The other day the fabulous Miss Shirl and I were out walking when we came across three fellows working their gluteus maximi off. All they had was one piece of equipment in the park -- basically a glorified pull-up bar -- and some rubber bands, but man were they getting a great workout. It reminded me that if you really want to stay in shape all you need is the desire and a bit of imagination.
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I have a friend, whom I have never met. He is a young man in (where are you from Henrik?) Oh, yes, Henrik lives in Sweden.
He is 30 years old going on “Wise” man and he has spent (how many Henrik?)
oh, yes, 5 years training himself in the power of Positive Thinking. Here is what he has accomplished – in his own words:
Henrik is a man with a mission. I have never actually met him, but his blog is filled with interesting lessons and lovely positive thoughts. His picture is perfect for what he advocates.
So it was terrific tonight when I got home and got a message from Henrik. My day had not been stellar! It was one of those days when my computer wouldn’t do anything I asked of it, and although I was all set up for my favorite client, she came in and asked for other things which I could not bring up on my computer immediately, which made me feel the fool and a tad inept when she found a spelling error in the very first title page.
Geez, I felt completely disheartened after trying a number of times to burn a DVD of my work for my client, only to send her home with a DVD with “Nothing” on it. Duh!
Knowing this, I spent another 2 hours trying to burn a “corrected” version of the DVD. To No Avail! Sorry, the computer said, No Can Do because the original can’t be found. What?!!! It’s a Movie! You Can Burn a Movie, said I…but no.
Then, I opened my g-mail and Henrik sent me this:
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There are some days it’s hard to get out of bed. Then there are other days you manage to get out only to wish you hadn’t. When that happens it can be difficult to find a quiet spot where you can stop, catch your breath and gather your thoughts. That’s when it would be lovely to just step away from your desk or your home and go for a quiet stroll in the woods. The only sounds those of nature – the wind, a stream, the birds – to give you a chance to calm down.
So, if you can’t get to nature. We’re bringing nature to you. Please, there’s no need to thank us. We’re just happy to help.
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I think it is truly amazing how Baby Boomers always seem to make the rules! Recently, the Nielson Rating company (that’s the company that sets the rates for all the TV stations and Network advertising) filed a report titled, “Why Marketers Can’t Afford to Ignore Baby Boomers” It turns out that Boomers are changing everything topsy turvy! Marketers can learn a valuable lesson by taking notice because Boomer’s are changing the rules again.
Up to now, marketers have always targeted on youth to advertise to…that’s the 18-35 year olds, who have been the “Bread and Butter” of Advertisers, up until now that is! Yes my grey haired friends, Baby Boomers have done it again! Boomers are the largest single group of consumers and a valuable target audience. They dominate the consumer packaged good catagories, they watch the most videos, they watch television and know how to use a computer. In fact, Boomers are online users, they frequent social media websites and they tweet. 
Boomers are those of us who were born between the years of 1946 – 1964 and the early Boomers are getting ready to retire, but unlike their parents they are socially engaged in the changing landscape of technology. In fact, they embrace the changes, they even have Facebook pages!
Suddenly, Madison Avenue is waking up and taking this group seriously. Why? Because they have the money, time, and the numbers. There are 78 million Baby Boomers in the U.S. today, so consumer manufacturers and advertisers had better cater to these deep pockets if they know what’s good for their bottom line.
Just like the saying goes: “Where does a 500 pound Ape sit? Anywhere he wants! “ Boomers are beginning to change the “Age” landscape. In fact, Madison Avenue has changed it’s attitude about beauty and age. Recently, the New York Times reported a current trend away from hiring actors who look unnaturally perfect. Women who have had Botox, and other surgeries to enhance their looks or figures are no longer sought after by Hollywood producers. Looking unnaturally young is not working because looking “real” has become the new “look”. Why you ask? Because Boomers want to identify with folks that look like them. Real!
It may turn out that aging will be psychologically and physically changed in the media, thereby giving all of us a glimpse into what successful aging looks like. Physically fit, strong features, smile lines and faces that look lived in. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see ads with people that weren’t artificially enhanced? It may change our thoughts about aging and create a mindset that shows aging, not as a problem to be avoided by chasing youth, but more about being healthy, fit and getting older gracefully. Wouldn’t that be a better message to deliver?
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A few weeks ago my mate Tim wasn’t feeling well so he went to the doctor. Reluctantly. Not because he doesn’t love the doctor but because he didn’t have health insurance and so everything was going to have to come out of his pocket. He went in and explained his situation to the people in the doctor’s office, saying he only wanted done what absolutely had to be done and so they agreed to tell him the cost of everything up front so he could decide if he needed it and could afford it. Pretty reasonable eh!
Fast forward a few weeks and he gets a bill for $700, this despite having paid in cash for everything he had done at the office. Turns out that they forgot to put the cost of the x-ray on the bill. Now Tim didn’t need an x-ray, the doctor just wanted to do it to be “on the safe side” and somehow they forgot to tell Tim how much it was going to cost. So, a few irate phone calls later and the doctor agreed to drop the bill.
If that were an isolated story you could easily put it down to a case of mistaken communication. But a new study shows that nearly all doctors order more tests than they need, more tests than they think are necessary, in order to avoid malpractice lawsuits.
A survey in the Archives of Internal Medicine asked more than 1,200 doctors around the U.S.: “Do physicians order more tests and procedures than patients need to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits?”
The results were a tad unsettling; 91 percent of physicians said yes, meaning nine out of ten doctors think other doctors call for way more tests than are needed. Think about that next time you visit your doc. When they say let’s just order an MRI or an x-ray or a blood test, “just to be on the safe side” stop and ask them if it’s really needed. They may be doing it just because they’re scared that if they don’t you might come back one day and sue them.
Now, you might think that because you have insurance, and it covers an MRI, and it would be cool to see what your brain looks like sliced up into computer images, that yeah, what the heck, let’s go for it, it’s not coming out of my pocket. But it is. One way or another, sooner or later, that money is coming out of your pocket because someone has to pay for it and you know it sure isn’t going to be the insurance company or the physician. You pay for it in higher premiums, larger deductibles, higher taxes to cover the cost of caring for the uninsured.
So maybe next time your doctor says “maybe we should try this”, tell them “maybe we shouldn’t”.
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More than 50 million Americans have jobs that don’t provide them with sick leave, so if they catch a cold or the flu they are faced with a pretty nasty choice, stay home and lose a day’s pay or go to work and risk infecting all your colleagues.
So it’s not really surprising that a new survey by the Public Welfare Foundation found that many of those faced with that choice, choose to go to work:
The bottom line, not having paid sick leave means millions of Americans are going to work sick, they’re making their colleagues sick, who spread it to other people. No wonder then that this is costing our economy billions of dollars a year in lost wages and lost productivity.
Even more worrying is the fact that the PWF survey found that nearly one in six Americans lost a job because they had to take so much time off to deal with a personal or family illness.
That’s just sick.
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I am not great about getting out of bed. Once I’m up it’s fine but the actual getting out of bed after the alarm has gone off isn’t easy. However, when it comes to other wake up calls I don’t waste any time. If I start to put on weight, I change what I’m eating until I’m back to my normal size. If my cholesterol is heading in the wrong direction I make adjustments to my diet until it’s back in a safe range. There are some wake up calls you simply don’t want to miss.
Don't miss that wake up call!
Yet a lot of people do just that. A recent study found that one year after suffering a heart attack, or undergoing heart bypass surgery or angioplasty, only around one third of people are still exercising regularly to reduce their risks of having a second attack.
The study was done by researchers at Case Western Reserve University. They followed 248 people who had just had a serious heart issue. All 248 of them took part in a 12 week course to help them make the lifestyle changes they needed to turn their health around. But one year later only 37 percent of the group were still exercising three times a week. And women were more likely than men to have dropped out.
Now, many of these people were seniors and retired so it wasn’t as if they didn’t have enough time to exercise regularly. And they weren’t being asked to do a triathlon or run a marathon. All they had to do was exercise regularly – something as simple as brisk walking, some light weight lifting etc. Yet despite having had one heart attack or heart bypass surgery they still couldn’t find the motivation to make a change that could prevent them having a second one.
The other day I met a man who had a similar wake up call. He’d taken a new test to predict his risk of developing diabetes. It’s a simple blood test but it looks at a number of other factors to make the assessment. It rates your risk on a scale of one to ten – with ten being the highest risk. This gentleman’s score was 8. He immediately signed up for an education class on how to make the changes he needed to make. The class was filled with other people in his shoes and the course instructors said one of the best things everyone could do was to join a gym and exercise regularly.
Three months later the man’s risk is down to a 5 and getting lower all the time. He recently returned to the class and was talking to some of the other participants. He said many of them say they are “considering” joining a gym but haven’t gotten around to it. Considering! What’s to consider. If your life is at risk, and in this case it is, what else do you need to help you make the changes you need.
Too often we get comfortable, even complacent, with our lifestyle even when we know it’s putting us at risk of heart attack or stroke or diabetes or all of them combined. Change isn’t easy, it requires a lot of effort to stop doing what we have always done and start doing what we have always avoided.
But the alternative isn’t much fun. If I hit the snooze button on my early morning wake up call, all I’m at risk of is sleeping late. If I get a test that says my lifestyle is slowly, or not so slowly, killing me and I ignore that wake up call, the consequences can be really unpleasant.
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What does it tell you about a society when people would prefer to take a drug to help fix a problem that they themselves created rather than change the habits that caused the problem in the first place, particularly when that drug comes with some dangerous, even potentially deadly side effects.
That’s pretty much the situation we are looking at right now. The Food and Drug Administration is about to consider three new drugs to help people lose weight. The FDA is looking at the first one, Qnexa, today, and will take up the other two – Lorcaserin and Contrave – in the coming months.
Qnexa weight loss drug
Not so nice side effects
That’s the good news. Kind of. The bad news, is that while some studies show they can help obese people lose weight, they also come with some really rather unpleasant side effects. Such as death! I wish I were joking but Qnexa contains the same ingredient that was blamed for causing fatal heart valve problems in people who took the drug Fen-Phen – which led to it being pulled from the market in 1997. So why would we think it was any safer this time around?
Even if they are safe they aren’t very good. Studies done by the drug companies themselves show they only help people who are obese – and we are talking super fat folks here – lose 5 percent of their weight. Five percent. And you have to keep taking it to maintain that weight loss.
Here’s the problem in a nutshell. In a nation where almost two thirds of the people are overweight or obese we have given up trying to solve the problem by dealing with the cause – a crappy diet and lack of exercise – and instead turned to turned chemistry to come up with a quick fix. The problem is, the drugs they come up with aren’t quick, and they aren’t a fix.
So why are we going down this path? Because while millions of people around the world are starving because of a lack of food, in America we have turned food into a fetish, even a sport. In short, we have stopped thinking of food as a basic necessity and turned it into a commodity, and like all commodities – such as fashion and music – it has become an end in itself.
Food on TV
Take for instance the plethora of TV channels whose sole purpose is promoting food. Fancy food, high priced food, even entire programs of people traveling the globe eating disgusting things just for the heck of it. And all this in a nation where fewer and fewer people actually cook, where most people just heat up pre-cooked food they bought from the freezer section at the supermarket.
Think about it. How often have you sat down at work with your co-workers, all of whom are munching on take-out lunch food, talking about cooking shows they watched the night before. Yeah, you know who you are!
Hot dog eating competition
Food as sport
And now we’re turning food into a sport. ESPN covers hot dog eating contests as if they were legitimate sporting events. These are competitions where people don’t even pretend to taste the food they’re shoving as fast as they can down their throat. The goal is not to enjoy as many hot dogs as possible, it’s simply to force as many into you as you can in a given period. Winner takes all. Including, presumably, pepto bismol.
No wonder we can’t lose weight. We have completely lost touch with the role of food in a healthy society.
Losing touch, gaining weight
In the past people used food as a way to celebrate important events – such as Thanksgiving. Food was a part of the celebration. Nowadays, the event is simply an excuse for us to overeat. Tailgate parties at ballgames. BBQs just because the sun is out. Cookies and donuts because it’s, well, Friday. Any event is an excuse to eat.
We have created a gap between us and the role of food. And the drug companies are happily filling in that space, hoping to cash in to the tune of billions of dollars.What’s even worse, is that they probably will.
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Breathing is one of the most basic of human functions. In fact, it is the most basic. Stop breathing and everything else stops too – pretty quickly. We all do it, every single second of every minute of every day of our lives. But often we are not even aware of how we do it, or the fact that we are doing it wrong.
Breathing deeply
How can you breathe wrongly you are probably asking? Well, it’s easy. You do it without even being aware of it.
Next time you are standing in line at Starbucks or waiting for a bus or train, or in line at the supermarket take a look at all the people around you and try to notice how they are breathing. With some people it’s easy to see, or even hear, particularly with someone who is overweight – their breathing is often labored because every movement is more tiring, more taxing on their body. You can hear them breathe, you can see their chest rising and falling, as if everything is a real effort.
With other people it’s less obvious but if you watch closely (not too closely, you don’t want them calling security on you!) you can see them breathing too. It’s often quite short, shallow breaths.
Then notice how you breathe. You might be surprised to notice that you usually breathe in short, shallow breaths too. What that means is that you are not taking in as much oxygen as you could, or as you should. And over time that can have a profound impact on your physical and emotional health.
Every breath you take
One of the most important elements in yoga, perhaps the most important, is the breath, noticing the breath, focusing on it, trying to make it long and deep and smooth. Why? Because numerous studies have shown that deep, controlled breathing can:
Not bad for something we all do every day eh! The problem is most of us don’t really breathe in a way that can help us maximize the health benefits of it. So here is one way to do just that.
Learning to breathe
1) Start by observing the way you normally breathe. You should notice that as you breathe in your abdomen rises and then falls when you breathe out. Watch this for a few moments to really get a sense of the rhythm and flow of your breathing.
2) Begin to deepen your breathing and extend that movement. So, as you breathe in do so more slowly and longer than normal. Let your abdomen rise as much as is comfortable, then as you breathe out slowly let it fall.
3) Don’t try to use or expand your lungs and chest while you are doing this, use only your abdomen.
4) Do this for 20 breaths.
That’s it.
Simple, but amazingly effective.
There's a book for everything - even breathing
A fresh breath of air
So try it a few times a day at first, see how it feels. Try it particularly after a stressful event, focusing on the sound and feel of your breath, and see how quickly it helps you calm down.
Then, as you get used to it, try it more and more often. Try it standing in line at Starbucks, or waiting for the bus, or in line at the grocery store. The more you do it the better you’ll get at it and the more benefits you’ll get from it. It could prolong your life!
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