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Changing Your Reading Habits Can Transform Your Health
Do you read? I mean do you read books and if so do you read frequently, funny question I know but once you have taken the time to read the story by Michael Grothaus in FastCompany magazine below you will hopefully realize that you should to do more reading for it might actually help to transform your health:
How Changing Your Reading Habits Can Transform Your Health
Reading doesn’t just improve your knowledge, it can help fight depression, make you more confident, empathetic, and a better decision maker.
My favorite book is War and Peace.
And I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, another writer wanting people to think he’s all intellectual and highbrow.”
But it really is my favorite book, only not because it has 1,500 pages of unforgettable characters or a generational plot that is more compelling than that of any other book I’ve read. It’s because right before I started reading it, my life was in a rut. I had recently been passed over for a promotion at Apple and I had just been rejected by a graduate school I applied to. This double whammy left me doubting myself, my abilities, and my future. So when I came across the massive tome that is War and Peace, I thought, “Why not? I’m not doing anything else.”
“People who read find it easier to make decisions, plan, and prioritize.”
Two months later, I finished the book and immediately knew I had a new “favorite.” But it wasn’t my new favorite book just because it was so compelling. It was my new favorite because it changed something in me. It’s almost impossible to explain why, but after reading it I felt more confident in myself, less uncertain about my future. I became more assertive with my bosses. I got back on the horse, so to speak, and applied to three more graduate schools. I attended three interviews and got accepted to all three schools (without mentioning War and Peace at all). As weird as it sounds, reading War and Peace put me back in control of my life—and that’s why it’s my favorite book.
But according to Dr Josie Billington, deputy director of the Centre for Research into Reading at the University of Liverpool, my experience wasn’t so odd. It’s actually the norm for people who read a lot—and one of the main benefits of reading that most people don’t know about.
“Reading for pleasure can help prevent conditions such as stress, depression, and dementia.”
“Reading can offer richer, broader, and more complex models of experience, which enable people to view their own lives from a refreshed perspective and with renewed understanding,” says Billington. This renewed understanding gives readers a greater ability to cope with difficult situations by expanding their “repertoires and sense of possible avenues of action or attitude.”…
Read more at this link
What You Should Know About Your Health At Every Age
I hope you don’t mind me asking: Do you worry too about your health? and what do you know about your health or how it differs as you age?
Well The Huffington Post is just now publishing a guide about that very question and below is an excerpt of the first part of that guide which looks this will be rather interesting and well worth your time:
Health complaints change over the decades. What worries us at 25 is very different from our concerns at 40. We asked the HuffPost Lifestyle Facebook community to tell us what they worried about most, and then conferred with experts.
Whether you’re barely 20 years old or pushing 65, health stewardship is a part of being an adult. Everyday decisions, repeated over a lifetime, can mean the difference between a long and active life and one confined to a couch or hospital bed.
While many people assume you can’t do anything about your genetic lot in life, that’s not true. Armed with better behavior and educated, preventative measures based on family history, you can be your most healthful self.
While there’s no precise figure for the impact that genetics plays on health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that from a population-wide perspective, less than 12 percent of health outcomes are genetic. The rest is a mixture of environment, behavior and access to quality health services.
Genetic knowledge is power
While you can’t change your genes, you can arm yourself with the specific knowledge that might help you. Use your next family gathering as a chance to learn more about your genetic risks — even if your family is generally healthy.
“It’s never too early to start with a good family health history,” said Dr. Charis Eng, a cancer geneticist at the Cleveland Clinic. Her advice? Touch base with whomever has the most comprehensive knowledge of your extended family’s health — it’s not necessarily your parents — then draw up a family health blueprint.
“Certainly with parents or first-degree relatives, parents, siblings, kids, you can start building: Have you ever been ill? How old were you when you were diagnosed?” Eng said.
You can also take stock of genetic red flags, or factors that might increase your chances of developing a disease or condition. “Age is very important,” Eng said. “If a disease typically starts in the rest of us at 60, and your mom is like, ‘No, I actually got it at 30,’ that’s a red flag.”…
Another red flag is a cluster of similar disease types. For example, if all of the women in your family died of breast cancer, you have a higher risk of developing the disease yourself.
Once you have the your family history in hand, bring it to your doctor and discuss any concerns you have with her. It’s also good idea to update your history periodically — a new Thanksgiving tradition, perhaps? — to ensure it remains up to date.
“As research goes on, we will see that the sooner one knows whether one is at risk for disease X or Y, the more effective either prevention or early detection will be,” Eng said.
Here’s a helpful tool to build your own family health blueprint….
Sugar intake should be halved
Are you one of those using to much sugar? several years ago I seriously reduced my sugar consumption after reading about white sugar being a genuine poison, meanwhile in England the government has been advised to develop a program targeting a reduction of 50% of the current sugar consumption:
Scientific experts: Sugar intake ‘should be halved’
A committee of scientists has advised the government to halve the current recommended daily intake of sugar.
Nutrition experts say no more than 5% of daily calories should come from added sugar – about seven teaspoons.
Most people consume at least twice this limit.
The government has said it will accept the recommendations and will use them to develop its national strategy on childhood obesity, which is due out later this year.
The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), which advises Public Health England and other government agencies on nutrition, wants the recommended daily intake of sugar to be halved to reduce obesity risk and improve dental health.
Prof Ian Macdonald, chair of the working group of the committee, said: “The evidence is stark – too much sugar is harmful to health and we all need to cut back.
“The clear and consistent link between a high-sugar diet and conditions like obesity and type 2 diabetes is the wake-up call we need to rethink our diet.
“Cut down on sugars, increase fibre and we’ll all have a better chance of living longer, healthier lives.”
Free sugars
The guidelines, which apply from the age of two, are in line with new World Health Organization proposals.
Prof Judith Buttriss of the British Nutrition Foundation said the type of sugar targeted was known as free sugar – all the different types of sugar in the diet, excluding the sugars that are found naturally in fruit and milk..
How Accurate Are Online Symptom Checkers?
Are you visiting the internet for those symptom checkers too? I must admit doing so regularly if only to get some idea as to why I feel the way I feel. However a new study shows that might be a complete waste of time for most of these checkers are useless:
How Accurate Are Online Symptom Checkers?
Automated online “symptom checkers” that seem to offer patients a quick opportunity for self-diagnosis provide the right diagnosis in only about one-third of cases, a new analysis reveals.
The study team found that online checkers — which are typically free services offered by medical schools, insurance companies, and even government entities — are a more reliable and effective means to get a handle on symptoms than using web search engines such as Google.
looking at online symptom checkers
The investigation also found that online medical checkers are about as accurate as primary care physician phone services that offer patients advice on whether or not a condition requires urgent care.
“The goal with these symptom checkers is to try and streamline the process by which people search the Internet for information on health problems,” explained study lead author Hannah Semigran, a research assistant in the department of health care policy at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
“And we found that they are a better alternative to previous attempts to conduct random searches. Symptom checkers are definitely a more organized and constructive way to go about that,” she added.
“We found that they are pretty good at effectively directing people with an (emergency) situation to seek some kind of appropriate care, and to do so quickly,” Semigran said. “But these tools are only a helpful piece of the information puzzle. And users should know that they definitely do not provide the final word on their diagnosis.”
Semigran and her colleagues reported their research online July 9 in the BMJ. Funding was provided by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
To assess the pros and cons of symptom checkers, the study team made a list of symptoms from 45 medical scenarios typically presented to medical students for teaching purposes.
In 2014, those symptoms were input into 23 different English-language online symptom checkers. All were free, available to the public, and variously based in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Poland.
Some sites had multiple-choice symptom lists, while others allowed for users to enter their symptoms manually. These automated systems then generated a ballpark sense of what the user’s problem could be, and whether or not the person needed immediate in-person care.
Taken together, the online checkers accurately assessed symptoms on the first attempt in roughly one-third of cases. More than half the time, a correct diagnosis was listed among three top options. And that success rate rose to 58 percent among lists offering 20 options.
What’s more, the checkers were judged to be accurate 57 percent of the time when giving advice as to how to handle the symptoms and where to seek care; that figure jumped to 80 percent when faced with critical or urgent situations. The researchers pointed out that performance varied across the symptom checkers.
Prior research has suggested that random Internet searches only help patients get good advice 64 percent of the time when struggling to handle an urgent concern. Other studies have found triage phone lines to be similarly effective, providing in the range of 61 to 69 percent accuracy when diagnosing a range of conditions (compared with an in-person diagnosis rendered by a physician).
The study authors also found checkers to be relatively conservative when making judgment calls. At times that meant advising users to seek unwarranted medical care. “And sometimes the list of diagnoses options offered can be huge, which can be very confusing for users,” said Semigran..
21 Very Good Reasons to Eat Less Sugar
If you think eating less sugar is what you decide on doing when you want to loose weight read on and see why you should very seriously consider adopting this new habit asap.
I’ll just list those reasons after the intro of the article and you can read the details by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page:
21 Reasons to Eat Less Sugar That Have Nothing to Do With Losing Weight
Don’t be alarmed—but something’s hiding in your food. From the cereal you had for breakfast to the dressing on your salad to the ketchup on your fries, an addictive substance is lurking in many foods that you’d never suspect.
Far more loathed than fat or cholesterol these days, sugar has become public enemy No. 1 when it comes to the health of America. In fact, in our effort to listen to doctors’ orders (and government guidelines) to consume less fat and less cholesterol, Americans turned to “healthy” low-fat foods that were actually loaded with sugar.
In its recent report, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee cited sugar as one of our biggest health concerns and recommended that sugar make up 10 percent or fewer of our daily calorie intake. The American Heart Association recommends that no more than half of your daily discretionary calories comes from added sugars (about 6 teaspoons or 100 calories for women, and 9 teaspoons or 150 calories for men). But we’re eating way more of the sweet stuff than that: The CDC reports that the average American eats between 13 and 20 teaspoons of added sugar a day (around 230 calories for women, and 335 for men).
In its natural state, sugar is a relatively harmless—even necessary—carbohydrate that our bodies need to function. It’s found in fruits, vegetables, and dairy as a compound known as fructose or lactose. The problem comes when sugar is added to foods during processing for added flavor, texture, or color. This is more common than you may realize—you don’t have to be in the candy aisle to be surrounded by added sugar.
Eating too many of these empty calories has many health effects, the most obvious being major weight gain. Added sugar drives your insulin levels up, messes with your metabolism, and causes those calories to turn right into belly fat. And while losing weight is well and good, that’s just the beginning of the health benefits of cutting back on the sweet stuff. Below are 21 more legit reasons—besides fitting into skinny jeans—to tame that sweet tooth for good..
1. It can lower your blood pressure…
2. …As well as your bad cholesterol.
3. It decreases your heart attack risk.
4. It keeps your brain sharp.
5. You’ll be less likely to have Alzheimer’s and dementia…
6. …And depression.
7. You’ll break your addiction to the sweet stuff.
8. It will keep your skin looking young…
9. …And clear.
10. It will lower your risk of diabetes.
11. It can help prevent fatty liver disease.
12. It can help reduce your risk of certain cancers.
13. Your breath will be sweeter.
14. You’ll breathe easier.
15. You’ll have more energy.
16. You’ll have fewer cravings.
17. You’ll make fewer trips to the dentist…
18. …And the doctor.
19. You’ll save money.
20. You’ll help Planet Earth…
21. …And help impoverished workers.
Have you heard about all the Green Tea Benefits?
Much has been said about green tea benefits and how good it is for your health and how the Japanese who drink this all day long are in a better condition than most of us but did you know about all the benefits claimed by this amazing tea type?
Here’s an excerpt of an article listing 10 benefits and I must admit that after reading it I went straight to the kitchen and made me some green tea:
Top 10 New Health Benefits of Green Tea
Green tea is a refreshing, delicious, and healthy drink that many people across the world enjoy. Outside of being an enjoyable drink and carrying years of cultural heritage, research has suggested that numerous tangible benefits result from drinking it. From promoting heart health to perhaps preventing cancer to even fostering psychological well-being, green tea has made a name for itself as one of the most healthful drinks there is. Here, we explore ten different benefits of green tea.
List of the Best Green Tea Health Benefits
1. Heart Health
heart-health-green-teaIn many studies, regular consumption of green tea was linked to an overall decrease in cholesterol and blood pressure. It also was shown to prevent various heart diseases brought about by cholesterol and blood pressure, such as congestive heart failure and atherosclerosis (the progressive hardening and blocking of the arteries). Also observed was a tendency of green tea to ease blood flow just thirty minutes after consumption. High cholesterol and other forms of heart disease are almost always the products of many years of buildup, so adopting green tea into your lifestyle (combined with generally healthy practices) would lower your chances of future heart problems. Even drinking a cup a day can be a great investment for later life!
2. Mental Health
The cardiovascular benefits of green tea are also linked to improved brain function, because better blood flow results in the brain receiving more blood. This enhanced brain function generally includes better short-term cognitive and perceptual processing—essentially an increase in brainpower. Of course, this claim is backed by solid research, a Swiss study demonstrated, through MRIs, that regular drinkers of green tea had higher activity in the working-memory areas of their brains (the area of the brain concerned with perceptual and linguistic processing).
Further studies also hinted at green tea delaying or preventing Alzheimer’s disease by stopping the formation of harmful plaques. While green tea shouldn’t be mistaken for some sort of magical nootropic, incorporating it into your lifestyle should certainly help improve your mental capabilities by a degree.
3. Prevents and Helps Manage Diabetes
Diabetes (the type II variant) is a very common disease that results from the body not being able to properly process sugar. Green tea has been shown to manage blood sugar levels in people with diabetes; this is because it induces a biochemical interaction that helps cells metabolize sugar (mainly glucose) better. This has done wonders for people with diabetes who regularly consume green tea.
Regular consumption of green tea also seems to prevent diabetes. A Japanese study found that people who drank 6 cups of green tea a day were 33% less likely to develop type II diabetes. A series of similar studies also found that while most types of tea help with the prevention and management of diabetes, green tea is ideal for this purpose.
Here’s the link to the full article including the other 7 benefits:https://gazettereview.com/2015/07/best-health-benefits-of-green-tea/
Sugary drinks kill 184,000 a year
Do you consume any sugary drinks? I never do and haven’t done so for at least 30 years after reading they contained a massive amount of sugar and so were very bad for my health;
Well these drinks haven’t got any healthier but unfortunately millions of people continue to drink them daily.
Here’s a story that confirms this painful reality:
Sugary drinks kill 184,000 a year through diabetes, heart disease and cancer
Scientists issue new warning after worldwide study reveals the death toll caused by the drinks
Sugary soft drinks kill 184,000 adults every year, scientists claim.
And there could be a ticking time bomb because those under 45 consume more artificially sweetened drinks and are more at risk of diabetes and obesity.
The worldwide study is the first to estimate deaths and disability from diabetes, heart disease, and cancers caused by the drinks.
It said 133,000 deaths from diabetes, 45,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease and 6,450 deaths from cancer were caused by fizzy drinks, fruit drinks, energy drinks and sweetened ice teas in 2010.
• How much sugar is in your soft drinks?
• Sweet poison: why sugar is ruining our health
The study did not include pure fruit juices and all drinks had at least 50 kcal per eight US ounces serving or just over two thirds of a standard pop can.
Dr Dariush Mozaffarian, Dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston said: “Many countries in the world have a significant number of deaths occurring from a single dietary factor, sugar-sweetened beverages.
“It should be a global priority to substantially reduce or eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet.
“There are no health benefits from sugar-sweetened beverages, and the potential impact of reducing consumption is saving tens of thousands of deaths each year.”
Here’s the link to the original article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11707396/Sugary-drinks-kill-184000-a-year-through-diabetes-heart-disease-and-cancer.html
10 reasons why sunshine is good for your health
I somehow keep forgetting how important vitamin D is for my general wellbeing and so I am happy to read this story at the seaside where I have just arrived for a 2 week vacation.
Hopefully the weather will prove to be sunny so I can get loaded up for the next couple of months, may I suggest you read this story too and take it to heart:
why sunshine is good for your health
1. You’ll start the day better
Being woken up gradually by the sun’s natural light switches off melatonin, the hormone that stimulates sleep. This improves your energy and mood without the “fight or flight” stress of an alarm clock forcing you awake. Leave your curtains open – or use a “dawn simulator” alarm (from £59.95; lumie.com) to feel less tired and more alert.
2. It boosts your mood
Sunshine boosts levels of serotonin, the body’s natural happy hormone. Just five minutes of exercise outdoors – such as a walk in your local park – is enough to make you feel happier and less stressed, according to research published in the Environmental Science & Technology journal.
3. It’s easier to lose weight
Just 20 to 30 minutes of early morning sunshine can help lower body fat, say scientists. Light is the most potent agent to synchronize your internal body clock – regulating circadian rhythms which, in turn, also regulate energy balance, says Dr Phyllis Zee, professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Not getting sufficient light between 8am and noon can de-synchronize your internal body clock, altering the metabolism and can lead to weight gain. Serotonin can also act as a natural appetite suppressant for some people.
4. Your memory works better
A high level of vitamin D in the bloodstream can boost memory and protect against dementia.
A study, in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, found middle-aged and older men with higher levels of the vitamin had a better memory and were quicker to process information.
5. Things hurt less
Being out in the sun helps to warm the body’s muscles and eases stiffness, reducing the pain caused by inflammatory conditions such as arthritis.
Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University noted that patients who were placed in bright rooms reported less perceived stress and took less medication per hour than patients in dim rooms.
Building a Case for Nutritional Supplements
Building a Case for Nutritional Supplements
It’s true that ideally, we should be getting the essential nutrients we need from food. An organic-based diet that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables should be enough to keep us healthy. Unfortunately, for the overwhelming majority of us, it’s not.
Sure, relying exclusively on food may keep you from developing vitamin deficiencies, but a dietary approach alone is not going to come close to optimizing your health.
In this post, we’ll look at just a few of the reasons we believe supplementing your diet with vitamins and minerals is a smart move. If you’re on the fence about whether or not you should be taking supplements yourself, this post is for you.
Reason #1: Poor Soil Conditions Equal Less Nutritious Food
Dr. Bernard Jensen was a world-renowned clinical nutritionist who once said that a tomato today is not the same as a tomato from 100 years ago. What he was referring to is the poor conditions of our soil in this day and age.
The first U.S. soil surveys were completed in the 1920s. They all concluded that our soil was depleted of key nutrients like nitrates and carbonates. These soil nutrients are necessary for the growth of healthy crops and ultimately, nutrient-dense food. And that was way back in the 1920s.
So what’s been done since then to improve the conditions of our soil? Well, not much. In the 1930s and 40s, following the Great Dust Bowl, farmers planted soy to reinvigorate top soil. This helped to some extent but certainly not to the degree needed.
Since then, farmers have had to incorporate chemicals into the soil to rapidly improve growth potential. And while this may help to grow crops, it doesn’t necessarily grow healthy crops. The natural conclusion then would be to look toward organically grown fruits and vegetables.
Although we believe that organic produce would be a healthier choice in terms of pesticides, it doesn’t ensure that you’ll be eating nutrient-rich food. Why? Because organic soil is just as devoid of nutrients as chemically treated soil is.
The bottom line is this: Poor soil produces poor crops, and poor crops produce nutrient-depleted food…
Original story link is https://blog.lef.org/2011/10/building-case-for-nutritional.html
to discover the very best in Advanced Supplements to get and stay healthy
Fight Fatigue with These Energy-Boosting Foods
Fight Fatigue with These Energy-Boosting Foods
Feeling sluggish every day? You’re not alone. Many men and women wake up tired, and go through their day feeling exhausted. In an effort to stay awake and function, they turn to food – but it’s the sugary, high caffeine options that have them crashing 30 minutes to an hour later.
You can use food to provide energy to your body, but it has to be done the right way. For instance, if you’re used to eating a chocolate candy bar for energy, then switch to a couple of ounces of dark chocolate instead.
You get the caffeine and sugar, but also the health benefits of this wonderful food and in moderation, you won’t suffer from the typical sugar crash you have after a milk chocolate candy bar.
Flavor your meal with some spicy herbs for a quick energy boost. Foods with capsaicin – like hot chili peppers – can boost your energy and provide other health benefits, too.
If you need a snack to wake up and get tasks done, reach for a banana. The potassium helps keep your blood sugar levels stable so that you don’t have that midday crash in energy.
A great high fiber, high carb snack that won’t pack on pounds is popcorn. Eat the healthier versions, not those laden with tons of movie theater butter slathered all over it.
Iron-rich foods like leafy green vegetables can supply you with tons of energy. When your iron levels wane, it makes you feel weak and lethargic. Try greens like kale, spinach, collard, mustards and turnips.
Fresh fruit can do the job! Grab a handful of grapes, or use citrus fruits as a quick pick-me-up. Oranges, or even lemon added to your water, can perk you up if you start slumping.
Find a food cooked with curry! Not only is it delicious, but curry stabilized blood sugar to prevent crashes – and it also helps with the circulation in your body to keep your body well oxygenated.
And don’t forget water. Although it’s a drink and not a food, it’s what helps keep your body operating in tip top shape at a cellular level. Without proper hydration, it won’t matter what foods you eat because the nutrients won’t be able to do their job.