Diabetics: Laugh And Be Inspired - Through Comic Strips

Health Information, Delivered Humorously
Diabetics do not have it easy. While going through the daily humdrum of life, the mind keeps subconsciously scanning the newspapers, TV news, and whatever other information source available, for any breakthrough news about some cure for their condition. And when they are with friends and family, there is always somebody around with some sage piece of advice about how someone from some exotic land somewhere faraway has come up with this herb or that seed which has to be boiled in the oil extracted from snakes - of a certain color - that have just emerged from the cracks of their eggs. And the said concoction, if drunk at the stroke of midnight for three successive new moon nights, will provoke the pancreas to produce those juices that will balance the sugar level in the body. Some sage piece of advice this. But you get the idea.


Exasperated diabetics now have some funny stuff to tickle the rib. Soon, US-based newspaper readers will be able to get a daily dose of advice, laced in science and dabbed in humor, about prevention and treatment of the condition. (Online versions of these newspapers are available on the web too - some free, some paid.) This is courtesy Mr. Baldo Bermudez, the main character of the daily comic strip "Baldo" which is published in over 200 newspapers across the US.


The 15-year old teenager Baldo is soon going to realize that his dad, Sergio, is afflicted with diabetes. Poor Baldo thinks that it is he who has brought this condition on to his father with his mischief and antics. The boy and his sister Gracie will, in their typical tongue-in-cheek style, drive home the point about eating healthier, to pay more attention to physical exercise, to not succumb to bouts of sudden anger and intermittent sloth, and to try and remain calm and peaceful at all times.


The strip - published in English and Spanish - is a creation of Hector Cantu and Carlos Castellanos. The series on diabetes awareness, beginning June 30th, is an outcome of the duo's partnership with the National Alliance for Hispanic Health.



Looking at one's condition with humor in itself is a good therapy!

[While on the subject of diabetes, here is another angle to ponder and reflect upon: "Diabetes - Silent Killer? Or Awakener?".]

Luck By Chance

Think Of Luck As Stable, Permanent, By Your Side Always
A dull, boring social gathering can be brought to animated life in very little time by throwing down the gauntlet of "whether success and fulfillment in life is obtained by 'luck' or by 'pluck'". It takes just one person to take a stand, to instigate some other person in the gathering to leap up to their feet and present a diametrically opposite stand, complete with their own anecdotal experiences and philosophy. For every human being who rose to the height of their aspirations by the sweat of their brow, there is another human being who won the lottery with a ticket that they had left behind in the back-pocket of their jeans when they shove it in the laundry machine. And usually, it takes a very tough moderator at the podium to ensure that the animation does not degenerate into mayhem.


The spectrum between believers of pluck and believers of luck is evenly distributed. People who believe in pluck think that one's actions directly affect one's outcomes. Period. But people who believe otherwise, think that there is this, the invisible Hand that guides destinies. And should the Hand so decide; the best of efforts and the most strident of actions will not fructify into the desired outcomes. And so this second set of people set forth to locate the Hand, and if that is an impossible goal, then at least to find ways and means to appease It. Taking a leaf out of the psychologist's book, the pluck-believers hold that the locus of control lies within them, while the luck-believers are open to the possibility of an "external" agency too controlling their destiny.


Nothing wrong with the doctrine of providence, which is what the belief in an external agency guiding one's destiny is. Everybody is walking on their own path of self-development, deserving all respect. The problem comes when we allow ourselves to be washed by circumstances away from the shore of our aspirations, when we succumb to the choppy waves of problems, and when we begin to drown in the sea of disaster and failure, moaning all the while that the Hand is no longer guiding us. We look at Luck as fleeting and impermanent. It is there for some of the time, and it "runs out" from time to time. This approach has a most unfortunate consequence of loss of persistence. The first sight of some problem, and we throw up our hands. Aw, Shucks! Luck is not by my side this time!


This particular category of luck-believers finds it hard to motivate themselves to not give up midway, but to exhaust all alternatives before concluding that there is really no way forward. And after acknowledging failure, this particular category finds it especially difficult to identify the problem in the core concepts of their thinking which led to failure in the first place, so that the core concepts can be reworked upon and the task begun afresh, in the same or a new avatar. Gradually, a pattern builds up which keeps recurring in all areas of their life, till a stage comes when such people give up taking all action and start leading a "vegetable" life of inaction. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy, this belief in a) the concept of luck, and b) that luck is fleeting and impermanent. You can't get them to discard their favorite principle, but you also can't see them wither away. Then what do you do?


The key point here is the thought in the minds of some of the luck-believers that "luck is fleeting and impermanent". As self-developers, instead of taking any extreme-pole position of discarding the providence doctrine altogether, suppose we shift our thought from the fleeting and impermanence aspect of luck to one of luck being forever stable and forever permanent and forever on our side? Formulating this thought in the mind immediately leads us to strengthen our belief in ourselves. A confidence that, come what may, the victory cup is ours - grows in us. Faced with the choppy waves of problems, we will not succumb. We will not throw up our hands. Instead, armed with the "knowledge" that luck is by our side, we will be driven by the confidence that help is round the corner somewhere, and we have to "simply" seek it.


This eclectic approach has two advantages. One, the luck-believers do not have to root the doctrine of providence out from their value systems; usually ingrained by parents and seniors since childhood and therefore very difficult - if not plain impossible - to do so, and it is not required anyway. And two, they get to use the belief of a powerful, "supernatural agency" always being by their side to guide them at all times. If there is somebody you know who is leading a vegetable life of inaction because they fell prey to consistent bad luck, then - who knows? - this eclectic approach might transform them into a dynamo of action.


[Belief in oneself is the core driver for all successes. It is belief in the self that drove the pilot to successfully crash-land his plane on the surface of a lake so that everybody emerged unhurt and safe. Similarly, it is the belief in the self that drives a tiny little rail engine, entrusted with the task of freighting toys to the next station, to overcome all challenges and complete the mission. Would you like to read the inspiring story of this little blue engine? Here it is: "How Tillie Pulls Out Of The Avalanche".]

Getting A Ferrari By Wishing For One

Critiquing The Principle Of "Ask, Believe, And Receive"
There has been a lull, of late, in news on the "Law of Attraction". There are no new websites being launched around this concept, on the contrary quite a number of sites set up with much fanfare, since Rhonda Byrne wrote her book, are quietly being shut down. It has been more than a year, if not more, since any of the gurus have made any fresh pronouncements on the matter. Spam mail senders too stopped flogging this law to entice me to make use of their services long ago, and have already reverted to informing me of the great fortune that has befallen me as some gullible innocent woman somewhere wants help to remove the treasure of her dead father or husband, and can she have my bank account details, please, where she can deposit the money?


Thanks to Ms. Byrne, several hundred careers got launched in the domain of self-development in these past three years. Suddenly, key words such as "ask, believe, receive", "attract abundance", "New Age" and of course "the secret" began being bandied about in the hip intellectual / semi-intellectual / pseudo-intellectual crowd at parties and social do's. Visiting cards proudly began proclaiming their owner's interest / expertise in the Law of Attraction. The book by Ms. Byrne began appearing on coffee tables in the drawing halls of houses of all economic strata, reminding the guests and visitors of the spiritual heights conquered by the dwellers. Never mind if even the first page has not yet been turned. Forums began being populated by discussion threads with members trying to outdo each other in their knowledge over the subject by quoting this or that author or expert, the discussion degenerating into slanging matches as it often happens.


Seminars began to be organized by "Gurus" who claimed to have known the concept of the LoA "much before Ms. Byrne discovered it". People began practicing before the mirror the "smile of serenity" that has come to stand for those who have imbibed the law in their style of living and tasted success, if not direct communion with The One Who Wrote The Law. A stage came when you could recognize these people from afar just by the wonderful smile of serenity they wore, and you would search for alleys to escape into before they could catch hold of you to listen to their profundities.


And websites, ah websites, that great vehicle for generating money 24X7, blossomed forth like lilies in spring. The same wonderful smile now came attached to a face which had a halo behind it, which we would like to believe was bestowed by The One Who Wrote The Law, but was most likely created using the latest version of Photoshop - "Give the halo a touch of sunny yellow at the periphery, Jonny" -. All their home pages beginning with a personal sad story, just like Byrne - and how they achieved their version of enlightenment and how they want to share their "new-found" knowledge with the rest of the world. In fact, some doctoral research student might find it immensely interesting to base their thesis on the subject of the websites created during the period 2006-2009, all clones of the "The Secret" theme.


Sensing the ebbing interest amongst consumers - if the seminar hall doesn't fill, then you end up paying for the hall's rent out of your own pocket; if the website doesn't generate money, then you end up paying for the site's rent from your own capital -, people did try to come out with mutants of the original LoA. "The things they hid from you in the film", "The second secret", "the untold secret"... grey cells went into overdrive coming out with the right turn of phrase that would keep them coming. However, every fashion has its expiry date; that is the Supreme Law of Nature; and the fashion of Law of Attraction is no exception. This is why the lull in the news about this New Age principle.


Now that the hype and the hoopla about the "Law" has all but died down, this might just be the right time, to dust the books and the material that got collected over these past three years and give them a relook. To blow away that which is fluff; and focus on that which is solid. To dip under the bonnet, so to speak, and understand which domain of knowledge this law fits in, what its axioms are, what its scope of operation is and where its limitations lie. It is sad when somebody launches a brilliant discourse on LoA, and recites entire passages from this or that author's work, but who grapples for words when they are simply asked to place the subject in perspective within the Body of Knowledge accumulated by mankind. Instead of being lulled by the beautiful quotes and sayings of the self-styled gurus and experts, it will do a lot of good if we reflect on how this "law" might have impacted one's own life in subtle ways already. And work out how we can use the principle to shape the quality of our thoughts.


[It is great to know that there exists a Law, called the "Law of Attraction", which governs our thinking. But is that the only law? Does this law fully and comprehensively explain all that there is to know about how Life functions in this Universe? Is this the only principle that one can base one's thoughts upon? As this article explains, there are several instances around us which the LoA does not explain, because they fall outside the scope of its operation: "The Law Of Attraction Is Not Enough!". Read, and reflect!]

Focusing On Happiness And Fulfillment

Living Life Positively Psychologically
Mankind has been wrestling with, since Time immemorial, issues and questions about itself and about the Universe. We know that some of the questions have been answered, and that there are many more whose answers continue to elude.


Of these unanswered are some very deeply profound questions, such as "Who Am I?", "Whence I Came?", "What I Am Doing Versus What Am I Supposed To Be Doing?", "Where Shall I Go, Or What Shall I Be, After Death?", "What Came First - Chicken Or Egg" - which continue to jog the minds of philosophers and intellectuals, and which apparently will continue to do so for some more time to come. We are all waiting for that one out-of-the-box, ground-breaking idea or thought to rise in some ripened mind somewhere on this earth, a thought which has non-dogmatic foundations, and which will give a clue to the underpinnings of Life in general.


Leaving the eggheads to their devices while they wrestle with these profound issues, we ordinary mortals are happy if we keep receiving continued assurance that we live in a benign universe that has brought us to this planet and plunked us right in the midst of a family and / or community, not to heap on us hardship and strife and shortage and sorrow, but to make us feel happy and contented. This basic psychological need - that there is Someone or Somebody who is taking care of us -, is what drives the devout and the religious and the non-atheists amongst us in droves to our places of worship on designated days. The communion we seek to establish with an entity - who we have been conditioned since early childhood to look upon as our savior - in those silent, calm moments in the place of worship is sometimes the only bright stretch of time in an otherwise bleak day.


The past decade or so has witnessed a sea-change in our thinking about how we lead our lives. More specifically, this change has occurred in our view about how we view our lives - some sort of a "meta-view". While we have always been alert, since the ancient times, about what we think and why we think what we think and how our thoughts can impact our sense of happiness and fulfillment, it is thanks to the internet and a shrinking world that the body of knowledge on the entity called "mind" has been unlocked from the ivory tower of intellectualism and brought to the mainstream of human consciousness.


And, thanks to newly evolving knowledge such as positive psychology - of which self-development and self-help are a part, including this blog and this article that you are reading right at this moment -, the bright stretches of time have lengthened, and can easily cover the entire day to wipe away all bleakness, if we want to. Positive Psychology gives us the ability to look at our problems constructively, without suppressing them or repressing them or brushing them away beneath the proverbial carpet. This body of knowledge helps us to root ourselves firmly in the one singular thought that happiness and fulfillment are our birthright. While circumstances may conspire to give us some very bad times, it is ultimately the thoughts that we harbor in the mind that make all the difference. It is ultimately how we react to the circumstances that influences our sense of happiness. This is not self-delusion or fantasizing, but a "conscious" decision that we make that nothing, but nothing, should disturb our peace of mind.


Ever since the then President of the American Psychological Association chose positive psychology as the theme of his term as President in 1998, this body of knowledge has witnessed explosive growth. June 2009, 18th to 21st, will see the first "World Congress" on Positive Psychology being organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Here is where you can register for the event, and learn for yourself how you can keep your waking - as well as dreaming - hours bright and cheerful, despite the negativity of the situations you are in: http://ippanetwork.org/wcpp/world-congress.html.


[Thoughts have a way of tiptoeing into our mind when least expected. Every so often, the mind wanders to the past, analyzing incidents and events that appeared to be very insignificant and trivial at that point, but later turned out to have life-changing impact. It is but natural to be wistful. How we wish that we had acted or reacted differently from what we did! Usually, the line of thinking begins with two innocuous words, but which this article says are the two most dangerous words that can drag our mind back into the valley of emptiness and loss: "Two Most Dangerous Words To Beware".]

Men Live Sicker And Die Younger

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The Son, The Brother, Lover, Husband, The Father,... Need To Visit The Physician More Often

It is a fact of life - men die younger and earlier than that other gender. Also, a bigger gaggle of diseases simultaneously make the bodies of men their home, than they do the females, from head to toe and across all organ systems. Of the top ten causes of death, men die at higher rates in nine. And this is true for not only the yang of the Homo sapiens species, but also for the yang of all the species Created by Him / Her / It on this planet Earth. For all his outward posturing of machismo and brawn, the creature from Mars is a very, very vulnerable creature indeed.

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* The Duke Nukem character in a computer game, wiki. Young lads enjoy the exploits of this hyper-masculine, egotistical, machismo-filled womanizer, as he goes about killing aliens that have invaded Earth. For the time they are playing the game, these boys feel as if they are Duke Nukem incarnate themselves! Well, what do these boys know! That deep down, despite his outward invincibility, their perpetually sneering smart-mouth hero is so vulnerable, and that he will fall on earth earlier than the buxom women he is surrounded by.
There must be something about the male's chemistry that makes him so vulnerable. What is it about the strong, aggressive, go-getter spermatozoon that causes it to decay and die earlier than the passive ovum? Perhaps it is his strength that paradoxically becomes his weakness? Metaphysical and philosophical pondering apart, it is also an observed fact that men do not see physicians for a physical exam as often as women do, which means preventive action, in time, is almost invariably bypassed. Somewhere on the way of growing up, it perhaps gets drilled into the male psyche that to suffer silently, to maintain a stiff upper-lip, is the sign of the perfect male.


The process of growing up for the typical male is also fraught with confusion and contradictions. Somewhere in this process he learns that he has to be good at table manners, and that he has to be particularly careful that he scratches his belly and touches his organ and gives himself the permission to burp without inhibition, only when no one is looking, especially when the female of the species is not around and not looking. He often finds himself in the crossfire of advice from peers about what image to project: should I keep the hair carelessly tousled, or should I comb them neatly back?


And as he grows up, he finds himself having to learn the fine balance required between social grace and aggression which will help win the mate who makes his heart stop and his knees weak. Competition for a mate has become more gentlemanly since the time of the caveman, who just had to smash the rival's head and drag the woman to the nearest cave -- and never mind what the woman thinks about him. To behave like a statesman with the lady or to genuflect and go down on all fours? To play Don Quixote or to be the Don Juan? To be a saint, or to be an all-out sinner, and who's worried about where it will lead to? Dating forums are full of questions from anxious Adonises - aged from teenage fourteen to very adult sixty - on appropriate behavior.


The transition to adulthood begins with a new competition: this time for resources. Resources that will help him set up his house - the four room house with a lawn in the front and a car in the garage -, resources that will help him pay his bills on time every time, resources that he can safely stash away when the time comes for him to hang those boots. The male warrior spends his entire lifetime in this ultimate battleground where he fights to gather and loot as much of the resources as possible, from the world, in as short a time. It is this battleground where he also begins to play host to the gaggle of diseases we were talking about earlier. The cultural drilling of deferring the visitation with the physician till it becomes absolutely necessary, doesn't help, either.

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'Two U.S. marines competing in a match' - wiki. To display any emotion that betrays anything less than un-manly is absolutely not done, in some cultures. What will the other tribesmen say?
After this competition is through, the man faces the next competition: the competition for status. To be known and respected by peers. The next higher rung on Maslow's ladder. Somewhere deep within the now-oozing-now-ebbing testosterones, the urge to be given some sort of a testimonial of a Life Well-Lived. Depending on the resources garnered during the lifetime, the urge may range from having his own statue erected in some Hall of Fame somewhere, to getting a street square - or an entire village if possible, why not - named after him, to setting up a Trust or a Foundation with a dignified-looking logo, to engaging some ghostwriter who will write the memoirs, to getting his photo on the front-page of some high-profile magazine, to getting some award or prize from some society or organization comprising other distinguished peers, to... well it all depends on how big the ego has ballooned till that point of time.


Competition for mates; competition for resources; competition for status --- tell me, with an entire lifetime spent in nothing but competing, is it any surprise that this creature gets to die before time?

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* 'Death of Adonis' - by Luca Giordano, wiki.
Ladies! If you have a male in your life in whatever form - be he a granddad, a father, an uncle, a brother, lover, husband, soul-mate, a son, or a grandson -, despite their I-can-take-care-of-myself act, deep inside they crave your love and care, and you know that, don't you, and so it might do this fellow a world of good if you discreetly find out when it was last that he visited the physician for his checkup. June is observed as Men's Health Month, and if you are in the U.S., June 15-21 is observed as National Men's Health Week --- you might want him to benefit. A male who is healthy is, you will no doubt agree, always good to have around. And go careful around the male ego, please. The balloon is very delicate and tender, and even the hint of a needle can prick it.

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Wear Blue logo - Men's Health Awareness.
[While on the subject of males and competition, it is interesting to see the spirit of competition alive and kicking even on the deathbed. Two friends, the best of pals from childhood, compete with each other for one last race: who gets to embrace death first. Read this poignant short story here: "The Newspaper Is Put To This Use, Too".]

Impulsive? Reactive? Aggressive? Get These Biomarkers Tested

New Research Points The Way To Bring Aggression Under Control
You see that man in the crowd in the corner? Actually, you don't need to see him, you can hear him. His voice tears through the fabric of the hubbub like a sharp knife. Even a half-dozing person can sense the acidic aggression dripping from his body language. As if gearing up for a fight. Provoking the others to provoke him back. And here, look at this man, in this corner, slouching and sulking. But no, his face does not show that he is sulking - it looks as if he wants to blend in with the wall; he wants to become part of the brick-and-paint work.


Social withdrawal and aggression are two extremes of the scale of social behavior. And as with all extremes, both these social-behavior traits are potentially harmful for the individual concerned. Whether you are in a family setting, a workplace setting, or a peer friendship setting, your behavior trait is like an aura around you, whose shine helps others decide how to approach you and interact with you. Somewhere in the process of growing up, we mix our DNA blueprint with our life-experiences and build this aura. This aura both protects us from any "threat" - physical and emotional - as well as also shackles us, for we rarely if ever step out of it.


Social aggression - of the intense kind - is known to fall into two types: Reactive, which is impulse-prone and emerges as a rebound reaction to stress; and Instrumental, which is totally preplanned, premeditated, and has no ingredient of emotion. While reactive aggression is normally found in the average Joe and Jane, instrumental aggression is the stuff that people who James Bond meets during the course of duty are made of.


Outcomes of the latest research appear to suggest that the chemicals that seemingly dictate both these types of social aggression have been identified. What are these chemicals? They say that our behavior is modulated by two chemicals: testosterone and cortisol. A study conducted on 103 teenage boys in a delinquency diversion program has found that overt aggressive behavior is found when the testosterone is high and the cortisol is low. People with high testosterone levels pay more attention to cues that can instigate confrontation. However, a correspondingly high level of cortisol counterbalances the urge to surge forward, for it instills the elements of fear and self-protection, and to some degree, empathy.


An article published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry (available online here) takes one step further and suggests that the ratio of testosterone:cortisol be computed. When this ratio is high, then all bets are off, and it does not matter whether the aggression is reactive or instrumental or whatever. Such people are, in the words of the article-writers, a clear "danger to society". How high is "high"? Work is still in progress on this.


The solution to handling aggression? The article-writers suggest that appropriate therapy be worked out which rectifies the imbalance between testosterone and cortisol levels in the body. May be a time will come when people can walk into the local lab and get their aggression levels tested. Based on the testosterone:cortisol ratio, they might be prescribed injections, to be administered once or twice a week for four weeks and then come back for a follow-up test. Law enforcers - and James Bond too - will carry a tranquilizer kit to handle people they encounter in their line of duty.


[While waiting for the good doctors to develop those injections and pills, it might be a good idea to include in your regimen a perfectly-natural therapy that automatically restores and maintains the balance between the testosterone and cortisol levels. Here is one article that explains what this therapy is all about: "Workshop On Meditation - Exercising The Muscles Of The Mind".]

Sleepless? Here's A New Way To Detect Why

A New Battery Of Tests Pinpoint More Accurately The Underlying Reasons

Do you remember "Sleepless in Seattle"? The 1993 movie starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan? The movie where the young son calls into a Radio Advice Show about how he wants a Momma for himself and a wife for his dad, and how his dad doesn't sleep in the night because he misses the wife who died from cancer? Who would forget how Annie weeps as she listens to Sam Baldwin talk about the woman who is no longer in his life? Sam's story of sleeplessness becomes famous in the community of the show's listeners, and lands him the mail from Annie the journalist that brings them to the Empire State Building. As the three - Sam, Annie and Jonah - go down the lift of the building in the denouement scene, one can only assume that Annie will cure Sam's sleeplessness. My oh my, some people get very beautiful solutions to their problems!

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* 'Sleepless in Seattle' - original film poster, wiki.
The complex neurocircuitry which closes the eyes and shuts down all the mechanisms in the body to bring the body to a state we all know as "Sleep" - is essentially a network of neurons that lies immersed in a cauldron of fluids that the brain keeps secreting time and again. During our lifetime, we go through a sleep/wake, sleep/wake, sleep/wake cycle which has a delicate rhythm of its own. It is the function of these fluids to regulate this rhythm. When this rhythm is disturbed, we experience what Sam Baldwin experienced - insomnia. The list of reasons why this rhythm can get disturbed is still in the process of being updated. Genetic and environmental factors figure in this list, as does stress.

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* The Neurotransmitter Link, courtesy NeuroScience, Inc.
Different factors can disturb the level of different fluids in the cauldron; say factor X increases this chemical while factor Y decreases that neurotransmitter, but their net outcome is the same: insomnia. So when a patient sits before the clinician moaning about how they couldn't sleep last night, the doctor has to sift through these factors, eliminating one-by-one the most improbable and zeroing down to the main culprit. Which factor is doing what damage? What chapter in the patient's life-story has had the most impact on the cauldron? And so therefore, out of the vast array of therapies that can be prescribed, exactly which therapeutic intervention will rectify the imbalance? The sifting through the factors and the elimination of the improbable has always been a tedious process, with a high-enough chance that the prescription the good doctor scribbles might be something less than the best, the most-optimum solution.


Well, if the son had called into the show today, the psychologist might in all probability advice the son to subject his dad to a newly-launched non-invasive lab test that measures not one, not two but a dozen bio-markers that give a pretty good snapshot of the imbalances in the body's hormones and neurotransmitters that are behind sleep regulation. Armed with the snapshot, the clinician might then be able to prescribe a more optimal therapy that is just right for Sam. And emerging from the therapy would be a much better Sam, who would have taken more seriously his son's advice to go meet Annie on the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day, instead of wasting time with somebody who was proving to be a compromise choice anyway.

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* Scene from the movie 'Sleepless in Seattle' - Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Ross Malinger, film.Virtual-history.com.
And what is this newly-launched non-invasive lab test? It is part of a medical protocol called NeuroSLP, launched by NeuroScience, Inc. Here is the site where you can find further details about this new protocol: http://www.neurorelief.com/neuroslp.

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* Stained neuron, wiki.
Research of course is a never-ending process. So it is quite possible that as you read this, a thirteenth and the fourteenth biomarker too is on the way, to make the diagnosis even more accurate. Since you and I don't have anybody waiting for us on the top of the Empire State Building, sigh, let's hope that the new trick in medical trade will make the good doctor prescribe an appropriate enough therapy that will help get us a good night's sleep.



[While insomniacs struggle to find a cure to their condition, here is one situation where people have reported going to sleep when performing a particular task: "I Go To Sleep Whenever I Try to Meditate".

On a different note, are you a Nora-Ephron-Tom-Hanks-Meg-Ryan fan? Then you will enjoy reading this article on another of this gang's movies - "Don't cry, Shopgirl". Which movie does this article talk about? The article title is a giveaway!]