eco alert

Cookware Continues to Harbor Toxins

A new study by the Ecology Center Healthy Stuff Lab, “Still Cooking: An Update on Toxic PFAS in Cookware Products,” found some cookware manufacturers still use per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) coatings on nonstick products despite claims that their pans are free from them. In a follow-up to a 2020 report, the Ecology Center determined some product claims to be misleading, possibly causing consumers to mistakenly purchase a PFAS-coated pan.

The Ecology Center’s research and published findings on cookware coatings inspired lawmakers on the West Coast to include cookware in the California Safer Food Packaging and Cookware Act of 2021, banning toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” in paper-based food packaging and requiring disclosure of the toxic chemicals in cookware. Nancy Buermeyer, senior policy strategist at Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, says, “Until now, no state or federal law required this disclosure, leaving consumers in the dark.”

In 2020, the Ecology Center found that 79 percent of nonstick cooking pans and 20 percent of nonstick baking pans tested positive for polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, or Teflon) coatings. This research is a part of their broader mission to phase out nonessential uses of PFAS to protect drinking water. PTFE-based pan coatings can release the toxin into the environment throughout their lifespan. Once dispersed, PFAS pollution is extremely difficult to clean up.

A growing body of evidence indicates some PFAS contribute to liver disease, increased cholesterol, impaired response to vaccines, thyroid disease, asthma, lowered fertility and high blood pressure in pregnant women. Elevated risks of testicular and kidney cancer have been found in highly exposed people. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a heavily used and well-studied PFAS chemical, as a possible carcinogen. Melissa Cooper Sargent, an environmental health advocate at the Ecology Center, states, “We suggest opting for uncoated pans made from cast iron or stainless steel, or for baking, glass or ceramic.”

Foe more information, visit EcoCenter.org.

For centuries, people have used chaga mushrooms for medicinal purposes. Packed with antioxidants, its extract may fight cancer, chronic inflammation, improve blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Order your Immune-Boosting Superfood today!

Call 906-282-0787 Now! We make 100% all natural products for helping and promoting better health and skin. We have several doctors who not only carry our products but use them as well. We are state certified, state inspected, and THE ONLY Chaga facility licensed in the U.P.

MidnightSpcl_59@yahoo.com • UPChagaConnection.com

Four Steps to a Good Death

by Ronica O’Hara

On his deathbed, Apple founder Steve Jobs looked for a long time at his children, his sister and his wife, then moved his gaze to the space behind them. “Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!” he gasped. No one can know for certain what he was experiencing, but his words point to the deep, mysterious potential of our final hours—the awareness of which can transform our life long before its end. “An awareness of dying, of death, can wake us up to life. It helps us live a life that’s rich and full and meaningful. When we deny the truth of dying, we live less wholeheartedly, less completely,” says Frank Ostaseski, founder of the pioneering San Francisco Zen Hospice Project and author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.

The pandemic has 51 percent of us thinking more about our own mortality, a survey shows. The subject of death has been slowly opening up in America: TV programs like Six Feet Under and Alternative Endings: Six New Ways to Die in America present dying and grief more realistically; thousands of small conversational gatherings called “death cafes” are being held each year; people are designing their own funerals and choosing green burial sites; and the field of “death doulas” is emerging to help families navigate the legal and emotional shoals. Half a century after the release of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ seminal book On Death and Dying, palliative care to ease pain is offered by two-thirds of American hospitals, and Medicare funding for end-of-life hospice care has grown tenfold over the last two decades.

Yet for many, death remains the last taboo—85 percent of us have not discussed our last wishes yet with loved ones. Thousands of studies in the emerging field of experimental existential psychology have found that when reminded subconsciously of death, people tend to drive faster, drink harder, smoke more and get meaner to out-groups in attempts to lower their anxiety.

But when we look death squarely in the face, that anxiety recedes, the research concludes. Gratitude, self-honesty and the humility of recognizing our place in the larger whole are also proven antidotes. With less fear, we are better able to take the proactive, concrete steps that ease our passage—getting clear on our values and desires, having important conversations, attending to final decisions and opening to our spiritual process. Although death has its own ways and means, these four processes can make it more likely we will die as we would like to.

Defining What We Value “Deeply consider what your priorities in life are,” says Tarron Estes, founder and CEO of The Conscious Dying Institute, in Boulder, which has trained more than 6,500 doulas since 2013. “Ask yourself, if I had only three months to live, what’s important to me spiritually, emotionally, physically? What do I still need to do or say?” She recommends Stephen Levine’s book, A Year to Live, for exercises and meditations for that process.

“Don’t wait until the time of your dying to discover what it has to teach you,” advises Ostaseski, who has sat beside more than 2,000 hospice patients in their last hours. “When I’m with dying people, the things that are important to them are not their spiritual beliefs, but are more about relationships—‘Am I loved? Did I love well?’ Those two questions are useful inquiries now. They “Ask yourself, if I had help us to discover where value and meaning can be found.” only three months to By applying our values to the dying process, we can start sorting through options. Do we want to die at home or in a hospital? What live, what’s important to me spiritually, emomedical procedures will we accept or decline? What measures do we want to be taken to sus- tionally, physically? tain our life? Who do we want to be at our side? What do I still need to And what do we need to say before that time? Having Important Conversations As daunt- do or say?” ing as the prospect of an end-of-life talk with family and friends may seem, it can start with simple words like “I want to talk with you about something important to me.” Without spelling out our desires, death can become inadvertently medicalized: Nine in 10 of us say we want to die in our homes, but only two in 10 do. “The default systems are all to treat, treat, treat, until someone finally says, ‘No,’ so many people end up on a high-tech conveyor belt to the ICU,” says award-winning journalist Katy Butler, author of The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life. Among people that undertake such talks, 73 percent describe the experience as positive, reassuring and productive. A downloadable Conversation Starter Guide (TheConversationProject.org) provides practical guidance for these critical conversations. Attending to Medical and Burial Decisions Taking care of business—the paperwork aspects of death known as advance directives— spares loved ones from having to make tough decisions later. A last will and testament precludes pain and infighting among family and friends. A living will specifies what treatments are wanted under what conditions. A medical power of attorney designates a trusted person to make medical decisions if a patient is not capable. A Do Not Resuscitate order approved by a doctor means emergency medical workers are less likely to give CPR, which frequently causes trauma and broken ribs in elderly or frail patients. Either cremation or a burial can be decided upon; environmental options such as a forest burial in a wooden casket can be explored. Local hospice options can be surveyed in advance; nonprofits generally are rated better than profit-making groups. Opening to the Spiritual Process Whether or not we have religious beliefs to carry us through waves of loss and sorrow, death can spur spiritual insight. “In dying, we withdraw from our outer circles and come into the inner circles of our lives—the relationships that matter most to us,” says Ostaseski, who has worked four decades with hospice patients. “There’s a growing silence that has us becoming more contemplative and reflective. Our sense of time and space changes and we enter into a kind of free flow. The boundaries we have lived by begin to dissolve, and we start to feel ourselves as part of something larger—not as a belief, but as a natural occurrence. Often people realize themselves to be more than the small, separate self they had thought themselves to be.” Joan Tollifson, a Zen-trained spiritual teacher and author of Death: The End of Self-Improvement, concurs: “When the future disappears, we are brought home to the immediacy that we may have avoided all our lives. With no future left to fantasize about, the focus of attention may finally be fully on right Now, the only place where our life ever actually is. Really getting that ‘This is it,’ there may be a sudden recognition of the absolute preciousness and wonder of every simple ordinary thing and of the people around us, just as they are, with all their flaws and foibles. Old grudges and resentments often melt away, and love shines through. “All the things which may have been part of our self-image—independence, physical strength, cognitive sharpness, good appearance and so on—have either disappeared or are rapidly collapsing, which invites the discovery that none of that really mattered, that what we truly or more fundamentally are is not dependent on any of that. “The greatest gift we can give to a loved one who is dying,” says Tollifson, is to “simply be present, listen, follow your heart, trust the process. Everything else will follow from that. There’s no right or wrong way.” It can be difficult to know what to say to a loved one near the end, but hospice workers recommend five phrases that have deep healing potential, even if a person seems unconscious: “I love you,” “Thank you,” “Please forgive me,” “I forgive you,” and “Goodbye” or “Until we meet again.” As Butler points out, the first four phrases can be said any time in our lives. Increasingly in hospice care, loved ones are encouraged to sit with the body after the death, touching it, sharing stories, perhaps gently bathing it and dressing it in favorite clothes. “Touching the body, feeling the coolness, makes the death real to the family,” Ostaseski says. “Research shows that people that went through that process still grieved, but they were able to be with the emotion and not be overwhelmed by it.” Facing the reality of death—as hard and heartbreaking as that can be—can free us to truly live life, said Jobs. After his terminal cancer diagnosis, he told Stanford students in a commencement address, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Emotional Brain Health and Happiness by Julie Chai

Emotional health has a lot to do with the chemistry and wiring of the brain, but the reverse is also true. Perceptions, feelings and beliefs have a huge effect on the brain. Neuroscientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor describes four characters of the brain and how they function in her book Whole Brain Living, thus we need not be stuck in only one way to experience reality.

When we feel unsafe, the amygdala, part of our primitive brain, is triggered, and we go into fight-or-flight survival mode as blood rushes from the brain to our arms and legs. Hasty decisions made at this time are often regretted because of decreased oxygen in the brain. Because all parts of the brain can have a relationship and influence each other, Taylor suggests that we have a four-character “brain huddle” to help ourselves out of survival mode. These are the four characters, each occupying a physical position in the brain.

Left Brain Thinking. I am, the ego, self-awareness. It is in control. Loves order and being the boss. Gets things done. Defines boundaries, social norms, right/wrong, good/bad. Thinks methodically and consciously. Thinks in language. Is time conscious and linear thinking. Loves detail and comparisons. A critical thinker, it judges and is judgmental.

Left Brain Emotional. Fight/flight. Projects past into the future. Pushes away and says no. Self-sabotage. Guilt, shame, trauma pain from past. “I’m going to keep myself small and constricted.” The place of reactive emotions of fear, anxiety, paralysis, hopelessness and shame. It compares the past to the present, always asking, ‘Am I safe?” Addictions and cravings are located here. Character two has to be on board in addiction recovery.

Right Brain Emotion. In the present moment. There is no judgment. It is experiential and notices how the body feels. Here, we notice the environment and are aware of ourself as energy. This is our creative, messy selves and the innovative genius. The more we do something, the better we get at it. Feels joyful, adventurous, happy, kind, playful and collaborative. The circuit to character three can be established. We can create new habits.

Right Brain Thinking. In the present moment. Right here, right now. It is the observer. It is loving, grateful, nurturing, compassionate and one with all. Our mystical god self that experiences the cosmic consciousness, the one. Here we are grateful for being alive. This part of our brain brings the healing energy of the universe into our body. Because there is no “I” in this space, character four gives into character three for creative expression of this experience in poetry, song, dance, story, paintings and other expressions.

Once we are aware that we are in the fight-or-flight mode of Character number 2, we are not stuck there. We can ask the other parts of our brain to assist us by calling a Brain Huddle and getting help from Characters 1, 3 and 4. The more we do this, the better the connections between these characters will become and the less “stuck” in the fight-or-flight reaction we will feel. We can also make it a practice to take a deep breath and ask ourselves, “What am I feeling right now? Where is this feeling in my body?” This will bring us out of fight or flight and back into our body, which is always in the present moment. The present moment is love.

Visualizations and Affirmations Work. A recent publication by David R. Hamilton, Ph.D., titled “Why Woo Woo Works”gives scientific evidence that repeated affirmations produce physical changes in specific areas of the brain associated with self-processing. “Repeating affirmations didn’t just make the volunteers feel a little better or more positive in the moment, it actually altered brain networks that essentially wired in the feeling. And those brain changes were found to account for a subsequent change in the volunteers’ behavior.” The author notes that it is important to feel what we affirm or visualize to produce the change in the brain.

One reason visualizations and affirmations work is because our brain and body do not know the difference between what actually happened and what we imagine. This is why we can re-imagine a bad dream or painful life experience by giving ourselves more pleasant feelings to associate with the experience and taking the negative charge out of the event.

The Kindness Hormones. Hamilton writes, “The main kindness hormone is oxytocin. Well known for its importance in reproduction, breast feeding and even social bonding. Oxytocin protects the cardiovascular system, and just as stress hormones increase blood pressure, this kindness hormone lowers it. It also has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, helps with digestion and wound healing, and is even involved in the construction of heart muscle and many other cell types from stem cells.“ Hamilton notes, “Your brain will produce kindness hormones when you’re being kind, witnessing an act of kindness, imagining one or even recalling one.”

Spending time in day dream visualizations, loving yourself and others and repeating affirmations are powerful paths to an emotionally healthy brain and a fulfilling life.

Rev. Julie Chai is an ordained minister and clairvoyant. For more information, visit JulieChai.com and InnerListening.me.