So our next speaker for this session is going to be Dr. Namita Mohindra. Dr. Namita is going to speak to us about the importance of appropriate mammographic positioning and quality control. Like we can only detect what is there on our imaging which is the mammogram. Therefore, good quality assurance, good quality control and having good mammograms is something important. However, most of the times there's not radiologists who are doing it, it is radiographers. So to teach this to the radiographers to identify what is missing on the mammogram is also part of the role of the radiologist and that is exactly what Dr. Namita is going to speak to us about. Dr. Namita is highly qualified. She is an additional professor with Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences Lucknow and has a special interest in breast imaging. She's affiliated with the national organizations BISI and IRI, reviewer for multiple journals and she has multiple peer reviewed publications, book chapters and is involved with multiple research projects. She has been a PG guide for MD students and a co-guide for DM students. She's extensively traveled and she's attended many, many courses to upgrade her skills, but most importantly, what I discovered about Dr. Namita through this process is during this COVID pandemic, despite of being a radiologist, she has been working in the wards. Imagine if somebody asked me, a radiologist to intubate a patient, I wouldn't know what I was doing, but as part of her duty in addition to being a radiologist, through this entire pandemic, Dr. Namita has been working in the wards and the ICUs of SGP PGI and through her additional jobs, she's accepted this invite for us and has agreed to do this talk for us. So very, very grateful to you, Dr. Namita, for doing this and please welcome aboard. Over to you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Shilpa. Thank you for the kind words and thank you to the organizers for inviting me here. It's been an amazing session till now and let's move ahead with this now back to basic talk. Can I just start sharing my screen? Yes, please. Okay, just give me a second to, so is that visible? Yes, you can start. I just need to move this, can I just minimize that? Am I still visible? Yeah, you can start your talk, no problem. Yeah, okay, so the topic today is the importance of mammographic positioning and systematic viewing. And before we move on, I would just like to draw your attention to some of the reasons for missed cancers. Now these could be errors in techniques or they could be errors in interpretation. And the focus of this talk today is to minimize these errors. So let us see the first case as an example. Now here we have a case where there are bilateral heterogeneously dense breasts and there is a lesion in the right breast. And if you see, it's quite well visible on the MLO view, however, it's not so well seen on the RCC view. And it's just a little bit visible on this view here. So they decided to go ahead and do an extra view on this. Have you noticed here that the lesion is here, however, their centering is a little bit away from that. So the key message is that the knowledge of positioning and localization is important to avoid a struggle in demonstrating lesions, even when you know that it's there, it's sometimes not possible to demonstrate it very clearly. To simplify the issue, let's just divide it into the component steps, which is to find the lesion, check if it's real or not, and identify where exactly it is. So these are three things we will be talking about in this next 20 minutes or so. And we must realize if it's not positioned well, even large amounts of tissue may not be imaged, and then the skill of the interpreter will become irrelevant. As in this case, you can make out there is a mass here. And on the initial view, almost one centimeter of the tissue was not included into the view. So what we actually need is we need a team, we need a trained and motivated technologist to pull and compress as much of the breast tissue away from the chest wall as possible. And we need a cooperative patient who's going to allow pulling in compression. Of course, we need a good mammography system.  But that has not really made the job of positioning the breast easier. In fact, it's made it more challenging because you've got larger IR plates, and it's more difficult to manipulate the patient onto it. So we'll be talking about these two standard champion views, as we call it in a little bit more detail, that is the mediolateral and the craniocautal leak views. And so important to understand that the direction, it's the direction of the X-ray beam which determines the nomenclature. So the beam coming from the cranial aspect, that's the craniocautal view, beam coming from the medial aspect, that's the mediolateral oblique view. And we're trying to align it along the pectoral muscle. The reason why you want to do it is because the pectoral muscle is fixed. And if you want to move as much of the tissue away from it, it would be easier if you're going along it rather than if you go across it because once you're across the muscle, it's difficult to pull tissue into the field of view. With this, we move on to one of the most important parts of the talk today, that is the actual positioning of the CC view.  So that's really now not how it works because you're going to miss out on a lot of tissue if you're going to do just simply that. So there are again a number of steps to it. So we need to elevate the breast, bring it back to the anatomical position. You've got to try and align the posterior nipple line perpendicular to the chest wall and try to include as much of the tissue into the field of view as is possible. So once you've elevated the breast, you brought it on to the level of the PNL, you want to now pull it forward. So we're at the important slide here, that's the positioning for the CC view and what we need to do is actually divide this into the component steps. We have to elevate the breast and get it back to the anatomical position, bring the posterior nipple line close to and perpendicular to the chest wall. We want to try and include maximum amount of tissue. So we need to pull forward because we actually really don't want the deepest tissue to get missed out. And once we are at it, we need to understand that it's important to include as much of the medial tissue as possible because we don't get this opportunity to do so on the MLO view. We'll be pulling this forward and while we are at it, what we want to do is we want to pull this in place and we'll lift the opposite breast to get more of this into the view. And at the same time, that's not all, we still have to take care of the lateral part. So that's called the tebar maneuver where we want to pull the lateral part of the tissue also into the view.  So all of these things together, once we've got all this act together, we've got this final image where we are getting the lateral tissue. We have the cleavage also included. We have the nipple in profile and we've got as much of the deep tissue as we could, a little bit of the pectoral muscle peeping in and we're sure that we've got a good amount of the deep tissue. That's the ideal scenario that we are looking for. So let's see the next case. Now on the first look, you might say that these CC views look fine. We've got gas, we've got a good amount of the medial tissue. We've got the nipple in profile, but unfortunately, we've got the lateral part all bunched up. So we've got to have everything in view when we are doing this. Compare and contrast this with the other image here. The nipple is not in profile. However, we see a little bit of the tissue posteriorly. So probably this is a better view than previous one. Now moving on to the MLO view. Here it's a little bit more tricky because you've got to include a very large area right from the axillary tail to the inframammary fold. So that's a huge thing. So we understand the three P's in breast imaging. That is the perimeter of the breast, which is very large. You want to do it as much as possible. And the plane of the pectoral muscle. So you've got to understand that the angle of the pectoral muscle is not constant at 45 degrees. It varies from patient to patient and the rough guide is that it is steeper in women with the longer thorax and less so in women with the shorter thorax. So what we're trying to get is, we're trying to get this MLO view like this, where we're interested in getting the pectoral muscle to relax. It's easier said than done. Sorry, is that a problem? No, no, you're good. Please continue. So right, when we've got this, we're trying to get this to relax. What we could, the practical tip to do that is that we could just tap the shoulder down and depress it. At automatically the muscle would relax. Or we could also ask the patient to inhale and then exhale. So you've got that window of opportunity where the muscle has relaxed and you'll be able to pull more tissue onto it. And that's the final result, what we're looking for. We want this pectoral to be seen up to or even below the level of the posterior nipple line. This is nice and relaxed, got a convex contour. It's wide at the top, tapering at the bottom. We've got the nipple in profile, deep tissue is in place. And we've also got the IMF or the inframabry fold opened up for us. That's the way it should ideally look like an inverted champagne glass appearance. So now we move on to what could go wrong. So a number of things could go wrong. If the angle is too steep, you can understand that you won't be able to pull that much tissue into the plane of view. We could have a drooping breast if you've not lifted it up properly and you can understand that the tissues would be more crowded together. So the chances of superimposition would be more, as you can see in this breast, there's a lesion here. But because of the drooping, there's more superimposition than we would want it because there is a fold in the inframabry region as well. So despite the pectoral coming down to the correct level, the next step is what we've missed out on and that is opening up the IMF. Now another error which we come across more often now is the presence of skin folds. So these skin folds, as it's been said, it's all right if you've got it in the upper part only. But in this case, if you can see that there are folds coming all the way down here and you notice this is actually the same patient. So in this MLO view, you see it's not being pulled out at all. So there's a lot of superimposition. You're likely to miss any architectural distortion which was there. And the next one, again, a very common error. They've tried to get the pectoral down. They've got the nipple in profile. They've got everything happening for them. But they have not included the inframabry fold at all. In fact, there's no effort to do that. So a tip, again, would be that when you're positioning the patient, try to put the inferior edge of the IR plate behind the IMF fold. So this is a landmark study which was done in 1993, which has described the criteria for optimal imaging in which they found that the pectoral muscle should be visible up to the PNL in about 80% cases. And you can actually obtain the IMF in approximately 50% of the women.  It's even more when we've got the larger IR plates. And finally, we checked for the optimal positioning on both the views together. That's the one centimeter rule. What you want to do is you want to get the posterior nipple line equal on both the CC and the MLO views or within one centimeter of the two. So the line is drawn perpendicular to the nipple up to the back of the film or the pectoral muscle if it's visible. And this is how you need to measure that. Now, a few words about compression. It's just not to hold the breast forward and to prevent motion and spread overlapping tissue. There's a little bit more to it. There's more physics to it. So the compressed breast tissue thickness is actually the most important factor which determines the amount of radiation that the breast is going to get. In this you can see the CBT or the compressed breast tissue thickness was 64 and the average glandular dose was 1.8. And compare it to the opposite side where the CBT was 81 and the average glandular dose was 2.25. So this is what you see. The exposure is also non-uniform and there is more chances of geometrical blur. You're going to see this in the next case. Sorry, can I just let the dog out? I'm so sorry for that. So the amount of compression that is required is something which a number of people ask. So it's not till you get the patient to screen with pain. It is just to compress till the skin is taught because any further compression is not going to increase the resolutions. It is just going to increase the discomfort of the patient. So that's an important point to remember. And with this we see the next case. Now on the first look it looks absolutely fine. There is a mass here with calcifications and the positioning by and large looks okay but when you take a closer look what I need to point out here is that there are these calcifications here. You can see that the CC view is fine. However in the MLO view there is motion blur and the way to look for it is when you zoom into the images try to look at the reticular pattern or the edges of the calcifications and you're not really you don't want the motion blur to be there. So these are all the things that you've got to check before you move on to systematic viewing. So the next section we're moving on to is the systematic viewing. We've checked for the optimal technique. We've got all our preliminary stuff in place and now we sit back and relax. Now we view for a distance in low ambient light. You know avoid the urge to immediately view closely. You want to get the global view. You're looking for asymmetry. You compare the right to the left and in the words of Tabar you'll try to look at the building blocks of the anatomical components and then you use a masking technique if it is needed and of course you cannot miss out on magnifying the images. We'll be looking at all of these as we move ahead. So looking at the building blocks. So if you recall the anatomy and of Suma had presented this earlier as well. What we actually mean is that the nodular densities represent the terminal local mobular units. The linear densities are the fibrous structures blood vessels and ducts. The radial lucent areas are the adipose tissue and the homogeneous structural density is the fibrous tissue. So with this in mind we're going to move ahead but before that we need to understand that we have these five areas demanding special attention and that is the edge of the parent chimera because that's where most of the cancers would be seen. The medial half of the breast is important to take note of that. The retro mammary no man's land. We don't expect any tissue there. The retro areolar regions and the infrared mammary regions. These are the ones that we have to be very very careful about. So with this background information let's start viewing our cases. The first case up is a 35 year lady who's got a heterogeneously dense breast and I'm going to put all of this information in place. I am sitting back and I'm viewing right for left for asymmetry and I am also now trying to see the special areas that is the edges of the parent chimera and when I see this here this is actually what I find. There is a very obvious lesion and so this is the importance in a relatively easy case. Let's see the next one again a 42 year lady who's got a heterogeneously dense breast. I am looking at the right the left for asymmetries and the areas demanding special attention and I am looking at this area. I see a bulging the retro mammary zone which I do not expect. Let's look at this a little bit more in detail. There are two other techniques which you could try and that is to train your eyes to analyze radially. You know you try to train your eyes to look radially and try to look at the blacks to see the whites again in the words of Tabar. What you actually expect is that the parent chimera is to have a cave contour so you try these imaginary sea lines and you're drawing this you see they're all sea lines and when there is a reversal of the sea line that's actually a red flag. So this was the lesion we've been talking about that's the ultrasound and this was a patient with IDC. With this we move to the next case. This is a 45 year lady with bilateral dense breast. Again I'm trying the same thing but this one is a little bit more tough. It's a little bit denser tissue. What we could try here is the masking technique wherein we hide some parts so that subtle changes are more easy to appreciate. You can view this by restricted view of the horizontal view or in the oblique masking technique. You could hide the parts of the images and let's see how this works. So I'm trying the masking technique that's the oblique masking and the horizontal masking and that's a huge lesion here which is visible and this is also very clearly demonstrated on the digital toposynthesis. In the next case up is a 48 year lady for screening mammogram. We do not see any obvious mass or asymmetry but we now need to zoom it up. I'm trying to look at the views I'm trying to see radially and I see some disturbance in the architectural pattern here. When you zoom it up here you can see it even more clearly. There are series of thin straight lines or speculations extending from an area that's an architectural distortion and a digital tomosynthesis revealing the underlying mass so very clearly. Now the next case up is a 56 year lady with a large fungating mass and you might wonder why I put this up at all. So that's the mass here but I'd like to draw your attention to this lesion here. So the key message is to look beyond the obvious. There is a small isodense mass with indistinct margin in the left inframammary fold and this was a proven cancer. So with this let's move on to the next set of things that we might need to do with the advent of digital tomosynthesis. We need the additional views less often but there are certainly some clinical indications for the additional views. We might need to triangulate a lesion or show an area of anatomy which is not visible on the standard view or show that area better or to counteract the effect of superimposition of structures. So these are the common views. We will be talking about the indications in brief one by one. So the first up is the medial lateral view. Here again I would just like to draw your attention to the direction of the beam so it is from medial to lateral. You're going across the pectoral muscle so you can make out you know the disadvantage here is that less tissue is included. That's the reason why you don't use it as a standard view. Your standard view remains the MLO view which you are going across it like this and the ML view is when you're going straight lateral from medial to the lateral. So the common indication is to triangulate lesion or to change an angle of view and sometimes you use it to demonstrate calcium layering and also you use it to plan interventions when you're doing tomobided biopsies. So just to see how this works. So suppose you've got a lesion which is visible only on the MLO view. This is what it looks like. We've marked the lesion here and we want to do an additional view. If we find that the lesion falls below the nipple line it is likely or it is actually going to be in the lateral half of the breast. So this is what we call the triangulation and this is a very simple mnemonic to remember this. So if there is a lesion in the lateral half of the breast it will fall below the PNL that's called that is the lead falls and a lesion in the medial half of the breast will be seen above the PNL on the LM view that is muffins rise and this is how we're going to arrange the views with the MLO view in the center. You want to keep the nipple on the same line and then we draw these projections. I thank Dr. Shilpa for providing me these images. Next up is a lady who's come for a screening mammogram. Is there a problem? We're looking at the MLO views and with all the background information what is the problem? Is the left breast small or is it a mass or is it a problem of comparison? So what has actually happened is that the patient has pulled herself away on the MLO view so the left breast you're not able to see problems. So but anyway I still have my CC view to fall back on. So when you're looking at the CC view the right CC view is actually really very well done you can see so much of the pectoral muscle you can see the retro mammary fat the baronchymal bone the nipple is in profile everything is working fine but on the left side we have a problem. There is something here I do not know whether it's an asymmetry is it real or not so what do I do next? I mean of course I could do repeat views but do I do a repeat MLO or do I do a CC view? Well in this case I would like to do an additional view since I'm only interested in the outer half of the breast I could bring this forward rotate this forward and get this in view that's called the exaggerated lateral CC view and as you can see here now I'm not interested in the medial part and we can see that there was no lesion here this was a single lesion. Another case to to show you the same phenomenon here we have a lady with a lump in the right breast so it's not visible on the CC view what has actually happened is that we didn't get the med the deep part of the tissue into the plane so now when you're doing the exaggerated lateral CC view you're able to see this mass and you're able to see the deepest part of the tissue this was a deep seated lesion which is visible on the MLO viewer span. The similar thing we could do when we are thinking of masses on the medial aspect in here you can see the CC view you know we've got the deep part right you know but the nipple is not in the center we haven't got the medial part of the breast well we've got a fold here we don't know whether it's a fold or a lesion so we could do an exaggerated medial view we've just shifted us entering and got this better we could also do a cleavage view where we see the midline tissues so that is the CC view. Another maneuver that we could use was the rolling technique wherein what we do is we just roll the top half of the breast and an lesion which is present in the upper half of the breast will move in the same direction whereas a lesion in the bottom half would stay where it is so these are things which we sometimes require in post-operative cases where if there is a lesion which is seen in view when you want to spread it out and see it better you could use a rolling technique. So till now we've seen the first three indications of the additional views again the diagram is just to reiterate that these arrows denote the nomenclature the direction of the beam is what determines the what the view is going to be called as and we still have to see the additional views if you want to evaluate the characteristics so that's the fourth indication of taking the additional views. Another example up is a 39 year lady she's got no palpable mass and she's come for screening and we do not see any obvious mass asymmetry or architectural distortion but I'm not done yet I have to magnify it that's the rule of the viewing we've got to magnify the images and here we see diffuse bilateral scattered calcifications and again opsemus has covered this really well we don't need to do anything further on this but in case you've got a similar lesion where you want to be very sure on that you could actually do a true lateral to demonstrate layering and you can see these crescent things that's another indication for doing a true natural so I think we can now move on to the calcium assessment I'm just going to take a very short note on it because it's been discussed very well yesterday do we still need magnification views well yes definitely just a little bit of physics to remember is that since the focus spot size reduces so the spatial resolution is much better than the standard views we are taking so it defines the morphology and the number of calcifications better you can bring the breast closer to the focus you're moving it away from the detector that's the air gap technique that it is called but the disadvantage is that it's at the cost of increased radiation dose and you see a very small part of the tissue because as you can see you know the paddle is actually really very small just a few images to demonstrate this phenomenon this is a digitally zoomed image it's all blurred here you can see it's so much better on the other view that's a true magnification view another case showing the same thing this is digitally zoomed image it's all blurred and here you've got the magnification where you're seeing that the number of calcifications the morphology is so much better visible now a few words about spot compression now we see here this is a 54 year old lady who's got a right breast painless lump and you're not able to see it on the cc view because it's quite deep what we could actually do to demonstrate this better is that since we are seeing it in the same view we can actually identify the area of concern and you spot compress it what you want to do is just spread the surrounding tissue away from it so you see the margins better classically you do it for evaluation of patients with asymmetry or architectural distortion so you are trying to move away the surrounding tissue and it's traditionally said that an asymmetry which becomes less dense on spot compression is more likely to be denied this case was actually an organized abscess uh till now we've understood why we need additional views but there are some instances where you actually can avoid the additional views as in this case you can see there's a patient who's got a left breast lump and the technician's already told me that she's got a skin lesion on the other side so this was a skin lesion of course even the mammographic features are very classical they've got this rim and these crevices which are visible of the skin lesion so in this case we don't really need to do an additional view we don't need to know when not to do so and to sum up my systemic viewing evaluation the extent evaluations as important as picking up the lesion and describing it it's not just that you talk about the index lesion you've also got to talk about the satellite nodules and the extent so when you're going to zoom it up you see all these nodules you see that there are calcifications which are far away from the actual lesion so that's important to comment upon and then now the last case up for the day this is a 38 year lady whose mother had breast cancer at the age of 50 is it possible to put the polling option on on this one yeah let me test that okay so actually I can't see can we can we show the answer now okay so most of you think it is a by rat three okay but I think it is a by rat four now the reason why I put this up was can I just yeah because this is you know most of us think that this is the lesion this is a sub-areola region which is visible but the actual culprit is actually behind this nation so the key message again is to look beyond the obvious there is an irregular spiculated mass and this is a proven cancer so with this I wind up the key messages are that you need to optimize your technique get maximum tissue in view you need to optimize perception use systematic viewing mirror mirror image views look for asymmetry look usually masking techniques look at the blacks to see the whites use magnifier tools always and you need additional views when needed spot compression for asymmetry and architectural distortion and magnification for suspicious calcifications with this we have a few polling questions do we have time to go ahead with it yes ma'am yeah so okay so that's the first question up optimal cc view positioning is you've got the options here could we start the polling please yeah okay right so I think most of you got this right so yes we've talked about this to see a nipple line on cc view should be equal to or within it we would like the nipple to be in profile but that's not essential inclusion of the deeper tissue is more important and we know that pectoral muscle is visible in approximately 30% of the cases but that's also not always there so that's also not an essential criteria the next question is a 50-year lady with the left breast lump are the cc views optimal okay so we've got quite a number of people saying no nipple is not in profile is it but actually the nipple is not in profile but that's not a mandatory thing we need to see that as much of the deep tissue we can see the pectoral muscle a little bit so I think that's fine and the next question is optimal mlo view positioning is what are these options here okay so the correct answer is the pectoral muscle visible up to the level of nipple we've discussed this before most of you got it right and we need to remember that the IMF is visible in only about 50 cases but we still got to try and get that to you then optimal breast compression is okay so most of us got this right as well I just like to point out that why why did I put this magic number of six centimeters is so the when the compressed breast tissue thickness exceeds seven centimeters you know the filters change and the amount of radiation actually increases a lot because the filter changes from rhodium to silver so it's important to remember if you're getting close to the seven centimeter it's not a bad option to just bring it down to maybe 6.8 or 6.9 so that's the reason why I put this then this is a lady who's come for screening are these views optimal what these are the options there's a second last question okay so the answer is see most of you got this right because in the mlo view you can make out you know the pectoral is not really well into the view so that's not really the ideal view to do now the last question for the day this is a 45-year lady with a lump in the left breast is the position optimal here okay so we've got divided views on this right so basically the cc views are not optimal the reason why I'm saying it is that if you can notice here that the retro mammary or the retro glandular fat is not in view so almost you know this much above one centimeter the tissue is something which you could have tried and got into view so that's the reason why I am saying it's not the ideal view and that is all that I have thank you so much for your attention thank you


Yeah, so our recording is in progress. Let's pray and we'll begin. I would like to request one of us to please lead in prayer. Anyone? Can I lead? Yeah, sure Charles, please. Let's pray. Father God, we are really thankful to you. The Father brought us and now we are here for another class. Yes, Lord. This is our second class for this course. When you pray that you will hear a person understand your secrets of the prophetic and the apostles she Lord, we pray that all will be done according to your glory. We pray for connectivity that the internet will be stable. Also, you will anoint our teacher that she will release the letter of the president and will be able to hear how well and be able to understand so that we shall not miss anything, but we will be able to apply the principles we are learning from the class to the church that they have given us for proper growth. We thank you, Lord, that they are doing this for the glory of your name and it gives us memory. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Charles. So in the last class we just had an introduction of the prophetic and we talked about how it is so important for us to hear God's voice so that we can live our lives according to that. And we saw how God is restoring, you know, different truths back to the body of Christ. And most recently we see that in the area of the prophetic, the apostolic, the things like that, God is really moving upon the body of Christ and people, not just our understanding of these things, but also people are beginning to get activated and moving these things. So we're only going to see more and more of this happening around us. And also we had a very, very brief introduction about the progress of the prophetic. We're going to touch on all these things later in detail. So that's the reason I didn't take us through many of the scriptures right then and there, but we will study it in detail later. So we saw how there is the basic gift of prophecy that all believers can flow in. Then we have some people who may have the grace gift of prophecy, which means that the ministry that one has, it is very prophetic. So that is the prophetic ministry. Then again we saw how the Lord Jesus Christ as an Ephesians 4 has appointed a few people in the office of the prophet.  So not everyone who prophesies would be a prophet. So these are some of the basics that we actually touched upon. And then we saw an example Pastor had shared his own life story about how someone spoke over his life and many of the things that were spoken have come to pass and he's waiting on the Lord for the others also to come to pass. So the prophetic word is really from God. And when we speak that word in one way, I've heard people say that if we make our effort to hear accurately from God and then release the word of God accurately, then from then on it's God's responsibility in a sense to fulfill that word because it is his word and he will do it. And we saw that scripture from Isaiah 44 where God's word says that the Lord will perform the counsel of his servants. So there is a great sense of confidence when prophecy is done right because we are speaking in line with what is upon God's heart and it really begins to minister and work in people's lives. So this is something that we touched upon in the last class and today what we will see is we will see how to perceive prophecy. Once again it's very introductory and basic what we are going to do today. We are going to go deep into the very gift of prophecy and then again we are going to talk about how we hear from God once again. But today, overall, how is it that we get to receive? How do we pick up the prophetic word? So that is what we are going to answer. Once again, we will look at our class notes here from where we will study. So I was on page 5 where we looked at the prophecy there and we will continue. Page 6, I am going to start from page 6. So coming to the Bible, it's very interesting to note that the first person who is termed as a prophet is actually Abraham. Now in the life of Abraham many of us would notice that he was not someone who went around staying thus as the Lord, releasing a word over people's lives. He never did things like that and yet God addresses Abraham as a prophet. In Genesis 20 verse 7, God speaks to Abimelech and tells him about Abraham and says he is a prophet. He will pray for you and you shall live. And there's so much to learn from the life of Abraham about the prophetic. He's called as a prophet not because he released prophetic words but because his life was prophetic. We say that because he was constantly in communion with God. He was led by God and we know how God promised him a son and how God led him, how he put his faith and trust in God and he always followed after God. So his life was prophetic and God is giving him this recognition and he says he is a prophet. Abraham is a prophet. So because his life was prophetic so that's the first thing we take from Abraham's life and you see here that the term which is used in Hebrew there when God says he is a prophet that's the word nabi and the word nabi means inspired man. We know that inspiration is the communication that we receive from God. So Abraham is termed as a prophet or a nabi or an inspired man who heard from God. So that is the second thing. Abraham is a prophet because he was receiving from God. Now the third thing here is now in the circumstance that came about where Abimelech really wanted healing and God wanted to bring that about through Abraham's prayer.  He will pray for you and you shall live. So the third thing is that the life of the prophet is associated with prayer and look at how encouraging this is. If God were to say this about any one of us so and so will pray for you and you will live. So Abraham is connected so beautifully in prayer with God that even God is confident and God is affirming and he's saying this man he will pray for you and you will live. So there is a connection of the prophetic with prayer. Now can the prophetic exist without prayer? No. Without prayer without communication with God how can one receive? It's just not possible. So when we talk about the prophetic this is the inference the prophetic cannot exist without prayer. So for us to be prophetic we have to grow in a life of prayer. Can there be people who are very prayerful and not prophetic? That is possible. One can be very prayerful but not prophetic. It simply means that we pray anything. We pray according to our own will. We pray based on what we have decided and is that invalid? No, not at all. We can still pray and God hears our prayers but prophetic prayers are those that are prayed through in line with what God is saying. Now you would remember there was a time when God decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah even at that point the kind of prayer life and the communication that Abraham had with God in Genesis 18 verse 17 to God says the Lord said shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing? So you know he was connected with God strongly and in prayer and you see that God revealed to him. And based on that what was Abraham's response when God spoke to him and said that there's going to be judgment poured upon Sodom and Gomorrah he began interceding and we've studied about intercession earlier. But this kind of intercession was prophetic intercession because it was in response to the communication from God that there is going to be judgment. And we know Abraham he stood before the Lord and then he started you know kind of appealing to him. He started saying okay God if there are so many righteous people would you please spare the land? So that is prophetic intercession that is in response to what God is doing. So these are all some of the key things about the prophetic that we learn from the life of Abraham that one is a prophet not because they prophesy but you know because of hearing from God and having a life that is so connected with God and his message. Secondly we saw in the life of Abraham that prayer. Prayer plays a huge role in the prophetic. We cannot be prophetic if we are not prayerful. And thirdly we see that you know Abraham was an intercessor. He was an intercessor. He would hear from God a prophetic intercessor and then he would take that to the Lord in prayer. So some key things that really will make a difference in our prophetic journey. Now let's understand we also saw that Abraham was an inspired man. Kether would now be there. Now that was about Abraham. Now let's consider the lives of Moses and Aaron. Now when God met Moses at the burning bush there was a commission. God wanted him to go and speak to Pharaoh. But we know that Moses had his own insecurities and he came up with excuses and said God you know I can't speak and all. And at that time God told him that he could take the assistance of Aaron. So these passages are there in our notes. You could have a look at it. It is 4 verses 14 through 16 where God says is not Aaron the Levite your brother. I know that he can speak well and look he is coming out to meet you. When he sees you he will be glad in his heart.   So here we understand that God is putting Aaron as a spokesman. Is the message Aaron's? No the message is coming from Moses. The message that God gives Moses but spoken by Aaron. So Aaron is the spokesman. In another verse Exodus 7 1 God says see I have made you as God to Pharaoh and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. Okay Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. So who is Aaron in this equation? He is Moses's spokesman and now we are told that Aaron shall be your prophet and that word there is Nabi and Nabi once again it's used like 309 times in the Old Testament and basically what it means is yeah that's Nabi is an inspired person but Nabi is also a mouthpiece. One is a mouthpiece. It's like post like here in India we have this postal services where people come and hand you a letter that someone has written to you. Not so much anymore because of email but you understand what I mean. The message is somebody else's but there is another person who comes and delivers. So the prophet is one who is assigned to deliver the message. Message itself is not of the prophet it is from God but here is our understanding. Okay from Moses and Aaron this is what we get. We get that a prophet or a Nabi is a mouthpiece or a spokesperson. So even when we begin to learn more about getting activated in the gift of prophecy this is what we must understand. It's not something that I can come up with or you can come up with and also in a way it's good to have this understanding because then we don't take credit for it. Something wonderful happens you share to someone and then they say wow you know pastor you said this and it happened. Sometimes we ourselves are amazed and we wonder oh really did it work out that way? That's wonderful because we're just a mouthpiece.  You have the message of God and our responsibility is to sincerely deliver the message. That is how we have seen the prophets and the prophetic function in the word of God and these are some truths that we can learn from the life of Moses and Aaron. So class I hope you all are okay. Is it too fast or comfortable? Are you able to get what we are talking about here? Just some response from you? Yes ma'am it's good. Okay great. Okay wonderful. Okay let's continue then. Thank you. Yeah all right. Now let's I told you we are going to understand how to perceive the prophetic message. So now we've got a picture of what the message is, who the messenger is. Now we'll continue. I'm on page eight here and we from the Old Testament will look at the process of receiving the word of God. There are a couple of terms that are used to describe prophets and these terms also tell us how the prophet got the message. Okay and this is for our understanding and it shows us how the human spirit really picks up God's communication. So in 1 Chronicles 29 verse 29. Okay these are all just some references. I told you that the word nubby is used 309 times. So you know there are many passages where these words are used but for our understanding one particular passage here 1 Chronicles 29-29 which says now the Acts of King David first and last indeed they are written in the book of Samuel the seer. Samuel the seer. Now in Hebrew seer is Roy. In the book of Nathan the prophet, prophet there in Hebrew nubby and in the book of Gad the seer. Seer there is the word Hose. So you're like wow aren't all these men prophets? So what is this whole distinction? Two of them in English are called seer and one is called prophet but when you look up the Hebrew there are three distinct words there. Two describe all of them are prophets but there are three words to describe them. So one would be Roy, one would be nubby and the other would be Hose. Okay and basically it just refers to the process that happens in receiving God's word. So both Roy and Hose translated as seer in English. It simply means that these prophets probably received God's communication through visualization. Seer isn't that clear?  Now this something we will talk later it can be a picture, it can be you know something like a motion image maybe like a movie or an incident that you are able to see or you can look into the spirit realm and you can understand how things are. Though the natural realm looks a certain way in the spirit realm things look very different. So one possibly is able to see into the spirit realm. So the main method what we are trying to conclude is there is a visualization process associated with the receiving of the message. Okay nubby we said nubby nubby is who nubby is inspired we'll talk about that also later. So can you see right now we have understanding of two at least two different processes one is to be inspired the other one is to see and receive a message. So you know people could receive from God in either one of these ways. Now let's continue there again tend to be a little more explanation about nubby okay we will come to that. So Amos chapter 7 verses 14 and 15 again these passages this passage we will read it says then Amos answered and said to Amaziah I was no prophet nubby okay the word you said is nubby nor was I a son of a prophet nubby but I was a sheep breeder and a tender of sycamore fruit. Then the Lord took me as I followed the flock and the Lord said to me go prophesy nubby to my people Israel. Okay so we have a little clarity about seer visualization process. Now this term nubby over here right this inspiration inspiration you know how does that inspiration really come into us there's another word in Micah chapter 2 verse 11 okay where it's associated with the words you know prophet prophesy that is the word nataf and nataf really means to ooze out or to bubble up okay it's it's something like if you've ever heated milk you know when it's fully boiled and it's done it rises up okay it kind of rises up it pours over if you're not careful then it would you know pour out of your your your vessel or we we know about springs it springs the way the water begins to bubble up at the source these are all just for us to have a have a visual reference to what this oozing looks like so the nubby prophet the inspired prophet is also one who has the message of the Lord oozing up or in other words bubbling up in him or her so to simplify this you know I would say that you know when we receive revelation now some of you could relate with this even today this is how many of us receive God's word some of us we are very visual when we pray we probably get an image and then you know we based on that image we release a prophetic word or we pray over people but then there could be some of us who don't see anything but when we start praying it's as if the words are flowing and you're wondering hey I'm not even thinking about this it's just coming out of me that's more of the nubby style okay but we could also be functioning in the seer style now all this technicality is not to box God up God speaks in creative ways and God can give us a message in either of either of the you know styles or process whatever you want to call it so we must not say that I am a seer kind of a you know my style of prophecy seer style or my style is more of the nubby where I get inspired by God you never know what while praying I mean it's happened to me sometimes I see sometimes it just comes sometimes in the same prayer I see a little bit I oozes up a bit some message just comes through in my spirit so God can work in any which way all this understanding is not to classify ourselves as one of the two or two box God up and say this is the only way in which God speaks to so-and-so or the only way in which God speaks to me but just for our understanding you know this the these processes where where what the prophets of old you know have sort of worked with and it just helps us understand the human spirit better and understand how God communicates with the human spirit okay so so now we have this this basic understanding of the inspiration way of receiving from God and also the seer or the visual way of receiving from God okay now let's move on how does a prophet okay hear from God now one thing about before we go into exactly how we receive the word you know one thing about the prophetic word is it comes with a sense of seriousness okay because you know we if we know anything about our God his word is not in vain isn't it he said one sentence let there be light and there was light one sentence and you know you associate that with creation so when God speaks it's not for our entertainment you know when God speaks it's not so that yeah I just have extra time and I'm saying there is a seriousness associated with every word of God and we must give God that honor for his word and thereby even the prophet Amos he records he says surely the Lord does nothing unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets a lion has roared who will not fear the Lord God has spoken who can but prophesy this is an Amos three versus seven and eight where basically what Amos is saying is when God speaks the Lord has spoken who can but prophesy similar to when the lion roars in the jungle okay there is a sense of awe there's a sense of fear oh okay the king of the jungle somewhere here and you know all the animals all the creatures are afraid there is a reaction and a response to the voice of the lion so in the same way the voice of God there is a seriousness attached to it and to a prophet or let's also use the word somebody who prophesies you know it's like wow God has spoken what do I do with this word I can't just you know let it go and we will learn you know not every word is meant to just be spoken out there are things that God may reveal for us to pray them through so there are different ways in which we will work with the prophetic word but there is a sense of seriousness attached with the prophetic word now similarly you know Jeremiah also he shares his experience in Jeremiah 20 but he says you know the word of God when it was spoken to him he says that the word in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones okay so he says wow you know if there's a burning fire shut up in our bones we are aware of it we can't just you know let it be and go on with life it doesn't work that way but there is a sense of seriousness attached to it and so Jeremiah you know he stepped out and he prophesied when the Lord put and you know basically he talks about how God you induced me you know you you prevailed Lord okay so the word when God spoke it to Jeremiah it came with such compulsion that he had to go ahead and release that prophetic ministry okay so there is that seriousness attached to the word of God and God speaks to his people now the way in which God speaks will touch a little bit more on that and then go to how we receive this communication when we say God speaks God speaks okay so recently I had a little child like a four-year-old asked me this question what are you saying God told me God told me I can't hear anything you know she basically came and told me that and I really appreciated her for her honesty she's like I can't hear is there something wrong with my ears so basically you know then I was trying to tell her no it's not when we say God speaks he has a way a common way that is seen in the Bible and that's how we receive his communication so in the book of Hosea chapter 12 verse 10 now we see the God says I have spoken by the prophets and have multiplied visions I have given symbols through the witness okay so two words here how did God speak through the prophets two words visions symbols okay so not that God can't speak in an audible voice of course he can however most commonly this is how God spoke and continues to speak visions symbols okay and if you don't have the understanding that God is trying to say something we will miss the communication so how does God speak through visions through symbols okay another passage here is from numbers numbers chapter 12 verses five through eight no again God says Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle and called Aaron and Miriam and they both went forward then he said here now my words if there is a prophet among you I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision I speak to him in a dream not so with my servant Moses he is faithful in all my house I speak to him face to face even plainly and not in dark sayings and he sees the form of the Lord why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses so God is saying that he spoke directly to Moses but how did he speak to all the others a few more terms to you to add to our list vision dreams then dark sayings okay so earlier we saw visions symbols what does it mean see God his general way of communication is through visions the visions we understand and we talk more about it later you know what is a vision what are the different types we'll talk about it later dreams dreams also we understand so that's another way in which God brings his communication now there are two other terms which many people may not be familiar with symbols dark sayings that they have to do with things like parables okay parables you understand when Jesus said there was a woman she lost her coin she had 10 coins she lost one coin and then she was searching for that one coin but is it about the coins no it's about a lost soul right so when you interpret the parable there is a message and God's God speaks like that in parables so when you say dark sayings symbols it has to do with parables it has to do with you know we say similitudes comparisons sometimes if you've seen I remember I prayed for one person and I could see a pillar okay and what does it mean so while praying for her I said okay this is what the Lord says you are strong I didn't say you are a pillar you have to interpret the symbol to interpret the symbol so God speaks through these symbols he speaks through dark sayings you know sometimes we have these dreams and we wake up thinking what did that mean you know I was wearing this dress and that happened and so and so came and what does it mean how's God speaking to us symbols dark sayings it has to be interpreted there are some comparisons there are some riddles in there okay there could be a drama for example Agabus you know Agabus he goes to Paul he takes Paul's belt he ties it around himself he binds himself and he says the person whose this is will be bound it's very dramatic but it is a prophetic word it's not direct he's not Agabus not telling Paul you when you go to Jerusalem you will be caught and then there on you will be imprisoned no it there is some amount of interpretation required to get the message so this is the common way in which God speaks so we can be alert to the communication of God did you have a vision did you have a dream was there a picture that came to your mind God is trying to say something okay so this is how God speaks to us now let's move on I told us that we are going to study a little more about how to receive God's communication so the experience of the prophet called Balam is very helpful a lot of us do not want to study from Balam's life because he is known as a prophet who prophesied for profit okay which is not good and there is a rebuke when you study the books of 2nd Peter the book of Jude there's a there are statements that say don't be like Balam he was greedy he he did God's work for his own benefit so don't be like him yeah we get that however now there is something valuable that we can learn from his prophetic process and his prophetic experience so Numbers chapter 24 verses 15 and 16 I'm on page 10 in our notes here we see how Balam received God's communication was 15 it says so he took up his oracle and said the utterance of Balam the son of boy and the utterance of the man whose eyes are opened the utterance of him who hears the words of God and has the knowledge of the most high who sees the vision of the Almighty who falls down with eyes wide open just in these two verses it's like a lot of secrets have been revealed so these are all ways in which the prophet Balam is receiving God's communication what are what are those ways he says eyes wide open eyes are opened we'll talk about that then later he says hear the words of God so he was hearing God's word how how was he hearing God's word we'll talk about that has the knowledge of the most high so he got God's knowledge how did he get it we'll talk about that and who sees the vision of the Almighty again remember how does God speak God speaks through visions so Balam also had that experience the vision of the Almighty and then of course he says falls down with eyes wide open okay so that is his last experience there so these are all ways in which even today we can perceive the message of the Lord so the first one here that Balam refers to he says his eyes were opened eyes wide open so this simply means looking into the spirit realm if you all remember Elisha in second Kings he tells his servant Gehazi you know you go and you see outside and then he comes back to tell Elisha that there are armies standing surrounding them but you know Elisha with his his view into the spirit realm looks around and he says look they may seem like the majority but we are the majority because heavenly hosts are with us how how could Elisha see that what what was he thinking well Elisha was looking into the spirit realm yes it was a reality that in the physical realm it was just Elisha and his servant and they were surrounded but that was not the spiritual reality the spiritual reality was that God was backing them up so when Balam also says that his eyes were wide open it is a discernment which which Elisha Balam had of the spirit and we know when we study about the workings of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit you know there's a discerning of spirits even that God gives us as a gift that through that ability we are able to look into the spirit realm and we are able to gauge and you know look at what exactly is going on so you know we can perceive into the spirit realm another good example is Stephen if you recall he was being stoned but in those moments right like before he he committed himself he died we see that he saw like heaven open Jesus was standing did the others around him see it no the others didn't how did Stephen see it but through his spirit and into the spirit realm so eyes wide open it refers to those spiritual eyes being awakened and you know enlightened where we can look into the spirit realm yeah and even Isaiah the prophet you know he talks about I saw the Lord seated on the throne and the train of his robe Isaiah where I can't see no throne here but it is into the spirit realm so this is one of the ways in which you and I can receive God's communication we through our spirit can look into the spirit realm and we we know you know what is going on and what God is telling us so that is one of the ways in which Balam perceive now the second way of perception is he talks about he heard the words of the Lord okay is it possible to hear God's audible voice answer is yes but in most most people's experiences we we have seen that it's more of receiving the words in our spirit rather than hearing the audible voice okay now Samuel is a great example in the Bible we know that God called him Samuel Samuel and Eli a man who was so seasoned in the ministry taught Samuel and told hey that's the voice of God if you hear it another time you say that Lord here I am so Samuel heard the audible voice of God it's very clear that only he heard it Eli didn't hear it Samuel had to go and tell Eli this is what it is so God speaks audibly even but the instances are few and far between thereby to hear God's voice generally means to receive words from God okay so let's put it this way the words come in without any sound so when God is speaking to me I might hear I might get a word in my spirit I might just get the word Mumbai okay and I'm thinking hey why should I go with job should I take and I get the word Mumbai and I'm like okay I understood did God say Mumbai I didn't hear anything but the word came into my spirit so basically it's like you hear minus the sound and that's how the human spirit picks it up most of the time so it can be a word or it can be like how God spoke to Holy Spirit spoke to Philip remember go overtake this chariot it's a it's a sentence so more than a single word can come into our spirit and that is the hearing from God that Valam also says he received the knowledge of the most high receiving the knowledge of the most high is like the nubby sort of perception where things bubble up in your spirit nothing was there a lot of preachers I've heard them say this I didn't know what to preach and suddenly the message was there remember we discussed about the merry miracle now I know that you know it's not like a good practice to always depend on something bubbling up because we are also called to study and be prepared but you know it happens God if you want to use internet language it's like a download there's nothing but then suddenly there's something and I've also heard people say that they sought the Lord and they have received the knowledge to such an extent that they have a things like I have a book in my spirit you know to have that much of content where did you get it from receive what Valam is saying I receive the knowledge of the Lord it's like a piece of his knowledge came into your spirit and then you know you're able to minister with that so receiving the knowledge of the Lord that's another way and of course you know he says I saw the vision of the Almighty vision we all understand a single picture or a motion picture or you know something visual that comes into our spirit it could also be a dream that can be a trance so many things can happen then finally Valam said that he fell down with eyes wide open now this is more of a picture of a trance okay so he was in a trance eyes wide open physical eyes could have been open but the ultimate thing is that his spiritual eyes were open okay he was in a trance and in those moments God was speaking God was imparting things into his spirit so now here's the bottom line of both of these introductory classes that we've had yesterday and today God speaks we serve a God who speaks and we just have to learn how to hear from him how to understand what he's saying and you know grow in it develop in it because you know why would God speak if he didn't want us to hear it he definitely wants us to hear it there are there are passages that that you can look up that say that not only does he want to speak of the usual things but God is a God who can also reveal secrets remember the life of Daniel now Daniel 222 we see there that our God reveals deep and secret things he knows what is in the darkness and light dwells with him okay so that is coming through from Daniel's experience and then again we see there in those passages there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets that's what Daniel says okay so God God knows God doesn't keep it to himself he also speaks so we as we go through this entire course I'm sure that you know we will perceive not that God is not speaking right now he is it's about us perceiving and receiving his message so with that I think I will wrap up today's session we've basically touched on how to how to hear from God okay in the broadest sense okay I'm looking at the chat now Prabhakar pastor how do we interpret accurately when God speaks through symbols okay so Prabhakar the short answer to that is understanding biblical symbols is very helpful okay so that can form the basis of our interpretation but over and above you know sometimes there may not we may not have a correlation for example if I see a car in my dream there's no car in the Bible how do I interpret it okay so you really have to depend on the Holy Spirit the way Daniel depended on the Holy Spirit God in fact revealed the dream and gave the interpretation to him so interpretation comes by the spirit so one thing is to be well versed in the word of God and the symbols in scripture and if there is something that has no correlation you basically just depend you know on the Holy Spirit you can pray and say okay God what were you trying to say and then you get the interpretation okay so I hope that helps Elisha can this be equated to the gift of the word of knowledge in the New Testament yes so the gift of the word of knowledge Elisha we usually classify the gifts of the Holy Spirit under some categories for you know ease one is revelatory gifts okay under the revelatory gifts would come things like word of knowledge prophecy word of wisdom basically they reveal something from God's heart to us so yeah so they're all you know part of the same same basket you could say that and I hope that answers your question all right yeah okay so I think we've also run out of time today so class I really hope you are enjoying these sessions okay so Kennedy says dark saying and how to know if it is true so dark saying Kennedy is just symbolism it's just symbolism for example if I see a lion in a vision I have to interpret it a lion could mean the line of Judah or it could also mean the devil he's like a roaring lion going about looking for whom he can devour so it could be Satan it totally depends on the interpretation by the Spirit of God I need to understand God what are you saying so a dark saying is just symbolism because by only looking at the symbol you cannot tell what is being communicated so that's all dark saying symbol means those images which need further interpretation okay all right class I think yes of course everything has to be interpreted in line with scripture we've run out of time so let's pray and we'll wrap up because I know you have another class to catch to request someone to please pray so we can close okay can I pray madam yes please I have a letter once again we are most grateful and thankful for the grace that you have bestowed on us this day we thank you for the knowledge that you have shared further through our pastor with us further we pray that any of us whom you have called to minister in the prophetic ministry be after the session of the after the end of this class Father may this gift begin to manifest in the mighty name of Jesus we pray that whatever that we have learned and discussed here will be part of our ministry in Jesus mighty name we thank you for an answered prayer in Jesus name we pray amen amen thank you thank you thank you everyone god bless you have a wonderful day see you again next week


So I've had a number of questions asking how can I get better sleep, you know How can I fall asleep faster feel better in the morning and actually make it sort of healthy and not having to rely on sleep aids? Things like that. So this really comes down to I would say two main things Okay, and the first one But bear in mind by the way, this is just my experience. This is my opinion. I'm not a you know registered doctor or anything like that So this is just take it with a pinch of salt. This is my opinion based on things I've read learned experience whatever so the first thing is what's known as your circadian rhythm now This is the the way that your body regulates its hormones In response to the day and night cycle of the world So when the Sun goes down you will start to feel tired when the Sun comes up you'll start to wake up This is very basic stuff, right? But it's important to know how it works because you know in the Western world and in this modern day We keep ourselves up artificially with the only mammals who willingly delay sleep and by that I mean we're the only sort of mammals or species really who willingly keep ourselves awake beyond when we should go to sleep So naturally in the wild we should go to sleep when the Sun goes down, right? Sounds like common sense But no one does when the Sun goes down we turn the lights on and we artificially keep ourselves awake and all the time that we Have lights on and you know above us or in the screen that we're watching on our phones What that is is that's actually shining mainly blue light, okay So that obviously when you watch a screen like a TV or a phone There are many different pixels on the on the screen and different types of light the most harmful light for your circadian rhythm is the blue light and that's because it simulates the sunrise and So every time you look at your phone and you've got that glaring light going into the back of your eye of your eyeball You simulate the Sun and your body doesn't really know the difference, okay? So in your head in your body your body is thinking, okay, the Sun's still up Maybe I should stay awake and what that does is that produces an imbalance of hormones in your body This is one of the main causes of insomnia of almost any sleeper sort of really is just not being in tune with your circadian rhythm and The more we artificially keep ourselves awake the more we watch screens and Glare as our phones while we're trying to go to sleep, okay? Every time you lay in in bed and the lights off and you check your phone You're sort of sending your sleep cycle back half an hour So it's gonna take you another half an hour or so to get back to the same stage you were at Before you checked it. Okay, your body was just trying to your body was probably just about to fall asleep But then you check your phone and the blue light goes into your eyes your body thinks okay, the Sun's up Let's start releasing those hormones. Okay, which will wake your body up and make you more alert and It causes things like insomnia, you know, you can't get to sleep And it sounds like common sense But this is the main reason that people can't fall asleep and the main reason people don't have the highest quality sleep It's just because they don't regulate the light going into their eyes, you know If the Sun goes down, that's the time we should as humans be sleeping But obviously that can't be the case, you know, we have jobs we worked or five six in the evening Then we have dinner then we might want to watch a film. That's fine And I'm not saying that you should go to sleep at four when the Sun goes down in the winter that wouldn't be Solving anything right, but what I am saying is that you should definitely have a Morning routine and a nighttime routine. Okay, so we won't go into the morning routine because that's not really relevant to this video But your nighttime routine when you get ready for bed and sleep should always be based on relax relaxation Self-reflection and also making sure that you wind down and slowly reduce Your exposure to blue light So and this can be done in a number of ways. You can download programs on your laptop Called there's a program called flux which helps strip out the blue light so that you're the screen that you're actually watching Doesn't have any blue light after a certain time. That really helps and I've been using that for a number of years But you still need some sort of routine. Okay, you need to say if it hits six o'clock Maybe you'll have dinner then maybe seven o'clock. You'll start watching a film You need to be not watching any screens sort of past half nine ten o'clock and that includes checking your phone Okay, so try and get into the habit of making sure that for at least an hour Ideally two hours before you actually try and go to sleep at night That you're not watching any screens. You're not looking at your phone. You're not checking your laptop You're not watching films. Maybe do some reading. Maybe have a bath Do whatever it is that you like to do that relaxes you But try and not watch screens right up until you go to sleep and I know a lot of a lot of people that like to you know Lay in bed and watch a film as they're falling asleep and obviously that's the worst of all worlds because you're never Going to get proper sleep in that case.  So obviously you're not going to get restful sleep And what you'll notice by the way is that after the you've been doing this for a couple of weeks after you've had this sort of nighttime routine and you've Limited really your blue light exposure in the evenings You'll sleep better. Okay, you'll feel better in the morning. You'll Perform better at work, you know, you'll be more articulate in social situations everything will be better because Sleep is a force multiplier. Okay, the better sleep you get the better you perform at everything else The more you recover the faster you grow if you're building muscle, right? If you're trying to train for something if you're trying to create something or achieve anything It will all happen faster and easier if you get better sleep and the higher quality sleep So that's really it guys That's the main sort of that was the first main way that you can improve your sleep The second way and I'm just gonna finish on this one because it's not as important as the first one But it's still pretty important. Okay, so the second one is to make yourself tired during the day Don't just sit because obviously in this day and age we have a fairly sedentary lifestyle We sit in our chairs Maybe we'll sit in traffic to go to work you most of us will sit in traffic to come back home And then we'll sit on the sofa and watch a film. We're just sitting right and you know, I'm sitting right now Obviously, that's not great, but we're sitting a lot during the day and it's not good for us We're not designed to be just sat in one place all day long We're designed to be out and moving and running and exercising, right? So if you can't find the time to go to the gym every single day Then at least try and find the time to go for just one half an hour or one hour walk a day it'll make such a huge difference and You'll feel and sleep better because your body will be tired, right? Even better is try and go and do a small amount of exercise or weight lifting every day Even if it's just low weights, but you know high reps or even just a bit of cardio Anything that will get your body moving and your heart rate rise risen elevated, whatever That will really help. Okay, and you can do that by just walking you can do that by just really simple things, okay, like if you're at work and Someone has to like change the water on the water dispenser Offer to do that because then that's just a little bit more exercised a little bit more movement that you're doing That will help you, you know release energy during the day Keep him but how about keep your metabolism high and make sure that when it comes to time to sleep at night It's easier. Okay, because you've exerted yourself if you just sit down all day You'll get lethargic and you you'll find it really hard to go to sleep So really that's it guys. Those are the two main ways you can improve your sleep feel better and go to sleep faster


If you find this video helpful, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel, TheStatsFiles. Just look for the big red button. Hi, this is Dr. Don. I have a problem out of Chapter 8 when we're dealing with two sample hypothesis tests. In this particular problem, though, we're given summary data here, the sample means, the sample standard deviations, and the sample sizes for two samples. And we're asked to construct a 95% confidence interval for the mean difference, mean one minus mean two, with the sample statistics from here. Okay, we're told to assume the populations are approximately normal, which almost always is true in intro statistics. And we're also told that we should assume equal variances, which is important. Now they give us these big, long, complex formulas, and you can crunch through those and get the right answers, but it's a whole lot easier to let StatCrunch do that for you. You can go up to question help, and then click on StatCrunch, open StatCrunch, or you can navigate to statcrunch.com and open it that way. Okay, I'm over here in StatCrunch, and we're going to go, as we usually do, to Stat. This is T stats. Now why are we going to T stats? Let's look back at our problem. We're not given the population standard deviation sigmas. We're given S, the sample standard deviation. That's one clue. But if you look in the formula they give you, they show you T critical. That's another clue you use the T. But the main one you should catch is that you don't know the population standard deviation sigmas. So we go back over here to StatCrunch, and we go to T stats. We've got two samples, and we've got summary data. So we bring up our dialog box, and we're going to enter this data. One, eight, two, four, 18. And we go down to the next part, and this is the critical part. It says, note the default was changed to off, which means it's not going to pool variances. You pool variances if you have equal variances. So we do, so we need to check that. Then we go down. We want the confidence interval. It's all we have to do. We want the 95, so it's already got 0.95 in there, and I'm just going to click compute. And we bring up our answers here. We've got, again, our main difference, which was 149. We've got our standard error calculated for us, the degrees of freedom calculated. But there they are, the lower limit, 4.85, upper limit, 293.15. If we look over here, they say round to the nearest integer, and in my StatLab it's critical. You give them exactly what they ask for. So if we round 4.8 to the nearest integer, that would be 5, and 293.15 rounded would be 293, which is the values they have here. Hope this helps. And if it does help, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel, the stats files. Just click the big red subscribe button.


Welcome it's Jenkins documentation office hours it's the 17th of February 2023 Asia. And so we've got some items that I propose for the agenda so action items. We had Google Summer of Code preparation last time. Rajiv we could talk about that one again if you're interested Jenkins awards. Preparation transition to Java 17 and end of life checklist has been discussed. Preparation for sento seven end of life. And that was about it. Rajiv are there other topics you'd like to add to the list. No, no, I don't know. Okay, we can wait for this. And I was assuming we could spend time on Google Summer of Code preparation. So, so that's a great one to have you. Hey Meg welcome. Nope still no sound from Meg I see Meg twice but no sound so let's go ahead then. So how about while we're waiting for I see your picture now Meg, but still no audio. All right, well so if you can hear Meg that's great so there are some pieces while you're working on figuring that out let's go through the easy parts of the agenda, the kind of, we can just keep you informed and then we talk about it from there. So one of the items is Jenkins awards 2023 I'm going to move GSOC preparation down and we'll see if Chris Stern joins us. Okay so Jenkins awards 2023 each year, the continuous delivery foundation proposes and accepts nominations for three awards in the Jenkins community, most valuable Jenkins contributor security MVP, and most valuable Jenkins advocate. So what we do is we submit nominations by. So we nominate by adding comments comments to the GitHub issues linked to there. Hello, can you hear me. Yes, you can see here you just great Meg. I don't know why but all of a sudden I could hear you okay continue. All right so these the Jenkins awards are open. It opens. The nominations close the March, the third of March. So, submit your nominations, you can self nominate, etc, but submit nominations, etc. Now, as a matter of rule, the last the winter some last year can't win it a second year in a row. That means that this one. So, who was that candidate last year won't be eligible this year. I believe last year Vodek felonier was the security MVP, and therefore not eligible. Vodek was the security MVP and also then not eligible. And then most valuable Jenkins advocate I believe this was Darren Pope last year and again not eligible this year. Alyssa Tong has gotten that started and it's administered by the CDF but we host the nominations in our repository. Any questions on Jenkins awards. Okay next topic then documentation transition to Java 17. Beginning in April or May of 2023 Debian 12 release and Debian 12 at its release will no longer deliver Java 11. It will deliver Java 17. Because it's delivering Java 17. We don't want to sets of documentation. So we intend in April or May with that release to switch the default description of our installations to use Java 17. So Java 17 is already supported. Will you will just will switch the direct the instructions to use it as the default. Java 11 continues to be supported. We look forward to making that transition. Now, Tim or no, Kevin Martins has the action and we share with Tim that that's the proposal from the documentation side. Any questions there. Sounds like a plan to me. Okay. Next piece was we've got a number of end of life events coming up for various operating systems. So Java 17 ends life in April of this year. Alpine 314 in May. Alpine 315 in November and then a year for whoops, a year from now or a little over 15 months from now.  So the idea here was hey let's assemble a checklist that reminds us of all the things we need to do to properly end of life and operating system in in Jenkins. So that's that's one that's ongoing work. The idea idea there is Kevin will probably create a create a template. In the Jenkins docs repo, and then create copies of that template for each obsolescence, each end of life. So the if this is patterned after, after the release checklist or the real, yeah, the release. Yes, after the release checklist that we use for Jenkins LTS releases. So it's just a nice thing to have a checklist that we use to work through. Hey, how does have we done all these things as we reach end of life on an operating system. Any questions there. No good idea. Okay, all right. And last is last. Yeah, last. We've got to I've got a proposal because I don't like Centos seven. And I admit it. It's me. I don't like it. Period. I don't like Centos X. Well, Centos seven has an ancient version of command line get an ancient version of SSH. And those ancient versions complicate complicate Jenkins plugins noticeably the get plugin. And I want to get rid of that complication. Well, as further argument why we should get rid of it. Centos seven Docker container has been deprecated for almost five months now. And the Centos project entered maintenance mode in 2020 and will end of life in 2024. So completely there won't be more Centos. Well, no more Centos seven for sure. They've, they've done a different thing with the thing they now call Centos stream that is the next. It's, it's a predecessor of the next release of red hat enterprise Linux. So they've shifted to be closer, more like Fedora than what what Centos seven was Centos seven was just a simple copy of red hat seven. Okay. Now we've got. So this is this is a difference from the past and that usually we would continue to support this thing until it's official end of support by the operating system provider. So we would typically have supported it until June of 2024. But given the Docker containers deprecated and given the pain and suffering caused by the ancient programs inside of it. I'm taking the proposal that I think I'm going to propose a Jenkins enhancement proposal that ends its life early. Does anybody have consequence use Centos. Oh yeah, yeah. For instance, Darren hope created a video showing how to install with Centos seven and they're quite a number of issues reported related to it.  The other platform was fine but Centos seven was broke. So did that answer your question make right so that I mean is there going to. Are these people are there people using Centos seven that are going to be upset by this. There will be but they'll be every bit is upset in June of 2024. Yes, because many of them will say I want to keep using it even though the project no longer supports it. And, and the answer is Jenkins will absolutely drop support it in June of 2024 because we won't support something that the upstream no longer supports. Right. So the idea is because our installer already doesn't support it. And because the containers aren't supported. It will be coming to a premature end of life. And since it's coming to a premature end of life anyway, let's make it explicit and declare it end of life.  So that they'll get a little pop up that says hey, you're running your controller on Centos seven and Centos seven support from the Jenkins project will end in, let's say December of 2023, something like that. Just for the same way. Do they have any record I mean if they wanted to grab their own copies of the plugins and keep them updated for Centos seven etc. I'm sure they could, they could certainly fork the plugins and create their own private copies and decide hey I'm going to maintain it. That's not a typical behavior for a Centos seven user. That's what I yeah, that's what I'm just wondering if there's like a big company out there that's got some other though critical software that won't run on anything but Centos seven or something. They certainly because it's open source they could certainly maintain it themselves they could care for it and right now we're not taking any active measures to make things any worse. We just want to officially declare we're going to stop testing there. We're going to stop documenting there. And we're going to, we're going to make it here. Let's show what I like this way of describing it. It will become one of these. If we look at the Java requirements. This page says, oh no Java. No, that's not it. I want Java. Where this is. I'm looking for something different sorry Meg just a minute. We want the Java requirements page. No, I want the Java support. Oh, the Linux support policy sorry not the Java support for this one. All right so here's our Linux support policy we define three support three support levels, level one supported. All right, and in level one supported we say, hey we run tests of this thing. We test the container images. We run all sorts of different things to assure that they continue working. And that's where Centos seven is right now. There is a second layer where we say hey we don't actively test these, but they're still supported. That includes 32 bit things, a risk five and power PC other architectures that we don't support at the top level. But these are supported by their providers in terms of the platformer on the third level is this is reserved for Linux versions no longer supported by operating system providers. So in this case, we went to 16 is one of these. It's no longer supported by Ubuntu therefore we don't support Jenkins on it. Centos six is like this. The proposal is let's explicitly place Centos seven in this level three already earlier than June of 2024. It will be there in June of 2024 anyway. Fine with me. All right, cool. Centos I mean of course I'd like to stop supporting Windows. Oh, now that's terrible because I'm running the meeting for Windows computer I don't know what you're saying Windows is a lovely thing. All right. That covered all the topics I had Rajiv you as part of your work on Google summer of code were there any things that you wanted to discuss or questions you wanted to raise. So, I talked with Chris, so she said like, so Chris has updated some status page of the shop. So the thing is that I saw that coming. So we are waiting for 2022 Feb, where the list projects will be announced. And after that we'll have like session on that so we are waiting for the result, whether we will be selected for this project or not. Right. Okay, so after the announcement. There will be a weekly office hours for weekly Google summer of code office hours for org admins and mentors. Had you seen that announcement Rajiv. Yeah, so after the announcement you'll have a pick up meeting. Right, we can discuss on that. Good very good. And now you're if I remember correctly your past experiences with site generation and so you were interested in the doc site generation project. Yeah. So site generation for Jenkins that IO and you were willing to mentor. And Rajiv is willing to mentor based on your experience with a site generation project in a previous Google summer of code is that correct. Yeah. All right. So Meg for your info this is a project to use and Torah to build the Jenkins.io site. And to allow the docs pages to be version specific. Nice. Right right it's a it's a really it's a great idea. And the nice thing here is that Rajiv has done something like this in years past for another project as part of Google summer of code. So Rajiv is willing this year to help by being a mentor on it. Okay, did I say that correctly. Yeah, yeah, and the mega was my mentor last day. Oh, captain. Oh, well that's that's great okay so so you've had interactions with with more than just Chris Stern on this project very good. Yeah. All right well so do you have any other questions Rajiv. No, no, no. Any other topics for you. Nope. Okay well I think I'm going to propose to pause to stop here then because I've got a hot bug in Jenkins core that I want to fix and it needs me to write a test for it. So I'm going to call an end for docs office hours today unless there are other topics we want to discuss. I'm good. Okay, Rajiv, thank you will look forward to talking to you when Google where I'm intensely hopeful that Jenkins will be accepted and that announced that'll be announced on the 22nd. And then we'll talk to you at Google summer of code office hours. Now, next week, I'm canceling this session. So, that's right I should make a note of that. I will cancel this meeting next week, because Mark is going to Miami with Colleen. Oh, how lovely. Well, for a vacation. I don't like my any better than I like CentOS but negative today on everything you do. So we're clear Meg Miami is a lot better than the 17 degree Fahrenheit whether I had in Colorado today. I lived there for two and a half years so well Fort Lauderdale. So yeah I would actually argue I'd rather have the 17 then. Then Florida. Every building doesn't smell of mildew. So that's don't have three inch bugs that crawl across the floor that you can smash and they keep moving. All right, and that's that's the price you pay for living in a tropical paradise Rajiv I assume that you live probably in India somewhere. So you understand hot and wet, and that wintertime probably doesn't bring much snow to you right. Yeah. So we're going to make a trip to a place that's probably near to your weather than to my weather. Right what are you going to do in Miami then we're just going to wander around and have fun. All right. All right, well thanks everybody. We will talk to you in two weeks. Fabulous. Thank you. Thanks. Bye.