Participants: Agatha Thrash, Don Miller
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000141
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00:01 Hello, for very active people rest may seem to be a waste
00:06 of time, but many people understand the benefits 00:10 of rest and for them it's a blessing. 00:12 I'm Agatha Thrash from Uchee Pines Institute, 00:15 there we recommend that people get plenty of rest, 00:19 so we hope you will join us as we discuss the whole topic 00:22 of rest as well as we can in the next half an hour, 00:25 join us, won't you. 00:46 Welcome to Help Yourself To Health 00:49 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute, 00:52 and now here is your host Dr. Thrash. 00:59 Probably the most important thing to a life of restfulness 01:04 is trust in God. 01:06 Certainly our love for God, our trust in Him brings a life 01:11 of restfulness, but there are some things that 01:13 you can do also. 01:14 You can make your life, you can make your surroundings, 01:18 you can make your home, your car, and your schedule, 01:21 you can make these all very regular, very orderly, 01:27 very balanced, and as you do that, you'll find that your life 01:31 does have a great deal of restfulness. 01:33 I would like to show you my schedule, while it may not be 01:37 ideal, and it may not be something that will fit you 01:40 I hope that as we go through my daily schedule, 01:43 you will that I have tried to make it as regular as possible. 01:47 Notice that I try to get up at five in the morning, 01:51 and I immediately get ready for outdoor exercise. 01:55 This outdoor exercise is going to be vigorous so I want the 01:58 proper clothing for outdoor exercise, very vigorous 02:02 and sometimes it is even hard labor. 02:05 Then right away at 5:05, generally I can begin devotions, 02:11 and my devotions will usually last until it's time for 02:16 family worship at about 6:45. 02:18 Then we have a breakfast around 7:00 every morning when worship 02:23 finishes, we don't cut it off exactly, but when worship 02:27 is finished then we have breakfast, and usually I can 02:31 count on breakfast lasting about an hour from the time 02:35 we sit down and get served, eat, brush teeth, and everything 02:41 is ready for us to take our leave from the house, 02:46 usually I can count on about an hour so at about 8:00 02:50 I can expect that I can go outside for outdoor labor. 02:53 Now you will notice in the next graphic that I will be 02:59 showing you here that after hard labor, then at around 03:04 10:00 in the morning I come inside from hard labor 03:08 where I have gotten some sunshine and some relaxing 03:13 and sometimes very difficult labor and shower and dress 03:20 and go to the office. 03:21 Then during my office time it's usually rather busy but 03:27 about 1:00, most of the time, fairly promptly at 1:00, 03:32 sometimes a little bit before, sometimes a little bit after 03:36 1:00, I get the opportunity to go to my home and have 03:42 some quiet time. 03:43 At that time I may have prayer or read the Bible, 03:46 or take a short nap. 03:49 I like to take a nap before a meal rather that after because 03:53 after a meal naps are inhibiting to the digestive process 03:59 so we don't want to do it after a meal but rather have the body 04:03 relaxed and rested before the meal. 04:05 Then I can expect that about an hour will be occupied 04:11 in the whole process of lunch time, then back to the office 04:15 around 2:30 until some time after 8:00 I'm in the office, 04:22 then I go home for evening devotion. 04:26 Evening devotion may last a little longer than until 9:00 04:32 but usually bed time is at 9:00, and bedtime is then 04:38 a time that has followed a regular and fairly relaxing day. 04:44 So as you see as this kind of schedule may give you some 04:50 ideas as to how you can make a schedule for yourself. 04:54 I have not mentioned in this schedule any interruptions, 04:59 and you may think oh that would be very boring if I had to 05:03 get up the same time every day and do the same thing 05:05 all the time. 05:06 I just wish it were possible to do that very thing and to 05:11 maintain the schedule so accurately as I have put it 05:14 there, but if you will have a schedule, then those 05:17 interruptions that come... I did not mention the five 05:19 telephone calls that may come during breakfast, 05:22 or the two people who may come to visit me during 05:26 the time I'm doing outdoor labor. 05:28 So I try to account for those in some way, I try to make 05:32 certain that I attend to telephone calls in a way 05:37 that will make it so that I can use as little time 05:41 as possible in that, and maybe make an appointment 05:43 later for a more extended call. 05:45 Or if people come to visit me during my outdoor labor 05:49 I'm very happy for that because I just give them the extra 05:51 shovel that I have there for that very purpose, 05:53 or an extra hoe, or I put a watering hose in their hand 05:58 or something of that nature. 05:59 I don't mind people visiting during my labor time because 06:04 it just gives me an extra hand at work. 06:06 I do not stop to visit, for the most part it has to be 06:10 an extremely unusual person for me to actually stop my labor 06:16 to entertain somebody, usually that will be a sick 06:20 child, I will stop for that. 06:23 There are many more things about restfulness than just being 06:27 regular about your habits, and I have here with me Don Miller, 06:31 and Don Miller is a lifestyle counselor at Uchee Pines 06:35 and he will talk with you also about some things having 06:38 to do with rest. Don miller! 06:40 Ok! I just want to tell a story first Dr. Thrash. 06:43 When I was first at Uchee Pines years ago, a brand new worker 06:47 and one evening she says brother Don, I need to talk with you 06:50 tomorrow morning at 8:00 at my son's home, I said fine, 06:53 I will be there. 06:55 So at 8:00 the next morning there I was standing at his 06:57 step just waiting for Dr. Thrash to show up, I was new and 07:00 and I was going to talk with Dr. Agatha Thrash, 07:03 and I was waiting, and I said she is not a very punctual 07:05 woman is she. 07:06 I kept looking at my watch, pretty soon I heard 07:08 Brother Don, and I heard it coming from down the hill 07:12 in the bush and I looked down there, and there she was 07:14 just a whacking the bushes and calling my name. 07:16 I walked down there and she handed me a hoe, 07:18 she said ok let's talk, for the next two hours we talked 07:21 and we worked in that woods, so if you ever go to visit 07:24 Dr. Thrash between 8:00 and 10:00 in the morning 07:27 wear your work clothes because that may be what you are doing. 07:30 There are many types of rest and I think back to my 07:34 military experience, in the military they tell you there are 07:37 four types of rest, there is Parade rest, at ease rest, 07:41 and fall out. 07:42 We learned how to do all of those things, if we could only 07:45 learn to do as well the four types of rest that God has 07:49 given to us, we would be a whole lot better. 07:51 The first type of rest is just the relaxing rest 07:54 where you have had a busy day, you just sit down and relax, 07:59 you may lay in the hammock, you may sit in the chair, 08:02 it's just a change in pace rest. 08:04 The second one is the meditation rest, 08:07 we are going to fill each one of these out as we go along 08:10 but that meditation rest where we rest in the Lord, 08:12 He said come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden 08:15 I will give you rest. 08:17 The other one is to rest in sleep where at night time 08:21 and it's best at night time, we lay down and let our bodies 08:24 fully get a good night's rest. 08:26 The forth type of rest which is the most precious type of rest 08:30 there is, is the Sabbath rest and I'm going to fill that out 08:33 a little bit later about this great thing called the 08:36 Sabbath rest. 08:37 So God has given us four ways to rest and we need to have 08:40 all four of them to truly be balanced people Dr. Thrash. 08:44 Yes, and meditation is one of those that I like very much. 08:48 Meditation is a state of the mind in which a person allows 08:55 the mind to focus on one thing and you hold that one thing 08:59 in the mind for quite a while. 09:01 Now anyone who has studied brain physiology knows 09:05 a topic cannot be held at one spot in the brain for very long 09:12 we sort of wear out the chemicals to think 09:15 in that particular area, so then we need to transfer it 09:18 to another. 09:19 As it is transferred there we enrich it with things that come 09:23 from various parts of the brain that have been stored there 09:27 in other parts of the brain so that we bring the entire 09:30 brain, or we can bring the entire brain into focus as 09:35 as we engage in the meditation process. 09:38 When I meditate I like to take a Bible with me, 09:41 my very favorite to meditate is to take a Bible, go into 09:47 nature in some way, either by a stream, 09:49 that's my preferred place, or in the deep woods and there 09:54 sit on a log or a stump and read a passage in the Bible. 10:00 Let the mind savor that passage and think about it 10:04 from all angles, this angle, and that angle, another angle 10:09 and all the time bringing in various aspects of those stored 10:15 thoughts and stored information that I have through a 10:18 life time of experiences. 10:19 Now I'm very fortunate some times that I have someone else 10:24 who will go with me. 10:25 Perhaps a friend or a relative who will go with me to 10:30 my meditation spot and then that person also meditates 10:36 at the same time. 10:37 Somehow it enriches your meditation experience 10:40 if you have someone else with you who is also 10:43 reading the Bible, and will occasionally share 10:47 a passage, but not just keep up a constant chatter. 10:49 That's not the time when you are meditating, 10:52 it's not the time for a constant chatter. 10:54 Just a shared passage occasionally with a gem 10:59 of thought that the other person has that may be also for you, 11:02 something that is enriching to the mind. 11:05 Sometimes you will see something in nature that 11:10 you just want to share with someone, see a little animal 11:14 or an ant, or a mineral perhaps beside you that you just 11:19 like to share with someone. 11:21 So it is nice if you have someone with you in those times 11:26 in your meditation process. 11:27 Prayer is often a part of meditation, so you pray, 11:32 you read a passage, and you say dear Lord this is a 11:36 very high standard, how can I possibly meet this standard? 11:41 Then you talk with the Lord about that, then you meditate 11:46 on ways and the Holy Spirit brings to your mind ways 11:50 that you can accomplish what is mentioned there in the Bible, 11:54 or will enlarge to your understanding something 11:57 about the spiritual world where God lives, 12:02 or the work that God has given to us to do. 12:06 These are some things about meditation that I think will be 12:10 beneficial to you. 12:11 Rest is not all just meditation and lying down, 12:19 but some of it is, some of it is relaxation that might come 12:24 that one might have with a foot rub. 12:26 I have with me Valerie Schreiber who is one of my co-workers 12:31 at Uchee Pines, a Lifestyle Counselor and one of our 12:34 educators there and with her is my granddaughter Melissa 12:38 and Melissa is going to have a great good fortune 12:41 of having a foot rub. Valerie! 12:44 Thank you! At our home foot massage 12:48 has been a big part of our life, in fact we were massaging 12:52 our children's feet when they were little and even though 12:55 they are in their 39 and 40 year old now, they still love 12:59 their feet to be massaged. 13:00 In fact we were just on a vacation together and 13:03 my daughter said, before you go home I have to have 13:05 my foot massage. 13:06 So I want to show you how you can massage feet 13:10 and relax the person. 13:12 We had a patient recently at Uchee Pines that was suffering 13:16 from drug withdraw, and she would be very nervous 13:19 and very agitated, so I went in and just started massaging 13:23 her feet and talking to her and before long she would 13:26 just start to clam right down. 13:27 So Melissa you come here and I'm going to show you 13:31 how we do it in our home. 13:43 First we take the feet and I kind of circle them like this 13:48 and then I circle them the other way, and then I push them up 13:53 and do a stretch on them, and stretch them back like this. 13:56 Many times I go up the leg and just massage up the leg, 14:01 it feels real good to them to massage up the leg like this, 14:06 you just kind of cupping it like this, just going up 14:10 and it feels sooo good. 14:15 The I just take my hands and I start doing little circles 14:20 down the feet... In fact many times 14:23 I just go down the feet this way, and then do the toes, 14:27 the toes somehow when you massage on the toes, 14:31 and you kind of circle them around and massage around them, 14:36 it relaxes them, your body somehow to massage the toes 14:42 it just feels good and kind of relaxes you a lot better. 14:45 So I circle down the toes, circle them, go across them 14:50 like this, many times I just shift hands and I go right down 14:56 the feet just like this, and massage. 15:00 Then you get underneath the feet, and underneath the feet, 15:07 again you would take your thumb and you do circles 15:11 like this, and you just circle all around like this. 15:16 Some people can be ticklish, and if they are ticklish 15:22 then you would do a flat move. 15:24 A flat move would be just like this, you would take your hand 15:28 and you would go down the feet like this and down like this, 15:33 and across. 15:37 Or you can take your fist like this and go right down 15:41 just like this, and that can also relax them depending upon 15:47 whether they are ticklish or not. 15:49 Otherwise you just start kneading the feet 15:52 with your fingers, moving them up like this and go across 16:00 this way, and I get way over here in the arch, 16:05 and work the arch real good, then I pick the leg up 16:11 and I do the heel, I massage all around the heel and turn it 16:16 a little bit and massage. 16:18 Oh, it feels so good! Some people like it firm 16:24 and some people like it more tender, so you can do more 16:27 of a soothing stroke. 16:29 I used to tickle my mom's feet a lot when she was 16:32 feeling bad, and I would just tickle them and do just like 16:36 this with them, and I would tickle up her legs and 16:40 it would just relax her and put her right to sleep. 16:43 So you can do this in various ways, no set method, 16:47 just get in there and use your hands and work on the feet 16:50 and you will get results, and see the person calm right down 16:54 and go right to sleep. 16:55 Are you ready to go to sleep Melissa? 17:05 I don't know if I can talk about sleep right after seeing 17:08 that very nice relaxing massage. 17:10 Wouldn't that make you want to go to sleep? 17:12 Let me talk with you just a little bit about sleep. 17:17 Sleep is sort of a mystical thing and we don't know 17:22 exactly what sleep is, we just know this 17:25 that it is relaxing, that it is refreshing both to body 17:29 and to mind, it is also relaxing to the spirit. 17:32 If you have something that is really weighting down on you 17:35 and you are able to make a good sleep time, then you can 17:39 awaken being very refreshed. 17:41 There is a kind of rest that we want to understand 17:46 better than we do, and that is the Sabbath rest. 17:50 How to observe this wonderful day, that we might receive the 17:54 blessings from it. 17:55 I think one of the best reasons, maybe the biggest reason 18:00 to obey beyond that of wanting to please our Heavenly Father 18:04 is to want to receive the blessing that He has put it that 18:09 Commandment for us. So when He says "Remember" 18:11 my Sabbath Day, I want to remember it in the very way 18:16 that He says "Remember it," knowing that He knows best 18:21 what that blessing is. Don Miller would you talk 18:23 with us some about the Sabbath rest? 18:26 The Sabbath rest is a great gift that God has given to man. 18:30 We look back at creation week, God was very busy that 18:33 first week, He made all the things in the universe 18:36 that first week, and on the sixth day He made man, 18:39 the crowning act of His creation. 18:41 The best gift that he could give to man was the Sabbath 18:44 the very first day, man's first full day was the Sabbath day 18:49 and he could spend that day alone with God. 18:52 What a special blessing, and God still wants man to have 18:56 that experience with Him. 18:57 We realize that the year is based on how long it takes 19:00 for the earth to go around the sun, the month 19:03 is based upon how long the moon to go around the earth. 19:06 The day is based upon how long it takes the earth to go around 19:10 on it's axis, but what's the week based on? 19:15 The week is based on creation. 19:17 We say that there is nothing astronomical about that, 19:20 there is nothing physical about that but science has found 19:24 that there is a seven-day cycle in nature, 19:27 there is a seven-day cycle in man. 19:29 We know about the 28 day cycle, the eighteen month cycle, 19:32 there are many hair cycles that we have, but there is 19:35 a number of studies a Dr. Hallberg from 19:38 The University of Minnesota in charge of the chronobiology lab 19:43 has studied with a number or scientists around the world 19:45 and he said that there is a Circaseptan Rhythm, a seven day 19:50 Circadian rhythm as we can call it. 19:53 Three studies that they have found I want to just mention 19:56 very briefly here. 19:57 They had one study, they had a man, they place him in a cave 20:03 for a number of months so the nothing was affecting 20:06 his internal clock. 20:09 Nothing was around him to do anything stressful. 20:12 The sun didn't come up, the sun didn't go down, 20:15 he was just monitored as far as his heart rate, 20:18 after a number of months they found that his heart followed 20:22 a seven-day cycle. 20:23 They took another man for 15 years, a healthy man, 20:27 and they measured the stress hormones in his urine. 20:31 Every day they measured those hormones, 20:33 and after a 15 year period they found that there was a 20:36 definite pattern in the stress hormones every seven days. 20:40 They took a group of 70 young men who had their wisdom teeth 20:44 pulled, they measured their faces and their jaws 20:48 and you would expect that at first there was swelling 20:51 and slowly the swelling would go down. 20:53 But they found that every seventh day, for the first two 20:56 cycles swelling would increase seven days and at 14 days. 21:01 They find that people who have kidney transplants, 21:05 their biggest crisis day is the seventh day, 21:08 the second biggest crisis day is seven days later, 21:13 that means that we do have a seven day rhythm that we follow. 21:16 Now away from that they have found in nature, certain insects 21:21 and animals that not only keep a seven day cycle, 21:23 they keep the seventh day cycle on the Sabbath, 21:28 The seventh-day Sabbath, the Biblical Sabbath. 21:31 Certain insects and animals do no work, there is a 21:34 certain type of bee that on the Sabbath doesn't make honey, 21:38 doesn't go out there and gather pollen, it rests 21:41 on the Sabbath day. 21:42 I believe that God has in nature, examples 21:45 for us to follow. God gave us the Sabbath 21:48 as a rest, a day in which we spend that special time 21:51 with Him. 21:53 I can't even imagine Adam on that first Sabbath day 21:55 saying ughh! I am going to do some lay activities. 21:58 No! I think he spent that whole day alone with God 22:02 from as soon as the sun went down until 22:04 that sun went down at the end of the Sabbath. 22:07 He spent special hours, special time with the father 22:11 and I think that's exactly, no, I don't think, I know 22:14 that is exactly what God wants for us to do now. 22:16 He gave us the Sabbath as a gift, He said the Sabbath 22:20 was made for man, not man for the Sabbath 22:22 and He says I want to talk with you this day. 22:25 I believe on the Sabbath day God has special blessings 22:29 in store, I believe that He wants to pour out His richest 22:32 blessings, as a matter of fact I believe that on the 22:35 Sabbath day God is more busy than any other day of the week, 22:38 because it's on that day that we spend more time talking 22:41 with Him. 22:42 More time requesting things of Him, and on this day 22:46 God is always trying to show us that He loves us with an 22:49 everlasting love, so if you have not yet experienced 22:53 the Sabbath rest I think you should. 22:55 A few years ago there was a couple at Uchee Pines, 22:59 that came to Uchee Pines, they were sort of counseling 23:02 with me about some marital problems and I don't know 23:05 anything about marital problems so I went to talk to Dr. Thrash 23:08 and I said Dr. Thrash, they've got these problems 23:11 what should I do? 23:12 She said ask them how they observe the Sabbath? 23:16 I believe just like flying in an airplane... 23:19 I'm a pilot and if your plane goes into a spring, 23:21 they say the best thing to do is to let go and it will 23:25 right itself. 23:26 I believe that if our lives are out of control, let go on the 23:30 Sabbath and let God hold you that whole Sabbath day 23:33 and I think you are going to find some real rest 23:36 and some real healing Dr. Thrash. 23:38 Yes! It's a more important item than we have understood. 23:42 Now we cannot exhaust the whole topic of rest but I have asked 23:46 John Champen if he will make a discussion for you 23:50 of some of his observations of the topic of rest. 23:54 This is John Champen who is one of my co-workers 23:57 at Uchee Pines, a Lifestyle Counselor and an Educator there 24:02 and works in Administration also, so at this time 24:07 John Champen. 24:08 One of the most interesting aspects of rest 24:11 that I have found is that we need to be able to give 24:14 our guilt away. 24:15 People are not able to rest at night or during the day 24:19 because they feel guilty, their minds are not at ease, 24:23 their conscience bother them, they try to push these things 24:25 to the side, or they try to get a friend, or someone else 24:28 to sit down and share these things with. 24:31 When I finished junior high school my mother wrote 24:36 in my autograph book these words: "What's in your heart 24:42 let no one know, nor to your friends your secrets show. 24:46 But when your friends become your foe, then all your secrets 24:51 they shall know. " There is something to that, 24:54 God wants you to bring these things to Him, 24:56 bring your problems to Him, bring your concerns to Him, 24:59 and give your guilt away. 25:02 In a little book entitled Steps To Christ, 25:04 the chapter entitled Give Your Guilt Away, 25:07 the rest that we can have depends quite a bit upon 25:12 giving our guilt away. 25:13 Let the Lord take those things that are bothering you, 25:17 those thing that are not right in your life, and you know 25:20 they are not right, let Him take them and you can enter 25:23 into the Sabbath rest and enjoy all the rest 25:25 that God has for you Dr. Thrash. 25:27 Yes! Just as with all other activities of life, 25:32 rest can be over done, we can rest so much that the body 25:38 begins to be sick in some way, or to degenerate in some way, 25:43 and we can also recognize that as we rest to much the mind 25:48 begins to malfunction. 25:50 People who sleep to much and have to much leisure time 25:55 they often have a superficiality of their character 26:00 and their personalities begin to express themselves 26:03 in a sort of giddiness, and also some people who are not 26:08 so disposed as others in their mental expression, 26:11 others may get a depression from too much rest. 26:15 Also resting to much or sleeping to much is actually a sign 26:20 or depression, if a person tells you they sleep all day 26:25 then they can go to bed and sleep all night, the next day 26:28 they can do the same thing and just get up to eat 26:30 and go to the bathroom, these individuals may be 26:33 sick with depression. 26:34 If they are, there is a certain special program that you should 26:39 give to them, and one is to tell them to go to bed 26:41 two hours earlier than they put their bed time. 26:45 Then eight hours later they must get up, then they put themselves 26:49 in a very brightly lighted room and stay there until 26:52 the sun rises. 26:54 When the sun rises they should get out into the sunshine 26:56 and there have their circadian rhythm sort of re-set, 27:02 so this can be a help to the person who has depression 27:06 to know that to much sleeping can also be a problem, 27:10 then people can find that their rest, relaxation, their sleep 27:15 is robbed by such things as coffee, tea, colas, chocolate, 27:22 even highly spiced food can rob people of their sleep. 27:26 Recognizing these things can help the person who has 27:31 a problem sleeping to know how to have a diet that 27:34 will cooperate with them in making certain that they 27:39 have the best opportunity for rest and sleep. 27:42 Now we hope that these things that we presented to you 27:47 will be for you a help in your total obedience to the 27:54 eight natural laws of health. |
Revised 2014-12-17