels are diminished. Our jobs require sitting for long periods of time, adding to our inactivity. These habits restrict movement, circulation, and metabolism.
Because of the extremely inactive nature of our lifestyles, typical old-fashioned stretches are not effective enough to loosen tight muscles.
Understanding posture, pain and muscle balance.
To know how to use exercise effectively for pain relief, you must understand posture, and how pain arises from muscles out of balance.
Posture is compromised by sedentary jobs, or jobs that put our bodies in awkward positions. Some muscles get overworked, while others get underworked. This creates muscle imbalance and poor posture.
Pain will arise when a muscle imbalance develops. In order to address the imbalance and relieve pain, treatments (like exercise) need to focus both on the overworked muscles and the underworked muscles.
When you feel pain or tension in upper back muscles, you need to also treat the muscles on the front-side of the body. Most commonly, the muscles on the front are tight from being overworked, and the upper back muscles are being overstretched and underworked. When the chest and arms are working hard, the upper back muscles are strained and pulled taut.
Relieving upper back muscles with new exercise rules.
In order to prevent and relieve muscle pain due to postural imbalance, you'll need to apply some new exercise principles.
1) Don't stretch the pain away- The old-fashioned way to relieve tension is to stretch the pain away. This is partly why yoga has become so popular in recent years.
For stretching to be effective, we must stretch the overworked muscles. When posture is compromised, causing tension to be felt in the upper back, then we need to be especially conscious to stretch the muscles of the front-side of the body.
2) Getting stronger- Back muscles often feel painful because they are overstretched, or weak. Therefore, exercises to strengthen the upper back muscles often provide instant relief.
3) Move along- Cardio exercise brings fresh blood and oxygen to restricted areas. Cardio exercise increases movement, decreases pain, and naturally stimulates your body's own painkillers. It benefits both the underworked and overworked muscles, and every cell in the body.
Apply these three fresh principles. Abandon outdated ideas that aren't helping you.
You can prevent aches and pains, and relieve tension, with a simple shift in your exercise program.

A lot of interesting stuff on this blog about Womans health

The Best Adobo

My sister is one of the best cooks I know, and I figured I'd share her recipe for Adobo on here.

Adobo is one of the best known Filipino dishes - you can make almost anything into adobo. Sitaw (pole beans), potato, sweet potato, taro, fried bread, tofu, bread fruit, meat, and even rice- whatever else you can think of, can be made into adobo. It's also basically the easiest thing to make.

All you need is equal parts of soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar, then, depending on how much you're cooking, - usually just a teaspoon of garlic (semi crushed or cut real small), and a whole onion. Leeks will do too. Then saute the garlic, and onions till the onions get nice and caramelized. After that, throw in the s ugar and soy sauce (it'll fizzle and sizzle), throw in whatever you'd like to make into adobo- be it fried tofu or whatever it is - mix it around, then add the vinegar. You can actually add the vinegar in early, but if it's vegetables that you're turning into adobo, it usually takes a lot longer for the veggies to cook when there's vinegar in the pot, so generally speaking, if it's a vegetable, put the vinegar last. But if it's more on the carbs side of things, then there's no problem adding all 3 ingredients in at the same time.

Let things simmer, you can even cover the pot, put it in semi low heat - and let the ingredients suck in all the sauce. After you can garnish with toasted sesame seeds and fresh chives or leeks, and fresh tomatoes! It's especially good and pretty with the tomatoes. Even lettuce goes with it.



Enjoy!

The ocean

Days are good in a sense that each day we’ve each got the choice to change. Each day we’ve got a choice to make things better, keep them about the same, or make them worse. I’m happy to have the chance to make things right after making so many wrongs, and I’m happy to have the guidance of family and friends which pushes me and makes me want to do better all the time.

The years have gone by so quickly. It seems only just yesterday that I was a 12 year old, much affected by the influx of puberty, wanting friends, and wanting so much to be accepted. Now, 10 years later, I’m still studying, but I’m also a teacher to many now. It’s hard to believe my mom was a mom at this age.

Things change so much, and people change so much all the time. The beautiful ocean is a great reminder of this. From a young age I loved water, I loved the ocean- and it’s only in the past few years that I’ve finally lived right by it. I just got back from a swim and it was so beautiful and clean out there- and no shark sightings again - so it was good.

As that saying goes, “the ocean of ever change” - ah, it’s so true. Yet despite its changing all the time, in a sense it’s somehow calm. I seem to find a sense of calmness in the ocean, a kind acceptance of its sometimes cruel, crashing waves- which on other days is so calm and unmoving that it seems to be more like a lake than the ocean. Calmness. Beauty. Water is so powerful. Nature is so full of beauty, splendor, wonder. Yet not a speck of nature crows of arrogance. It is all just like a manifestation of Supreme Beauty and Supreme Acceptance.

Golden Retriever Adopts Tigers

Omg. I'm going to die of cuteness overload. Just check out Msn for the complete set of pictures.
I think some human mothers can learns some things from this golden retriever who adopted tiger cubs.

Ni Hao

Da jia huan ying! Zhe shi liang ge ren de blog.