Killing Yourself to Live



Everybody seems to think I'm lazy
I don't mind, I think they're crazy
Running everywhere at such a speed
Till they find there's no need…

Sleep seems to have become another victim of the modern corporate ethos, with sleep being eschewed as yet another unproductive (in)activity, distracting us from our goals. While time spent sleeping may seem like lost time, it’s actually buying you a lot more & better quality time. Working culture today and the competitiveness of the job market seems to have reduced most of us to wage slaves, but do we really have to live lives of servitude to earn a living? While it isn’t uncommon to read about VPs & Managers or CEOs relating (bragging) about how little time they have for sleep because of their hectic schedules, this really isn’t something to be proud of.

The findings from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in a study on the work and sleep habits of people should bring about an awakening. While this might be a poor choices of words, it’s interesting to note that according to the findings, we’re getting closer to being a nation of sleepwalking zombies, with up to a third of our working population getting less sleep than is required!

While employees may just be gears in the mighty corporate machine, an unhealthy workforce is an inefficient one, which is why corporations have begun to wise up to the importance of their employees’ health concerns in recent times. Sleep is both a health and safety issue, which is why the findings of the study conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health were published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Sleep deprivation and the ensuing sleepiness is in fact a significant cause of road accidents and other accidents on the job, which can be particularly serious among workers who operate heavy machinery.

If you still need convincing, here are a few points to consider:

• Sleep is essential to rejuvenate and replenish not just your body, but your mind as well. A lack of sleep impacts energy levels as well as your learning ability and decision making capabilities.
• The effects of sleep deprivation can lead to dramatic weight gain, because of changes to your body’s metabolism, fluctuating hormone levels and various other factors.
• Falling asleep during the day might be funny in junior high, but it’s no laughing matter when you’re behind the wheel of a New York Cab or piloting a Boeing 747.
• Irritability, impatience and moodiness may not be much of a bother if you’re a solitary writer or a musician, but if you’re working with people or are teaching kids it severely diminishes your ability to perform.
• Sleep is possibly the best form of relaxation as it allows you to recuperate from the stress of your day, thereby helping to avert several serious mental health disorders like depression and other anxiety disorders.

City life today may be a far cry from the idyllic summers that John Lennon spent in the lush English countryside, but we do have a lot to learn from him. As Lennon pointed out, time spent being lazy can be time well spent! Lennon was what most would characterize as being lazy and unambitious, particularly in our age, where we barely have time to pick up a book but must be content with an ‘e-book’. Lennon was always laid back and easy going, loved his sleep and hated to be rushed. But his contribution not just to the Beatles and history of music, but to the world at large is undeniable. So don’t be afraid to kick back and relax! The lack of drive and motivation to toil on ceaselessly isn’t necessarily a bad thing! Maybe you’re just creative, or too intelligent to sell yourself to a corporation when you could, instead, be living a life that’s your own.

Maureen Cleave, who was a close friend to the Beatles, commented on Lennon, ‘He can sleep almost indefinitely, is probably the laziest person in England...’ to which Lennon countered 'Physically lazy. I don't mind writing or reading or watching or speaking, but sex is the only physical thing I can be bothered with any more.'

Sleep deprivation isn’t something that you should take lying down! Although it’s something that we are used to taking for granted, a little bit of common sense is all it takes to tell that sleep is absolutely essential for your health. Although we don’t completely understand all of the benefits of sleep, what we do know should be reason enough to ensure you get a good night’s sleep. Sleep plays a vital role in maintaining the various bodily processes, from your immune function and metabolism to cognitive abilities like learning and memory. Although the effects of sleep deprivation may not seem all that serious or urgent when you’re in your 20s, it does take its toll and increases your risk of obesity and eventually cardiovascular disease.

References:

1. Luckhaupt, S. E. (2012). Short sleep duration among workers - United States, 2010. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 61(16), 281-285.
2. Williamson, A.M. & Feyer, A.M. Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication. Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2000, 57: 649-655.
3. Barnes, C. M. & Hollenbeck, J. R. (2009). Sleep deprivation and teams: Burning the midnight oil or playing with fire? Academy of Management Review, 34, 56-66.

Bizarre Beauty Treats

Would you be willing to scrub your face with pig meat and cover it in bird poop to look beautiful?? If there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to appease your vanity then you’d certainly love these outlandish beauty treatments. From greasing your hair with bull semen to lathering your face with bird droppings, there’s a lot you can do to get that starry glow!

Bird Poo (Nightingale Facial) – The porcelain skin geishas would willingly tell you their beauty secret if you were willing to believe them. Few people would be willing to slather on oscine feces, but if they did they would rediscover an ancient secret – bird poop had an enzyme, called guanine that smoothes skin and makes it radiant. Leave the tomatoes, papayas and lemons to stew in the cooking pot we have found a “superior” alternative! For aesthetic purposes, the poop of the common bird falls short but the regal nightingale wins special favor. Carefully sanitized with UV light and then crushed into a fine white powder, bird poop is deftly transformed into a creamy beauty treat. If you believe that bird poo is for the birds, you can just crush some fresh strawberries and yogurt and paint yourself beautiful at home!

Facekini Craze – Hot shorts and halter tops expose your skin to the brutish sun, and while some amount of exposure to sunlight is necessary, the line between enough and too much sunlight is quite fine. After all, you don’t want to look as tanned as a thanksgiving turkey! For the Chinese, pale skin is a sultry turn-on and by no means must it be lost to the brazen sun. In the town of Qingdao, China, women greet the beach sun with face masks and full length body suits. Cut open only at the eyes, nose and mouth, this facekini scrupulously covers the head, ears, and neck, so that nothing’s exposed to the ravenous sun. With a facekini you can bathe in the pool for as long as you want and go for sports matches without sun block. The guys will get used to it in time; after all, it’s not as if Mr. Right will bump into you at the beach! Even if he does show up, he’ll like you for your intellectual chatter and not just your flawless skin.

Spermine Facials – You are not being hailed into some shady massage parlor when you read the caption ‘Spermine Facial’ outside the salon! If, besides procreation, male semen could offer women something special, it would be the ability to make them look beautiful. It’s true! Semen has a component called ‘spermine’ which is known to have antioxidant properties. It protects skin collagen and muscle fiber, slowing down wrinkles. Spermine used for the relaxing facial is not exactly the swimming egg-heads you imagine… it is first synthesized in a laboratory. Some salons use infrared along with the spermine, so that it penetrates your skin pores and promotes skin vitality.

Bull Semen – Your hair’s full of protein and so is bull semen! It took Britain’s top salon, Hari’s, just a little ingenious thinking to put the two together for an exciting hair treatment. To enliven your dry locks and add volume to your skimpy hair, bull semen works just fine! This ‘Viagra for Hair’ is a 45-minute treatment in which a paste of bull sperm and protein-rich Katera plant is applied to dry hair. Unlike most products that require shampooing after application, this hair mix is left to stay in your hair, so that it moisturizes it soft. It’s extremely light on the hair, so you don’t feel any kind of heaviness on account of the product. If bull semen for hair is a little too outlandish for you, then try conditioning your tresses with some frothy beer or yogurt.

One Pill to Rule Them All!!

 A new cocktail of medications in a single pill could help reduce the risk of heart attacks by 72 percent and strokes by 64 percent in people over the age of fifty. This latest polypill that targets high blood pressure and cholesterol contains a combination of three blood pressure drugs i.e. amlodipine, losartan and hydrochlorothiazide along with simvastatin - to lower 'bad' cholesterol. All these drugs are already widely used to prevent heart attacks and strokes, but people often find it hard to remember or struggle to take several different tablets on a daily basis. In order to make the preventive process easier for the public, such a polypill has been created. Unlike earlier 'super' pill formulations to treat high cholesterol and blood pressure, the latest version of the polypill does not contain aspirin, as it may increase the risk of complications such as stomach bleeding.

In a recent study conducted in the U.K. to prove the efficacy of the polypill, eighty-four men and women over the age of fifty were split into two groups. For a period of three months, one group was given the polypill and the other group, a placebo or inactive tablet. After three months, the groups were switched so as to study the effects of the medication on all subjects and to reduce the effect of other variables that may have influenced the results. At the end of the six-month trial period, the results of this study showed that that the polypill reduced blood pressure by 12% and LDL cholesterol by 39%. This is by far the largest reduction in BP and cholesterol readings from any polypill trial. The study is also considered a milestone in the field of heart disease and stroke prevention due to its use of crossover trial groups, rather than the more traditional parallel group design, as it provides the results of the research with a significantly higher statistical upper hand as compared to other studies. The study did not test the risks and harms of the polypill considering that all four drugs have long been successfully used to treat high blood pressure and cholesterol. At the end of the trial, some of the subjects reported side effects such as swelling of the ankles, tongues and lips, skin rashes, muscle pain and coughs, but none felt that these symptoms were a deterrent from using the polypill.

Researchers on the study believe that if this polypill was approved, it could reduce the number of deaths from heart disease by a staggering fifty percent. And while there are no hundred percent guarantees against a heart attack or a stroke, the results of the study indicate that such medical emergencies could be delayed by up to eleven years if the pill is taken daily. The next step then is to get the regulatory bodies concerned to approve the polypill on an urgent basis so that more people can benefit from its far-reaching health benefits.

While such research into polypills is encouraging, experts at the British Heart Foundation are cautious about prescribing such medication on a large scale. The biggest worry is that people will regard such preventative medications as an alternative to a healthy balanced lifestyle. According to them, eating well, not smoking and exercising regularly should still be emphasized as the best and most effective ways to prevent heart disease and strokes. Before the polypill is available over-the-counter, there is also a need for more evidence that takes into consideration actual death rates rather than only blood pressure and cholesterol measurements. The risks and potential harm of such a polypill needs to be investigated in detail as well, before any large-scale prescription is allowed.

References:

1. Wellcome Trust. "Polypill halves predicted heart disease and stroke risk, study suggests." ScienceDaily, 26 May 2011. Web. 3 Aug. 2012.

Eating Away that Allergy

Nearly three percent of all children below the age of three suffer from an egg allergy. Egg allergies like other food allergies can cause symptoms such as breathing difficulties, wheezing, skin rashes, low blood pressure, and in severe cases, anaphylactic shock. While most children outgrow the allergy as they grow older, there are still those who carry this allergy into early adulthood. The only definite way to treat a food allergy is to completely avoid the food concerned. When it comes to egg allergies, these diet restrictions become even more difficult as many products and food preparations contain eggs or traces of eggs. For families with children suffering from egg allergies, this can make eating out a nightmare.

According to Dr. Burks and his team at the University of North Carolina, there may be a new treatment alternative for children who suffer from egg allergies. The study, recently published by the New England Journal of Medicine proposes the idea of treating egg allergies in children by feeding them - eggs. While the idea may seem absurd and even dangerous, it is not the first time such a theory has been put forth. In 2009, similar trials were conducted on children with peanut and milk allergies with promising results. Dr. Burks believes that it is possible to reverse allergies in some children by retraining their immune systems to accept small amounts of the food. This works by increasing their tolerance levels and reducing any adverse reactions.
The study was conducted under strict medical supervision and under no circumstances should be tried at home. The fifty-five children chosen for the study ranged between the ages of five to eleven and all suffered from some degree of allergic reactions to eggs and products that contained eggs. While these reactions were severe enough to not fade away in time, no children included in the study suffered from reactions strong enough to result in anaphylactic shock. Dr. Burks and his team of researchers divided the children into two groups - one that was fed small amounts of egg over a period of time and the other that was fed a placebo. At the end of ten months of the study, a food test was conducted where all the children were given half an egg to eat. Results showed that while none of the children in the placebo group passed the test without any allergic reactions, more than half of the children in the oral immunotherapy group were able to eat the egg with none or few symptoms. The challenge was repeated after 22 months with the same encouraging results. Following an abstinence period of no egg consumption at all by the immunotherapy group, a final test showed that eleven children from the study were able to eat a whole cooked egg along with ten grams of egg-white protein without any symptoms or allergic reactions whatsoever. In other words, they were completely cured of their allergy. The other children showed a reduction in their symptoms and an increased tolerance of food products that contained eggs. According to the experts, this study shows that food allergies can be treated and even those children who were not cured still benefited from the immunotherapy trials. However, it may take another decade or so before oral immunotherapy is considered a feasible treatment for the general public as larger studies are necessary and such treatment takes up to two years before the benefits become evident. The good news is that with the promising results of this study more and more people are now volunteering as subjects for such future trials and a possible cure for common food allergies may soon become a reality.

References:

1. University of North Carolina School of Medicine. "Researchers Discover Promising New Treatment for Egg Allergy." ScienceDaily, 18 Jul. 2012. Web. 3 Aug. 2012.

Is Chatting Online Good?

Adolescents improve emotional health through instant messaging

 

 

Today, we mostly hear about the negative effects of using technology, but technology has also streamlined our lives and made us a more connected society.

Could there be any other benefits to using technology?

For adolescents, technology is a means of communication, and using online chat to talk with friends can have positive emotional effects.

Teach your teen to put words to their feelings

Michal Dolev-Cohen, PhD, and Azy Barak, PhD, of the Department of Counseling and Human Development at the University of Haifa, Israel, conducted a study on adolescents’ use of technology, particularly instant messaging (IM).

For the study, two hundred IM conversations from adolescents’ aged 14 to 18 were analyzed, 150 of the adolescents reported having negative feelings prior to IMing and the other 50 reported normal/positive feelings before IMing.

The researchers looked at the participants emotional states before and after their IMing conversations. A questionnaire was also given to determine each participant’s level of introversion and extroversion.

Those adolescents who were distressed before chatting online reported feeling better afterwards. The analysis showed the same thing, that emotionally distressed adolescents felt relief after having an IM conversation with a peer.

While the distressed adolescents did not report complete relief from instant messaging, significant improvement in their emotional state was reported.

The researchers suggested that the act of writing to friends about feelings in IM conversations relieved distress and promoted well-being in the adolescents.

“Writing–as opposed to talking–enables…more authentic sharing of thoughts and feelings,” said Dr. Dolev-Cohen and Dr. Barak.

The study also found that for introverts, online chatting with friends may have even greater benefits.

This study became available online August 24th for Computers in Human Behavior. No statements about funding were made and no conflicts of interest were noted.

Wedding Dress Woes: Don't "Weight" For It

"There must be something wrong with this scale too!" you bawl as you frantically hop on and off the scale. You hope that there is some dark sinister reason for the results... maybe the scale has 'gravity plating', maybe the scale is actually an artificial gravity generator, maybe there's a wormhole forming just above your head ... if only it was that simple! Before you start to beat yourself over the head (a common bridal reflex action) remember that the damage is reversible. Here are 3 simple steps to get back into shape.

Step 1. Set Goals... REALISTIC Goals!

Yes, you may already have clear-cut weight loss goals, but are they realistic? You cannot change your basic body shape so don't diet to get thin, your aim is to get slim. The love handles need to go, but the curves stay! Keep away from crash diets; a crash diet is like your 'bad boy' high school crush - utterly gorgeous, unbearably tempting, but you know it will never work and you will just get your heart broken! Before you decide on a specific diet plan, you need to find out your current BMI (Body Mass Index), your ideal BMI, and your ideal calorie intake.

Step 2. Plan your Diet & Exercise Schedule (Around your Wedding Schedule)

You are going to be immersed waist-deep in wedding preparations, so do not plan elaborate meals. When it comes to a bridal diet plan, your best bet is to keep it simple. Make a list of your favorite fruits and veggies, so that you can simply toss together a delicious but satisfying salad at the end of a long day. Unscheduled meetings with florists, caterers, or entertainers can disrupt the best laid plans; unfortunately, this is unavoidable. Keep your handbag/tote stocked with low calorie snacks so that you do not have to grab your meal at the nearest fast food restaurant. You need to decide on a specific timing for your workout and stick to it. Don't skip a workout, unless it is unavoidable and on these days make sure that you go for a walk after dinner or simply use the stairs instead of the elevator.

Step 3. Eat Several Small Meals - Yes, Size Matters!

Skip those button-popping meals and power up with several small meals! This will prevent hunger pangs and binging and so you will find it much easier to stick to your diet. You don't have to stick to just salads and soups, there are a plenty of low calorie meal options such as Green Beans with Red Potatoes, Roasted Potatoes with Garlic & Oregano, and Spinach & mushroom scramble. Pamper yourself with delicious desserts like fresh banana bread, a sliver of cheesecake or a yogurt popsicle. If small meals cannot satisfy your hunger, you should consider Psyllium husk. I believe that Psyllium husk is the answer to every bride's prayers - you can eat a small meal and still be satisfied! All you need to do is mix 1-2 teaspoons of Psyllium husk powder in a glass of water/orange juice and drink this about 15 minutes before your meals; since Psyllium husk is made up of fiber it makes you feel full and so even a small meal is quite satisfying.

 
Don't let the wedding fever and frenzy get to you. Set aside a minimum of 15 minutes a day for casual conversation with your partner; do not discuss anything related to the wedding during this time. Spend a little time everyday in meditation or practicing deep breathing exercises. Just before you go to bed, count your blessings: you found the perfect partner, your wedding is going to be amazing... and you are a stunning bride!