When your geographical location decides your diagnose

I came across these three very informative and easy to understand videos. It made the light-bulb shine at least for a moment!

What a large lack of understanding of blood-chemistry there is and what various impact of our diagnoses!
For example:
1.  The "reference range" of each value is based on blood-samples extracted from ill people, not healthy ones. So what they actually tells you is that you are within the range of what a group of other unhealthy people also have experienced. That sounds weird to me. How can a blood sample really be sure under this circumstances?
2. The variation on what is within "normal levels". It is quite confusing as you will be treated differently according to the standards in the area,country or hospital you are seeing when taking the tests.

3. They do not test for "less likely" reasons for the individuals sufferings.

 A lot of people today are living under severe long-time stress.  This creates over-production of Cortisol in the blood and can lead to lack of other hormones.(as shown in the video about Pregnenolone-steal) Maybe the hot flushes was not menopausal but a disturbance in the hormonal flow caused by stress! And prolonged Cortisol-production can lead to increased sized adrenal-glands because of the high flow. In the end they get into a stage of fatigue and levels of Cortisol drops together with the other hormone levels.

This unbalance also interfere with thyroid disturbance and should be studied closer. Taking Thyroid-hormones without regulating a fatigue adrenal-state or high Cortisol can make additional stress to the adrenal-glands and worsen the symptoms.

 Chronic Fatigue may have a lot in common  with adrenal-fatigue and it could be interesting to discover if the fatigue reduces by taking low-dose,
 (5mg) PREGNENOLONE together with 5 mg DHEA during a 6 months period, stimulating the adrenal-glands to produce the hormones that is missing. Unlike many other medications, the Pregnenolone do not shut down the production in the body, but stimulates it.
The above suggestion is based on several personal experiences from men and women with thyroid-medication and fatigue, hot-flushes or other hormonal related symptoms.

Thyroid-problems can be caused by several other dysfunctions than the one of autoimmune illness. If you have all the symptoms but your doctor tell you that everything is fine, one of these may be the reason. But because there is no regularity in looking at these other options, it often remains in the dark. The 20% (or maybe more) that tests negative on autoimmune should ask for this in particular.

I will let Dr.Walsh speak for himself in these three interesting videos :

Problems with modern Blood-Chemistry, Thyroid Physiology and Effects on stress: Pregnenolone steal

Some of the suggestions to heal from adrenal fatigue:

Lying down during your work breaks (preferably at 10 a.m. and again anytime from 3 to 5 p.m.)

Sleeping until 9 a.m. as often as possible

Laughing

Exercising

Minimizing stress

Taking negative people out of your life

Eating regular meals

Chewing well

Doing something fun each day

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/019339_adrenal_fatigue_chronic_stress.html#ixzz2uMMK8Hov

Trust

"Trust is a great summary measure of a society in which things are working well. Lack of trust, on the other hand, is a measure of how things do not work well in society. 

Why is this the case? Neuroeconomics studies have shown that when someone trusts you, your brain releases oxytocin. When the brain does that, you reciprocate.  So when we’re shown trust, our brains motivate us to be trustworthy. Therefore, countries in which trust is high have effective governments, they have very tight social structures, people interact very well with each other, and there’s a positive feedback loop. "

How important it is for this reason to continuing trusting others even if they sometimes fails, because it creates more motivation to the whole process of being trustworthy- in the whole society.

 A good idea to begin with perhaps may be to trust ourselves?

 If we do not trust ourselves, how can we expect others to do it? 

Tell yourself in the mirror: I am trustworthy! So; go out and let it be :)

Source: Think Big

Success or Failure ?

"The Danish physicist Niels Bohr once said "an expert is simply someone who has made all the mistakes there are to make in a narrow field."

The more we come to understand about the way we learn, the more Bohr's statement holds true. Our brains need us to make prediction errors in order to correct, amend and improve our performance. In short, improvement comes through failure. "

 Megan McArdle, author of The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success      by BIG THINK EDITORS FEBRUARY 21, 2014, 12:00AM

Most businesses fail. Most products fail. Most relationships fail. Derek Jeter, one of the greatest baseball players of his generation, failed to get a hit 68.8 percent of the time. 

How is it that humans have been such a successful species if our endeavors are so defined by failure?

Luckily for us, we are incredibly resilient. 

To stick with the baseball analogy, everybody strikes out. The key is to maintain your composure, step back up to the plate the next time at bat and hit a home run. As Bill Gates, unquestionably one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs has said, "it’s fine to celebrate success, but more important are the lessons of failure." In the startup world, entrepreneurs are taught to fail quickly, learn and move on.
We all get advice, but it’s life experience and usually failure that teaches us the bigger lessons."

And even better, we CAN learn from other peoples failure, we do not actually have to do it all ourselves..

Katy Perry - Unconditionally (Official)

10 thinks to STOP doing if you want to be HAPPY!

Written by James Clear

1. Avoiding deep and meaningful connections (like marriage, close friendships, and staying in touch with family)

 Ultimately, the human experience is about connecting with other people. Connection is what provides value and meaning to our lives. We’re wired for it and research proves just that.

2. Sitting wrecks our bodies: It can significantly increase risk of cardiovascular disease 

You might want to stand up for this. The internet has gone crazy over this infographic that describes the harmful effects of sitting all day.

3. Never stopping to just breathe.

From the time you wake up until the time you go to bed, do you ever take 15 minutes to just sit and breathe? I rarely do. And that’s a shame because the benefits of mindfulness and meditation are huge. Meditation reduces stress and anxiety. Meditation improves your quality of life and boost your immune system. Meditation has been shown to decrease anger and improve sleep, even among prison inmates.

4. Not joining a (spiritual) community

There is an interesting and growing body of medical research that has discovered the positive health effects of religion and spirituality. The science doesn’t necessarily say that there is anything inherently healthy about religion, but it’s all the by-products that come from practicing religion that can make a big difference.For example, people with strong faith often release control of their struggles and worries to a higher power, which can help to relieve anxiety and stress. Religious groups also offer a strong source of community and friendships, which is critical for health and happiness. In many cases, the strength of friendships formed with fellow believers can last for decades, and those strong personal ties are crucial for long-term health.

5. Ignoring your creative abilities.

Expressing yourself creatively reduces the risk of disease and illness while simultaneously strengthening your health and wellness. For example, this study from the Harvard School of Public Health revealed that art helps to reduce stress and anxiety, increase positive emotions, and reduce the likelihood of depression, along with many other benefits.Another study, which was published in the Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, discovered that creative writing improved the immune system response of HIV patients. For more ideas on why creating art is healthy, read this: The Health Benefits of Creativity.

6. Spending all day indoors.

Exploring the world around you — whether that means traveling to faraway lands or hiking through the woods in your area — provides a wide range of mental and physical benefits. For starters, the benefits of sunlight (and the negative effects of artificial light) are well-documented in research. We know that not being outdoors enough significantly decreases our Vitamin D intake. Additionally, researchers have begun to discover that wilderness excursions — known as “adventure therapy” — can promote weight loss, improve the self-esteem of people with mental illness, and evenreduce the rearrest rates of sex offenders.

7. Spending your time consuming instead of contributing and producing.

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

—Eleanor Roosevelt

“You can’t control the amount of time you spend on this planet, but you can control what you contribute while you’re here. These contributions don’t have to be major endeavors. Cook a meal instead of buying one. Play a game instead of watching one. Write a paragraph instead of reading one. You don’t have to create big contributions, you just need to live out small ones each day.”

8. Working too much and in a job that you don’t love

Basically any way in which your job makes you feel stressed is bad for your health — unpredictable commutes, tension and disagreement with your boss or coworkers, feeling undervalued or unappreciated. Even working overtime increases the risk for coronary heart disease, independent of outside factors.

Another crucial element to observe here is to fall in love with our body’s natural rhythm of working: The Ultradian Rhythm. Taking consistent breaks and not working for longer than ~90 minutes, can have a huge benefit for our health and feeling of happiness:

9. Eating alone

Brian Wansink, a Cornell professor and author of Mindless Eating, has written that when people eat alone they are more likely to have a large binge feeding. Additionally, diets suffer when people eat alone. Lonely diners tend to eat fewer vegetables and less healthy meals. It seems that we make less of an effort to eat well when we are by ourselves than when someone else is involved.

10. Believing that you are unworthy of health, happiness, and love

"There was only one variable that separated the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging and the people who struggle for it. And that was that people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they’re worthy of love and belonging.

"That’s it. They believe they’re worthy. The one thing that keeps us out of connection is the fear that we’re not worthy of connection."
—Brene Brown

"If you allow your fear or vulnerability or shame to prevent you from showcasing your true self, then you will be preventing yourself from connecting fully with others. If you want to be able to move past fear, judgement, and uncertainty and into a healthier and happier life, then you have to give yourself permission first. You have to decide that you’re worthy.

Read everything;  10-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself-to-be-happier-backed-by-science

This is some of the best advices I have seen collected together, I think I will print them out and leave them on my fridge! With chronic pain and fatigue it can be hard to get out of the chair/bed/sofa. I think I must make a commitment to myself, so I can begin with improving one point at the time every week. 
Then we will see how it works, maybe I feel happier in ten weeks from now ! 

When life is weighing us down everything becomes heavier!

The Influence of Social Power on Weight Perception.

Lee, Eun Hee; Schnall, Simone
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Feb 3 , 2014, No Pagination Specified.

"Three studies explored whether social power affects the perception of physical properties of objects, testing the hypothesis that the powerless find objects to be heavier than the powerful do. Correlational findings from Study 1 revealed that people with a low personal sense of power perceived loaded boxes to be heavier than people with a high personal sense of power perceived them to be. In Study 2, experimentally manipulated power indicated that participants in the powerless condition judged the boxes to be heavier than did participants in the powerful condition. Study 3 further indicated that lacking power actively influences weight perception relative to a neutral control condition, whereas having power does not. Although much research on embodied perception has shown that various physiological and psychosocial resources influence visual perception of the physical environment, this is the first demonstration suggesting that power, a psychosocial construct that relates to the control of resources, changes the perception of physical properties of objects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)"

Interesting findings,and no doubt real. Perhaps why many social "losers" end up on welfare!! So to get out of the circle, empowering people in some way would have good effect. To gain control over our own life is essential for our performance-level in all areas. And acceptance for the things we can not change!