Taking a Stance: I Voted for Obama

One more time, I’ll use this blog for a non-fitness related subject to be on record with my political view.

I have many reasons but want to focus on the one part that is the closest to my heart, and that is healthcare.

I am from Germany and did not come to this country until 1989. During the first 5 years, I was an international assignee working for IBM, and thus I was in an environment where all my colleagues had healthcare and I did not give it any thought because, to me, that’s the way it is supposed to be. After I got married, decided to stay in the US for good, and changed careers to be in the fitness industry, I began to look around my new home in North Carolina. That’s when it started dawning on me that a significant percentage of Americans do not have healthcare coverage, that pre-existing conditions can be excluded from policies, and that preventive care does not seem to be a priority.

When the debate over healthcare raged, many arguments were made on either side, and I was dismayed to listen to people who used countries like Germany, France or the UK as a negative example. I have lived in a country with comprehensive healthcare, and I still have many friends there. I love the country I am living in right now. I became a citizen because this is my home. But the lack of health access equality to every other of my fellow citizens was always a source of pain to me. I cannot truly be happy about my own healthcare access knowing that others do not have the opportunity.

I was elated when legislation was passed towards achieving this goal, and I was grateful when it was upheld by the Supreme Court. If it was on this one issue alone, I could not vote for anybody who promises to repeal it.

Here I stand!

MELT away Stress

I am currently glued to my DVD player watching a series of 24 lectures by Robert Sapolsky Ph.D. about stress and its impact on the body. The ramifications are truly frightening; there is not a function in the body that is not negatively influenced by the mechanisms of stress. And what is even more notable is that most of the stress originates from thoughts and feelings that are far removed from the initial scenarios for which stress was designed.

The processes that happen when we are stressed are designed to get us ready for the proverbial ‘Flight or Fight’ response in matters of life and death. As a species, we are the only ones capable of conjuring up frightful scenarios to which we then promptly respond as if we were in actual physical danger.

And there are a lot of things that people get stressed about: the weather, the traffic, the boss, the colleagues, the favorite teach losing, global warming, people disputing global warming. Right now we have enough people stressed about the outcome of the presidential elections on either end of the political spectrum.

What has all of this to do with MELT?

One thing I love when I teach a MELT class is the complete silence at the end of the class. After an hour of MELTing, the participants seem entirely removed from all the worries of the world. The inward focus of MELT quiets the stress response, and the change is palpable in the room. Being able to break the stress cycle is important because it enables the body to return to the repair mode that comes along with improved sleep.

MELT is not a cure-all, particularly if people insist on getting stressed and prefer to keep their stress levels up. I have heard people talk quite proudly about their type A personality. We cannot protect people from themselves.  But MELT is a great modality to improve where we have control, and that are our thoughts and our frame of mind.