Eat What You Like

The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. On the other hand, the French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. Conclusion: Eat & drink what you like. It's speaking English that kills you.

Get Older, Get Happier!

Perhaps the best news I've ever relayed: more happiness may come with age

According to a study reported by CNN.com,
# Older adults, may be better able avoid stressful situations,
which may mean less negative emotion
# They also may limit the time spent thinking about negative aspects of a situation
# Memory may also contribute to older adults' positive emotional state

Are You a Prisoner?

Noted Feng Shui author and friend, Nancy Wydra, writes: “For most of human history we lived not just in close association with nature but outdoors, in direct contact with it. Survival required full use of all of the senses. Early humans were able to identify poisonous plants by smell, discern by the sound of movement which animals lurked amid foliage, and use their vocal cords to identify themselves to others and to send signals of distress. Human beings evolved in direct response to their environment. Scientists theorize, for example, that standing upright was a response to the need to see faster predators from a safe distance.

Premodern human beings not only responded to the natural environment but also thrived in it. The sounds of birds, wind, and scurrying animals; the fragrance of grasses and flowers and the scents of animals were woven into the fabric of eachday while humans performed life-sustaining tasks. The warming sunlight encouraged the production of serotonin (a neurochemical that encourages feelings of optimism and happiness) and injected vitamin D into a recipient's life force. Nature provided a multi-tiered sensorial infusion that is obliterated indoors.

In sharp contrast, life today in spent mostly indoors. Statistics reveal that the majority of Americans spend less than one hour outside every day. Even if we do nothing else to help our lives, spending more time outside will contribute to our physical and emotional well-being. The National Institutes of Health report that if each of us would walk twenty minutes to work and then home again at day's end, the general population's health would improve significantly.

Breathing Space Each Day

A riveting article in Wall Street Journal, discussed how some people think they can fly off to a spa, have two weeks of idyllic living, come back, and be ready to go. A growing body of research, however, suggests that this approach is wrong and that multi-millions of people manage stress incorrectly. They stress out all day and defer relaxation to isolated blocks of time, such as evening yoga classes and weekend trips.

The problem with this approach to stress management is that the relentless exposure to daily, chronic anxiety is the most toxic form of stress. The body releases chemicals under high stress that can damage the immune system and increase the risk of all types of illness. Stress can harm neurons in the brain, hamper sexual performance, and even lead to heart attacks and premature death.

The conclusion from these findings: people need breathing space throughout the day, every day.

To Your Health!

Health links worth visiting;

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16933166

www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2006/hmprobiotics.htm

www.squidoo.com/netipotnasalwash

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/31/earlyshow/saturday/main3226777.shtml

Resorting to Drugs

Where is the Breathing Space in a nation that pops a pill at every turn? You'll never convince me otherwise: as a society our default response to information and communication overload is ingesting psychopharmaceuticals.

Patrick Di Justo, writing in Wired Magazine says, "America may be the land of Mickey Mouse and Goofy, but the US isn’t exactly the happiest place on Earth. Antidepressants are the most commonly popped pills in the country, accounting for 227 million prescriptions filled last year alone. Of course, Prozac and its descendants aren’t the only popular psychiatric meds: Remedies for seizure disorders — often used to treat bipolar disease, as well as epilepsy — and for anxiety are among the 10 most-prescribed drugs in the nation."

"But even as our hunger for pills has grown, basic innovation has slowed. Many “new” medications are actually reformulations of previously approved drugs, not novel molecules. As a result, some of the most widely taken treatments have been around for years: Today's leading anxiety beater, alprazolam, for example, originally hit the market in 1981 as Xanax."

The Risks of Sleep Debt

"For years, sleep researchers have been preaching the dangers of lost sleep: People who are fatigued can't pay attention to routine tasks, have trouble learning and are prone to a laundry list of health problems, from depression to high blood pressure," says Kathleen Facklemann in USA Today

"New research suggests an added risk to losing sleep day after day: Humans and animals that have chronic sleep deprivation might reach a point at which the very ability to catch up on lost sleep is damaged, according to Fred Turek, a sleep researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois."

"His research on sleep patterns in rats appeared this summer in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That, together with findings from a human study, suggests people who lose sleep night after night might not recover the alertness they need to perform well during the day. So far the studies don't tell researchers whether the damage is permanent. But they do suggest that people who go to work fatigued day after day might perform consistently at a subpar level.

No Alarm, No Adrenaline Rush

As I have been telling my audiences for years, if you wake by alarm clock then by definition you didn't get enough sleep. Receiving sufficient sleep for the night means that you arise on your own, without an artificial stimulant such as an alarm clock.

If you have trouble getting up at time you prefer to arise, experiment with going to bed earlier, to find that time in which you can comfortably arise without an alarm clock. A secondary benefit
to knowing that you've gotten enough sleep for the night because you've been able to arise on your own is not to awake in an adrenaline rush.

"Alarm" clocks and other devices are named as such because they are meant to alarm you. When you think about it however, is that the way you want to start each day? Being jolting out of your reverie and thrown into waking consciousness ready or not? How much different would your day be if you woke peacefully, naturally, completely on your own?

Underfunding Healthy Foods

In a Baltimore Sun feature by Scott Kahan it appears that "A long-running contradiction in U.S. farm policy is fattening the waistlines of Americans and the profits of agribusiness at the same time. For the 30 years that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been issuing dietary guidelines, there has been a stark inconsistency between the federal government's advice and its food funding."

"True, the USDA has been doing more, over time, to promote health through dietary guidelines, food pyramids and other nutrition programs. And yet more than $20 billion yearly -- more than one-fifth its budget -- is sunk into a farm bill that supports many of the foods its recommendations warn against. At the same time, the department virtually ignores incentives to produce, promote and consume some of the healthiest foods: fruits and vegetables."

"This contradiction may play a role in today's obesity epidemic and is in part driven by a counterintuitive farm policy, highlighted by the farm bill, which is up for renewal this year in Congress. This legislation began during the Depression to protect farmers against environmental disasters and plummeting crop prices but has evolved into a massive program of handouts, largely benefiting agribusinesses. Worse, it promotes vast overproduction of crops that are the building blocks of calorie-dense, nutrient-poor, processed junk foods. It has become a 'food bill.'"

Jeff's take: overweight and obesity are the antithesis of Breathing Space. Learn to shop for yourself and eat what is healthy, or endure the consequences.

No Smoking: Real Breathing Space

USA TODAY reporter Wend Koch writes that "Lawmakers in two California cities are casting votes this month on unprecedented legislation that would widen a growing voluntary movement by landlords and resident associations to ban smoking inside apartments and condos."

"Tens of thousands of apartments and condos have gone smoke-free in the past five years, management companies and health activists say."

Percentage of the U.S. adult population who smoke based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention :
• 1965: 42.4%
• 1970: 37.4%
• 1974: 37.1%
• 1980: 33.2%
• 1985: 30.1%
• 1990: 25.5%
• 1995: 24.7%
• 2001: 22.8%
• 2004: 20.9%

Now Sit up Straight!

Trainer Luke Richesson quoted in Mens Health magazine says: "Your body adapts to the posture you most often assume. If you sit at a desk all day with your shoulders slumped and your neck protruding forward, then you'll inevitably have a posture that looks more like Neanderthal man than Superman. Want to be the best you can be...? Think about posture every waking minute.

Your mother was right, don't slouch.

Human Billboards on the Loose

My home town newspaper, the Chapel Hill News, which seems to have an ongoing convoluted social agenda, recently glorified two college students who got tattoos which enabled them to get a discount on cups of coffee at a local coffee shop. Anthropologist Margaret Mead referred to tattoos and body piercing as self-mutilation. While the two young people, with a strong yen for coffee (or is it addiction to the psychotropic drug caffeine?) were exalted in the article for becoming human billboards, the rest of Chapel Hill's students were potentially exposed to more bizarre behavior, sanctioned by the home-town newspaper.

Here's what the newspaper article and other articles like don't seem to include:

1) Tattoos, however seemingly cool initially, can become god-awful looking over time, and what you thought was nifty at age 20 can appear ridiculous at 30 or 40.

2) The tattoo removal business is thriving. Removal, however, can be painful, involved, and costly, possibly exceedingly $1000, with only semi-satisfactory results.

3) What if the sponsoring coffee shop doesn't stay in business?

4) Many workplace policies don't permit tattoos or piercings unless they're under cover. Having tattoos can limit or end your career prospects, reports USA Today. Many companies are concerned about how much contact their "modified" employees will have with customers.

One local medical supplier requires employees in the field to cover tattoos and remove facial piercings. Walt Disney World, in its "cast" appearance policy, permits employee tattoos only if they can be covered with opaque makeup, not a bandage. Caribou Coffee (O! the irony) does not allow "facial jewelry" or visible tattoos.

PetSmart allows only covered tattoos. In the hot, steamy climate of Houston, Texas, law enforcement officers must wear winter clothing year-round to cover what would otherwise be visible tattoos with short sleeves.

Employers say that it's "a matter of professionalism." Applicants who aim to serve the public must keep the public's trust and confidence in mind. Would you trust an officer who appears to frequent the nearest biker bar?

If you land a job in an air-conditioned office and it's possible to wear long sleeves all year long, maybe you can get away with tattoos on your arms, chest, or back. However, what about a company picnic, a company baseball game, or some other outing? And do you want to wear long sleeves in the summer for the rest of your career?

As for the Chapel Hill News, what's next? A front-page, top-of-the-fold feature on getting eyebrow rings for discount prices on donuts? Please! Give us some Breathing Space from such lame-brain articles.

Stand for Health

A recent feature in Men's Health caught my eye, as I have been using a stand-up desk for the last 18 months:

Stand In The Place Where You Work: "Quit sitting down on the job. Australian scientists found that workers who log more than 6 hours of chair time a day are up to 68 percent more likely to be overweight than those who sit less. One solution: Ask HR for a stand-up desk. You burn one more calorie each minute when standing than when sitting. (Do the math.) Request denied? Create your own stand-up workstation: Place your monitor on a box, with the top of the screen at arm's length and at eye level, and elevate your keyboard so your elbows are bent 90 degrees. A bonus: Your posture will improve from standing instead of slumping."

Obesity Can Spread!

According to a recent New York Times article, "Obesity can spread from person to person, much like a virus, researchers are reporting today. When one person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight, too."

Hmmm, does that mean staying thin requires only befriending thin people?

Breathing Space from Junk Foods?

Julia Watson, writing for ScienceDaily.com reports that in cities where transfat has been banned "interesterified fats" are being introduced. "Food manufacturers loved trans fats. They were essential to baked goods and fried food. They prolonged a processed food's shelf life. They stabilized its flavor. What was not to like?"

"Well, what happened when vegetable oil was solidified by means of adding hydrogen to it -- the process behind the making of trans fats -- was that they raised our so-called bad cholesterol while diminishing the cholesterol that was good for our hearts. But if trans fats are withdrawn, something has to take their place if we're going to go on eating processed and fried foods."

"Enter interesterified fats. These are fats modified by procedures that include hydrogenation followed by the rearrangement of fat molecules through a process called interesterification. Already they are being introduced into a number of processed foods as the most popular substitute for hydrogenated oils. Watch out, though, and wait. Interesterified fats may be better for our cholesterol, but they could be bad for our blood glucose."

"Trans fats weren't too good for it either. But in a study just published in Nutrition and Metabolism, Dr. K.C. Hayes of Brandeis University in Massachusetts and T. Karupaiah and Kalyana Sundram from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board discovered that while trans fat 'has a weak negative influence on blood glucose,' interesterified fat appears even worse in that regard, raising glucose 20 percent in a month."

Oh brother!

Breathing Space for Kids

Something we all should know from the Fight for Kids Foundation website:

“Today, more than 17 million children worldwide have been prescribed psychiatric drugs so dangerous that medicine regulatory agencies in Europe, Australia and the United States have issued warnings that antidepressants, for example, can cause suicide and hostility in children and adolescents. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also issued a warning that stimulant drugs, such as Ritalin and Concerta can cause suicidal as well as violent, aggressive and psychotic behavior, and that these same drugs can cause heart attacks, stroke and sudden death.”

* Of these 17 million, more than 10 million children are in the United States, being prescribed addictive stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs for educational and behavioral problems.

* Today, children 5 years old and younger are the fastest-growing segment of the non-adult population prescribed antidepressants in the U.S. Children as young as 4 have attempted suicide while influenced by such drugs and 5 year olds have committed suicide. Between 1995 and 1999, antidepressant use increased 580% in the under 6 population and 151% in the 7-12 age group. In 2004, the FDA ordered that a “black box” label be placed on antidepressants warning that they can cause suicide in children and adolescents.

* Stimulants are mostly prescribed for “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” (ADHD) and other childhood “disorders” and are “Schedule II” drugs, meaning they have the same potential for abuse as morphine, opium and cocaine. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports that studies show that Ritalin is more potent than cocaine and effects the brain in the same way as cocaine does.

* A recent U.S. report found that 10% of teens abuse Ritalin and another stimulant drug, Adderall. Eight out of 13 school shooters in the U.S. were taking antidepressants or stimulants at the time of the crime. Often children, affected by these drugs, have been institutionalized where they have been forcefully restrained—tragically, dozens have died during this violent procedure.

“Parents are not informed about all the potential risks to their child when they agree to a psychiatric drug prescription. They are not informed that the diagnoses for which they are prescribed are unlike medical diseases. There is no physical test—blood or urine test, “chemical imbalance” test or x-ray or brain scan—that can determine the physical existence or cause of the “mental disorder.” Millions of children are prescribed these drugs when they have simply never been taught to read or may be suffering from allergies, lead poisoning or other environmental toxic effects.”

The Antithesis of Breathing Space

New in bookstores:

The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America
by Allan M. Brandt

“Nearly 60 years after a link between smoking and cancer was first established, more people worldwide smoke cigarettes than ever before. Though smoking in America has decreased in recent decades, says Harvard Medical School professor Alan Brandt, a century of cigarette sales had already exacted a terrible toll. In the late 1990s, more Americans died of tobacco-related illnesses than the combined total of those who died from alcohol, AIDS, road accidents, fire, murder, suicide, and illegal drugs. And the future looks bright only for tobacco sellers. The World Health Organization estimates that 10 times as many people will die from using tobacco products this century as died during the last.”

Eat Poorly, Live Poorly

Nanci Hellmich writing in USA Today cites a study conducted for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicating that Americans are not eating enough fruits and vegetables:

“Despite mom's good advice, most of us aren't eating our fruits and vegetables, at least not enough of them, according to a large government study released Thursday. Only about 27% of adults in the USA ate vegetables three or more times a day in 2005, and 33% ate fruit two or more times a day that year. A higher percentage of women than men ate this much, according to interviews with more than 305,000 people conducted for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”

Ease Up on Your Workout

Don’t work out so hard that you do lasting harm to yourself: The following news brief appeared in Newsday.com:

At nearly 60, injuries are taking a toll on Arnold: Time is catching up with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ordinarily, a politician's body would not be noteworthy. But what's happening now is the deconstruction of one of the greatest bodies ever. At 15, Schwarzenegger began transforming himself into a symbol of physical perfection, eventually winning more bodybuilding prizes than anyone in history… Referring to himself as the "bionic man," he finds himself with an artificial hip, reconstructed heart valves, a surgically repaired shoulder and a badly broken femur, an injury common among the elderly.

Wellness on Wheels

No time to make it to the gym? Check out Wellness On Wheels. From their site: “provides the most innovative approach to getting fit! We eliminate all the reasons most people don’t go to a health club: We come to you! No travel time, dealing with the weather, or getting yourself psyched up to work out - we bring the health club to your door! And when we show up at the appointed time, we also provide focus and motivation, ensuring that the time spent exercising is safe and effective!”

Smoke-free: Real Breathing Space

Emily Bazar, in USA TODAY writes, “Colleges are snuffing out smoking everywhere on campus, even in outdoor light-up spots such as main quads and sidewalks.”

“At least 43 campuses from California to New Jersey have gone smoke-free, a trend that is accelerating,” according to Americans for Non-smokers' Rights. “Most have been community colleges and commuter schools, but more large universities with student housing are debating campus-wide bans,” says the group's Bronson Frick.

"We want our institution to make a statement about doing the right things when it comes to good health," says Chuck Kupchella, president of the 13,000-student University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. He intends to transform UND into a tobacco-free zone. "Smokers still will have rights, but just not on our campus."

Nearly 31% of full-time college students smoke, compared with about 25% of the overall population, according to the federal government's 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Too Busy to Exercise?

Edwin Bliss once wrote that if you are too busy to exercise, you are too busy. In your hierarchy of values, nothing can have higher priority than health, and if you find time for watching television but not for tennis or golf or jogging, you are violating the most basic rule of time management, which is to do the most important things first.

Too Clean for Our Own Good?

Stronger Than Dirt : A Cultural History of Advertising Personal Hygiene in America,

1875-1940 by Juliann Sivulka, review by Cahners Business Information, Inc.

“Only a century ago the privilege of washing with soap was a prerogative of the well-to-do, and a bath was something the average person avoided. But by the end of World War I a revolution in the standards of personal hygiene had taken place. Soap was not only more widely used but was suddenly viewed as a powerful symbol of purification, civilization, and progress. What caused this radical shift in attitudes?

In this fascinating cultural history, illustrated throughout with dozens of period illustrations and advertisements, Juliann Sivulka shows that the transformation of soap from luxury product to everyday staple and symbol of success was the result of both the newly emerging advertising industry and large-scale societal changes brought on by the modernization of daily life. The new emphasis on soap translated into more elaborate cleanliness rituals, creating in turn specialized places devoted to care of the body, more complex domestic interiors, and new customers for an emerging consumer society.

Cleanliness came to symbolize a morally superior and civilized individual. Keeping clean, according to advertisements, was not only a healthy habit, it also ensured romance, material abundance, and acceptance into the successful white middle class. Advertisements also reflected women's changing roles as agents of cleanliness, as well as creators of mass cultural images that reinforced narrow stereotypes, which feminists later protested.”

Wellness On Wheels

Here’s a site apparently for the ultra-frantic: Wellness On Wheels – “Most people live life at a frantic pace-rushing around in the morning, getting ready for work, dealing with rush hour traffic, working through lunch, racing home to find something, anything, they can call ‘dinner’, and then try to catch up on all the personal responsibilities at night or on weekends. It’s exhausting!”

“We come to you! No travel time, dealing with the weather, or getting yourself psyched up to work out - we bring the health club to your door! And when we show up at the appointed time, we also provide focus and motivation, ensuring that the time spent exercising is safe and effective!”

Cell phones Disrupt Relationships

HealthDayNews.com: Cell phones and pagers, part of the technological revolution that was supposed to liberate everyone, is tethering people to their jobs to an unprecedented degree, to the point where family life is suffering. The study limited the blame to cell phones and pages, and not computer-based communication such as e-mail. Cell phones and pagers were linked to increased psychological distress and reduced family satisfaction for both sexes.

The research, by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee sociologist Noelle Chesley, appears in the December issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family. "The use of cell phones and pagers was linked to increased distress and a decrease in family satisfaction over time," said Chesley, an assistant professor of sociology. "There is clearly a link between using the technology and experiencing increased access."

U.S. Statistics, 1904

The average life expectancy is 47 years.

14% of homes have a bathtub.

8% of homes have a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York cost $11.

There are 8,000 cars in the U.S. and 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities is 10 miles per hour.

With a 1.4 million residents, California is the 21st most populous state.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee are each more heavily
populated than California.