Chamomile tea is great for anxiety

As readers of this blog know, I'm am experienced when it comes to having to deal with anxiety (which I believe has given me great insight into this issue). One thing that I have been doing differently as of late is drinking a good amount of chamomile tea. What I do is, instead of using a single bag, I put two bags into a cup (makes it super concentrated). And I can just feel my anxiety melt away. I've read that chamomile acts like a mild tranquilizer and acts on areas of the brain similar to anti-anxiety medication. If you suffer from anxiety, I suggest checking it out, and giving it a good try (drink it for a few weeks). Of course take the necessarily precautions (like talking to your doctor, looking up side-effects, bad interactions with medications...etc.)

For me, if I drink a good ol' cup of chamomile tea right before class, it takes a huge notch out of my anxiety levels (I have mild social and generalized anxiety). My social anxiety is especially helped with chamomile because the "social anxiety" is just a really bad case of feeling awkward and not liking it (chamomile certain takes the edge off).

Disclaimer- I'm not responsible for anything that occurs as a result of this information. This information is for educational and/or entertainment (i.e. stuff "you can't sue me" for) purposes only. 


I put up the disclaimer here because I want to make it clear that this is just the observations of a lay-person, and it should be taken as such.

Godless Evil Atheist Blog - 11/3/11

Updated - 7:48 AM
Just another atheist day in an atheist universe. At least so far. One that last night that I read online that was a little disturbing was how Israel appears to be preparing to launch an attack against Iran (I believe it was from AP). As far as for today, for me, I have a class in the morning and two classes in the afternoon. After that, I will probably attend this meeting for extra credit (no idea what's about). 

Daily blog: 1/2/11

Updated - 11:01 PM
Super busy day today. Spent about 10 hours studying 130 pages worth of reading material (nonsense that I already read before, but wanted to review it again) for a test. So burned out, but I'm confident I did well on the test. While going to class (the one I had the test in, at 6:30 PM), there was this guy that was swearing and yelling at his (what I assume) girlfriend. Some people have no class and/or self-awareness of where they are. 

An Atheistic Religion

I want to start a cult. Yes, that's right, I'm not going to disguise this belief system as anything more than what it is. A good organised religion (i.e. cult) is one that is based on rational ideas. You may be wondering, what is the target of worship for this cult? YOU (a part of God). This is atheistic in that "God" doesn't exist "out there" but is just a label (the label being the word "God") for conscious energy (you being a piece of that pie).

Like nearly all cults, this cult is a patchwork of original and unoriginal ideas (many great ideas have already been had, and it would be a shame not to utilize them).

Here are a few of the core beliefs that lie at the foundation of this cult:

-God is the Pool of Consciousness
-Souls are like water droplets falling in a continuous cycle of evaporation and rain (there is no death, only loss of individuality).
-Conscious matter is subject to improvement over time (improvement = useful complexity)
-God (a pool of consciousness) has an influence (such as over its biological and external environments)
-The mind of God is a hive mind (bee = individual souls).
-Consciousness underlies the rapid evolution that has been seen in the last several million years
-The soul is essentially a "user" of a biological computer
-The soul has a bee to flower relationship with biology (you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours)
-The universe is subject to evolutionary forces (being an individual in the multiverse)
-There is no evil, only lack of useful complexity (some are useless in that they hold back progress, i.e. growth)

Soul = Conscious Mass x Efficiency (which improves when increasingly useful complexity is brought about)
Environmental influences = all which has an influence (souls included)

Well, that is a taste of what this belief system will entail. Stick around, this should be fun :)

http://cultofjeremy.blogspot.com/ (main site) 

Godless Evil Atheist Blog - 1/2/11

Updated - 8:26 AM
French class is in about 30 minutes, fun! Going to be a busy day for me, have a big test at 6 PM (Sociology of Social Services), and there is a lot of content to read through. 

Controlling ideas

All ideas are controlling. Even an idea as simple as "yellow is the best color" is designed to influence a person's worldview in some way.

rejecting an idea
If we don't accept an idea ( like "yellow is the best color"), then we reject the idea, and then throw up ideas to explain the source ("that guy is a dumb-ass", "that's just an opinion" etc.). But even a rejected idea has still had a controlling effect because of the way it influenced our thinking and perception (memory of the emotional stance is linked to the associated ideas) of the source (as being wrong).

Ever notice that when someone is confronted with information they have no confidence in understanding they will write it off as being "stupid" or "boring"? This is what we do to disqualify information so we don't feel the need to understand it (and feeling stupid isn't pleasant).

accepting an idea
Ideas that we accept have an immediate impact on the worldview: Contradictory ideas are discarded from the realm of "reality" (the worldview, which isn't actually real) and labeled as "wrong", "just superstition" "bigoted", "stupid", "intolerant", "science mumbo-jumbo" (such as in the case of a religious person  disowning contradictory scientific ideas like of evolution) etc. Ideas are either right (+) or wrong (-). The brain does not like grey areas, it likes its ideas to be neatly organized into two piles (positive or negative).


In this way, atheists are as controlled by ideas as the most devout believer. The difference is the way the ideas influence their worldview and actions. In the same way that there are certain ideas that no Christian would give up (e.g. God, heaven, souls), the same is true for atheists. Atheists would never give up the ideas like:

"logical thinking is the only way of validating information"
"the scientific method works and is accurate"

Some atheists are firm in their disbelief of souls and/or that abortion is morally permissible. It is ideas about ideas that allow atheists perceive themselves as being right about the invalidity of theistic ideas (and the same is true in reverse). It seems that both atheists and theists are victims of controlling ideas, and this is a control that isn't easy to escape (can only be truly escaped by viewing ideas as they are experienced, and perceiving the world through the senses). 

Godless Evil Atheist Blog - 11/1/11

Updated - 8:13 AM
It's 11/1/11!  isn't that a sign of some Apocalypse? I'm sure someone is shitting their pants now.

Just a boring day for me, have class at 9:30 AM (Sociology of Mental Illness), and then I have this class about woman's inequality in the workplace followed by Biological Ethics....fun! Big test in Sociology of Social Services tomorrow... God damn it! I just found a bug in the chamomile tea I made :(

On a random note, yesterday I was thinking about how ideas influence behavior, and I came to the conclusion that all ideas are designed to control two distinct areas: 1) perception of the world (i.e. worldview) and 2) actions. I'll probably write a blog post after this about my thoughts on ideas.. 


Wrote it, check it out: Controlling Ideas. 


Updated 
Today's classes were so strange (i.e. fucked up). In my first class we watched the oddest documentary that was made in the 1950s about this mental institution (or was it a prison?) in Russia. 80% of the video was old naked men stomping around and getting food poured down their noses with a hose/funnel. They also put this cotton ball (or that was what it looked like) in this guy's eye socket. After that class got done, I got food and relaxed in my dorm for a bit before my next class. In that class the topic was the sex slave trade that is going on TODAY (I was completely ignorant of it), and it is just awful. In Thailand, it is common for a family to sell their daughter in order to buy a color television. It's apparently a huge industry over there (black market, but even the police are involved, and if the girls/women escape, the police rape them and bring them back to their captors). And apparently this kind of thing happens all over the world. I guess many business men from the United States and Europe go to Thailand to have sex with enslaved children (shame they charges can't be brought against them in their home countries). And after that class, the next one's topic was abortion. It was funny how upset some of the people got when a pro-life student was making points (clearly an abortion survivor who wants their cake eat it to). What was annoying was how the teacher implied that all pro-lifers were religious. While many Christians are pro-life, many of them are not. I've also come across many pro-life atheists.