Instructor: Rainsong
Date: September 27, 2009 (Saturday)
Rainsong Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Rainsong Welcome to the beginning of the 2009-2010 session of the PSC online Psionics Seminar Series.
Jael Thanks 🙂
Rainsong The usual disclaimer applies: if you are looking for a role-playing game, you may want to seek elsewhere before you get too weirded out.
Rainsong We are not opposed to gaming, by any means, but we will be discussing real-world psionics here.
Rainsong This year, we are trying something a bit new, in that there will be some attempt at coordination with the Psion Guild’s class series. The details have not really been worked out, at this stage…
Rainsong …but they were planning to handle the introductory/beginning how-to bits,
Rainsong and we will be mostly handling research-related topics, some obscure variations on basic how-to bits, and other bits that we haven’t already gone over ad nauseam….as well as the occasional review of basic bits.
Rainsong Consider it a bit of comparative methodology, because we _do_ do things a little differently than much of the Guild.
Rainsong Any questions or commentary at this point?
Jael Looking forward to it 🙂
ShadowRain sounds good to me 🙂
Rainsong There are two topics for this evening, both of which are fairly short: Basic Health Issues related to the practice of psionics; and an Introduction to Breathing Exercises.
Rainsong Any of you who have been around this corner of the online “energy” communities (this corner being PsiPog and its spinoffs, the Guild and its spinoffs, Dimensional Doorways, et al) will have heard rumors about potassium, orange juice, bananas and the like.
Rainsong You will find that any activity that requires heavy or sustained concentration will cause your body to “use up” potassium more quickly.
Rainsong It also will “use up” blood sugar.
Rainsong Psionics is no exception to this. The problem is that it can happen more quickly than the results of all-nighters of cramming before a school exam.
Rainsong While the body has a mechanism to prevent too much potassium from entering the bloodstream, which would poison you in a sharply painful manner, there is no such mechanism to stop it from dropping too low.
Rainsong Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to why this is a bad thing? Anyone recall their first-year Physiology course?
* Jael raises her hand
Rainsong Jael?
Jael Potassium is critical for muscle functions such as keeping the heart going. Lack of potassium = lack of heart pumping = bad.
Jael Actually… Just had a thought. May have been nerves that was most important…
RainsongPretty much, yes.
Rainsong Either way, heart not pumping = unshiny.
Rainsong Also, potassium dropping affects insulin in your body, which further adversely affects the blood sugar.
Rainsong People with diabetes can practice psionics (and I know several who do), but they need to be extra careful about monitoring their blood sugar.
Rainsong So, if you feel weak or disoriented, or if your heart is pounding… In fact, if you feel anything odd, during or after psionics practice, stop and have a snack.
Rainsong Orange juice is excellent (presuming you can tolerate it) because it gets the potassium and sugar into the blood stream quickly. High-sugar items start to be digested while still in the mouth.
* eversosleepy has joined #psc_annex
Rainsong Chocolate has sugar and potassium (and is the world’s most perfect food) but it also has fat which slows down the absorption.
Rainsong (hi, Everso)
Rainsong This is why you keep hearing about orange juice and/or potassium.
Rainsong A couple of basic warnings:
Rainsong Do not inject potassium into your system. Although an IV drip is used to treat severe hypokalemia (“too little potassium in the blood”) in hospital, if you miscalculate the dose, you have the lethal component of the USA’s method of execution by lethal injection. The other two components were added to make the execution more humane
Rainsong and second,
Rainsong Don’t bother to try to take in lots and lots and lots of potassium in advance of psionics practice, because of the aforementioned mechanism that gets rid of the excess.
Rainsong For general health purposes, you want to have more potassium in your diet than sodium, by the way. Potassium is available in many, many common foods.
Rainsong Any questions?
ShadowRain none here
Rainsong Oops. I meant to mention that, at least with PK, the potassium and sugar drop can happen even if you don’t seem to be accomplishing anything.
* ShadowRain has a question
Rainsong ShadowRain?
ShadowRain if you do accomplish something or get closer to accomplishing something do you burn more?
Rainsong Not necessarily. It appears to be connected to how “hard” you’re working and/or how fiercely you are concentrating.
ShadowRain ah ok
Rainsong So, you can actually muck up your blood chemistry more if you’re not even close to getting the thing to work than if you’re tossing ten-pound rocks around after lots of practice.
Rainsong “Lots of practice” in the long term, I should say.
* Jael raises her hand
Rainsong Jael?
Jael If you are about to practice something, does drinking a glass of OJ immediately before help at all or does it just get burned up?
Rainsong *waggles hand* Unless you are allergic to it or something, it isn’t going to hurt. Whether it will help will depend on whether you are already a “bit under par” with your sodium/potassium balance….and most North Americans and Western Europeans are, most of the time.
Rainsong If you are starting out with a perfect sodium/potassium balance, drinking orange juice before practice won’t do anything except give you some extra hydration and some nutrients.
Rainsong So, you won’t go wrong, either way.
Jael ah, okay
Rainsong Anyone else?
* Jael raises her hand again
Rainsong Jael?
Jael You mentioned sodium… is there anything we need to watch in regards to it? I like salty things.
Rainsong Too much salt relative to the amount of potassium you take in is pretty-much established as causing various health problems. Most of these relate to the cardiovascular system: blood pressure problems and the like.
Rainsong The cool thing is, it appears that you can mitigate your salty snacks simply by consuming more potassium-rich foods to counter the sodium intake.
Rainsong “Too much” sodium is relative to the amount of potassium you take in, rather than being a fixed amount.
Rainsong The trick is, you need _more_ potassium, not just equal quantities.
Jael Nifty. Perhaps I will drink a bit of ORANGE-JUICE instead of grabbing the chips then, when I crave salt. Thanks 🙂
Rainsong (Salt is a rare commodity in the wild, and it is required for survival for most species, including ours. Therefore, we are hard-wired to “like” salt, whenever it is available.)
eversosleepy (And die when we have too much of it…)
Rainsong Before we move onto Breathing Exercises, I shall state the obvious, for the record:
Rainsong Psionics is a physical activity, as well as a “mental” one. It uses up calories, and it makes you tired.
Rainsong If you practice too hard or too long you will get tired.
Rainsong When this happens, have a snack and rest.
Rainsong Questions?
ShadowRain nope
Jael no additional ones
Rainsong Alright then…
Connection issues prevented the discussion of breathing exercises.