Prime Time (56 page)

2. How much
saturated fat
is shown? It should be minimal, so that you’re not eating more than 10 to 20 grams per day. It will be higher in foods that contain fat (even healthy foods will have some), and may be zero in foods like fruits and vegetables.

3. Is
trans fat
listed? If so, perhaps this is a food you should forgo. Aim for zero trans fat in your diet.

4. Subtract the saturated (bad) fat and the trans (truly dangerous) fat from the total fat content on the label, and you have the amount of
polyunsaturated or monounsaturated (good) fat.

5. How much fiber is shown? Remember, you are aiming for at least 25 to 30 grams of fiber daily. Fiber is highest in plant foods, such as whole grains, legumes, nuts, fruits, and vegetables.

6. How much
sugar
is shown? The list of ingredients might include corn syrup, dextrose, maltose, glucose, or invert sugar, but it’s all sugar, and there should be as little as possible per serving—certainly no more than 7 grams per serving. Your daily allotment of sugar should be less than 30 grams.

7.
Sodium
content should be as low as possible to keep your total daily sodium intake below 2,300 milligrams. If you have high blood pressure, limit your sodium to 1,700 milligrams per day.

8.
Always check the list of ingredients
. Ingredients are listed in order of predominance. Do you like what you see?

Calcium

Calcium experts recommend three to four servings of high-calcium milk products per day, each containing about 300 milligrams of calcium per serving. About 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of yogurt, or 1½ ounces of hard cheese are the best examples.

In addition, check with your doctor about supplementing with 500 milligrams per day, taken between meals and as calcium citrate.

OTHER TIPS:

• Check the Nutrition Facts Panel on your food label. A good source of calcium contains at least 30 percent of your daily requirement. Also, check the calories and saturated fat: How many calories or saturated fat grams does it take to get more calcium from the food? For people watching their health or weight, the more nutrient-dense, calorie-poor, and lower in saturated fat, the better.

• If you’re lactose intolerant, talk with your doctor: Some people do well on lactose-reduced products, and some are able to tolerate the relatively small amount of lactose in certain yogurts and cheeses.

APPENDIX V

Guide to Mindful Meditation

Someone once said, “Meditation is like riding a bike: You can’t and you can’t and then you can.”

W
hat you will read here is excerpted (with a few minor additions) from Elizabeth Lesser’s wonderful book
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow.
¹
Elizabeth is a spiritual leader and cofounder of the Omega Institute, in Rhinebeck, New York, America’s largest adult-education center focusing on health, wellness, spirituality, and creativity.

As I said earlier in this book, it took me a long time to develop a meditation practice. But I just kept at it—quite regularly—and eventually found it easier to relax into mindfulness, learning to not identify with the thoughts that came to my overly busy mind. I am still very much a beginner in meditation practice, and there are weeks when I do not make time to meditate; but, as for many people I know, the practice has helped me expand as a person and heal where I was broken. I find it hard to put words to the ways in which this is so. I simply live how it is so.

While the benefits of meditation are usually talked about in abstract terms—the psyche, the soul, the mind—there are definite physical benefits to it as well. Claire Myers Owens, in “Meditation as a Solution to the Problems of Aging,” writes, “Scientific experiments conducted in various laboratories, using yogi and advanced Western meditators as subjects, reveal [that]…in the deep relaxation of meditation the heart rate decreases and apparently the muscles of the walls of the blood vessels relax. This allows blood to flow more abundantly to all organs including the brain.”
²

Here, then, is Elizabeth Lesser’s guide to meditation. When you read “I,” this is Elizabeth talking. She begins with an overview of how to do it:

1.
SEAT:
It is best to sit on a firm pillow on the floor or on a firm-seated chair. If you use a chair, sit forward so that your back does not touch the back of the chair.

2.
LEGS:
If you sit on a pillow, cross your legs comfortably in front of you, with your knees resting on the floor if they can. Be sure your circulation is not cut off. If you sit in a chair, put your feet flat on the floor, knees and feet hip-width apart. Invite the groundedness of the earth into your body and mind. Let your whole body experience the strength of your stable connection with the earth. Relax into the firmness of this stability.

3.
TORSO:
Keep your back comfortably straight, your chest open, and your shoulders relaxed. Zen teacher Philip Kapleau writes, “If you are accustomed to letting the chest sink, it does require a conscious effort to keep it up in the beginning. When it becomes natural to walk and sit with the chest open, you begin to realize the many benefits of this ideal posture. The lungs are given additional space in which to expand, thus filling and stretching the air sacs. This in turn permits a greater intake of oxygen and washes the bloodstream, which carries away fatigue accumulated in the body.”

A straight back and soft shoulders is a natural position. It does not have to feel forced or painful. In fact, after time, meditation breeds a sense of overall comfort. But often when we start to meditate, assuming a straight back makes us suddenly aware of discomfort in the body. This is why many people who meditate also practice yoga, or another form of physical exercise that strengthens and stretches the body. One of the best ways to maintain a straight back and open chest in meditation is to repeat silently a phrase whenever you feel physical pain. For example, if you feel yourself tensing your shoulders as you hold your back straight during meditation, you can inwardly whisper to yourself, “soften, soften,” or “open, open.”

4.
HANDS:
Sometimes, when meditation gets very quiet, our concentration coagulates in the hands. It sounds strange, but you may experience this yourself. It’s not uncommon, as your exhalations dissolve outward, to feel as if all that is left of your body is your hands. Therefore, it is good to position your hands in a way that is both grounding and meaningful. You will notice in statues from a variety of religious traditions that the deities or saints hold their hands in intentional ways. These hand positions are called
mudra
s in the Tantric Buddhist tradition—physical gestures that help evoke certain states of mind.

One frequently seen position is the forefinger lightly touching the thumb and the other three fingers flexed outward. Another common mudra is one hand resting in the palm of the other, thumbs touching. Many people like to meditate with their hands in the Christian prayer position of palms together, fingers pointing up. Some people meditate with their hands simply resting, palms down or upward, on their knees.

Each mudra evokes a specific quality that you can experience yourself merely by experimenting with them. For example, resting the palms upward on the knees indicates receptivity—openness to whatever comes your way. Hands placed downward on the knees produce a grounded feeling in the body, a sense of balance and strength. My personal favorite hand position is where the thumb and index finger touch and create a circle. There is something about the thumb touching the finger that reminds me to be
on the spot
in my concentration, yet delicately so. I gently extend the other three fingers and rest my hands on my knees. This position keeps me steady and balanced.…

It is a good idea to stick with one position for your hands per meditation session, so as not to get distracted by the switching-mudra game. It’s very easy to turn anything into yet another way not to do the simple work of meditation. At the end of a meditation session, many traditions suggest raising the hands palm to palm and bowing. This is a way to indicate respect and gratitude for having meditated. It is also a way to experience a sense of humility as we bow to the universal forces of wisdom and compassion.

5.
EYES:
Some meditation traditions recommend closing the eyes during meditation; others suggest keeping them open and directing the gaze downward, four to six feet in front of you, focusing on a point on the floor. Some suggest keeping a soft, unfocused gaze. I meditate with my eyes closed. You can experiment and see which way affords you the best relaxation and concentration. If you find that closing your eyes makes you sleepy, keep them open. If you find that keeping your eyes open is distracting, close them.

6.
MOUTH:
We hold a lot of tension in the jaw. Let your jaw drop right now. Open your mouth wide, stick your tongue out, and then close your mouth. Massage your jaw area from your ears to your chin. Now notice the difference. You can do this often during the day as a way to release tension. During meditation, it is not unusual for tension to gather in the jaw. The Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh recommends smiling slightly while you meditate, a great way to keep the jaw soft. I find that having a slight smile helps bring a subtle sense of openness and love into my being. Or you can drop your jaw and open your mouth several times during meditation.

Understand that the pain or tension you may feel in your body as you meditate is both physical and psychological. If you experience pain, constriction, restlessness, or all of the above, do not be alarmed, and do not take the attitude “no pain, no gain.” Adjust your position slowly and mindfully as many times as you want during a meditation session. The point of meditation is to be relaxed and awake. Therefore, make sure you are comfortable, and at same time sit in a way that keeps you alert.…

As you sit down to meditate, approach the experience lightly so that your body relaxes, just as it would if you were about to slip into a bath or settle down before the television. Then choose your hand mudra, close your eyes, straighten your back, and at the same time soften your shoulders and expand your chest, so that your posture is also one of gentle openness.

Breath, posture, placement of hands, eyes open or shut: All of these techniques form the container for meditation practice. But none of them eradicates the absurd quantity and aggravating intensity of the thoughts that flood the mind when we sit down to meditate. Please expect this. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, pleasurable ones, disturbing ones—they will come and go as we sit in meditation, watching our breath, maintaining our posture. They are the weather of the mind. Our goal in meditation is not to get rid of thoughts. Rather, the goal is to abandon identifying with each thought as it comes and goes; to watch the thoughts as we would watch the weather from an observation tower.…