We’re talking about ways to proceed with ‘CAUTION’ when coping with Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) with musical inspiration from Mariah Carey on Divabetic’s popular Diabetes Late Nite podcast.
Do you know living with type 2 diabetes puts you at greater risk for heart disease and stroke? Unfortunately most people don’t. We want to help you get CLUED INN and make a healthy comeback worthy of Mariah Carey.
Music critics agree that Mariah’s latest collection of songs not only maintains her status as one the best singer/songwriters in the game, but also eloquently displays her truth. She opens up about love, loneliness, and self-worth in a cautionary album that reminds us that she is still a force to be reckoned with after nearly three decades in the industry.
Guests include Poet Lorraine Brooks, 2015 AADE Diabetes Educator of the Year Susan Weiner, MS RDN CDE FAADE, Mama Rose Marie, Yoga For Diabetes Director & Author Rachel Zinman, WeAreEatNeat.com‘s Lloyd Owens, Type 2 Diabetes What To Know Community Moderator Nick Zevgolis, and the Charlie’s Angels of Outreach.
Throughout the podcast we will be playing music from Mariah Carey’s “CAUTION” courtesy of SONY Music.
Diabetes Late Nite is a fast-paced, full-filled show of diabetes education and wellness advice with a twist that Diabetes Forecast Magazine describes as “not your typical fare”.
Divabetic (Divabetic.org) presents a month-long showcase celebrating 10 years of diabetes podcasting. Each of the featured podcasts spotlights our favorite guests, topics, poems, games and/or musical inspiration. Enjoy!
On Day 31, we’re spotlighting Divabetic’s Diabetes Late Nite Inspired by Maria Callasfrom January 2020. We’re talking about ways to help minimize the drama in our daily diabetes lives.
Maria Callas changed the way we listen to opera—and charged the ambition of the singers who followed her. Her ability to interpret a wide variety of different roles truly set her apart, establishing her as a phenomenon, an operatic diva. She was able to fully exploit the dramatic strength of her low vocal range as much as the high and bright notes of her high range.
Opera takes any type of dramatic story and tries to make it more exciting and more believable with the help of music. Symptoms and situations related to diabetes are often dramatic and come on very suddenly. But how do you react to them? Are you ‘drama queen’?
If there’s drama in multiple areas of your diabetes life, be honest with yourself—you’re the constant. Are you creating it? We don’t do anything repeatedly unless there’s something in it for us, so, what’s the payoff?
Every time we find ourselves immersed in something that seems overwhelming, we have an opportunity to learn how to deal with challenges better.
Our monthly podcasts are dedicated to Music Lovers living with, at risk and/or affected by diabetes. We aim to be the epicenter of the circle of care, a link between patients and their health care providers, a translator of clinical speak and a bridge between denial and acceptance, fear and confidence
Divabetic was inspired by the late music legend, Luther Vandross and created in 2005 by Max ‘Mr. Divabetic’ Szadek, who, as Vandross’ assistant of 14 years, witnessed his boss, mentor, and friend struggle in silence and solitude with the diabetes and its related complications. Since its inception, Divabetic has presented outreach programs in 15 major U.S. cities, reaching hundreds of thousands of women, their families and health care professionals.
Experience more of our GLAM MORE, FEAR LESS philosophy at divabetic.org
In my experience, stress is one of the biggest challenges in diabetes management – physical, mental and emotional stress. When the body goes into hyper drive and stimulates the fight or flight response, the relaxed part of our nervous system is supposed to kick in and produce calm. In our 21st century society that rarely happens. Instead we spend over 80% of our time in the stress response and 20% calming things down. How can we push the reset button? How can we stop the cycle of reacting to every single physical, mental and emotional upset?
Think of meditation as being the same as concentration. When you concentrate on something, your mind is engaged. Rather than identifying with difficult thoughts, emotions or even experiences, the mind is immersed in the task at hand. When you read, you have to be there, otherwise you miss the thread of the story. When you perform any detailed task, you can’t think about anything else. Herbert Benson, a researcher who studied what he coined the ‘Relaxation Response’ discovered that test subjects focussed on a specific repetitive task with the intention of letting go of the thoughts of the mind, experienced a parasympathetic (relaxed) nervous system response. Even more profound was the understanding that the thoughts didn’t need to disappear for the body to relax. Meditation is not ‘stopping’ your thoughts. It’s about drawing the attention away from the thoughts consistently enough so that the body mind complex can relax, rest and reset.
When students tell me, they can’t meditate because they can’t stop thinking, I assure them that nobody can stop thinking. Thoughts are like a screensaver. They remind us that we are awake. Thoughts are labels for things. Without these labels we wouldn’t have any way to differentiate the forms in creation. Without thoughts we wouldn’t be able to get by in the world. Rather than trying to control our thoughts or what we think of our thoughts, let’s become aware of the one having the thoughts. Who is that? What is that?
The Yoga tradition calls the nature of Self ‘wholeness, peace, love’ or any other word you want to use to describe that which is indescribable.
When we are relaxed and happy, there are no words.
One thing we can do to support our nervous system is to spend time in nature. According to a recent study just 1.5 hours a week spent in a forest, by the sea, in a community garden, anywhere away from concrete and glass is enough to replenish your system. But what if in a stressful moment you can’t go forest bathing?
Then the 5-element meditation is the next best thing.
Imagining and experiencing the elements in your mind’s eye not only evokes the relaxation response, it tricks the mind into thinking it’s in nature. Which ultimately it is. Whether we are in an office building or in our house in the suburbs we are still in the creation. Have you ever tried to get out of creation? Like leave in a spaceship? Impossible. Even in the far outer reaches of space you are still in creation.
The 5-element meditation evokes all the senses as well. Each sense is connected to an element.
Space is connected to the sense of hearing
Air is connected to the sense of touch
Fire is connected to the sense of sight
Water is connected to the sense of taste
Earth is connected to the sense of smell
As you are led through each sense and its corresponding element feel their interconnection.
To practice the meditation, you don’t need special clothes, or to be in a special place. You can be sitting in your car, lying in your bed, any comfortable position is fine. You can even use this practice to calm and centre yourself while you’re waiting for your blood sugar to come up after treating a hypo. I use this meditation whenever I need to be present to the moment. After the practice I always feel more ready and able to deal with whatever diabetes and life throws my way.
CLICK HERE to join me for the audio version of the Mediation on Divabetic’s Diabetes Late Nite podcast
The 5-element meditation
Find a comfortable seat and close your eyes
Become aware of your breath, notice the breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils. Notice whether the breath is cool or warm, notice the direction and force of the breath.
Become aware of the sounds around you – sounds of your breath, sounds in the room. After a few moments of listening reach and stretch your awareness to more distant sounds. Perhaps you can hear cars, birds, people talking. Keep reaching and stretching your awareness to the furthest sound. Noticing how sound travels through the medium of space. How space has no beginning or end.
Become aware of the sensation of touch. Notice where your hands are touching your thighs or resting in your lap. Sense the clothing touching your skin, feel the air travelling across your skin. Notice the quality of air. Is it warm, cool, erratic or consistent? Notice the air going in and out of your nostrils. Sense all the different ways your body interacts with air. Notice how air is light, subtle and only experienced through the skin and the sense of touch.
Become aware of your closed eyes. Notice the light filtering through your closed eyelids. Keep your eyes closed and notice if you can see the colours and patterns there. In order to see we need light, the element of fire. But even with the eyes closed seeing continues. Think of all the forms we can see in our minds eye. Think about how we cannot imagine something we have no knowledge of. Fire is the element that enables us to see forms and differentiate forms either real or imagined.
Become aware of the taste on your tongue. You might also notice the saliva there. Take a swallow. Notice whether the taste is sweet, sour, salty, bitter, astringent or pungent. Notice where the taste sits on your tongue. Is it at the back? On the side? At the tip? In order to taste water must be present. Notice how the rhythm of your breath, the beating of your heart is governed by circulation of fluid through the system.
Notice the smells around you. Can you smell one smell over another? In order to smell there has to be some gas rising from the earth or from something in the creation. The fragrance of a flower, the smell of pine needles, the spray from the ocean, the smell of a garden after rain. Try and take a moment to differentiate the smells. The element of earth also relates to our physical structure. Our bones, tissues and muscles.
Take a moment to focus on your position whether seated or lying down. Trace your mind from your sitting bones down to your feet. Wiggle your toes. Then moving from the feet up to the top of your head. Scan your whole body.
Notice how the body occupies the space – the space which is infinite, formless, empty and vast.
Come back to your breath. Notice what’s happening with your breath. Let the breath be exactly as it is.
Then slowly and when you are ready open your eyes and return to normal waking awareness.
Rachel Zinman, is an internationally renowned yoga teacher and writer, was floored when she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 42, despite her lifelong dedication to a healthy lifestyle which included a decades-long practice of yoga. In ‘Yoga for Diabetes’, Rachel shares her personal journey and her hard-won wisdom gained from her own experience of yoga and diabetes.
Finally we have a book written by an accomplished yoga teacher with diabetes herself who points the way to regaining health and well-being for people of all ages and types of diabetes.
In Yoga for Diabetes, regardless of your current state of health, or type of diabetes, you can look forward to learning how to:
Reduce stress in minutes and thus improve your overall health index
Achieve healthier and more stable blood glucose levels
Find the secrets to adapting a yoga practice to suit your constitution and individual needs
Find deeper meaning in life and thus a holistic healing affecting multiple levels of your well-being
https://youtu.be/dtaHAgyC5b4
Yoga for Diabetes – Beginner Yoga Routine with Rachel Zinman
