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entries for 2002/6/17
how weird
Verizon Wireless shut off my phone today, so if anyone tried to call me and couldn't reach me, that's why. Apparently, they got mad because the only contact number on file for me was my own cellphone. So I gave them my parent's number and they're turning my phone back on. Does that make sense to anyone else?dns issues
I'm looking into some issues with my DNS server today. I'm not quite ready to post this on the cornerhost site, but I think I may have some answers to the various little problems people have reported off and on over the past few months (like subdomains disappearing temporarily). Right now, the DNS records are just in text files (lots and lots of little text files). I've found some tools that can parse DNS records though, and plan to stick all the information into a database, so I can regenerate the whole lot whenever I want, and make changes to the master template or the individual records... Should be fun. :)biofeedback and the tebetan laundry trick
One thing that has always fascinated me is the image of a Tibetan monk wrapped in a wet and near-frozen sheet on a cold night in the mountains. The monk meditates and his body heat rises, and pretty soon he dries out the sheet.
I think I saw it on National Geographic when I was a kid. I went looking for it on the web, and there do seem to be quite a few references to it on the web. Apparently, it's a type of yoga called Tumo, which deals with psychic energy and...
Um, yeah. So... It's often occurred to me that water boils at a pretty low temperature when you're up on a mountain, since there's not as much air pressure. But on the other hand, the body tends to retain heat in cold environments. Circulations slows down and the blood retracts from the extremeties. That's why frostbite can cost someone their toes or fingers.
Since I don't know much about channeling psychic energy from the far reaches of the cosmos, I think that if I wanted to increase my body heat, I'd be stuck with increased circulation and metabolism.
Well, it turns out that people who have migraines are often treated with biofeedback. They hold thermometers in their hands, and relax, and try to make the temperature rise. Apparently, it's not that hard to do, and people having 10 degree temperature differences between their left and right hands is even possible. (I don't have references to back this up, it's all hearsay, but a quick search confirms that this is a standard treatment).
Anyway, if you increase your skin temperature through better circulation, then your body gives off more heat. Which would
cause it to cool down. So if the body is consistently giving off heat, especially in a cold environment, the only logical (ie non-mystical) explanation is that a bunch of exothermic chemical reactions are going on inside... Which we might call increased metabolism.
Now in America, since we're not taught Tumo in school, we increase our metabolism through diet (eating many small meals throughout the day) and exercise (aerobics to raise the base metabolic rate, and weight lifting to increase muscle mass, which burns fat to maintain itself). Oh and "exciting new herbal weight loss breakthroughs" which are advertised on the radio every five minutes (Get your ephedrine-free Metabolicious pills today and lose eight million pounds in ten seconds!).
With metabolism all the rage today, I wonder why people don't look at Tumo. Maybe because the only info available in the states is seeped in new age mysticisim?
But I don't think intense body heat is all that unusual. In fact, it's quite natural. We call it fever. Fever isn't a direct effect of disease, but a natural process the body goes through to fight off disease. Oddly enough, one of the side effects of getting sick is that people tend to lose weight. Why? Well, they don't eat as much and their metabolism shoots through the roof.
Of course, metabolism is an automatic, unconcsious process regulated by the hypothalamus. But we already teach ourselves to control plenty of unconscious processes. We can hold our breath underwater, and potty-train our kids, and divert bloodflow from the brain to the hands to reduce a migraine... And aparently, some people can increase their metabolism even when covered in wet sheets on a freezing night.
So it's curious to me that you don't hear more about mental control of metabolism. Maybe there's no money in it. I don't know.
But it's been on my mind lately, and I've sort of been playing with it... Just imagining myself giving off heat off and on during the day. And oddly enough, I seem to be actually giving off a lot of heat. I was out with a friend yesterday and she was sitting right next to me and she noticed, at least enough to ask whether I was okay or not.
Anyway... Just something going on in my head lately. I ordered a couple $5 digital indoor/outdoor thermometers to see if I could try the thermal biofeedback thing and verify this stuff objectively. Maybe there's something to it. Or maybe I'm just talking nonsense, I doin't know. :)