Healing Grace

Mengapa harus minum air banyak ?

KEKENTALAN DARAH DALAM TUBUH, MENGAPA TERJADI???

Ada satu pertanyaan yang masuk ke mailbox saya, yaitu "Mengapa harus minum
air putih banyak-banyak..?"



Well, sebenarnya jawabannya cukup "mengerikan" tetapi karena sebuah
pertanyaan jujur harus dijawab dengan jujur, maka topik tersebut bisa dijelaskan sbb:

Kira-kira 80% tubuh manusia terdiri dari air.

Malah ada beberapa bagian tubuh kita yang memiliki kadar air di atas 80%.Dua
organ paling penting dengan kadar air di atas 80% adalah :
Otak dan Darah. !!

Otak memiliki komponen air sebanyak 90%,
Sementara darah memiliki Komponen air 95%.

Jatah minum manusia normal sedikitnya adalah 2 liter sehari atau 8 gelas
sehari.

Jumlah di atas harus ditambah bila anda seorang perokok.

Air sebanyak itu diperlukan untuk mengganti cairan yang keluar dari tubuh
kita lewat air seni, keringat, pernapasan, dan sekresi.
Apa yang terjadi bila kita mengkonsumsi kurang dari 2 liter sehari...?

Tentu tubuh akan menyeimbangkan diri. Caranya...?
Dengan jalan "menyedot" air dari komponen tubuh sendiri.Dari otak...?

Belum sampai segitunya (wihh...bayangkan otak kering gimana jadinya...),
melainkan dari sumber terdekat : Darah. !!

Darah yang disedot airnya akan menjadi kental.
Akibat pengentalan darah ini, maka perjalanannya akan kurang lancar
ketimbang yang encer.

Saat melewati ginjal (tempat menyaring racun dari darah)
Ginjal akan bekerja extra keras menyaring darah.
Dan karena saringan dalam ginjal halus, tidak jarang darah yang kental bisa
menyebabkan perobekan pada glomerulus ginjal.

Akibatnya, air seni anda berwarna kemerahan, tanda mulai bocornya saringan
ginjal. Bila dibiarkan terus menerus, anda mungkin suatu saat harus menghabiskan
400.000 rupiah seminggu untuk cuci darah

Eh, tadi saya sudah bicara tentang otak ' kan...?

Nah saat darah kental meng alir lewat otak, perjalanannya agak terhambat.
Otak tidak lagi "encer", dan karena sel-sel otak adalah yang paling boros
mengkonsumsi makanan dan oksigen,

Lambatnya aliran darah ini bisa menyebabkan sel-sel otak cepat mati atau
tidak berfungsi sebagaimana mestinya..(ya wajarlah namanya juga kurang
makan...)

Bila ini ditambah dengan penyakit jantung (yang juga kerjanya tambah berat
bila darah mengental...),maka serangan stroke bisa lebih lekas datang

Sekarang tinggal anda pilih: melakukan "investasi" dengan minum sedikitnya 8
gelas sehari- atau- "membayar bunga" lewat sakit ginjal atau stroke.

Anda yang pilih...!

Forwardlah E-mail ini kepada keluarga, sahabat dan orang-orang yang Anda
cintai !

Alzheimer Eye Test

Hitunglah seluruh huruf " F " yang ada pada kalimat berikut:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...






Sudah ? Berapa jumlahnya ?









SALAH, TERNYATA ADA 6 -- serius -- no joke.
Baca lagi baik-baik!
Really, go Back and Try to find the 6 F's before you scroll down.


Penyebab semua itu dijelaskan di bawah ini.

The brain cannot process "OF". Otak tak bisa memproses "OF".


Incredible or what? Go back and look again!!



Anyone who counts all 6 "F's" on the first go is a genius.


Three is normal, four is quite rare. Tiga adalah normal, empat agak jarang.


Send this to your friends.
It will drive them crazy.!
And keep them occupied
For several minutes..!

The Dirty Dozen - nice to know !

The Dirty Dozen
By Jordan Rubin

No matter what time of year, you will be stealing from your future and robbing your health if you eat any of these foods that I call the “Dirty Dozen.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these are among your favorite foods to eat. Nor would I be surprised if you find my list of “Dirty Dozen” foods to be controversial. When you eliminate these foods from your shopping list and/or toss out what’s left in your cupboards and refrigerator, however, you will take a major step toward excellent health and reaching your perfect weight.

The following “Dirty Dozen” items should never find a way onto your plate:

1. All pork products
Did you just sit up in your chair? I’m sure I got your attention because America loves pork. Fast-food establishments have watched their earnings sizzle by topping every hamburger and chicken sandwich in sight with strips of salty bacon; they go by names like Bacon Mushroom Melt, Big Bacon Classic, Cravin’ Bacon Cheeseburger, Mesquite Bacon Cheeseburger, and Arch Deluxe with Bacon. America’s favorite pizza toppings are pepperoni (a pork product) and Hawaiian (pineapple and Canadian bacon). Only the Chinese, who have four times our population, consume more pork meat than us.

I’ve met people who have told me they have an emotional attachment to bacon for breakfast and pork chops with mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner. That was how they were raised, and maybe you feel the same way. Marketed brilliantly as “the other white meat,” pork chops and pork ribs are usually the most inexpensive meats on display at the supermarket. Many folks eat pork three times a day: ham and eggs in the morning; a “BLT” sandwich—bacon, lettuce, and tomato—or a bacon-topped burger for lunch; and pork “barbecue” or pork tenderloin for a hearty supper. Others love snacking on pork rinds—the cooked skin of pigs. (I think I’m going to lose my lunch.)

So what’s my beef with pork? My aversion to sowbelly is partly based on a pig’s physiology. A pig’s fast-acting physiological makeup and instinct allow them to eat any swill thrown at their muddy feet. Well, maybe swill isn’t the right word. Actually, I’m thinking about the old saying: Happy as a pig in slop.

As for their physiology, pigs have a simple stomach arrangement. Whatever a pig eats goes straight into a simple stomach, where’s it’s rudimentarily digested and pushed out the back end. Total transit time: four hours.

Now compare the pig’s digestive tract to animals that are OK to eat, such as cows, goats, sheep, oxen, deer, buffalo, and so forth. These animals put their vegetarian diet—they usually chomp on grasses, alfalfa, and hay—through a “wash and rinse cycle,” thanks to a stomach and a secondary cud receptacle available for the task. Instead of a speedy four hours to digest and eliminate their waste, these animals take a more leisurely twenty-four hours.

Another reason I don’t eat pork is my Jewish background. In Leviticus and Deuteronomy, two of the first five books of the Torah (if you’re Jewish) or the Bible’s Old Testament (if you’re Christian), God forbade the Hebrew people to eat swine. (Deuteronomy 14:3–8).

But why would God make this command? It wasn’t because the Israelites didn’t have refrigerated trucks following them from Egypt to the Promised Land to keep ham, bacon, or baby back ribs in a cool environment “safe” for consumption. No, God scratched pork from their meal plan because He knew all about their physiology, and He created them to be nature’s garbage cleaners.

If you decide to strike pork from your diet, I’m predicting that you won’t miss sausage, bologna, salami, bacon, and butchered cuts from the hog at all. I promise you there are great alternatives.

2. Shellfish and crustaceans
If you were blown away by my recommendation to strike pork from your diet, I’m not done yet. Shrimp and lobster, two of the most popular foods in America, are, in my opinion, extremely unhealthy to eat and should also be avoided, even if chains like Red Lobster and Olive Garden delectably advertise entrees like breaded shrimp or scampi with pasta.

Invariably, whenever I take out my wife, Nicki, for our anniversary dinner at an expensive seaside restaurant in South Florida, a waiter with a French accent will approach our table and say, “Monsieur et Madame, ze special tonight is pork tenderloin ringed with Alaskan crab and drizzled with a lobster sauce.”

But that’s not what I heard. His description sounded more like this: Monsieur et Madame, ze special tonight is fresh garbage, ringed with raw sewage and drizzled with solid waste.
Stay with me here. Shellfish and crustaceans, as well as fish without fins and scales such as catfish, shark, and eel, were also declared to be “detestable” back in Moses’s day. The reasons are similar to those that make pigs out of bounds: lobsters, crabs, shrimp, and catfish are bottom-feeders. They troll along the seabed or lakebed, sustaining themselves with fish waste. The physiology of crabs, clams, and lobsters means that whatever they consume goes straight into their system, which is why scientists can measure water pollution by checking the flesh of shellfish and crustaceans for toxin levels. While all this “clean up” is great for water quality and one of nature’s ways to scrub the aquatic environment, eating shellfish and crustaceans is not good for your bodies or your health.

3. Processed meats and hydrolyzed soy protein
The quintessential processed meat of all time is Spam, a syllabic abbreviation of “Shoulder of Pork and hAM.” Actually, Spam’s name should be an acronym for “Specially Processed American Meat,” because it deserves Hall of Fame status in the pantheon of faux foods. Spam is one of those mystery meats—along with breakfast links, frankfurters, salisbury steaks, bologna, sausages, and salami—where you have no idea what part of the steer or pig was used. You can figure, though, that you’re eating ground-up stomach, snout, intestines, spleens, edible fat, and even lips.

One thing you can be sure of is that processed meats contain nitrates to convey flavor, give meats their blood-red color, and resist the development of botulism spores. Nitrates can convert to nitrites, which have been studied for decades in public and private settings and found to cause cancer and tumors in test animals. While we’re on this unpleasant topic, I would also steer clear of processed turkey and chicken luncheon meat for the same nitrate reasons.

You may be wondering what hydrolyzed soy protein is all about. Have you ever substituted imitation crab for the real stuff when making a pasta dish for the family? Sprinkled imitation bacon bits on their salad? Ordered inexpensive sushi at a restaurant? All these foods, which are not part of the Perfect Weight America program, are forms of hydrolyzed soy protein.

Hydrolyzed soy protein usually contains a significant amount of genetically modified soy as well as compounds that closely mirror the dangerous monosodium glutamate, or MSG. Hydrolyzed soy protein is also a known excitotoxin, which means it has the potential to cause neurological disturbances. It’s not fish or fowl, and it’s not real food.

4. White flour
One major reason why we have an obesity epidemic is because the standard American diet is weighted way too heavily with sketchy foods containing refined grains where the wheat has been stripped of wheat germ, bran, and half of the healthy fatty acids during the milling process. The end result is something called “enriched white flour,” but the only reason why enriched flour is bright white is because the wheat stalks are rinsed with various chemical bleaches that sound like a vocabulary test from a high school biology class: nitrogen oxide, chlorine, chloride, nitrosyl, and benzoyl peroxide. The “enriched” adjective comes from the millers adding a few isolated and synthetic vitamins and minerals back into the nutritionally stripped flour, but that’s like dressing an American Girl doll in tattered clothes.

Enriched flour, the main ingredient in nearly all the bread and buns on supermarket shelves as well as a zillion other food items baked in commercial bakeries, is easy to spot on the list of ingredients: it’s usually the first item listed. The healthy alternative is purchasing or making your own whole-grain bread from unprocessed whole-grain flour.

5. Hydrogenated oils
Pick up a loaf of white bread at the supermarket, and you will notice that hydrogenated oils or partially hydrogenated oils are usually recorded right after enriched white flour on the ingredient list. If you see any words with the “hydro-” prefix or “partially” on a package or box, don’t buy it. If a friend offers you a packaged doughnut or cupcake, don’t eat it.

During the hydrogenation process, hydrogen gas is injected into the oil under high pressure to make the oil solid at room temperature and prevent the oil from becoming rancid too quickly, but as mentioned earlier, this hydrogenation process produces an ugly stepchild: trans fats. Research shows that trans fats by far are the most dangerous for your heart. They lower the good HDL cholesterol, increase the bad LDL cholesterol, and increase triglycerides as well as another dangerous fat called lipoprotein.

As mentioned earlier, if the ingredient list includes the words “shortening,” “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” or “hydrogenated vegetable oil,” then the food contains trans fat. Even if the ingredients label says “zero trans fat,” that doesn’t mean what you think it does; the FDA allows food manufacturers to have any amount less than 0.5 grams of trans fat in the food (per serving) and still legally say “zero trans fats” on the packaging.
It’s a good idea when you’re eating in a restaurant to ask the server if the kitchen is using partially hydrogenated oil for frying, baking, or cooking their dishes. Ask about salad dressings as well.

6. Pasteurized, homogenized skim milk
When it comes to dairy products, the conventional wisdom in the diet world can be summed up in this way: whole milk, bad; skim milk, good.

Whole milk is loaded with fat and calories, right? But removing the fat to make 2 percent or skim milk makes the milk less nutritious and less digestible as well as cause allergies. Yes, whole milk has more calories, but I’ve seen research suggesting that the mix of nutrients found in milk, such as calcium and protein, may improve the body’s ability to burn fat, particularly around the midsection. Besides, the thought of a cow naturally delivering reduced fat or fat-free milk is “udderly” ridiculous, but I’m going to milk this topic for all it’s worth because milk does a body good. (End of cliché alert.)

The richest food sources of calcium are milk and milk products, but I don’t recommend drinking any commercially homogenized and pasteurized milk. The pasteurization process alters vital amino acids, which reduces your ability to access the proteins, fats, minerals, and great vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and folic acid found in raw, unpasteurized milk. The homogenization process may be even more dangerous as it alters the fat globules and creates a compound known as XO, or xanthine oxidase, which is believed by some to cause damage to the arterial walls and may lead to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.

I recommend drinking unpasteurized milk from grass-fed animals instead of homogenized, pasteurized milk. Unfortunately, raw milk can be dangerous if it comes from a farm that lacks sanitary practices, which is why it’s not available in many states. The next best thing is finding cultured or fermented dairy whole-milk products, such as yogurt and kefir, which are produced from pasteurized, non-homogenized milk.
If you can get used to its “goaty” smell and taste, goat’s milk is naturally homogenized, less allergenic, and more rapidly absorbed in the digestive tract. Goat’s cheese, which has become widely available in the last few years, is very healthy, as is cheese made from raw cow’s milk. My favorite dairy products are made from sheep’s milk, which are easy to digest and more nutritious than dairy products made from cow’s or goat’s milk. I find the creamy taste wonderful. Look for sheep’s milk yogurt and cheese at your local natural foods grocery.

You’ve probably noticed that major supermarkets as well as warehouse clubs sell organic milk. I don’t believe commercial organic milk is the answer, however. Some companies with organic brand names you would recognize produce pasteurized and homogenized milk.

7. White sugar
I’ll bet you that any food with enriched flour also contains sugar or one of its sweet relatives—high-fructose corn syrup, fructose, and sucrose. You’ll find these sugars among the first ingredients listed in candy bars, pastries, snack cakes, cookies, and ice cream. You will also find plenty of sugar in foods you might think are healthy, like “natural” breakfast cereals, energy bars, raisin bagels, certain whole-wheat breads, hot dog buns, salad dressing, steak sauce, ketchup—the list is endless.

Sugar is so omnipresent that most people don’t realize they eat sugar with every meal: their breakfast cereal is frosted with sugar; break time is soda or coffee mixed with sugar and a Danish; lunch has its cookies and treats; and dinner could be sweet-and-sour ribs, sweet potatoes covered with marshmallows, a garden salad doused with artificially sweetened dressing, and a sugary parfait for dessert. Talk about adding a sweet exclamation point to the day! A United States Department of Agriculture study revealed that we eat an average of 31 teaspoons of sugar daily—with 17 teaspoons coming from high-fructose corn syrup, and 14 teaspoons coming from cane or beet sugar (sucrose).32 This adds up to more than 500 calories daily.

If you’re looking for a guilty party to blame for the bellies hanging over beltlines, then look no further than King Sugar, which takes sugarcane or sugar beets from the fields and processes it 99.9 percent before it’s dumped into 5-pound bags of bleached white sugar. (I’m sure research scientists are working overtime to remove the last one-tenth of 1 percent in sugarcane that’s healthy.)

According to Ann Louise Gittleman, author of How to Stay Young and Healthy in a Toxic World, “Sugar is not an innocent substance that gives us pleasure and causes no harm. Quite the contrary; there is perhaps nothing else in the diet that promotes disease and aging more over the long term than excess sugar.” She says that more than sixty ailments, ranging from allergies to vaginal yeast infections, have been associated with this dietary demon.

“Without a doubt the biggest change in our diets has been our sugar consumption...refined white sugar known as sucrose, brown sugar, corn sweeteners, high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose, glucose, lactose and maltose,” said Ann Louise Gittleman. “Over the past two centuries, we have literally shocked our bodily systems with outrageous and ever-growing amounts of nutrient-robbing sugar. At the end of the 1700s, sugar consumption was less than 20 pounds per person per year. By the end of the 1800s, sugar consumption had risen to 63 pounds annually. Now, 100 years later, the average American eats over 170 pounds of sugar each year.”

8. Soft drinks
A 12-ounce, sugar- or high-fructose corn syrup–sweetened beverage contains nearly 9 teaspoons of sugar and 150 calories—empty calories that provide little or no nutritional value. If you drink one can of soda per day and don’t change anything else about your diet or exercise regimen, you will consume 55,000 extra calories in one year, which adds up to fifteen pounds of weight gain.

Soft drink manufacturers know that once teenagers leave the adolescent years, they become more health conscious, or at least more aware of how bad sweetened soft drinks are for them, so that’s why they try to hook ’em young. Nicki swore off soft drinks during her senior year of high school, but not because she wanted a better fit in her prom dress. Her epiphany came after conducting an experiment in her science class. One day her teacher informed the class that they were going learn about acidic reaction. He dramatically dropped a galvanized construction nail into a glass of Coke to see what would happen overnight. The nail didn’t dissolve—that was an old wives’ tale—but the red rust encrusting the galvanized nail blew Nicki away. She hasn’t had another soft drink since then.

9. High-fructose corn syrup
High-fructose corn syrup, or corn sweetener, is more than plain bad for you—it’s horrible for your health and the worst form of sugar. Americans receive some 200 calories daily, mainly from soft drinks. High-fructose corn syrup is a major contributor to weight gain because foods with fructose may not turn off your hunger signals. You get hungry after eating a snack containing high-fructose corn syrup because you’re not satiated. Your appetite is saying, “Nice try, but I’m still famished!”

With such a high-falutin’ name, you’d think that a sweetener with the word corn in it wouldn’t be as bad for you as regular white sugar, but it is. With high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), research scientists invented an enzymatic processing method that begins with milling corn to produce cornstarch, which is then made sweeter by chemically converting some of the glucose to fructose. The more fructose in the end product, the sweeter it is. A widely used variety of HFCS, known as 55-HFCS, consists of 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose. Thanks to a system of price supports and sugar quotas that have been in place for twenty-five years, importing sugar into the United States has become cost-prohibitive, which has opened up a huge market for American companies manufacturing high-fructose corn syrup.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi dumped the sugar from their carbonated soft drinks back in 1984, substituting cheaper HFCS in its place. These days you’d be hard-pressed to walk into a 7-Eleven and find a soda pop sweetened with sugar. The only holdout I could find was Goose Island sodas, although Jolt Cola did use sugar one time with the following marketing slogan: “All the sugar and twice the caffeine.” But the makers of Jolt Cola reformulated their product with high-fructose corn syrup, no doubt to make the product less expensive in the stores. I’m sure the opportunity to lower costs is the reason why high-fructose corn syrup has become the principal sweetener in fruit juices, baked goods, canned fruits, dairy products, cookies, gum, and jams and jellies.

So what makes high-fructose corn syrup such an unhealthy, fat-promoting form of sugar? The body handles fructose differently than it does other sugars. For starters, the body metabolizes fructose into triglycerides more than other sugars, which raises blood triglycerides significantly and increases the risk of heart disease. (Triglycerides are the body’s storage form for fat and are found in fat tissues.) Unlike glucose, fructose does not stimulate leptin, the hormone that tells you “I’m full,” but reduces ghrelin hormone levels, which tell you “I’m still hungry.” Consumption of fructose from corn sweeteners comes with no enzymes, vitamins, or minerals, so it cheats the body of micronutrients. HFCS is different from the natural fructose found in whole fruit because with fruit, the body gets the enzymes, vitamins, and minerals to help with digestion and utilization of the fructose.

The liver cannot handle fructose very well. When fructose reaches the liver, says Dr. William J. Whelan, a biochemist the University of Miami School of Medicine, “the liver goes bananas and stops everything else to metabolize the fructose.” The fructose propels the liver into a fat-promoting mode by activating the formation of enzymes that lead to elevated levels of “bad” cholesterol and triglycerides.

The consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages—about two-thirds of all HFCS consumed in the United States is in beverage form—has certainly left its fingerprints vis-à-vis our nation’s obesity epidemic. The consumption of high-fructose corn syrup increased 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990, far exceeding the changes in intake of any other foods or food group.37 Juice drinks like Minute Maid’s Hi-C are among the worst offenders: despite flavors like Blazin’ Blueberry and Orange Lavaburst, Hi-C lists pure filtered water and high-fructose corn syrup as its first and second ingredients. At least they’re filtering the water!

I like to pick up a freshly cooked ear of fresh, organic corn and dig in at a summer picnic, but I’m having some trouble digging up some sympathy for this simple vegetable—or grain. (Corn should be considered a vegetable when consumed raw and a grain when cooked.) Economists say that we can blame corn for the sharp spike in grocery prices in the last year, and that’s likely to continue as the American food economy—especially ethanol production for gasoline—becomes more and more dependent on corn. The price of corn rose 46 percent during 2007,38 which carries all sorts of implications since corn is the main building block for much of the American food supply.

What’s happening is that an ever-increasing amount of corn is being diverted to make ethanol to mix with gasoline. Ethanol now gobbles up 18 percent of the domestic corn supply, up from 10 percent in 2002.39 This is set to escalate further. As corn prices move up to meet the demand for ethanol, this raises production costs for all sorts of foods: dairy cows eat corn to make milk, hens consume corn to lay eggs, and cattle, hogs, and chickens are fattened on corn before slaughter. I’ve already detailed how corn syrup is the main sweetener of soda pop and thousands of other food items.
Future outlook: look for King Corn to tighten its grip over its subjects.

10. Artificial sweeteners
Dieting and artificial sweeteners go together like...ham and eggs? Mea culpa for the jarring simile, but the huge demand for low-calorie and sugar-free foods and beverages by those seeking to consume fewer calories has created a $6 billion market for artificial sweeteners. Aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose are found in umpteen thousands of foods as well as in blue, pink, and yellow packets of Equal, Sweet’N Low, and Splenda found on restaurant tables.

If you have always thought that artificial sweeteners will help you lose weight, you might want to rethink your position. Researchers at Purdue University say these sugar substitutes could interfere with the body’s natural ability to count calories based on a food’s sweetness. In other words, drinking a diet soft drink instead of the full-octane sugar version will reduce your caloric intake, but it could also trick the body into thinking that other sweet items don’t have as many calories either. This sort of thinking gives weight-conscious people another mental alibi for overindulging in sweet foods and beverages.

I understand the rationale behind drinking low-cal or no-cal drinks—lower total caloric intake—but sipping artificially sweetened drinks is not the solution

11. Artificial flavors and artificial colors
The dictionary definition of artificial refers to something not made by human beings or a copy of something natural. Since the goal of Perfect Weight America is to eat natural foods, anything containing artificial flavors or artificial colors will be naturally unhealthy as well as increase the toxic load on the body.

Take the recipe for Waldorf-Astoria Red Velvet Cake—please! The cooking instructions for this ooh-la-la confection, which originated at the iconic Manhattan hotel, calls for squeezing two bottles of FD&C Red No. 40 into a mixing bowl filled with the requisite shortening, flour, eggs, and sugar. Pastry chefs say they have to wear gloves to keep the shameful dye off their skin or rub nail polish remover if any red spots appear on their double-breasted white jackets.

“Why should a dose of Red No. 40 turn Betty Crocker into Hester Prynne?” asked Slate.com writer Daniel Engber, referring to the fictional colonial woman forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” for committing adultery. “Ask a gourmand, and you’re likely to hear three specious answers. First, Epicurean: Artificial color tastes bad. Second, Hippocratic: It’s bad for your health. And third, Platonic: It makes food unnatural.”

Don’t purchase foods that list artificial flavors and colors on the packaging. These additives have been linked to behavioral problems in children and increase the body’s toxic load. They have also been associated with allergies and skin rashes.

12. Beer, wine, and alcoholic drinks
If you like to watch a football game with a beer in hand or dine with a glass of fine wine, I have some troublesome news for you: during the first three phases of the Perfect Weight Eating Plan in chapter 7, I’m asking you not to drink any alcohol.

Although I’m a teetotaler who may enjoy a glass of organic wine a couple of times a year, I recognize that there have been studies pointing out the benefits of drinking modest amounts of red wine for cardiovascular health. The “French Paradox,” so called for the observation that the French typically suffer low rates of heart disease despite having a diet rich in saturated fats, was attributed to alcohol and olive oil intake. The “French Paradox” is only a paradox if you assume that saturated fat is the cause of obesity and heart disease—something I point out in the next section. No wonder the French—eating all kinds of real food to their hearts’ content and toasting family and friends with a glass of vin rouge—have that certain joie de vivre. (I’ve now officially used up all the French I know.)

So you’re welcome to open a bottle of nice wine in Phase IV of the Perfect Weight Eating Plan, but I balance alcohol’s benefits against the downside of excessive drinking, which damages family relationships as well as every organ in the body (especially the liver), promotes depression, causes digestive ailments (ulcers, gastritis, and pancreatitis), and impacts fertility. Alcohol adds weight, a full 7 calories per gram, almost twice that of protein or carbs. That’s a significant reason why we see beer bellies in this world.

If you are a regular drinker, see how you feel after you’ve jumped on the Perfect Weight America bandwagon. I’m not saying that you should never have another adult beverage or savor a fine glass of wine with an exquisite meal again, but you may realize that drinking has become a weight-inducting habit that needs to be trimmed back.

Are We There Yet ?

THIS MAY BECOME A COMMON CONDITION AS THE POPULATION AGES (Are we there yet??? dari milis teman)

Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D. which is a condition called as Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests:

I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left.

My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Pepsi that I had been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Pepsi aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I see that the Pepsi is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need to be watered.

I set the Pepsi down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:

The car isn't washed,

The bills aren't paid,

There is a warm can of Pepsi sitting on the counter,

The flowers don't have enough water,

There is still only one check in my check book,

I can't find the remote,

I can't find my glasses, and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail.

Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember to whom it has been sent.

Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet -- your day is coming ... he he he ... watch out !

God help me overcome my illness

.
.
.

Tuhan membukakan mata hatiku bahwa bagiNya tidak ada hal yang mustahil. Dia mengijinkan terjadinya penyakit dan kelemahan sebagai bagian dari hukum alam. Tetapi Tuhan juga menjanjikan keselamatan dan kelepasan bagi anak2 Nya yang selalu setia pada jalanNya. Beberapa waktu yang lalu saya 'diganggu' dengan rasa sakit pinggang 'low back pain', dan ditambah dengan chest discomfort. Pertama-tama tentang LBP ini. Ada dua teori saya. Yg pertama adalah gangguan pada spine (tulang belakang) itu sendiri, sebagai akibat dari pengapuran atau 'spur formation.' Hal semacam ini lazim terjadi pada middle age people, dan perasaan seperti ini sudah cukup sering saya alami. Umumnya nantipun hilang sendiri. Yang kedua, inilah yang menakutkan yakni kalau ada gangguan ginjal. Ini memang organ lemah saya, meng-ingat riwayat penyakit dulu. Waktu masih mahasiswa tkt 3 FK dulu barangkali saya pernah terserang dgn renal colic dan hematuri karena batu. Itu waktu umur 21 thn, jadi hampir 40 thn y.l. Namun batu itu sendiri nggak keluar, atau nggak ketahuan keluarnya. Cuma beberapa kali dalam pemeriksaan, baik di RS Tebet, maupun di Lakespra dalam USG nggak jelas ada batu. Lalu dgn olahraga dan banyakin minum mustinya sudah larut. Tapi hasil lab. hingga tahun lalu akhir selalu menunjukkan creatinin dan urea clearance normal. Ini selalu menjadi main concern saya. Jadi kembali pertanyaan kenapa LBP ini? Kalau masih mengganggu terpaksa saya ke Prof. Sibuea besok-besok. Nah, sekarang yang didada, di sekitar jantung ini dan adanya rieut ini sudah pasti urusan koroner. Tapi sesungguhnya, Tuhan sudah 'mengatasi' sumbatan ini dengan menyuruh saya mengikuti EECP sudah ratusan kali, dan bukti mengarah pada terbentuknya anastomosis atau 'pembuluh kecil atau jalan tikus' sebagai 'natural by-pass.' Jadi tidak mungkin lagi ada suatu serangan jantung karena sumbatan, sebab the main road-nya sudah diganti dengan banyak jalan pintasan. Inilah jadi teori yang menjadi acuan bagiku. Olahraga jalan, lari kecil dalam rumah ataupun internal jogging dll, Chi machine dan minyak Vico juga mengarah kesini ditambah obat-obatan yg rutin kuminum setiap hari. Sebenarnya apa yang kualami ini sudah suatu mujizat pula, karna suatu PTCA non-stent yang bisa bertahan 11 tahun lebih tanpa gejala klinik yang memarah adalah hal yang istimewa. Aku beruntung karena Tuhan sendirilah yang telah campur tangan didalamnya. Dan tempo-tempo bila ada kesalahan gaya hidup, maka muncullah episode 'kegawatan' seperti yang kualami pada saat-saat tertentu. Nah, kira-kira kesalahan apakah itu?

1. Diet.

Saya mengaku bahwa telah terjadi pelanggaran berat dari program yang mustinya kupatuhi, yakni rendah kalori, banyak serat, mayoritas sayur dan buah, jauhi karbohidrat sederhana. Nah, selama ini banyak pesta2 dgn B2 bergelimpangan, jajan martabak, intip, keripik dll. Gimana berat nggak nambah. Setahun lalu waktu checkup di RS Fatmawati, BB saya 71,5 yang katanya mustinya BB ideal 62,5. Ngaco, masak kelebihan 9 kg? Sedangkan udah dgn hermit's meal pernah saya 69 kg, rasanya udah bangga sekali. Jadi perlu buat regimen baru. Untuk tahap pertama sekarang ini saya membulatkan tekad untuk kembali mencapai 69 kg sebelum HUT yad ini. Tahap kedua diterusin sampai 67 kg. Dan bila kuat, diterusin tahap terakhir hingga 65 kg. And stay there for the rest of my life.

2. Olahraga.

Secara konvensional, memang saya sudah lama, mungkin 6 bulan terakhir ini tidak setia lagi. Mesin tread-mill sudah jarang kupakai. Padahal kuakui pada Sibuea, saya menempuh 2,5 km tiap hari, yg dia minta ditambah jadi 3,5 kg. Juga kondisi mesinnya mulai reot kali yah (orang Sunda bilang 'parabot kolot'). Tapi memang harus dimulai lagi, meski kuakui dulu itu ada juga pengaruh keberadaan saudara di kamar belakang yg membuatku rasa kurang bebas anytime tread mill dengan iringan musik. Sampai pernah mesin itu saya pindahin ke library, meski ternyata nggak efektif juga. Hal yg mungkin juga berpengaruh adalah adanya Chi machine, yang lebih ringan dan nyaman penggunaannya karena bersifat pasif, dan menurut produsennya tiap 5 menit, sudah identik dgn dampak oksigenisasi jaringan yg ditimbulkan dengan berjalan 1,5 km. Nah, rata-rata saya sehari 20-30 menit makenya, jadi apa udah serasa jalan 6-9 km? Ah, masak! Juga akhir2 ini saya makin sering EECP lagi.

3. Lifestyle.

Sebetulnya cara hidup saya sekarang sudah lebih kondusif. Gaya hidup jet lane sudah liwat, pergi2 udah jarang sesudah pengsiun Depkes. Ke kantor yg sekarang tidak terlalu demanding and pressing, sehingga ada waktu untuk ngerjain kesenangan pribadi. Bikin buku, bikin lagu, kliping dsb adalah kegiatan yang mengisi hari-hari saya. Ke urusan adat juga selalu diusahakan ada waktu. Memang nanti saya akan banyak ngurusin MRA, an exciting prospect in its own. Hopefully next year we'll be fully operating. God, you are so kind to give me this job. Make me be useful to my country and your Kingdom in the next 5-10 years. Mampukan tubuh dan jiwa saya melaksanakan itu semua. Amen.

4. Attitude !

That's why I choose this motto :

Don't hate, don't worry, live simple, give more and expect less.

It's hard, but at least, it gives me control and guidelines everytime.

(from my own journal High Hope, 2005)

Hati-hati dengan yang renyah crispy !!

Crispy food -- the seller uses melted plastic to fry it!

Please read this...

This is a TRUE STORY... and also someone told me it happened to her in Kedah... Tunjang... I think...It happened to us too, in PERLIS (titi chai kangar... the pasar malam area where they always sell GORENG PISANG at noon)

My uncle saw them frying GORENG PISANG & they added the STRAWS (which we use to drink water) and melted them into HOT OIL before frying anything...

Thats why, the GORENG PISANG, GORENG UBI... etc all stay very crispy for hours...

And my uncle could not explain why, and he asked them, they just keep quiet... and then when my uncle told my mom, then we realized this is how to make the foods crispy...

My mom said, be careful of Thailand stuffs too eg: Crispy Ikan Bilis, Crispy fried onions... which if u leave in the open air for hours, its still crispy...

Like in CANADA, our place only, it rains only 5-times or less a YEAR. so, if we leave our bread in open air overnight, the next day it will be really crispy or dry because the enviroment here is very dry... but in Malaysia, it should not happen, because there is too much moisture.

The world is changing! I read some news oh my my... not only the chinese are wicked but everywhere.. . here the news comes... I have been to Cameron Highlands with my family...

It was 3 pm ++ We are hanging around the market area, we saw many hawker stall doing their business, suddenly something attracted me...

One of the stalls, there was a big wok of oil, there was a half-5-litre empty plastic oil bottle on it.

It's melting slowly in the hot frying oil... i freaked out, I thought it was an unintentional act by a 7-yr-old girl...

But when I looked closely, I saw a pair of chopsticks stiring the bottle.

Immediately, I asked my family to come and check it out...

At that moment, the parents of the girl who were present, were looking at us ferociously.

Oh my god...

They using melted plastic to fry food...
The reason is the fried foods will not soften after sitting out for sometime due to plastic.

We experimented and did as below:
One without plastic, the food is kind of soft after a while and then add plastic, and fry the same thing once again...
It's crispier than KFC!

Please stop eating this hawker's fried food...

This is their secret receipe...

Pls forward to all your friend...

DO NOT EAT CRISPY FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOD , esp from the hawker!

(from hastari_zb@yahoo.com)

Gaya hidup remaja sehat !

Gaya hidup (menurut WHO)

Masalah kesehatan yang berhubungan dengan perubahan gaya hidup telah diasosiasikan dengan perubahan kebiasaan makan, contohnya: remaja dan makanan cepat saji, dan merokok, terutama dengan meningkatnya jumlah perokok usia muda. Proporsi dari jumlah penduduk yang berusia 15 tahun keatas yang merokok secara regular diperkirakan sebanyak 22,9% di tahun 1995 dan meningkat menjadi 27,7% di tahun 2001. Penyalahgunaan obat dan bahan berbahaya, gaya hidup yang sedentari/ kurang aktif, dan kekerasan juga menjadi masalah kesehatan. Hambatan yang utama adalah kurangnya bantuan masyarakat dan komitmen nasional, terutama mengenai merokok.

Kehidupan Remaja Dalam Keluarga

Gambaran tentang hubungan remaja dengan anggota keluarganya diungkap dengan melihat penilaian remaja terhadap kegiatan yang dilakukan bersama keluarganya, ketersediaan waktu orangtua bersama anak, orang yang paling sering diajak memecahkan masalah dan kegiatan lingkungan yang diikuti.

Untuk mengetahui pelaksanaan fungsi sosial keluarga ini, berikut disajikan sejumlah kegiatan yang sering diikuti secara bersama-sama oleh anggota keluarga menurut remaja. Sebanyak 60 remaja merasa tidak ada kegiatan keluarga yang dapat dikategorikan sebagai kegiatan yang sering diikuti anggota keluarga. Selebihnya (40%) menyatakan sejumlah kegiatan yang sering diikuti walaupun dalam frekuensi yang sangat rendah seperti makan dan ibadah, kunjungan keluarga dan nonton TV. Kemudian menurut intensitas pertemuan dengan keluarga, 70% remaja merasa bahwa intensitas pertemuan keluarga masih belum maksimal, yang meliputi kategori jarang sebanyak 33,33 % dan kategori sangat jarang 36,67%. Besarnya angka ini mencerminkan bahwa menurut remaja sebagian besar keluarga masih kurang memperhatikan aspek kebutuhan sosial keluarga sesuai dengan tuntutan kebutuhan.

Minimnya kegiatan bersama anggota keluarga ini tidak terlepas ketersediaan waktu orangtua untuk mengadakan kegiatan tersebut. Sesungguhnya di mata remaja 63,33% orangtua mempunyai waktu yang memadai untuk mengadakan kegiatan bersama dan 36,6% kurang tersedia waktunya. Bila dibandingkan dengan data sebelumnya tentang intensitas pertemuan keluarga, ternyata hanya 30% yang sering mengadakan pertemuan. Ini berarti ada 33,33% keluarga yang ketersediaan waktunya memadai namun tidak memanfaatkannya untuk mengadakan pertemuan keluarga. Dalam kondisi yang demikian anak dapat mengambil kesimpulan (persepsi) tersendiri yang bersifat negatif terhadap keluarganya.

Dari segi pemanfaatan waktu untuk mengadakan pertemuan keluarga sebagaimana dimaksudkan di atas dapat melibatkan dua pihak. Pihak pertama adalah pihak orangtua sebagai pemimpin keluarga, dan pihak kedua adalah anggota keluarga lainnya termasuk anak (remaja). Di satu sisi orangtua sebagai kepala keluarga diharapkan mengambil inisiatif lebih dahulu, dan di sisi lain inisiatif mungkin datang dari anggota keluarga lainnya termasuk anak (remaja), namun keputusan tetap ditentukan oleh orangtua. Bahwa orangtua yang selalu menanggapi anak ketika mengutarakan pendapatnya hanya 26,67 %, sementara sebagian besar lagi (73,33 %) tidak maksimal dalam menanggapi. Sikap orangtua yang kurang dalam menanggapi anaknya ini dapat berakibat negatif terhadap anak. Misalnya anak menjadi malas dalam mengutarakan pendapatnya atau mengambil inisiatif tertentu terhadap satu masalah.

Persepsi Remaja terhadap Pola Asuh

Bahwa pola asuh yang dominan menurut remaja adalah pola asuh otoriter (83,33%), disusul dengan pola asuh permisif dan demokratis masing-masing 33,33%. Ini berarti bahwa menurut remaja terdapat 90 % keluarga yang kurang demokratis dalam menerapkan pola asuh terhadap anak-anaknya. Hal ini akan menciptakan iklim yang kurang kondusif bagi perkembangan anak.

Sejalan dengan pola asuh tersebut dapat dicermati lebih jauh dasar pemikiran dan tindakan orangtua dalam mengasuh anaknya. Pola asuh yang demokratis akan bertindak lebih rasional, dengan angka persentase yang kebetulan sama yaitu 33,33%. Demikian pula sebaliknya dengan pola asuh yang tidak demokratis (permisif dan otoriter) yang mempunyai persentase yang relatif sama dengan kategori tindakan yang tidak rasional (emosional dan irasional), yaitu 90%. Pola asuh yang dikembangkan dalam satu keluarga selanjutnya dapat mengantarkan anak pada satu gambaran tertentu tentang tingkat keharmonisan keluarga.

Kehidupan Remaja di Luar Rumah

Deskripsi tentang gaya hidup remaja di perkotaan digambarkan dengan melihat beberapa aspek kehidupan atau kegiatan remaja. Aspek tersebut adalah lokasi atau tempat yang paling sering dikunjungi, tujuan mangkal pada tempat yang dikunjungi, alasan untuk mendatangi tempat tersebut, keuntungan yang diperoleh mangkal di tempat tersebut, rata-rata lama waktu yang dihabiskan saat berkunjung, dan waktu yang paling sering digunakan untuk berkunjung.

Sebagaimana dikemukakan sebelumnya, bahwa lokasi yang banyak dikunjungi remaja adalah pusat kegiatan ekonomi maupun sosial yang lebih bernuansa hiburan. Adapun tujuan mereka mengunjungi tempat-tempat tersebut adalah (1) mencari uang, (2) mencari hiburan dan (3) cari teman baru. Dari ketiga jenis tujuan tersebut, mencari hiburan menjadi tujuan utama remaja. Sedangkan alasan mereka adalah 83,33% karena orangtua otoriter, 50% karena tidak betah di rumah, 16,67% karena tidak ada lokasi main, dan 16,67% membantu ekonomi keluarga. Alasan tersebut sejalan dengan keuntungan yang diperoleh remaja pada saat mangkal, yaitu dapat hiburan dan stres hilang (100%), dapat teman baru (53,33%) dan ketemu teman lama (13,33%). Alasan dan keuntungan tersebut juga sejalan dengan tujuan remaja mangkal, yaitu mencari hiburan (100%), dan cari teman baru (53,33%).

Faktor lain yang terkait dengan perilaku mangkal remaja ini adalah waktu yang sering digunakan remaja untuk mangkal. Sebanyak 60% pada siang hari, 23% sore dan 17% malam hari. Kemudian dilihat dari lamanya mangkal, 56,67% antara 1-3 jam, 26,67% antara 4-6 jam, dan16,67 % lebih dari 6 jam.

Data ini menunjukkan bahwa 83,33% remaja menghabiskan waktunya pada siang dan sore hari di luar rumah untuk mangkal. Perlu diketahui bahwa data tersebut hanya untuk satu kegiatan remaja yaitu mangkal. Artinya masih banyak kegiatan lainnya di luar rumah yang belum tercatat. Ini mengindikasikan bahwa intensitas pertemuan dengan anggota keluarga lainnya terutama dengan orangtua sangat terbatas. Terbatasnya pertemuan dengan anggota keluarga ini akan mempengaruhi kualitas hubungan sosial dalam keluarga. Bahkan lebih parah lagi 16,67 % remaja mangkal pada malam hari, dengan lama mangkal 16,67% lebih dari 6 jam. Meskipun persentasenya relatif kecil, namun alokasi waktu tersebut sangat rawan secara sosial dengan berbagai tindakan tuna sosial.

Persepsi terhadap Kenakalan

Berbeda dengan pendapat orang tua, bahwa berbohong, merokok, mejeng di mall, berkelahi/tawuran, dan minum minuman keras bukan termasuk tingkah laku nakal. Sedangkan jenis tindakan yang menurut remaja termasuk nakal, yaitu menggunakan narkoba, seks bebas, mencuri, memeras/ malak, dan merampok. Namun demikian sikap yang tegas tersebut ternyata tidak menjamin mereka tidak melakukan tindakan dimaksud. Misalnya demi persahabatan, ataupun pelarian sesaat.

Sedangkan faktor yang menyebabkan remaja bertingkah laku nakal, yaitu (1) teman sebaya, (2) lingkungan, (3) pola asuh otoriter, dan (4) pengaruh film dan TV. Dari faktor-faktor tersebut persentase tertinggi adalah pengaruh dari lingkungan (86,67 %) dan pola asuh otoriter orang tua (70,00%).

Keluarga sehat dan bahagia menjadi dambaan setiap orang tetapi bagaimana mendapatkannya? Simak tips smart berikut ini untuk dapat menjamin anda memiliki keluarga sehat dan bahagia!

Praktekan cinta yang tulus
Anda mungkin memiliki anggota keluarga yang tidak selalu sesuai dengan keinginan anda, tetapi ini bukan berarti anda harus mengasingkan mereka. Cintai mereka atas segala keanehannya dan rangkul perbedaan mereka. Ini dilakukan terutama pada anak-anak yang mulai mengembangkan penghargaan diri dari usia remaja.

Selalu berkomunikasi dengan orang tua
Anda mungkin tidak tinggal bersama mereka lagi tetapi bukan berarti tidak harus bertemu mereka secara teratur. Jaga tali keluarga dengan mengunjungi orang tua sedikitnya sekali dalam seminggu, dan rencanakan menghabiskan waktu bersama-sama. Cara ini akan membuat anak-anak anda belajar betapa pentingnya keluarga.

Membuat kesehatan suatu prioritas
Nutrisi yang baik dan olahraga teratur seharusnya menjadi bagian penting dari kehidupan keluarga. Habiskan waktu berkualitas bersama keluarga sendiri.
Waktu seperti ini penting karena akan memberikan anda kesempatan berkomunikasi sebenarnya dengan mereka.

Gantikan junk food dengan makanan ringan yang sehat
Gantikan minuman soda, permen, jenis makanan lain berkadar gula tinggi atau makan ringan bernutris rendah dengan jus buah-buahan segar, buah dan kacang-kacangan atau makanan tinggi serat untuk menanamkan kebiasan makan yang baik pada anak-anak.

Jangan gunakan televisi atau komputer sebagai babysitter
Yakinlah waktu anak-anak ditemani dengan aktivitas belajar yang kontruktif dibanding yang ada dalam televisi. Anak-anak dapat mudah terpengaruh dengan apa yang mereka lihat dan dengar di televisi. Jika mereka ingin menonton televisi, yakin apa yang mereka lihat adalah program bermanfaat. Juga hindarkan kebiasaan berjam-jam didepan komputer, asyik menjelajah dunia maya sehingga jarang kontak fisik dengan keluarga hendaknya dihindarkan dengan mengatur jam yang wajar untuk mengembangkan bakat komputer si anak.

Jauhkan rumah dari kekerasan
Berteriak, membentak, dan menampar hanya mengajarkan anak-anak menyampaikan kekerasan pada orang lain. Cobalah menemukan cara kreatif untuk mendisiplinkan mereka dengan tidak melibatkan kekerasan.

Mengecek kesehatan
Yakin untuk menepati janji bertemu dokter gigi atau gynekolog terutama imunisasi bagi anak-anak. Jika anda tinggal dengan orang tua yang telah ujur, awasi kesehatan mereka dengan membawa mereka ke dokter untuk mendapatkan check-up yang teratur.

Sebetulnya banyak sekali kebutuhan anak-anak untuk bisa tumbuh sehat.

Dari segi fisik anak-anak sejak dalam kandungan membutuhkan:

- nutrisi yang baik dan sesuai kebutuhan

- istirahat dan tidur yang cukup

- olahraga sesuai takaran

- imunisasi sesuai kebutuhan

- lingkungan tinggal yang sehat

Boleh jadi semua orangtua yang membeli tabloid gaya hidup bisa memenuhi kebutuhan fisik seperti di atas. Meski demikian, dengan terpenuhinya kebutuhan fisik tersebut belum berarti anak-anak akan tumbuh sehat jika kebutuhan untuk memiliki mental yang sehat tidak terpenuhi.

Kebutuhan mental emosional itu antara lain:

- cinta tanpa syarat dari ayah, ibu, dan keluarga

- memiliki kepercayaan diri dan rasa harga diri (self esteem) yang tinggi

- punya kesempatan bermain dengan anak-anak lain

- mendapat dorongan dan dukungan dari guru dan orang-orang yang mengasuhnya

- tinggal di lingkungan yang aman dan terlindung

- adanya pedoman dan disiplin yang jelas

Kata-kata yang memulihkan

Memuji Tuhan adalah sumber kesembuhan. Pernahkah anda memikirkan untuk memuji Tuhan dikala anda sakit ? Jarang sekali ada orang yang kesakitan, dapat memikirkan untuk bernyanyi atau bersaksi untuk memuji Tuhan. Tetapi, kita sering mendengar bahwa ada orang yang berusia lanjut dan jarang sakit karena kesukaannya adalah lagu-lagu pujian bagi Tuhan. Contohnya ibu saya sendiri alm., semasa hidupnya hingga pada usianya yang sudah lebih 85 tahun masih bersemangat memimpin dan melatih paduan suara di gerejanya di Pematangsiantar. Bukan hanya 1 koor, tetapi 2, bahkan pernah hingga 3 paduan suara wanita yang dipimpinnya. Dan bukan sekedar koor, namun PS yang berprestasi dengan menjadi juara dalam festival PS setempat. Tuhan Maha Besar, beliau menikmati dan memanfaatkan karunia itu dan mempersembahkan sebagian besar hidupnya memuliakan Tuhan melalui pujian. Kini beliau telah bersama Tuhan, dipanggil kerumah Bapa pada usia 89 tahun.

Saya sendiri, yang rupanya diberkati untuk mewarisi bakat beliau dan memimpin satu PS di gereja kami, PS Sela GPIB Bukit Moria, sering merasakan bahwa sekalipun kadang-kadang terasa agak lemah atau sakit, kalau tiba waktunya untuk menyanyi atau melatih koor memuji Tuhan, maka perasaan itu hilang, bahkan menjadi kuat dan bersemangat kembali. Seperti dikatakan oleh Daud : 'Pujilah Tuhan, hai jiwaku. Pujilah namaNya yang kudus, hai segenap batinku. Pujilah Tuhan, wahai jiwaku, dan janganlah lupa akan segala kebaikanNya. Dia yang telah mengampuni segala kesalahan-mu, yang menyembuhkan segala penyakitmu. (Mazmur 103:1-3).

Bapa disurga, bukalah mata saya untuk dapat mengetahui, baik jasmani maupun rohani, akan apa yang dapat saya lakukan untuk mencegah dengan mengalahkan penyakitku ini. Berikanlah saya kemampuan dan hikmat untuk dapat menerapkan yang telah saya pelajari. Berikanlah kepada saya damai sejahteraMu,dan jauhkanlah saya dari ketakutan, kegelisahan, dan kekhawatiran karena pada kehendakMu sajalah saya percaya. Didalam nama Yesus dari Nazareth, Tuhan Penyembuh saya. Amin.

Aku percaya bahwa Firman Tuhan adalah sumber kehidupan, dan rahasia dari kehidupan itu, termasuk kesehatan dan kesembuhan itu ada didalamnya. Bila kita menekuni akan firmanNya dan mencari petunjuk didalamNya maka Tuhan akan memberi kita pengampunan dan kesembuhan secara langsung dan pasti. Langsung berarti bahwa Tuhan sendiri yang menunjukkan kuasaNya, tanpa peran-taraan manusia. Pasti, berarti kita telah disembuhkan, dan iman kita yang menyatakan percaya disusul dengan tindakan kita sungguh-sungguh menunjukkan kesembuhan total. Kiranya kuasa Tuhan akan bekerja dengan ajaib, menumbuhkan iman percaya bagi kita didalam mencari firmanNya yang me-nyembuhkan segala penyakit kita. Tuhan Maha Besar.

Iman adalah keputusan untuk percaya kepada kepada Firman Allah lebih dari segala sesuatu, termasuk penyakitku ini. Ini bukan berarti bahwa saya berpura-pura tidak sakit, melainkan memilih untuk percaya akan kuasa Allah yang dapat menyembuhkan.

Alkitab berkata 'Tidak tahukah kamu bahwa Roh Allah diam didalam kamu? Jikapun ada orang yang membinasakan bait Allah, maka Allah akan membinasakan dia. Sebab bait Allah adalah kudus, dan bait Allah itu ialah kamu (1 Kor. 3: 16-17).

Saudaraku yang kekasih, aku berdoa semoga engkau baik-baik serta sehat-sehat saja dalam segala sesuatu, sama seperti jiwamu baik-baik saja (3 Yoh.2).

Jika kamu sungguh-sungguh mendengarkan suara Tuhan Allahmu, dan melakukan apa yang benar dimataNya, dan memasang telingamu kepada perintah-perintahNya, dan tetap mengikuti segala ketetapanNya, maka Aku tidak akan menimpakan kepadamu penyakit manapun, yang telah Kutimpakan kepada orang Mesir; sebab Akulah Tuhan yang menyembuhkan engkau. (Keluaran 15:26).

Tetapi aku ini tertindas dan kesakitan ; keselamatan dari padaMu, ya Allah, kiranya melindungi aku. Aku akan memuji-muji Allah dengan nyanyian, mengagungkan Dia dengan nyanyian syukur. (Mazmur 69:31-32).

Allah mengerti segala penyakitku, dan akan melepaskan serta menyembuhkanku. Karena Tuhan berjanji : 'Tuhan membantu dia diranjangnya waktu sakit; ditempat tidurnya Kau pulihkannya sama sekali dari penyakitnya.(Mazmur 41:4).

Akan tetapi tidak selalu orang percaya pada pengampunan dan kuasa penyembuhan dari Tuhan, karena iman serta keraguan hatinya.

Kadang-kadang kita itu tidak percaya kepada kemurahan Tuhan dan menuduhNya berbuat tidak adil kepada kita seperti pada kitab Yeremia 15 : 18a: 'Mengapakah penderitaanku tidak berkesudahan, dan lukaku sangat payah, sukar disembuhkan? .

Tetapi dibagian lain, yaitu pada Yer 17:14 di-katakan: ' Sembuhkanlah aku, ya Tuhan, maka aku akan sembuh ; selamatkanlah aku, maka aku akan selamat, sebab Engkaulah kepujianku.' Disini kembali kita diingatkan akan hubungan antara kesembuhan dan kepujian. Ternyata sangatlah erat keterkaitannya.

Tennyson pernah berkata : 'Tuhan memberikan cinta pada kita. Dan Dia meminjamkan sesuatu pada kita untuk dicintai.' Jikalau Tuhan hendak memberi, maka dengan mudah diberiNya, dan kalau Tuhan mau mengambil, maka dapat diambilnya. Ini berlaku buat kekasih hati kita, harta kita maupun kesehatan kita. Tetapi demikian pula dengan musuh kita, dosa kita, bahkan tentu saja penyakit kita, dengan mudah mungkin diambilNya dari kita.

Daud, Raja Israel, yang suka memuji Tuhan melalui nyanyian pujian, memiliki pengertian mendalam dari Tuhan tentang kesembuhan. Dalam Mazmur 103 ia memaparkan perkembangan yang dapat terjadi dari dalam kegelapan dan keputusasaan akibat penyakit menuju kesembuhan. Berikut inilah apa yang dika-takannya : 'Pujilah Tuhan, hai jiwaku! Pujilah namaNya yang kudus, hai segenap batinku! Pujilah Tuhan, hai jiwaku! Dan jangan lupakan segala kebaikanNya. Dia yang mengampuni segala kesalahanmu, yang menyembuhkan segala penyakitmu. Dia yang menebus hidupmu dari lobang kubur, dan memahkotai engkau dengan kasih setia dan rahmat. Dia yang memuaskan hasratmu dengan kebaikan, sehingga masa mudamu menjadi baru seperti burung rajawali.'

Pada bagian lainnya dia berkata ' Tujukanlah pandanganmu kepadanya, maka mukamu akan berseri-seri..'. Berarti memuji Tuhan akan mengalihkan pandangan kita dari dalam diri kita sendiri, dari kesusahan kita, dari penyakit kita, dari darah tinggi, hepatitis, sakit jantung kita, dari kelemahan apapun yang saat ini sedang kita derita. Dalam memuji Tuhan, perhatian kita terpusat kepada kebaikanNya, kepada apa yang telah dilakukanNya. Ini dapat mengalirkan sukacita kepada pikiran, suasana emosi dan perasaan kita. Sukacita dapat memperkuat sistim kekebalan kita. Memuji Tuhan adalah baik bagi kesehatan kita.

Seorang perajurit Perang Saudara yang tak dikenal menulis doa ini pada secarik kertas yang ditemukan pada tempat pertempuran yang berbunyi sbb :

Answered Prayer

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.

I was made weak, that I may learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health, that I might do greater things,

I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I might be happy.

I was given poverty, that I might be wise...

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men,

I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life,

I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for - but everything I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.

I am among all men most richly blessed.'

An unknown Confederate Soldier.

Medicine and Religion

Some of the dramatic change that is happening at present is the number of people looking for healing of the body in their religious activities. This is mostly due to the number of religious ministries who are offering this divine healing that offer almost instant recovery from so many physical illnesses. And if this does not help them, then they keep on looking for other ministry that gives them satisfaction, even for a temporary. When we watch TV ministry that offer this event happening before our eyes, we can not stop thinking, is this real, or is this just suggestion ? But is that the right way to join a church ? I happen to be a member of church assembly for many years in Indonesia, and I have witnessed so many people have abandoned our conservatif mainstream church that does not put this rituals in our service. Health have become their main motive to join a church. Medicine become most important, rather than spiritual salvation. I am quoting some of the observations made by Olivier Clerc, a French writer in his book "Médecine, Religion et Peur; l’influence cachée des croyances” . He noted the following changes that are happening right now in many parts of the world, but mostly in Catholic settings :

- physicians have taken the place of priests;

- vaccination plays the same initiatory role as baptism, and is accompanied by the same threats and fears;

- the search for health has replaced the quest for salvation;

- the fight against disease has replaced the fight against sin;

- eradication of viruses has taken the place of exorcising demons;

- the hope of physical immortality (cloning, genetic engineering) has been substituted for the hope of eternal life;

- pills have replaced the sacrament of bread and wine;

- donations to cancer research take precedence over donations to the church;

- a hypothetical universal vaccine could save humanity from all its illnesses, as the Saviour has saved the world from all its sins;

- the medical power has become the government’s ally, as was the Catholic Church in the past;

- "charlatans” are persecuted today as "heretics” were yesterday;

- dogmatism rules out promising alternative medical theories;

- the same absence of individual responsibility is now found in medicine, as previously in the Christian religion;

- patients are alienated from their bodies, as sinners used to be from their souls.

People are still being manipulated by their fears and childish hopes. They are still told that the source of their problems is outside them, and that the solution can only come from the outside. They are not allowed to do anything by themselves and they must have the mediation of priest-physicians, the administration of drug-hosts, and the protection of vaccine-absolutions.(end quote)

Medical technology progress very fast, and sometimes it is frightening to imagine what can happen in the near future, especially in the field like cloning and stem cells research. People will depend more and more upon this medical breakthrough and young people especially might have second thoughts about joining or leaving a religion. Medicine promise so much, even to extend life expectancy, improve physical appearance, energy, and satisfaction. Can our religion compete with that ?