A Quick Cure for Hiccups

A quick search in the internet will tell you all sorts of methods to get rid of hiccups. Some of the more popular ways proposed online are:

• Hold your breath
• Drink water
• Get tickled
• Get scared

Different methods work for different people, so I am going to propose a method of my own in addition to the myriad of online methods - Acupressure.

You don't need to be an acupressure expert to pull this one. When you are suffering from hiccups, all you have to do is to locate the solar plexus point and give it a long firm press.

There are many points corresponding to the solar plexus. I am going to give you the one that is most accessible. It is on your palm, below your middle finger and slightly below the balls of your palm. You can press on either left or right palm. It doesn't matter as long as you are pressing the right area.

Basically, by pressing the solar plexus point, you are sending in signal to centre yourself. This will help your body cope with changes as it relaxes and balances itself.

Hopefully this simple method can be useful for you all.

Basil Flower

Just a few months, my basil plant is now flowering. I read that we shouldn't let basil flower so that the taste will be better. However, I only pinched off the flower for one of my two bigger basil plants. I would like to let one flower and make some comparison. In addition to that, propagating basil proves to be very easy. Now, I am assured of constant supply of basil for myself.
Basil Flower
In addition to that, my butterfly peas in pot are finally flowering after many failures in flowering. It seems like I have given them too small a pot that whenever the weather heats up a bit, they will begin to dry up and wilt. So, they will drop off all the flowers in favour of survival. This flowering resulted after I moved the pot further into the house, reducing amount of direct sunlight. However, they are still occasionally suffering from dryness. Hopefully, I can care for them well enough to bear me some seeds to propagate more of the plant.
Butterfly Pea Flower

Curious Cases of Iridology

Iridology often gets the bashing from scientific community that it is pseudo-scientific. They argue that the irides rarely, almost never, change throughout a person's life time.

As a practicing iridology, I beg to differ. This argument is invalid simply because, if a person never made any major changes in his/her lifestyle and diet (as would be recommended by an iridologist), how can we expect the person's irides to change? What he/she had been doing all the while gave this patterns in the irides. And as long as this same lifestyle/diet persisted, the patterns will remain!

Although I am still quite new in my practice, I have already witnessed a case of changes in the irides. The subject was a young girl in her early 20s. Her irides display rosary pattern, signifying poor lymphatic movements and toxin accumulation. I advised her to go for more vegetables in her diet, do some exercises and use my aromatherapy oil to enhance the effect. A few months after that, I came back to observe her irides and the rosary pattern was no longer there. Though there was still signs of toxin accumulation and poor bowel movement, the improvement was definitely significant and observable.

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In addition to the above, I have observed a few very interesting cases in iridology. There were several individuals who displayed signs of weakness or stress in their adrenal glands and upon further interview, I found out that they suffer somewhat of a similar symptom. They are somewhat easily stressed up or go into panic mode. Nervousness and general sense of fear is common.

There is another case of consuming large amount of coffee. This man also demonstrated weakness in the adrenal glands. It is very likely that the coffee overstimulated his adrenal glands, hence they are constantly working in hyper drive.

Medically, this may not be seen as a symptom or an issue with the adrenal glands or health. However, this makes perfect sense in a holistic viewpoint. There is still much to share between conventional medicine and holistic therapies to achieve the perfect synergy for the best interest of the general public.

Who Can Identify This Plant?

I wonder if anyone could identify this plant for me? Both the flower and leaves are from the same plant. Thank you.

Blooms & Growths

It is very satisfying to see the little plants germinate, grow and flower. Here are some of the beautiful blooms I got thus far.

The first one is the bitter gourd bud and blossom. However, sadly, today one of the bloom dropped off. I hope some of them will survive to give me some bitter gourd as I do love the taste of bitter gourd.
Bitter Gourd Flower Bud
Bitter Gourd Flower Bloom
In addition to the bitter gourd flower, I saw that my butterfly pea is blooming pretty well. The flower is commonly used as dye in food. It gives a beautiful blue to tang yuan (rice balls).
Butterfly Pea Bloom

Blue Tang Yuan
Impatiens balsamina or rose balsam is said to be used as dye for finger nail colouring. There are a wide variety of colours for this species, including purple, white, yellow, red.
Rose Balsam Flower
Other than the above blooms, I've also have a few plants growing very healthily. I am very glad to see my peppermint growing so healthily. I am waiting to see if it will flower too.
Peppermint
This parsley came from the bunch of parsley I bought from the market. It grows quite well and sprouts of younger parsley are coming out from time to time.
Parsley