Many people hate to think about death or talk about it, not to mention visualising their funerals. I am in perfect agreement with the need not to live in the past or in the future but in the present. For only people who live in the present, not necessarily loosening and loosing themselves in pleasure, that is letting themselves go, who are really enjoying life. Life is all about gaining deep recognitions of present events and employing the lessons they bring to build bridges to the future. In this scenario, I have to constantly bestir myself to know who I am, where I came from, why I am here, how event I am priviledged to experience, bitter or sweet, are contributing to the fulfillment of that purpose, how well I am allowing my experiences and experiencing to enable me achieve this as purpose, and wither, someday, after earthly demise or death is an inevitable end-pole of this scenario. I was priviledged to be so emboldened early in life, after about three. Out of Body experiences OBEs that, at 27, I signed my funeral will and at 33 reconfirmed it to my wife. It permits of no live band(s), no singing, no grieving, sobbing or crying, no dining and no feasting, no revelry simply because I am gone. In accordance with my faith, my friends will, no doubt, be around to say “good-bye”. If am lucky to have severed from the corpse, after dethatching the silver cord from my soul, they’d be left with an empty carcass. I would love to have gone away even before my friends come around to encourage me to do so, in line with the teaching of my faith. For souls which are disturbed by many, if not all of today’s funeral event, such as tossing the coffin up and down like football, may become trapped in the corpses for month or even years, lonely or alone in the cemetery, while their families and friends imaging they have giving them a most befitting funeral.
Sleep apnea
The nearest many people come to thinking about death is sleep apnea, which in the Nigerian corner of the earth they think is caused by witches who try to kill them in their sleep. Do not get me wrong. I do not imply from this that witches or witchcraft does not exist. They are people who have understood certain possibilities in creation and manipulate them ethereally for negative and, rarely, positive ends. In the ethereal realm, they manipulate the ethereal bodies of their victims and, soon, the manipulations affect the physical body. This is what many people suspect and for which they seek “deliverance” in their churches or from the age-old native doctor who may order sacrifices to appease the witches or the gods. But what happens if the condition is physiological or biological? In the United States, where we do not hear so much about witches, a whooping 18 million suffer from sleep apnea and between two and four percent of the population suffer from it but do not know they do until their doctors orders sleep tests for other complains.
Symptoms
In the days I suffered from sleep apnea, I would suddenly feel from deep sleep that I was about to die. I would be unable to breathe, and it would appear something or someone was pressing me down, stopping me from breathing, with the intent of killing me. I was always lucky to wake up with a start otherwise I would not be alive today to tell the story. I would wake up if I could move an arm or a leg, or if there was such noise, such as the banging of a door, that would ordinarily and naturally rouse one from sleep.
In their Precriptions for natural cures, James F. Balch, M.D., and Mark stengner, N.D.,
Say: “sleep apnea affect five percent of adults, but most of them will never be diagnosed. During this condition, a person repeatedly stops breathing during the night and wakes up to catch his or breath. The two consequences of this are a significant drop in the blood’s oxygen and deprivation. Be suspicious of this condition if you snore, have daytime sleepiness, have high blood pleasure, or are overweight.
People who sleep on their back are more likely to suffer from sleep apnea.
any of us do. It is still the most convenient way for me to sleep. But, these days, I adjust to the right side when I catch myself along so, or crossing my legs which I understand may predispose one to a heart attack or stroke by causing muscle misalignments. Regarding sleeping apnea on one’s back, I recall my maternal grandmother rousing her grand children from sleep and warning that if witches flew past, they would see all of one’s internal organs and feast on whichever organ pleased them. We now know sleeping on one’s back may make the tongue to fall back, blocking the airways in the upper throat. The soft muscles at the back of the throat may also over- relax blocking the airways. This may cause snoring as little air is forced through. Breathing may ceased for 10 to 20 seconds hundreds of times a night. This causes oxygen deprivation, light sleep and headaches next day, apart from tiredness and loss of concentration. Over a long period, sleep apnea may cause diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and weight gain among other problems. Some researchers have diffentiated about three types of sleep apnea, namely…
•Obstructive sleep apnea: In this condition, the most common, caused by relaxation of soft tissue at the back of the throat. This may cause loud snores.
•Centre sleep apnea: This involves the Central Nervous System (CNS) when the brain does not control muscles which control breathing. The sufferers seldom snore.
•Complex Sleep Apnea: When obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea interlock, the result is complex sleep apnea.
Inobstructive Sleep Apnea, he sufferer hardly recognizes anything goes wrong in his or her sleep. For by simply adjusting the sleep position, sleep resumes. An indicator is often heaviness the next day due to lack of deep sleep which refreshes and revitalizes. In Central Sleep Apnea, the brain works through the CNS to correct the problem. This possible explains some cases of restless leg syndrome, a situation in which constant leg jerks disturb sleep or, in this case rouses the oxygen – deprived sleeper to life.
Treatment
As in all health challenges, natural remedies comprise measures to eliminate the problems from their root causes. So the following approaches may be tried.
•Sleeping on the side, is better than sleeping on the back. Some people prefer the right side to the left in the belief that lying on the left may affect the heart in some ways. I learnt to alternate between lying on the side and lying face down.
•In the days I experience sleep apnea, I ran a test which suggested I didn’t have enough oxygen in the brain. In such a condition, it is possible to experience swoons even when the red blood count, the iron level and the blood sugar level are normal. I learned to start and close the day with two capsules each time with VITALAIRE, and oxygen formular. The deep green plants are available for oxygenation in oxygen- deprived conditions such as sleep apnea. I love wheatgrass, spirulina, Barley grass, Alfalfa, Kale and Spinach in powder form, taken as a tea or added to meals. In then and other greens, plants have captured and stored oxygen in their chlorophyll for the benefit of man. For chlorophyll is composed of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen, all of which are necessary for the formation and maintenance of cells.
•As the muscles at the back of the throat fall to the air passage, the improvement of muscles tone or strength is called for. Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols of the d- alpha variant) is highly recommended. It has proven its worth in the upkeep of the heart and uterus, two of the body’s mascular organs. Lady’s mantle, traditionally used to improve tone in uterine muscles, is good for this purpose. So as calcium and magnesium. Calcium contracts, magnesium relaxes. They combine in a 2:1 ratio. Some doctor prefer they be taken separately at different times of the day to guarantee maximum absorption of each. Some do not mind them being taken together. Some authorities believe vitamin D deficiency is a cause of the weakness of theses muscles. Indeed, vitamin D, especially D3, is believed to be needed for optimal Calcium absorption. My preference is CORAL CALCIUM, which comes with not only calcium but magnesium and about 40 other minerals in a state nearly as balanced, if not in the same proportions as Mother Nature gave them to man. I obtain them, also from an alkaline form of Vitamin C. I take, to which manganese and iron are also added. Ditto from green powder drinks.
•Sinus and throat infections play some roles in throat conditions. Sometimes, these problems begin in the mouth with gum and teeth infections or disease. When people complain of symptoms of sleep apnea, I try to get close to them to size their breathe. Often, the breathe is foul and the tongue is gray, indicating candida may have a hold. For oral teeth, Diatom may be pasted on the gum and teeth overnight. Alternatively, a capsule of probiotic (friendly bacteria) may be used in like manner. There are many nasal and mouth sprays for the condition.
•Some doctors have reported in medical journals that weight loss does help. In one such publication, about 20 percent in an experimental group recovered from sleep apnea after an aggressive weight loss programme.
•Many authorities suggest sleep – promoting food supplements such as Melatonin, (to be used for short periods), melatonin, 5-HTTP, Valerian root, Passion Flower, Calcium and Magnesium, and Vitamin B12, St. John’s Wort (not to be used when on medication for depression).
•Since muscles are involved in sleep apnea, and since muscles do not work or misbehave without nerves imploring them, nerve tonics are indicated for this condition. The suggestions in No 6 above should help. One more I’d like to mention is the biochemic/homeopathic cell salt named KALI MUR. It heals mangled nerves.
Many of us do not wish to think about death. Also we do not wish to die. Yet sleep apnea is a potential source of death and we treat it with kid gloves, labeling it a handiwork of witches and a “spiritual attack”. A friend of mine suffers from it. He has had about three day – time symptoms of a near stroke. Yet he avoids laboratory tests and medications.
Treachery, like all falsehood. Will inevitably Collapse.
We live on a planet where air, water and food are poisoned and where the ethereal environment is despoiled by treachery in human relationships. The inauguration week last of Senator Bukola
Saraki as Senate President of the Buhari Presidency era smells of nothing but treachery. And if treachery is a wrong or false principle of life and, therefore, stands in opposition to God in whom we all claim to believe, what profit will treachery bring if, in the end of all things, whatever is false or opposed to the Will of God must collapse? I do not think the election of Bukola Saraki as Senate President would be rancorous and divisive and divertusionary as it has become if the organizers had followed due process. By the way, due process is not about the constitutionalism or legalism of the Senate forming a quorum for the election. It is about imbuing the process with trust. The process is trust deficiency when, for the purpose of the election, a large Section of the Senate is led away to hold a meeting that never was with the President of the Federal Republic and another large Section is retained in the Senate Chambers to elect a Senate President. What has aggravated ill Feelings towards the election of Bukola Saraki as Senate President is the fact that, as a member of President Buhari’s party, the APC, he, too, should have been in the group of Senators which went to attend a meeting with the President. Because he was not at that meeting, and because it should have been obvious to him that his fellow APC Senators were not in the Senate chambers, he exposed himself to suspicions that a plot was hatched of which he knew or was a part to exclude some Senators from the voting. As many commentators have observed, such a process was not only at variance with the Change the APC promised to bring to Nigerian political life and social order, it was inimical to it. For the foundation is false, the structure on it would wobble.
t is still unclear if the saraki senate thunderbolt is the “major” event president Buhari said last month would happen in early June, or if this is yet to come. Meanwhile, he has promised to work with whichever senate leadership emerges. In my view, that is throwing caution to the wind or, since the statement came after saraki’s inauguration, a way of validating it. Again in my humble view, it should have been better if the president remained neutral, allowing the senate to resolve its differences, especially as he has promised not to middle, like his predecessors, in National Assembly affairs. By not doing so, the president is saying he is ready to dance to music, any music, even if the fingers of Lucifer are on the strings of the harp. Yet the president was brought to office by the prayers, steadfastness and faith of people who saw him as man who does not dine with the devil and who would relax Lucifer’s hold on Nigeria.
The PDP, routed in the last elections, has suddenly found its feet and voice in the senate, with a senate president who is APC in body but PDP in spirit, and deputy senate president who is PDP in body and spirit. What may happen next is that it would bare it fangs, and president Buhari may resort to EFCC in self defense. In that case, will anything have changed. In the second series of buhari articles, this column warned that APC presidential election victory lifted the lair of the snake and that a snake half smitten is a dangerous snake which would seek to avenge the intrusion on its life for as long as it had any breath to fight back. Now, APC would appear chained in the senate for PDP to begin to work towards recovering the presidency under a Bukola Saraki who would have returned to the PDP after pulverising the APC.
All the die- hard PDP people I met last week had suddenly come alive from hiber nation. One of them, a so- called pastor, was most irritating. I call him so- called pastor because, as people who calm to be serving the creator, whether he called them to his service or they are trying to force themselves on him, which is impossible, are supposed to live and act on the basis of certain ethical and spiritual standards which separate them from Dic and Harry men or the run-of the- mill men, otherwise they may not qualify to lead rustic, emotional and slumbering human spirits out of the moraks in which they think. This pastor was jubilating hilariously. I asked if he had thought of the implications of what had happened to Nigeria, and to the prospects of change. He said there was nothing like change, that the word was an empty electioneering slogan. I asked if, as a pastor, he did not see treachery at play or know that treachery is a grave betrayal of trust or if as a Pastor he had not learned that betrayal of trust, prevalent on earth today, is a sign of an approaching Final Judgement. This Pastor, to my dismay, said all of that didn’t matter, that “this is politics”. To him, life on the pulpit could be separated from life in politics or even business. I did not give up, leading him back to his Bible.
•Cain killed his brother Abel. Treachery.
•Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus. Treachery.
•King David took the wife of Uriah, a soldier fighting in the war front to protect the land over which David was king. To cover his shame, David recalled Uriah home only to give him a letter for the commander. Uriah in trust, did not read this letter. David asked that Uriah to be posted to the hottest sector of the war where he would be killed and Uriah was killed. Treachery.
•David’s son, Amon, loved his sister, Tamar, a virgin, so much he wished to sleep with her. His friend, Jehonaidab, the son of David’s brother, advised him to pretend he was ill and would get well only if Tamar brought him a meal in the privacy of his bedroom. Tamar, on suspecting, took a meal to her brother. When they were both alone Amnon seized Tamar.
