5 WAYS ON HOW YOU CAN FIND YOUR PASSION IN LIFE

How can you find your place in life, and lead a happy and fulfilling existence?  If you have the answer to these two fundamental questions, then you are halfway to achieving them. Here are a few exercises that can help all of us down the path to a deep and enduring happiness.  

courtesy by Millionaire’s digest 

edited by OpenMindPortal



Exercise 1 – Revisit your childhood. What did you love to do?

baller leg header

Make a list of all the things you remember enjoying as a child. Would you enjoy that activity now?… You can also ask yourself these questions to help get you started: what can be translated and added into my life now? How can those past experiences shape my career choices now?


Exercise 2 – Make a “creativity board.”

writingStart by taking a large poster board, put the words “New Business” in the centre and create a collage of images, sayings, articles, poems and other inspirations.

The idea behind this is that when you surround yourself with images of your intention — who you want to become or what you want to create — your awareness and passion will grow.

Read also Level of consciousness vs happiness

As your board evolves and becomes more focused, you will begin to recognise what is missing and imagine ways to fill the blanks and realise your vision.


Exercise 3 – Make a list of people who are where you want to be.

richard-branson_38533.jpg
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Study people who have been successful in the area you want to pursue.

For example, during the recession, many people shied away from the real estate market because they thought it was a dead end. Some experts believe that’s the perfect time to jump in — when most others are bailing out — because no matter the business, there are people who are successful in it. Study them, figure out how and why they are able to remain successful when everyone else is folding and then set up structures to emulate them.

If you want to be creative, create a rigorous and formal plan. It’s not the plan that is creative; it’s the process that you go through that opens up so many possibilities.


Exercise 4 – Start doing what you love, even without a business plan

pastel

A lot of people wait until they have an extensive business plan written down, along with angel investors wanting to throw cash at them — and their ideas never see the light of day.

Just do what you enjoy — even if you haven’t yet figured out how to monetise it. Test what it might be like to work in an area you’re passionate about, build your business network and ask for feedback that will help you develop and refine a business plan.

It’s a way to not only show the value you would bring, but you can also get testimonials that will help launch your business when you’re ready to make it official.


Exercise 5 – Take a break from business thinking.

img_6977
While it might feel uncomfortable to step outside of business mode, the mind sometimes needs a rest from such bottom-line thinking. Maybe for you, it will be creative writing, painting, running or even gardening. Read also How to make your brain work better

After you take a mental vacation indulging in something you’re passionate about, come back to a journal and writing down any business ideas that come to mind. You’ll be amazed at how refreshed your ideas are. Looking at beautiful things – art and nature – creates connections that we often neglect to notice.

https://millionairesdigest.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/how-to-find-your-passion-for-travel-beauty-book-bloggers-more/

Lead a Mindful Life Today. Quick tips.


Some things in life should not be taken for granted… You have to be mindful in order to appreciate life. A common thing I will talk about is how life is very precious; being mindful has to be one of the priorities for each of you. It comes from many different aspects such as, simply being open minded, practice meditation, exercise, reading etc. 

Read also Universal rules of happinessLevel of consciousness vs happiness, and 8 Questions To Ask Yourself To Feel Better.

The simple things that you can do to lead to this life, will drastically improve your mindfulness. No matter which thing you do, one of them or all of them, you will find that implementing those will give you a huge difference in lifestyle.

Open Minded.

Logo OMP в подпись_smaller

Being open minded is probably the key to living a mindful life… Living with the idea that you are better than someone else, is no way to live. There are many trends here that if you speak to someone across the world, are not even thought of. But those trends lead many of you to be closed minded and materialistic.

Life is much more than looking cool or having all the latest gear or being flashy, it is truly about realizing how amazing life is, and using it to benefit not only you, but the world.

Things are different around the world, and even within the country, open heart open mind is a great way to start the journey of mindfulness.

Culture is a major way to open your mind. Just being able to understand that culture is out there, and it is very rich in most cases, will show you how open minded you can be.

There are many of us who do not desire to learn more about the world, however, to live that mindful life, and to be open minded it is a must.

The more you experience culture outside of your own, the easier it will be to lead that mindful life that you want. The world has many things to offer, and without seeing those things you will live in the same society which changes you from being an individual. No matter what you do, you have to make sure you are the best you, and experience the cultures that the world has to offer.

Meditation and Yoga.

 

meditation sea header.jpg

Of the many ways that you can become more of a mindful person, meditation is a great first step. It involves centering yourself and trying to see who you are. You can find many different ways of meditation as well. That range from yoga, exercise, literal meditation, reading, the list goes on and on. What you have to figure out is how can you incorporate it into your life today, and make a difference in how you are feeling tomorrow. But how do you start?

It is possibly a shortcut to leading a mindful life. It takes a ton of discipline in order to meditate. It goes hand in hand with being open minded, because you are taking a step back and relaxing your mind; which leads to your mind being open and free. The simple “Om” isn’t the only way of meditating, it can be many things. Yoga is a combination of meditation and exercise. You focus on your breath, and in some practices you focus on centering yourself.

On those same lines, even regular exercise can be used as a practice of meditation. There are many good chemicals that release during exercise that can help reduce stress, and create a relaxed mind.

Read also Cardio improves memoryHow Neuroscientists Explain the Mind-Clearing Magic of RunningHow to keep fit over 30

Reading.

books header

One key way of being more mindful in life, is to read.

Reading is by far the best way to learn about things that are happening around the world, it is also an amazing way to provoke thought. When you read an article or a story in which it stimulates your brain to think, you will find yourself being much more open to change and open to life.

Creating a routine where you read at least one article or story a day (Or a certain amount of chapters in a novel) can significantly improve your mindfulness as well as keeping your brain sharp.

Of the many different benefits that reading has on your mind, the maintenance of your brain health is the most important. Read also How to make your brain work betterTraining the Brain’s Motivation Center. Without your brain and mind, you are a shell. Those are what make you an amazing individual and different from the rest of the world. Just reading regularly will help keep you fresh and ready to take on the next step in your journey through life.  You have one life to live and one brain/mind to have, you have to maintain them otherwise they will degrade. Read also What is the connection between Music and the Brain?, and How to improve your memory.

Finally Living a Mindful Life.

cropped-first-things-first-coffee-laptop.jpg

Being mindful is something that comes in time. Our minds always learn and develop as we age, and they will never stop doing that. Just by implementing things that will keep you mindful and conscious, you will find a huge improvement in your way of life. read also Level of consciousness vs happiness. Leading this lifestyle is not just a simple change; it is a way of life shift.

To understand what it truly takes in order to get to where you want, you have to jump into it all out. If you take risks, they will certainly pay off, that goes especially with being more mindful.Time and a mindful life

Time is limited, so you have to make use with the time we are given and with time will come mindfulness.

Open your mind, meditate, read, or whatever you find helps you the most. Stick to those and you will get where you want.

Life has many amazing things to offer, you just have to be the best you, implement lifestyle changes, and go out and accomplish your dreams.


Article Credits: Dustin Meyer

-Millionaire’s Digest Staff Member, Contributor, CEO & Founder of Evolutionary Mind

Edited by OpenMindPortal

https://millionairesdigest.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/quick-tips-lead-a-mindful-life-today-for-beauty-book-writing-bloggers-more/

Mindfulness for kids. Simple explanation of complex philosophy. 

The highest function of education is to bring about an integrated individual who is capable of dealing with life as a whole

Krishnamurti

If you were to google mindfulness it states that

it is a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

For me, mindfulness is learning to live in the present moment and take things one thing at a time.  It is a tool that helps myself and my students to deal with the anxieties that we deal with on a daily basis.  It is a reminder to be grateful for the things that I have and the things that are going right in my life.  For my reading students, it is a tool to help them calm themselves at the beginning of every class period and through our “Mindful Monday” practices, it helps them to train their brains to focus on tasks (something that has helped some of my most struggling readers).

Many believe that mindfulness is meditation.  What I have found through my reading and research is that mindfulness is like the marathon that you train for and meditation is the training that you do for that marathon.  Through meditations, you are able to train your brain to be aware of when you are “off task” and tune back into the moment that you are in.  Being in tune with the present helps us to be more productive, helps us to enjoy the things that we do more, and helps us to deal with our stresses by not worrying about the past or the future.

The whole concept of mindfulness really resonated with me after hearing about it at the workshop earlier this year.  I am a self-confessed worry wart.  I have always been.  Anxiety and the need to please have burdened me all of my life.  Add on the role of being a mother and the anxiety and mommy guilt has been enough to put me over the edge!  However, when I started to read the journals that I ask my students to keep daily, I began to realize that

my anxiety at age 40 was nothing in comparison to what some of these 11 and 12-year-old boys and girls are dealing.

I could not believe how anxious they were and how so many of them were desperate to find  some tool to help them.  It made me really start to think about what may happen to some of them if they did not learn to handle the stresses that they are feeling at this point in their life.

attachment

As a teacher and a mom, I worry about what kids are doing to relieve stress.  We hear all of the time about drug abuse, bullying, and suicide.  It all scares me to death.  While it seems that every generation has their new and different things that stress them out, it seems to me like a tool like mindfulness is exactly what all generations could use to help them to relieve anxiety and live a happier life.

With the age of less and less recess in schools and technology distracting us from everything, I truly believe that mindfulness is a tool that everyone needs to learn, especially our children.  It used to be a badge of honor to be able to say you could multi-task like no one else (Read also How to cope with information overload).  However, there is more and more research to say that our brains are not meant to multi-task.  The part of our brain that was meant to activate for fight or flight for a short amount of time is now activating for longer and longer periods of time with no rest.  None of this is good! Read also How to declutter your mind.


…When I decided to start the journey of mindfulness with my students, I knew that I needed to do more than tell them about it.  I knew that it was going to be important to incorporate it into our every day.  Since I teach middle school, I see my students for a 40 minute class and then they move on to other classes…

I started by explaining to the students how their brains work.  I gave them some of the facts from brain research.  I also polled them through their journals to find out if they categorized themselves as “stressed” or “anxious”.  It amazed me to read the results.

So many the students who seem to have things together day in and day out confessed to being ridden with stress and anxiety for various reasons.

After explaining how the brain works and why we tend to feel anxious in different situations, I had them think about situations they have been in where stress and anxiety has taken over.  We identified how our body reacts (how we feel, how we look, etc).  Many students had no problem coming up with the typical symptoms of their heart racing, sweating, shaking, etc.  I then told them that I was going to give them a tool to help them in situations of high stress, but also a tool that will just help to give their brains a break throughout the day.  It is called our “Mindful Minute”.  My goal for the class is to work up to a full minute (deeply focusing on the present moment), but at first a full minute is hard for the students to complete…

Read also 8 Questions To Ask Yourself To Feel Better

..Recently, I asked my students to write about the times that they have used the mindful minute outside of class.  Many wrote about doing it on their own before a big hockey game or dance recital.  Others have said that they actually focus on their breathing to help them fall asleep at night.  Still others told me about how they try to do it as soon as they feel anxious about something.  I cannot tell you how happy that made me to hear that they were actually applying this skill outside of the classroom.  After all, that is what it is all about!

Aggregated by OpenMindPortal

Cover by OpenMindPortal

Source:

https://mymindfulmission.wordpress.com/2016/05/17/what-is-mindfulness/

How to fight insomnia


You arrive home exhausted with only one, overwhelming, desire – to quickly leap under the blankets. After hitting the bed, you begin to drift off, slowly being drawn into that wonderful, all-embracing stillness of sleep… and then you suddenly wake up.  The sensation is horrible, as if you’ve just fallen from a tall building and smashed into a thousand pieces. Your eyes are wide open and that’s it, as far as your good night’s sleep is concerned.

Insomnia nervosa or sleep deprivation is another common, contemporary phenomenon. We are not discussing those occasional sleeping problems that happen to all of us from time to time, but rather the topic of chronic insomnia. It is a condition that often lasts for weeks, and in some cases even months, turning life into a nightmare.

insomnya.jpg

Dr. Jessica Payne, head of the Sleep, Stress, and Memory Lab at Notre Dame University, and advisory board member for the NeuroLeadership Institute believes that

The sleep situation in our society has become a terrifying problem.

Nowadays more attention is often paid to diet and fitness activities; however, sleep may turn out to be more important for one’s overall health. This lack of understanding and recognition is reflected in the fact that sleep deprivation is not considered an illness by employers. Anyone who has suffered from severe insomnia consequently knows the feeling of having to keep ploughing on, no matter what.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and research published in the Sleep Journal, in 2011

sleep deprivation cost the US economy $63.2 billion

The authors of the report in Sleep Journal were shocked by the enormous impact insomnia has on the average person’s life, stating that the scale of the problem was not sufficiently appreciated by society at large. The issue was not one of absenteeism, but rather of lost productivity in “an information based economy”.

This impact on productivity is directly attributable to the poor focus and lack of concentration stemming from sleep deprivation, and as Dr. Charles Czeisler at Harvard Medical School notes, a few days of sleeping for 4-5 hours causes massive brain function impairment.

Dr. Payne believes,

Simply adding an extra 20 minutes to your sleep cycle increases performance two-fold.


I once personally experienced severe sleep deprivation. It lasted for six months and caused clinically diagnosed depression. My metabolism, digestion and hormones were impaired as a consequence and it took about three months to regain my normal sleeping patterns, and over half a year to normalise other bodily processes.

In this article I am going to share some tips, based on my personal experience and data from various pieces of research, on how to overcome sleep deprivation.


  • Schedule sleep

sleep_header_03_680

It is vitally important to maintain a consistent sleep schedule, even during weekends or holidays. The idea of catching up with lost sleep during your time-off is a tempting prospect, but in reality can be harmful. When you are going through a sleep deprivation period it is crucial to stick to a routine. I recommend setting this schedule according to your work hours. If you have to wake up early in the morning, five days a week, then get out of bed at the same time during the weekend.

Always stick to the mantra that you MUST have a minimum of eight hours of solid sleep per night. Never sacrifice your sleep to have fun or socialize.


running feet mezuno

A couple of words at this point about early morning cardio.

It is undoubtedly one of the most beneficial practices for your health. However, if you feel that you can’t wake up one hour earlier, simply accept this and try to include more activities during your daily routine, or weave 10-15 minutes of highly intense cardio into your schedule before and after your evening workout.


  • If you don’t fall asleep after 20 minutes, get out of bed. 

magazines

Take light herbal sedatives (or prescribed medication), grab a book and try to relax by reading.

DO NOT watch TV or log onto social media.

Using a Kindle is also not helpful. It has been scientifically proven that bright monitor light keeps us awake; it is perceived by the body as daylight, artificially inducing us to keep going. So, good old-fashioned ‘hardcopy’ books are your best friends in the fight against insomnia.


  • Create relaxing bedtime rituals. 

reade and tea.jpg

These could include a night-time bath with aromatherapy oils, or a cup of your favourite herbal tea, meditation or simply listening to calming music. Try all of them and finally you will find a suitable option. My personal preferences are reading esoteric literature, burning aroma candles and sipping camomile vanilla tea.


  • Use your bed only for sleep and love. 

sex and sleep

Humans are very prone to conditional behaviours, so limiting the use of your bed to sex and sleep will generate subconscious patterns that will help you to fall asleep. Never work, eat or watch TV in your bedroom: Aside from the activities I’ve just mentioned, nothing else should be done in the bed.


  • Make your bedroom relaxing. 

Keep your bedding clean and fresh, aerate the space properly, and don’t forget about curtains. Create a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere in the bedroom, eliminating all unpleasant distractions.


  • Don’t overeat.

diet

A new study suggests that quality of sleep is directly related to the type of food that you eat. If you are hungry at night, take a light, and healthy snack. Do not torture yourself by going to bed starving. Research has shown that the old maxim ‘do not eat after 6 pm’ has no scientific basis. However, heavy foods full of saturated fat like red meat or cheese should be avoided. Do not over-consume carbohydrates before sleep either. Be careful with fluids, alcohol, watery vegetables and fruits as waking up a few times during the night to visit the bathroom is not recommended. The ideal option is to consume leafy vegetables, reduced fat yogurt or cottage cheese with some nuts (optional), steamed white fish, sea food, and eggs.


  • Exercise regularly. 

cropped-ballet-heder.jpg

Research shown that people who regularly exercise have fewer problems with sleep and other bodily functions. Regular smart physical activities regulate hormones, stimulate blood and liquid circulation and boost the immune system. In other words, fitness helps the body to purify itself and maintain all of our bodily processes.

Good luck!

Tatiana Dmitrieva 

IMG_0632

Sources used:

http://www.aasmnet.org/

http://sleepeducation.org/news/2016/02/08/study-links-diet-with-sleep-quality

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110901093653.htm

 

Sex vs Exercise

Somewhere near the top of every single one of the the roughly forty-kajillion internet listicles dedicated to the “surprising,” “hidden,” and “unexpected”health benefits of sex is the not-all-that-surprising-sounding factoid that bumping fuzzies basically doubles as exercise. In reality, however, there has been very little research done to support this claim.

 1463850839930-1
The few studies that have investigated the physicality of sex have typically looked at things like heart rate and blood pressure – important but arguably basic physiological measurements. They’ve also been conducted primarily in laboratory settings – which, sure, probably falls into some specific category of kink, but for most people is probably a less-than-ideal environment for sexy time. It’s not difficult to imagine, for example, how the wires from an echocardiogram, or the bulk of an oxygen-monitoring facemask, might interfere with one’s (doubtless considerable) sexual talents, thereby confounding any attempt at accurate physiological measurement.
 The point being that these methodological limitations highlight a gap in the existing body of scientific knowledge raises an important question about how physically strenuous sex really is. How much energy does a young, healthy couple actually expend getting physical between the sheets? Are we talking a pastrami sandwich’s worth of calories, or a handful of kale’s? And to what extent does sex really count as exercise?
…Researchers led by Université du Québec à Montréal kinanthropologist Antony Karelis… The goal: measure the free-living energy expenditure (in calories) during sexual activity, in the absence of drugs, alcohol, or ED medications. (Study participants were also asked to forego any and all paraphilic sexual activities – i.e. nothing deemed too freaky by… well… society, we guess.) The final figures are as follows:

Mean energy expenditure during sexual activity (men)

101 kCal (the same as 101 dietary Calories), or 4.2 kCal/min

Mean energy expenditure during sexual activity (women)

69.1 kCal, or 3.1 kCal/min

So the overall average comes out to roughly 85 kCal (3.6 kCal/min) – about the same number of dietary calories in your standard chicken egg…

 

Source

http://io9.gizmodo.com/seriously-though-does-sex-count-as-exercise-1452095982

 

Cardio improves memory

I’m sure you know your brain works better following exercise?

A team of researchers in Ireland made this discovery through a relatively simple experiment. They asked a group of students to watch a rapid lineup of photos.

1463822290810

Each photo included a name and face of a stranger. Then, after a brief break, the students tried to recall the names of the faces that had moved across the computer screen. After this initial test, half of the students were asked to ride a stationary bicycle at a strenuous pace until they reached exhaustion. The other half of the students sat quietly for 30 minutes. Then both groups took the test again to see how many names they could recall.

The group of students who exercised performed much better on the memory test than they had on their first attempt. The group who simply sat in another room did not improve. As part of this experiment, the scientists also collected blood samples, through which they discovered a biological explanation for the increase in recall among the students who exercised. Immediately after the strenuous activity, students in the exercise group had much higher levels of a protein known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, which promotes the health of nerve cells.

So make some time daily, weekly for that walk, work-out, run, hike etc.

Source:

http://khalilaleker.com/2016/05/18/your-brain-and-exercise/

How to lose weight without counting calories

Interesting idea of how to lose weight relatively effortlessly without counting calories… Read more and share

Mind over matter: psychology over calorie-counting

Interesting idea of how to lose weight relatively effortlessly without counting calories (warning: you still have to watch what you eat) by letting your own body dictate how much you eat. Seems pretty sensible and worth a try.


by Michael Graziano  (is a neuroscientist, novelist and composer. He is Professor of Neuroscience at Princeton University in New Jersey. His latest book is Consciousness and the Social Brain (2013). Edited by Ed Lake  | 18 January, 2016 | Aeon


The hunger mood

Hunger isn’t in your stomach or your blood-sugar levels. It’s in your mind – and that’s where we need to shape up…

…If weight were a matter of calories in and calories out, we’d all be the weight we choose. Everyone’s gotten the memo. We all know the ‘eat less’ principle. (Read Why diets don’t work and what you can do about it and Diets and exit strategies.) Losing weight should be as easy as choosing a shirt colour. And yet, somehow it isn’t, and the United States grows heavier. It’s time to consider the problem through an alternative lens.

Read also How to keep fit over 30.

Whatever else it is, hunger is a motivated state of mind. Psychologists have been studying such states for at least a century. We all feel hungry before dinner and full after a banquet, but those moments are the tip of the iceberg. Hunger is a process that’s always present, always running in the background, only occasionally rising into consciousness. It’s more like a mood. When it slowly rises or eases back down, even when it’s beneath consciousness, it alters our decisions. It warps our priorities and our emotional investment in long-term goals. It even changes our sensory perceptions – often quite profoundly.

burger-sandwich-header

You sit down to dinner and say:

That tiny, little hamburger? Why do they have to make them so small? I’ll have to eat three just to break even.

That’s the hunger mood making food look smaller. If you’re full, the exact same hamburger looks enormous. It isn’t just the food itself. Your own body image is warped.

When the hunger mood rises, you feel a little thinner, the diet feels like it’s working and you can afford a self-indulgence. When satiety kicks in, you feel like a whale.

Even memory can be warped. Suppose you keep a log of everything you eat. Is that log trustworthy? Not only have you drastically misjudged the size of your meals, but you’ve almost certainly forgotten items.

Depending on your hunger state, you might snarf up three pieces of bread and after the meal sincerely remember only one.

One recent study found that most of the calories people eat come through snacks between meals. But when you ask people, they deny it. They’re surprised to find out just how much they snack…

cravingsheader header.jpg

…Let’s say you decide to cut back on calories. You eat less for a day. The result? It’s like picking up a stick and poking a tiger. Your hunger mood rises and for the next five days you’re eating bigger meals and more snacks, perhaps only vaguely realising it…

… I’m not denying the physics here. If you take in fewer calories, you’ll lose weight. But if you explicitly try to reduce calories, you’re likely to do the exact opposite. Almost everyone who tries to diet goes through that battle of the bulge. Diets cause the psychological struggle that causes weight gain.

Read  also Why diets don’t work and what you can do about it.

… Let’s say you try another standard piece of advice: exercise. If you burn calories at the gym you’ll definitely lose weight, right? Isn’t that just physics? Except that, after you work out, for the rest of the day you’re so spent that you might actually burn fewer calories on a gym day than on a regular one. Not only that, but after a workout you’ve assuaged your guilt. Your emotional investment in the cause relaxes. You treat yourself to a chocolate chip muffin. You might try to be good and decline the muffin, but the exercise revs up that subtle hunger mood lurking under the surface and then you don’t even know any more how much you’re overeating. Meals grow bigger while seeming to grow smaller. Extra snacks sneak in.

Read Diets and exit strategies … 

…But the most insidious attack on the hunger mechanism might be the chronic diet. The calorie-counting trap. The more you try to micromanage your automatic hunger control mechanism, the more you mess with its dynamics. Skip breakfast, cut calories at lunch, eat a small dinner…

be constantly mindful of the calorie count, and you poke the hunger tiger

All you do is put yourself in the vicious cycle of trying to exert willpower and failing. That’s when you enter the downward spiral…


The gist

CALIFORNIA WALNUT COMMISSION MEDITERRANEAN DIET
Healthy eating as a life-style choice 

Don’t put a plastic bag over your head. Likewise, don’t eat the super-high death-carb, low-fat diet. Don’t micromanage your brainstem by counting every calorie. You might be surprised at how well your health self-regulates.

Michael Graziano is a neuroscientist, novelist and composer. He is Professor of Neuroscience at Princeton University in New Jersey. His latest book is Consciousness and the Social Brain (2013).

https://pragmasynesi.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/mind-over-matter-psychology-over-calorie-counting/

Read also 

Diets and exit strategies  

How to keep fit over 30

Why diets don’t work and what you can do about it

How much protein should be eaten

Stress, evolution and cancer

Interesting theory — stress speeds up evolution. Evolution of all possible cells. 

Full article: Does Stress Speed Up Evolution?

img_7048

Implication for cancer: the group of scientists from Princeton University admitted that

the current aggressive approach to cancer treatment has largely failed.

According to a molecular biologist Susan M. Rosenberg and colleagues like Robert H. Austin, a physicist at Princeton University, organisms have evolved mechanisms that enable them to drive their own evolution in times of stress. Environmental pressure can boost mutation rates rapidly, even in cells that are not dividing, enabling them to adapt more quickly to new conditions.

Organisms under stress have a higher mutation rate…

believe researchers.

…Austin says his experiments suggest that

putting too much stress on cancer cells by hitting them with high doses of cancer drugs could accelerate their evolution to develop drug resistance

Instead, he is culturing cancer cells on his death galaxy to find the right low-dosing and timing of cancer drugs that keep the cancer cells from spreading without killing them—hopefully delaying the evolution of resistance as long as possible.

At least in an ovarian cancer model in mice, the approach seems to work. In 2009, Robert Gatenby, a radiologist at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, and his colleagues reported that interrupting, or down-adjusting, therapy as long as the tumor volume didn’t increase prolonged survival in these mice compared with the standard aggressive regimen.

If you give them standard high-dose therapy, the tumor can almost completely go away and then come back very rapidly and be resistant,

Gatenby says.

If you use an adaptive approach, we can consistently get control of the tumor.

Gatenby is now testing the approach in a 40-patient open clinical trial in patients with late-stage prostate cancer….

https://pragmasynesi.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/stress-evolution-and-cancer/

http://nautil.us/issue/34/adaptation/does-stress-speed-up-evolution

How to postpone aging 

I recently attended an all day event at the USC Campus, specifically at the USC Davis School of Gerontology to learn about the latest science on healthy aging from several of the world’s top aging experts. I feel inspired to share with you all what I learned. Many of you may have come across the information that I am about to share, but in case you have not, it’s never too late to learn something new!

1) One of the “hottest” question presented was “Does caloric restriction extend lifespan?” Answer: only sometimes. But if you compare a low fat diet versus a Mediterranean diet (which includes nuts and olive oil), the Mediterranean diet wins! It was shown to prevent cognitive decline and heart problems.

2) Sitting is the new smoking! Incredible to believe but the more hours you spend sitting on a daily basis decreases your health span. It is important to use your break time to get away from your workspace. And if you don’t get any breaks? Get up and take a walk to the bathroom every hour or two. Sitting can cause a multitude of heart problems, whereas smoking can cause lung problems/lung cancer. I guess you pick and choose your poison, or avoid them altogether.

3) Ovaries removed after normal menopause lessens a woman’s risk for dementia. Ovaries removed before normal menopause increases a woman’s risk for dementia.

4) A low protein, high carbohydrate diet is recommended for everyone below 65 years of age. Once you reach 65 and older, moderate (not low!) protein intake is recommended.

5) If you want to live longer and spend your later years without getting a disease or being disabled in any way, adhering to a plant based diet that includes high levels of legumes, vegetables and healthy fats (olive oil, other monounsaturated fats, nuts) is recommended. Waist goals for men to have should be less than 40 inches, and less than 35 inches for women.

6) Take care of your teeth! Get regular dental checkups! Edentulousness (having no teeth) is directly related to nutritional issues and health problems.

7) Watch the BBC video: The Men Who Made Us Fat.
8) Recommended weight loss programs are: weight watchers and TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly).

9) Create your own individualized diet/meal plan that takes into consideration your age, gender, weight, and activity levels.

http://foodhabitat.com/2016/04/24/healthy-aging/

How to improve digestion

I want my 45mins attention….. Please!! Yours Crying Stomach

No way!!Don’t count me. I am going to take my nap after the lunch. Hey are u joining for the badminton session tonight after dinner?? What about coffee after dinner? Really????

You will thank me when you scroll down.

Digestion is the prime activity in body which needs and involves attention of almost every system and cell in the body . It should not be impaired or disturbed as it the first step of body towards various system nourishment.

There are 7 things to avoid immediate after eating meal .

Never bathe immediately after meal. It causes increased blood supply to extremities i.e. limbs and other body parts,it also fetch nervous system attention towards skin by water stimulation, which reduces blood flow towards stomach and can hamper the process of digestion.

Exercise immediate after meal can cause increased stress on cardiac activity and can also increases the blood supply towards muscles causing indigestion and also cardiovascular ailments if practiced often

Smoking   cigarette after meal can trigger hyper acidity and indigestion. Study shows one cigarette after meal is equivalent to 10 cigarettes in terms of ill effects on body.

Higher acidic contents in alcohol make protein contents in food hard which are difficult to digest and may cause habitual constipation. According to Ayurveda theories initial phase of digestion is madhur ras dominant (the sweet taste), the bitter taste of tea and coffee can impair the micro digestion and absorption of nutrients in blood.

Fruits immediate after meal cause meal to lie in stomach and fermentation occur due to acidic nature of fruits.  Bloating of stomach, heaviness occurs. Fruits should be eaten 2 hrs before or after meal

Sleeping immediately after meal causes delayed digestion and absorption of nutrition. Digestion is conscious effort of body if the important system like brain is involved in sleeping activity, the cardiac rate is reduced then the digestion will be delayed causing various kaf dosha diseases  due to half digested substances which are equal to toxins .

Sex immediately after meal causes stress on cardiac activity. Cardiac circulation rate is increased during the digestion process, the sexual act further can increase the circulatory rate abnormally. Also the increased flow of blood towards the sexual organ and other peripheral muscles will hamper the both activities at a time.

in General health April 22, 2016

https://drrupalipanse.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/i-want-my-45mins-attention-please-yours-crying-stomach/