When you don't have knowledge...

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When you don't have knowledge...

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BENEFITS OF FASTING

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 0%; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 0%; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 0%; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 0%; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="break-fast-with-dates" src="http://lifebeyondtheveil.co/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/break-fast-with-dates.jpg" /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 0%; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 0%; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 0%; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">By </span><a href="http://lifebeyondtheveil.co/?p=401" style="font-family: Arial;" target="_blank">Beyond the vail</a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 0%; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 0%; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 0%; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Fasting has been called the "miracle cure" because the list of physical conditions improved by fasting is long and varied. Cited most often are allergies, arthritis, digestive disorders of all kinds, skin conditions, cardiovascular disease, and asthma. Fasting is a wonderful antidote for our usual over-indulgences. There's nothing wrong with enjoying our food, but excess food on a continuous basis does create a burden for the body. When it must handle more than is comfortable and appropriate for it, it will suffer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15pt; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Fasting will:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">rest the digestive system<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">allow for cleansing and detoxification of the body<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">create a break in eating patterns, while shining a spotlight on them<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">promote greater mental clarity<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">cleanse and heal "stuck" emotional patterns<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">lead to a feeling of physical lightness, increasing energy level<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">promote an inner stillness, enhancing spiritual connection<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15pt; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">These benefits of fasting  can be attained through short term fasting, although the effects will be less pronounced, and not as beneficial as how the benefit of fasting over a longer time frame. But they will be there.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Imagine at work how you feel when you're handed a huge work load--more than you can handle in your 8-10 hour day, more than is comfortable and appropriate for your job title (or salary level). You're under duress. But you WILL cope. You MUST cope. You must make decisions. You attend to the most important and urgent of matters and set aside those that can wait for another day.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">This is what our bodies do when they're overworked; they tuck things away for another day. Whatever tasks can be postponed will be. And more work is dumped on them at every meal- or snack-time, whether they're ready or not. This is why fasting is a beautiful gift you give to yourself. A vacation for your weary, overworked, under-appreciated body.During fasting, we rest our system from the constant onslaught of food stuffs. We usually think of food as giving us energy, so it can be a new way of thinking to understand how the food we eat actually requires energy. Digesting, assimilating and metabolizing--these activities require a great deal of energy.</span><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;"> </span><b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial; padding: 0in;">It is estimated that 65% of the body's energy must be directed to the digestive organs after a heavy meal.</span></b><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Free up this energy and it can be diverted to healing and recuperation. It can detox and repair cells, tissues and organs, eliminating foreign toxins as well as the natural metabolic wastes (which are also toxins) produced even by our healthy cells.And this is what the body will do during a fast. It will take advantage of that time and energy to do some housecleaning. The overloaded, overworked system, unable to properly handle all the toxins, has been storing any excesses in the tissues where they can be dealt with later. This is one of the great health benefits of fasting in that it offers this opportunity to play "catch up".<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Fasting itself isn't necessarily a "cure" for anything. What it does is "set the stage" or create the environment in which healing can occur. Our bodies know how to heal themselves. We just have to "get out of the way", and this means on all levels of our being. Fasting has a way of rebalancing us on all those levels.Physically, fasting is of high benefit to the chronic degenerative diseases that are plaguing our population and that</span><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;"> </span><u><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial; padding: 0in;">modern medicine is at loss to cure</span></u><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial; padding: 0in;">Some Benefits of Fasting Include:</span></b><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Antiaging effects<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Better attitude<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Better resistance to disease<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Better sleep<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Change of habits<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Clearer planning<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Clearer skin<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Creativity<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Diet changes<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Drug detoxification<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Improved senses<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">  (vision, hearing, taste)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Inspiration<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">More clarity<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">  (mentally and emotionally)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">More energy<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">More relaxation<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">New ideas<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Purification<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Reduction of allergies<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Rejuvenation<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Rest for digestive organs<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Revitalization<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Right use of will<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Spiritual awareness<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">                  </span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Weight loss<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Losing weight is, for many of us, one of the greatest benefits of fasting. Due to differences in metabolism and/or body chemistry (or mental patterns), exact results will vary from person to person.Using fasting to lose weight can create many opportunities to gain insights into your patterns with food and for making changes to your habits and lifestyle much easier to accomplish.Professionally supervised fasts may be the best for serious obesity. They offer both medical and psychological support during the process and guidance toward healthier eating habits after the fast.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Those who have the best result "going it alone" are usually fasting to "get healthy " or religious purposes rather than to "lose weight". The change in mentality can be the trick.Sometimes a short fast can be used to "jump start" a new healthy diet plan, because fasting will change your tastes toward more natural and wholesome foods. It will also give you a new perspective on your relationship to food; why and when you eat what you do, what your mental and emotional attachments are, and offer an opportunity for you to heal these issues.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Fasting can also increase energy levels. When you've progressed past the stage of dealing with detox symptoms, a fast will have you feeling lighter, more energetic, more enthusiastic, and requiring less sleep and impacting on your mental health. Because fasting improves mental clarity and focus, it can become a tool in your life to give you greater freedom, flexibility, and energy to get done the things and projects that are important to you.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Many experienced fasters find it helpful to fast whenever they need an additional boost for a major project or deadline, e.g. writing a paper, preparing for a big presentation, getting ready for a long trip. Artists and writers often talk of foregoing food during great creative inspiration; that it helps to keep the momentum going. (Although, beginners must be warned that this won't be the case at first. Don't fast for a big event until you are more knowledgeable about your fasting reactions, and you're sure you won't get a "detox headache" or such.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial; padding: 0in;">Emotionally, you will feel calmer, clearer and happier. Fasters often report that depression lifts, goals begin to feel more obtainable as obstacles are put into proper focus. Doctors have reported patients experiencing improved concentration, less anxiety, sleeping better and waking more refreshed.</span></i><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between our emotional and mental aspects, where one begins and the other ends . Am I sad because I had this thought? Or did I have the thought because I've been feeling sad? Fasting has a way of clarifying those issues. Your awareness can focus in more accurately and determine the source of some unpleasantness, that then snowballed into a mess. Once the source is identified, it's easy to see how overblown everything else was that came after.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">In other words, you see things from a clearer, more appropriate perspective. And let's not forget the powerful effects of fasting on our spiritual connection. Another one of the benefits of fasting is that it promotes we take our attention inward, that we listen, become quiet. And that quiet quality time, you with you, will also allow, if you are willing, a greater sense of kinship with your Inner Being.Without the continual addition of heavy foods into the system (and after any major detox symptoms have passed), the body takes on a lighter, less dense, feeling. This helps to create a subtle separation from ordinary physical reality and all its worldly things, and instead you begin to sense the presense and power of things beyond this world.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Prayer or our spiritual connection can become effective, higher states easier to attain, messages or guidance  in a clearer manner. Knowing you are loved and supported every minute of your day and of your life is something you begin to intuitively feel. Recognition that there truly is a higher plan or purpose will become more real as it is intuitively experienced rather than just intellectually understood.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; direction: ltr; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #5e6066; font-family: Arial;">Your experiences will be deeply personal and unique. Sometimes, subtle too. You have to pay attention to the little things; you have to be quiet enough internally to pick up the nuances in a changed attitude or perception.<span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>

BENEFITS OF FASTING

By  Beyond the vail Fasting has been called the "miracle cure" because the list of physical conditions improved by fasting is long...

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Zara has a dirty little secret:

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">Toxic Chemicals in Clothing Make All of Us Fashion Victims (Opinion)</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBbb92PdwQ-rOtMdGHzCS5ApOYzLQyKQJhDlwvnclCGug505d7sHDbf9NR-Y7uJt73SndPWJjZq8VOVIBstSMp1yk01942I6hcP9ZBmpFTn_2Elk05jRaiDMqIS7EggVkajoGArO6P9z1C/s1600/zara-toxic-threads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBbb92PdwQ-rOtMdGHzCS5ApOYzLQyKQJhDlwvnclCGug505d7sHDbf9NR-Y7uJt73SndPWJjZq8VOVIBstSMp1yk01942I6hcP9ZBmpFTn_2Elk05jRaiDMqIS7EggVkajoGArO6P9z1C/s320/zara-toxic-threads.jpg" tea="true" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">ZARA clothing items have been found to contain hazardous chemicals. Some of these chemicals break down to form hormone-disrupting chemicals which can then be released into waterways around the world. Traces of cancer-causing chemicals that are released from dyes were also found.</span> </div>“Nobody wants to be a fashion victim. Desperately chasing the ever-elusive ‘cool,’ fashion victims are generally perceived as ‘try-hards,’ those who sport the latest trends and buy into transient fads, regardless of fit or personal style.”<br /><br />The current European Union legislation (called EU REACH) now requires all TCF brands and retailers selling into the EU market to manage more than 300,000 harmful substances in their products. This program also sets maximum limits for TCF products that come into contact with human skin. <br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">“The most dangerous way for a toxin to enter the body is not through the digestive system, but through the skin,” </blockquote><br /><br />The basic structure and function of EU REACH program is to provide a list of harmful chemical substances limits its role to notification and assessment of the use of these chemicals that apply to all sectors of our economy. <br /><br /><br />The experts said that the EU approach stands out as the model other countries are adopting to ensure consumers are protected. From an extensive list of restricted substances, there are “substances of very high concern” that the EU regulates more closely as potentially harmful to human health.<br /><br /><br /><strong>In some countries like Australia:</strong>   Problems with toxic clothing in Australia can be, in some ways, traced back to a humble pair of woollen underpants bought by a doctor in Adelaide in 1931. He wore them without washing them first, and this caused a severe allergic reaction to sulphites in the fabric that landed him in hospital close to death and, sometime later, in court. <br />The doctor won his case against the manufacturer, who was found not to have provided due care that the garment in question should be fit for the purpose for which it was intended. Those underpants formed the basis of one of Australia’s first consumer law cases. <br /><br />In 2012, in stark contrast to a number of other developed countries, little has changed for the better when it comes to regulating the chemicals in imported textiles, clothing and footwear (TCF) in Australia. And with more than 90% of the apparel found in our stores imported – and an obsession with what’s been nicknamed “fast fashion” – Australian retailers are under pressure to put more product on the shelves, more often. The downside of this demand, many in the textiles industry believe, is product safety, with the safe use of chemicals a particular concern. <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">“Products that are made in China for the Australian market could not even be sent back to China, as many of them would not meet the Chinese product safety standards but are acceptable here.” </blockquote>  There are no legally prescribed limits on the use in textiles of any of these chemicals. <br /><br /><strong> Here’s an unsettling thought:</strong>  The clothes you’re wearing could be harming you in a very real way. Greenpeace’s strategic communications manager Tommy Crawford asserts that—in our quest to constantly keep up with fashion’s accelerated turnover—consumers are falling victim to purchasing clothing that contain hazardous chemicals, even some that have been banned right here in the U.S. <br /><br /><strong>How is this happening?</strong><br /> According to Crawford, when big apparel companies outsource production to countries such as China and Mexico, certain regulations aren’t always enforced, including the monitoring of toxic chemicals used to dye and process garments.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMdtXNvV_zMJOphvXGcT_uteqNSOTM4hmWKwt9LzTtN0jSsRFNujCnWyO_2tmJF0ba0sSv4bJ3MqefH_Vc8PSO3JV9WUzFfdGwLAMSNwv0Uezx6zEn4gRZjj7TIi7I9688JV_mB5EP7T0_/s1600/Toxic+threads+the+big+fashion+stitch-up-+fashion+trends.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMdtXNvV_zMJOphvXGcT_uteqNSOTM4hmWKwt9LzTtN0jSsRFNujCnWyO_2tmJF0ba0sSv4bJ3MqefH_Vc8PSO3JV9WUzFfdGwLAMSNwv0Uezx6zEn4gRZjj7TIi7I9688JV_mB5EP7T0_/s320/Toxic+threads+the+big+fashion+stitch-up-+fashion+trends.jpg" tea="true" width="226" /></a></div><strong>The study:</strong><br /> Greenpeace conducted its own investigation into this issue and found that of the 20 brands whose clothing they tested—including global mega-brands such as Calvin Klein, Levi’s and fast-fashion haven Zara—every one was revealed to have traces of hazardous chemicals in at least one item. The report claims that Calvin Klein was the worst offender, with 88% of items tested containing the chemicals, followed by Levi’s with 82%, and Zara with 70%. Some of these chemicals, according to Crawford, are incorporated deliberately within the fabric, while others are unwanted residue from the general manufacturing process.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzHbFiKqtM3sZYrN3rUqy8g-x13xGfQiYbXzQRfCNqJK7eKlYeAGmriiBZTAp4euqU9CHad_d8evoAbULKHGKMoQ6OTkOXnWG8zbPyU1HhKZcHIEswLpbDPoPMdA4zHFtqTkVgMTBrPQo/s1600/Zara+toxic+clothing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzHbFiKqtM3sZYrN3rUqy8g-x13xGfQiYbXzQRfCNqJK7eKlYeAGmriiBZTAp4euqU9CHad_d8evoAbULKHGKMoQ6OTkOXnWG8zbPyU1HhKZcHIEswLpbDPoPMdA4zHFtqTkVgMTBrPQo/s320/Zara+toxic+clothing.jpg" tea="true" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><strong>What this means for you:</strong> <br />This issue doesn’t just affect you, the wearer of the clothes; it could be harming those around you, just like second-hand smoke. According to Crawford, when these chemicals—including toxic phthalates and hazardous amines—are released into the environment, they can break down and develop hormone-disrupting and carcinogenic properties. He also points out that chemicals contained within clothes can be released by people living thousands of miles away, who pollute local water supplies when doing laundry.<br /><br /><strong>What you can do:</strong><br /> The good news is that there are a number of things you do help prevent this far-reaching and, frankly, scary issue. First, check out Greenpeace’s Detox Fashion Manifesto, which you might want to sign as a show of support for the organization’s Detox initiative, which urges consumers to challenge brands and demand that they create fashion free of toxins. (<span style="font-size: large;">The good news: a number of companies, including H&M and British retailer Marks & Spencer are already at work pioneering green chemistry, and phasing out some majorly harmful substances</span>).<br /><br /><strong>Other ways to do your part:</strong><br /> As difficult as it may be, try taking a hiatus from fast-fashion for a few months and consider investing in organic and/or sustainable garments (many of which enforce fair-trade practices, so it’s a win-win!). Elizabeth L. Cline, the author of last year’s buzzy book “Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion” keeps a running list of stylish sustainable and ethical retailers on her website, which is a good place to start. Oftentimes, these garments are handmade and sourced from natural ingredients, which could make them higher in price but eliminates the threat of toxicity.<br /><br />It’s also worth looking into the Slow Clothes movement, which was originally intended to reject all mass-produced fashion, but has since evolved and can be practiced by buying trend-free quality garments that will last longer and can be repairable. Of course, it also might not hurt to start practicing the movement’s biggest precept: buy fewer clothes, and less often.<br /><br />Source: Greenpeace.org</div>

Zara has a dirty little secret:

  Toxic Chemicals in Clothing Make All of Us Fashion Victims (Opinion) ZARA clothing items have been found to contain hazardous chemicals. S...

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No more Trident Gum

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Salam waleykum dear readers, hope all are doing great!<br /><br /><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Today I was a bit disappointed when I found that Trident gums are not halal since they contain <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol" target="_blank">Xylitol </a>a kind of sugar alcohol that is used instead normal sugar, which by the way protects our teeth,the Purple one used to by my favorite gum a while ago, I even remember bought them here in Egypt.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hea="true" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEO_fV2mASWnFqd4cf67qDoNHvdEgSBlxkyWC2krnUqo_60wN5npINt4PHFkpzUVOWo78tqefEP-TpICOcWP1Bg5wSiX2PQPHP-rjG-hpFQJ7yBmrsc3GL0yxzbFCeuOp8Z779etT4wiga/s320/trident+gum+not+halal.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br /></div>Sad but not surprise since most of the imported products in Egypt are not halal, something that we let pass without more importance thinking that since we are living in a Muslim Country it means that everything is halal. I have a background in Biology sciences which helped a lot with this matter since I use to read all the small letters on the back of every new product I'm not familiar with,not long ago, to be exact two days ago, my husband bought to our kids those kind of jelly gums with beautiful shapes and colors, I was a bit concerned when I noticed that they were not made in Egypt so once again I checked the ingredients and found that contains <strong>Bovine Gelatin </strong>which not way it can be halal unless the animal had been sla<span style="color: darkgreen;">ughtered in Islamic rite, to sad because they really smell delicious, but we must not forget that our </span><span style="color: darkgreen;">Karim said (<span style="font-size: x-large;">of leaving something for sake of Allaah, Allaah will compensate him</span>)</span></div>

No more Trident Gum

Salam waleykum dear readers, hope all are doing great! Today I was a bit disappointed when I found that Trident gums are not halal since the...

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Eco Fashion,could it be possible?

<div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731784924714117810" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_I0TekKYaHG2zra-vCYC1K0Mqn1BNF2LV5O85C8PPLxun5qAnMxDzPR6vouhqqn5H70mk_2KJvfGbts5piwEVmTcEYwUc1hCaiHTeL-VE1FK2ScC0q8D27eVptr57DQX7orOjnQDYCsP3/s400/eco-fashion-sass-brown-1-537x399.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 297px; CURSOR: hand" /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-size:180%;">There’s a dirty little secret in the fashion industry</span> that most people are not aware of. You’ve probably heard about<strong><span style="font-size:180%;"> child labor </span></strong>problems in sweatshops with some of the big fashion companies. That issue has gained awareness by public, but what most people don’t know is that the <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">fashion industry also creates an enormous amount of environmental pollution as well.<br /><br /></span></strong>With so much fast fashion and disposable clothing, clothing and textile waste from factories are contributing to huge landfills more than ever. Not only are there tons of landfill waste, but there’s also pollution from toxic dye runoff, waste water from the laundering process, pollution from the acid used in the chemical conversion process of turning plants into fabric, and of course the pesticides used to grow cotton.<br /><br />What does this mean? This means our water is getting polluted and our landfills are overflowing with textiles. Here are a few stats to just give you sense of what’s going on:<br /><br />•According to the World Bank,17-20% of industrial water pollution comes from textile dyeing and treatment. 72 toxic chemicals in our water come solely from textile dyeing, of which 30 cannot be removed.<br />•North America generates 2 million tons of textile waste each year, which is approximately 68 lbs of waste/household per year. 5% of all landfill production is textile waste.<br />Read this article with vivid photos of the startling price we pay for fashion in China.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731784917185485554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4x0Wft_8LFHZY5VLKqB0GD9WvLKbCazGbErHbXRfftw5XT5DhS3rlGewgZhfFofI-yw6Ru5x3rMzd37BXIdr_HRNFuJwoU9i-yAhve3PSAl3KUZ6oTSlKxmkZ0Y3ScRyV-YvVbFPQwp7/s400/pick-up-water-from-the-wastewater.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 264px; CURSOR: hand" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731784911893652530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZzDN_NNiZpqhoslOKpCJUqXpif2F0gJVlHTdzXDIO_XFdC8CScKZQdnK_W7smmlhsQf5j9q3Y4-I1UD5q8eIFrHOX5sMnp1esMkeOu3EwGCtF0lch00TWxplI-spHJ242BQOlvXkzCbAi/s400/check-the-polluted-river.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" /></a> Here’s an image of a textile landfill in Syria.<br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731786224499518674" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzmcwii4wQl-5fDob0M8GEoKfJHAdD10jHrmjZq4H-M8jQXBixbHopCJEUjKqySLymP8eV9R0H9_S2XKVe7aeJ8QQOFtcLQrrhxNlRUP_XRyxVzmgwdq9YTteyRTvKCYNj_EdyJRc5wXlA/s400/untitled.bmp" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 299px; CURSOR: hand" /></a> The problem is big. So, what is the fashion industry doing about it? The big businesses, I’m not so sure. Perhaps they donate money to environmental causes. There are companies creating eco-friendly lines, but I haven’t seen any big fashion names really devote their entire company to the cause. And why not?<br /><br />It sure does take a heck of a lot more work. There’s a lot of research involved, and sourcing good fabric is not as easy as it seems. Also, creativity can be stifled by limiting fabric choices. From what I understand from a little investigation I’ve done is that “eco-friendly” fabrics are not necessarily viewed as the best fabrics by mainstream fashion companies. At fabric trade shows, people who source fabrics will often pass over the eco-friendly fabric section on purpose because they don’t believe it will live up to the quality of regular fabrics. And maybe it’s true, or is it?<br /><br />Let’s face it. Eco-friendly does sometimes get a bad rap. Sure, we love to use our earth friendly non-toxic house cleaners, laundry detergent, shampoo and conditioner. We eat organic food. But clothes? What comes to mind when you think of eco-friendly clothing?<br /><br />A burlap sack? Yes, exactly. The initial impression is not so glamourous.<br /><br />The good news is that there are many, many independent designers out there now changing the landscape of sustainable fashion. And the most inspiring ones are the ones that are creating a movement around their cause.<br /><br />Here are a couple of brand new sustainable fashion businesses seeking to make an impact.<br /><br /><strong>IOU Project<br /></strong>Watch this video of the inspiring story behind the IOU Project. The video explains it better than I can. Take a look:<br /><br /><iframe height="213" src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Yybe3hB3Ix4?rel=0" frameborder="0" width="360"></iframe><br /><br /><strong>Revolution Apparel<br /></strong>A blog that described the journey of Shannon and Kristin, the two women behind Revolution Apparel as they were building their company last year. View their inspiring story here:<br /><iframe height="300" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32150641?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" frameborder="0" width="400"></iframe><br />Inspired? There are many new companies out there looking to make an impact. What kind of project can you start?<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">How can we make clothing more sustainable?<br /></span></strong>There’s so many aspects to this pollution problem that even the best intentioned companies can’t do everything to make their line sustainable.<br /><br />Sure, you can use eco-friendly fabric. You’re probably wondering, what exactly does eco-friendly fabric mean? Organically grown cotton, bamboo, flax, hemp, linen, some synthetically made materials such as tencel or modal, sustainably harvested silk and wool, nettle, hibiscus and even corn, among others. Note that even though tencel and modal are listed there, synthetic fibers do not take dye as easily and may require a more rigorous process for dye to adhere to the fabric.<br /><br />Eco-friendly fabric is a great start. But there are also problems with eco-friendly fabric. For example, <span style="font-size:180%;">cotton requires tons of water to grow the cotton and bamboo uses a caustic chemical to convert bamboo into fiber. Also, many fabrics need some spandex (a non-eco-friendly material) to give it stretch.<br /><br /></span>So you see, it’s not a perfect system.<br /><br />And there’s also the dyeing process. Even if you use a sustainable grown fabric, what kind of dyes are used to dye the fabric? <strong>Pollution is created by many of the dye houses out there.</strong> And then there’s also the laundering process, and many other processes required to create yarn, finish the fabric and a produce garments. Of course there’s also the transportation required to ship fabric and finished garments over sea and land.<br /><br />I’m not an expert in this matter as I am just beginning my journey into creating a sustainable fashion line, but from what I’ve learned through school and research, the solutions are not that simple. We are all doing the best we can.<br /><br />Through this post, I hope to create some awareness around the issue and encourage you to consider supporting sustainable fashion and investigate where your clothes come from. What does it take to create the clothes you wear, and was any person or the environment harmed during the process?<br /><br />The sad thing is that there are also health issues from working with toxic chemicals that factory workers have to endure. <strong><em>Making jeans is a caustic process, as is tanning leather.</em></strong> This is another huge problem in the industry. I’m sure there are many other environmental and human unintended consequences that even I am not aware of, but I’m highlighting the ones that have been brought to my attention.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">What can we do about this?<br /></span></strong>Start learning about what is involved to make your clothes and become aware of what your purchasing decisions are supporting. What companies do you shop from, and what are they doing about their environmental impact and are they being socially responsible? How transparent are these companies with their practices?<br /><br />Do a little research and make choices that support causes you believe in. Our collective choices can impact big businesses and our small actions together can create massive change. If everyone did a little bit to change their habits and make conscious shopping choices, we just could change the world.<br /><br /><strong>Are you in?<br /></strong><br />I’m not advocating that you stop shopping. I believe looking good and feeling good are important to your well-being. However, just as people are choosing to buy organic food to support the organic food movement, we too can make wiser choices when we shop.<br /><br />Buy for longevity. Buy things that can last and buy only things that you really love and fit you well. If you love it, you will wear it… a lot. Choose quality over quantity. Buy for versatility and shop from environmentally and socially conscious companies.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Recycle Textiles<br /><br /></span></strong>Textiles are recyclable, and there are some recycling centers popping up to help mitigate the problem. Look to see if there’s one in your area. Here’s an article about USAgain, a textile recycler, with locations in 8 states. Donating to Goodwill and Salvation Army is also a good option too, but keep in mind that the items they don’t want also end up in landfills.<br /><br />Another textile recycler is BCR Global in the UK.<br /><br />Here’s an article about <a href="http://eartheasy.com/blog/2010/05/lets-keep-clothing-out-of-our-landfills/">keeping textiles out of landfills </a>from Eartheasy.<br /><br /><strong>Eco-Fashion Resources<br /><br /></strong>Here is a resource with a wealth of information about sustainable fashion: Ecouterre. Read more about their mission, where you’ll find more startling statistics about pesticide use.<br /><br />Additional great resources for sustainable fashion are Eco Fashion World and EcoSalon.<br /><br />When you have time, watch this amazing documentary called HOME about the state of our planet. It’s has breathtaking footage and a story you want to hear.<br /><br /><strong>Some resources for fashion designers<br /></strong>There is a company called <a href="http://www.source4style.com/">Source4Style</a> that has taken up the task of helping designers source sustainable fabric. Sourcing sustainable fabric not an easy task, but <a href="http://www.source4style.com/">Source4Style</a> helps to connect designers with mills that provide sustainable fabric.<br /><br />TexWorld, an industry fabric show, features eco fabric vendors at their show.<br /><br />AirDye provides an alternative to water dyeing. It eliminates the need to use water for dyeing, thus eliminating water waste and pollution. Read more about what they are doing on their blog.<br /><br />Join the sustainable fashion designers organization and visit the ethical fashion forum, an organization in the UK, and learn more about the issues behind ethical fashion.<br /><br /><strong>Read books on the topic:<br /><br /></strong>•Eco Fashion by Sass Brown<br />•Sustainable Fashion and Textiles Design: Design Journeys by Kate Fletcher<br />•Sustainable Fashion: Why Now?: A Conversation Exploring Issues, Practices and Possibilities<br />•Eco-Chic: The Fashion Paradox<br />•Fashion Futures White Papers<br />How will you make your fashion company sustainable? Eco-friendly fabric, non-toxic dye process, fair trade, local manufacturing, supporting artisan communities, subscribing to slow fashion, or reducing your carbon footprint? Perhaps a combination of some or all of the above? Just start with somewhere and do the best you can. It’s not about perfection. It’s about getting involved and taking action and improving from there.<br /><br /><strong>My Request To All of You</strong><br />Spread this message. It’s important. Unfortunately, it’s not one that’s widely known. There are pockets of awareness around the issue among designers and those who are closer to the topic, but the general public typically has no idea such a huge problem exists. And why should they? Fashion companies don’t advertise what it takes to produce their garments. It wouldn’t be good for their brand image. And it’s just easier to look the other way. We’re all busy. That’s just one more problem we don’t have time to solve. Or can we?<br /><br />We can’t look the other way any longer. Choose not to. We have to build awareness and do something about it. Because awareness creates better choices. Spread the message, and the next time you shop, consider where your clothes came from. Every decision counts. You vote with every purchase you make. </div></div></div></div>Article wrote by:<br /><br /><div><br /><a href="http://flowliving.com/fashion-with-a-mission/"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731784908058532770" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuYO2mxxfVh6keKE2Sf-A6H38HPxtzcUOWA00f-pUlOx4mcul-7cs-hKQh1hkLlfLsKcz7HfdDur2UX_t2t-7SLBPtRizrMbbnWPnz0HgnyTtKBFt0h-CrqFU1ht25JO-OSMUCBvftJp0r/s400/Flower-Living-Banner-v51.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 115px; CURSOR: hand" /></a> </div>

Eco Fashion,could it be possible?

There’s a dirty little secret in the fashion industry that most people are not aware of. You’ve probably heard about child labor problems ...

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One Drug to Shrink All Tumors - ScienceNOW

<div style="BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BORDER-TOP: medium none; BORDER-RIGHT: medium none"><a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/03/one-drug-to-shrink-all-tumors.html?ref=hp#.T3IZNNVHDJo.blogger">One Drug to Shrink All Tumors - ScienceNOW</a></div><br /><div style="BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BORDER-TOP: medium none; BORDER-RIGHT: medium none">by Sarah C. P. Williams </div><br /><div style="BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BORDER-TOP: medium none; BORDER-RIGHT: medium none">A single drug can shrink or cure human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain, liver, and prostate tumors that have been transplanted into mice, researchers have found. The treatment, an antibody that blocks a "do not eat" signal normally displayed on tumor cells, coaxes the immune system to destroy the cancer cells. </div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; CLEAR: both" class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ4vWjH-YWedVyq8ETm-GuPLZgP_U6DQNyRlgWIZ5cl89uX9LEM-h94rHWk_syQRiecpgDIasGT6lyy8L3rOpoJkF08UsXh0W9aFhHRGyvp0YquLcqweZqc2TPBR9PNHwiR9OgC9UsmFk-/s1600/sn-tumors-thumb-200xauto-12714.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 1em; MARGIN-RIGHT: 1em"><img border="0" dea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ4vWjH-YWedVyq8ETm-GuPLZgP_U6DQNyRlgWIZ5cl89uX9LEM-h94rHWk_syQRiecpgDIasGT6lyy8L3rOpoJkF08UsXh0W9aFhHRGyvp0YquLcqweZqc2TPBR9PNHwiR9OgC9UsmFk-/s1600/sn-tumors-thumb-200xauto-12714.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BORDER-TOP: medium none; BORDER-RIGHT: medium none"><br /></div><br /><div style="BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BORDER-TOP: medium none; BORDER-RIGHT: medium none">A decade ago, biologist Irving Weissman of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, discovered that leukemia cells produce higher levels of a protein called CD47 than do healthy cells. CD47, he and other scientists found, is also displayed on healthy blood cells; it's a marker that blocks the immune system from destroying them as they circulate. Cancers take advantage of this flag to trick the immune system into ignoring them. In the past few years, Weissman's lab showed that blocking CD47 with an antibody cured some cases of lymphomas and leukemias in mice by stimulating the immune system to recognize the cancer cells as invaders. Now, he and colleagues have shown that the CD47-blocking antibody may have a far wider impact than just blood cancers. </div><br />"What we've shown is that CD47 isn't just important on leukemias and lymphomas," says Weissman. "It's on every single human primary tumor that we tested." Moreover, Weissman's lab found that cancer cells always had higher levels of CD47 than did healthy cells. How much CD47 a tumor made could predict the survival odds of a patient.<br /><br />To determine whether blocking CD47 was beneficial, the scientists exposed tumor cells to macrophages, a type of immune cell, and anti-CD47 molecules in petri dishes. Without the drug, the macrophages ignored the cancerous cells. But when the CD47 was present, the macrophages engulfed and destroyed cancer cells from all tumor types.<br /><br />Next, the team transplanted human tumors into the feet of mice, where tumors can be easily monitored. When they treated the rodents with anti-CD47, the tumors shrank and did not spread to the rest of the body. In mice given human bladder cancer tumors, for example, 10 of 10 untreated mice had cancer that spread to their lymph nodes. Only one of 10 mice treated with anti-CD47 had a lymph node with signs of cancer. Moreover, the implanted tumor often got smaller after treatment -- colon cancers transplanted into the mice shrank to less than one-third of their original size, on average. And in five mice with breast cancer tumors, anti-CD47 eliminated all signs of the cancer cells, and the animals remained cancer-free 4 months after the treatment stopped.<br /><br />"We showed that even after the tumor has taken hold, the antibody can either cure the tumor or slow its growth and prevent metastasis," says Weissman.<br /><br />Although macrophages also attacked blood cells expressing CD47 when mice were given the antibody, the researchers found that the decrease in blood cells was short-lived; the animals turned up production of new blood cells to replace those they lost from the treatment, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.<br /><br />Cancer researcher Tyler Jacks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge says that although the new study is promising, more research is needed to see whether the results hold true in humans. "The microenvironment of a real tumor is quite a bit more complicated than the microenvironment of a transplanted tumor," he notes, "and it's possible that a real tumor has additional immune suppressing effects."<br /><br />Another important question, Jacks says, is how CD47 antibodies would complement existing treatments. "In what ways might they work together and in what ways might they be antagonistic?" Using anti-CD47 in addition to chemotherapy, for example, could be counterproductive if the stress from chemotherapy causes normal cells to produce more CD47 than usual.<br /><br />Weissman's team has received a $20 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to move the findings from mouse studies to human safety tests. "We have enough data already," says Weissman, "that I can say I'm confident that this will move to phase I human trials."

One Drug to Shrink All Tumors - ScienceNOW

One Drug to Shrink All Tumors - ScienceNOW by Sarah C. P. Williams A single drug can shrink or cure human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, bra...

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Getting More Vitamin D In Your Day

<div><span style="font-size:180%;">Vitamin D is More Than a Bone Builder<br /></span>Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin whose major role is to aid in absorption of calcium and phosphorus from the intestine and build and maintain bone mass. Beyond its function in calcium metabolism<span style="font-size:180%;">, it also has a role in reducing inflammation, preventing malignant cell growth, moderating immune function, and leveling mood.<br /><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719462992604934434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3uCU8cu9pV0-LXAfIOqfg6BW1fRSWcEzvprkUfo1e2SkNbgi9sDutRAgBdmeVnl_B_TNR9msB9ELxoCUZVguGSWjglsbG01eC07jFkK7hMzWcsRqRHA6BQm2kz5IH87C9U_1rtHDDwINL/s400/vitamin+D.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" /><br /></span><strong>Why Work so Hard at Getting D?<br /></strong>Low levels of vitamin D have been associated with many diseases and health conditions including cancer, obesity, cardiovascular disease, depression, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, diabetes and high blood pressure. The research is sometimes confusing about exactly why vitamin D is depleted in these conditions. It is possible that having low levels of this vitamin actually causes disease and breakdown of body processes. It is also possible that the underlying causes of these conditions cause the deficiency at the same time. What we do know is that people who have many of these conditions have very low levels of vitamin D, and researchers are now trying to find out whether supplementing with vitamin D will prevent and/or treat these conditions.<br /><strong></strong></div><br /><br /><br /><div><strong>Are All “Ds” Created Equal?<br /></strong>There are several chemical compounds classified as vitamin D, and until recently it was thought that they were not equally bioavailable (capable of being put to effective use in the body).<br />Early research showed that the more effective type was vitamin D3. This is the type of vitamin D that you produce when your skin is exposed to sunlight; supplements are usually derived from animal sources of the vitamin. The other common type, vitamin D2, was thought to be not as effective. vitamin D2 is obtained from plant sources and is usually the type used to fortify milk and other foods. More recent research, however, finds that both types of vitamin D are equally effective in raising the levels of vitamin D in your body.<br /><br /><strong>Are You Likely to Be D-Deficient?<br /></strong>There is a fair chance that you are not getting enough vitamin D. Depending on which study you read, as many as half to two thirds of adults are deficient in vitamin D. If you work indoors, always use sun block, live in a northern latitude, are over 50, and/or don’t take a daily supplement, you may well be low in this important vitamin. </div><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><strong>How Much Vitamin D Do You Need?<br /></strong>How much vitamin D you need is tricky. The recommended daily allowance is 200 IU per day until the age of 50, and 400 IU daily once you are over 50. But many experts think that is far too low. The recommendation was originally intended to prevent rickets in children, long before the role of vitamin D in so many other conditions had been explored.<br />The upper level of safe dosage is usually stated to be 2000 IU per day. This is also a controversial number, with some experts saying it is lower and some saying it is safe at much higher doses.<br /><br /><strong>So how do you decide how much you need?<br /><br /></strong>The most conservative approach is to take a supplement of 400IU per day and get out in the full sun at least 3 times a week for fifteen minutes at a time. This combination would be safe for almost all menopausal women. But for some, especially those who are never in the sun or have been vitamin D deficient for a long time, this would not be enough. If you think you may be vitamin D deficient, talk with your healthcare provider about what dosages would be good for you. He or she may recommend larger doses for a short period of time, then smaller maintenance doses after that.<br /><br /><strong>How to Get More Vitamin D</strong><br />There are several ways to boost your daily vitamin D:<br /><strong>•Sunshine<br /></strong>Sunshine is the most natural way to get vitamin D. The vitamin D you get this way is easily used by your body, it is free, and you can combine it with exercise for a great bone building combo. For white women who live where there is strong sunlight, about 15 to 20 minutes three times a week will usually produce enough vitamin D to keep you from being deficient.<br />For some people, sunshine is difficult to come by. If you wear clothing that covers all of your skin, if you live in a northern or rainy climate, or if you are dark-skinned, you may have trouble getting enough sunshine to make adequate levels of vitamin D.<br /><strong>•Food<br /></strong>There are several food sources for vitamin D. Fish such as salmon, tuna and mackerel are sources of this vitamin, as are egg yolks, cheese and beef liver. Vitamin D-fortified milk and other foods are also good sources. The Office of Dietary Supplements' Vitamin D Fact Sheet offers additional food sources, as well as more information on vitamin D.<br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div><strong>•Supplements<br /></strong>You can find vitamin D supplements in two forms: vitamin D2, and vitamin D3, as discussed earlier. There are still some unknowns about whether one type is superior to the other in preventing deficiency. If you have the choice of buying either, D3 is probably the better choice since there is longstanding evidence that it is more easily absorbed by the body.</div><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><strong>Vitamin D and Drug Interactions<br /></strong>There are a number of medications that can interact with vitamin D. Check with your medical provider before you begin taking vitamin D supplements if you are taking any medications, but in particular:<br />•thiazide diuretics, such as Diuril (chlorothiazide) and Enduron (methyclothiazide), which could cause dangerously high calcium levels<br />•calcium-channel blockers, such as Cardizem (diltiazem) and Norvasc (amlodipine)<br />•anti-seizure medications, such as phenytoin, primidone, phenobarbital and valproic acid<br />•corticosteroids, such as prednisone<br />•Xenical (orlistat)<br />•Cholesterol lowering medications that interfere with fat metabolism, such as cholestyramine </div><br /><br /><br /><div></div>

Getting More Vitamin D In Your Day

Vitamin D is More Than a Bone Builder Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin whose major role is to aid in absorption of calcium and phosphorus ...

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I's our day ^_^

Congratulations to all women out there enjoy your day.<br /><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717425123158821042" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs7ZOQRsko2_G8PRz_14d8DKvnz-AXQEkBliylHGLUB1FZx6fYbNJURIWr_YzOsMyic24lAzlxhCsL-kQXUabC7PWqmwQfWh-zQ0p1WdXDkhXgaRPwGtwPgO2YFlxE23q5Xh3ncrRkWVDs/s400/womenday.gif" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 388px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 278px; CURSOR: hand" /><br />Do you know?<br />a human body can bear only up to 45 Del (unit) of pain.<br /><span style="font-size:180%;">But at the time of giving birth, a woman feels up to 57 Del of pain</span>.<br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">This is similar to 20 bones getting fractured at a time</span><br /><br /></strong>Do we realize that still we give pain to our mothe by disobeying them and by not regarding them???<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7mXXj0RMiKyHFU4YDrG1uqhbEMG6rtXF8fmJsQW0FfaULs80jgvy-kHFPLLxUP53FnubkV83ozowT5Prrk7_e8ab_ZDNxlUfOwoq1IHcA0tXs_l_FavoLOKJ9RL4J1r1zAWEPwOcwfF3w/s1600/women+day.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717426698064669586" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7mXXj0RMiKyHFU4YDrG1uqhbEMG6rtXF8fmJsQW0FfaULs80jgvy-kHFPLLxUP53FnubkV83ozowT5Prrk7_e8ab_ZDNxlUfOwoq1IHcA0tXs_l_FavoLOKJ9RL4J1r1zAWEPwOcwfF3w/s400/women+day.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 256px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 197px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>

I's our day ^_^

Congratulations to all women out there enjoy your day. Do you know? a human body can bear only up to 45 Del (unit) of pain. But at the time ...

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How The Quran Shapes The Brain

<div>by <a href="http://mohamedghilan.com/2012/01/12/how-the-quran-shapes-the-brain/">mohamedghilan </a></div><br /><div><br />“If it wasn’t for their political problems and constant fighting between each other, the Muslims would have been on the moon by the 1400’s” was the statement made by a non-Muslim professor in a 400-level undergraduate class on the history of science. It seems that the rate of discovery and advancement in science achieved by the Muslims was quite impressive and has yet to be replicated. What was it that they were doing that allowed for their fast progress?<br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3649kQXlap6RDSDZm8TLyBl6cqoWyMfANilWBOHbxa451BAlofrRunfGhni-Vs_NLym11CA4uw4TmX-9A7CMk38ctwDDXK7igu5ghtJFvNt4qDN7ZpqjqCmrFE6TFYoiyz14HosY3Xum/s1600/human+brain-+how+the+quran+affect+the+brain.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5706963977033838466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3649kQXlap6RDSDZm8TLyBl6cqoWyMfANilWBOHbxa451BAlofrRunfGhni-Vs_NLym11CA4uw4TmX-9A7CMk38ctwDDXK7igu5ghtJFvNt4qDN7ZpqjqCmrFE6TFYoiyz14HosY3Xum/s400/human+brain-+how+the+quran+affect+the+brain.bmp" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 399px; CURSOR: hand" /></a><br /><br />The teacher in me immediately thinks about their education system, and the neuroscientist in me wants to examine the factors involved in shaping the brains of such a civilization. Interestingly, many Muslim religious scholars will say something about how the Muslims were the leaders when the Quran was the center of their education, and only when they abandoned the Quran that they lost their reign. The amazing thing about this is that while Muslim religious scholars are typically talking about spiritual and moral realities, there is actually a material reality to what they’re saying, which takes place in the brain.<br />A quick disclaimer here: The list of all that is affected in the brain by the Quran and how that can influence other functions is quite exhaustive. But in the interest of keeping it short, I chose some major areas to present in this article.<br /><br />Before getting into the brain and how the Quran changes it, one should be familiar with how traditional Muslim education took place. In case you’re wondering where I’m getting this from, it’s from reading the biographies of major figures of scholarship in the traditional Muslim world such as Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina, and others. This is also based on my personal experience and what I have been told by some of my teachers.<br /><br />The very first thing taught to an aspiring student was the Quran, which had to be memorized completely. Unlike anything else encountered in spoken Arabic, Quran recitation is a very specific science. Local dialects of Arabic or different ways of pronunciation are not permitted when reciting the Quran. In fact, part of learning the Quran is learning what is called in Arabic taj’weed, which means elocution. The very first thing the student must do is replicate exactly how the teacher is reciting the verse. This refers to where individual letter sounds are being generated in the mouth and throat and where the tongue is to be placed exactly. Once this is done, the student writes the verse on a wooden board in the Othamni script, which follows different spelling rules than regular Arabic writing. The student then takes his board and goes away to memorize the verse. A typical memorization session for a beginner starts with repeating one verse multiple times as it is read on the board to also memorize how it is spelled using the Othmani script. The next day the student reviews the verse several times before returning to the teacher to receive the following verse. After repeating it with the teacher to ensure exact replication of sound and pronunciation, the student writes the new verse and goes away to begin a new memorization session. The third day begins with reviewing the first verse one final time, followed by the second verse several times before going to receive the third verse. On the fourth day the first verse is not reviewed anymore as it would have taken hold in memory, and the second verse takes its place for being reviewed while the third verse is repeated several times before going to receive the fourth verse. At the end of the week is a complete review session for everything that was memorized in the previous days.<br /><br />As the days pass the capacity for memorization increases and the student is able to take on several verses or even pages at a time instead of only one or two verses. The writing using Othmani spelling continues, as well as the review sessions. Eventually, the whole Quran having more than 6,200 verses is memorized word for word with their specific pronunciation and Othmani spelling. Now the hard task begins as the student works to review all the verses on a monthly basis so as to not forget them. This usually means taking the 30 parts of the Quran as it has been divided to facilitate memorization, and reviewing one part everyday until all 30 have been recited by the end of the month.<br /><br />It should be mentioned here that the Quran has 10 different modes of recitation. This refers to the placement of diacritical marks on the words and how certain words are pronounced. Some students take this task on and memorize the Quran in all the different modes of recitation, which requires a very careful attention to where the pronunciations are different so they’re not confused with each other given how subtle they sometimes can be.<br /><br />There are a couple of important qualities about the Quran that relates to how it sounds. Verses in the Quran rhyme and change rhythm often, which gives a pleasurable effect to the listener. Furthermore, as one recites, they’re supposed to sing it rather than simply read it. In fact, the very practice of Taj’weed (elocution) forces the reciter into a singing tone as they enunciate the words of each verse.<br /><br />A final note to bring up is in regards to the Arabic language and writing in Othmani script. Part of studying the different modes of recitation requires the student to write not only in an unusual spelling, but also to exclude the diacritical marks from the words. This would allow the student to learn the variations of recitation without having the diacritical marks visually interfere with their memorization of different modes of recitation. Moreover, the grammar of the Arabic requires the proper use of diacritical marks in pronunciation so as to not confuse things such as the subject and predicate. This means that the one learning the Quran must always keep track of how the words are enunciated so as to not alter the overall meaning of the verse.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgljhBPgCKjUd1wIjWCDIAZYE_4T7VKX_fE2AMUQzfFP4Ey99jHZSeFr2FqOZcVRTDc3FOKQ2cakLXpQjcts1fXojKybrlWWULIZcMHrUYx2chu84kXicLAYKT0gM5TclnudwkSUCcPeNqi/s1600/brain-regions.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5706963974909761362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgljhBPgCKjUd1wIjWCDIAZYE_4T7VKX_fE2AMUQzfFP4Ey99jHZSeFr2FqOZcVRTDc3FOKQ2cakLXpQjcts1fXojKybrlWWULIZcMHrUYx2chu84kXicLAYKT0gM5TclnudwkSUCcPeNqi/s400/brain-regions.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 214px; CURSOR: hand" /></a><br /><br /><br />How all of this relates to the brain is quite impressive. The brain is recognized to be a malleable organ that can change its connections and even its size of certain areas based on how active they become. Understanding how involved the brain is of someone learning the Quran using the traditional Muslim method can explain how they were able to achieve such success in their knowledge endeavours.<br /><br />While learning the Quran, the careful attention to listening and pronunciation of verses stimulates an area of the brain located in the temporal lobe. The temporal lobe is also where the hippocampus is located, which is the memory consolidation center. It’s also the brain region activated for processing of musical sounds such as the case when the Quran is recited. Moreover, it becomes involved when the student engages in handwriting exercises similar to the ones on the wooden board. Where this matters is that this is the part of the brain whose activity levels and capacities have been correlated with a person’s aptitude for learning new information. The more activation this area receives, and the more involved this activation is such as the case with the Quran, the better and more efficient it becomes in its functions for learning and memory.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJFDgKS3r_TlCJtbkSBQAcE8eUUQK8gQwHjUA0DYhf3IRMxPVNnbeuf4Gbsb8Nn4Oi-Bjm82YMrmPDG2IDK0N6Rziby_zUWv_b1lZ_IcVmEMa3uhRL858Jbc8cPLqO8gQSb0V8OJAv3Mk/s1600/brain.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5706963975125704722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJFDgKS3r_TlCJtbkSBQAcE8eUUQK8gQwHjUA0DYhf3IRMxPVNnbeuf4Gbsb8Nn4Oi-Bjm82YMrmPDG2IDK0N6Rziby_zUWv_b1lZ_IcVmEMa3uhRL858Jbc8cPLqO8gQSb0V8OJAv3Mk/s400/brain.png" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 229px; CURSOR: hand" /></a><br /><br />The parietal lobes are also quite heavily engaged as one learns the Quran. The left parietal lobe deals with reading, writing, and functions in speech. It’s also the part whose activity is important for math and logic problems. The right parietal lobe handles speech tone, which is related to elocution. It’s also responsible for visuospatial relationships and understanding facial expressions. The front part is responsible for the sense of touch discrimination and recognition, which is active during handwriting. The back part plays an important role in attention. Both lobes are also activated during skill learning tasks. Overall, having parietal lobes that have been well activated translates to better logic and math-solving skills, eloquence in general speech, better ability at reading emotional states from facial cues, improved attention, and enhanced capacity for understanding visuospatial relationships. This last one can explain why Muslims were so good at astronomy.<br /><br />Other brain regions the activity of Quran recitation strongly activate are the frontal lobes and the primary motor cortex. The frontal lobes activity deals with higher order functions, including working memory, memory retrieval, speech production and written-word recognition, sustained attention, planning, social behavior, in addition to others. For example, as the student is reading the Othamni script, his brain must quickly decide on the proper pronunciation of the word, which without the diacritical marks means it must be distinguished from other possibilities that include not only wrong words, but also wrong enunciation depending on the specific recitation he’s using out of the 10 valid ones. The amazing thing about this is that the brain after practice will do these things without conscious control from the student. This trains the area of the brain responsible for inhibition, which is important for social interaction. Children with ADHD have been shown to have this area to be under-developed.<br /><br />Given the Quran’s content that for example includes descriptions of individuals and places, it activates the occipital lobes, which are involved in generating mental imagery. This brain region is also important in visual perception. Becoming active as a result of generating mental imagery indirectly improves visual perception capacities since the area activated is within the same region. The Quran is also rich in its content for history, parables, and logical arguments, all of which recruit different areas that become more efficient and better connected as they are continually activated due to the consistent review sessions.<br /><br /><br /><br />Putting all this together, it’s no wonder Muslims were able to make such vast contributions to human knowledge in a relatively short amount of time, historically speaking. After the aspiring student during the height of Muslim rule has mastered the Quran, his education in other sciences began by the time he was in his early teenage years. Given the brain’s malleable nature, the improved connections in one region indirectly affect and improve functions in adjacent locations. The process in studying the Quran over the previous years has trained his brain and enhanced its functions relating to visual perception, language, working memory, memory formation, processing of sounds, attention, skill learning, inhibition, as well as planning just to name a few. Now imagine what such an individual will be able to do when they tackle any subject. It makes sense how someone like Imam Al Ghazali can say he studied Greek philosophy on the side during his spare time and mastered it within 2 years.<br /><br />What was the Muslims’ secret for their exponential rise in scientific advancement and contribution to human knowledge? Literally, the Quran when it was the centre of their education system.<br /><br />Mohamed Ghilan </div></div>

How The Quran Shapes The Brain

by mohamedghilan “If it wasn’t for their political problems and constant fighting between each other, the Muslims would have been on the moo...

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Men And Women's Differences due... PERSONALITY

<div align="left"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieRJ718JoMmHfQAsv2AR4x30k2SxibnLj6NZACBmI920U7KnIBY-Az-w6K29mWWtH4fjvpZxfZVtn24YyQpWmyolEEoXKJtoVMRLI_SIwmXuucTUNbYCBr8frn0eAYYv0HUVthZaFnE0yN/s1600/WOMEN-MEN+personalities.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696415425748070706" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieRJ718JoMmHfQAsv2AR4x30k2SxibnLj6NZACBmI920U7KnIBY-Az-w6K29mWWtH4fjvpZxfZVtn24YyQpWmyolEEoXKJtoVMRLI_SIwmXuucTUNbYCBr8frn0eAYYv0HUVthZaFnE0yN/s400/WOMEN-MEN+personalities.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 167px; CURSOR: hand" /></a> while reading the next article, I came to the conclusion that if scientist turn to study what Quran says better than tray to "Discover what is already discovered", we will save a lot of time and effort,not to mention money.Have you heard about the famous book<br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus?</span></strong> is a book written by John Gray. The book has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide, I have never read it and insh'allah I'll never do it, just by reading the title I know is about how different men and woman are due the gender factor,something I'm in complete disagree, but in this "New wold" full of "Opportunities" for everyone where is claimed to be the "Modern Era" where no Discrimination exist (<span style="font-size:78%;">aha, and then you weak up and realize it was a dream</span>), there is people trying to prove how different we are and when some one proves the contrary then they come with another "Strategy", this is the case of the article I talk about in the beginning of this post.. <span style="font-size:78%;">if you are interested please read it comp</span><span style="font-size:85%;">leate</span>, then if you turn to what the Quran say, we found that Man and Women are different due their personality which is formed according the circumstances and the availability of resources and not because a sex difference(<span style="font-size:85%;">second article in this post</span>).<br />-------------------------------------<br />Men And Women's Differences Extend To Personality, Study Claims<br />by Claire Gordon<br /><br /><strong>Men and women are more alike than different</strong> -- that's been the consensus view for many years among the researchers who study personality differences between the sexes. But a <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">new study claims this wisdom is wrong</span></strong>. By correcting for measurement errors, three researchers put forth a study that was published on Wednesday on the Public Library of Science website saying they've found that men and women feel and behave in markedly different ways. They're almost like <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">"different species,"</span></strong> Paul Irwing, one of the researchers, told The Huffington Post.<br /><br />The research, conducted by Marco Del Giudice of Italy's University of Turin and Irwing and Tom Booth of the UK's University of Manchester, involved getting 10,000 Americans to take a questionnaire that measured 15 different personality traits. According to their analysis,<br /></div><br /><blockquote><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">"men are far more dominant, reserved, utilitarian, vigilant, rule-conscious, and<br />emotionally stable"</span></strong></blockquote>, while<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">"women are far more deferential, warm, trusting, sensitive, and emotionally<br />"reactive." </span></strong><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">The two sexes were roughly the same when it came to perfectionism, liveliness, and abstract versus practical thinking.<br /><br /></span>"If you translate it into the simplest terms," said Irwing, "only 18 percent of men and women match in terms of personality profiles, and that's staggeringly different from the consensus view."<br /><br />The consensus view, most persuasively set out in a 2005 study by Janet Shibley Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, demonstrated through a meta-analysis of 46 other studies that <span style="font-size:130%;">men and women were actually very similar, not only in personality traits, but in other realms of supposed gender difference, like self-esteem, leadership, and math ability.<br /><br /></span>In the early 1970s, Hyde became one of the first researchers to focus on the psychology of women. "Before that, psychology had been a psychology of men," Hyde told The Huffington Post, and many theories had been developed based on entirely male samples. So she began to study women, and the differences between women and men, and was surprised at how small those differences turned out to be. "I mean, I was trying to study difference," Hyde said.<br /><br />Hyde says the final figure Irwing, Del Giudice, and Booth came up with -- the "global sex difference" -- is "really uninterpretable, it doesn't mean anything."<br /><br />In past studies on this topic, researchers would simply add up all the survey responses, according to Del Giudice. This led to imperfect results because of careless responses and misreadings. Through a sophisticated method called "structure equation modeling," the researchers claim they were able to remove this random error. When asked if he could translate this concept for a lay person, Irwing replied: "I teach courses on this and it takes me approximately 20 hours."<br /><br />Past research also usually compared one variable at a time, Del Giudice said. He believes this method led to underestimations of the sex difference because when you actually combine all personality traits, with all their small discrepancies, the result is a much more significant difference. For example, if you were to examine the difference between men and women's body types using the traditional method, you would look at torso circumference and waist-hip ratios and torso-leg ratios, one by one. In Del Giudice's method, you would crunch all these figures into one much larger number. And that's what he did with personality.<br /><br />"They kind of globbed together all these personality dimensions and said there was a big difference," Hyde said. "They're throwing together apples and oranges and dishwashers to get this thing in 15-dimensional space. We don't know what 15-dimensional space looks like."<br /><br />But Del Giudice contends that his team didn't measure "a haphazard list of traits." Rather, they considered 15 facets that could offer a reasonably complete picture of a person's personality.<br /><br />Irwing thinks that some researchers in the past may have been biased in their methods, in order to reduce any gender difference. "It's for totally laudable reasons," he said. "People are very concerned, or were very concerned, that women didn't get equal opportunities, and that there was a lot of bias in selection processes."<br /><br />"People are afraid that studies like ours will turn the clock back," Irwing added.<br /><br />Hyde is one of those people. "This huge difference is not only scientifically false," she said, "it has unfortunate consequences for places like the workplace and education and heterosexual romantic relationships."<br /><br />But the authors stand by their results, and are currently drafting a lengthy response to Hyde's objections. <span style="font-size:100%;">"I think distorting science because of what you would like to believe, or because of what you think the political consequences are, is very dangerous," said Irwing.<br /><br /></span><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">The study doesn't speculate as to whether the alleged differences are due to nature or nurture</span></strong>, although Irwing points out the results are consistent with standard evolutionary theory. <em>Even if these differences aren't indelibly printed in our genes, Hyde believes there's still cause for alarm</em>.<br /><br />If men and women have wildly different personalities,<span style="font-size:180%;"> <strong>"then how can we do the same job men can, and deserve equal pay for equal work?"</strong></span> she asked. "A married couple have marital difficulties, and they go to the therapist, who says 'he's from Mars, you're from Venus, you'll never be able to communicate. It's hopeless.' If you have a gender similarities point of view, you just need to work on communicating."<br /><br />----------------------------------------------------<br />The Woman's Personality<br />and Role in Life<br /><em>(<span style="font-size:85%;">An edited summary of Sayyed Fadlullah's view)</span><br /></em><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">Women in the Queen are cited as role models for both men and women</span>, which proves that <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Islam does not consider women as anything but equal to men</span></strong>; their innate weakness and tendency to be emotional can surely be overcome if favorable conditions and a strong belief are available.<br /><br /><strong>The woman's Personality<br /></strong><br />How do we discover the woman's personality? Should we go to the religious texts? Or should we study the <strong>elements of this personality through the woman's interactions in life</strong>?<br /><br />We believe that the second option is the objective and realistic one. It also constitutes a base for understanding the religious texts enabling us to interpret them in a way that does not contradict with the outside world, or to deduce that some traditions are not authentic since they contradict the principles of our doctrines as manifested by the Quran and the authentic traditions.<br /><br />In the light of these guidelines, we observe that <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">it is difficult to distinguish between a man and a woman who live in similar cultural social and political circumstances.</span></strong> The man's awareness and understanding of these circumstances is not greater than that of the woman. On the contrary, we see in many examples that women have outdone men in their clear vision and deep understanding owing to certain internal and external factors. This is what we notice in certain historic examples when the women live in favorable cultural and social conditions. They were able to assert their effective and active role that is based on the pillars of thought and doctrine.<br /><br />This is what the Quran tells us when Allah talks about Lady Mary (a.s.) and the Pharaoh’s wife, and this is what history tells us when it speaks about such models as Khadija, the Mother of believers, Fatima Az-Zahra' (The Prophet's daughter) and Zainab bint Ali…. And about the positions and stands those great ladies had that are based on their belief, spirituality and understanding of the religion and the circumstances around them and how they challenged the situations that confronted them. All these prove that there is no difference between them and the men that lived in their time.<br /><br />If some people talk about certain unique traits in the personality of these woman, we do not find any special attributes they were adorned with except that they lived in natural circumstances that enabled them to develop spirituality and mentally, as well as their commitment in practice and that the elements of their personality were able to balance one another in a natural way to allow them to develop in the way they did. We cannot say that they were granted supernatural powers in a way that we can no longer say that they are ordinary women, for this is not proved beyond any doubt, although in the case of Mary, Allah says that he had chosen her due to her spirituality and obedience of God.<br /><br />But if God has guided her by the spirit He sent her, there is no supernatural power she possesses as such.<br /><br />It is a grace from Allah that aimed at guiding her as to how to act and to give her spiritual strength to continue to act in the normal way she did and to give her more strength to fight the natural human weakness that lies in her just as any man would encounter in such situations.<br /><br />The Quran of Sheba is a Quranic example of how wise a woman could be, as a ruler that studies all the elements and examines all the options before taking any decision, a woman that is not ruled by her emotions but by her mind. These attributes enabled her to rule over men who found in her the rational and capable person that is capable of running their affairs.<br /><br />We deduce form this example that <strong><span style="font-size:180%;">women are capable of overcoming the inner weakens that negatively affect their judgment, suggesting that weakness in women is not an inescapable fate.</span></strong><br /><br />Another example we should study is Pharaoh’s wife who lived a life of extreme extravagance, but she refused all that because of her belief which made her unable to reconcile between the life she was living in and the poverty and deprivation of the masses, as well as her husband's role in wronging them.<br /><br />Thus, she asked Allah to build her a place in Heaven as a symbol of her refusal of the reality and to enable her to be strong each time she found some weakness taking the better of her. She asked God to save her from Pharaoh and his tyrannical actions, as well as the people who helped him in his wronging.<br /><br />Thus she became a role model for believers both men and women. Mary(a.s.) too was a role model for all believers in her belief in God and in her morals and devoutness, to the extent that all of her life was an extended prayer and a token of belief in Allah and obedience to His Will . God cites as an example of those who believed, the wife of Pharaoh. She said: "My Lord, build a home for me near You in Paradise, and save me from Pharaoh and his works; and save me from the transgressing people." Also Mary, the daughter of Imran, who maintained her chastity. So We blew into her from Our spirit, and she believed in the words of her Lord and His Scriptures; and she was of those who were obedient. 66:11-12<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Taking the strong believing women as role models for both men and women, clearly<br />indicates that the Quran acknowledges the woman's ability to be a strong person<br />who can overcome any innate weakens in her. The woman, thus, could well be a<br />role model just like the man, since both are capable of humanistic giving<br />without any differences pertaining to their sex.</span></strong></blockquote><span style="font-size:180%;">The difference in sex does not hinder the ability of being strong on the levels of thinking, giving, having a strong willpower and the ability to take the right decision and the right position after studying all options, once the circumstances that favor creativity and rational thinking are available.</span>

Men And Women's Differences due... PERSONALITY

while reading the next article, I came to the conclusion that if scientist turn to study what Quran says better than tray to "Discover...

Read more »